Remaining prolific this year, multi-platinum singer-songwriter Bishop Briggs unveils an empowering and engaging new single and music video entitled ‘superhuman’ via Arista Records. Regarding the single, Bishop commented, “I wrote ‘superhuman’ when I was 8 months pregnant. I really felt like I was in a space where I was seeking positivity and light for my little one who was about to arrive. This song quickly became a poem about encouragement and knowing you have the strength to continue on no matter what comes your way.” Once again, Bishop delivers an uplifting anthem highlighted by her dynamic vocals and a powerful affirmation on the hook where she assures, “You’re superhuman. Bulletproof as can be. I know the truth is you can do anything.” She encodes a thoughtful message within the music and lyrics. Fittingly, the song soundtracks the ‘Rise To’ campaign by Rise – an initiative of Schmidt Futures and The Rhodes Trust that finds brilliant young people who need opportunity and supports them for life as they work to serve others. The integrated campaign invites global talent to apply to Rise as they continue to turn opportunities into action and ‘Rise To’ solve the world’s most pressing issues. Meanwhile, the track’s accompanying visual illuminates true superheroes in everyday life on-screen. Bishop adds, “Hearing each others stories is the human experience that I have valued so much in my hardest days. I wanted people to leave the music video knowing they are not alone and that they are capable beyond belief. I’m really grateful for Hunter Moreno (and Jake McKenna) who created something I will be proud to share so many years from now.”

Meghan Trainor has released her anxiously awaited fourth full-length album, Takin’ It Back. This time around, she made a conscious decision to hark back to the signature sound she introduced on her 2015 full-length debut, TITLE, and bring it forward to today. About the album, Meghan said, “I tried to do the doo-wop feel I had at the beginning of my career, but the 2022 version of it. This is from the new Meghan who is a wife and mom with a baby. This is from me right now. I decided to give the people what they want, but with my spices added to it. I wanted to make my Title 2.0.” Accompanying the album’s release is a video for Meghan’s new single, ‘Made You Look.’ The spunky track has horns that pipe up as her doo-wop harmonies double up the attitude on the chorus, “I could have my Gucci on. I could wear my Louis Vuitton, but even with nothing on, bet I made you look.” The vibrant and stylized music video sees Meghan moving between different colorful worlds – from Hollywood set ups to a big finale dance performance. By Meghan’s side are TikTok personalities Chris Olsen, Remi Bader, Becca Means, Drew Afualo, along with JoJo Siwa, Scott Hoying, and husband Daryl Sabara. Regarding ‘Made You Look,’ Meghan said, ““After having a baby, I struggled really hard to feel sexy. I actually wrote this song when I was ass-naked singing the chorus in the shower,” she admits. “I can wear all of these gorgeous things, but I look better without all of that shit on. I wrote a self-love anthem for myself. Even though you had a baby, went through it, and your body shows it, you’re still sexy.”

Returning with two new tracks and a stunning short film, PVRIS has shared ‘Anywhere But Here’ and ‘Animal’. “At its core, ‘ANYWHERE BUT HERE’ is about wanting to escape your surroundings,” Lyndsey Gunnulfsen explains. “My whole life I’ve always found myself restless and eager to be somewhere else. I always imagine existing in different times and different places; everywhere and anywhere but where I am in the moment, even the good moments. I think a lot of us experience that to some degree, a longing to be somewhere or with someone you can’t necessarily identify.” “‘Animal’ is all about defiance, breaking free of control whether it’s from other people, or from ourselves,” she adds. “It can even be looked at through a wider lens and interpreted as defiance towards ‘the man’, government, or the algorithms that run our lives, that ‘know us’. It’s about challenging the identity the outside world chooses to give you. It’s also a comment on fame and spectacle. I feel like we as a society are quick to dehumanize each other and hold people in fixed forms denying one another the opportunities to grow and evolve. I think this holds true especially those in any scale of a spotlight; artists, actors, influencers, models, athletes, politicians, etc… this can be true for personal relationships as well. We do each other a disservice by restricting one another to these metaphorical cages. ‘ANIMAL’ is about challenging that.” [via DIY]

