This is a 'Sweet Spot' - Singapore-based Matilde G drops the summer's most irresistible pop surprise for music fans
Distributed by Sony Music, the song's catchy theme from the singer reads: " A moonlit spark. A tidal pull. A pop anthem you'll crave all season long. "
The song, which officially arrived on July 18 but will be released worldwide on Friday (July 25), has already garnered more than half a million hits on YouTube and is also soaring in other online media networks.
With this new single, distributed by Sony Music, Matilde G takes us to that magical moment when two people lock eyes and everything else disappears. Inspired by the night she met her boyfriend under a full moon, Sweet Spot is a lush, intoxicating track that pulses with attraction, confidence, and sonic heat.
From the opening lines 'Saturday night / Met you under the full moon light,' you're transported into a world where desire glows like neon and the beat moves like warm waves.
Produced by Julian Feifel and written by Matilde G with Shayna Zaid and Feifel himself, Sweet Spot blends smooth afropop grooves with glossy pop textures.
It's rhythmic, sexy, and completely addictive, the kind of song that plays in your head long after the music stops.
Matilde's voice dances between English and Italian, slipping in the sultry line 'Mi fai impazzire' ('you drive me crazy') with the ease of someone completely lost in the moment. There's vulnerability here, but also power, the sound of a young woman who knows exactly what she wants.
'This song is my favourite kind of memory,' Matilde says. 'Real, unexpected, and electric. I wanted to make a track that felt like falling, into love, into rhythm, into someone's arms.'
A BOUT MATILDE G
At just 20, Matilde G is crafting a world-class pop career from Singapore, with Italian roots and an international fanbase.
With over 30 million global streams, over 500 ,000 followers, and performances across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the U S , and Latin America, currently, she's more than an artist, she's a movement.
Her fandom — the MGs — is spreading from TikTok to every major platform. Her music, often born from deeply personal experiences, blends honesty with boldness, creating songs that connect instantly.
She's sung about resilience, mental disorders, heartbreak, and now, with Sweet Spot, she opens a new chapter: pleasure, presence, and the power of a glance. -- Additional info on Matilde G - from Sony Music
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The Star
10 hours ago
- The Star
The claw grip is trending, and it says a lot about women's fashion woes
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Read more: Why toes are taking over: Fashion's growing obsession with feet-first style An Instagram account dedicated to girls carrying things (which uses a profane synonym for 'things' and sometimes goes by GCS) posts images submitted by users of their hands full of various bric-a-brac. 'I have seen my grandma do the claw grip all her life,' comedian Atsuko Okatsuka said in an email. 'Every grandma of every culture and race always has, like, a napkin or a piece of trash that they've been carrying around for a long time, maybe years. 'I have taken on the passed-down tradition of claw hands myself,' she added. 'Whether it's mayonnaise packets, or napkins or my cellphone, I am always holding stuff.' For Halle Robbe, personal experience with this tradition prompted her to create the GCS account on Instagram. In 2021, Robbe had run out to a nearby bodega. 'I just brought my keys, my wallet and my AirPods with me, and then I was going to get a Red Bull,' she said, noting that she did not bring a bag. 'I had it all in my hand so I took a photo and put it on my personal Instagram with some silly caption that was some version of, like, 'After hundreds of years of evolution, this is what I can do.'' Her friends responded to her post almost immediately, saying they do the same thing. Robbe created the GCS account that same day. She initially solicited photos from friends and co-workers, and now she receives more than 100 submissions a day. 'I think we've all been there when we have just, like, an assortment of stuff and we're running out the door,' said Abby Cox, 29, a fashion historian and a YouTube content creator. 'I need to make sure I have my glasses. I need my water bottle. Do I need to bring a snack? 'And so you're going out the door with your purse,' she added, 'And then the stuff that should be in your purse.' A popular theory around the origins of the claw grip is that it is a reaction to the fashion industry's refusal to provide women with the functional pockets that are standard in men's clothing. It was not always this way. As far back as the Regency and Victorian eras, women had pockets in the form of bags that were tied around their waists underneath their big, flouncy skirts, Cox said. Their dresses had slits through which women could access these pockets, which could be as big or small as necessary. Cox added: 'They would have pockets in the hems of skirts or they would have what we call butt pockets, because in the back pleats of gowns, you could hide a deep pocket.' In one of her YouTube videos, in which she is dressed in Victorian clothing, she put an entire bottle of prosecco in such a pocket. 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There are also theories that the claw grip reflects the chaos of the minds of women who are thinking through to-do lists and mentally writing text messages and running errands all at the same time. 'I think holding things in our hands actually is our need to keep something in control,' Okatsuka said. 'I started getting submissions that were like, 'Oh, I'm carrying XYZ and the weight of the world' or something metaphorical like that,' Robbe said. The claw grip, she added, could be seen as 'an extension of or in parallel with the mental and emotional and spiritual burdens that women carry'. Read more: From kopitiam to cool: How the white tank top became a style staple for men It is an idea that artist Maira Kalman started to explore three years ago. 'One day at a farmers market, I saw a woman carrying an absolutely gigantic cabbage,' Kalman said in a 2023 TED Talk. 'It made me think of all the things women hold, literally and metaphorically.' Yes, they hold cabbages, balloons, phones. But also, in her own words, "the home and the family and the children and the food". "The friendships, the work, the work of the world and the work of being human. The memories and the troubles and the sorrows and the triumphs and the love. Men do as well, but not quite in the same way,' she added. She turned her observations into a book of paintings. It is called Women Holding Things. – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The Star
18 hours ago
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Who is watching all these podcasts?
