Charlie Puth’s smells, Yungblud’s Durex endorsement & more: Your weekly bop roundup

Welcome to the weekend, Queerty readers! Can you smell what the bop is cookin’?

It’s been a long week, and it seems like it’s had folks feeling pretty sensitive: JK Rowling spent all week backpedaling, Sarah Palin felt the defeat in Alaska, and Lea Michele was appalled when her friends read her all the Twitter jokes.

This weeks drops were a little more sensitive than usual, too — mostly we mean introspective, though one of the entries did add in a little extra sensation of the physical kind.

From self-reflection to extra protection, here’s your weekly bop roundup:

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“Smells Like Me” by Charlie Puth

Charlie loves nothing more than a heavily layered vocal on a synthpop ballad (other than getting a little thotty for the masses, that is). This definitely isn’t a huge departure for the post-Voicenotes sound he’s cultivated in “Girlfriend” or “Light Switch”, but it’s a perfectly fun sadboy bop to tide us over til Charlie drops in October. And you know what? We hope your jacket smells like Charlie Puth, too.

“Tissues” by YUNGBLUD

Yungblud’s uber-energetic persona is right at home in this take on The Cure’s “Close To Me”. The video amps the excitement up to eleven, with queer bar/cinema scenes and some highly kinetic camerawork. Also amping up the excitement is the adorably on-the-nose Durex product placement smack dab in the middle of the video. Hopefully the one he hands off to the pair next to him isn’t the same one provocatively hanging from his lips in the next shot — we don’t need any teeth punctures.

“When Someone Loves You” by Emeli Sandé and Nile Rodgers

Following an adorable coming out back in April, Emeli Sandé is in full musical effect. Her subsequent album, Let’s Say For Instance, was equal parts engaging and expansively ballad-ous. “When Someone Loves You”, on the other hand, is a disco dancing good time that would make a perfect double feature with Alex Newell’s “Kill The Lights”. Joining her on the track is groove icon Nile Rodgers, and his guitar solo bumps this whole thing up yet another notch.

“In Sensitivity” by Puppy Angst

Indie outfit Puppy Angst — literally “puppy love but a lil more sad” on their bandcamp — seems to know just how to nail that After Laughter “hurt lyrics/happy sound” effect. As turned inwards as the track is, they somehow manage to make “i’ve cried every day this week” and “happiness is hard for me” sound like a good time with friends. A good amount of that sounds owed to the charming vocals of they/them frontperson Alyssa Milman, but like any good band, it’s a group effort.

“Sting” by Fletcher

The girls still haven’t fully recovered from “Becky’s So Hot”, but apparently Fletcher has decided not to let anyone breathe. Fletcher’s catalogue has developed a little bit of a sapphic Sour effect, where the lore behind her public relationship gives the tracks a little extra spice, but her darker pop stylings on this track hold up whether you’re familiar with the backstory or not. As a total aside, something about the sound of “Sting” makes one remember why her Hayley Kiyoko collab worked so well — hopefully another lies in our future.

Join us back here this time next week for another bop after bop!