Beat logo

Top 24 New Songs - Week of March 16th - Part One

Free Form Telephony

By Charlie Le FolPublished 3 years ago 8 min read
Like

Overcome the paradox of musical choice with Free Form Telephony: a weekly mixtape of 24 songs presented in two parts.

Scroll to the bottom for the full playlist or dissect the songs one by one. The choice is yours.

Please drop me a tip if you like these playlists to support this Music Curation dream of mine. It's greatly appreciated.

Callista Clark - It's Cause I Am (Acoustic)

At the age of 13 this talent multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter posted a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's Have You Ever Seen The Rain to Youtube and it went viral! Now, at the age of 17 she's just released her debut EP Real To Me and the opening track It's Cause I Am is a powerful reminder to always be true to yourself even if it requires letting someone go.

“Whatever the song is, or the emotion is, I just really want to always try to dive into that feeling. And in doing so, I really hope it resonates with someone out there,” says Callista.

Phora - Colorblind

Marco Anthony Archer, better known as Phora, hails from Anaheim, California where he worked as a tattoo artist to fund his dream of becoming a hip hop artist. Since starting his own label in 2011 he's released 11 albums and survived a stabbing and two shootings. His track Colorblind off his latest release Heartbreak Hotel grapples with the need to make things right with those in your life because we never know when it could end.

"I was just looking at humans, and how we get stuck in our heads sometimes. So Heartbreak Hotel is a metaphor for being stuck in our thoughts while going through any sort of adversity. I feel like this was necessary for me to put out, so I can let go of some of these things that I’m going through," says Phora

Orla Gartland - More Like You

Orla Gartland hails from Dublin, Ireland, and describes herself as a "music makin' ginger nutcase." She began posting videos on Youtube at the age of 13 and has since released 4 EPs and a handful of singles to rave reviews. Her song More Like You outlines the insecurities one can feel within a relationship, whether they be romantic or plutonic.

"I indulged and wrote a lot of break up songs for my last EP 'Freckle Season' and by the time I started working on this new era I had said all I had to say about the dissolving of a relationship - so these songs are about me and my own thoughts."

Keb' Mo' - Oklahoma

Keb' Mo' is a five time Grammy Award Winner living in Nashville Tennessee who has been recording music for 25 years. He has been described as "a living link to the seminal Delta blues that travelled up the Mississippi River and across the expanse of America." The title track off his 2019 album Oklahoma offers a positive view of American life where all ways of being are respected.

This Grammy was for a different category, Americana. It awards a creative feel. It’s more for where I’m at and it means a lot to me. What it means to other people I don’t really know. To me it’s encouraging and uplifting, but not in a look how special I am, way! It means, how can I be more effective? It gives you the privilege to reach out to people.

Gavlyn & DJ Hoppa - Stepping Stones

Gavlyn is a Latin American hip hop artist raised in the San Fernando Valley who's been writing rhymes since 1996. She started out doing spoken word poetry before falling in love with Hip Hop culture. Since then her confidence has taken her all over the world. Her latest track is full of positive vibes with intricate rhymes about breaking the mold.

What made me wanna become a rapper was definitely my love for music first of course and also the way I grew up. I stayed at home a lot watching my little brother so I listened to rap a lot and had a lot of time to myself.

Throwback: Jungle - Busy Earnin'

This dance track from 2014 sounds as good now as it did then. Jungle tackles the importance of appreciating what it is you have all while giving you a solid groove to move your body to.

Music is an expression and good music makes other people feel something. If you want to make someone else feel something you have to evoke an emotion from them, whether that is a positive emotion, negative emotion, aggressive emotion. Some emotion! If you’re not evoking any emotion, what is it really doing? It’s nothing.

Cassandra Jenkins - Hard Drive

Cassandra Jenkins grew up in a musical family. In her childhood she toured with her family band playing at folk music festivals. Her song Hard Drive off her critically acclaimed album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature is a dreamy dive into the metaphysical.

I’m definitely an empath but I don’t know how to protect my energy. I don’t have the tools the way a therapist does. I have a vulnerability and an approachability about me that will put me into a lot of strange situations, for better or for worse. I get to meet a lot of strangers, and often have really wonderful encounters, but I sometimes have a negative interaction, and it takes me a day to recover from it.

