What's noteworthy about CHARLI XCX's HOW I'M FEELING NOW, which she conceived during her first week in quarantine in Los Angeles two months ago and released this morning, isn't that she could write and record an album in a matter of weeks while stuck in her house—I assume 98 percent of the people making pop records today have the chops, equipment and networking ability to do that—but that she went ahead and did it. And that, at least on first listen, it's pretty good. Virtuosic follow-through. This is a good love song about being happily trapped indoors with your boyfriend who knows what to say after your therapist gets a bit too real with you. This is a fun, over-the-top club jam—about getting dolled up not for a club but for a video chat. "How I'm Feeling Now" is a pop record about life in spring 2020, a response to a moment, a vision of a sci-fi future that has suddenly become the present. The most-talked-about album of this plague year was made in a different kind of quarantine—a voluntary one—on the other side of Los Angeles, over a period of several years rather than several weeks, and exists in a rather different sonic and psychic space. Two different responses to two different isolated presents, and though I'm reasonably sure which one will deliver more sustenance to me over time, I'm thankful to live in a moment when both can, and do, exist. Thankful for the technology, thankful for the artists and eagerly awaiting the responses of others like them (and others not like them)... The TRAVIS MCCREADY concert scheduled for tonight in Arkansas in violation of public health directives was postponed Thursday after state officials suspended the club's liquor license. I'm thankful to live in a time when sanity can be enforced. Gold star to the home state of saxophone playing GOV. BILL CLINTON and bass playing GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE. The club, TEMPLE LIVE, is now seeking permission to reschedule the show on Monday. McCready, meanwhile, will play an outdoor show Saturday in Pineville, Mo., where no objections have been raised and apparently no state directives are being flouted. Still, I wouldn't object if nobody showed up... In the universe where we're still social distancing, NELLY and LUDACRIS step into the virtual ring at 7pm ET Saturday for the next edition of VERZUZ on INSTAGRAM LIVE... Behind the scenes at Instagram, FADIA KADER is one of the key people helping to keep the Verzuz verses flowing... Need a musical background for your next ZOOM meeting? Here are some options courtesy of the SONG SOMMELIER. (Me, I've got some mileage out of a certain New York City punk-rock bathroom as photographed here)... It's FRIDAY and that means in addition to CHARLI XCX there's new music from FUTURE, JASON ISBELL & THE 400 UNIT (released a week ago to indie record stores, today everywhere else), MOSES SUMNEY, PERFUME GENIUS, YUNG LEAN, SHEFF G, KAITLYN AURELIA SMITH, JEFF MILLS, the MAGNETIC FIELDS, THAO & THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN, SPARKS, POLO G, ROY WOODS, KAMASI WASHINGTON (his score to NETFLIX's MICHELLE OBAMA documentary, BECOMING), INFANT ISLANDS, KOHTI TUHOA, I'M GLAD IT'S YOU, ALMA, NOAH CYRUS, MAITA, WILLIAM PARKER, JONATHAN BARBER & VISION AHEAD, WALTER SMITH III & MATTHEW STEVENS, LUCIAN BAN/JOHN SURMAN/MAT MANERI, JOSHUA CRUMBLY, PHILLIP SOLLMANN, JONNY NASH & SUZANNE KRAFT, SLEAFORD MODS, TWO FEET, PARADISE LOST, ASKING ALEXANDRIA, HANNI EL KHATIB, WILLIE NILE, NAHKO AND MEDICINE FOR THE PEOPLE, MOBY, RETIREMENT PARTY, PUBLIC PRACTICE, THE DEARS, WESTERN ADDICTION, JESS WILLIAMSON, GRETCHEN PETERS, MARSHALL CHAPMAN and live albums from PRINCE and DAVID BOWIE.
