This year’s Black Friday Record Store Day had its usual share of curios: a version of Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft with her vocals isolated, Rage Against the Machine’s 2000 set at the Democratic National Convention, a collection of outtakes from Yes’ Fragile, a previously unreleased 1991 Van …
Read More »Kendrick Lamar Caps His Huge Year With a Victory Lap on 'GNX'
In 2024, the world of rap has belonged to Kendrick Lamar. It’s not just that he scored two Number One singles, one alongside Future and Metro Boomin with “Like That,” and a second on his own, “Not Like Us,” — and perhaps a third on the way before the year …
Read More »Meet the Beatles All Over Again
Let’s say you’re an American Beatles fan in the Sixties, Seventies, or Eighties. You chat with a British fan about your favorite albums. But you have no idea what they’re talking about — what is Beatles for Sale? Or With The Beatles? Meanwhile, they’ve never heard of U.S. classics like …
Read More »On 'Morayo' Wizkid is Just Doing What Works for Him
Longtime Afrobeats enthusiasts have literally watched Wizkid grow up before our eyes. He was around 19 years old when the lead single from his debut album Superstar made headwinds in 2010. Back then, he was making music saturated with the buzzy synths and frenetic energy of the hyper-digital sound of …
Read More »Kim Deal Waited Decades to Release a Solo Album. 'Nobody Loves You More' Is Worth It
Nobody Loves You More, Kim Deal‘s first-ever solo album, has been a lifetime in the making. The trailblazing singer-songwriter, whose recordings with the Pixies and the Breeders drafted blueprints for the Nineties alt-rock explosion, has always released albums at unusual intervals, La Jetée-like snapshots of her state of mind. She’s …
Read More »Father John Misty Dances With Death on 'Mahashmashana'
Death comes for us all, but not before time makes fools of us first. And when you really get down to it, that interminable time in between, life — all-consuming, enthralling, devastating, and dynamic as it may be — is largely spent dying. Mahashmashana, the new album from Father John …
Read More »Brooks & Dunn Recruit Some A-List Buddies for 'Reboot II'
Brooks & Dunn haven’t released an album of new material since 2007’s Cowboy Town, but when you have a catalog as impressive as theirs, it can be okay to coast on past glories. Especially when many of today’s hottest artists — Lainey Wilson, Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll — are willing …
Read More »Are FLO the Next Great Girl Group?
When we first encountered U.K. trio FLO on their debut single “Cardboard Box” in 2022, they were singing circles around an unfaithful man while packing his things to kick him to the curb. The record channeled Nineties R&B with scholar-like expertise and established them as an indisputable one-to-watch. On their …
Read More »Jin Is Ready to Rock on 'Happy'
Since the summer of 2022, the pop megaband BTS have been on hiatus — a pause that both gave space for each member to embark on his mandatory military service and allowed them to spread their creative wings on solo projects that showed their varied musical interests and star-stuffed contacts …
Read More »It's All Love on Rauw Alejandro's 'Cosa Nuestra'
Rauw Alejandro is already a star. But his new album,Cosa Nuestra,named after a classic 1969 LP by Puerto Rican salsa icons Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe, sees Alejandro striving for something grander: to put himself in the same timeless Puerto Rican canon as his idols. It’s an album inspired in …
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