Hi, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. Hope you are doing well. It is time for our weekly track roundup. My thoughts, my opinions, my feelings on a bunch of songs that have dropped over the past week or so. Oh, my God. That's what's in this video. Holy crap. That's what's here? Yes, in fact, that is what is here.

The worst tracks of the week.

Let's do it. Let's get into it.

Starting off with some new one from Quavo and Yeat and BNYX, "New Trip" is the title of the track. This thing is a synthy nightmare in three. The groove is weird, the synths are weird, the choruses don't really hit all that hard, in my opinion. This is just such an awkward, forced collaboration. I just feel like it doesn't really apply to Quavo's or Yeat's strengths. I guess I can appreciate the fact they did something different than they would normally do on their own, which I think is admirable, is cool to some degree, but I don't want to hear either of them do a track like this ever again, and I guess I'll leave it there.

We have Laufey, who has come out with this new holiday project. "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town". Laufey's music is devolving to the point where she just sounds like She & Him without Him. It's just She. It's quaint, kitschy, commercial jazz about Christmas.

We also have Ken Carson over here, sounding as boring as ever on this new "catastrophe" track and single. It's a mess. It's overwhelming. Don't really have anything else to add other than that.

Katy Perry is back. Katy Perry is back off the back of her last record, which did not really do all too well, not just commercially, but her fans didn't really seem to enjoy it, the bulk of them anyway. Katy Perry is rushing back to give listeners maybe what they want with this new song, "Band-Aids". And look, I'll give the track this. Vocally, it's a lot better than any song off of Katie's last record, and instrumentally drums are going off. I mean, the overall vibe is much more millennial, anthemic pop. And while It's not brand new and not exciting it's certainly Katy playing to her typical strengths. But with that being said, I feel like she's written dozens of songs in this style that are so much better, and the lyrics are cliché as heck. The thing is, Katy Perry's peaks are very much overshadowing anything positive this song has to offer. Yes, again, it's certainly more impressive than everything that was on her last record, but that's not saying much. That's not saying much. But hopefully this is the start of a better direction. But yeah, there you go.

We have Dove Cameron hitting us with "Hello My Old Lover". Very boring, underwhelming song. Still not seeing the Dove Cameron hype. I'll leave it there.

Meh, the tracks I was on the fence with.

But still wanted to shout them out, they are as follows.

We have a new one from Sexyy Red over here, "For No Reason". There are some funny bars on this track. The bleed line is unhinged. But vocally, for a minute, Sexyy Red has just been sounding like she's been phoning it in on the mic, and I don't know what it is. I don't know what the source of this apathy, this wash, rinse, repeat approach... I don't know where it's coming from. I don't know why it is, but I feel like Sexyy Red really does need desperately some change up, some switch up, because it's getting a little stale. So long as the energy continues to be low is what I'm going to say.

Moving on from there, we have redveil over here is hitting us with a new one, "lone star". It's jazzy, it's hype, it's colorful. I think the Oddfuture and Tyler fans are going to vibe with this one a lot. With that being said, it's very derivative of that sound, but still the performance is there, and I am looking forward to a redveil's eventual new album, and who knows? Maybe this track will grow on me a little bit in that time.

We also have a new one from Hilary Duff, "Mature" is the name of the track. I would say there are some big Stevie Nicks vibes on the verse. There's Carly Rae Jepsen vibes on the choruses. And all in all, it's not too bad of a song, not mind-blowing or anything like that, but it's cool that Hilary Duff is still at it and putting out some somewhat solid tracks. So there you go. All right.

We have Haley Williams continuing to add to Ego Death, this new record of hers. This latest song is "Showbiz", and it just sounds like, instrumentally, a Room on Fire era Strokes song. But if you could use the type of auto-tune that Julian Casablanca puts onto the new Voidz albums. It's a very odd combo, but I guess I can still appreciate to a degree that she was able to accurately capture those vibes and incorporate them onto one singular song. That is certainly a feat.

We also have Gorillaz over here who are hitting us with "The God of Lying" featuring IDLES. Not the most riveting single to come from this forthcoming album for sure, but it seems like, narratively, it's trying to add quite a bit to this ever-apparent concept around spirituality and deception and social control through religiosity and so on and so forth. I guess we'll just have to wait for The Mountain to eventually drop to see what the full picture of this record is. But the way the singles are shaping up and the album art and just the lore around this record, this is really shaping up to be one of the band's more conceptual and narratively intensive projects yet. So maybe this will be a song that builds in appeal for me as I hear the other tracks surrounding it, and I guess I'll leave it there.

