“KCSU’s Top 10 Songs Spinning This Week” is written by the KCSU Music Directors and describes the top artists that your local 90.5 FM DJs are playing this week! This article is updated weekly on Sundays and discussed on their show, “KCSU Weekly Gem Countdown,” which airs every Monday from 12-1 p.m. During the show, you can learn more about each musician or band before tuning in to the top 10 countdowns on Mondays, in which the music directors present to you the latest songs topping the charts and breaking down each song’s sound and feel.”

*= Brand new to the charts this week!

1. *Anxious — Alt/Indie — (7 spins of “More Than A Letter” off of the 2022 album release, “Little Green House”)

Anxious is an alternative punk band from Connecticut. Pitchfork explains the “quintet’s debut is the work of pop-punk professionals, modeled after the genre’s mainstream breakthroughs in the early 2000s.”

Brooklyn Vegan explains that “Anxious’ knack for immediate, enduring hooks makes ‘Little Green House’ an album that rivals the greats of early 2000s emo, and they escape coming off like a revival band because they aren’t just looking to early 2000s emo for influences.” The band has over 20,000 listeners on Spotify and are growing their career by the day.

2. *DRES_ — Hip Hop/Rap — (6 spins of “Circles” off of the 2022 single release “Circles”)

DRES_ is a Hip Hop collective from Houston Texas. According to its Spotify, the band was “brought together and built upon a foundation of ‘good vibes,’ and ‘individuality.’ No two of [them] are the same.” Their music is “like an adventure; a story; a chronicle of [their] experiences and emotions put into melody and rhythm for all to relate and/or sympathize with; in hopes of sparking a flame in another’s heart.”

With only 183 monthly listeners on Spotify, the group is growing as we watch its career take off.

3. Hippo Campus — Alt/Indie — (6 spins of “Boys” off of the 2022 album release, “LP3”)

Hippo Campus is on our charts twice! Hippo Campus explained the track “Boys” to Genius. “It was about this party I went to where I had all these crazy experiences and then woke up feeling like, ‘I need to change my life right now.’ The next day I went to New York and came back, hung out with our new manager, and felt slightly better. It’s like that feeling when you’re drunk and then you wake up hungover and you hate yourself.”

4. Mitski — Alt/Indie — (5 spins of “Should’ve Been Me” off of the 2022 album release, “Laurel Hell”)

Mitski is an indie rock singer and songwriter who was born in Japan and moved around to several countries before she finally settled in New York for college. NPR describes Mitski’s writing as “confessional and funny, boastful and self-deprecating, poetic and profane all at once.”

According to Genius, “Should’ve Been Me,” “describes one of Mitski’s relationships and the isolation she felt as a consequence of poor communication on the part of her partner. However, through the song, she also repeatedly apologizes for being emotionally unavailable and detached from her partner.” The track also explores the themes of “grief, loneliness and isolation.”

5. Dancing on Tables — Alt/Indie — (5 spins of “Twenty” off of the 2021 EP release, “Play Play Play”)

The Scotland-based pop-indie-rock band consists of Robbie, Callum, Gregor, Hamish and Reece. According to their Spotify, they all met in school and have grown “from playing friend’s parties and school halls, to supporting Catfish and the Bottlemen as part of their UK arena tour.” The band has over 20,000 listeners on Spotify and continue to grow their career to this day.

6. *Father John Misty — Alt/Indie — (4 spins of “Goodbye Mr. Blue” off of the 2022 album release, “Chloë and the Next 20th Century”)

Father John Misty, real name Joshua Michael Tillman, is an indie folk alternative rock singer/songwriter. He has been making music since 2008, having over 15 albums and EPs released. His newest album, “Chloë and the Next 20th Century” is described by Pitchfork as reaching “far, far back to the golden age of Hollywood for a dreamy, lushly orchestrated, wryly comic collection of vignettes that all depend upon the timelessness of a love song.”

“Goodbye Mr. Blue” was the third single off of his new album. Genius explains that the “song is about a man’s cat, which he got while in a relationship that has now been broken off, dying. This causes him to talk to his ex about the now dead Mr. Blue, and wish that he could still be in his old relationship.”

7. Hippo Campus — Alt/Indie — (4 spins of “Ashtray” off of the 2022 album release, “LP3”)

Hippo Campus formed in 2013, with members that include Jake Luppen, Nathan Stocker, DeCarlo Jackson, Zach Sutton and Whistler Allen. Originally from Minnesota, the indie-rock band emerged to the scene with its EP “Bashful Creatures.” According to their Spotify, “although the five-piece has been friends since middle school and put out a number of studio releases since its inception, it’s the new record, ‘LP3’ that’s the most honest portrait of who Hippo Campus is.”

8. *Roddy Ricch — Hip Hop/Rap — (4 spins of “late at night” off of the 2022 album release, “LIVE LIFE FAST”)

Roddy Ricch is a rap artist from Compton, California. According to his Spotify, Ricch has a “distinct Southern flair … [and] lays his introspective rhymes atop melodic trap, resulting in a hybrid form that has captured the ears of both regions.”

Pitchfork explains Ricch’s second album, “LIVE LIFE FAST,” as “a rollercoaster operating on a straight track.” The track, “late at night,” is the second to last track on Ricch’s newest album. Genius explains that the track is “a melodic ballad … about passionate love for his significant other.”

9. *Snail Mail — Alt/Indie — (3 spins of “Glory” off of the 2021 album release, “Valentine”)

Snail Mail is on our charts twice! Pitchfork describes Jordan’s second album, “Valentine,” as “love in all stages, but mostly in disrepair. She takes on a larger and poppier sound while keeping her songwriting dazzlingly sharp and passionate.”

Jordan explained the track, “Glory” to Genius. “Very angry and upset vibes. And it’s similar thematically to ‘Madonna,’ goes within the same grieving process and theme of anger. It’s disenchanted … It’s like no matter how angry I am and no matter how much I try to make this something where I’m in control and I’m the one making demands, at the end of the day I still would do anything for the subject of the song. No matter how in control I feel, I don’t even feel like I belong to myself because I’m so entwined in this person’s life.”

10. *Snail Mail — Alt/Indie — (3 spins of “Headlock” off of the 2021 album release, “Valentine”)

Snail Mail, real name Lindsey Jordan, is an alternative indie rock singer songwriter from Maryland. At only seventeen years old, Jordan released her debut album, “Lush” in 2018. According to her Spotify, “her natural ability to be many things at once resonated with a lot of people. The contradiction of confidence and vulnerability, power and delicacy, had the impact of a wrecking ball when put to tape.”

Jordan explained the track “Headlock” off of her newest album to Genius. “‘Headlock’ isn’t about losing someone so much as it is about really losing myself in a relationship. I worked on that one at my parents’ house — all the synth lines I did in my room on my Minilogue, and I wrote all the lyrics sitting right there at my desk, just sort of dipping my toes into the deep darkness. With that line ‘Thought I’d see her when I died,’ I’m saying that the end goal of dying in this case would be to be reunited with this lost love. It came from a real dark spot that I was in.”

The Music Directors can be reached at music@kcsufm.com.