Search Results
Below are your search results. You can also try a Basic Search.
(07/13/20 7:09pm)
Arca's KiCk i is simultaneously the beginning, end, and continuation of multiple eras. The Venezuelan producer Alejandra Ghersi's past four albums, which mostly took the form of abstract electronica, with the notable exception of 2017's self–titled effort, lapsed toward an insular, isolated loneliness. Her prior works were more centered around her own personal growth rather than mass appeal; the music twisted and turned away from easily recognizable meaning and value. On KiCk i, appearing (for the first time) in a full–body shot on one of her album covers, Arca makes a gleefully genre–defying, compelling case for herself as the mutant popstar of 2020.
(06/30/20 3:53pm)
In light of the protests in support of #BlackLivesMatter that have seized the nation, record labels (such as Republic Records) have taken action to fight racism within the music industry by removing the word 'urban' from their official terminology.
(06/18/20 8:47pm)
Back in 2014, the electronica/jazz producer Steve Ellison (better known by his stage name Flying Lotus) released his thrilling fifth album, You're Dead!, a concept album about death. The themes of the album, particularly as they relate to Black men, are extremely prescient to the current national conversation about police brutality and #BlackLivesMatter. At the time it was released, critics saw the album as an irreverent philosophical meditation on death as a condition. It certainly can be read that way, but in light of the recent protests and riots that have sprung up around the country and world, You're Dead! has become urgently political and vital to this moment in time as protest music.
(06/14/20 12:50am)
After the pared–down intimacies of the soundtrack from A Star is Born and 2016's Joanne, the reigning queen of dance pop makes an overdue return to the floor-filling dance-pop that made her famous in the first place, pleasing the girls and gays the world over. Although the record faced delays to due to the COVID-19 outbreak, it was finally released on May 29th (in the midst of protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police). Chromatica is pure camp and high theatrics—like the best of Gaga's work—only this time it's plastered in hot pink and doused in poppers.
(06/06/20 6:20pm)
Charli XCX's new album, How I'm Feeling Now, blisters at the seams, sputters almost outside the reach of quarantine. Created entirely at home and with significant input from fans online, Charlotte Aitchison's latest record as Charli XCX, arriving just months after her highly anticipated third album, Charli, is a document of the human in social isolation. It's an artifact of the era of COVID-19.
(06/02/20 11:00am)
Mike Hadreas' work as Perfume Genius, no matter how conceptual, has always been of the heart and body. On his fifth and latest record, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, Hadreas presents a newfound depth missing from his previous releases. Where he proudly proclaimed his identity as an effeminate gay man on 2014's Too Bright, 2017's No Shape reveled in the ambiguity of everyday life. Though Set My Heart touches on similar themes of his past two LP's, it does so with a certain poetry and openness that makes these ideas new and fresh. In Hadreas' hands, repeated topics (effeminacy, queer love, everyday life) don't dull with repetition. Rather, they are a well of inspiration to return to again and again.
(05/01/20 1:43am)
Rina Sawayama’s debut album SAWAYAMA, released on April 17, is a genre–defying feat in introspection and identity presented as art. The album—produced by Clarence Clarity—sees Rina centering her identities as a queer British–Japanese person as the focal point of the record.
(04/20/20 7:10pm)
Throughout her long career, singer/songwriter Fiona Apple has been hard to categorize. Like Björk, she also came to prominence as a prodigy in the '90s with her hit single "Criminal," and she has a reputation for making difficult, avant–garde music.
(04/13/20 1:51am)
In a time of canceled concerts and postponed music festivals, artists and their producers have reacted differently to a world on lockdown. The response is mixed, with some artists delaying the release of their albums, and some holding concerts via Instagram live. Artists from all sides of the pop music spectrum have shown us just how much one can do working from home.
(04/01/20 2:34am)
About two weeks ago, when the news broke that we wouldn't be returning to school because of COVID–19, I did what I always do in a time of crisis or anxiety—I turned to music.
(03/24/20 4:02am)
It was late on a regular Thursday night, and my friends and I were hanging out in the floor lounge, doing just about nothing. I had a date scheduled for that night, but they canceled on me at the last minute, so I was stewing in my seat when I overheard two of my friends joking about some video they were watching on a laptop. I had known from last semester that they were big BTS fans, but I had always brushed it off as them just doing their thing. I tolerated the music videos and memes they made us watch on the TV screen when we scrolled through YouTube. That Thursday night, I decided to engage, and I was introduced to the world of the boy band BTS, or "Beyond the Scene.". I was forever changed.
(02/19/20 4:49am)
Does your a capella group have 11 albums?
(02/05/20 4:43am)
The Taylor Swift of Lana Wilson's new Netflix documentary, Miss Americana is alone—a surprising qualifier for someone whose reputation is at least partially built on her friends and ex–lovers. Wilson documents Swift as the hero of own life story, leaving everyone else around the star to the periphery. Nearly every frame of footage is filled with Taylor Swift.
(01/29/20 12:35am)
"I'm Poppy."
(01/21/20 2:15am)
On the opening title track of her new album Rare, Selena Gomez asks a distant, uncaring lover why he doesn't recognize how rare she is. However, the next 39 minutes of the album provide the listener with little to no further evidence for this claim. Rare, despite its name, fails to make Gomez stand out as a pop star among her peers.
(11/16/19 11:13pm)
HANA live–streamed the process behind her debut studio album, HANADRIEL, over four weeks on her Twitch channel. "Hanadriel," a portmanteau of HANA (real name Hana Pestle) and Galadriel (a character from the Lord of the Rings), is an apt title for the first full–length entry into the self–proclaimed "night elf songstress'" purple world of electro–pop and video game mysticism.
(11/08/19 8:05pm)
Caroline Polachek's new album, Pang, has been a long time coming. Having cut her teeth in the music industry as one half of the indie pop duo Chairlift (with Patrick Wimberly), Polachek has hidden in the shadows of bigger stars as a veteran singer–songwriter until now. Most people unwittingly know her voice from the infamous commercial for the iPod nano–chromatic all the way back in 2008.
(10/28/19 2:09am)
Raury's new album, Fervent, is a short, 30–minute excursion into folk that burns with a muted passion, apt for the album's name. Raury, the newly–independent singer–songwriter, rapper, guitarist, and producer, has collaborated with the likes of Chance the Rapper, Jaden Smith, and Joey Bada$$. On his latest effort, he takes a sharp turn from the fleshed out folk–rap of his 2015 major label debut, All We Need, into simple, spaced–out, acoustic folk. Taken as a whole, Fervent sounds less like a collection of individual songs but more like a potent mix that captures a certain mood: burning desire that crackles quietly across the eight tracks.
(10/17/19 5:27am)
This is a playlist for both late afternoon strolls on Locust Walk and nights out at a party. Dancing On My Own is beholden to no particular genre, though it primarily draws from the contemporary techno scenes with the occasional avant–pop song sprinkled in. It is an idiosyncratic ode to self–love, just like its title track.
(10/14/19 5:07pm)
Tegan and Sara’s new album, Hey, I’m Just Like You, too often sounds like the inside of a teenager’s head, which is the point, since the album is a collection of re–recorded demos from the artists’ late teens. In an interview, Tegan said that the more she listened to the demos, the less she cringed. The final product, however, has the opposite effect on the listener: the every–teen aesthetic quickly runs dry.