We weren’t sure if Madonna could surprise us anymore. Until she did.
For M.I.A., Maya feels like a crossed border.
Sun Kil Moon’s Admiral Fell Promises evinces a uniform disinterest in sudden mood shifts or redemptive finales.
The trio behind School of Seven Bells’s lush indie-pop takes their creative process incredibly seriously.
An album like Wildwood leaves Chatham County Line in something of a no-man’s land.
Fables of the Reconstruction is, on a song-for-song basis, one of R.E.M.’s strongest collections.
Masts of Manhatta boasts real structural depth, as Bonham finds an effective balance of contemporary folk and modern rock.
The album is bad in a predictable, sluggish way, with no hint of better work on the horizon.
Heart of a Champion wrings numbing banality out of the most familiar of subjects.
The album is a self-referential “fuck-you” to an industry that propped Phair up.
Less is certainly more for Kula Shaker.
Sir Lucious Left Foot succeeds as both a character summation and a declaration of independence.
Kylie Minogue’s Aphrodite is the sound of an artist playing it safe.
If they want to reclaim their popularity, the Nappy Roots need to sound fun.
The-Dream is pleasingly attuned to the needs of women, and Love King is the nutgraph of his mission(ary) statement.
At its core, Expo 86 is the work of a great band seemingly disinterested in its own existence.
Not only does the album have an actual pulse, but it also lacks any pretenses of being more than what it is.
By matching their sound so adriotly to the content of their songs, Scissor Sisters makes Night Work an album of real structural sophistication.
The album is the work of an artist whose unique voice can’t flourish without dissimilar, energetic counterparts.
They’re driven, even though their latest venture is stylistically the most inert, contemplative, offputtingly soft music they’ve possibly ever released.
This is an attempt to capture the essence of the past decade in music, as I’ve experienced it.