Album Reviews

For 45 years, the Rolling Stones’ Love You Live has been one of rock’s greatest teases.About 75 percent of the double LP was recorded in arenas and stadiums during the band’s 1976 tour, and presented competent but rarely exhilarating or necessary renditions of concert warhorses and deep cuts. But tucked …

When Maren Morris released her 2018 pop breakthrough, “The Middle,” the song introduced one of her guiding philosophies with a simple question: “Why don’t you just meet me in the middle?” Ever since debuting with 2015’s soulful singalong “My Church,” Morris has carved out her space as Nashville’s most thoughtful …

Megan Thee Stallion is a lithe clotheshorse of a wordsmith whose lyricall bread and butter is commanding men to pleasure her. Never mind that none of them, as depicted in her catchy, think-piece-dominating songs, ever truly satisfy her; it’s just thrilling to hear one of the game’s sharpest MC’s come …

Alpha, CL’s first full-length album as a solo artist, has been a long time coming. CL, née Lee Chaelin, was the leader of 2NE1, a four-member girl group that is undeniably one of the most influential acts to come out of what’s often been described as the second generation of …

An early concern of social media was what would happen to a person’s online presence when they died. As Facebook gained traction, the accounts of those who’d recently passed away became living memorials, with friends and loved ones posting comments in remembrance. Sometimes an estate would continue to post on …

In the first few seconds of her debut album, Sour, Olivia Rodrigo declares, “I want it to be, like, messy!” That shouldn’t be too difficult for a pop star who emerged seemingly out of nowhere in January, a Disney actress whose hit “Drivers License” ignited widespread interest in a love …

Discovering the Mars Volta has always felt like finding the key to another dimension teeming with monsters and magical arcana; twisted fables and dangerous lore. It’s fitting, then, that their new career-spanning boxset, La Realidad de los Sueños, resembles some kind of trippy, seemingly bottomless treasure chest — an aural …

In the late Seventies, when punk and disco were still new and subversive, Gang of Four smartly fused the two for a hard-hitting yet danceable sound, which the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Interpol gleefully mined for gold records in the Aughts. But Gang of Four’s members never stopped experimenting and …

Jimmy Buffett opens his 30th studio album with some thankful notes of reflection. “We all know just how lucky we are,” he sings over a breezy, south-of-the-border-tinged melody on “Down At the La Di Da,” an ode to a perfect beach bar “at the end of the world.” One song …

During the last two years, Bad Bunny has left no box unchecked en route to attaining global superstardom. His 2018 debut X 100pre (which featured assists from a small handful of co-stars including Diplo, El Alfa and Drake) was a crossover experiment that saw El Conejo level up from newcomer …