Sultry and uninhibited, Positions is Ariana Grande’s first album to unequivocally give no fucks. Now well beyond the maelstrom of tabloids and tragedy that fueled 2018’s Sweetener and 2019’s Thank U, Next, the superstar is more popular than ever. And through her rigorous release schedule — three high-profile LPs in 26 months is no small […]
Hysterically grand and unshakably earnest, Imploding The Mirage is exactly what the Killers need it to be — an easy bridge to the next arena tour (whenever that may occur). The band’s sixth LP disrupts none of its predetermined big-rock boundaries; it alienates no fans. It delivers a belting, fan-service single in “Caution” — to […]
The great fascination enveloping folklore, Taylor Swift’s mossy, surprise eighth LP, lies not within the album’s steadfast execution but the attempt itself — that during a global crisis which has paralyzed entire nations, a pop monolith would venture to swerve from her honey-soaked Lover’s lane and rumble deep into the forest, fixated on sonic reinvention. […]
As the 2000s became the 2010s, no artist looked more poised to transform the landscape wholesale than Mathangi Arulpragasam, whom most millennials know as M.I.A. A brilliant Sri Lankan musician, political disruptor, and cultural synthesizer from London, she made music almost entirely about being exiled by birthright, about her complicated relationship with societal upheaval having […]
For six decades, Bob Dylan has proven completely peerless. His lyrics especially have redefined risk-taking and boundary-pushing in popular song. His eyes have always been on the horizon. On his 39th studio album, he looks inward to explore the undiscovered country of his own heart, mind, and creative process. Rough and Rowdy Days is a typically […]
Run the Jewels don’t make a reviewer’s job easy because everything that’s great about them is the stuff we’re supposed to ignore to get to the bottom of the hype. They began as the best kind of “supergroup”: An unlikely pairing of beloved talents who still had plenty of room to peak higher. El-P’s fantastic […]
Lady Gaga is one of those artists you wish wasn’t such a crowd-pleaser, because her crowd is often wrong. And maybe we’d play it safe too if our most sonically adventurous album garnered the nickname Artflop. But ever since 2013’s absurd, problematic, and musically astonishing Artpop didn’t meet commercial expectations (despite reaching no. 1 and […]
Mystic Styles of the ancient mutilationsTorture chambers filled with corpses in my basementFeel the wrath of the fuckin’ devilationThree 6 Mafia: creation of Satan By the time Lord Infamous uttered that incantation, it had been seven years since the FBI threatened N.W.A. over “Fuck Tha Police,” four since Scarface had “visions of bodies being burned,” […]