Best tracks of the week.

They are as follows, the songs that were really hitting me and sticking out to me, they are this.

We have this new one, "Do It", from underscores. Really great pop track with some hype production, hype synths, hard-hitting beats, really loving the electronically fused pop energy that underscores has been bringing to the table with some of these latest tracks, for sure.

We've also got to Spellling over here who is not just a great singer, great songwriter, art pop alchemist, I'll say as well, but a constant reinventer of herself and her own work. We're starting to get some new versions, I guess, of material from her latest record, which I enjoyed quite a bit. An album that fans and viewers of this YouTube program remember was a very rock-oriented record. Now we've got this new a revision of the song "Destiny Arrives", which is one of the more anthemic cuts from the record. The guitars are stripped back, if not just completely stripped out. Way more synth-intensive version of this song. Now this track features none other than Weyes Blood, with a great feature performance that just stuns on the back end of the song. And it's absolutely beautiful. It's a cool, awesome new version. I hope to hear more versions, maybe not like this, but more versions of tracks from the latest record, maybe with other features. Who the heck knows? But I love the way that Spellling continues to dish out new material, but then also represent a lot of the same stuff and ideas in ways that feel refreshing, almost immediately after having released them. It's just a really cool to see her process in that way, and I'll leave it there.

All right, we have Rachel Chinouriri, who is hitting us with this short, beautiful little acoustic-ish cut with Boyish titled "Home", which is very, very, very lovely on the ears. I promise you that.

Also enjoying JT, hitting us with this brand new single over here, "Girls Gone Wild". And it's this amazing fusion of hip hop and electro and so on and so forth. The production is insane. I love her delivery on it, too. Lots of swagger, lots of character. Again, I'll say the production choice really does drive how unique and fun the track is for the most part, but very bold of JT to head in this direction with this new single. And honestly, would love to hear her dabble in more production like this or similarly bold production choices because this track is great. This track is freaking killer. Love this. I mean, it's the thing that I feel is super popular on TikTok right now, like grabbing vocals that have this Southern hip hop flair and then throwing them over the most unexpected backing tracks and beats and so on and so forth. And JT is just like, Well, why don't I just do that? Just hop on a very unlikely instrumental right now that has a bit of a throwback and regional flair to it. And she's absolutely killing it. Love it. Love this one a lot.

All right, we have Joji over here who has hit us with two new songs recently in this past week, but I do want to shout out specifically the one "Past Won't Leave My Bed", because it is actually a really great piano ballad. I mean, cliché in a lot of ways in terms of the drum fills and the chord progression and so on and so forth. But simultaneously, I feel like Joji took this track as a bit of a challenge to hit that typical piano ballad, sad piano ballad formula and see if he could measure up to it. I feel like he very much does. It's a passionate, very evocative, emotive performance and solid tune all around. It's actually got me really looking forward to this Piss In The Wind album he's got dropping very soon because maybe there'll be more on the record like it. We'll just have to see. But lovely piano ballad from Joji for sure.

We have Jimmy Eat World, who's hitting us with this new single over here titled "Failure", and it's actually really like a slow, rocking, layered, driving, medium-paced tune that really locks you in and hypnotizes you in some pretty interesting ways. Liking this one a lot. It's probably one of my favorite Jimmy Eat World songs to drop in recent years. I mean, it's been a while since they've had a single that's piqued my interest this much. I'll say that.

And shout out also to The Garden, who have come through with this "Ugly" track, which is this really gnarly, crazy, dissonant, mutant punk tune that has some noisy and chaotic guitar layers that I'm loving quite a bit. I think the band, the duo, really kicked ass on this one.

Lastly, I want to give a shout out to Oneohtrix Point Never, who has given us this new single "Cherry Blue", which is a really intriguing, collagey, nostalgic electronic piece. It feels like, once again, he's heading back to some of the aesthetic and sonic touchstones that he was known for in the early 2010s or so, really circling back on some of that stuff in a cool, creative way. Yeah, really looking forward to his new Tranquilizer record.

And that is going to be it for the Weekly Track Roundup, everybody. Hopefully, all of you got some good recommendations out of this video.

Anthony Fantano, Weekly tracks, forever.