Music Reviews

Music & Culture

As African pop crests again, women are leading the second wave

2:59pm June 06, 2024

by Sheldon Pearce

Released in a span of three months, the new albums by Ayra Starr, Tems and Tyla are not merely career-making for the artists, but ground-shifting for the pop music of the continent.

Swamp Dogg's 'Blackgrass' is one of the best country albums of the year

4:10pm June 05, 2024

by Ken Tucker

Swamp Dogg, aka Jerry Williams Jr., began his career in the 1960s. Now 81, he demonstrates that, in his long career in R&B, soul and funk, country is another road he’s traveled.

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Music & Culture

Vince Staples, the visible man

1:26pm May 30, 2024

by Sheldon Pearce

Staples has always lived in a few worlds: art-rap hero, hall-of-fame interviewee, and a homebody whose inner life is none of our business. On Dark Times, his worlds finally converge.

Music & Culture

These 3 songs capture the spirit of the summer

1:55pm May 21, 2024

by Ken Tucker

Carsie Blanton sings a protest anthem in "After the Revolution." Sabrina Carpenter channels a disco party with her catchy hit "Espresso." "Life Is," by Jessica Pratt, is an immediate, sweeping drama.

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The retro-pop artist Cindy Lee doesn't sit for interviews, use social media and rejects the streaming era's demands on independent artists.

Music & Culture

How Cindy Lee became the music world's underground success story of 2024

10:04am May 20, 2024

by Meaghan Garvey

One of the best albums of 2024, Diamond Jubilee, isn't on streaming services. The artist who released it, Cindy Lee, has rejected the streaming era's demands to create something entirely their own.

On Lives Outgrown, her first solo album, Beth Gibbons has never appeared so unguarded, so free of mystery's shroud.

Music & Culture

On Beth Gibbons' 'Lives Outgrown,' the Portishead singer invites us in

12:01am May 17, 2024

by Grayson Haver Currin

Thirty years after Portishead's debut, Gibbons' first solo album is the testament of an uncanny singer simply making it through each day.

Gunna performs during the event "A Grammy Salute to 50 Years of Hip-Hop" on Nov. 08, 2023, at YouTube Theater in Inglewood, Calif.

Music & Culture

On 'One of Wun,' Gunna can't flaunt his way out of the YSL trial's shadow

3:39pm May 16, 2024

by Sheldon Pearce

The rapper slipped free from the legal mess that swallowed his label and his mentor Young Thug — but on his new album, he's still in the grip of an unending image crisis.

Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov fled his hometown of Kyiv for Berlin in early 2022.

What's past is present for Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov

12:22pm May 10, 2024

by Tom Huizenga

The 86-year-old Kyiv native, living in exile in Berlin, has a new album of symphonic works that explores the idea of reminiscence.

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Mystery manifests on Pratt's albums as the texture of dreams. But Here in the Pitch, her best album, feels completely lucid.

Music & Culture

On 'Here in the Pitch,' Jessica Pratt's pop seduces listeners into a Los Angeles noir

12:40pm May 03, 2024

by Jenn Pelly

The singer-songwriter's fourth album is her best yet, with crisp, commanding songwriting, shades of '60s baroque pop and melodies that seem to have existed forever.

Music & Culture

Sonny Rollins' big-hearted music speaks for itself on newly reissued 'Freedom Weaver'

1:42pm April 30, 2024

by Kevin Whitehead

In 1959, Rollins was a few years into one of the great hot streaks in jazz history when he took a three-week trip to Europe. Three hours from that tour are heard on a new Rollins-approved reissue.

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