Music
The All-Encompassing Cardi B
Invasion of Privacy sounds like another conventional rap album, before revealing Cardi B’s maniacal determination to be all things to everybody.
Music
Music
Fast, Fizzy, Rapturous, and Bloodcurdling: U.S. Girls, Turnstile, Amen Dunes, Sofi Tukker
Four albums aspire to subversion, but delight is disruptive by definition.
Music
Wendy's Serves Up a Beefy Mixtape
The fast food chain's mixtape We Beefin? explores an uncharted outreach strategy.
Music
Four Bands on Sex, Politics, and the Weather
New albums by Rhye, Physically Sick, Toni Braxton, and Johnny Jewel share a warped relationship to their ostensible themes.
Music
A K-Pop Flash in the Darkness
As with any deceased musician, there’s the temptation to speculate how much Jonghyun’s real-life suffering informed the music.
Music
The Soaring Audio-Visual Art of Andrew Bird’s Live Show
With Echolocations, the folk musician and indie rocker has made site-specific performances a part of his live tour.
Music
William Eggleston’s First Album Is Colored by Dream-Like Improvisations
Eggleston often cites Bach as his musical hero, and it shows.
Music
Electronica Against Trump
Whether as respite, inspiration, distraction, or candy, music carries political utility simply by tapping the social value of pleasure.
Music
Oceans of Sound: Jlin, Relax World, Slowdive, Thundercat
The best background music is also the best full-immersion music.
Music
Pop Fixations: St Vincent, Lorde, Taylor Swift, Portugal the Man
Three of these four albums count among 2017’s best, and they all share the same producer.
Music
Shimmer and Melancholy in SZA's 'Ctrl'
The songs on Ctrl occupy a space where insecurities over sex, romance, and gender are credibly illuminated, coexisting as they do with music committed to functionalism and the pleasure principle.
Music
Anatomy of a Christmas Song
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and kitsch is in the air.