New Music Friday: 4/12/24

Here are the rules: I listen to all 100 tracks of Spotify's New Music Friday playlist, except for anything that rhymes the n-word with itself more than three times, any screamo or screamo-adjacent stuff, any CCM that reveals its true intentions in time for me to hit the skip button, and any egregiously corny modern country music, typically performed by a dude with two first names. Having sifted through this week's playlist, here's what I actively enjoyed:

"Espresso," Sabrina Carpenter
Most of what I know about Sabrina Carpenter has been gleaned through Instagram reels that pop up in the "recommended" section of my feed, and most of those have been clips of her singing what I guess must have been a really filthy Christmas song; until recently, I really had no idea she was an actual recording artist instead of an Addison Rae-style, famous-for-being-famous starlet. This is the chief added benefit of putting myself through New Music Friday every week: Forging accidental aural acquaintances with people who are popular enough to open for Taylor Swift but would otherwise remain entirely off the radar for my old ass. Anyway, this is a fun pop song; with spring finally showing its damn face here in the northeast, it feels like a perfectly timed early summer bop.