RIFF’s best albums of 2024 include Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish, Magdalena Bay, Allie X, Kim Gordon, ScHoolboy Q, Kali Uchis, Adrianne Lenker, Knocked Loose and Clairo. If you haven’t read it yet, you should start at the beginning of our countdown. Caught up? Part two includes some big names…

Pearl Jam performs during BottleRock Napa Valley at the Napa Valley Expo on May 25, 2024. Photos by Matt Pang/STAFF and Sean Liming/STAFF. NAPA — It may not have been Sunday, but the Church of Pearl Jam was in session as dusk fell over the Napa Valley Expo. It’s…

Kali Uchis, “Orquídeas.” Kali Uchis gifts listeners an eclectic bouquet of moods and genres on Orquídeas. The Spanish-language album (the title means “orchids”) is a coherent and bold musical statement from the Colombian American. Featuring a variety of collaborators, most of whom are Latin American, the album should still…

RIFF’s best albums of 2023 include the Rolling Stones, Blink-182, Cleo Sol, Miley Cyrus, Allison Russell, Victoria Monét, Kali Uchis, Fall Out Boy, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Manchester Orchestra, Janelle Monáe, JPEGMafia with Danny Brown, Blondshell, Doja Cat, Andre 3000, Mick Jenkins, Sir Chloe, Ryuchi Sakamoto, James…

Kali Uchis, “Red Moon in Venus.” The latest in a line of albums exploring love in all its forms, Kali Uchis‘ Red Moon in Venus does a great job of communicating feeling through music and production as well as through the Colombian American’s rich vocals. Red Moon in Venus…

Rina Sawayama performs at Outside Lands in San Francisco on Aug. 6, 2022. Onome Uyovbievbo and Matt Pang/STAFF. SAN FRANCISCO — Fresh off a stadium tour and with 30 years of experience, Green Day showed how to make Outside Lands bigger and better with a nonstop barrage of early classics,…

Omar Apollo, ‘Ivory.’ After a string of EPs and a mixtape in the last few years, singer-songwriter Omar Apollo has finally finished Ivory. A long time in the making—he scrapped almost an entire album’s worth of material mere days before promotion began, and he started over—his first LP continues his trend…

Swedish electro-pop quartet Little Dragon‘s sixth studio LP, New Me, Same Us, delivers a polished collection of synthesized pop that draws heavily on both classic soul and contemporary R&B. New Me, Same Us Little Dragon Ninja Tunes Records, March 27 New Me, Same Us provides ample evidence that some things get…

Janelle Monáe performs at Outside Lands in San Francisco on Aug. 12, 2018. Photo: Shawn Robbins. If you read part one of my list of the top 50 albums of the year, you may already be disappointed by some of my choices, especially with Robyn’s comeback album making a “premature” appearance…

Sharon Van Etten performs at Treasure Island Music Festival at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland on Oct. 14, 2018. Photo: Chloe Catajan. Kyle Kohner’s top 100 songs countdown gets one step closer to revealing his favorite song of 2018, with numbers 50 through 26. Catch up with part one and…