BREAK MY SOUL

The world has been able to release a collective breath after Beyoncé finally announced that she will be delivering some new music. After a long seven years since "Lemonade", Queen Bey's highly anticipated seventh studio album will be called "Renaissance" and due out on July 29th. And everyone has seemed to have all lost their minds two days ago when the first single, "Break My Soul" was dropped. It had been rumored that this collection would be built around dance music and that appears to be the case with this song taking us back to the sounds of '90's house.

With the "Queen of Bounce", Big Freedia making an appearance to shout their trademark demands and smooth production by Tricky Stewart and The Dream with them using a sample of Robin S.'s classic jam, "Show Me Love", "Break My Soul" is an uplifting anthem about changing a bad situation and not allowing that to crush your spirit. Beyoncé delivers a blistering performance with soaring vocals and even doing some rapping. Yet I think the frenzied excitement over the song has much more to do with the return of Beyoncé than the innovation of the actual track. It coasts too much on familiar house-music tropes and if Beyoncé wasn't the voice behind it, I seriously don't think many would be paying as much attention to the track. In a recent interview with British Vogue, Beyoncé has stated that this upcoming album will be "her most ambitious musical project to date". Time will tell how truly grand this project will actually be but I freely admit I'm really looking forward to hearing "Renaissance".

JIM SEALS (1942 - 2022)

Jim Seals, one half of the pop-rock duo, Seals & Crofts who had the hits, "Summer Breeze", "Diamond Girl" and "Get Closer" in the '70's, passed away on June 6th at the age of eighty. He had suffered a stroke in 2017 and had been struggling with illness for a period of time afterward.

He was born in Texas to a musical family (with his younger brother, Dan who would find success as part of the the pop-rock duo, England Dan and John Ford Coley and passing away in 2009) and met fellow Texan, Dash Crofts as teens playing in several local bands together. After a move to Los Angeles, the two joined the band, The Champs who had a number one instrumental hit with "Tequila" in 1958.

By 1963, Seals and Crofts along with fellow band members, Jerry Vale and Glen Campbell had left the Champs to form their own band, Glen Campbell and the GCs but they were only together for a couple of years before going their separate ways. Seals and Crofts would join another band, the Dawnbreakers before deciding to just become a musical act together in 1969. 

Their first two albums did not receive any attention but then Seals & Crofts signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1971. Although their first album on the label, "Year of Sunday" failed to gain much traction, the duo's follow-up, "Summer Breeze" became a major hit with the title track reaching number six on the pop chart in 1972. The Isley Brothers would do a guitar-driven soul cover in 1974 that also became popular and reached the top-ten on the R&B chart. And another single from the album, "Hummingbird" would be a charting success for Seals & Crofts.

Their next album, "Diamond Girl" would become another hit thanks to the title track and the single, "We May Never Pass This Way (Again)". And their final top-ten hit would be "Get Closer" in 1976 that features vocals by Carolyn Willis of the R&B group, Honey Cone. With their follow-up albums, Seals & Crofts would experiment with their sound (even dabbling in disco) and write music for movies and television. After their 1980 album, "The Longest Road", Seals & Crofts were dropped from their label and then decided to take some time off from working together. The duo would not reunite until 1991, performing a series of concerts. Seals & Crofts didn't come together again until 2004 to record their first album in twenty-four years with "Traces". This would be the final time the duo would work together. Jim Seals is survived by his wife, Ruby (who he married in 1970) and their three children.

RANDOM SIGHTS + SOUNDS

In the summer of 2017, Calvin Harris released "Funk Wav Bounces, Vol. 1", a dance-pop-hip-hop collection that featured a number of impressive all-star vocalists which included Frank Ocean, Katy Perry, Travis Scott, Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande. This volume proved to be a big global success with five hit singles. Now the Scottish DJ/producer feels it's time for a follow-up volume with "Funk Wav Bounces, Vol. 2". This is his first studio album in five years and due out later this summer. The first single, "Potion" has just dropped and features Brit-pop star, Dua Lipa and rapper, Young Thug. This funky Caribbean-flavored track teams Harris with Lipa for the first time since their smash hit, "One Kiss" back in 2018 while Young Thug appeared on the track, "Heatstroke" with Pharrell Williams and Grande from the first volume.



June is LGBTQ+ Pride month and to celebrate, here is a collection of talented artists, spanning different musical genres, who also happen to be out and proudly queer:













And while I do not watch "Stranger Things", I have heard that the show's current fourth season has used Kate Bush's 1985 tune, "Running Up The Hill (A Deal With God)" to great effect, helping to propel this song back up the charts across the globe. The song was Bush's highest charting in the US, reaching number thirty on the pop chart in it's initial run but now the British artist has her very first top-ten hit here. I have long admired the work of Kate Bush with her bold experimental style and offbeat sonic textures. And I loved the video for "Running Up The Hill" which features the singer performing interpretive dance. Alt-rock performer, Meg Myers had released her version of Bush's song in 2019 (and her cover is also benefiting from this resurgence) which maintains the spirit of the original yet is still distinctly innovative.