Vince Staples sharply illustrates a realistic and first-hand portrayal of gang life in LBC without any romanticized commercial appeal or taking on a highbrow discourse to its rationale.
DS2 just happens to be the soundtrack for the current manifesto - a modern testament to the scumbags, addicts, street bureaucrats, rap fans and nightlife culture. Because we’re all just as flawed.
Ratchet is instantly likeable and oh so infectious. A great pop album through and through, there's enough here to keep you dancing all through the summer.
There's an immediacy and energy to the album's pop stylings that eluded much of her previous work; it's gregarious and loud, adorned with sonically adventurous flourishes but not at all bothered with dream-pop's obfuscatory soundscapes.
As a cohesive album, Beauty Behind The Madness showcases artistic growth and sonic progression through danceable pop deliveries like 'In The Night' and grand acoustics like 'Shameless'.
IYRTITL is the work of a perfectionist curator, a restless star, a man who has reached the top and now looks over the precipice in a double-effort to repel competition and contemplate his hard-earned, often-perilous position.
Serving as more than just the nostalgic release that many expected it to be, Compton carries Dr. Dre back into spotlight from the boardroom on his own terms, with his own verification.
The amount of detail and the flow of Mutant is truly staggering; there are tracks that seem to take you down through secret passages to the next track, while you can still hear the sounds of the previous track fading away in the room above you.
25 is a saviour record for a quarter life crisis, a sing-a-long for one of life's most difficult stages. While one of the world's most talented voices questions her purpose, her past and her future, may we feel a little more comforted while we do the same.
Not one sound is out of place, not one track over or under stays its welcome. Every element that made Neon Indian such a joy through the first two albums has been polished and improved upon to make a record that truly must be heard.
Visions put Grimes on the map as pop's pure misfit but Art Angels secured her tangible place as the genre's most unconventional star. For those that doubted, she's done that thing she does, but better. More defined.
Apocalypse, girl deals in big ideas about life and society but does so in a way that that feels intimate and personal.
As long as Stevens continues to pursue the unanswerable and chase down myths and ghosts, he'll continue to make incredible music. Carrie & Lowell is just the latest in a long line of unimpeachable achievements.
A Curious Tale of Trials + Persons is the most multifaceted and masterful contemporary feminist rap album of recent memory.
Björk has never compromised her sound to anyone, and Vulnicura is a stark reminder of that.