Album Reviews

The Atlanta rap superstar tries satiating hardcore fans with mixed results on What Happened to the Streets?

Two hip-hop icons deliver a heartwarming collaboration on Light-Years, the final installment in Mass Appeal’s “Legend Has It…” series

A stunning 50th-anniversary edition of Wish You Were Here is filled with heroes and ghosts, as well as demos, outtakes, and official bootleg recordings

Her new double LP, Live at Glastonbury (A BBC Recording), is a killer coronation moment

Cabin in the Sky, the iconic hip-hop group’s first album in nearly a decade, movingly honors co-founder Dave “Trugoy the Dove” Jolicoeur, who died in 2023

Her surprise new EP, Love Is a Kingdom, sees the Nigerian pop star take on doubters and clear space for calm

Companion album to the new edition of the ultimate Beatles documentary is now 191 tracks, including the triple-vinyl Anthology 4

The R&B star plays with a gold-digging motif on Finally Over It, but takes her survey of vintage R&B seriously

The Aussie foursome have fun with their past while continuing to play with darker sounds on Everyone’s a Star!

Originally conceived as an expanded edition of her excellent EUSEXUA, the U.K. pop innovator’s new EUSEXUA Afterglow is a stand-alone LP

Featuring audition jams with Jeff Beck and Harvey Mandel, as well as rare tracks and concert recordings, a new expanded reissue of the band’s 1976 album gives us a 360 look at a crucial turning point

His partying days behind him, a hip-hop wildcard mixes jarring beats and beaming gratitude

Pop’s most provocative chaos agent delivers a transcendent album that sounds like nothing else in music right now

The iconic 86-year-old singer covers Frank Ocean, Leonard Cohen and more on Sad and Beautiful World 

Florence + the Machine’s sixth album Everybody Scream turns a painful experience into an artistic triumph

Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and her twin sister Allison Crutchfield of Swearin’ get together for a fantastic surprise album

The eclectic U.K. artist takes a brutal emotional inventory on West End Girl

Through the Open Window, the latest installment of his Bootleg Series, traces how a complete unknown became the master of his folk domain

On Caos, the adventurous R&B artist calls on his heritage as he processes our brutal reality

On Returning to Myself the esteemed singer-songwriter turns inward

On her new album, Who Did the Body, the Houston rapper embodies an ethic of Blackness rooted in community and commitment

The singer just wants to have fun on her new album, It’s Not That Deep

On The BPM, the violinist and singer-songwriter offers complex music that exists between the past, the present, and 10 minutes from now

A mythic Electric Nebraska may not technically exist, but this five-disc set is a fascinating exploration of Bruce’s haunting 1982 album

On their new album LOTTO the crucial shoegaze band takes a huge leap forward

On Deadbeat, his first album in five years, Kevin Parker mixes frazzled moods and plush beats

London band’s new album Some Like It Hot mixes up postpunk, Britpop, shoegaze, and psychedelia with their own melodramatic flair

The rapper has stirred up drama, and with her versatile LP Bianca, she wants to keep our attention

Nine-CD set is a portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono as political radicals thriving in NYC’s eclectic energy

Singer-songwriter’s new Fatal Optimist scales back her sound, but not her devastating emotional honesty

The Marías frontwoman explores love, longing, and loss on the lush, labyrinthine Melt

On their second collaboration, Peter Buck and cult troubadour Joseph Arthur make some late-period indie magic

On her 12th studio album, Swift hits all her marks — from new, exciting sonic turns to incisive storytelling

UY Scuti is the Atlanta rap super star’s first release since getting out of prison and you can hear the burden of that experience

This time out, she’s all about synth-pop and R&B sounds from the Hair Decade with erratic but fun results

On Cosa Nuestra: Capítulo 0, the Puerto Rican hitmaker offers a wide-ranging tour of the region’s sounds

Gifted British singer-songwriter’s second LP The Art of Loving pushes her music into an elevated tier

Swedish pop artist’s high-energy fifth album mixes joy and confusion

On her long-awaited 16th studio album, the superstar mostly stays in her pocket and proves her voice is still intact

One of the most original artists in indie music comes up with something opaquely alluring and genuinely moving on her seventh album, Michelangelo Dying 

A Nashville wildcard delivers down-home chest-thumping with a wink

The Wilco frontman turns in 30 new tracks that earn their keep and offer some hope for a troubled world

On their sixth album, Karly Hartzman and Co. trap darkness and heartbreak in creek-rock amber

The soundtrack for TRON: Ares sees Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross balance abstraction and aggression

U.K. pop star mixes ripped-from-the-text-bubbles lyrics and sour-bubblegum alt-pop on her third album

We’ve waited seven long years for the rap queen’s second album, and she does not disappoint

A long-awaited reissue of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s 1973 debut, Buckingham Nicks, takes us back to the beginning of rock & roll’s ultimate dysfunctional romance

Girl Violence sets introspective hunger to mussed up New Wave

The singer-songwriter superstar taps into some fun cross-cultural rhythms, but he mostly sticks to his trusty formula

Little Mix member thrills in the dancefloor’s abandon and her own power on That’s Showbiz Baby!

