Pink Velvet Theatre
Pink Velvet Theatre Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2024 Benjamin Ingrosso Stomping, suitably theatrical pop powered by an open-hearted spirit.
Posts
CHROMAKOPIA
CHROMAKOPIA Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 Tyler, The Creator As someone who invited fame and courted infamy, first with inflammatory albums like Wolf and later with his flamboyant fashion sense via GOLF WANG, Tyler Okonma is less knowable than most stars in the music world. While most celebrities of his caliber and notoriety either curate their public lives to near-plasticized extremes or become defined by tabloid exploits, the erstwhile Odd Futurian chiefly shares what he cares to via his art and the occasional yet ever-quotable interview. As his Tyler, The Creator albums pivoted away from persona-building and toward personal narrative, as on the acclaimed IGOR and CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST , his mystique grew grandiose, with the undesirable side effect of greater speculation. The impact of fan fixation plays no small part on CHROMAKOPIA , his seventh studio album and first in more than three years. Reacting to the weirdness, opening track “St. Chroma” finds Tyler literally whisperin
Elige Tu Propia Aventura
Elige Tu Propia Aventura Album ∙ Rock y Alternativo ∙ 2024 Carolina Durante
Thank God
Thank God Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 Hunxho On Hunxho’s 2024 sophomore studio album Thank God , the North Carolina-born MC and singer is grateful. The album is a retrospective of sorts—a look back at his life and career to this point, a calculation of his wins and his losses. No matter how high or how low Hunxho felt, though, he makes it clear that every opportunity is a blessing, a chance to get better as a man and father. On the title track opener, he croons, “Thank God for never giving up, on every time I failed.” On “Rookie of the Year,” he begins with a tribute to the title’s subject, thanking God for “including him in this world” and for “answering his mom’s prayers.” He reflects on his life, celebratory that he’s avoided jail, or fates much worse.
GOAT
GOAT Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 Ninho & Niska The French rappers go back to the lab to reassert their greatness.
Patterns in Repeat
Patterns in Repeat Album ∙ Alternative ∙ 2024 Laura Marling Unadorned, piercingly beautiful songs written in the wake of new motherhood.
Cartoon Darkness
Cartoon Darkness Album ∙ Alternative ∙ 2024 Amyl and The Sniffers “I wanted the album to feel really fun,” Amyl and The Sniffers vocalist Amy Taylor tells Apple Music of Cartoon Darkness , the Australian quartet’s third full-length. That goal does, however, come with a caveat: “I wanted it to feel fun without putting up the blinkers and being like, everything’s sweet, all good. Things are really weird and things are pretty bad and there’s a lot of things to be stressed about, but there’s the balance of it. Not to encourage people to ignore the bad, but to try and find more of a balance.” So while Cartoon Darkness finds Taylor confronting issues such as body positivity, the ills of social media, the climate crisis, and capitalism’s impact on society and people’s wellbeing, she does so with an unrelenting lust for life and an indefatigable spirit that, on songs such as “Jerkin’” and “Motorbike Song,” adheres to the adage that life is for the living. Recorded with Nick Launay (Midni
Strawberry Hotel
Strawberry Hotel Album ∙ Electronic ∙ 2024 Underworld Decades in, the duo continues to reset electronic music’s boundaries.
Songs For A Nervous Planet
Songs For A Nervous Planet Album ∙ Alternative ∙ 2024 Tears for Fears A live set of classic tunes, plus new studio songs, from the ’80s icons.
Symphony of Lungs - BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
.webp)
Symphony of Lungs - BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall Album ∙ Alternative ∙ 2024 Florence + the Machine & Jules Buckley
The Night the Zombies Came
.webp)
The Night the Zombies Came Album ∙ Alternative ∙ 2024 Pixies Druids. Headless chickens. Drinking. These are just some of the topics fearless Pixies leader Black Francis sings about on the band’s ninth album (and fifth since re-forming sans Kim Deal). But the overarching theme, if there is one, is right there in the title: zombies. Both the Night of the Living Dead variety (“Jane [The Night the Zombies Came]”) and the Dawn of the Dead shopping mall variety (“You’re So Impatient”) make an appearance, as do zombie movies themselves (“Chicken”). Not that it’s a concept album or anything—the driving punk of “Oyster Beds” references Black Francis’ painting hobby, while “Johnny Good Man,” “Ernest Evans,” and “Kings of the Prairie” offer snapshots of life on the road. Elsewhere, guitarist Joey Santiago takes a lyrical bow with “Hypnotised,” a clever pop tune written in a Middle Ages poetic form called the sestina, and new bassist Emma Richardson (ex-Band of Skulls) lends her instrument
PATTERNS
.webp)
PATTERNS Album ∙ Country ∙ 2024 Kelsea Ballerini With 2023’s Rolling Up the Welcome Mat , Kelsea Ballerini signaled the start of a new era. Then four studio albums into her career, the country singer-songwriter had long since proven herself, and took a chance on rawer, more personal material in the wake of her 2022 divorce. As this follow-up attests, that heightened vulnerability unlocked new creative depths for Ballerini. Her most sonically diverse release yet, PATTERNS is also the fullest embodiment of Ballerini’s capabilities. Ballerini co-produced the album alongside previous collaborator Alysa Vanderheym, a songwriter and producer who has worked with a bevy of Nashville artists, including Jelly Roll, Little Big Town, and The Cadillac Three. The record opens with its title track, a gauzy, pleading midtempo ballad that makes use of more traditional country instruments like mandolin and dobro alongside prominent synthesizers, for production that’s reminiscent of Kacey Musgraves
Big Swerv 2.0
.webp)
Big Swerv 2.0 Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 G Herbo A decade after Welcome to Fazoland introduced G Herbo as a serious contender in the drill scene, the Chicago rapper now maintains an impressive ubiquity in hip-hop at large. The 2020s have been especially good to him, with hits like “PTSD” and features opposite Gunna and Nardo Wick and an ambitious yet well-received double album, Survivor’s Remorse . On the comparatively leaner Big Swerv , he quickly calls back to his beginnings on “Strike You,” an anti-nostalgic opener that demonstrates how the past informs his present. Frequent production partners Oz on the Track and Southside cast long shadows over the project, the former wielding bass frequencies on the soulful “Yup” and the gnarly Sexyy Red team-up “Ten” and the latter present on potent trap variants “Spend That Bag” and “Trim.” With such reliable beatmakers behind the boards, Herbo pops out and shows off for “Drunk AF” and the evocative “Splat.” Reuniting with Chief Keef fo