Justin Bieber shows there’s art in resilience on his fourth studio album. After a turbulent 2014, *Purpose* sees the pop prodigy return with his strongest work to date—an atmospheric, introspective set that’s built on smart production and intimate songwriting. From the radiant “What Do You Mean” to the soulful, Skrillex-produced “I’ll Show You,” this is Bieber at his most vulnerable and honest.
*Art Angels*’ opening trio of songs present a handy summation of Claire Boucher’s singular appeal. The operatic “Laughing and Not Being Normal” opens before making way for “California”. Ostensibly an irresistible country-twanged foot-tapper and easily the catchiest thing she’s recorded, its lyrics unload a bleak commentary on her industry’s treatment of female stars. Next up: the strident “Scream” featuring Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes and plenty of actual howling. Whether discordant and urgent (“Flesh without Blood”, “Kill V. Maim”) or dazzlingly beautiful (“Easily”, “Pin”), *Art Angels* is a Catherine wheel of ferocious pop invention and Grimes’ grandest achievement.
While Little Mix’s musical output has always transcended its talent-show beginnings, there were moments during the group’s early years when it felt like the members were stuck on a pop conveyer belt. Little Mix’s 2012 debut, *DNA*, was released less than a year after the group won the top prize on the British version of *The X Factor*; a follow-up album, *Salute*, arrived not long afterwards. So far, so seamless. But Little Mix’s third effort, *Get Weird*, was held up for a year—with the band members later revealing that nearly an album’s worth of material had been scrapped along the way. Still, while the protracted recording of *Get Weird* was unusually tortuous, you wouldn’t know it from listening to the record. Unlike the moodier, more experimental *Salute*, the light and buoyant *Get Weird* finds the band members leaning into a pure pop sensibility. The lead single, “Black Magic,” has the effervescent bounce of 1980s teen pop, featuring a killer chorus and an instantly catchy call-and-response bridge (“All the girls on the block knocking at my door (I got the recipe)/Wanna know what it is, make the boys want more (Now you belong to me)”). “Black Magic” doesn’t reinvent the wheel. But the song stormed the charts and solidified Little Mix’s status as the globe’s most reliable hitmaking girl band. And there are plenty of hits to be found on *Get Weird*. While previous Little Mix singles owed a debt to En Vogue and Destiny’s Child, “Love Me Like You” harks further back, with its harmonized “Sha-la-la-la” verses and doo-wop stylings recalling The Ronettes and The Supremes. But if “Love Me Like You” features a retro sound, its lyrics are surprisingly suggestive: “Used to get it when I wa-a-ant…Now I’m dealin’ with these bo-o-oys/When I really need a man who can do it like I can.” Things escalate even more on the naughty “A.D.I.D.A.S.,” which features such to-the-point lines as, “Excuse me, do me or lose me/Get me to the bedroom, do your duty.” When pop groups try to grow up with their fanbases, the results often come off as contrived; on *Get Weird*, though, such diversions are executed with a welcome, knowing wink. Elsewhere on the album, Jason Derulo lends his tremulous vibrato to “Secret Love Song,” dedicated to the group’s LGBTQ+ fanbase, while Sean Paul makes a typically spirited appearance on thumping single “Hair.” It all makes for an effort that, despite its title, isn’t particularly weird. But it *is* certainly wonderful.
Following the ecstatic response to their early EPs, Wolf Alice unveil a debut full-length that bristles with \'90s alt-rock fury, disarming pop melodies, and experimental textures. *My Love Is Cool* includes those EPs’ strongest moments (the sugary squall of “Fluffy” and the glimmering crescendos of “Bros”) and expands on their promise. While talented frontwoman Ellie Rowsell coos and belts on the towering lullaby “Your Loves Whore,” she adds ferocious vocal layering throughout the shoegazing screech of “Lisbon.”
A wondrous debut from the house producer of indie-pop romantics The xx, *In Colour* is the sound of dance music heard at helicopter height: beautiful, distant, and surprising at every turn. Whether summoning old-school drum ’n’ bass (“Gosh”) or dancehall-inflected pop (the Young Thug and Popcaan double feature “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)”), the mood here is consummately relaxed, more like a spring morning than a busy night. Laced throughout the thump and sparkle are fragments of recorded conversation and the ambience of city streets—details that make the music feel as though it has a life of its own.