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All of which makes it hard to pinpoint a 'typical' podcast viewer. Is it a couple on the couch with a bucket of popcorn, streaming to their smart TV? Is it a young office worker scrolling through TikTok during his commute? Or is it the same person engaging in different behaviour at different points in the day? Alyssa Keller, who lives in Michigan with her family, said sometimes she watches 'The Shawn Ryan Show' on the television with her husband. But more often, she puts the video on the phone for a few hours while her children are napping. This means she sometimes has to watch marathon episodes in chunks. 'I've been known to take multiple days,' she said. 'Nap times only last for like two hours.' In February, YouTube announced that more than 1 billion people a month were viewing podcasts on its platform. According to Tim Katz, head of sports and news partnerships at YouTube, that number is so large that it must include users who are actually mainlining five-hour talk shows. 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Now, the size of the market for video podcasts is too large to ignore, and many ad deals require podcasters to have a video component. The platforms where these video podcasts live, predominantly YouTube and Spotify, are creating new kinds of podcast consumers, who expect video. McDermott, the Von fan, said the video component made her feel like she had a friendly guest in her home. 'It feels a little more personal, like somebody is there with you,' she said. 'I live alone with my two cats and I'm kind of in a rural area in Pennsylvania, so it's just a little bit of company almost.' The world of podcasts today is also far more integrated into social media. Clips of video podcasts slot neatly into the Gen Z and millennial behemoths of TikTok and Instagram. The sophisticated YouTube recommendation algorithm suggests relevant new podcasts to viewers, something that wasn't possible in the old, siloed model on other platforms. To get a sense of just how much things have changed, imagine the viral podcast appearances of the 2024 presidential campaign – Donald Trump on Von's podcast and Kamala Harris on 'Call Her Daddy' – happening without YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and X. You can't. In a sign of the times, in June, radio company Audacy shuttered Pineapple Street Studios, a venerable podcast producer known for its in-depth narrative shows such as 'Wind of Change' and Ronan Farrow's 'The Catch and Kill Podcast.' Jenna Weiss-Berman, who co-founded Pineapple Street, is now head of audio at comedian and actress Amy Poehler's Paper Kite Productions. Poehler's new podcast, 'Good Hang with Amy Poehler,' is typical of the genre: a charismatic, well-known host, interviewing other charismatic, well-known people. Weiss-Berman said she was concerned that the costs associated with high-quality video production would be prohibitive for smaller podcast creators, who faced almost no barrier to entry when all the genre required was a few microphones. 'If you want to do it well, you need a crew and a studio,' Weiss-Berman said. For podcasters with an established audience, the potential of video to open up new audiences for the world of talk podcasts is obvious. (The Times has introduced video podcasts hosted by some of its more recognisable columnists.) Adam Friedland, a comedian who started his video interview show in 2022, first came to prominence on an irreverent and lewd audio-only hangout podcast with two fellow comedians. He got an early taste of the limitations of traditional podcast distribution when he discovered fan cutups of the funniest moments of his old show on YouTube. 'There was an organic growth to it,' Friedland said. 'We weren't doing press or promoting it.' Friedland's new show is an arch interview program with high-profile guests and considerably fewer impenetrable – not to mention scatological – references. Along with that, distribution over YouTube has made a once cult figure something a bit closer to a household name, as he discovered recently. 'There was a regular middle-aged guy at a Starbucks who said he liked the show,' Friedland recalled. 'Some guy holding a Sweetgreen.' Friedland's show is the rare video podcast with a distinctive visual point of view. The vintage-looking set is a reconstruction of 'The Dick Cavett Show.' And Friedland made it clear that he prefers people to watch the show rather than listen to it. The many ways that Americans now consume podcasts – actively and passively, sometimes with another device in hand, sometimes without – bears an obvious similarity to the way Americans consume television. 'I think podcasts could become kind of the new basic cable television,' said Marshall Lewy, chief content officer of Wondery, a podcast network owned by Amazon. Think: shows that are cheaper to produce than so-called premium streaming content, consumed by audiences used to half-watching television while scrolling their smartphones, in a wide variety of genres. Indeed, although talk dominates among video podcasts, Lewy said he thought the trend for video would lead to more shows about food and travel – categories beloved by advertisers – that weren't ideal when podcasts were audio only. All of which calls into question the basic nature of the term 'podcast.' Riismandel, who runs the research firm Signal Hill, said he thought the category applied to any programming that could be listened to without video and still understood. According to Katz, the YouTube executive, the nature of the podcaster is undergoing a redefinition. It includes both audio-only podcasters moving to video, as well as social media content creators who have realised that podcasts present another opportunity to build their audiences. One concern with the shift to video, according to former Vox and Semafor video boss Joe Posner, is that people who are less comfortable on screen will be left out. This could lead to a