Photo Credit: Sanjay Parikh At the relatively average album length of forty-eight minutes, there’s a heck of a lot crammed into Shinedown’s seventh full-length release. Planet Zero is a concept album with an outward science-fiction theme (a rock trend that seems to be coming back, as suggested by Bastille’s latest release Give Me the Future)…. Read more
Photo Credit: Empire/Atlantic Records With her 2018 debut Expectations, former Disney star Hayley Kiyoko was crowned Lesbian Jesus. Now, with Panorama, she offers up her second coming – in the form of 13 sleek, ready-for-radio pop numbers. Kiyoko’s LGBTQ+ identity has always been central to her music and to her core appeal. The embrace of her… Read more
Photo Credit: Mason Poole for Parkwood Entertainment The story of house music is one of liberation; of marginalized communities carving out a space where they could unapologetically be themselves. As a genre, its roots are radical – its formation can be credited to Black and Queer individuals who refused to conform to a society that… Read more
Photo Credit: David James Swanson Jack White – formerly of The White Stripes – has had a productive 2022. Besides excessive touring across the globe with side acts such as Men I Trust, Chicano Batman, Natalie Bergman, Larkin Poe, Yard Act, and most recently Mdou Moctar, he has released two full-length LPs. The pulsating, ferociously… Read more
Photo Credit: AB+DM Every generation needs an artist who is unafraid to write cheesy, feel-good, uplifting anthems; an artist who would rather risk being saccharine than sour. Natasha Bedingfield (“Unwritten”), Kelly Clarkson (“Stronger”), and Katy Perry (“Firework”) have all alternately held this title and fulfilled their role dutifully. It would be unfair to dismiss Lizzo’s music… Read more
Photo Credit: Getty/Roskilde Press The post-festival discussions about the 50th edition of Scandinavia’s biggest festival have mainly dealt with the Strokes’ reportedly awful performance. I, who ended up at the festival thanks to a fortunate coincidence, had to travel back home before the Strokes, and instead of going on about Julien Casablanca’s awkward dialogues for… Read more
Photo Credit: Hayley Louisa Brown Open up the UK Top 100 albums chart on any given week and among the new releases and classics, you’ll likely find a handful of albums that you’ve never heard of that have spent months upon months – even years – on the charts. These are the sort of albums… Read more
Photo Credit: Erika Kamano Filipino-British singer-songwriter Beatrice Lauss, known professionally as Beabadoobee, is one of the most promising musical talents of the 2020s. Or was, at least. Her new album Beatopia, while hardly merit-less, lacks the focus, immediacy, and overall enjoyability of her last full-length release, Fake It Flowers (which this writer named as the… Read more
Photo Credit: Imagine Dragons via Instagram Las Vegas quartet Imagine Dragons have never been ‘album artists’ so to speak. Across the last decade, the band has worked with the biggest producers of the day to create mega-hit singles that become so inescapable that you ultimately have no choice but to surrender and let them lodge… Read more
Photo Credit: Fredrik Bengtsson For those of you who don’t know, and running somewhat contrary to the image of Sweden we collectively hold in our minds, the Swedes have been hard into punk rock. From day one. From Ebba Gron to Anti Cimex, the land of Ikea has quite a bit of violent discontent bubbling… Read more