There a bunch of new music out this week that I’m interested in including albums by Yola, Billie Eilish, Bleachers, and Prince. I haven’t had a chance to really dig into any of those albums yet, so I’m rewinding to last week and talking about a song from Leon Bridges’ new album, Gold-Diggers Sound. I was at the Newport Folk Festival last weekend, so I skipped my regular New Music Friday post. I’ve been looking forward to this album for months, and it totally would have been my topic last week had I written a post so I’m going to talk about it today instead even though there are some other interesting things out today.

I adore Leon Bridges and his soulful smooth R&B sound. He recorded the new album in Gold-Diggers studio, which is also a hotel and bar in Hollywood where he spent the past two years living and recording this album. It is very recognizable as a Leon Bridges album while also incorporating some sounds of more modern R&B. I chose to highlight the song “Steam” because I feel like it melds together Leon Bridges signature sound with more modern sounds but also sounds of 80s R&B. There’s a female background vocal that sounds very 80s to me and that I almost think is a sample of something that I can’t quite put my finger on. Even if it’s not a sample it’s very evocative of 80s R&B music to me. I dig it.