We Speak Indie Artist

Frankie 5Ø3 Turns A Love Song Into Something That Actually Feels Real

Published

7 months ago

May 1, 2026

Music4U

A smiling man with voluminous curly dark hair wearing a dark shirt, looking down against a light background.

Love songs are easy to write and hard to believe. Frankie 5Ø3 gets that, and “R0LL3RC0AST3R” lands because it sounds lived-in, not manufactured.

Pulled from UN P0C0 EM0, the track avoids the usual clichés by keeping its focus on the details. The writing came from a trip to Saint George Island, with long hours spent on a dock and a melody forming somewhere between the guitar and the view. You can hear that setting in the final version. It feels open, calm, and personal.

Musically, it leans into warmth. Acoustic guitar carries the emotional weight, while electric guitar and keys give it texture without pulling attention away from the message. Nothing is fighting for space. Everything points back to the feeling.

That feeling is straightforward: being so in love that language stops cooperating. Frankie writes for that exact moment, when someone changes your world and suddenly every normal sentence feels too small.

What makes “R0LL3RC0AST3R” memorable is that it trusts the emotion instead of trying to oversell it. It sounds like someone saying what they mean, and that still goes a long way.

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We Speak Indie Artist

Rockie Rode Is Back With “Concrete Cowboy,” a New Single and a Joe Endo Video

Published

2 days ago

November 13, 2026

We Speak Media

Rockie Rode press photo at night in front of a graffiti wall, wearing black patent trousers with a winged belt buckle

New York’s Rockie Rode returns with “Concrete Cowboy,” a new single paired with a video by collaborator Joe Endo — a portrait of a wayward city dweller that gives the cowboy mythos a distinctly modern, unvarnished city spin.

WATCH: “Concrete Cowboy” on YouTube

New York’s Rockie Rode is back to share new single “Concrete Cowboy.” The single is paired with a video by collaborator Joe Endo featuring a grainy compilation of boys in cowboy hats across the city’s bodegas and fire escapes.

Following her celebrated self-titled album Rockie, which Pitchfork described as “spooky and charming,” calling it, “an unassuming indie-pop record with the aura of a vintage cult classic,” Rode continues to build on the subtle and earnest country inflections of her debut. “Concrete Cowboy” carves out a world where the romanticism of an urban frontier meets the hazy, atmospheric pull of intangible connections lost and found. It’s sung from a point of view that feels as universal as it’s vividly specific, and is as good an entry point as any into the ephemeral and poignant world of Rockie Rode.

Blending these textures with folk songwriting, Rockie Rode crafts songs steeped in themes of self-invention, disillusionment, and longing. Her work captures the restless, searching nature of youth, where romantic ideals meet the realities of getting by. On “Concrete Cowboy,” Rode sketches a portrait of a wayward city dweller, embodying a distinctly modern, unvarnished take on the cowboy mythos: “Don’t ask him where he’s from he’s got no answers…he’s a concrete cowboy who doesn’t give a damn, with enough deli weed and tallboys.”

Speaking about the new single Rockie shares, “I’m a New Yorker but my biggest idols are female country/rock singer-songwriters from the 70’s-90s: Lucinda Williams, Linda Ronstadt, Emmy Lou Harris. There’s this watered-down nostalgic Americana hypnosis that we are collectively trapped in, but I think a lot of people aren’t getting the point. Those old country songs are about real heartbreak. Meanwhile, the most heartbreaking thing these guys wearing cowboy boots in Bushwick are doing is pretending they’re bisexual.”

The weathered idealism of Rode’s writing against her haunting vocals is disarming. As Pitchfork concluded, “I’m prepared to believe in Rockie Rode the whole time.”

Next month Rockie will be performing at Pitchfork Paris and London before heading to LA for And Always Forever festival. Listen to “Concrete Cowboy” above and stay tuned for more coming soon.