It’s a night to remember for everyone except Bonnie McKee, but at least this time, she’s in on the joke. In the vibrant new music video for ‘Forever 21,’ the pop singer harkens back to her messy party-girl days with a cautionary tale about drinking too much and ruining a wedding. Sporting a pink bridesmaid dress and bright Y2K makeup with a champagne glass constantly in tow, McKee’s cinematic visual reminds us why this glittering but deceptively deep track has long been a fan favorite — and means so much to her personally. As the singer tells NYLON, ‘Forever 21’ — which appears on her latest album Hot City — is a “tragedy disguised as a bright and sparkly bop.” Despite a shimmering pop production, each lyric skillfully dodges responsibility for, perhaps, staying at the party a little too long. “Written in the twilight of my drinking days, it was my satirical coping mechanism and a cathartic outlet exploring my shame around being an alcoholic hot mess,” she says. There are hints of retrospection in the anthemic lyrics like “I’ll take whatever keeps me numb / Baby, I’ll stay forever 21” and flecks of nostalgia in shout-outs to a “Slip N’ Slide headed straight to nowhere” and “Malibu and Sprite.” Told through the narrative device of an old wedding VHS tape, the dreamy video was co-directed by McKee with David Richardson, who also lensed her clips for tracks like ‘Bombastic,’ ‘Jenny’s Got A Boyfriend,’ and ‘Stars In Your Heart.’ Indeed, it proves to be “a night to remember” as McKee throws punches during the bouquet toss and knocks over a wedding cake — all while barely messing up her eyeliner. The pretend nuptials are surreal but glamorous, while the ‘American Girl’ singer plays her part masterfully with a wink and nod, having a viscerally fun time trying to forgive her boozed-up and youth-obsessed past self. “I was grappling with the idea of abandoning my party-girl identity, flirting with the notion that the party might finally be over, and reveling in my last sloppy hurrah,” she says. [via NYLON]

The Los Angeles electro-pop duo Magdalena Bay’s sophomore album Imaginal Disk arrives in August, and a new single ‘Image’ is out now. In typical Magdalena Bay fashion, ‘Image’ feels both futuristic and nostalgic. It begins as a mellower, vaporwave-meets-pop diva jam, until a delightfully blown-out bass crashes into the final chorus. Its psychedelic music video features the members of Magdalena Bay in a waiting room, where singer Mica Tenenbaum is about to get an “imaginal disk” upgrade installed in her forehead: “Ooh, so hot/ Meet your brand new image,” she sings as she dances with a couple of “disk sales entities.” It’s real kooky and fun, and you can check it out below. [via Stereogum]

Irish artist EFÉ has released a new single, ‘2000SEVEN’. The Dublin-based artist, whose real name is Anita Ikharo, co-directed the accompanying video with Wiktoria Weintritt, embracing a nostalgic ’90s aesthetic with Japanese film-inspired colour palettes. The video showcases EFÉ and her band performing in various eclectic rooms, centred around a cosy bedroom setting. EFÉ explains the origins of the track: “2000SEVEN Was kinda a rocky version one of my first songs ‘seven’ except this one feels new and could’ve came out in the early 00s hence the name change. It’s also the way me and my band play it live so it was only right we had a recorded version for people to hear. It was a song I wrote when I was like 19, and about how you get closer to someone especially when times kinda get hard and a bad experience can bring people together.” Discussing the video’s inspiration, EFÉ adds: “The 2000SEVEN video was heavily inspired by Cibo Matto’s live performance on a short lived cable programme in 1996. I loved just how cool it was and the live setting of a bedroom was so awesome and refreshing to me and kinda a recurring setting in my music videos. I also love the aesthetic of bedrooms and decorated rooms so it felt very fitting. Me and Wiktoria Weintritt directed it together and it was an insane experience that took very long to finish. But when we finally got the finished video, we were so happy and it’s definitely my favourite music video I’ve made!” [via Dork]

