Meaghan Garvey
The girlypop album of summer warrants comparison to Lana, Madonna, and most of all, Britney. Are we ready for Addison?
11mo
The country star’s fourth album stretches out over an absurd and needless two hours. But there’s an alluring thread of paranoia and fatalism hidden among the filler.
1y
The Irish musician’s gossamer dream pop is both mythic and real, a wild and ancient landscape in which her own figure is just barely perceptible.
1y
The 17-year-old rapper’s debut is mostly derivative and incoherent but he does have a strange allure.
1y
Folding murmured dialog into road-trip snapshots and blissed-out synths, the two producers meld their respective style—wistful edits, lo-fi euphoria—into a rapturous pop-ambient blur.
1y
On his third album, the 74-year-old Alabama poet and songwriter casts about for meaning among dreams and memories for a wise, lonely, utterly beguiling set of songs.
1y
The former rapper turned country star has the voice, the pathos, and the charisma of an American folk hero. All he needs are the songs.
1y
There’s enough proof here that Post has the voice, demeanor, and goodwill to easily ingratiate himself into the Nashville scene.
1y
Danish singer-songwriter Fine Glindvad Jensen’s curious, enigmatic solo debut is suffused with the whispery enchantment of Hope Sandoval.
1y
With her sixth album, Charli XCX transcends all narratives and delivers a hit. BRAT is imperious and cool, nuanced and vulnerable, and one of the best pop albums of the year.
1y
YG’s spent years grappling with the tensions from his life as a celebrity gangster, but for most of Stay Dangerous, he seems content to let his guard down a little.
7y
His fifth official album is an ambling 13-song journey towards self-acceptance, one that does not end in triumph. Instead, it embraces the possibility that he’ll never have it all figured out.
7y
The 2015 tape may have felt more revolutionary as a shift no one saw coming, but musically, BEASTMODE 2 has the edge. And in its best moments, the unknowable rapper lays his cards on the table, vulnerable in a way he’s never been before.
7y
The second album from the UK duo is future-pop at its best: kaleidoscopic production and incisive lyrics that swirl into marvelous, breathtaking songs.
7y
Freddie feels like a pure and reckless purge from Gibbs, a collection that finds him at his wildest and most essential.
7y
It is an album born from chaos for chaos’ sake, an album that can barely be bothered to refer to that chaos with anything more committal than a Kanye shrug.
8y
Where recent marathons like Migos' gratuitous Culture II felt more about streaming algorithms than art, Sr3mm rarely wears out its welcome.
8y
With sing-song melodies and dreamy trap-lite beats, Post's songs re-package existent rap trends for people who might not particularly like rap at all – including, it would seem, the artist himself.
8y
On his debut album, the standard-bearer of the sad-rap movement refuses to reveal much in the way of emotion at all, aside from a kind of sullen, conflicted defiance.
8y
Where Culture was an event, its sequel feels more like an occurrence, the quality of its songs handicapped by the artlessness of its presentation.
8y
Charli XCX’s latest mixtape is a vision of what pop music could be, the sound of an eclectic, hyperreal future where romantic love is fun but fucked and partying is an emotional refuge.
8y
The moments on Stranger where he breaks away from rap are striking glimpses of his full potential, piercing through the detachment that once obscured real emotion. In these moments, Lean’s identity shifts from something borrowed to something innate.
8y
The Florida rapper’s debut album is muted and mired with pain, trauma, and controversy. The reasons it is difficult to listen to can overshadow the need to listen to it.
8y
Years of online myth-making have culminated with Lil B’s masterpiece Black Ken, 27 tracks of deep funk and hyphy that finally define the mercurial Based God.
8y
Since the drastically superior Paradise Edition reissue of Born to Die, Del Rey has neither swayed nor settled. Instead, doubling down on her palette of inky blues and blacks, the singer-songwriter has delivered a trio of dark, dense, radio-agnostic albums that stand wholly apart from any of her pop music peers.
8y
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