MOLLY NILSSON
1995
Dark Skies Association
On this new track, Molly waxes nostalgically about the year in which the Windows 95 operating system, in her telling, placed the world "on the threshold of the end of time". This is something pop musicians like to do: pick some random year their fans are unlikely remember and mythologise it as a golden age. One of the biggest hits of 1995, as I recall, was Smashing Pumpkins' 1979. (On second thoughts, that was released in 1996. But you take my point.) In truth, the '90s were as dull as ditchwater, and Windows 95 was rubbish. (In 1995, I tried to sell my father on the idea of the internet. I told him he could read The Irish Times online. He bet me he could walk to our local town, purchase a physical copy of the paper, and be home before the website loaded. My father won that bet!) The golden age is now!
MILEY CYRUS
Cyrus Skies
Smiley Miley Inc
The former Disney starlet's new album, Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz, which she uploaded free of charge onto Soundcloud after the VMAs earlier this month, has been derided by many critics as an overlong vanity project. That's mostly true, but if you make it to track 19, you'll hear her do a pretty decent impression of Lana Del Rey fronting The Flaming Lips. Which has some curiosity value, if nothing else.
LITTLE XS FOR EYES
Funk Island
Clear blue skies. That's what this latest track from Dublin six-piece Little Xs for Eyes evokes. It's mildly infuriating that they've chosen to release such a perfect summer tune in bloody autumn. But with multi-part harmonies and some of the snazziest keyboards this side of Toto's Africa, it's hard to hold that against them.
