Tracks of the week reviewed: US Girls, Jake Shears, Grimes

US Girls4 American Dollars

In a comparison of the presidential candidates’ campaign rally playlists, the progressive Bernie Sanders came off unusually badly: his featured more blokes called Steve than women. Helpfully, US Girls’ Meg Remy has an anticapitalist anthem for the billionaire-baiting Democrat hopeful: “You gotta have boots if you wanna lift those bootstraps” is one of many slogan-worthy side-eyes in this soulful disco-protest gem. Bernie just needs a matching dance move (the bootstrap, duh) and America’s first socialist presidency is in the bag.

Jake ShearsMeltdown

Cruel, really, of Jake Shears to tease us with mental images of burst fire hydrants and sweaty tans by releasing this summer disco rager à la Robyn and Róisín in the frosty dregs of February. Although that is assuming we make it to summer: beyond the periodperfect innuendo about steamy windows, Meltdown is Shears’s siren call about a global crisis where temperatures and homophobia are on the rise. It’s a Trojan horse in sequins.

GrimesDelete Forever

At this point – pregnant with Elon Musk’s baby, telling Vogue she likes to look “pretty but, like, ravaged by war” – Grimes releasing a single with a heavy debt to Wonderwall barely registers on the WTF scale. What’s surprising is how gorgeous it is: a lament for Lil Peep and friends lost to the opioid crisis, and Grimes’s own acceptance of the lows unmasked by being clean.

Otoboke BeaverDirty Old Fart Is Waiting for My Reaction

The Japanese four-piece explain that dirty old farts are those guys on the internet who are certain that women on the internet are gagging to hear what they think about everything. Fortunately, thanks to Otoboke Beaver, they’re all dead now, slain by this perfect thrashing minute in which they obliterate “tenacious sulky troublesome ass” men. RIP guys!

Anne-MarieBirthday

It’s Anne-Marie’s birthday, and she’s going to do some kerrazzy shit: bad tattoos, indiscriminate snogging, impromptu hair dyeing. And it’s not even the weekend! Yet Birthday’s reckless spontaneity has been focus-grouped to death. The womp/yelp musical tics and mime-worthy lyrics? There’s TikTok licked. Lyrics about being skint and a video where a romp in a mansion turns out to be a dream and AnneMarie actually lives in an everyday flatshare? Relatable AF. Imagine the internal monologue of a sentient glass of prosecco.