#14. Duo Magdalena Bay make pop music that is in love with being pop music. Although their songs burst with playfulness and a desire to…
#24. 333 is the second studio album Tinashe has released since becoming an independent artist, and you can hear it in the music. Maybe even…
Honorable Mention: Little Simz’s Sometimes I Might Be Introvert opens with one of the most striking singles of the year, a six-minute long rap epic…
Honorable Mention: In a year where most mainstream rap albums not named Donda disappointed — looking at you Tyler, Jeffrey, Aubrey — and the genre…
Honorable Mention: A quick glimpse at the one-sheet for Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon doesn’t inspire much hope. A black-and-white flick with both auto- and metafictional…
#7. Perhaps one of the greatest movie miracles Steven Spielberg has ever pulled off is in overcoming the Ansel of it all in his remake…
Poupelle of Chimney Town is appealingly bugnuts in bursts, but by the end, the Garbage Man isn’t the only thing here that stinks. At this…
TWICE’s latest offers easy enough pop listening, but is unambitious on the whole and too littered with throwaway tracks to present a compelling whole. Nine-member…
Swan Song is a sleek, appealingly low-key sci-fi effort that angles more for emotional wallop than futurist noodling. Within the history of cinema, the subject of…
Predictably, Red (Taylor’s Version) isn’t entirely convincing, but it’s another welcome assertion of autonomy from the ever-evolving artist. Red is the Taylor Swift album most…
Dumont’s recent shift into outright absurdity and his exuberant mistrust of form is most thrillingly realized in France, and particularly in Seydoux’s remarkable performance. Bruno…
The Humans isn’t a subtle film, but mostly impresses thanks to surprising formal chops from playwright-turned-director Stephen Karam. In a millennium relatively lacking in original movie…
Trying Not to Think About It is a mature, introspective pop album, and definitive proof that JoJo is here to stay. JoJo’s 2020 album Good to…
tick, tick…BOOM! fails to live up to its explosive title, unimaginatively relying on built-in Broadway love and the myth of its subject. It’s only taken Lin-Manuel…
Night Raiders teases a unique dystopian setup, and then fails to meaningfully develop any of its promising parts. In a millennium overstuffed with dystopian presentations, it’s…
In the Meantime is a bit overstuffed with filler, but Alessia Cara’s latest makes for a pleasant background companion in our present reality. Alessia Cara made…
The Yearbook immediately situates Baby Queen at the fore of contemporary pop. Baby Queen (real name Arabella Latham) debuted in the pop music scene in 2020…
The Spine of Night is a grisly, singular work of nerdcore unorthodoxy that occasionally stumbles but manages to stay upright. The Spine of Night is a…
Roh trades only in tropes, and subverts any inherent eeriness with its heavy-handed application of mood. Emir Ezwan’s debut feature, Roh, is part of an emerging…
Llosa does her best to capture the delirium of the source material, but Fever Dream can’t quite sustain its dizzying, eerie tenor. Claudia Llosa’s Fever Dream is…
1/6 is both a confident and vulnerable comeback for Sunmi, a synthpop work of polished songcraft and raw lyricism. Since 2017, K-pop artist Sunmi’s velvety synthpop…