As we head into the halfway point of 2026, it looks like AOTY is Slayyyter's to lose - and, barring a surprise Charli or Gaga drop later in the year, it's hard to see her not making off with a Dance/Electronic Grammy for this one.

I usually find myself having to come to Megan's defense, and I'm generally met with laughter when I tell people that she's one of the top 3 female hip hop artists alive; but in this case, I think I'm going to have to let the Guardian have at her.

There's no doubt that Megan is still the best of her bad-bitch subgenre of rap, levels above competitors like Latto and in my opinion, possessing skills that exceed direct rivals like Minaj. But as confident as the album is ... read more

It's Good Friday here in Australia, and cheekily, Cub Sport have just released "Jesus at the Gay Bar." Now, some might contend that doing that on the day commemorating the crucifixion of Mr Christ is in poor taste, but given the title, I'm not sure they particularly care.

Cub Sport's recent transition to more-or-less solely electropop probably hasn't pleased everyone, but it's certainly pleased me as of late; they're not too bad at what they do. As expected, their singles ... read more

My immediate reaction is, that with more Peggy flows (if they had better lyrics) and with fewer DB bars (excluding the truly genius ones), this album would have had me hooked! So as you can tell, the quality of my music assessment that's going on this morning is pretty poor.

I'm going to come back to re-rate and review this in a couple of months, because if there's one thing I've learnt about JPEGMAFIA's music, it's that the brain needs some adjustment time before it can fully appreciate his ... read more

We've got a lazy/disjointed review warning for this one

As one of the relatively rare accounts on here that take a genuine interest in electronic dance music, I've had the opportunity to see many forms of the general distaste that most seem to have towards the genre as a whole. Even the sheer act of being an EDM artist is a bit taboo in itself, and anyone who might fall into such a category has to fight an uphill battle to clear the stench that their foul genre choice has brought upon ... read more

If there's one thing I found when listening to this, it's that it was pretty odd trying to judge something when you've listened to it so many times already. I can't even begin to imagine how many plays I've wracked up across iTunes and streaming services - and that's just for "Ambitionz as a Ridah." Streaming data suggests that I'm not alone in that pursuit either. But commercial and mainstream success comes at a cost: it rarely seems to go hand in hand with positive critical ... read more

In "USB," aggravatingly repetitive vocal samples and synth lines echo out loudly before Fred makes a stroke-of-genius production decision at the last moment to convince me that listening is still worthwhile. He does this over, and over, and over again throughout the album and I don't know how to feel about that.

With one of the least confident ratings I've given an album, I can say for sure that it's definitely somewhere between a 42 and an 88...

Alright first and foremost, I've got to make a gigantic bias disclaimer before reviewing this album. I'm pretty confident its not objectively as good as a 74; probably nowhere near. But for me, it's hard to separate my appreciation of it today from the important role that this played in my life back in 2020.

In April that year I found myself hospitalised battling a condition that there was no guarantee that I'd recover from, and what I needed then wasn't complex ballads to lead me through the ... read more

What an intro. I'm sure that this isn't the first time Kobe's timeless quote from 2009 has been sampled in a hip hop track, but it nonetheless was the perfect start to the NBA inspired "Cocaine Paste" which in turn would go on to to be an excellent opening to "Pain Provided Profit."

However, as this is an album review and not a song review, unfortunately there's only so much credit I can give Conway and Skeese for that initial effort. I still maintain that 2022's "God ... read more

As this album commences with "Donkey Show," I rejoice. Yes, yes, yes - now this, is darkness.

There's something wicked being discharged here and I absolutely love it, despite not being someone who typically finds themselves at home in this genre. So many little decisions in the production of each song contribute to the ecstatic sense of unease that they leave you with. The electric guitar is just ever so off, or just a little too loud. There's a sound of human breathing where there ... read more

When I first saw the reception Macklemore was getting for this, I pretty much had a contrarian opinion fired up and ready to go but... damn. It's actually worse than people were saying.

I feel bad because he does talk about some real shit on here (for half the album, at least); I guess I just wish he'd found a way to channel that into listenable songs.

Not a single track on here is getting playlist rotation and, for now at least, I think "BEN" holds the prize for worst major album ... read more

With slowthai's "UGLY," we are once more faced with a philosophical question of music, one that has been put before us over the last decade by premier artists such as Kanye West and Tyler the Creator, among others:

Just how much does it matter to the quality of a song, or an album, if its lead vocalist cannot sing in tune?

It is a question that I wrestled with about a year ago when I first properly listened to IGOR, and was one that saw me assess that Tyler's work, as brilliant as ... read more

Music critic Damien Morris of the Observer is delusional, and while I would agree with sentiments from fellow aoty commentators that "MASEGO" is, "great for the background," and "an easy listen," I would be lying if I wasn't hoping to get just a little more than that out of the man.

The first half of the album does itself in with boring lyrics and subject matter to the point of it almost being silly, which would be less obvious if the production was a step above ... read more

You know that Logic's made a good album when the aoty community nearly gives him an 80. Despite being ceremonially hated and picked on, the man has finally created something good enough that even the bullies on here have been forced to acknowledge that he has done some seriously good work across a fairly sizeable quantity of songs.

Firstly, I've got to say - I like the skits. Sure, in isolation, they're not that great. But that's the thing - they're not in isolation. Logic's demonstrated his ... read more

When I saw JID live for the first time, I was immediately struck by how technically proficient he was, with a lyricism and flow to his bars that stood head and shoulders above everyone else I had seen up until that time (save perhaps for Kendrick.) Listening to this album has returned me to that impression and has made me question why it's taken me a full 6 months to go through it from start to finish.

"The Forever Story" is begins with a clever introduction in "Galaxy" ... read more

This was a really pleasant surprise to stumble upon. I'm a sucker for this style of production and as other commentators have noted, Joseph really does have a hypnotic voice regardless of whether he's rapping or singing. I do think COLD SUMMER was overrated though, and because the album was so short in length, any flaws to be found loomed much larger than I think they would have if they were dispersed through 2-4 more tracks at least.

UK scene seems pretty good right now though, they've got a ... read more

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: the B team.

There is not a song to be found on here that would not be eclipsed by anything you could pull from QFF, and I have genuine suspicions that these are just the rejects from that project. Even then, there's still a few that can manage playlist rotation, but not very many.

And some of these... Man, some of these just shouldn't have been released. What on earth was "Don't Get Too Close"? And "3am"? Someone indict this man for child ... read more

For some odd reason, artists on Tidal sometimes post their albums in "Dolby Atmos" configuration, which is great - if you've got Dolby Atmos speakers. If you don't, it distorts the sound and means you're probably not listening to the album as it was meant to be listened to.

So lets start with a disclaimer - this was one of those albums, and I really wish it wasn't.

In addition to rousing reminders of the importance of personal hygiene, "Heavy Heavy" has some very ... read more

Despite some smooth and sexy moments, Biscits has yet to demonstrate anything resembling consistency. The highs come only slightly more often than the lows with him, and most of them didn't come on this album. Continuing the theme of the day though, the second half of the album is considerably better than the first, and this didn't finish up as poor an effort as I expected it to.

Edit: unfortunately, even this lukewarm appraisal was going a bit too easy on this album. A few of its songs which ... read more

Who on earth tagged this album as progressive house.

Anyway. I meant to review this when it came out but didn't get a chance - I'm not going to spend too long on it now. Hayden James has audibly declined since his previous albums and his decision to regress to a generic house album certainly wasn't welcomed by my friends or I. Now, there are some songs of that sort on here that are quite good, so I'm not saying that this album has been entirely wasted. But it is a step back artistically, and ... read more