postcard playlist no. 7 feb '25

album wishlist & thoughts on pop at the start of 2025

I’ve been listening to music again, so you’ve got mail! This is a long one to kickstart the year with legitimately new music, some old ones I’ve just started listening to, and a full wishlist of albums for 2025. We’ll see how many I get, and you should add yours in the comments as well!

Ankles - Lucy Dacus

Lucy Dacus takes the crown for releasing the first song of the year to get an immediate and enthusiastic yes from me. There’s something undeniably earwormy and just delicious about the melody on this track, which perfectly pairs with the lyrics about imagining a relationship that’s on the cusp of happening. It’s fizzy and giddy and lovely and appealing to pop in a way that Dacus’s usually more idiosyncratic songwriting hasn’t really given into before (beyond her work in Boy Genius). It would sit comfortably on a playlist next to the Phoebe Bridgers-MUNA collab “Silk Chiffon.” Also, the music video where Lucy escapes from a painting in a museum and runs around Paris is so much fun.

Praying For Your Downfall - Jensen McRae

Jensen McRae just keeps popping up in my life. I was in class with her brother at Thornton. Back then, I enjoyed the Phoebe Bridger’s co-signed “Immune,” in which she writes about the development of a relationship while in line to get vaccinated against COVID at Dodger Stadium. Then she opened for Noah Kahan this summer on his tour, cementing that while she’s still finding her footing as a live performer, her star is rising and she’s continuing to be noticed by more prominent artists.

“Praying For Your Downfall” came to me by way of YouTube suggesting the music video along with the announcement of her forthcoming album, I Don’t Know How But They Found Me!. What I like in this track is the same thread that’s always appealed to me in Jensen’s music, her lyrical specificity in tiny details that bring people to life. She sings about having to stop holding a grudge to move on from a relationship while landing quite a few blows against his character on the way out (“You’re still a bachelor with those blank walls,” “Keep draining Stellas and blaming your mom”). It’s a thoughtful spin on a break-up song that’s put this album on my radar.

Call Me When You Break Up - Selena Gomez x Gracie Abrams

Selena Gomez is back with a surprise musical effort after flirting with the idea of giving up being a pop star for good. This time, it’s a collaboration album with her fiancé, Benny Blanco. For everyone who only became aware of who Benny was through his relationship with Selena, he’s been an integral part of the pop music game through the 2010s with credits on major artists’ songs including Katy Perry (Teenage Dream era), Rhianna, Britney Spears, Kesha, Halsey, and, unfortunately, Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite.” He’s continued to stay in the mix and feels like a quintessential name among pop songwriters and producers, most recently with a confusing artist project that entirely rested on other featured artists.

It feels like I Said I Love You First is a victory lap that combines the immense rolodex of musical connections between the two with Selena bringing in frequent collaborator and killer songwriter Julia Michaels while Finneas, who’s worked with Benny before, makes an appearance on the other pre-released song, “Scared of Loving You.” And, because of that, these songs have the glossy sheen of the most middle of the road, classic pop songs.

Of the two out from the album now, I prefer the Gracie Abrams collaboration (an artist Benny has worked with in the past on “Unlearn” during his artist project era). It starts with a voicemail tone before Selena launches into a verse full of pining and snark, asking this person to call when they’re single again and promising that she’d be the better alternative. Gracie’s lyrics hold true to her lyrical sensibilities and is the stronger verse landing some interesting lines (“Tried every obvious replacement / In bars, in strangers’ beds until my faith was in the basement,” “I feel so outta luck I’m skipping cracks along the pavement / Look, I’m emotionally bankrupt”). The other piece that works better about the Gracie verse is that it feels more believable coming from her in the context of her past work, despite the fact that Gracie was brought into the song last minute. The track is short and repetitive and not a gem that’s going to last, but it’s fun for the moment.

It seems like the album is trying to chart the entire span of a relationship from the early pining or right person/wrong time dynamic arching through to the end of the listing with “Scared of Loving You” where the relationship comes to fruition. That’s a more promising dramatic arc than fourteen plays on a love song.

new to me…

Party 4 U and Girl So Confusing Remix - Charli XCX also (ft. Lorde)

I’ve been catching up on back episodes of the Pop Pantheon Podcast, and around the fervor of Brat over the summer, the podcast put out five or six episodes on Charli including a review of the Sweat Tour, thoughts on the album, thoughts on the remix of the album, and a three-part series on Charli’s evolution. I was obviously aware of Charli prior to this. “I Love It” is a foundational song of my childhood, I saw her play live on the Reputation Tour (she was fantastic), and I was aesthetically familiar with Brat (and the larger pool of influencers and 1975 members that existed in her current context). But I’m not a huge dance/club/electronically inflected pop music fan generally, so I’ve never explored Charli’s music beyond the radio crossover. But in listening to the episodes and the clips played with different referenced songs, I’ve been drawn in.

