Broken Hearts and Beauty Sleep, the newest album by Mykki Blanco, deserves a spotlight to be shining directly on it. Undercutting vocal traditions and mixing pop, rap and R&B styles, it’s only the artist’s (they/their) second LP (a” mini-album” at that) and first since their self-titled debut nearly five…

The Avalanches have been together almost a quarter century and We Will Always Love You is only the Australian duo’s third album. The pair works at its own pace, obviously, and the result of this slow evolution is a star-studded album of mellow beats and deft knob twiddling. We…

Our list of the 20 best hip-hop albums of 2019 includes Danny Brown, Post Malone, ECCO2K, Tinashe, Little Simz, Malibu Ken, DaBaby, Megan Thee Stallion, slowthai, Maxo Kream, Billy Woods & Kenny Segal, Rico Nasty & Kenny Beats, Clipping., YBN Cordae, Kate Tempest, Quelle Chris, Denzel Curry, Injury Reserve,…

When R&B visionary Blood Orange announced a classical album, what would result was anybody’s guess. Devonté Hynes traces his musical interest back to composers like Claude Debussy, so in many ways these compositions are a full circle moment for him. He wrote and conceptualized Fields on a digital interface,…

Serpentwithfeet performs at Treasure Island Music Festival at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland on Oct. 14, 2018. Photo: Chloe Catajan. Stop right there, cheaters! If you are just joining me for my countdown of the 50 best albums of 2018, go back to parts one and two to catch up and…

Mitski Kyle Kohner’s top 100 songs countdown reaches the finish line, with his 25 favorites. Catch up with part one, part two and part three here. 25. “4th Dimension” – Kids See Ghosts (Kid Cudi and Kanye West) Opened by an eerily distorted, but well-placed sample of Louis Prima’s “What Will…

Blood Orange Kyle Kohner’s top 100 list countdown continues with numbers 75 through 51. Catch up with part one first and then dive in. 75. “This Is America” – Childish Gambino Inciting reactionary essays and theorized debates, Childish Gambino creates a piece of music that transcends a contagious chorus.…

Lets Eat Grandma This is the continuation of my top 50 albums of 2018. If you’re just now joining me, start here. If part one didn’t make this clear enough: My musical interests are completely all over the place. This list is a product of me trying to expose…

In early European folklore, black swans were mythical creatures—until a Dutch explorer saw one in 1697. While white swans signified purity and truth, the very existence of the black swan came to represent impurity. It became equated with witchcraft and evil. While the symbolic essence of the elusive bird…

“In the night/ I feel clean/ when the darkness swallows me/ I escape/ From the blue/ Like the steam coming off the pool.” Deep-seated anxiety and loneliness have always dwelled within the lyrics of Porches’ Aaron Maine. While these lines display much of the same, they signal a revelatory…