Cutouts

Cutouts

Album ∙ Alternative ∙ 2024

The Smile

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143 Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2024 Katy Perry When she skyrocketed to stardom at the tail end of the 2000s, Katy Perry was a girl-next-door gone wild: dancing on tables, kissing cherry-Chapstick-ed strangers, and shooting whipped cream out of her sparkly bustier. Her trademark hits represented pop as pure escapism—fun and frivolous, with production from the era’s biggest hitmakers (Max Martin, Stargate, Dr. Luke). Sixteen years after her breakthrough with 2008’s “I Kissed a Girl,” the era from which Perry emerged has cycled back into fashion as a nostalgic trend. But on her sixth album (not including her contemporary Christian record as Katy Hudson), named for her angel number—and for how people typed “I love you” back in the pager era—the 39-year-old singer is focused on the present. “When I was going through [2008 debut album]   One of the Boys , it was like, ‘Oh my god, hold on to this ride!’” Perry tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, tracing the arc of her career as it pertains to her emotional lif
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Ensoulment

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Ensoulment Album ∙ Alternative ∙ 2024 The The It’s 1983. Amid a characteristic London downpour, “a broken soul,” feeling the sting of unrequited love, “stares from a pair of watering eyes” up to the window of the object of his infatuation. “Uncertain emotions force an uncertain smile,” sings Matt Johnson, completing the verse to one of The The’s most well-known songs from their official debut album, the era-defining  Soul Mining . More than 40 years later, on “I Want to Wake Up With You,” that same character reenters the frame, in a scene not unlike the one before: “Standing on the corner, in the rain, looking up at your window—again,” croons Johnson in his now signature baritone. “A long time ago, another life, and though not a boy, barely a man. 'Just bring whatever you hope to find,' so I brought my soul and a bellyful of wine.” It might be an alternate ending to an old story. It might be Johnson finding himself in a familiar place under different circumstances. But whatever
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