Music

There is no reason to believe that Lizzo intended to make a political album with Special. These 12 songs are a sonic bouquet of soul, R&B, hip-hop, and pop, about the radical joy of facing down your past and loving yourself anyway. The album takes us on an intensely vulnerable …

Britney Spears turned to Instagram Friday to do something fans haven’t seen her do in a long time: Sing. “I haven’t shared my voice in an extremely long time… maybe too long,” Spears wrote. In between sorting loads of laundry, Spears recorded herself delivering a “different version” of her pop-altering …

Roger Waters threw shade at both the Weeknd and Drake after the former Pink Floyd rocker found himself overshadowed in the Canadian press by the two hometown artists. Waters’ This Is Not a Drill Tour rolled into Toronto on July 8, the same day the Weeknd’s After Hours Til Dawn …

The New York City Council have finally approved a measure to name a Lower East Side Manhattan intersection “Beastie Boys Square,” a corner popularized by the trio’s Paul’s Boutique. The vote Thursday marked a happy end to a nearly decade-long grassroots campaign by Beasties fans to anoint the corner of …

Kelsea Ballerini will examine the forces shaping and reshaping her life with the new album Subject to Change this fall. The follow-up to her 2020 album Kelsie, Subject to Change will be released on Sept. 23. “In my younger years, the idea of change scared me. It had proven to …

Oh, to have a boo — and to be in Paris. On Friday, Finneas dropped the phone-recorded music video for his new song “Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa,” an ode to his girlfriend Claudia Sulewski — and we’re going to admit it: we’re lowkey jealous of how cute these two are. …

Paramore will return to the road on a new tour for the first time in four years this fall. The trek, which kicks off Oct. 2 at the Mechanics Bank Theater in Bakersfield, California, includes some previously announced festival slots, including Austin City Limits and When We Were Young, the …

Mergui has been a household name in Israel for a while now, but with his first-ever single in English, he’s ready for U.S. audiences to get to know him, too. On Friday, the curly-haired heartthrob released his single “Sucks to Know You,” a middle-fingers-up, guitar-driven anthem about healing from heartbreak. …

From the Weeknd’s Dawn FM to Omar Apollo’s Ivory to Sky Ferreira’s “Don’t Forget” and Lizzo’s “About Damn Time,” the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now dives deep into the best pop songs and albums of the year so far. Staff writer Tomás Mier joins host Brian Hiatt for …

Omar Apollo has been enjoying a career high since dropping his excellent album Ivory back in April — but he’s not done releasing new music. On Friday, he shared  “Archetype,”an emotional R&B song that shows off his vocal range and extends the sonic universe he built on his full-length debut. …