Music

SZA Just Dropped ‘Good Days,’ Her Second New Song Of 2020

The follow-up to ‘Hit Different’ will please fans of ‘CTRL.’ …

Though fans have been incredibly eager for SZA to follow up her masterful 2017 debut album CTRL, the first lady of TDE has only released one-offs here and there or features (check out “Freaky Girls” on Megan Thee Stallion’s Good News for a taste) for the most part during 2020. This summer she did release “Hit Different,” a collaborative track with both Ty Dolla Sign, The Neptunes and Pharrell Williams — but the song was dominated by Ty.

Tonight, she’s changed all that by releasing “Good Days,” a sad but optimistic track that yearns after just what the title names, and manages to hit much more of a melodic, narrative-driven tone that puts it more in line with her CTRL output. Still, the track is connected to “Hit Different” because a snippet of it plays at the end of that first song, linking the two and indicating that they might come after each other on a potential new album. If we’re kicking off 2021 with a new record from SZA, well then the year is already looking up. The adorable cover art for the song features what can only be a photo of young SZA, with the title written across her forehead.

Listen above.

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Artist Spotlight

“Subterranean Homesick Blues” finds a new direction through Ghost of Panama

Rearranging a song that carries six decades of cultural weight is a creative challenge, but Ghost of Panama approaches “Subterranean Homesick Blues” with clear purpose. The rock band radically reworks Bob Dylan’s counter-culture hit, reshaping its identity while keeping its rebellious spirit. It’s a tribute to musical heritage and a statement of artistic independence all in one.

This new interpretation is very much shaped by the production, made at Ghost of Panama’s home studio in West London. The setting allows an intimate approach to reinterpreting a familiar song and lets the group engage directly with the material, taking it in a new artistic direction.

“Subterranean Homesick Blues” centers on the tension between conservation and transformation. Ghost of Panama is true to the song’s rebellious spirit without adding to its legacy, and this approach gives the release an adventurous feel, grounded in countercultural energy but driven by a desire to see what the composition can become in a different musical context.

Artist Spotlight

“NO MORE” by Amanda Holley connects healing, awakening, and survival

“NO MORE“ carries that kind of emotional weight, and some songs feel like they come from lived experience but reach for something bigger. Amanda Holley blends R&B and soul, turning a lifetime of survival into a vision of healing, awakening, and the determination to move beyond what caused the pain.

“NO MORE“ is a healing anthem for people who have gone through bad experiences and reached a place of higher awareness, but it’s also an emotionally charged protest. The duality is introspective and outward-looking at the same time, turning personal survival into a broader declaration that some experiences, conditions, or cycles should end.

Holley had a premonition of the song six months before the world went into global shutdown. In the vocal booth, working out melodies with her collaborators, she pictured people in the streets. Those images were hard to imagine at the time, but subsequent events would make them painfully familiar.

“NO MORE“ is given a particularly contemplative underpinning by the context. The identity of R&B and soul leaves room for emotion. The song’s themes link survival, awakening, resistance, and the need for change. Amanda Holley is an artist using music to process personal endurance and a broader sense of social awakening. It’s got a complicated significance, and its release feels like a glimpse of a moment when personal intuition and public reality collided in an unexpected way.

Photo Credit: Yulia Shusharina

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