Korean Australian singer-songwriter delivers a great introspective indie-pop on her Misunderstood EP

The sophisticated U.K. pop trio say goodbye at their height of their power with International

Bieber follows the surprisingly good Swag with the depressingly safe Swag II

Joni’s Jazz spans Mitchell’s career in its effort to prove she wasn’t just a singer-songwriter.

The avant-pop icon playfully ponders love, aging, and other curiosities with help from a great bunch of collaborators

One of the best bands around travels wide-open inner spaces on their spellbinding sixth album Double Infinity

Enigmatic U.K. musician Dev Hynes delivers a quietly intoxicating LP

Her great seventh album delivers a thoroughly modern tour of dating set to a Seventies pastiche sound

Rapper’s stellar new album, Live Laugh Love, shows his continued growth as a man with a deeper understanding of the world and his place in it

Irish singer-songwriter Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson mixes Nashville storytelling, folk-ish pop, and rock meltdowns on her great third album Euro-Country

Paramore singer’s excellent new Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party was released in early August as a 17-track digital download. Now it’s coming out as an official album

The prolific country artists gets back to her roots on Hard Headed Woman

On Supreme Clientele 2, the Wu-Tang legend does his classic original justice with an outrageously entertaining sequel

New Zealand indie rockers get introspective on Straight Line Was a Lie

Ain’t in It for My Health brings to mind legends like George Strait and Alan Jackson

Atlanta rapper finds moments of earworm ecstasy on new album Paradise

The 20-year-old musician’s knack for luscious harmonies, melancholy lyrics, and perfect melodies — plus his boundless rockstar confidence — make for a standout LP on I Barely Know Her

On Escape Room, the forward-looking R&B artist navigates trauma and grief to arrive at a new beginning

Combining trap beats with the raspy, tear-in-your-beer tunes, the Texas artist offers a Nashville temperature check with I Hope You’re Happy

Rap superstar’s new album, Kiari, is the best solo music he’s made so far

On her third album, A Matter of Time, this talented throwback-pop flag-waiver has her own spin on the cycle of limerence, love, and loss

Eclectic U.K. band’s latest album combines classic pop-rock gestures with lyrics about navigating life

On their eighth album, Adam Levine and Co. sneak Seventies funk obscurities onto a late-summer pop cruise, along with guests Sexyy Red, Lisa, and Lil Wayne

Hail to the Thief (Live Recordings 2003-2009) is an excellent track-for-track live remake of their politically charged 2003 LP

His first album since 2019’s poorly received The Big Day delivers big-tent Black politics with an earned sense of optimism

The R&B artist and in-demand songwriter obliterates expectation

Influential DJ-producer’s latest runs on house and a tweaked version of disco, returning to the crisp, fluttering tracks he made his name on

The singer’s new album Wishbone mixes slow intimate moments with hit-worthy pop-rock cuts

After writing for TV and collaborating with Gracie Abrams, a sharp pop singer-songwriter delivers her cinematic debut, Who’s the Clown?

Boundary-busting singer’s latest is a masterclass in controlled hedonism

The changeable star gets personal, channels Springsteen and Mellencamp, and keeps refusing to sit still

Two hip-hop vets find common ground

After enduring a life-altering crisis, the Atlanta rap star finds himself in a reflective mood on his sixth album

The Atlanta rapper’s first album in three years, God Does Like Ugly, finds him a leader in life and music

Bounce artist delivers a musically and spiritually inclusive gospel album

Prolific Texas country singer’s latest, Dollar a Day, plays like a mashup of a soundtrack to a spaghetti western and one for a 1970s crime film

After a career hiccup, the reliable rock duo ground themselves with a smooth, solid LP

The ambitious pop outlier’s latest, Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, is haunting but lacks the dynamism of her best work

The fifth studio album from the California indie-pop band is their most compelling in nearly a decade

Hell-raising rocker parties her troubles away on her uproarious second album

Indie singer-songwriter explores grown-up problems on her fantastic fourth album

New super deluxe reissue of Talking Heads’ groundbreaking 1978 LP More Songs About Buildings and Food dives deep into an album that mixed panic-attack propulsion and highwire anxiety

Country trailblazer’s Rick Rubin-produced new album offers sonic swerves and his best songwriting yet

The U.K. rapper finds hope amidst trauma on his excellent new mixtape

The solid luxury-rap tales on the iconic Wu-Tang Clan member’s first LP in eight years offer a perfect example of how to age gracefully in what is allegedly a young man’s game

The 28-minute Don’t Tap the Glass feels like an entertaining pit stop on the way to something bigger

You’ll Be Alright, Kid, the debut from the 24-year-old behind the unlikely summer smash “Ordinary,” shows off an appealing personality and leans on sweeping gestures

The sequel to 2019’s chart-topping Jackboys showcases the rapper’s Cactus Jack imprint

Philly’s indie hero adds to his discography of unassumingly brilliant folk-rock on his major-label debut

New live album The First Family: Live at Winchester Cathedral 1967 captures Sly and the Family Stone just before they released their debut album