Syd & Steve Lacy's New Albums Bring Us Into a New Era of The Internet

'Beard' and 'Oh yeah' are two albums bringing alternative R&B forward. Up next? The Internet's return!

Syd, Steve Lacy, and Matt Martians of The Internet, through their appearance on the NYT’s Popcast, have confirmed that the band’s next studio album is coming out next year. The excitement with the announcement, being that it would be 9 years since their last release, Hive Mind, has stirred up ideas of what the band’s new sound could be in the forthcoming project.

Continuing to build anticipation for this new project were the releases of Syd’s and Steve Lacy’s new solo projects, Beard and Oh yeah?, respectively. These two album releases can make fans feel more personally connected, as they showcase the artists’ individual growth and creativity across genres, adding depth to their discographies.

Syd’s Beard, her third studio album and first project in four years, feels like a warm sunrise. An embrace of R&B mixed with stylized production influences from smooth bossa nova, bouncy afrobeat-esque sounds, and more of a realized version of Syd’s artistry.

Syd’s ‘Beard’ album cover.

The first track on the album, “Walls,” opens listeners to a world of crooning and yearning that makes you feel like she is directly spilling her feelings to you from song to song.

In an NPR interview about the project, Syd says she feels like she’s now fully “blooming” in her 30s. Through the music on this album, it feels like a flower blooming into a new era and a new perspective for listeners to peek into. Some of my personal favorites on the album were “Callin” featuring Blu June, “Always Be Mine” featuring Jordan Ward, “Bad Guys”, and “Any Time” featuring James Fauntleroy.

If I had to pick a number one favorite off the project, I’d have to say “Any Time” would take that spot. The collaborative production from Syd and Raphael Saadiq, the vocal choices from Syd and Fauntleroy, and the songwriting all keyed me into my favorite soft rock-tinged R&B songs from the late 80s into the 90s.

Where Beard feels like a sunrise, Steve Lacy’s Oh yeah? feels like a sunset that’s closing out a coming-of-age movie. Fitting with the inclusion of the first track and title track on the box-office smash “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” soundtrack, leaning more toward a grounded yet psychedelic sound.

The album carries this hypnotic guitar sound and vocal layers across songs like “the feeling” and “pure color,” featuring Erykah Badu. Even singles like “nice shoes”, which got expanded in the best way with “in your world”, and “is it cool?” featuring SZA, sound more colorful in the full context of the project.

“doom”, whose subsequent music video also captures the feeling of the song perfectly, is one of the standouts on the album. A grungy and angsty-toned song with Lacy’s silky vocals across the record, a song that definitely showcases the versatile sounds the album takes listeners on.

Jumping through genres of pop, punk, and alternative r&b, among others, Oh yeah? is another notch in Lacy’s growing artistic belt.

These two projects together also give listeners a slight glimpse of what their combined styles may bring to a new Internet era.

With both artists embarking on new journeys, whether self-assured or still figuring things out as they go, this can also help lay the foundation for how a new group album will situate their sounds, energies, and stories.

Whichever way these artists and the Internet go for their new album, it’s safe to say these new projects from Syd & Steve are great new additions to our musical libraries.