No Fanfare, Just 'Folklore': Taylor Swift’s Nostalgic Escape
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn_0zPAfyo8 "So much for summer love and saying 'us,' 'cause you weren't mine to lose..." Out of nowhere (well, The Woods), Taylor Swift emerged on Thursday (July 23) to announce the release of her eighth studio album later that night - without any fanfare, just…
'What's Your Pleasure?': Jessie Ware Finds What Feels Good Again
"Push, press, more, less...here together, what's your pleasure?" Jessie Ware is no stranger to dance music. That's how we first met her a decade ago, crooning across skittering, mind-melting productions from acts like SBTRKT and Joker, as well as lifting off with the popular Disclosure remix of…
Dua Lipa, 'Future Nostalgia': A Dance Floor Escape in a Time of Isolation
"You wanna turn it up loud, Future Nostalgia is the name..." The world looks drastically different than how it did just over four months ago when Dua Lipa dropped "Don't Start Now," the lead track off of her sophomore studio album. It would have been impossible to predict then, while the…
Billie Eilish Got Everything She Wanted, For Better or Worse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm0MGnuRnH0 "I had a dream. I got everything I wanted. Not what you'd think. And if I'm bein' honest, it might've been a nightmare." There was a Vanity Fair video that came out last year, called "Same Interview, One Year Apart" with Billie Eilish. The concept was…
The Sugababes Are Back, And They've Brought Us 'Flowers'
View this post on Instagram A post shared by mutya buena (@official_mutyabuena) on Oct 17, 2019 at 4:31pm PDT Mutya Keisha Siobhan no more: the Sugababes are officially back. It's been ages - over six years, officially - since we last heard anything from…
Yes, 'Hustlers' Really Is That Good
"It's all a strip club. You have people tossing the money and people doing the dance." As hoped, my most anticipated film of 2019, Hustlers, is great. It's so great, in fact, there's even genuine Oscar buzz around the movie following its critically-hailed Toronto International Film Festival…
'Norman Fucking Rockwell!': Lana Del Rey (Album Review)
"So this is the American dream, right now. This is where we’re at—Norman fucking Rockwell. We’re going to go to Mars, and [Donald] Trump is president, all right. Me and Jack [Antonoff], we just joke around constantly about all the random headlines we might see that week, so it’s a slight cultural…
Zara Larsson's 'All The Time' Deserves to Be a Song of Summer 2019
From the breaking of the day to the middle of the night... The Song Of The Summer™, objectively, comes down to charts, sales and streams (so, the most demanded song of the season). But the song(s) that hold the most memories and replay counts for you are every bit as valid (so, subjectively, Las…
'Flying On My Own': Celine Dion's Heart Goes Onto the Dance Floor
Celine Dion, coming to an EDM festival near you. Of all the directions Céline Marie Claudette Dion could have opted to go musically in 2019, dance-pop probably wouldn't have been the most obvious choice. "Flying On My Own" is the first taste of the iconic Canadian chanteuse's upcoming album Courage…
'I Trance': Swedish Dance-Pop Diva Agnes Returns to the Discotheque
Agnes Carlsson, singularly known as the Agnes, is back. The "Release Me" Swedish dance-pop legend and Idol 2005 winner last left us with her incredible collection Veritas, originally released in 2012 in Sweden (one of the best pop albums released that year), which was later released in other…
'Madame X': Madonna Gets Lost in the World, But Isn't Lost
If we took a holiday, took some time to celebrate – just one day out of life, even - it would be so nice. Right? Well then, let’s do it. Yes, I’m dead serious. You still got your passport? Good. I’ve got a friend of a friend who lives in Portugal we can stay with. Actually, she might be in Brazil…
'In My Bed': Sabrina Carpenter Remains Today's Most Reliable Post-Disney Pop Princess
There are few objective truths in this world: death, taxes, and the pop supremacy of post-Disney princesses. Of all the new girls on the scene, Sabrina Carpenter remains one of my favorites - and it all comes down, obviously, to the music. Consistently, she's supplied nothing but quality since…