September 21, 2018

Friday’s Find Is a Familiar Narrative Told by Unfamiliar Artists

Cry, dance, and be moved by this track that hits all your music cravings.

Nicole Mago

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It’s Friday! That means it’s time for this week’s “Friday Find,” our new weekly Instagram series where we spotlight a song, record, or artist worth blasting all weekend long. 

This week: Melt by Shaed (Melt, PhotoFinish Records, 2018)

Why we’re into it: Part ballad, part dance track, part anthem, this will hit all your music cravings in one track.

Who they are: Composed of three members—lead singer Chelsea Lee and twins Max and Spencer Ernst—the DC-based trio hits hard with their second EP. But it’s the delicate balance between Lee’s powerful vocals and the twins’ melodic composition that makes Melt‘s title track shine. Lee’s gradually building voice starts the track off strong, and as the chorus comes around the hook, it transitions straight into something that simply forces you to get up and dance—even when you’re all worn out on a Friday.  

The lyrics tell a familiar story—”small artist has bad experience with big label”—but what’s bracingly original is the way Lee visualizes this struggle. Through her lyrics, the sense of capped creativity shines through in a unique manner. “Now you’re dressing me in chains/Callin’ every move I make/Now you’re beggin’ me to smile/But I can’t fake/Thought the point was to create,” she belts as the twins’ symphony creates a unique dimension in the background.

And that’s just the tip before the iceberg that is Melt. The rest of the EP flourishes with songs about love between best friends, a track that utilizes the sounds of wind chimes, and many more. Released today, this is a collection of music you’ll want to blast all weekend long.

We also want to hear from you! Give us suggestions for next week’s pick, or shoot us an emoji or two about how this song makes you feel.

Happy Friday and go dance the weekend away.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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