SZA performs at Oakland Arena in Oakland on March 14, 2023. Matt Pang/STAFF. OAKLAND — When SZA headlined Outside Lands last summer, more than five months before she released her smash second album SOS, she already had the nautical concept of her current tour. As with that festival set,…

The best albums of 2022 include Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Banks, Sondre Lerche, Ghost, The Black Keys, Alice Merton, Omar Apollo, Coheed and Cambria, Pusha T, Tears for Fears, Nova Twins and Florence and the Machine. After poring over hundreds of our own album reviews and hundreds more albums…

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…

The depressive R&B of 2017’s In Tongues EP and 2018’s Ballads 1 established Joji with his own unique feel. However, with the notable exception of “Slow Dancing In The Dark,” much of it amounted to potential rather than a definitive well-rounded statement. Then again, Joji’s demure, unfiltered persona seemed to…