Selective Listening | Pearl Jam, Dua Lipa and Vampire Weekend

Every week, our music journalists add songs to the playlist of The Press on Spotify. Here are three recent titles that are in our selection.

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Pearl Jam, Dark Matter

No one knows how to help aging rockers feel young again than Andrew Watt. After having helmed the most recent records of Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop and the Rolling Stones, the most gerontological of directors will pilot the 12^e Pearl Jam album, Dark Matter, expected on April 19. In interview with Rolling Stone, Grunge Survivors’ bassist (and former floppy hat enthusiast) Jeff Ament still couldn’t believe the “encyclopedic knowledge” of his band’s history with which the 33-year-old prodigy showed up with studio. Powered by a riff funny reminder I Love Rock’n’Roll, the title track suggests (or fears) a slightly too clinical approach, Watt having the reputation of sterilizing the sound of those with whom he works. But never mind, would you put another coin back in the jukebox, baby?

Dominic Tardif, The Press

Dua Lipa, Training Season

What we know about Dua Lipa’s next album is still speculation. There’s talk of a different sound, potentially inspired by 1970s psychedelic pop and a collaboration with Kevin Parker, aka Tame Impala. We cannot say that Houdinisong launched in the fall, and the recent Training Season validate psychedelic claims. The atmosphere is perhaps a little more vaporous, but the dancing pulse, a cousin of disco, is still very present. However, we notice that Dua Lipa’s warm voice is sometimes a little too tampered with by a digital filter. We are impatiently waiting for what comes next.

Alexandre Vigneault, The Press

Vampire Weekend, Gen-X Cops

Some Girls (1978) by the Rolling Stones, Like a Virgin by Madonna (1984), Illmatic (1994) by NasIs This It (2001) by The Strokes: New York is undoubtedly one of the most generous muses in the history of music. It’s the turn of Ezra Koenig’s band to be part of this great tradition of tributes to the city that never sleeps on Only God Was Above Us, to be released on April 5, a prelude to a show on September 25, at Place Bell in Laval (a city which has better sleep hygiene). But as with the flagship trio of indie pop of the 2000s, things are rarely simple, this fifth album is also inspired by raga, this Indian song from which its leader took lessons in the Japanese countryside. Of the two songs released so far, the bouncy Gen-X Cops is the one that sounds the most like good old Vampire Weekend.

Dominic Tardif, The Press