February '25 in Music
Inside: Oklou, The Weather Station, Addison Rae and more.
This is a monthly segment where I selectively discuss music that piqued my interest within the month. We cover new and older releases alike. Literally whatever’s been on rotation. You can find January’s post here.
Artists:
Bob Dylan & Joan Baez
So, as I explained in the previous installment, these posts are meant to coordinate with a little culture series I’m doing in Greek these days which includes film reviews and okay, listen. I don’t know what they laced A Complete Unknown (the new Bob Dylan biopic directed by James Mangold, starring Timothée Chalamet) with that’s rendering me incapable of shutting up about it, but somehow this is what I’m dealing with in the year of our Lord 2025. Never before have I been such a perfect target audience for something! I’m the Gen Z youngin finding an entry point into Dylan and the gang through a Hollywood movie, half-motivated by a fantasy of queening out with Chalamet over ‘60s folk records.
While, in spite of my newfound fascination with his myth, the Dylan discography quest remains challenging, I’ve found myself enamored with the Newport era recordings split between his and Joan Baez’s catalog. It’s hard to understate the connection I’ve struck with the latter’s work — I’ve spent February unwinding to Baez’s ethereal songbird sensibilities evening after evening, marveling at the crystal clear precision of her voice and the warmth it radiates besides it, whether on folk standards or original material.
When it comes to the reason I’ve coupled the two here, my feelings can be condensed into “It Ain’t Me Babe,” a prominent feature in Mangold’s film and probably my most listened to song of the month. I remember coming across a clip of them singing the duet on stage long before seeing A Complete Unknown or acquiring any familiarity with the lore of it all and wondering if they had something going behind the scenes simply based on the chemistry emanating from the screen. Well.
Jeff Buckley
I’m convinced I could make a really strong case about “Everybody Here Wants You” being the best song of all time. It’s not only the unabashedly romantic sensibility of Jeff Buckley’s lyricism that makes so many of his recordings worthy of projecting the most fanciful of ideations onto, however, but the, perhaps, unsung quality of his voice: sensual beyond belief, tender even as it sweeps through peaks and valleys with astonishing gusto. On this more focused excursion into his short but mighty discography (in part, in preparation for the upcoming documentary by Amy J. Berg), I was most drawn to tracks like “Corpus Christi Carol,” “Nightmares By The Sea” and “New Year’s Prayer.” (The latter, for some reason, I heavily associate with Guadagnino’s Queer, whose soundtrack, composed of Sinéad O'Connor, Prince and New Order among others, echoes an analogous essence.)
Albums:
Oklou — choke enough
#My YouTube music review goat, Professor Skye, has officially coined the term which I will be referring to Oklou’s sound with from now on: “hypo-pop” may read absolutely ridiculous, yet I find it pretty encompassing as a reaction to hyperpop which maintains association to the artificial elements that define the existing subgenre, while aligning itself more with ambient spaces rather than EDM. The French singer-songwriter’s highly anticipated debut, choke enough, nevertheless, feels more grounded and punchy both sonically and in regards to subject matter than previous endeavors such as 2020’s mixtape Galore which brought together Oklou’s classical training and internet aesthetic with a glittery softness, here contained to interludes and sporadic flourishes.
Featuring production by PC Music’s A.G. Cook and Danny L Harle and inspired features from Bladee and underscores (both render “take me by the hand” and “harvest sky” two of the most arresting moments of the tracklist), the record is tethered to real life, weighted by reflections and unanswered questions about humanity and relationships, but still light on its feet as every Oklou project: graceful, fragile, and prismatic.
Songs:
The Weather Station – “Mirror”
I listened to this song for the first time at the top of the month and it was all it took for me to start drafting my “Best of 2025” playlist. The rich sound of Canadian folk songwriter Tamara Lindeman’s seventh studio album Humanhood was born out of improvisational band sessions that produced recordings then overdubbed with additional instrumental flourishes. The result is kind of like witnessing a miracle. On “Mirror,” which reflects upon the transience and holism of life and the world, and which Lindeman wanted to feel like “being bathed in light,” there is realization such as that which occurs when extraordinary events unsettle the self. Something of the George Saunders quote “Everything has always been falling down around us, only we were too alive to notice” — “All light passes, it falls straight down / You don’t know you receive it like the grass on the ground.”
Σtella – “Omorfo Mou”
The first Greek-language release from synth pop darling Stella Chronopoulou arrived in the lead-up to her upcoming album Adagio: a meditation on love, desire, time, and rest. “Omorfo Mou,” playful and understated like most of Σtella’s catalog, is an ode “to anything precious to us and how that’s worth giving it all we got” that weaves traditional Greek musical elements into her globally accessible, lush, contemporary pop sound.
Addison Rae – “High Fashion”
The latest offering from Addison Rae takes me one step further into “she is happening, I fear” territory. Last year’s “Diet Pepsi” marked the start of a sonic trajectory that’s proving fruitful for the rising popstar, who finally seems to be finding her footing in the industry. Out of the three singles mapping out this next career step of Rae’s thus far — two of which have leaned more heavily into influences such as Lana Del Rey and Madonna — “High Fashion” appears to be, perhaps, the most original endeavor, lacing sultry bedroom R&B with some eerie, left-of-center dissonance.
[ BLACKPINK Solo Single Corner ]
These were shooting off from every direction in February so I feel obliged to take a moment to touch on them. The BLACKPINK members’ respective solo eras have kept my curiosity entertained thus far, regardless of whether the output ends up making my rotation or not. With the exception of ROSÉ, who rounded out her project’s cycle at the end of last year (to no success on my personal charts), last month saw consecutive releases from LISA, JISOO, and JENNIE.
LISA – “Born Again” (feat. Doja Cat & RAYE)
We all know this is a RAYE song, was always meant to be a RAYE song, would be much better off as a RAYE song. It’s a RAYE song even when it’s not simply a RAYE song, meaning the British singer is quite literally the track’s only source of life. I’m definitely one to defend LISA’s singing when appropriate, but her voice doesn’t work for me here, especially when it’s inevitably rendered the least charismatic of the three — even when this chorus melody is pretty engaging for another disco resurgence track (it’s 2025, mind you). Doja Cat sounds exactly like someone who’s done this type of verse on this type of beat another 10 times in the past: faultless and bored.
(As I’m typing this paragraph, I can feel a creeping urge to make a sidenote about that Oscars performance. Actively deciding against it.)
JISOO – “earthquake”
How to save K-pop in the middle of your acting career? As far as I’m concerned, this came out of nowhere. A pleasant surprise nonetheless. The subtleness and minimalism of JISOO’s musical endeavors (mostly pertaining to singles) is an approach I quite frankly enjoy and find flattering on her. There is no need for the extra mile — she knows it, we know it, everyone’s having a good time. It only helps that this is one of the best straightforward pop songs to come out of the scene this year and somehow manages to not sound noticeably derivative.
JENNIE – “ExtraL” (feat. Doechii)
I’m sure I’m not the only one they had at “Incominggggg” ~ The concept of JENNIE featuring Doechii on a Dem Jointz beat would’ve sounded surreal a handful of years ago, but it’s 2025 and nothing has ever made more sense. This is JENNIE’s big one in my book, the most well-executed, impactful and current of Ruby’s singles so far, as well as the collaboration that houses the most natural chemistry. A song that feels like the peak of what this project is aiming to achieve and, dare I say, has some of that classic BLACKPINK essence to it.