“Is it still OK to call you my disco pickle?” By the time that Florence Shaw, Dry Cleaning‘s conversational poet-in-residence, asks that question on “Hot Penny Day,” a tune that marks the halfway mark for the group’s second album, Stumpwork, the answer will invariably be yes. Any reluctant cukes likely …
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Lil Baby is a reliably astute emcee — nimble at rapping and structurally fluid, but carrying enough bark to devour listeners with tales of fast cars, childhood mischief, and rebellious upward mobility. On 2020’s My Turn, the Atlanta rapper was able to go from Young Thug reinterpreter to independent artist …
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As a progenitor of digital DIY art and the genre-melding noise pop that preceded the likes of Death Grips and 100 gecs, M.I.A. has made a seemingly full-circle return with MATA. Her sixth studio album grasps for the past and, in other ways, wiggles right back into the zeitgeist. In …
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Tove Lo has always been a little dirty. Her brand of pop music — sharp and catchy — comes with a touch of darkness and grime to it. She made her debut with “Habits (Stay High),” a hangover of a single about willingly succumbing to all your vices to get …
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“I’m sorry if you’re living and you’re 17,” Matty Healy croons over the fractured pianos that open the latest album from his band The 1975. The British foursome began when Healy and his co-conspirators were adolescents, and they’ve since grown up in public, navigating Next Big Thing status and the …
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The persistence of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2022, nearly 40 years into their run as the funkiest punk act ever to pack stadiums, was hard to imagine back in the day — they (by their own admission) just lived way too hard.And yet here we are. The Chilis …
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If you’re looking for tea leaves on why Migos is reportedly falling apart, then “Messy” may satiate you. On the 12th track from Quavo and Takeoff’s Only Built for Infinity Links, the former raps, “Bitch fucked my dog behind my back but I ain’t stressin’ (not at all)/You wanted the …
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On first glance, it’s easy to chalk up Charlie Puth’s music as gimmicky. After all, this is the guy who spent the pandemic throwing up thirst traps on Instagram and documenting the recording of his latest album, Charlie, with spastic, random videos on TikTok and Reels. The 30-year-old even has …
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Courtney Marie Andrews has spent the past decade or so fine tuning and revising her rootsy singer-songwriter formula, to great results: See the gospel-soul inflections of 2018’sMay Your Kindness Remainor the sparse heartbroken folk of her last album, 2020’sOld Flowers.The former LP helped land Andrews on stage with Dolly Parton …
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In Chicago, many kids are exposed to two sides of the same coin. There are the joyful traditions, experiences, and summertime fun that define Black childhood in the city. And then there’s “Chiraq,” where G Herbo, born Herbert Wright, saw his first casualty of gun violence when he was just …
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