I Love This Song! is a Friday guide to the week’s new (or newish) albums, mixtapes, playlists, singles, loosies, collaborations, and/or diss tracks.
When Tove Lo’s “Habits (Stay High),” (specifically the Hippie Sabatoge Remix) took hold in the summer of 2014, I remember feeling a specific sort of relief. Here was a pop song I could woozily sway to at 4 a.m. after I’d smoked way too much and needed to go home. “Habits” is a dark and thorny love song all about making shitty decisions in shitty times, and not giving a crap. Listening to it inspired me not to either.
I got the same feeling listening to “Imma Be,” the best song from Tatiana Hazel’s mellow new EP, Toxic. Hazel is a Chicago-born Mexican-American singer with an electric-blue mullet, who wraps thorny topics in optimistic pop sounds — often adding in some Cumbia beats or singing in Spanish. While “Habits” is what you listen to in those dark dregs of Saturday night’s party, “Imma Be” is what you listen to at the end of the bender, acknowledging all the weird-ass things you just did but knowing that whatever you did on Saturday, you’ll probably be all right come Monday.
