Hear It Now: Francis and the Lights' 'It'll Be Better'

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He's produced tracks for hip-hop's biggest new star Drake and toured with psych-rock pranksters MGMT, and now Francis Farewell Starlight is getting ready for his close-up with his stellar debut LP It'll Be Better. Rolling Stone has a first listen to the full disc here now:

Click to listen to Francis and the Lights' It'll Be Better.

With Better, the New York-based musician who fronts Francis and the Lights has made the best album Prince never recorded, filled with '80s-style synth-pop throwbacks, sexed-up ballads for late-night dips in the hot tub and soulful falsetto vocals. But Starlight, who attended Wesleyan with MGMT's Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, also injects these tunes with a cerebral vibe: cuts like "In a Limousine" feature tricked-out jazz-rock beats that recall studio pros Steely Dan.

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Song Stories

“Everyday People”

Sly and the Family Stone | 1968

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.

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