Tag Archives: music-album-reviews

“It breaks my heart. They didn’t believe in us. They played themselves,” rants DJ Khaled on the title track of his 13th album, God Did. For over 15 years – and longer, if you count his early days as a Miami radio and club DJ – he has positioned himself …

In the late Seventies, Blondie were the most widely mocked band of CBGB’s first punk wave — too pop, not rigorous enough. But after they hit Number One in early 1979 with “Heart of Glass,” their pasticheurs-and-proud stance not only made their string of hits a rare shot of excitement …

Happy 25th birthday to Be Here Now, Oasis’ third album and one of the most notorious bombs in rock history. The boozing, brawling Manchester lads were on top of the world in 1997, coming off two perfect albums, Definitely Maybe and (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? But on August 21, …

Ever since he was a hypersyllabic, top-hat-clad emo-pop upstart in the mid-2000s, Brendon Urie has always been about the grand gesture. His project Panic! At the Disco, which began as a band with his childhood friends and has evolved into a solo venture, has trafficked in big moves, whether it’s …

A Megan Thee Stallion verse is not unlike a bag of salt and vinegar chips—there’s something classic and quaint and straight-up hood about the sharp and improbable flavors packed inside every one of them. There were always going to be some quirky juxtapositions with Meg. The twenty-something spitter is an …

“Fuck a thick skin, I got me an exo-skeleton,” the Roots’ Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter spits over a lush, almost spacey track on “Belize,” a highlight of Cheat Codes, his collaboration with producer Danger Mouse. The tough-minded self-assessment of that lyric is not surprising, given his decades long history of …

Hearing the phrase “debut release from a TikTok star” doesn’t often inspire confidence in what’s about to follow, but Bella Poarch, who posted a lip-syncing clip of herself in the summer of 2020 that remains TikTok’s most-viewed video to this day, has gone her own way for her debut EP, …

Rod Wave is an unabashed romantic, deploying a voice that blends airy pop melodies, emo yelps and guttural country rap idioms. On his fourth album, Beautiful Mind, the 22-year-old St. Petersburg, Florida vocalist gushes about love in a way that seems unusual for someone so closely identified with rap. “I …

Over four years after signing with Atlantic Records and releasing his self-described debut album, Until Death Call My Name, Youngboy Never Broke Again remains an enigma. The 22-year-old North Baton Rouge rapper isn’t a clear innovator like Playboi Carti and isn’t a symbol for an intensely creative scene like his …

In February, budding Nigerian pop star Fireboy DML lit up stages across the U.S. on his first American tour, following two well-received albums and a massive single, “Peru” (remixes of which feature Ed Sheeran, 21 Savage, and Blxst). Backed by an incredible band, Fireboy DML’s live shows amplify the passion …