With the aid of traditional instrumentation, Marina dons her Wonder Woman wares to present her 'We Didn't Start The Fire'-esque list of what is wrong with the world. The lyrics hit the bullseye but the melodies miss the board.

Marina ventures back to big tent pop, with flavours of reggaeton and twists of trap. With flashes of success, the record is a disjointed affair; sonic inconsistency, odd references to Vladimir Lenin and a sense that Marina has lost the essence of what makes her great.

The embrace of pulsating electro pop delivers evergreen anthems but also folds Marina into a template which stiffles her creative essence.

Free from the pressure to be the next Katy Perry, Marina goes back to basics with simple drum arrangements, haunting harmonies and an arcade of synth sounds, all revealing the woman at their core, struggling to overcome her demons.

A glorious amalgam of music theatre, chamber pop and white girl rap from the recession's favourite pop blog girly.

With nods from the Mercury Music Prize and the Ivor Novellos, Tempest has become a leading voice in spoken word in the UK. Since his breakthrough in 2017, with the quotidian British struggles on "Everybody Down", he has tackled meaty topics such as class, wealth, sex, love and grief all with aplomb. Ornate vignettes spilling melodically, or sometimes spit passionately, from his lips. It's hard to be picky about the precision of his prose when he is operating on such a high level, ... read more

ou cannot discuss the story of Charli XCX's "Brat" without mentioning Lorde, whose viscerally honest verse on her remix of "Girl, So Confusing" had the internet going crazy. She said that interaction with Charli became a cathartic catalyst which allowed her to finalize the direction of album 4, "Virgin". And it's clear why, Lorde's verse on "Girl.." demonstrated harrowing honesty, spilling about her anxiety, self-loathing and eating ... read more

Since 2017, Kesha has been defiant on record, the art of a woman against a system trying to keep her quiet. Take the sparse electronica of 2023's "Gag Order" or the unkempt country pop of 2020's "High Road", at many times throughout it was hard to hear the music as anything but a response to a woman amidst a legal turmoil. But on "Period" she's free.

The album opens up with a 2 and a half minute, sparse but atmospheric, piano ballad before ... read more

When Anastacia released her self-titled third album in 2004, she coined the genre sprock, an amalgam of pop, rock and soul, the three genres which influenced her sound the most. Alannah, Este & Danielle Haim would be just as justified to coin their own genre, due to the ease with which they blend pop, rock, folk and R&B. Prolk & B? R&Frop? The joy of their music to date has been to be able to hear Fleetwood Mac, Michael Jackson and Sade all within the same 3-minute catchy, ... read more

Benson Boone may be one of the most divisive figures in pop music in 2025. Boone is a former American Idol contestant - yes, that's still on - and after withdrawing from the competition he focused on promoting his music on TikTok. He caught the eye of Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons who signed him and aided in launching his solo career. His breakthrough hit "Beautiful Things" topped charts around the world and is still in good health, sitting at #12 on the UK charts after 73 ... read more

On his fourth album, "Idols", Yungblud is aiming for a stylistic pivot, stating “I wanted to make a project that didn’t focus on singles or anything else except feeling and world-building… A project with no limitations”. The sonic world he is choosing to build is Britpop nodding. The instrumentation on the record is compelling. Guitar from long term collaborator Adam Warrington and production from Matt Schwartz - rock fans will enjoy many aspects of the ... read more

Joyous, meticulously assembled 80s synth pop for the music blog era.

You can only imagine the smorgasbord of emotions that would come with getting dropped from a record label. But imagine being dropped twice! Following the online hype and critical praise for her 2016 debut Nothing's Real, Shura was dropped from her major label deal. 2019's follow-up Forevher, a more groove and joyous affair, also saw her get dropped, this time, at the onset of the pandemic.

Album three I Got Too Sad For My Friends is written from a place of sadness. Being dropped ... read more

When the American-Scottish rockers released their seventh studio album in 2021, it was heralded by many as a return to form — their best work since 1998’s Version 2.0. No Gods No Masters heard Shirley Manson roaring truth to power, taking on the socio-political topics trending in the U.S. at the turn of the decade. The band was in an angry headspace, but that rage forged a powerful record.

Capitalizing on that momentum, the group dove into writing this new album. But its release ... read more

Pink sandboxes with 00s UK dance tunes (mostly Basement Jaxx) and creates a mixtape which grooves and bemuses but lacks the snarl of her best work.

Last May, Kelly Jones of Stereophonics released his second solo album "Inevitable Incredible", which found the Welsh lead man meditating on his mortality, isolated on an island off Norway. Now he is back with the band and they're releasing their 13th studio album "Make 'em Laugh, Make 'em Cry, Make 'em Wait", a mantra he learned about performance from his art teacher as a teenager. Jones has left behind the sparse, somber soul-bearing of the solo venture ... read more

Country music icon, Willie Nelson, remains a persistent work horse. This coming Tuesday he turns 92, and today he releases his 154th album, and his ninth of the decade. His last album of entirely new, self-penned material was the critically acclaimed "Last Man Standing" which came out in 2018. Since then, his albums have been mostly, if not entirely, songs by others. There are albums such as 2024's "Last Leaf On The Tree" which contained a curated selection of songs ... read more

Maybe the easiest way to describe Rebecca Lucy Taylor, the woman behind the moniker Self Esteem, is to list all 5 of the accounts she follows on Instagram - George Michael, the filth Drag Queen Meatball, actress Jodie Comer, Kermit The Frog and Madonna. All five of these icons are felt throughout her third album "A Complicated Woman" and they all add an extra piece of the puzzle to making Taylor the star that she is.

We all know the hypothetical commencement speech written by ... read more

This sounds like Donald Glover playing guitar 2 rooms down under a tarpaulin. Some splendid moments, but too fragmented to grab hold of.

In the 2020 album "Good Luck, Seeker" by Mike Scott, aka The Waterboys, there was a blues pop track about the Hollywood actor "Dennis Hopper". Hopper had become somewhat of a muse for Scott since he saw a photo exhibition of Hopper's photography in London in the mid 2010s. Before he knew it, he had written 2 more Hopper songs, thought to be an EP, ballooned into a 25-track hour long album. The research took Scott down 4 biographies and through reams of poetry and ... read more