Mothica has unveiled her latest track ‘Mirage’, a preview of her upcoming visual album KISSING DEATH. Set for release on August 23 through her own imprint Heavy Heart Records in partnership with Rise Records, with each of its 12 tracks accompanied by interconnected music videos. Discussing the track, she says: “At one point, this record was taking a classic western inspired direction but I cut most of those songs. I love slide guitar, old church bells, and that spaghetti western influence you’d hear in a Tarantino movie. But being from Oklahoma, I always stayed away from country adjacent sounds because it’s all I ever heard on the radio. “I heard about this idea in therapy I wanted to write about. People imagine achieving their goals will bring them happiness, like this still image in their mind of ‘once I get this, i’ll be happy forever’. But emotions aren’t permanent, it could just be a mirage of water in the desert. So this is my spin on western imagery as a Mothica song. The fans heard a snippet and nicknamed it my yeehaw-thica song.” Elaborating on the album’s concept, Mothica explains: “I decided to make Death a love interest in a dark rom-com-style tale. Throughout the visuals, I’m seen in a therapist’s office explaining this complicated relationship as if describing a scorned lover. The music videos will be like ‘flashbacks’ of what I’m telling my therapist. On the first single ‘DOOMED,’ we go back in time to an angsty teenage version of me. This is my first brush with the Grim Reaper and I doodle pictures of him in my diary surrounded by hearts. Flash forward, I’m shown performing at a dive bar, clubbing, engulfed in self-destruction. He stalks me, and eventually even proposes marriage, and I leave him at the altar and run away. It ends with me and Death in couples therapy. I wanted the music to feel cinematic, like the soundtrack of a movie.” [via Dork]

Australian Eora/Sydney-based multi-disciplinary artist Annie Hamilton has dropped her latest single and accompanying music video, ‘Slut Era’—a defiant anthem that boldly confronts and challenges patriarchal conventions, embodying themes of empowerment and rebellion. Following her recent single ‘Talk’ and critically acclaimed 2022 debut solo album, the future is here but it kinda feels like the past, ‘Slut Era’ continues Hamilton’s exploration of the complexities and obstacles faced by women in the music industry and beyond. The track, described by Hamilton as an “industrial-feminine-rage-pop song,” deftly blends chaotic societal critiques with playful defiance, capturing the paradoxical nature of gendered expectations. “‘Slut Era’ is “an expression of the feeling of being bombarded with impossible patriarchal and societal standards,” she explains. The chorus encapsulates the absurdity of these expectations: “gotta be shareable! vulnerable! f*ckable! relatable! dinner-on-a-plateable! burn-her-at-the-stakeable! – we literally cannot win! The song serves as a commentary on the Madonna/whore complex, the inescapable pressures of social media, and the inherent biases that women and femme-identifying individuals face.” [via Under the Radar]

One of the most compelling groups on the scene since the early 2010s, Rubblebucket, the art-pop project of Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth, is sharing a psychedelic new single, sure to make your hips move. The duo release perhaps the funkiest song they’ve ever made, ‘Rattlesnake’, along with its music video. The band loosely adapted a poem lead singer Kalmia wrote called “Time For the Rattlesnake” from her zine poetry book “Year of The Banana”, capturing it in a funky-disco-smash song form. “A few years before I wrote the rattlesnake poem, my mom and I were on a 30-mile bike ride… Just off the path we spotted a massive rattlesnake lounging in the dappled forest sunlight. It was my first time ever seeing one and my instinct was to stop and get a good look. My mom’s instinct was to get the hell out of there, and we laughed later about this dynamic,” Traver remembers. “The beauty of it took my breath away. But I later ruminated about how even when I am faced with the most breathtaking of our planet’s offerings, it can still be very hard to be present, focused & relaxed because of the chronic anxiety from which I suffer.” Though the tune opens with the neurotic “I don’t want to analyze you but…”, it unveils itself as one character pushing another to self-examine; for Rubblebucket, therapy takes the form of a dance party.

Abbie Ozard has released her new single ‘monsters’. The track arrives ahead of her debut album everything still worries me, set to drop on July 25 via House Anxiety. She explains: “Me and Hugo wrote this after talking about our past relationships and how chaotic and crazy they can be when you’re younger, how you see a side of yourself that you didn’t know you had. It’s hilarious looking back, we put a super satirical twist on situations in the past that were actually quite dark.” Ozard began teasing her debut LP last year with singles ‘days like these’ and ‘i don’t know happiness without you’. She officially announced the album in April with ‘anything for you’, followed by Pixey collaboration ‘miss american dream’. [via Dork]

Luna Li has unveiled her latest single ‘Golden Hour’. It’s the newest offering from her forthcoming album When a Thought Grows Wings, set for release on August 23 via In Real Life/AWAL. The track showcases Li’s introspective songwriting, blending dreamy piano melodies with her mesmerising vocals and exploring themes of nostalgia and vulnerability, capturing the delicate experience of opening up to new love. Reflecting on the track, she shares, “I wanted this song to feel soft and sensual, while also peeking into a psychedelic world. Golden Hour tells the story of an afternoon I spent with someone a couple of years ago in a meadow sitting six feet apart, drenched in rain water and uncertainty, but having a wonderful time experiencing a slow descent into love.” The accompanying music video, directed by Issac Roberts, draws inspiration from the surrealist aesthetics of 1920s cinema, visually representing the yearning and nostalgia associated with romantic love. [via Dork]