5 Songs We Can't Stop Listening to is a collection of our newest favorite songs. And Every week we ask an artist that we love to tell us about the music they love.
Listen to the whole thing in the player below.
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1. Gabriel Garzón-Montano picks “♥ Or $” by Prince
Every week we ask one artist that we love to talk about a song that they love. This week we catch up with Gabriel Garzón-Montano.
Justin Barney: Gabriel, what is one song you can’t stop listening to?
Gabriel Garzón-Montano: “Love or Money” by Prince.
Justin Barney: Why that song?
Gabriel Garzón-Montano: Well I love how he establishes the key in it. I love the keyboard part that is doing the funk. And he does a verispeed on his vocals, where he records on a slowed down tape and then speeds it back up, giving his vocal that chipmunk effect. And it’s particularly delicious on this track.
It’s like a sour, pungent, playful funk.
Justin Barney: That is perfect. So it’s Prince’s voice, or his vocal effect that really does it for you?
Gabriel Garzón-Montano: It’s also the content of what he’s singing.
Justin Barney: What is the context of what he is singing about?
Gabriel Garzón-Montano: He’s basically saying, “Tell me what you want. Is it love or is it money?”
When you are a successful entertainer with lots of money, or somebody with lots of money, it’s a fair question to ask. It’s a fair question to ask anyone.
Are you coming to me, or are you coming for a good time?
Justin Barney: Yeah, absolutely.
Gabriel Garzón-Montano: It’s like a fun musing on something that’s pretty deep. Considering that love is the most important thing in this experience as far as humans are concerned.
- “♥ Or $” was released as the b-side of “Kiss,” the first single from Prince’s eighth album, “Parade.”
- Listen if you like: Gabriel Garzón-Montano, funk, rare Prince tracks
2. Craig Finn – “God in Chicago”
The band The Hold Steady is one of those bands that will go down as one of the killer rock outfits of the mid to late 2000s. “Stuck Between Stations” “Your Little Hoodrat Friend” “Killer Parties” these were the sing along songs that became our scriptures.
And although the band hasn’t “officially” broken up, the signs are there. One of them being that their lead singer, Craig Finn started releasing solo albums.
Being a huge Hold Steady fan, I have faithfully listened to each album. But every time I’ve listened to a song on a Craig Finn solo album I’ve thought, “Man, this would make Hold Steady song.” When Finn’s newest album came out I saw it up on the wall at the record store and of course, I got it. When I got home and listened to it, it sounded different.
These songs are not castaways. Finn is not writing for the band anymore This is not a Hold Steady album, for the first time maybe, this is a Craig Finn album.”
This song, God In Chicago is my favorite. After years of being on the edge, Finn finally goes into straight spoken word. A suit that fits nice on him. He’s possibly the most talented songwriter in music, and he proves with “God in Chicago.”
- “God in Chicago” is the centerpiece of Craig Finn’s new album, “We All Want the Same Things.” Out now via Partisan records.
- Listen if you like: The Hold Steady, spoken word, fantastic song writing and story telling
3. Rocket Paloma – “Critic’s Choice”
“Critics Choice” is a glaring look in the mirror. Maybe not even just a look, maybe like an afternoon in a hall of mirrors. Lead singer Joanna Kerner is so self-reflective that she, essentially, becomes out as her own therapist. And is ruthlessly honest and self aware of every aspect of herself that you can’t help but grin at how clever it is. Even extending the gag to the instrumentation as the song screeches to a halt for Kerner to make the dramatic admission that, she, at times in her life, has been wrong.
See yourself in seeing Kerner see herself in “Critics Choice.”
- Rocket Paloma’s new self-titled album is out now on Bandcamp.
- Listen if you like: self-reflection, Weaves, Milwaukee music
4. Allan Kingdom – “Minnesota (remix)
Justin Barney: Mitch, what is one song you can’ stop listening to?
Mitch Kreitzman: I cannot stop listening to Allan Kingdom’s remix of “Minnesota” by Lil Yachty
JB: Lil Yachty! What do you like about Lil Yachty?
MK: I have a very complicated relationship with Lil Yachty. He’s kind of ushering in this weird bubblegum trap. Something about his voice just sounds like he’s trying to be ironic, but at the same time he’s not. I really like his instrumentals, but I am very confused by his voice a lot of the time. Allan Kingdom’s remix is all Allan Kingdom, there is no Lil Yachty in it. He uses the instrumentals from “Minnesota” and kind of turns the song into a regional anthem for his home state of Minnesota.
JB: What makes Allan Kingdom’s delivery better than Lil Yachty’s?
MK: Allan Kingdom can be super melodic without any autotune added in. A lot of people are doing melodic hip hop, but he just does it in a really unique way. He is of African descent, and he has these really interesting sort of international flows to him. There’s nobody in modern hip hop doing what he’s doing right now. He really brings something to the song that you wouldn’t have expected.
JB: Cool, let’s get into it. What’s the song?
MK: “Minnesota (Remix)” by Allan Kingdom
- Listen if you like: regional anthems, melodic flows, Lil Yachty
5. Petit Biscuit – “Sunset Lover”
Petit Biscuit comes from some time in the future, maybe a hundred years from now When the singularity has already happened and we realized that becoming computers isn’t some kind of dystopian nightmare, instead it’s given us a sense of security and its freed us from time, work, struggle, and now all that’s left to do is to exist. To play around a little bit. Be casually curious, because, hey, all we have is time, so why not enjoy it.
Enjoy the utopian future of Petite Biscuit’s “Sunset Lover.”
- “Sunset Lover” was released on Petit Biscuit’s self-titled EP which is available now.
- Listen if you like: Flume, future music, the singularity
5. Girlpool – “123”
Girlpool’s music is like an inner voice externalized. Part lullaby and part anthem, “123” bass line humms you off into a dream as its guitar twinkles over your head and the drums, a new addition for Girlpool, crash in and throughout giving a heartbeat to a song that already has so much heart already.
Girlpool reaches perfection in “123”
- Girlpool’s new album, “Powerplant” will be out on May 12th.
- Listen if you like: Frankie Cosmos, Alvvays, the song “Only In Dreams” by Weezer