Tag Archives: music-album-reviews

Is it too early for 2010s nostalgia? Singer-songwriter Alex Warren doesn’t seem to think so — and neither do the streaming listeners and radio programmers who have made his sweeping love song “Ordinary” an unlikely pick for 2025’s song of the summer. The ballad has had a stubborn grip on …

“Yeah, man, I swear these old niggas kill me,” raps Travis Scott in his typical melodic flow on “Champain & Vacay.” The Houston star’s pushback against Clipse’s “So Be It,” where Pusha T’s ripped Scott for his “lack of loyalty” towards past mentors and friends like Kanye West and Drake, …

Hitting play on a new Alex G album can feel a little bit like that sequence in Alan Moore’s Watchmen comics where Doctor Manhattan sits on a rock on Mars, pondering the nature of time. It’s 2014. I’m listening to an oddly moving song that Alex G recorded by himself …

Once upon a time, being in a rock band meant, ipso facto, being in a cover band. There are still plenty of cover bands, of course, but the Beatles and especially punk helped move it from being the default. Still, mastering other people’s material before embarking upon one’s own presents …

Country music has always been part of Noah Cyrus’s artistic DNA. If you look closely enough, it’s been a deep root that runs through her entire discography — not to mention, a central part of the family tree that includes her dad Billy Ray Cyrus and sister Miley. But a …

With his oaky baritone, Givēon often sounds like he teleported to us from the 1970s. In the rapid-fire internet age, his love songs — frequently lost-love songs — are unhurried. At his best, he’s like a barrel-­aged cognac — warm, earthy, and mature. Still, when he rose to prominence at …

Just in case it’s not clocking to you, Justin Bieber is so standing on business right now. The pop superstar is back with his excellent new surprise album Swag, a comeback he announced only hours before it dropped. It’s been four years since we’ve gotten new music from Bieber, and …

“We’re on our way to the club/Stupid is, stupid does” — whatever party Wet Leg are heading to, it sounds like one worth crashing. The U.K. indie rockers came out of nowhere in 2021 (well, the Isle of Wight) to become bona fide international superstars with two devilishly clever singles: …

It’s easy to root for Kesha, which makes listening to (Period.) — her first album as an independent artist, hence its July 4 release date — such a blast. Bookended by pensive moments, (Period.) is a frisky pop record that delights in throwing things at the wall and seeing what …

It’s good to have these guys back. In the first decade of the 2000s, there were few hip-hop acts with standards as exacting as the Clipse’s. While others originated the idea of making music about moving weight, Gene and Terrence Thornton, a.k.a. Malice and Pusha T, elevated it to a …