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#HitsOfTomorrow – A Weekly Rundown of the ‘Should-Be’ Hits

This edition features rappers, singer-songwriters and a K-pop star

Amit Vaidya

Jan 21, 2023

We’ve got our first supergroup of 2023 with boygenius – comprising Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus – as they release “the record” featuring singles likely to impact the charts quite quickly, including “Emily I’m Sorry,” the strongest of the bunch. Beyond the trio, the week also sees the latest single by Ed Sheeran, “F64,” a tribute song to his friend Jamal Edwards who died nearly a year ago. Some hip-hop heavyweights also come out ablazin’ including A$AP Rocky with “Same Problems?” and Trippie Redd featuring Juice WRLD on “Knight Crawler”.

While these singles are likely to get the attention they deserve on the radio and in streaming, here are this week’s HITS OF TOMORROW – the should-be hits that deserve a little more attention and that extra nudge!

“Contact” – Kelela

Winter just got a little steamier with Kelela’s latest single “Contact,” the fourth track she’s previewed from her upcoming Raven LP. From the first second you’ll be immediately hypnotized by the atmospheric sound of the single. A perfect “pre-gaming” single as the artist proclaimed in a statement, this is the kind of song that would have instantly connected with listeners in another era but now, we need to push it out there cause Kelela brings us the universe and we are so for it! One footnote: Kelela’s vocals are just so mesmerizing here, it sort of reminded me of Brandy, which in turn then made me want those layered vocals to even further encapsulate the world the artist creates here for us. Cherry-picking, I know, but that’s just how drawn in I was!

“Perfect Stranger” – Tyler James Bellinger

Perennially underrated singer-songwriter Tyler James Bellinger has dropped his latest EP Perfect Stranger and while the set itself is an incredibly strong one, the title track is hands down the hit! Reminiscent of those early Mark Ronson production days (remember Daniel Merriweather?), “Perfect Stranger” is a slow-burn banger that Top 40 would be fools to not add into their rotation. Bellinger’s vocals are first-rate and the production by Kyle Kelso and Johnny Black is as good as it gets. I can’t believe I’ve got to beg the TikTok gods, but please take the chorus and make it a trend. We just saw their power last month with RAYE and even with established artists like Miley Cyrus and her latest single “Flowers” just last week. Let’s also give Bellinger the break he rightly deserves.

“Weightless” – Arlo Parks

It’s not easy to return after such a smashing debut, but Arlo Parks does it so gracefully that you feel like the artist has been around far longer than the reality. “Weightless” is the first single from My Soft Machine, the sophomore LP slated for a May release. The single is everything we except from Parks and more – maturity, clever lyrics and a groove that defies genre-formatting. While the artist has broken through, here’s hoping that with this single, the sophomore jinx is crushed!

“I Wish You Roses” – Kali Uchis

“This song is about being able to release people with love” is how Kali Uchis explained her first single of 2023, “I Wish you Roses.” She added, “It could be a friend, a lover, or someone else, but the point is to celebrate releasing people from your life without being resentful or bitter.” This beautiful sentiment quite aptly gets represented in the equally lovely single. Uchis’s vocals have always been a draw but here, they provide a level of serenity necessary to embrace the lyrical content, making us never question her sincerity. Uchis has proven to be quite the musical chameleon and this single proves yet again that she is one of the most versatile artists we have and, arguably, still continues to be one of the most underrated.

“For Granted” – Yaeji

Speaking of underrated, that’s likely to change now for Yaeji as she preps the release (finally!) of her debut album, With A Hammer. The lead single, “For Granted,” comes nearly three years after two EPs and we’ve got to say it was worth the wait. The Korean-American producer has such a unique style that you instantly are drawn into her world and begin to take the ingenuity she’s presenting for granted because it sounds so seamless. Listeners like to be challenged and while K-pop has certainly proven that the artists defy genres, Yaeji is in her own lane and so let’s hope we don’t just lump the musician solely by her ethnic background but highlight her for the amazing producer she is!