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 …
Read More »The Glorious Return of Stereolab
Any moment is an excellent one for new music from the long-running retro-avant pop band Stereolab, but Instant Holograms on Metal Film, Stereolab’s first full-length since 2010’s Not Music, is particularly well-timed. Blending gliding grooves, wowing-and-fluttering synthesizers, and lyrics that elegantly pine for more, Stereolab’s music blisses out without tuning …
Read More »Morgan Wallen Is America's Problem
You could say that Morgan Wallen has achieved his 2020s pop domination by brute force. His last two albums — 2021’s Dangerous: The Double Album and 2023’s One Thing at a Time — clock in at 30 and 36 tracks respectively, which thanks to streaming-era math is a boon to …
Read More »Jin's Rock-Star Dreams Are Big and Bold on 'Echo'
Jin has always been his own kind of romantic within the BTS universe, with his own style. This is the guy you go to for epic swoon-worthy love songs about space travel through the cosmos of the heart, in classics like “Epiphany” and “Moon.” (Especially “Moon.”) He summed up his …
Read More »An Embattled Snoop Dogg Bites Back a Little But Mostly Keeps It Cool
For 30 years, it seems that there has never been a pitch too wild for Snoop Dogg. He’s done a reggae album, a funk album, two gospel albums, and even released an album on the blockchain. The Zelig of popular music, no collaborator is off limits: Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, …
Read More »Rico Nasty Keeps Raging — and Growing
Since her early days as a Maryland teenager uploading aggressive, trap-influenced music on Soundcloud, rapper Rico Nasty has carved out her own unique place as a colorful rager. Yet, when she spoke to Rolling Stone this past February to announce her third studio album, Lethal, the 27-year-old phenom revealed that …
Read More »They Don't Make Records Like This New Little Feat Album Anymore. That's a Compliment
In the classic-rock world, we’ve reached that alarming moment where many heritage bands are down to only or two surviving members — or, in some eerie cases, none. Mathematically speaking, Little Feat, who perfected a jukejoint-carnival mashup of nearly every form of American music more than 50 years ago, have …
Read More »Maren Morris' Big Hooks Hide Private Wounds
“Feels like the worst year/ is always the one you’re in,” Maren Morris laments at the beginning of the loose-limbed “Carry Me Through,” which pops up near the end of the singer-songwriter’s fourth album. That plaint is tinged with hard-won wisdom — she’s reminding herself that while life’s journey might …
Read More »Kali Uchis' 'Sincerely,' Is a Vulnerable Meditation on Motherhood and Memory
“Could life be heaven on earth?/After the hell we been through?” Kali Uchis asks on the opening track of her fifth album, Sincerely, posing a question that also serves as the record’s thesis statement. “Heaven Is a Home,” with a cinematic string overture reminiscent of the same Old Hollywood feel …
Read More »What's the Deal With Sleep Token?
Since emerging in 2016, the English prog-metal outfit Sleep Token have become one of rock’s most enigmatic success stories. Operating in cloaked pseudonymity — their core members are known as Vessel and II, and they perform in elaborately detailed costumes — they’ve crafted a wide-ranging musical world that’s felt distinctly …
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