“I found myself,” Maggie Rogers sings on her major-label debut, “when I was going everywhere.”In 2016, Rogers played her song “Alaska” for Pharrell Williams at an NYU undergraduate seminar. A video of the performance went viral, resulting in a major-label deal, an EP and a sold-out headlining tour all within …
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Has there ever been an artist who needed to release an album less than Bad Bunny? For three years now, this Puerto Rican star, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, has been gushing hit singles like a broken fire hydrant. His voice, low and droning, is inimitable and absurdly adaptable, equally …
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For more than a quarter century, filmmaker David Lynch and composer Angelo Badalamenti have been sitting on some of the most compellingly bizarre creations either had worked on — even by David Lynch’s standards. Now they’ve finally released Thought Gang, a project that has only previously surfaced on Lynch’s soundtrack …
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Three years ago, the producer and singer Lorely Rodriguez capped a steady rise to indie pop almost-stardom with Me, her precocious debut album under the moniker Empress Of. Contained and sharp, it layered diary musings over self-produced electronic flair, winning the bilingual performer praise and a guest spot on avant-pop …
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Forty years ago, filmmaker John Carpenter dreamt up the eerie, off-kilter title music for Halloween on the fly, just futzing around with a rhythm his music professor dad had taught him on the bongos. It’s since become one of the most iconic horror-movie themes, up there with those from Psycho, …
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He’s relapsed, he’s recovered, he’s been revived – and now he’s back, back again (and again). His second album in less than a year, Kamikaze is the latest and most disappointing entry to Eminem’s never-ending encore, a boot camp of knotty, joyless, lumbering ragers aimed largely at a rap game that’s passing …
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“I’m an outstanding Afro-American bisexual havin’ shit,” raps Taylor Bennett on the title track of his new EP. The Chicago rapper shares a lot of the same elements as his brother, Chance the Rapper; both favor bright pop-rap with sweet, chiming pianos. But unlike the spiritually minded Chance, Taylor’s aspirations …
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Since forming in 2011, the Scottish trio Chvrches have refined synth-pop for the festival age, taking the chilly atmospherics of early electro and piling on flourishes designed to divert distracted attendees’ attentions away from art installations and friends’ conversations, with vocalist Lauren Mayberry’s airy soprano contorting into stretched-out pleas and …
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“I’ll fuck you in your ass quick with Taylor Swift’s dick” announces Kid Rock charmingly on “Grandpa’s Rap,” an old-school shock-rap parody marrying toxic content with winking deniability. As comedy or bait for Twitter moralists – even from a pretend Senate candidate who’s supped at the White House with our …
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