Erick the Architect ft. Loyle Carner & FARR - Let It Go

Erick the Architect is a Brooklyn, New York based rapper, producer, multi-instrumentalist, painter, and writer. He's produced much of the music for Flatbush Zombies, while also proving himself a talented solo artist. His track Let It Go from his Future Proof EP is an another example of the importance of bringing your best self to every moment for the length of ones life is never guaranteed.

Our world is changing faster than ever and I would hope that we take a second to think about how we can better ourselves emotionally, financially, socially, and mentally. There is always more to learn and I don't think now is the time to deprive ourselves of information.

Rhiannon Giddens ft. Francesco Turrisi - Waterbound

Rhiannon Giddens is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina who plays old time music. She explored the depth of which black culture has influenced modern country music with the grammy winning band The Carolina Chocolate Drops. Her latest track Waterbound is a soulful track which yearns for a return to ones home.

Nobody owns an instrument. No culture gets to put the lockdown on anything. Say the word ‘bagpipes,’ and, if you are anything like the me of a few years ago, it conjures up the image of a kilted Highlander and the land of moors and heather—but now I know it should also bring to mind an old man in a doorway in Sicily, the smartly uniformed military band in Iraq, or a modern young woman from Galicia.

Charley Crockett - Fool Somebody Else

Charley Crockett, a distant relative of Davy Crockett, was raised in a trailer park in Fresnos, Texas. After several run ins with the law he self released his debut album in May of 2015 and has since released 6 more. Fool Somebody Else off his 2020 release Welcome To Hard Times is a classic country breakup song. After finding his love will never be enough Charley decides he must leave his unfaithful woman to fool herself.

Corporate radio could play artists like myself but they won’t. When they hear the stuff that I’m doing, they don’t want to know. The people promoting what I’m playing would not even mention me to those stations, they couldn’t sell it to these stations. I do think if they played some of the cuts from WELCOME TO HARD TIMES, like the track you played on your radio show, Run Horse Run, it could be a sensation. Controversial maybe, but I believe the interest and call ins they would get from ordinary Americans would be tremendous.

Icon for Hire - Last One Standing

Icon For Hire formed in Decatur, Illinois not long after vocalist Ariel Bloomer and guitarist Shawn Jump meet in 2007. In 2010 they were signed to Tooth & Nail Records after being discovered by the label through their Myspace page. Last One Standing the lead single off their latest release Amorphous grapples with the difficulty of being yourself in our culture of mass conformity.

We discovered very quickly how record labels work, which I'm sure every young artist finds out first hand, which is, you know, they're there to sell a product and push a product in the way that they want to and then, as an artist, you get screwed, you get screwed in creative control, you get screwed in vision and, often, you get screwed financially and so many of our friends on that label had to disband and couldn't continue and had to get real jobs and that was going to be our state as well, if we continued going down that road with them.

Robert Grace - The Hurt You Gave Me

Robert Grace is a singer-songwriter from Kilkenny, Ireland. Growing up his father played traditional Irish music in local bands. His single Fake Fine peaked at number 1 on the Irish Homegrown Top 20. His latest single The Hurt You Gave Me is a pop breakup song of the grandest nature. He let's his Ex know he'll be moving on by giving her zero control of how he works through the pain she caused him.

The track is based off a really hard couple of weeks I had earlier in the year. 2020 started off quite bad and because of that I ended up in a weird place mentally. I put on a fake smile though and tried my best to pretend that everything was fine. Thats when I began to write this song. I didn’t want to make it sad though. I wanted it to be a slightly comedic take on a serious problem. There’s already hundreds of sad songs about depression, I didn’t want to make another one!!

Hurray! You've reached the end of Part 1!

Or, you simply scrolled down here...doesn't matter because here we are at the playlists!

Did you know Napster pays musicians nearly Twice As Much per stream as Spotify?

Now you do! I switched and so can you!

Remember if you enjoyed this content to drop me a tip. Much love from my family to yours.

playlist
Like

About the Creator

Charlie Le Fol

Bonjour! I'm Charlie Le Fol, a father of two wonderful daughters, and a lifelong enjoyer of music.

Isn't modern technology wonderful? I no longer have to push Play/Record on a Boombox to create mixtapes for you.

Profiter de la musique!

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.