Stella Lefty’s “Boston” meets Noah Kahan

Stella Lefty, ”Long Way Home,” album

Stella Lefty released her debut album “Long Way Home” today, following what has been a pretty wild breakout summer for “Boston.” The 14-track album includes seven previously released songs and seven new tracks.

And “Boston” really has been everywhere: it climbed to the Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100, while the chorus’s similarities to Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” became one of the biggest talking points around the song. Kahan was later added as a co-writer after his team reached out about the song’s similarity, according to Forbes.

It’s hard to talk about Stella Lefty without acknowledging just how quickly she arrived. “Boston” went from a viral song to a Billboard hit in a matter of months, putting Lefty firmly in the middle of country-pop’s current boom. Country songs currently make up half of the Billboard Hot 100’s Top 10.

Lefty has described growing up around country music, with her dad playing country radio in the car.

And yes, her father is Eric Lefkofsky, the billionaire entrepreneur who co-founded Groupon and is now the founder and CEO of Tempus. So, naturally, the nepo baby label has been flung around. But hey, at some point, you have to let the music speak for itself.

Sam Smith, ”Hazel Eyes,” album

The best thing about Sam Smith is definitely their voice. It feels like that was lost in all the conversation around their hit “Unholy” with Kim Petras, which earned them a Grammy nomination and a win. Sometimes an artist has to go out, spin around, and realize what they need in order to come home.

“Hazel Eyes” feels like a return to the sensibility of earlier works like "In the Lonely Hour" and "The Thrill of It All," where Smith found a balance between pop accessibility and a kind of assured melancholy. Most importantly, those albums gave their voice the space to actually sound as good as it can.

Right now, "Constant Companion" is getting the push, and it has a genuine case for being one of the better songs released this year. The story is as straightforward as its title, but it’s Smith’s voice that ultimately carries the song and gives it its weight. “Sugar Rush" has this old-period waltz and jazz quality that casts a different kind of light over the album. By the end, it turns into a full-on waltzy production. “Sammy wants the sugar,” the background vocals sing.

Carly Rae Jepsen, “Motivation”

Carly Rae Jepsen is still rolling out releases from her upcoming double album "Day and Night." If you still don’t know, the album is split into two parts to do exactly what the title suggests: one part is "Day," and the other is "Night." "Motivation" continues the album's nighttime side, following the previously released single "Don't Leave Me on the Dance Floor."

This song has a really neat beat with a much more interesting scope and sense of momentum than the other releases so far, we think. There’s nothing overly complicated about it, but it does exactly what it needs to make itself feel like a moment in the night.

Wolf Alice, “Hit The Sky”

The last remaining song from the B-side of their album "The Clearing" has finally arrived.

On Instagram, the band wrote that the song was about "encouraging someone u love to be themselves." Of course, that’s a sweet sentiment, and we can’t deny it. Our favorite lyric would have to be: “If the world serves you lemons/You just twist them in the martini glass.”

—Dawson Therre

Discover new music every week with the Pop Base newsletter.