First up, “Party 4 U” was played as a quick clip mid-discussion, and I automatically downloaded it because I have been known to, not just once in my life, throw an entire party specifically hoping that one person would show up. And, I do have to say, while neither instance worked out in the long run, against the odds, they did show up both times and made for fantastic nights. Maybe it’s why I enjoy throwing parties so much? Anyway, I related to the premise, and when I was introduced to what I was looking for before getting distracted by the thick vocoder and the immense amount of repetition in the choruses, I could zone in and really appreciate Charli as a lyricist.

Which brings me to the other Charli song on the list, “Girl So Confusing,” but the remix with Lorde because… duh and also I would love to be Lorde when I grow up. I listened to this song when it came out and first made waves, but I don’t think I was in a spot to really listen then. Having practiced with “Party 4 U,” I could hear this song in a new way and really appreciate the lyrics. So I guess I might be having a Brat spring now that everyone’s moved on?

Projects I’m Looking Forward To in 2025

There haven’t been a ton of announcements since this is the very beginning of the year, but there have been some vague references, and then I have a wishlist of my own to get into. 2024 had a lot of big albums from major artists but (with the exception of Taylor), not really any artists that I get super excited for, so 2024 felt a bit slow musically for me. That’s partially owing to the fact that all the artists I listen to ended up on the same release cycle. So, hopefully, they’re coming around again.

To start with projects that have been teased as coming this year, I’m looking forward to a third album from Maisie Peters and a new Jeremy Zucker solo project. While I didn’t love Maisie’s sophomore effort and haven’t immediately connected with her new projects since the EPs, I am always excited to see what direction Maisie is moving in since I’ve followed her career since 2019 (or maybe earlier?). With Jeremy, I have played the life out of CRUSHER. It was a huge hit in my household, listened to on every road trip in full. I’m really looking forward to a new solo project this year that hopefully lives up to the perfection of CRUSHER.

Now, on to things that are hypothetical but I would like to see happen. There’s the obvious Harry Styles release now that enough time has passed since Harry’s House and the never ending residencies of Love on Tour. There’s rumors that there was an album that was done that he’s either scrapped or is still debating releasing. He seems to be in a kind of up-in-the-air spot with music at the moment and in a very committed relationship with Italy, so if this happens, I’d guess it’s coming in the later part of the second half of the year.

We’ll go with another One Direction boy next, Niall Horan. I saw his tour last year combining Heartbreak Weather (which never got toured because of COVID) and The Show, and it was phenomenal. It hasn’t been that long since Niall released an album, but The Show was so short that I still feel unsatisfied when it comes to new Niall music, and I have my fingers crossed he might have something in the works.

Noah Kahan has ridden an immensely long tail on his album Stick Season. Years long. With multiple deluxe editions and a very long tour, he’s been filling the space without actually producing new music, and while he did warn it would be a while, he was posting on his story about officially recording one of the unreleased songs he played on tour, so that seems like a step in the right direction.

Lorde… Where did you go? The mysterious singer does what she pleases, and while I’m entirely on board with that, I think it would be an incredible gift to get a new Lorde album coinciding with my move to Dublin. Just an idea. Solar Power came out right as I started college, so it’s been a while. She’s posted plenty of pictures in the studio recently to make a forthcoming project plausible.

Alexander 23 deleted his social media at the end of last year in a bid to finish his sophomore album, so if nothing comes to fruition this year, I’m going to be a little concerned. He’d built up a lot of momentum with Aftershock and the touring he’d done in support of the record, but after I saw him play at USC’s mini-festival and do a few other college shows, he fell right off the grid. Hopefully, there will still be some of that goodwill left when he’s ready to return.

Rep TV has to come out at some point. And, while it’s not a summer album and Taylor has a deep saturation issue already, I wouldn’t mind reliving the Reputation era for my last summer in the States for a while. Rep era feels foundational to my life in a way that makes me crave the promised dopamine hit of the revival. She’s really holding out on revisiting her final album recorded under Big Machine (she’ll still have Debut to re-release, but that feels apt as a grand finale. End where you started?), and it feels like the Taylor’s Version project is running out of time (at least with the trademark office). While I can see taking a break for a while after everything she’s done in the last few years, leaving the re-recordings project unfinished before doing so feels a bit strange. I thought that with how long the Eras Tour got extended for she would reclaim all of her Eras before the tour wrapped. Now, the timeline feels murkier than ever.

Whose album are you manifesting in 2025?