Lowertown have just dropped their debut album, I Love To Lie. Their new single, ‘My Friends’, has also been shared with a music video accompaniment. The new arrival follows the release of recent singles ‘Bucktooth’, ‘Antibiotics’, and ‘No Way’. Lowertown’s Olivia Osby says: “I wrote ‘My Friends’ when I was 19 in the summer of 2021 about the first group of people I fell into when I first moved to New York. Their way of life was incredibly fast-paced, volatile, and dramatic. It felt so enticing because I had never experienced anything like it before. They were all larger than life people, always so spontaneous and ‘cool’. There was always a plan, always a story, always something to do or talk about.” “They felt like caricatures of the ‘cool’ people I’d seen in movies,” she continues. “We’d drive around the city and bar hop, and walk around until the sun came up. It felt great. I felt like I was finally living the adult life that was taken from me with the pandemic, but slowly I began to realise it was all wearing on me, on all of us. The fantasy I had built in my head was not the reality I was living. I was sick all the time and kept losing my voice. I was always in pain and my stomach was always upset. I started losing sight of anything that seemed important to me before I’d moved to New York. I saw my friends dissolve; their behaviour was erratic, spiteful, and illogical. They wouldn’t sleep or eat for days then they’d have outbursts of anger and paranoia towards me and each other.” “This kind of life had consequences, and I realised everyone around me was just as lost as I was,” Osby admits. “We were swimming in quicksand, trying to get out and trying to make ourselves feel better, but just getting sucked further in.” [via Dork]

Just before the release of her new album Midnights, Taylor Swift promised “a special very chaotic surprise” at 3AM. True to her word, three hours after the album itself was out in the world, Swift released Midnights (3am Edition), a version of the album with seven extra tracks. On Instagram, Swift writes, “Lately I’ve been loving the feeling of sharing more of our creative process with you, like we do with From The Vault tracks. So it’s 3am and I’m giving them to you now.” This morning, Swift also released her video for ‘Anti-Hero,’ which is apparently serving as the single from Midnights. (That’s the “everyone’s a sexy baby” song. Bold choice!) Swift wrote and directed the video, which is a lot of fun. Much of the clip is Swift hanging out and getting drunk with her own wilder doppelgänger. The video also has some visual quotes from Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman and a mid-song comedy sketch where Swift imagines her own funeral. The great stand-up comic Mike Birbiglia and John Early from Search Party play her adult sons, while Mary Elizabeth Ellis from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia plays her daughter-in-law. [via Stereogum]

Japanese-Australian brother-sister electronic duo Lastlings has just unveiled its latest musical outing with the release of ‘Get What You Want’. Produced by Lastlings with help from UK dance heavyweight Alex Metric, ‘Get What You Want’ presents lush chords and ethereal, textured vocals over a solid low end as artists showcase their musical maturity and evolution. “We spent a week writing in 2021 and this was one of the first songs that came from the session. We had two rooms. One writing room for Amy with a piano and one for me where I made the instrumental.” says Josh. “It explores mental health and the relationship that I have with myself. It’s about putting myself out there and not letting doubt get in the way of what I truly want. ‘I’ve got a lot of enemies that live inside my head’. This song isn’t about love for another person, it’s about my relationship with myself. ‘You’ refers to a darker version of myself that I am trying to fight and overcome.” further explains Amy. In line with the drop, Lastlings also shared the official music video for ‘Get What You Want’, which “explores an abstract interpretation of spaces inside the mind”. [via Electronic Groove]

Before she releases her new album next month, Anna of the North shared another preview in the form of her song ‘I Do You.’ It’s the latest from the full album Crazy Life, which is out November 4. The new song finds the singer taking her power back from past experiences and past relationships, turning it into a delightfully reassuring new single. “Too many times have I been in the situation where I put other people before myself,” says Anna. “I imagine everyone around me being so happy and successful. Like other people are so in control of themselves and their feelings. It’s like I give other people superpowers. We say that we’re our own worst enemy. And I’m definitely mine. I wish sometimes that I could see myself from another perspective. I wish that I could look at myself, like I look at others…If I did me, like I do you.” [via Variance]

