Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: Posse: "Shut Up"

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1. Posse: "Shut Up"
2. Rick Ross: "Sanctified" [ft. Big Sean and Kanye West]
3. Miguel: "Simplethings"

Posse: "Shut Up" Posted: 27 Feb 2014 11:44 AM PST   When Posse remark that their sound is inspired by "Delay pedals and 27 years of disappointment," it's meant to be a little funny, but also, not: a glimmer of humor shining out from a mountain of shit. That little shine can be enough, even if it's surrounded by a day-to-day life of putting up with the most banal people performing the most banal actions. On "Shut Up," from the Seattle trio's Soft Opening, singer Paul Wittman-Todd sings about a relationship straight from an Adrian Tomine comic, marked mostly by mundanity and the suffering of endless indignities. For now, he's stuck fantasizing about the perfect moment when he can tell the other person to stop talking. Underneath his matter-of-fact singing, a lone guitar blooms and ripples outward in mournful sublimation of the heart's true desire. It's easy to be glib on paper, especially when the hurt is real, and harder yet to convince people you contain worlds without using words. Posse can do the heavy lifting, though: Shut up, and you'll hear it.

Rick Ross: "Sanctified" [ft. Big Sean and Kanye West] Posted: 27 Feb 2014 09:42 AM PST   Please rise for The State of Kanye West Address. He is touched by your College Dropout 10th anniversary oral history/short story/slashfic, but he'd still rather yell at Sway's headwrap than sample old soul. And who needs to sample old soul when you've got soul great Betty Wright getting right with God on your song in real time? "Handkerchief" is now "hankerchuuuff." Despite requests for more Yeezus-style anarchy, the new sound takes DJ Mustard's strip-club drums into the cathedral, where Kraftwerk are plinking out hymns for the future. Babies will now get drunk at their christening and they will like it. His relationship with the big man upstairs has advanced to the level of good-natured ribbing and sarcasm; meanwhile, the big man downstairs is recycling that Teflon Don while making grilled cheese. He will allow Big Sean to continue to speak words that mean little but scythe through radio all the same. He is blessed, you are blessed, we are blessed. [Stream "Sanctified" and the rest of Rick Ross' new album, Mastermind, on iTunes Radio]

Miguel: "Simplethings" Posted: 27 Feb 2014 07:22 AM PST   Front page photo by Erez Avissar Something you notice pretty fast when you're seeing Miguel and his band perform live is that his guitarist, Dru Decaro, is fucking feeling it. That image is as good a place as any to start when it comes to "Simplethings", the rocker Miguel contributed to the latest "Girls" soundtrack. While the still-ascendent Miguel has the chops to craft gleaming pop, the rougher-hewn, riffier textures of songs like "Do You" and "Pussy is Mine" is where he's distanced himself from others. In the R&B landscape filled with Suits &/or Ties, Miguel is the fringy-leather-jacket-bedecked flower child. The chugging rock song "Simplethings" is probably his finest foray into this territory yet, bouncing Miguel's emotionally charged vocals with Decaro's tower of power. "I just want the simple things," he screams. "I just want you!" Don't be an asshole. Give Miguel your heart.