Best Songs of the Week (Jan 20th, 2017)

With so much good music, it's easy to miss out on some great tracks. So we've rounded up the best songs from the past week. Here are the songs you can't afford to skip, in no particular order.

Over the summer Maggie Rogers made a brilliant first impression with her single "Alaska," a feel-good record that provided an upbeat twist on a folk foundation. In the time since then, Rogers has continued to impress and gain more attention for herself with each release.

As she prepares for the release of her debut EP Now That The Light Is Fading, Rogers kicks off the new year with new single "On + Off." Her sweet voice is transformative enough to sound both soothing and bold. Rogers has a unique sound that feels impossible to properly compare, and that detail is precisely what continues to make her so intriguing. By slowing the tempo down just a bit from her breakout single, "On + Off" provides the space for the feeling of Rogers' lyrics to take center stage and showcases more of her versatile talent.—Adrienne Black

It's been a long time since we last heard from Corbin, who briefly appeared sometime last year for a rare live appearance teasing upcoming material. Quietly uploaded to SoundCloud, Corbin's "Destrooy" is an understated return. This isn't a criticism of the almost ambient new track, but it does offer a chance to discuss how little Corbin seems interested in people's expectations. Avoiding the thudding, sleepy production of his most well-known output, "Destrooy" focuses on something a little different, and it's all the more welcome a return because of it.

Corbin has already proved himself as a capable songwriter, but "Destrooy" plays with preconceptions a little more. Some might say that it sounds like an unfinished Spooky Black song, but really the only thing the track asks for is patience.—Joe Price

Migos are not letting up as the days countdown to the release of their new album Culture, out January 27. "Bad and Boujee" hit No. 1, "Call Casting" is  an underrated banger, the "T-Shirt" video is incredible, and now we get yet another side of Migos' sound.

Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset slow things down and get melodic over 808Godz, Ricky Racks, and Keanu Beats's guitar-filled beat. Culture is about to be a special album.​—Alex Gardner

Swedish rapper and singer Busu caught my attention last year with the brilliant "116 RIP," and I've been eagerly anticipating his next single ever since. "I've Been Coughing Blood" shares some traits with "116 RIP," delivering another off-kilter chorus that avoids the desire to go full-on anthemic. The minimal Teo Sweden-produced instrumental is fantastic in its own way, but Busu's idiosyncratic vocals are the real star of the show here. Building upon the polished pop-sheen of his previous single, Busu is gearing up to deliver one of 2017's most exciting prospects with his forthcoming debut album.—Joe Price

I have a loose theory about samples and interpolations that I call the 15-20 year rule. Roughly speaking, that range of years marks a kind of sweet spot for samples—fresh enough that they're recognizable if they come from big hit songs, but not so recent that they're instantly identifiable to the casual listener. It's obviously not a rigid truth about samples, but one that starts to reveal itself loosely when you look for examples (the song that inspired this: Arian Grande's "The Way," which came out in 2013 and sampled Big Pun's "Still Not A Player," released in 1998, 19 years after the release of its sample source, Brenda Russell's "A Little Bit of Love").

Newcomer MarcLo's "Swngn" reinterprets Montell Jordan's 1995 megahit "This Is How We Do It" (which samples Slick Rick's iconic 1989 hit "Children's Story," which in turn samples jazz pianist Bob James' 1974 song "Nautilus," not itself a hit, but one of the most recognizably sampled songs of all time nonetheless). Though it falls just a hair outside of the 20 year boundary, "Swngn" shows the power of recasting the familiar in new form, playing with the spirit, melody, and lyrics of "This Is How We Do It" to create something that's irresistibly fun and smartly nostalgic. It's an homage that uses the past as funky fuel for the present.—Jon Tanners