Scottish singer-songwriter Katie Gregson-MacLeod has dropped a new music video for ‘complex’ directed by Sam Bailey. Back in August, she released ‘complex (demo)’ along with the music video. Prior to the release of the song, a minute-long chorus of the track quickly became a viral TikTok phenomenon and racked up over 7.2 million views. Earlier this month, she released the new version of the song. This time, she crafted the video for the new version. The track was written by Katie and produced by Greg Kurstin. The video is inspired by American singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton’s 2002 debut song ‘A Thousand Miles’ video. Katie Gregson-MacLeod said of the video, “The video for ‘complex’ definitely shows a different side to the song and to me. I don’t think the song is entirely earnest, and I wanted the video to reflect that. We were discussing concepts for a wee while but when the idea came up of recreating an iconic music video in a totally different setting, the Vanessa Carlton video was a given. We were definitely keen to see how ridiculous we could get with the Scottish parallels but all the while not having it look like too much of a piss-take or too much like a Visit Scotland ad. After a short couple weeks of planning and the odd ‘I can’t believe we’re actually doing this’, we shot the video in and around Edinburgh. We started off in Holyrood, going around Arthur’s Seat. In fitting form, it was the rainiest and windiest it could have possibly been in the first few hours of the shoot. Nonetheless, strapped into the back of a van and sitting at a grand piano singing my piano ballad, we zoomed around.” She continued, “My favourite part was for sure getting my pals along as extras. We had some of my childhood best friends pull out their acting chops as ‘people on table at pub’ numbers 1-7 and got Hamish Hawk along to perform his supporting role as ‘beer-drinking man engrossed in conversation’. It was my first proper video shoot and although a really crazy day, it was a lot of fun. The team nailed it. I hope Vanessa Carlton enjoys our homage, that’s the main thing. It’s an iconic video and we wanted to honour that.” The song will appear on her upcoming EP, which is expected to be released in 2023. [via pmstudio]

Kimbra announces her upcoming studio album A Reckoning. To coincide with the announcement, she has debuted new single ‘Save Me’ alongside a music video directed by Yvan Fabing. Set for release in 2023, A Reckoning is primed to be a reflective record capturing the macro reckonings that impact our world around environment, race, feminism health and patriarchy through the eyes of the archteypal Mother. But at the heart of her record is the war with the micro reckonings that Kimbra faces internally. It’s the most sonically autonomous and confessionally raw she has ever been, finding influence in everything from modern movie soundtracks to electronic and industrial worlds. The album was first imagined in 2018, during Kimbra’s tour with co-producer Ryan Lott of the band Son Lux, who recently scored A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once. On ‘Save Me,’ Kimbra shares a moment of deep yearning set on a bed of unsettling warped pianos. She explores how two internal realities can be present at once : chaos and contemplation, rage and still life-force. Inspired by a singular moment, she searches her insecurities with hopes that someone will save her from herself. The track is brought to new light in the music video that shows the pop singer in Iceland, traversing dangerous, surreal terrains as she seeks to heal her relationship to self, to other women, and finally to our Mother Earth. [via 360 Mag]

Elle King is offering fans a taste of her upcoming full-length country album, Come Get Your Wife, with the release of a new song, ‘Try Jesus.’ In the tune — which King co-wrote with Geoffrey Warburton, Casey Cathleen Smith, Ashley Gorley and Ben Johnson — the singer decries a struggling love life full of less-than-worthy men. After listing some of the dead-end partners she has encountered, she concludes that it may be time to try a different route: one with a little more faith. “I should try Jesus / See what all the fuss is about / Thinkin’ I should try Jesus / ‘Cause every other man let me down / Got me singin’ ‘Hey Hallelujah, A-freakin’-men’ / Baby, I don’t need me anybody but him,” she sings in the chorus. The song is full of amusing lyrics as King makes her decision to ‘Try Jesus’ instead of the current dating scene, and the video offers more of King’s signature humor. Directed by Edi Patterson, the music video finds King entering a dollar store where the main characters of all her worst dating stories come to life, with King playing all the parts herself. After being handed a shopping cart by Jesus, himself, King comes face-to-face with her past. A supermarket dance party then breaks out, and King finds herself in an unfortunate predicament involving baked beans. Luckily, the store employee named Jesus is there to clean up her mess, and she finds happiness. In a social media post she shared prior to the release, King says she pulled from her background in religion to write the tune. “I grew up with a very religious grandmother,” she writes. “Pentecostal, speaking in tongues. I know a thing or two about the Bible. At least enough to know that I do lots of stuff my sweet Mawmaw is up there cringing in Heaven, I can hear her now ‘No no no no no!’ All she ever wanted for me, for anybody, was to have a little faith. I always say, I’ll try anything twice! And even though as a little kid I got poison ivy up my ass at church camp, I stay true to my word. So cheers to round two!” [via Taste of Country]