Tag Archives: music-album-reviews

Pop mutates with the times and tech, artists go in and out of vogue, but for many pop stars, the song — and the narrative — remains the same. First albums teeming with ambition and vigor give way to followups that grapple with fame, success and perhaps excess — which …

YoungBoy Never Broke Again has a nasty trifecta of scar tissue—like a trio of keloidal tally marks—on his forehead, hinting that he’s done some time with serious pain. The scars are from a childhood tussle gone awry. But the bruised passion and conviction you hear on Sincerely, Kentrell, his third …

It wasn’t long ago that Ozuna had Latin music in the palm of his hand. The pop-savvy reggaetonero behind the massive albums Odisea and Aura commanded crowds worldwide and made Spanish-language singles that reached the Billboard Hot 100 without relying on the likes of Justin Bieber or Beyoncé. But after …

If anyone was going to send a love letter to disco and house music at a time when going to the club feels about as alien as wearing a dress made of cleaved meat, it’d be Lady Gaga. Although she initially had reservations about putting out Chromatica at the start …

Up until now, Fiona Apple has dissected the intricacies of pain so well that it seemed silly to ask her for anything else. Her 1996 debut album, Tidal,turned heads for placing a young woman’s trauma against a lush piano backdrop, and thereby set in motion the Sad Girl archetype that …

The 22-year-old North Bergen, New Jersey, rapper-singer 070 Shake, a.k.a. Danielle Balbuena, hit mainstream radar via Kanye West’s Wyoming sessions, functioning as fluid spirit animal/superego on Ye’s “Violent Crimes” and “Ghost Town,” and Pusha T’s “Santeria.” Born to a Dominican immigrant mom, Shake grew up on Lauryn Hill and My …

After three Jeff Tweedy solo records and a memoir, Wilco’s first album since 2016 arrives like a reunion. It sounds like one too: simple, straightforward songs, most with acoustic guitar at the core, other melodic tendrils and rhythms and harmonic drones curling up like ivy, a long-running conversation being picked …

“I must be some great feeler,” Katie Gavin sings with a wink on Muna’s latest record. “I must be really deep.” On Saves the World, Muna’s second effort, the L.A. trio builds upon the thoughtful electro-pop-rock they began sculpting on their 2017 debut, navigating weighty topics like addiction, alienation and …

A Sheer Mag concept album? A few years ago, when the Philly quintet was stirring up well-deserved buzz with its bite-sized punk-meets–hard-rock gems, the idea would have seemed far-fetched. But after 2017’s Need to Feel Your Love, an outstanding debut LP that found them tastefully accenting their sound with R&B …

At some point in the middle of this decade, the brooding, atmospheric, synthetic R&B pioneered by Toronto artists like Drake and The Weeknd reached a saturation point. One artist who helped break this Canadian fever was Daniel Caesar. His 2017 debut album, Freudian, was a breath of fresh air, a …