deepening gender divide, for example, since women are much more likely to face harassment over their looks, especially from an engaged online fan base – and therefore potentially less likely to want to be on camera for hours on end. Still, for all the eyeballs moving to YouTube, audio remains the way most consumers experience podcasts, according to the April survey, with 58% of people listening to only audio or to a minimised or backgrounded video. And although YouTube is now the most used platform for podcast consumption, per the survey, it's far from monolithic; a majority of podcast consumers say they use a platform other than YouTube most often, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcasts. That's why at least one pillar of audio-first podcasting doesn't see much to be alarmed about. Ira Glass, creator of the foundational long-form radio show 'This American Life,' said the fact that the podcast tent has gotten bigger and thrown up a projector screen doesn't threaten a program like his. 'That's a strength, not a weakness – that both things exist and are both called the same thing,' Glass said. He stressed that audio-only podcasting has formal strengths that video podcasts don't. 'There's a power to not seeing people,' Glass said. 'There's a power to just hearing things. It just gets to you in a different way. But if people want to watch people on a talk show, that seems fine to me. I don't feel protective of podcasting in that way. I don't have snowflake-y feelings about podcasts.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The Star
2 days ago
- The Star
10 songs to remember Ozzy Osbourne, the great Black Sabbath frontman
There are pioneering music figures, and then there is Ozzy Osbourne, the larger-than-life frontman of Black Sabbath, whose personal mythology is eclipsed only by the strength and immortality of his songs. A godfather and force of heavy metal, Osbourne died Tuesday at 76, just weeks after his last performance. The English icon's idiosyncratic, throaty voice launched generations of metalheads, both through his work at the reins of Black Sabbath and in his solo career. Across his repertoire, there are songs with total global ubiquity and lesser-known innovations with his unique, spooky aesthetic quality. To celebrate Osbourne's life and legacy, we've selected just a few songs that made the man, from timeless tunes to a few left-of-center selections. It would be a challenge to name a more immediately recognisable guitar riff than the one that launches Black Sabbath's 1970 megahit Iron Man . It transcends the metal genre - an all-timer heard around the world and in guitar stores everywhere. One of the great Vietnam War protest songs, Black Sabbath's War Pigs is a rare moment where hippies and metalheads can agree: "Politicians hide themselves away/ They only started the war/ Why should they go out to fight?" Osbourne sings in the bridge. Osbourne's heaviest performances are at least partially indebted to Black Sabbath's bassist and lyricist Terry Geezer Butler, and there is perhaps no better example than Children of the Grave , the single from the band's 1971 album, Master of Reality . "Must the world live in the shadow of atomic fear?" Osbourne embodies Butler's words, a sonic fist lifted in the air. "Can they win the fight for peace or will they disappear?" Rock musicians (L-R) Rob Halford, Ozzy Osbourne and Nikki Sixx pose during a news conference in Los Angeles April 30, 2010 announcing the lineup for their OZZFest concert tour which kicks off August 14, 2010 in San Bernardino, California. REUTERS/Fred Prouser/File Photo Black Sabbath were in a creative rut in the time period leading up to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath , the opening track from their 1973 album of the same name. It's almost hard to believe now - the song features one of their best-known riffs, and its chorus features some truly ascendant vocals. Would the world know what a vibraslap sounds like without the immediately recognisable introduction to Osbourne's first solo single, Crazy Train ? To call it a classic is almost a disservice - it is an addicting tune, complete with chugging guitars and Cold War-era fears. Ozzy Osbourne, of Black Sabbath, performs at Ozzfest on Sept. 24, 2016, in San Bernardino, Calif. (Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File) Another classic cut from Osbourne's debut solo album, Blizzard Of Ozz - released one year after Osbourne was fired from Black Sabbath for his legendary excesses, - the arena rock anthem Mr. Crowley pays tribute to the famed English occultist Aleister Crowley and features Deep Purple's Don Airey on keyboard. The title track and coda of Osbourne's second solo studio album, Diary of a Madman , runs over six minutes long, features big strings and a choir so theatrical it sounds like they're scoring a medieval war film. He wanted big, he wanted dramatic, and he nailed it. It wouldn't be inaccurate to call Mama, I'm Coming Home a beautiful-sounding song. It's unlike anything on this list, a power ballad featuring lyrics written by the late Motörhead frontman Lemmy and a welcomed deviation. Singer Ozzy Osbourne performs during halftime of an NFL football game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Buffalo Bills in Inglewood, Calif., on Sept. 8, 2022. — Photo: AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File In the early '90s, Osbourne announced a short-lived retirement from music - one that ended with the release of 1995's Ozzmosis . There's a lot to love here - in particular, the haunting, full-throated chorus of Perry Mason . Late in life Ozzy Osbourne was generous with his time and talent, often collaborating with younger performers who idolised the metal legend. One such example is Post Malone's Take What You Want , which also features the rapper Travis Scott. Osbourne gives the song a necessary gothic edge - validating the otherwise balladic song's use of a sprightly guitar solo. – AP
