Lauran Hibberd has her tongue firmly planted in her cheek and her heart right on her sleeve with her latest EP “Goober.” Intimate, real, and with enough wit to fill a comedy club, this slacker-pop star’s music has a sound reminiscent of Weezer, Courtney Barnett, and Sløtface while still remaining completely unique. Hibberd’s second EP, following the 2019 release of “Everything is Dogs,” finds her more thoughtful and certainly more confident without sacrificing her hyperspecific and relatable lyricism. Produced by Suzy Shinn (known for her...

Mykki Blanco expertly harnesses inspiration from their worldly travels, experiences with a great love, and talented family and friends to create this concise, deliberate “mini-album.” Each of the nine songs feels unexpected yet perfectly arranged, and together, they form an eclectic group whose individual moments of excellence highlight one another. With some old-school saxophone and Blood Orange’s R&B melodies, “It’s Not My Choice” oozes sexuality and longing for one’s lover to return. “Want From Me” brilliantly fuses bossa nova lounge rhythms and crooning with Blanco’s...

For her third full-length release, indie songwriter extraordinaire Lucy Dacus finds herself revisiting her formative coming-of-age years through candid and vulnerable autobiographical accounts. Her narratives reveal early experiences with relationships, sexuality, and beyond, with relatable rawness.  Songs like “First Time” are saturated with layered vocals, fuzzy guitars, and poppy percussion, while others take a less-is-more approach, like the highly anticipated ballad “Thumbs”—the fan favorite from live performances minimizes the instrumentation to instead spotlight the chillingly intense (yet perfectly poised) lyrics about the heavy feelings and fantasies...

In some very, very good news, Lil Nas X dropped the music video for “Industry Baby” today.As we have all come to expect out of Lil Nas X, the video is pretty spectacular. It begins with him being sentenced to 5 years in Montero State Prison (an allusion to his Satan shoe legal troubles with Nike), where his life as an inmate includes hot pink uniforms, impeccable naked shower choreography, a Shawshank Redemption-style escape, and finally, a prison-break that has every inmate dancing out of...

  CHAI’s latest album, WINK, is chicken soup for the pandemic-ravaged soul. Though, in this case, it feels appropriate to swap the soup for the karaage (Japanese fried chicken) that earns a sultry dedication on the Tokyo-based band’s third LP. To help cope with COVID isolation, CHAI “made an album that was like a friend,” lead singer/keyboardist MANA says through the band’s interpreter Rena Tyner. (The four-piece prefers to remain surname-less.) “It’s an album that I can cry to, get mad at, and get happy with.”...

Britney Spears has declared on Instagram that she's done with performing until her dad steps down from her conservatorship. "For those of you who choose to criticize my dancing videos... look I'm not gonna be performing on any stages anytime soon with my dad handling what I wear, say, do, or think!!!!” Britney announced in her post. She then went on to say that she would rather dance in her living room than be controlled on stage. Jamie Spears has been left as the sole...

Mannequin Pussy embraces some enormously hard-to-fill voids on Perfect. Freshly a trio, the Philly punk staple parted ways with founding guitarist Thanasi Paul near the end of 2020 and spent most of the pandemic apart. Exploring that emptiness and their evolution as a group, the three-piece powerhouse reunited in the studio to create almost all of the well-rounded tracks for their fourth EP. Diving headfirst into a reinvigorated and fervently vulnerable sound, Mannequin Pussy lyrically lets go without loosening its sonic chokehold too much. The result...

Halsey has unveiled the cover art for her latest album, “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power,” complete with a video tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the 13-minute-long silent film, Halsey is lavishly dressed as she walks barefoot around the famous New York landmark, looking at various artworks depicting motherhood, including Duccio Di Buoninsegna’s ‘Madonna and Child’, as she cradles her own baby bump. The singer, who announced her pregnancy back in February, could have stepped out of one of the...

Midwife, aka multi-instrumentalist Madeline Johnston, captures all the angst and intensity of the past year on one intense recording. Elements of shoegaze, metal, post-metal, pop, and electro-pop commingle on her latest release, Luminol. The name of the record comes from the chemical used by forensic investigators to discover blood and other bodily fluids left behind at a crime scene. And just like its namesake, this difficult-but-important album has a way of dredging up all kinds of forgotten emotions. Themes of depression, confinement, and claustrophobia work...

On her third album, London-based musician Billie Marten takes her minimalist acoustic foundation and grows a verdant, beautiful landscape all over it. Like the single, “Garden of Eden,” Flora Fauna is an exemplar of growth: Marten’s signature breathy, tender vocals swim amidst rich, abounding instrumentation including horns, strings, toe-tapping beats, and drums and bass which enliven these pop songs. She strikes a cunning balance of play and contemplation, joy and longing. And her lyrics, which always express quiet truths about her inner experience, now sparkle with optimism....