A God-awful Small Affair

Usurping the title of 'queen of the gays' back in 2015 was most likely going to be a feat accomplished by either Lady Gaga or Miley Cyrus, but instead it was the girl who irritated us in 2012 with Call Me Maybe . That year's E•MO•TION was the sort of pop masterclass that is usually left to the Swedes, and spawned a stream of overzealous adulation from pockets of the LGBT community, along with a string of memes tied to the saxophone hook from the monster single ' Run Away With Me '. Since 2015, though, Jepsen has managed thus far to follow it all up with material of equal strength: 2017 saw the release of the single Cut to the Feeling , a song so immediately brilliant that it was thrown on the season of RuPaul's Drag Race currently being filmed despite neither of the drag queens forced to battle over it knowing its lyrics. Just last year, she performed the ultimate service of featuring a group of fans in the music video for Party for One , a joyous anthem celeb...

There are few bands so reliable as Vampire Weekend, but since those heady days of 2008 where indie clubs around the world were dancing awkwardly to Oxford Comma and A-Punk , the band have matured into this eclectic, world-music sampling enigma and Father of the Bride may prove to be their most divisive of their four LPs yet. It's been an excruciating wait since 2013's Modern Vampires of the City , and that wait for fans may have been appeased by this swollen selection of eighteen tracks. Behind the scenes, though, everyone's been busy. The departure of band member Rostam Batmanglij in 2016 would've been enough to shake things up, but Ezra Koenig and co. have also been busy phoning in some new guests and producers that're new to the Vampire Weekend lexicon: three tracks here feature Danielle from HAIM, and there are also credits for Mark Ronson, ILoveMakonnen and long-term Childish Gambino producer, Ludwig Göransson. There are constants, however - Batmanglij ret...

2015's FROOT was Marina Diamandis' best album yet. The youngest of her fans will firmly attest of course that it was 2012's Electra Heart because of it's memorable hits, but outside of those it was a hollow affair full of meaningless fodder and cheap pop. Her debut, The Family Jewels , had her best singles, anyway, so it's a losing battle. But no - FROOT was a fully-realised, thematic hit and packed to the brim with unpredictable fun. There is, then, a sense of dread when it takes four years to follow it up and the singer has ostensibly ditched the "and the Diamonds" from her stage name. She's black and white, she's not wearing much make-up and she's quite literally stripped bare. Last year's guest spot on Clean Bandit's Baby may have given fans some hope that she hasn't outgrown pop (but not much, as it was a pretty irritating single) but... that hope may very rapidly have been quashed with her fourth LP. 16 tracks of...

Despite becoming something of a meme in lieu of his monster hit Take Me to Church - somehow all the way back in 2013 now - the stock of Hozier is surprisingly high. This record managed to hit the #1 spot on America's Billboard 200, and in his native Ireland of course. And yet... the critics have turned. A string of EPs filled in the gaps between this and his eponymous 2014 debut, but it seems the dreaded task of having to follow up one of the biggest hits of the decade has been fulfilled by chucking everything at this: a gospel, marching drums and only Mavis Bloody Staples are drafted in. Mavis lends her inimitable voice to 'Nina Cried Power', a track that follows one of those aforementioned EPs and was presumably deemed too good to not put on an actual LP. Understandably so, as it's a dramatic, vocal showcase that is full of indebted admiration to the music giants it mentions; a real celebration of music. That same vibe is dialed down a little but still prese...

In the time between this and her last record, 2014's Are We There , Sharon van Etten has taken the surprising route into acting via the means of Netflix's The OA and an episode of the revival of Twin Peaks two years ago. Whatever fears there may have been that she would "pull a Mon áe"* and return with somewhat more disappointing music have thankfully been quashed. As with many other releases I'm trying to dive into this year, this is my first experience with a Sharon van Etten album and there've already been four so I have a lot of catching up to do. I suppose the past decade or so I've spent crossing my arms and reasoning that "I already have St. Vincent, Karen O, Torres, Weyes Blood, Bat for Lashes and Angel Olsen, do I really need someone else of this genre to embrace?" and the answer was, it seems, an overwhelming yes. Her lyricism is blisteringly raw and full of honesty, and the production here (from long-time St Vincent colla...

I hadn't actually heard of Lizzo until she appeared as a guest judge on Season 10 of RuPaul's Drag Race : her infectious personality was immediately apparent, but I was more pissed off that a song as fantastic as Good As Hell had, until then, completely escaped me. Since that exposure, she's treated us to a handful of other fantastic singles. One didn't make the cut here , the other did. A third album is on the cards then, and Cuz I Love You couldn't be any more open and upfront. Just look at the artwork. But there've been countless examples of stars saving the best material for a lead single and then floundering when asked to follow it up with something, and the fear for me heading in as a relative Lizzo newbie was that she was just a singles artist with nothing to hold attention once it's been grabbed with a punch. Fans of her brassy personality might still be surprised to learn that the title track here is literally brassy: a monochromatic, drama...

I think it's fair to say that only two mega-popstars from the late 90s/early 00s are still enjoying the same, if not bigger, success than they were back then: Beyonce and P!nk. Oh there've been a multitude of those who've since passed or retired or taken up residency on talent show judging panels, but these two ladies continue to impress the critics and charts respectively. Last year's Walk Me Home was P!nk's twentieth top-ten hit in the United Kingdom and it's honestly baffling that she hasn't gone the same way as your Kelly Clarksons or Christina Aguilerae; two equally talented powerhouses of the same era that couldn't buy a hit lately. It helps, of course, that she's held onto the same sort of writer/producers like Greg Kurstin, Max Martin, Ryan Tedder and Julia Michaels. P!nk's appeal is naturally helped by her ability to play the loveable rogue: the rockstar that shouts "fuck you!" but then calls you later to make sure you'...