We weren’t sure if Madonna could surprise us anymore. Until she did.
The World Is a Beautiful Place’s Illusory Walls feels like the awakening that the band has been building toward all along.
Diamonds and Pearls was an important sign that Prince was willing to embrace contemporary sounds to stay visible.
Illuminati Hotties’s Let Me Do One More is full of swift and dramatic shifts in tone, from acerbic and brash to soft and despondent.
Thirty years later, A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory remains a stellar execution of hip-hop methodology.
Mickey Guyton’s Remember Her Name satisfies pop-country standards even as it defies the genre’s institutional roadblocks.
The time has come to at long last grant Trompe le Monde its rightful title as the Pixies’s best album.
“If You Say the Word” is quintessential Radiohead, a comment on the ennui of late-capitalist society.
The boundaries between earnestness and camp are blurred, but the album retains the rapper’s sensitive, playful personality.
Thirty years later, we take a look back at Mariah Carey’s underrated sophomore effort, Emotions.
Drake’s Certified Lover Boy is a distended confessional wherein the rapper attempts to reaffirm his image as a sweet-talking power player.
Low’s Hey What finds the duo fully embracing sonic expressionism while further honing their impeccable songcraft.
If Lady Gaga’s Chromatica favored pop hooks over musical invention, many of the versions on Dawn of Chromatica are just plain tuneless.
If Musgraves is going to be a pop star, Star-Crossed proves she’s doing it on her own terms.
Charli XCX describes “Good Ones” as “twisted, dramatic, and quite frankly electrifying.”
Iconic Swedish pop group ABBA have announced ABBA Voyage, a new concert experience and first album in four decades.
Kanye West’s Donda is about human fallibility and the desire for salvation even when we may not deserve it.
Suzanne Santo’s sophomore effort, Yard Sale, is a roots album that feels fresh and fully of the moment.
Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power thrillingly homes in on notions of self and identity.
Big Red Machine’s How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? leans into traditional song structures and fully fleshed-out arrangements.
Chvrches’s fourth album, Screen Violence, is imbued with a more overt sense of political purpose, but it’s also abundant in hooks.