We weren’t sure if Madonna could surprise us anymore. Until she did.
Playground marks the Boy Least Likely To’s awkward first steps toward adulthood.
She wailed with an astonishing clarity throughout songs like “Glass” and “Pearl’s Dream.”
Depeche Mode’s Sounds of the Universe dispenses with more user-friendly, pop-oriented, big-chorus songs in favor of denser, consternating material.
Fantasy Ride is Ciara’s smoothest ride to date.
Porcupine is an appropriately prickly record that’s an about-face from Easton’s previous four albums.
Rebirth of Venus does its damnedest to play against Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee’s already modest skill set.
One consolation Together offers is the fact these songs are going to absolutely kill when played live.
Colonia is what pop music might have sounded like in the era of gaslights and guillotines.
Apple Tree is filled with low-lying songs ripe for the picking.
Rick Ross cannot expect anyone to take the title of his third album, Deeper Than Rap, with even a grain of credulity.
Fans hoping for a late-career renaissance might be let down, but the duo isn’t slouching either.
The album illustrates how deeply two long-time collaborators understand each other’s creative restlessness and their flair for the dramatic.
A laidback, playful exploration in regional sound, Allen Toussaint’s The Bright Mississippi draws jazz back to its roots.
Art Brut vs. Satan operates in the same mode as the band’s last two albums.
“Dead Flowers” makes it clear that Lambert is more interested in forging her own artistic path than in bending to ill-fitting trends set by far lesser talents.
Its best passages tend to last under a minute, waiting to be excavated from their droning, overlong surroundings.
Perhaps to expect more than tasteless rock candy is too tall an order for a band fronted by Taylor Hanson.
Ida Maria’s facility with a hook makes Fortress ‘Round My Heart an impressive debut.
Fantasies yearns for more vulnerable, somber passages.
Floating along on a muttery wave of gelid, slushy demi-pop, Papercuts’s You Can Have What You Want should raise few eyebrows.