New albums from Mdou Moctar, Control Top, L7, and Gary Clark Jr., guitar heroes all.
Category: Music
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Vampire Weekend Self-Consciously Grows Up
Growing up and finding love are conflated as a general spiritual awakening on the band’s new album.
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The Gospel According to Kanye and Aretha
The live stream of Kanye West’s Coachella “Sunday Service” and the restored Aretha Franklin concert film Amazing Grace offer contrasting portraits of celebrity faith.
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The Singer-Songwriter Complex
New word-heavy releases from Jenny Lewis, Sir Babygirl, Nilufer Yanya, and Sharon Van Etten.
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Billie Eilish’s Creepy, Crawly Pop
Eilish’s debut album is an exercise in comic horror.
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Solange, Captured Mid-Dream
Conceived as a musical map of Houston, Solange’s hometown, When I Get Home wanders from mood to mood, arrangement to arrangement, a soundscape as cityscape, where songs correspond to locations and melodies merge with memory.
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John and Yoko’s Wedding Album, Once an Oddity, Now an Icon
An unlikely element of Lennon and Ono’s late-1960s peace campaign was an aural selfie, ahead of its time.
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James Blake Grows Up
Assume Form is Blake’s first album to acknowledge his status as a pop presence, but it also feels like an attempt to broaden his range, to correct the way he became associated with generic melancholy.
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The Odd Comforts of Alternative Rock
Traditionalism often enables quiet triumphs. Or loud triumphs, if you turn the volume up.
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Turning Inward with Robyn, Gazelle Twin, Rosalia, and Low
Four introspective new albums depict the outside world in microcosm.
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Bhad Bhabie’s Fear of Fame
Bhad Bhabie is our era’s perfect musical antihero: a teenager forced into the spotlight, learning to rap as a survival mechanism.
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Janelle Monáe’s Political Sex
Monáe’s Dirty Computer is an ambitious, politically outspoken, all-encompassing pop-R&B statement album.