I liked the title track, but the vast majority of this record feels like a haze of previous Pink Floyd sounds without any connecting thread or actual substance. It's not that the album isn't enjoyable; however, "Luck and Strange," much like the rest of Gilmour's work, in my mind, lacks the explicit expressiveness in its lyrics and content that would really make it worth listening to multiple times. If you're a fan, it's worth hearing once.

It's going take me some time to sort out more in-depth thoughts; for now, I would say "GNX" is additional icing on the cake for Kendrick Lamar's legacy. There's basically something in here for every type of Kendrick fans: bangers ("squabble up" and "tv off'), introspective reflections ("heart pt. 6" and "reincarnated"), and everything in between ("dodger blue" and "peekaboo"). The production from Jack Antonoff, ... read more

POD's "Vertias" ages about as well as the fact that Morgan Webb used to write a column called "Tips from the Gaming Goddess." These instrumentals sound like they came out an old Madden game. The lyrics and vocals feel like they were generated by an LLM trained exclusively on the grey goo of butt rock and nu metal. The album's not offensively bad, but nobody in 2024 is asking for it. As a nu metal apologist in 2024, even I have to admit that this is impressively ... read more

From an initial rise to fame as a shlocky rap-to-offend teen phenom to now, where he's years past a sudden entry into his musical auteur era, Tyler, The Creator has been one of the dominant musical artists of the last fifteen years. At this point of his career, he's gone from being seen as the future of alternative hip hop to providing what's currently a golden standard for artistry among his peers. With "Chromakopia," Tyler's yet again proven himself as a voice ... read more

The most mid track ever created - a somewhat catchy and groan-worthy commercial - and yet not bad enough to where it actually sounds unacceptable if it were on in the background.

"Led Zeppelin III," the self-titled band's most 'experimental' release at this point of its discography, is a funny album to check out in the wake of rock, country, and folk seeing their heyday. The standout songs ( "Immigrant Song," "Tangerine," and "Since I've Been Loving You") are about as good as everything else in Led Zeppelin's catalog. However, you have songs that are fun to check out every now and then, though not ... read more

Without a doubt, the single greatest soundtrack to a video game of all-time (one that, admittedly, happens to my favorite single-player game of all-time). The moods, images, and people poignant expressed through these tracks are vibrant, beautiful, and yet difficult to articulate. It's tempting to listen to this soundtrack without thinking of the game itself, but even then, there's very specific feelings evoked through the variety of songs here, ones that will resonate with people of ... read more

Did every 2010s star outside of Kendrick Lamar suddenly decide that 2024 would be the year that all of them would have half-baked or outright terrible 'returns?' Post Malone now joins Future, J Cole, Drake, Katy Perry, and frankly Taylor Swift in the list of such people who have recently disappointed their fans. "F--1 Trillion," Post Malone's supposed country debut, bored me to tears. It genuinely has no identity other than its mailed-in features from modern country ... read more

After leaving Black Midi, Georgie Greep immediately had all eyes on him when he released "The New Sound:" an aptly fit jazz-rock album that's as intense as it is eerie. This is a record that will have you scratching your head at numerous moments, but in a good way. Its heavily experimental nature, jazzy qualities, and, broadly speaking, surreal atmosphere give the record shades of Frank Zappa, with "The New Sound" even reminding me quite a bit of the instrumentals on ... read more

With one notable exception being the arguable greatest rapper of all-time, 2024 has been a terrible year for hip hop artists whose primes were roughly about 10 years ago. Add Future to the list of such people who have humiliated themselves with awful tracks and servings of mid in "Mixtape Pluto."

The incomprehensibly bad track "Plutoski" definitely marks a new low for him, and while the rest of this mixtape isn't nearly as bad, there's basically no highlights to ... read more

In no way is "143" a good album, but I feel like people are just jumping on a trend to shit on Katy Perry, and they're not listening to the actual record. Keep in mind, the bar's on the floor for her, so basically anything she releases that isn't total vomit is a success, in a sense. Yeah, it's soulless; at the same time, if you put it on in the background at a party, pretty much no one would notice. You can do way worse than "143" for pop this year.

Pretty all-around solid, if not somewhat unremarkable 00s rock with this one. Dave Grohl’s charisma does as good of a job as it could possibly do to cover up the fact that the Foo Fighters are basically to millennials what The Eagles is to boomers. I am a millennial, however, so I’m inclined to like it more often than not; otherwise, “The Pretender” is the only track that really stands out from this record.

Zach Bryan's "The Great American Bar Scene" gives himself yet another solid modern country outing for this decade. I think there's a lot from this record that first-time listeners will appreciate, even though he wears his influences very clearly on his sleeve (and, in the case of "Better Days" and "Sandpaper," outright gets them to feature in his album). My favorite song is "28," a really great, melancholy, tearjerker that sounds like it came ... read more

I recently saw Pantera (or what's left of it) at concert and found myself enjoying the nostalgia trip. Does Pantera make music for teenage boys and Gen X'rs with Punisher stickers on the back of their jeep? Maybe, but I was once a teenageer, and now as an adult, I continue to think this band has a ton of highlights worth revisiting. One of them is the 1990 release of "Cowboys from Hell," which is most people's introduction to Pantera - that, or Spongebob, or Guitar ... read more

God damn, why did 2 Chainz have to go that hard on "Rotation?" It's legitimately one of the best tracks of that whole year (along with being the best verse of 2 Chainz' career), but it's randomly hidden in this record that practically nobody else in 2024 is talking about. Honestly, the production throughout "The Gifted" is quite good, and the features generally strong too; I just never really feel like Wale does anything other than provide passable rapping. ... read more

I don't know what compelled me to check out "Songs About Jane" more than twenty years after it came out. Not that Maroon 5 was pushing the boundaries of music or anything, but this was before the group further committed itself to creating the most painfully mild and vacuous pop rock possible, and it's actually semi-enjoyable....at times. There's guitar solos in this album ("Sweetest Goodbye"), and they actually kind of slap. Wow, that is a weird sentence to ... read more

This is a real lyric from this album: "Sex change could get you caught up in death range / He pled sane but really imitatin' Ed Gein". Granted, that's from Tech N9ne, and not lead singer Ronnie Radke, but the point is that this is what we've come to expected from anything related to Falling in Reverse. Simply put, there is no humanity displayed throughout this 37-minute screed of self-victimizing, transphobic, vile, artistically bankrupt, and tedious garbage. It would ... read more

It's a great sign when an album begins with a contender for greatest alternative metal song ever. "Around the Fur" is ten distinct tracks of unrelenting, intense, adrenaline shot into your veins, as well as the turning point for Deftones itself. Once a merely rising nu metal band known for having a unique blend of unnerving calm and violent ferocity, Deftones achieved a new level of artistry with this utterly outstanding record.

Like I said before, "My Own Summer (Shove ... read more

"Short n' Sweet" is filled to the brim with the totally inoffensive, over-glossy, pure TikTok pop slop that dominates our current music landscape. The most memorable part of this record is the "Another Brick in the Wall" drums and guitar lick in "Please Please Please." On a broader note, I can't stand this trend of baby girl goo goo ga ga singing that so many women pop artists are encouraged to perform nowadays - confusingly, while swearing in ways that ... read more

Vocalist Maynard James Keenan once described A Perfect Circle as a vehicle for his more "feminine" side in comparison to Tool, which he saw as his "masculine" side. I don't know about all of that; however, I think APC's debut in "Mer de Noms" offers a mostly compelling and far more expressive approach to 00s-era alternative metal than many of its peers. These qualities, along with the generally introspective and haunting atmosphere behind the tracks, make ... read more