Logic’s Young Sinatra IV, unlike its predecessors in the Young Sinatra series, is an album, not a mixtape. The meaning of this distinction has eroded over time, becoming a simple indication of artistic intent; here, the album billing means that we can expect something more focused and coherent than we...
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Dance music is a strange thing: it demands more from the listener than simply an attentive ear… the goal, of course, is to make people move. Producers can aspire to turn this undertaking into something ambitious and cerebral, or they can resign themselves to the silliness and make something straightforward...
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Rarely is an artist’s sound described so aptly by their genre as Beach House’s is by the term “dream pop”. Since their 2006 debut, the Baltimore duo have produced music that is light on obvious narrative direction and heavy on feeling; longing, nostalgia, melancholy and starry-eyed adoration, conveyed by Victoria...
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Frances Quinlan, frontwoman of Philadelphia rock quartet Hop Along, writes lyrics that raise more questions than they answer. Both of the band’s previous albums – 2012’s Get Disowned and particularly 2015’s terrific Painted Shut – have operated like storybooks, but the tales within have scarcely offered neat, satisfying conclusions; Quinlan’s...
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Jack White, to his credit, seems keen not to stagnate. It’s easy enough for rock stars to slip into complacent cycles at a certain point in their careers, grinding out indistinct albums on repeat with respectable sales guaranteed from an ever-loyal fanbase. White, however, interviewed by Rolling Stone in the...
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It’s no secret at this stage that Justin Timberlake’s new album is pretty lousy. Trading in the squeaky-clean R&B of 2013’s The 20/20 Experience, Timberlake presents Man of the Woods, promoted as a contemporary spin on the music of the southern United States, or “modern Americana with 808s”. If it...
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The story of Car Seat Headrest’s Twin Fantasy will be familiar to many fans of the band at this point. For the uninitiated: 2011: Will Toledo (19), under the name Car Seat Headrest, releases Twin Fantasy onto music-streaming website Bandcamp. It’s an hour-long lo-fi rock concept album about the...
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Our writers, after much thought and deliberation, share the albums that marked hip-hop in 2017. These are their picks for the hip-hop album of the year: Flower Boy – Tyler, the Creator Much has been made of what Tyler, the Creator reveals about his sexuality on Flower Boy, but to fixate...
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“My headphones / They saved my life / Your tape / Lulled me to sleep, to sleep, to sleep”, sings Björk on the final track of her 1995 sophomore record, Post. ‘Blissing Me’, the second single from Utopia, finds her treading similar lyrical ground: “Sending each other MP3s / Falling...
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