Album Reviews

Since supplying the sugary “u up?” chorus to Drake’s 2020 track “Chicago Freestyle,” Southern California singer-songwriter Givēon has become a force in modern R&B. Last year, his scorching 2020 ballad “Heartbreak Anniversary” became an unlikely TikTok sensation and a fixture of bummed-out playlists; that March, his cameo on Justin Bieber’s …

“People have their own definition of what toxic is,” Future told veteran journalist Elliott Wilson in a widely circulated GQ cover story that boldly proclaimed the 38-year-old Atlanta artist as “The Best Rapper Alive.” “[These women] all were toxic to me. They just don’t want to admit it.” That latter …

Much has been said about K-pop borrowing liberally from American hip-hop culture, but on their second English-language album, The Dreaming, K-pop group Monsta X pays homage to boy-band culture, with Nineties-style harmonies, slick choruses, and head-bopping beats that come together for an infectious and joyous 27 minutes. Recorded while Covid …

Nearly 40 years ago, Abba were in the studio for one last time, to cut a tragic ballad called “The Day Before You Came.” They knew this was goodbye; both couples in the group had finalized their divorces. Agnetha Fältskog recited a bleak tale of total emotional isolation, words scripted …

My Morning Jacket have always made classic rock seem relevant in our day and age, because the Kentucky boys never fooled themselves into thinking that human existence collapsed into oblivion the day Skynyrd’s plane went down. They’ve got a way of filtering realist anxiety into their ambitious trippiness, droning as …

The more you listen to Mustafa, you begin to realize that the juxtaposition of the gritty street life he depicts and the gentle music he makes shouldn’t be much of a juxtaposition at all. Half of the singer-songwriter’s debut project, When Smoke Rises, has been released as singles, with music …

If the videos he’s been uploading to his Hot Freaks subscription service are any indication, Robert Pollard has been spending much of the Covid-19 pandemic listening to his massive record collection in his pajamas. Perhaps consequently, his omnivorous musical taste has never been on more effective display than on Guided …

Five years is an eternity in pop. In 2016, This Is Acting, anchored by the moody party hit “Cheap Thrills,” cemented Sia’s status as a pop star. But in the time since, she’s seemed uncertain of her next step, and her moves were hesitant and tentative. There was a Christmas …

Sam Smith’s latest late-night raid on Heartbreak Mountain opens in the very wee small hours with “Young,” an a cappella ode to loving, crying, drinking, and kissing boys, consequences be damned. The forlorn, unadorned sweep of Smith’s singing evokes torch-song crooning at its most elemental, yet their voice is subtly …

Sam Hunt has taken more than a few knocks for his progressive approach to country music — the hybrid of synths and programmed drums, Drake-ian brooding, and sung-spoken delivery that defined his 2014 debut Montevallo. But detractors be damned, the album turned the towering Georgia native into a crossover star. …