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'...

I liked A Seat at the Table but nowhere near as much as the rest of the world did. The praise it lauded back in 2016 was honestly baffling to me; named #1 by Pitchfork in a year that also included Lemonade , Blackstar , Blonde and Coloring Book ? No, ma'am. She follows it up, then, with a surprise release; not just a surprise in its arrival without warning, but in also being her first to be largely self-produced and self-written. There are, of course, collaborations but her fourth album is arguably the first that can truly be attributed to the talents of Solange alone. At face value, When I Get Home is an immediately intriguing release; it has all the air of experimentation that recent jazz/electronic wunderkinds like Thundercat have, and yet that classic groove that might be more easily aligned with Stevie Wonder. Those looking for the crisp-clear studio production behind the likes of Cranes in the Sky or Don't Touch My Hair might leave WIGH feeling somewhat disappointed...

2016's Skin saw Flume on the cusp of commercial breakthrough; it spawned the slow-burning 'Never Be Like You' featuring Kai and managed to hit the top of the Australian charts, and #20 on the Billboard Hot 100. 'Say It' with Tove Lo also enjoyed some chart success. It would thus follow, then, that the album was met with lukewarm praise and a confused shrug at all of its collaborations with the likes of AlunaGeorge, Beck and Vince Staples. It won a Grammy but consigned Flume to the increasing list of indie darlings on the verge of a total shun. That's how music criticism works in my head anyway; a ceaselessly tiresome charade of absorbing flavours of the week and dropping anything from five years ago like broken toys. There seems to be a concerted effort to counter that, though - speaking to his own Reddit in an AMA he says that, in regards to going down a "more experimental route" I felt like i needed to, I was doing interview after...

2017's SweetSexySavage was one of the most accomplished debuts of the 21st century: a record that stamped Kehlani's identity into the world with authority and a whole lot of fun. It may have suffered from being a little overlong and could've been edited down into something simpler and portable, but it felt like the amalgam of an artist who wanted to get everything out and off her chest. That it'd been two years until anything would follow it would support that theory. Having a baby two months ago didn't fully dissuade her from the music scene though; 'While We Wait' is her third mixtape and she's made guest appearances on work by Charlie Puth, Cardi B, Hayley Kiyoko and Eminem in the past 12 months. All of this is mighty impressive for a former graduate of America's Got Talent (at the age of 16, she finished 4th in the 2011 edition, as part of a group called PopLyfe ). And whilst the world is certainly inundated with a whole host of excellent R...

So we're now at the point where stars are emerging who were born after 9/11. Which is fine and inevitable, obviously, but... oh boy when I found out about Billie Eilish I couldn't help but take a figurative hat off and mourn my own youth. At the age of seventeen I got drunk in a cemetery on New Years' Eve and tried to choose the ugliest-possible outfits with my friends in TK Maxx; Eilish has already released a self-penned album and topped the charts. I'm tentative to review this since, as this blog has occasionally documented, I've been ridiculously snooty in my review of debuts from artists who've since gone to grow on me wildly . The temptation is always there for (white male) critics to punch downwards to any glimpses of promising young talent, but where Pure Heroine really struggled to string together many melodies or moving songwriting, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP... does not. A short intro and removal of Eilish's invisalign paves way for the lat...

Another one to add to Foals in that gathering of musicians whose recent back-catalogues have somehow eluded me, former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard has certainly made a name for herself in pushing the boundaries of what is expected of a former girlgroup star. Her distinctive aesthetic, intricate choreography and explosive music videos have somehow only caught attention in morsels by me, and it would seem, the pop landscape - new breed is her fourth to be released almost entirely independently and without the megadollars thrown at her contemporaries. For whatever reason, Richard hasn't really wowed the critics either; she doesn't quite grab "best of the year" accolades that others like Solange or Janelle Monae have taken home, and always seem to pick up those four star-ratings rather than fives. new breed is her fourth to hover around the 80 mark on Metacritic, and doesn't quite threaten as much as her third album, Blackheart (a fifth - or should I say fi...

I'm a little alarmed that it's already been eight years since James Blake released his debut, self-titled album. The post-dubstep comedown and intermingling with ambience and experimental electronics was a confusing time for music and myself as a listener: at first I recoiled and rejected the album harshly, and I've been slow to embrace it since. His second, 2013's Overgrown, was a masterpiece. In 2016, The Colour in Anything wasn't much worse, and now a fourth effort is upon us, he's producing for the likes of Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, and...oh, Beyoncé. It shouldn't come as a shock, then, that certain publications have turned on Blake and started throwing infantile insults about his now-quite-imitable style. Perhaps it's more personal, though: his partner, actress Jameela Jamil, is famous on Twitter for tackling subjects such as body dysmorphia, racism and feminism, and if there's anything the media loves it's throwing dung at celebr...

It will usually take a popstar one or two mediocre albums to finally produce something that'll later be described as their peak or their best: Lady GaGa took some tweaking to produce The Fame Monster , Madonna had to wait until True Blue or Like a Prayer , and Beyonce is only now producing her best albums after three or four attempts. Every once in a while, though, someone comes along with a perfectly packaged debut and it's frightening. Is Sigrid our lord and saviour? This blogger says: maybe. Despite Carly Rae Jepsen's best efforts, pop music has succumbed to the trap machine and become a lifeless, sanguine affair the past five years. Occasional singles have come and brightened the landscape temporarily but dissolved in a sea of Bebe Rexha's Spotify algorithm pop and Anne-Marie's blind, insufferable nostalgia. It falls to 22 year-old Norwegian Sigrid, then, to follow in the footsteps of her region's forebears and save us like Robyn, Annie and ABBA have so...