The 5 Best Songs Of The Week

Since the implementation of the 24-hour news cycle, we've heard about 24 million songs attempt to articulate just how soul-crushing much of that news is. That's the case even in Auckland, New Zealand, a famously livable city that's home to indie rockers Office Dog. The Flying Nun signees' new single "Front Row Seat" is a propulsive, guitar-heavy anthem tracing the uncanny experience of watching the world's devastation unfold from a vague distance. It's a song about feeling powerless, but more importantly, it's a song about resisting complacency. —Abby

Madeline Babuka Black has played with a bunch of underground-beloved acts like Yucky Duster, Beverly, and Gobbinjr, but it only took one listen to her new single as Slippers to make me think this project will quickly outshine all of those. Not that it's a competition — I'm just trying to convey the extreme winsomeness of "Wants For Everyone." It's the kind of indie-pop song we've all heard hundreds of times before: jangly, fuzzy, heartfelt, precocious, magnificently catchy. But Black combines those familiar ingredients so well that it feels like she just invented the wheel. —Chris

Kelsey Lu refuses to be hollowed out by pain. Instead, she alchemizes it. The lead single from her forthcoming sophomore album feels transcendent. It begins softly, her voice iridescent as synths gather and swell. Then the track snaps awake: sprinting hi-hats, twangy guitars, bulging waves of distortion, and intricate strings and horns glinting in the background. “Finding solace in motion, leave it all behind,” she sings, her voice lifting into the rush. Lu lets the momentum carry her further from the wreckage, her voice lengthening, brightening, reaching toward a horizon that never settles, only widens. It’s a thrill to experience, a reminder of the beauty that can come from suffering. —Margaret

Lily Seabird's "Demon In Me" lives up to its dramatic title. The six-minute indie-rock epic starts off as an acoustic plea and gradually picks up speed as horns and piano join in, with the Burlington singer-songwriter breathlessly delivering poetic lines about the "demon I'm trying to keep at bay." When the clamorous crescendo strikes and the electric guitar is going wild, it's like the demon is unleashed and wreaking havoc in the song. But instead of evoking fear, it brings catharsis. —Danielle

Decades after he scored the self-explanatory novelty hit "Because I Got High," online-personality funkateer Afroman steps out as an unlikely First Amendment hero for a very specific reason. A few years ago, some cops in rural Ohio raided his house and broke some stuff. He was mad about it, so he made some songs and videos about those specific cops. The cops tried to sue him, and they lost. This would be a great human-interest story even Afroman didn't have the showmanship to testify in a garmish American flag suit, and even if those diss tracks weren't as bizarrely, compulsively listenable as they are.

"Randy Walters Is A Son Of A Bitch," the greatest musical achievement in Afroman's one-man PR war against the Adams County Sheriff's Department, immediately gained extra resonance when Randy Walters, the song's namesake, took the stand and was unable to say under oath that he was fully certain Afroman did not fuck his wife. Even before that, though, Afroman's public disrespect took the form of a bouncy, insidious synth-funk megablast. Over the world's cheapest keyboard bounce, Afroman harmonizes and robotizes and turns his ultra-personal taunts into earworm mantras. Somehow, Afroman gathered six minutes of material on Randy Walters, who should learn his lesson and never file another lawsuit against another insanely charismatic weirdo. —Tom