Miss Anthropocene is the type of pop eccentricity that only an artist like Grimes could conceive of. Not since Bjork’s 1997 watershed Homogenic has a weird pop artist cast a masterpiece in the mold of Miss Anthropocene: a fusion of progressive sonics, compelling song craft, and high-concept…
Translation is an unimaginative record of lazy appropriation and weak production. To put it as eloquently as possible: the Black Eyed Peas are stupid. That’s not a qualitative assessment — the group has consistently produced stuck song bangers over the years, and it isn’t backhanded…
Jessie Ware’s latest does exactly what pop should do — it innovates and bears beautiful reassurance. Jessie Ware nearly called it quits after 2017’s Glasshouse, an album that resulted in an exhausting tour cycle, middling reviews, and slumping sales. Subsequent pressure to push past…
After Hours still revels in The Weeknd’s familiar hedonistic lyrical content, but also evinces an unexpected artistic progression. 2020For the better part of the last decade, Abel Tesfaye has been finding new ways to articulate his carnal desire for drugs, sex, and libertine satisfaction; on…
Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters might be her greatest yet: a confrontation of trauma and exhibition of musical excellence. Eight largely reclusive years later and Fiona Apple has delivered her Idler Wheel follow-up. The creation process was a long one, with recording of her new…
Notes on a Conditional Form is a marathon of an album and the latest evidence of The 1975’s status as a singles band. With Notes On A Conditional Form, The 1975’s fourth studio album, the British foursome has stretched their established artistry and crafted…
I Disagree is a ferocious pop album and a defiant, artistic declaration of autonomy. Just who even is Poppy? There are a few floating ideas, vague assumptions one can make regarding her character based on a few off-kilter YouTube videos, ones that might suggest her…
Haim’s latest represents their most cohesive artistic vision yet and a grand promise of continued evolution. “Goodbye for now” were the words that the Haim sisters posted to their individual Instagram accounts in early 2019, though the subtext was more promise than goodbye. Was…
Homegrown is the rare archival release that actually offers substance rather than just ephemera. In an age where exhuming stacks of demos and alternate mixes has become the norm for so many older acts, Neil Young’s Homegrown — a scrapped studio album from 1975 —…
Chromatica delivers occasional melodic pleasures but is otherwise stripped of the complexity and contradiction that usually defines Gaga’s brand of pop. Each new release from Lady Gaga following the Fame and Born This Way heyday is more disarming than the last — increasingly structured around…
