Nigerian crooner Wizkid is the king of unignorable dinner-party music: He makes melodic songs that become part of the background but make you want to put that salad fork aside and engage in at least one dance. His voice — a soft warble — is both bold and seductive, enlivening …
Read More »
It’s been a decade of reminiscence and reflection for Bruce Springsteen. He’s revisited classic albums on tour, retold his life story on the page and Broadway stage, and written songs about late childhood friends. Even when he released 2020’s Letter to You, his first proper E Street Band record in …
Read More »
A new generation has discovered the joys of wintry, isolation-fueled ballads, but Greg Brown has been wallowing in them for four decades. With songs that straddle folk and country and resist outsized hooks in favor of gaunt, gently rippling chord changes, the Iowa-based troubadour, who’s released over two dozen records, …
Read More »
The biggest country hit from a newcomer last year belonged to Lainey Wilson, whose “Things a Man Oughta Know” was a heartbroken ballad disguised as a gender-essentialist ode to women doing the manly work of changing a tire. The song earned a mega fan in Miranda Lambert and led to …
Read More »
Some Fab Four folklore: In 1966, when Paul McCartney tried to impress Bob Dylan with an acetate of “Tomorrow Never Knows” — the sprawling, experimental acid freakout that concludes the Beatles‘ seventh (and arguably best) LP, Revolver — Dylan quipped, “Oh, I get it: You don’t want to be cute …
Read More »
“How am I supposed to manage my infallible beliefs?” Alex Turner asks over a brooding, chilling Moog. The song is “Sculptures of Anything Goes,” the third track from Arctic Monkeys’ The Car, but it could easily be a line off their 2011 classic AM, containing the same disco depression and …
Read More »
Could you have ever guessed what Taylor Swift’s Midnights would sound like? Since announcing the album in late August, Swift tried out a new rollout strategy: no single, no surprise drop 12 hours later. Instead, it’s been two months of Lynchian TikTok videos unveiling song names and lyric billboards to …
Read More »
In the two-plus decades since twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin started making music together, they’ve become more than just a beloved pop duo; High School, the Clea DuVall-created TV show based on their joint memoir of the same name, debuted on Amazon FreeVee earlier this month, and their LGBTQ …
Read More »
Carly Rae Jepsen is one of the most exquisite joys of being a pop fan over the past decade. The Canadian pop goddess is one of our most underrated treasures—ten years after the world fell in love with this girl in “Call Me Maybe,” she still hasn’t made a single …
Read More »
“It’s hard to be human/Only death can set you free,” singer/songwriter Eric Bachmann croons on “Human,” the first song on the excellent new album from Archers of Loaf, a group most folks stopped thinking about when Bill Clinton left office. It’s the sound of a middle-aged dad dealing with pandemic …
Read More »