Rude years, rude songs. Kendrick Lamar and Drake show off accusing each other of being vile. Pop enters a renaissance with smart women sharing impure thoughts. Taylor Swift reveals confession of lust-crazed misjudgment. Hip Hop. “Sexy piercing” The scene is still thriving. Acclaim has poured in for genre-defying artists. Distribution format And the format of the album: Cindy Lee’s two-hour rock epic was released via GeoCities, Mk.Gee blends hair metal and ambient music, Charli XCX’s brat It was less popular as an album than as a fashion statement.
what happened? The internet’s decisive cultural impact is becoming definitive. It destroys common sense about how things work. Pop stars and punks embraced the big meltdown by saying what they felt. Exactly what they wanted to say My top picks, though, cover a variety of categories. But many types are similar. spit Quality. They play like glorious continuous sentences. Full of oversharing and IDs
Continue following. Spotify–
10. Sabrina Carpenter short and sweet
While romcoms gradually Fading away as a petty art form, pop replaced the anxieties of social courtship. Carpenter acts a little Dolly and a little Britney. Reinventing the blonde bombshell for an image-obsessed and disconnected era. Under the surface easy-to-listen FM radio short and sweet Filled with eye-catching details and the wit of a sex columnist. Irony with tragic irony: If such a woman can’t find a good man, what else does anyone hope for?
listen:Coincidence–
9. By The thief next to Jesus
Writers should be careful: “Bury only what you can’t live without,” so preached the last testament of Ka, a 52-year-old New York broadcaster who died in October. Open the album with wide side Resisting materialistic and sexually exploitative “fake rap” sold as empowerment is a common complaint from the underground. But it is one that Ka shows with new clarity. His power—whether analyzing poverty, religion, or racism—lies in his haunted voice. and his insistence on making up stories every syllable.
listen:Borrowed time–
8. Pussy model I got heaven
Indie rock sounds easy. And it’s nostalgic these days, so it’s worth cheering for the artists who keep freedom looking wild. These Philadelphia punks’ fourth album is an older entry in the edgy tradition of Sleater-Kinney: Noise and fragility soar in beautiful contrasts. The guitar rumbles satisfyingly like autumn leaves beneath your heels. “What if we stop spinning? And if we just smooth it out?” asks singer Missy Dabice, her voice shaking with every form of satisfaction.
listen:Loud bark–
7. Seka Bodega Dennis
at ringtone One minute of singing on this album is like an inverted wake-up call. Dragging listeners into a dream state with one of the most interesting electronic producers of the moment, Sega Bodega uses EDM as a storytelling tool. And what he shows here is yell of feelings that cannot be explained You will ascend to the top of a crazy mountain. Relax in the Enya-style choir and come to the end of your journey thanks to the fact that you can return to his underworld whenever you please.
listen:Cape Go–
6. Hooray for Riff Raff The past is still alive
Country singer Alynda Segarra’s ninth album is a warm and engaging roadside memoir that bitterly criticizes an unfair country. Many of the friends Segarra spoke with during his trip to America as The “little girl with the buck knife and fake ID” died amid poverty and addiction, but Segarra sings about them in a way that is inherently dramatic. By believing in the efficiency of Strong melodies with soft resonances “You don’t have to die if you don’t want to,” Segarra sings – magical words at a time when faith in the future is fading.
listen:Alibi–
5. Beyoncé cowboy Carter
“Pop star goes to other provinces” is General mechanism That creates a lot of commonality. But Beyonce has turned those expectations on its head, releasing songs from the Americana canon freely. She’s as crazy and experimental as any famous musician ever was. Several months later I’m still shocked by the electric bass of “American Requiem,” the minimalist bass lines of “Levii’s Jeans,” and the twisty dance megamix that comes in towards the end of the album. Although online debates about Beyoncé’s influence and ideology have become tiresome, Cowboy CarterHis music is still bigger and stranger than discourse can understand.
listen:River Dance–
4. Floating score waterfall
Sam Shepard, a neuroscientist famous for jazz and ballet, brings his brain power to the dance floor. waterfall– The song starts off with a techno beatscape that doesn’t seem like a book. Instead, it blooms and transforms in exciting new ways. In “Birth4000,” it seems like the ghost of Donna Summer is screaming through a motorcycle engine. When “Affleck’s Palace” Bursting into the sound of live drums It was as if the blueprint was suddenly becoming a building. Making music from the body vivid takes intelligence.
listen:Vocoder (Club Mix)–
3. Kim Gordon group
A 71-year-old rock musician reciting words through a drum machine might seem avant-garde and inaccessible. But the amazing fact is that Kim Gordon, Sonic Youth’s droll co-founder, has truly created one of the greatest. Amusing Album of the year Her freewheeling lyrics are either mesmerizingly quirky or just plain hilarious. And her tangled, rumbling riffs have a surprisingly soothing effect. She describes modern brain rot as countering it with something better: creativity expressed at the highest volume.
listen:goodbye–
2. Charlie XCX brat and That bastard and him were completely different. But he’s still a bastard.
It’s not just colors, it’s not just memes, it’s not just presidential campaigns that want to be cool. But it’s also not just a really fun album. brat It was an evolutionary time for music. It combines long-standing cultural shifts and points the way forward. The main leap is in the approach to singing. This ties into rap’s penchant for melodic harmonies. Swift-pop’s flair for cheeky specificity And electronic music insists on production – filters, rhythms and samples –is Songwriting This subtle complexity forever transforms bubblegum pop into a gobstopper. You can have endless fun with it. A twist on the flavors of gossip, escapism, and emotional exposure.
at brat It is a codex of a fresh musical language that is evident on the remix album. which invited a number of actors to try out Charlie’s cyborg confessional style. The result was a revelation for each participant: Lorde had never sounded so down-to-earth, Robyn had never been so boastful. Can’t remix better More than the main album per se. But they nudged bratCharlie’s emotional landscape—anxiety battles carelessness It creates mouths of bittersweet rivers and pinnacles of ecstasy—until the end. It confirms a core belief of Charlie’s career: that pop can still transform.
listen:Little girl, very confused by Lorde.–
1. Mount Erie Night Palace
I was never a 46-year-old indie-folk songwriter living on a rain-soaked island in the Pacific Northwest. Raising a little daughter and contemplating the impermanence of existence, but Phil Elverum’s astonishing 26-song album makes me feel as though I know him and his life as well as I know my own. I feel the cool breeze smell the pine bush and feel the perfect combination of loneliness boredom and the wonder that seemed to fill his days.
Like some charcoal scene books. The album is completely a study in textures, like guitar distortion. The sound of the drums rumbling Stylistically, Elverum’s kind and innocent voice moves the songs from cheerful rock anthems. to roaring metal to solemn words But every part harmonizes with a soft humming sound. Gradually, a sense of grand truth emerges. With frankness and a sparkling sense of humor, Elverum reflects on his personal life in the context of the land he occupied. The story he created and emptiness beyond it all If you are afraid that our world is changing This is a startling reminder that our world is constantly changing.
listen:i talk to fish–
