Leaning | 3BOPS

1. Aaron Frazer, “Leanin’ on Your Everlasting Love”

💿 Introducing… • 🏷 Dead Oceans / Easy Eye Sound • 📅 2021

🎙 Aaron Frazer, a member of 🎙 Durand Jones & The Indications, steps out on his own his 2021 debut album, 💿 Introducing…. Throughout the retro-soul LP, Frazer definitely makes the best of a soulful backdrop and his ability to croon like an absolute boss.  He concludes Introducing… with arguably its most triumphant moment, the gospel/blues-infused ballad, 🎵 “Leanin’ on Your Everlasting Love.”  While he continues to deliver a calm, cool, and collected vocal, here it feels as if he brings more oomph and punch.  Maybe it’s the passion, coupled with one of the best production jobs 🎛 Dan Auerbach serves up on the entire album.  If you can’t feel the passion on this one, well, you must truly have a heart of stone!

2. HAIM, “Leaning on You”

💿 Women in Music, Pt. III • 🏷 Columbia • 📅 2020

“I might forget to turn out all the lights / But you can take care of me when I have to leave at dawn.” Sweet, sweet, sweet! 💿 Women in Music Pt. III is an incredibly well put-together album by 🏆 Grammy-nominated soft-rock sister trio, HAIM – among the crème de la crème of 2020. 🎵 “Leaning on You” appears on the second half of the LP, specifically the ninth track.  Like the songs that precede and follow, it’s top-notch.  There are plenty of things to sink one’s teeth into, whether it’s the gorgeous vocal harmonies, the rhythmic and rousing production (🎛 Danielle Haim, 🎛 Rostam Batmanglij, 🎛 Ariel Rechtshaid), the colorful instrumental bridge, and songwriting that is clearly on-point (🎼✍ HAIM, 🎼✍ Rostam).

The chorus, embracing, leaning on that special person, is the centerpiece, intact with a f-bomb! F’ing A!

“It takes all that I got
Not to fuck this up
So, won’t you let me know
If I’m not alone?
Leaning on you.”

3. Lil Peep, “Leanin’”

💿 Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 2 • 🏷 Columbia • 📅 2018

“Leanin’ back in my seat / Got me thinkin’ bout my life now (Life now) / I wish that I could see you right now (Right now) …” 🎵 “Leanin’” appears as the fifth track from 💿 Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 2, the first posthumous album by 🎙 Lil Peep. Lil Peep, of course, died at the age of 21 in November 2017, just when his career was picking up steam. Tragic.  Focusing on the song at hand, Peep seems to go down a dangerous, downward spiral. It’s quite chilling considering he’s no longer living.  From the beginning, he discusses his lifestyle, which includes “Poppin’ pills.” Even more eyebrow raising are lyrics such as “Bury me with all the lights out” (eerie) and “I was trying to die last night, survived suicide last night / Woke up surprised / Am I really alive?”