Rina Sawayama is everything you could pray for in a pop provocateur, circa 2022: rude, audacious, unpredictable, hilarious, blunt, with a mean streak and an omnivorous ear. The Japanese British art rebel made waves with her debut, Sawayama, a pop manifesto with her own queer glam-rock sensibility. In gems like …
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In late-1964-early-1965, Lou Reed wrote to the poet Delmore Schwartz, his creative-writing professor at Syracuse University, and described his life in New York City since graduating the previous spring. Reed noted his unsubmitted Harvard application and ambivalence about grad school; he obliquely referenced the “sick but strange and fascinating” experiences …
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When you hear the hip-hop-styled piano rhythm of “POF,” the opening cut on Ari Lennox’s second album age/sex/location, the first thing you’ll notice is her voice, flowing full and wry like Erykah Badu circa “On & On.” Yes, this is a real, honest-to-God soul singer: no autotune effects, no flattening …
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Self-examination has been in the air in country music lately. Luke Combs, the genre’s current biggest superstar, chronicled the sometimes-rocky road to adulthood with his 2022 album Growin’ Up. Maren Morris embarked on her soul-searching Humble Quest. And now, young star Kane Brown’s third album asserts that he’s a Different …
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From the moment he snuck out from behind Lauryn Hill’s and Kanye West’s formidable shadows to launch his own career, John Legend has always made it clear he’s an old-schooler at heart. He doesn’t need AutoTune, he takes his piano chops seriously, and he’s overall the embodiment of tasteful (verging …
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From tragic deaths (Cobain, Cornell, Lanegan) to careers and bands that have wound down or evaporated, the landscape of alt-rock heroes is fairly bleak these days—which makes it all the more ironic that one of the last men standing is the Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli. As the reigning cad of …
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Marcus Mumford’s solo debut opens in a place of anger: “I can still taste you, and I hate it,” the Mumford & Sons leader seethes over gently strummed guitars, a whisper of feedback serving as a signal of his bubbling rage. “Cannibal,” the first track on (self-titled), was written by …
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On his 2019 album Heartache Medication, Jon Pardi evoked the ghosts of the past in “Call Me Country,” professing his love for singing songs “about freight trains and prisons/Heartaches and honky-tonks/Cowboys and outlaws.” It wasn’t a posture —since debuting in 2012, Pardi has been a torchbearer for those classic country …
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The English supernova Yungblud—real name Dominic Richard Harrison, hailing from South Yorkshire—has been an anti-pop star since his 2018 breakthrough, amassing fans and ink with his insistent hooks, soul-exposing lyrics, and endlessly quotable interviews. His third album is self-titled, which implies a reset—although if anything, Yungblud’s version involves scaling up …
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When Romeo Santos became the first Latino artist to sell out two consecutive shows at Yankees Stadium in 2014, it was clear he was a force to be reckoned with. Starting with his teenage days in the New York City-based band Aventura, the singer’s youthful falsetto and seductive flow has …
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