In the 2019 video for “Summer Girl,” Haim walk around their native Los Angeles, shedding layers of clothing. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, it starts with the sister trio in puffer jackets and peacoats, and concludes with Danielle, Alana, and Este in bathing-suit tops, strolling down Ventura Boulevard. The sun …
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Two years ago, Lil Wayne released a career-spanning compilation, I Am Music. It seems like an impossible task to summarize three decades of music that dates to his febrile debut as one-half of B.G.z in 1995, spans a record-breaking number of entries on the Billboard Hot 100 as well as …
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Listening to Addison Rae’s self-titled debut feels like wearing your gaudiest dress and stepping into the Chateau Marmont on a hot summer day. There are glistening turquoise pools, loads of cigarettes, diamond jewelry, and everything is doused in the golden Los Angeles sun. At the center of the glamour stands …
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It’s been almost a quarter century since Pulp’s last album. But the Sheffield, England band — who disbanded after releasing 2001’s We Love Life, reunited to tour in 2011 and again in 2023 — are back with More. The band’s eighth full-length builds on Pulp’s legacy of indie-disco bangers like …
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Since she was a kid, Simbiatu Ajikawo has had a low tolerance for disloyalty. There are quick quips lambasting snakes throughout her acclaimed discography, and even at eleven years old, she spit, “I’m Little Simz and I set trends/Don’t like liars/I hate fake friends,” when her older sister took her …
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Just in time for summer, Lifeguard have arrived with the kind of guitar record you can play loud all day without wearing it out. They’re a young, raw art-punk threesome from Chicago, finally putting out their debut album with the hotly awaited Ripped and Torn, on Matador. They started making …
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McKinley Dixon is a rapper who is deeply invested in the art of writing. His sturdy yet rigid flow might not dazzle, but he impresses with imaginative lyricism. “That’s the summer my mama raised a soldier/I look at pictures now, and all that’s changed is grinded down molars,” he raps …
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Turnstile’s much-anticipated follow-up to 2021’s massive Glow On is like a mysterious gallery. It’s not so much a collection of tracks, but impressions, aural vignettes that are more about a feeling than a message — a vibe that listeners can pursue at their leisure, like wandering through an echoing portrait …
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When rap fans decry the atomization of the genre, they usually focus on its negative aftereffects: a lack of crossover superstars, an irrevocable split between Gen-Z internet kids and boom-bap old heads, and a surplus of ephemeral trends geared towards meaningless virality. But the emergence of solo auteurs like Aesop …
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Miley Cyrus has spent her whole career mutating and evolving, making drastic musical left turns. She went from Hannah Montana to the indie-sleaze neon orgy that was Bangerz, the ultimate “Disney kid breaks free” statement. But that turned out to be just one of the many Mileys we’d get to …
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