We weren’t sure if Madonna could surprise us anymore. Until she did.
This year’s Grammy Awards are shaping up to be a contest between Adele and Beyoncé.
As with so many jam-oriented albums, Got Soul leans heavily on the genre’s clichés.
“John Wayne” returns Gaga to a maximalist aesthetic, including a storyline that began almost eight years ago.
The Orwells harness their considerable energy and wield it with more precision on Terrible Human Beings.
The Temple of I and I is Thievery Corporation’s most focused effort to date—which also makes it their least adventurous.
Little Fictions distinguishes itself as an Elbow album not quite like any other.
Jens Lekman’s Life Will See You Now encapsulates the transfixing nature of fleeting moments.
Notes of Blue is Son Volt’s most direct, concise, and uptempo music in years.
Tift Merritt’s new album, Stitch of the World, makes it just a little bit easier to believe that scars do heal.
Cloud Nothings take a far more measured approach on their fourth album, Life Without Sound.
The two-track A Shadow in Time shows that William Basinski’s technique can yield a wide range of results.
I See You finds the xx illustrating the challenges of love and heartache through a vibrant new sonic palette.
At 10 tracks and 44 minutes, this largely featureless album is compact, disciplined, and low on flash.
Foxygen’s latest album, Hang, is composed of clean, airy, carefully arranged symphonic pop.
Run the Jewels 3 remains too entrenched in the grammar of the past to ever feel entirely fresh.
Oczy Mlody is a masterstroke of rhythm and tone that neither trips head-on into bliss nor spins into dismay.
This is music that’s never the same but sounds like it is, obsessed with the fact that it isn’t.
A list of the most ambitious, genre-defying music by pop’s reluctant gay icon.
This may represent Jagger’s most technically proficient and grittily emotive set of vocals this side of Exile on Main St.
Listen to a playlist of the best singles of the year on YouTube and Spotify.