Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images; Zackery Michael;Dead Oceans; Harper Smith; Alex John Beck
Every Friday, EW s music team runs down the five best songs of the week. In today s edition, Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars leave us feeling smooth as silk, Lil Baby furthers his artistic vision, Rostam dreams of road trips, Japanese Breakfast wants you to be sweet, and St. Vincent just wants to be loved. Leave the Door Open Silk Sonic
A smooth-as-butter debut from the fittingly named Silk Sonic, a super duo consisting of pop star revivalist Bruno Mars and multi-hyphenate funkster Anderson .Paak. Leave the Door Open is all come-ons ( I won t bite, unless you like/If you smoke, I got the haze/And if you re hungry, girl, I got filets ) and pitch-perfect harmonies. It s a 21st-century take on the Delfonics with the style and substance to match.
Big Sean’s Detroit 2 was immediately a huge topic of conversation when it was released in September 2020. Fans had been waiting on a project of this magnitude from Big Sean since 2017, and he truly delivered. From start to finish, there is not one song on this 21-track project that we would consider skipping. Overall, the project felt personal like we were listening to an evolved Big Sean rediscover himself. His mature, reflective lyrics, melodies, tone, cadences even the features sounded intimate and carefully chosen.
On this album he invited both familiar, A-list artists, like Eminem, Lil Wayne, Travis Scott, Ty Dolla $ign, Post Malone, Anderson .Paak, Diddy, Young Thug, and of course, his girlfriend, Jhene Aiko. The first song, “Why Would I Stop?” sets the tone from the jump, dropping the clever one-liners we expect from him as well as deep, complex, thought-provoking ones that we hear throughout the rest of the album. From there, Big Sean takes us on a bit of a soni