Welcome to Albums I Loved That Are Actually Bad, a maybe one-time column about albums we loved at certain points in our lives that we—upon maturing—now realize are terrible. This time: Nirvana’s In Utero.
Friends, I must dispatch some unfortunate news. I cannot say the words myself so I will just quote James Corden here: “There is some new music coming out from Meghan Trainor.”
Sam Smith’s sophomore album is so damp with sadness that in the rare event something as traditionally joyful as a thrill is conjured, it’s only in service of retrospective melancholy. “I guess I got lost in the moment / I guess I got lost in the fall / I guess I got lost in your heartbeat / In the thrill of it all,”…
You should never fully trust someone who’s trying to sell you something, but looking back at the press for Mariah Carey’s 1997 album Butterfly, which turns 20 on Saturday, it’s staggering how right she was. “This time period, and this album is about me putting more realness in terms of myself into the music and into…
No, it wasn’t Mary J. Blige or the incomparable Lea Michele. It’s Halsey—an artist familiar to many as the featured voice on The Chainsmokers’ obnoxious earworm “Closer”—who’s the first and only female artist to have a No. 1 album in the country this year.
In a publicity stunt that seems inspired both by documentary and by Shiba Inu puppy cams, Katy Perry is live-streaming her entire weekend on YouTube. Apparently, the aim is to promote her new album, Witness—so it’s thematically appropriate—and the content has so far included an intense, tearful therapy session.
If Good Girl Gone Bad is unanimously recognized as the beginning of Rihanna’s transformation from media-trained radio star to adventurous pop idol, then “Umbrella” is the obvious genesis—the single that along with an image change achieved by a simple asymmetrical cropped hairstyle, turned Rihanna into an icon when her…
Six whole years ago, Adele released her second album, 21, and we’ve never stopped hearing about it since then. As of this week, she now owns the record for the longest-charting album by a woman.
I’ve been sitting here for the past few hours waiting for something—anything—to be released by Katy Perry. The most optimistic parts of myself expected a full album (perhaps a Spotify exclusive) from my guiltiest of guilty pleasures, but it appears I had been hoping for too much, as all we Katycats were given this…
For uncertain business-related reasons, Aaliyah’s catalog has been absent from streaming services in the years since they’ve become our main distributors of music. To the delight of her fans, including obsessed Tumblr teens who’ve unearthed her music, an official Aaliyah compilation WAS at last available on iTunes…
For reasons largely unknown but guessable, Tinashe has yet to release her second album Joyride, the follow-up to her 2014 debut Aquarius. Regardless, she’s spent the past year either promoting the album, apologizing for its absence, or expressing her own frustration with its delay.
As a longtime fan of Ingrid Michaelson, the singer/songwriter responsible for romcom-friendly hits like “Be OK” and “Girls Chase Boys,” my excitement for her seventh album It Doesn’t Have to Make Sense (out today) was twofold. In addition to a fundamental desire for more of her music, I had a sort of voyeuristic…
Recent highly publicized events in Taylor Swift’s life, including a certain relationship and a certain feud, point to the possibility that a Swift album is on the way sometime this fall.
While performing at Drake’s OVO Fest in Toronto on Monday night, Kanye West rapped some songs (including something called “Famous”) and also teased that he and Drake might be working on a project together.
On Friday, December 11, and without warning, 15-year-old Willow Smith released her debut album, Ardipithecus.
In the months (now more than a year) leading up to her eighth album, Rihanna has managed to twist everyone’s psyche in anticipation of its release. The latest word is that ANTI—a title she announced in October with a formal art unveiling—is coming out in December. Perhaps it is.
The Staves are a sister trio from the UK—Emily, Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor—and their new album If I Was, newly out on Nonesuch Records, is one of the prettiest things I've heard all year. Like the new, phenomenally focused Sufjan Stevens record, the Justin Vernon-produced If I Was is an exercise in the…
Urban Outfitters is now the leading seller of vinyl albums which have seen huge increases in overall sales during the past few years.
Put all your plans on hold and start rearranging your future schedule around the release of an entire album of "grown-up ballads" that Madonna will be writing and recording with help from a very special collaborator (and the Super Bowl co-performer of her dreams), Adele.
Advertisement