When hackers forced Madonna to release tracks from *Rebel Heart* early, it only drove expectations higher for the album, which comes in a standard 14-track version and a sprawling 19-track deluxe edition. The opening trilogy—“Living for Love,” “Devil Pray,” and “Ghosttown”—offer comfort food, melodies fans can take to heart, helped along by Diplo and Avicii. “Unapologetic B\*\*\*\*h” slides into reggae. “Illuminati” collaborates with Kanye West. “B\*\*\*h I’m Madonna” teams with Nicki Minaj. Chance the Rapper and Mike Tyson find their way into “Iconic,” while Madonna sings purely on “Joan of Arc.”
“I look back on it with such joy and pride,” Troye Sivan tells Apple Music of his debut album. The Johannesburg-born, Perth-raised singer-songwriter was 20 when it came out. He’d already found fame as a YouTuber, and publicly came out as gay on the platform in 2013. *Blue Neighbourhood* followed two years later. “As a whole, it was about my first relationship and its breakdown,” he says. “I’d never been in a relationship before, so I didn\'t know what it was supposed to feel like. I was so new to everything, from the process of writing the album to doing my first TV performance, filming music videos, and doing promo. It was just such a whirlwind. Only now in hindsight can I look back and really appreciate what a special time it was.” With its personal stories about his first experiences with love and with embracing his identity, the album cemented Sivan as a new queer voice in pop music. “One of my favorite things about music in general is the way that people apply it to their own lives,” he says. “You don’t realize it until you have those moments where you meet someone and realize that a particular song or album or tour meant something completely different to them than it did to you. I think it\'s the goal really, it\'s why we do what we do.” Below, Sivan talks through the stories behind each track on *Blue Neighbourhood*. **WILD** “I worked with Alex Hope, who is an incredible Australian writer-producer. We really got along as friends; it felt like two kids hanging out with no adults around. ‘WILD’ was Alex\'s first time fully producing a song. I just had to throw shit at the wall and see what would stick. We tried everything; we wrote so many bad songs. That exploration and curiosity is something I feel so fond of now, and I actively try to push myself now to get there.” **BITE** “It was my first time going to a gay club. I went in South Africa with friends. I have a very vivid memory of walking in and having to peel my feet off the floor because the floor was so sticky. It was the moment where my mind just expanded and exploded. It was about that hesitation and trepidation and fear, and the excitement and curiosity and wide-eyed joy to be around people who felt like me, and to be in a space where I didn\'t have to worry that I was going to get bashed for wanting to kiss a boy. I think it\'s such a special moment for any queer person, the first time they step into a queer space. It’s euphoric and scary at the same time.” **FOOLS** “‘FOOLS’ was from a session with me and Alex and \[Australian producer\] Pip Norman. I remember writing a really bad song that day. At the time I’d put my entire self-worth on what I wrote that day. I was still very unsure if I could do it, if I’d even made the right decision signing a record deal. I just really doubted myself. At the end of the day, Pip was like, ‘Let\'s just write something in the last 20 minutes. If it\'s cool, it\'s cool. If it\'s not, whatever, we\'ll go home.’ I said to him, ‘Play the saddest chords you can think of.’ He played the opening chords of ‘FOOLS’ and we just ran with it.” **EASE (feat. Broods)** “This is probably my favorite song on the album and one of my favorite songs that I\'ve ever been a part of. I was really starstruck and nervous. I had a really hard time singing the vocals; I think I was sick or something. So Georgia \[Nott, Broods singer\] put down some background vocals and I sang on top of them. Just hearing her voice on the song literally made me want to cry. I had been in LA for a bit at that point, and we all bonded over the fact that we felt like we were missing something back home in Australia, New Zealand, our part of the world.” **THE QUIET** “I wrote that one by myself. I was going through a falling-out with a friend, which never really happens in my life, so it was weird. There wasn\'t a fight, just this space between us that hadn\'t been there before and I couldn\'t understand why. So it was very train-of-thought, flowing and conversational. I wasn\'t really thinking much about trying to make it poetic.” **DKLA (feat. Tkay Maidza)** “The track is about protecting yourself, but also how that’s harmful when you shut off any potential love or relationship. I remember falling in love with the production. I still get so excited when the drums come in. And I’m a huge Tkay Maidza fan. I feel cool just by my association with her.” **TALK ME DOWN** “It’s about that one person who can come just when you need them and can talk you down from a tough moment. Sometimes someone will write a melody where I\'m like, ‘Are you sure that this isn\'t something else? This could be mine? We can call it a Troye Sivan song and have that melody on it?’ I fell so in love with that one specific melody.” **COOL** “Looking back, it\'s still completely relevant to me. Similar themes about feeling a bit out of place in LA are still there. At the time, it was such a fresh feeling of being swept up and really being in awe and so wide-eyed, like, this is not Australia. This is not real life at all. And I literally died \[when Kylie Minogue covered the song in 2020 for Apple Music’s At Home With sessions\]. One day my phone lit up and she was just so casual and chill. She was like, ‘Hey babe, what are the lyrics to the bridge of “COOL”?’ And I was like, ‘*My* song “COOL”? Why? What did I do? Why do you want this information from me?’ I just got so excited.” **HEAVEN (feat. Betty Who)** “I think the reason I didn\'t write about coming out was because it was just unbelievably daunting. It\'s such a huge experience in a queer person\'s life. I couldn\'t find a way to write about it that didn\'t feel like it was underplaying it or overplaying it or turning it into something cheesy, and I wanted it to feel real and down-to-earth. It was such an important moment in my life, so I had to talk about it in the right way. It was Alex, Jack Antonoff, and myself, and weirdly, Grimes is on that song, just a vocal sample at the beginning. Jack was messing around with samples and he put it in, and then afterwards, he\'s like, ‘Oh, by the way, that\'s Grimes\' voice.’ I was really starstruck by \[Antonoff\]. I love him. He\'s a sweet Jewish boy who reminds me of a lot of people I know in my personal life. He completely put us at ease. I remember me and Alex being like, ‘We can\'t fuck this up.’ And I\'m really, really happy with it.” **YOUTH** “I remember having brief moments of excitement about this song, but I’d get over it really quickly. Honestly, it was one of those moments where other people liked the song, so I trusted them, put it out, and it changed my life. I still have mixed emotions, but I\'m also totally at peace with it and I appreciate it for what it is and what it\'s meant to me and my career.” **LOST BOY** “I’d never been in a relationship before, so I didn\'t know what it was supposed to feel like. I knew something didn\'t feel right, but I had nothing to compare it with. In a real dick move, I stayed for too long and could have been more communicative up front. I just didn\'t know what I was doing. Some of these songs were written while I was still in that relationship. I’d go to the studio and write down all my feelings and then go back home and try to navigate the whole situation. ‘LOST BOY’ was me putting down that confusion and mixed emotions. ‘I have doubts, but it\'s really nice, maybe this is what every relationship feels like.’” **for him. (feat. Allday)** “I think it\'s indicative of how back-and-forth I was in my head. I really had a great time in that relationship; there was so much to love. Looking back, the whole relationship was just really lovely. I wanted to write a really personal song for it. The plan wasn\'t actually to put it out on anything. I wanted to do it as a little gift. But people were responding to it and liking it and I decided to put it on the album.” **SUBURBIA** “If I ask myself what has shaped me more as a person, my five or six years in LA or my 18 years in Perth, I still 100% feel like it\'s Perth, because that really formed me as a person. I love the place, but above all, I just love my community, my family and my friends. That feeling of missing home and trying to find your place overseas is tough. LA is very, very, very far away from Perth.” **TOO GOOD** “That was about when you meet someone new and you\'re like, ‘This feels too good to be true,’ and the exhilaration of leaning into it anyway, especially at that age of 19 or 20 when I was working on the album and experiencing so much for the first time. It’s such an intoxicating feeling.” **BLUE (feat. Alex Hope)** “‘BLUE’ was a heartbreak song. For me, it\'s a push to make something happy. I can do it, but it just takes a little bit more, because I never want to do anything that feels cheesy or tacky. Often me and Alex would try something poppy and fun and happy, and then, as a little reward, we’d let ourselves be absolutely down, as down as it can go, and this was one of those moments.” **WILD (feat. Alessia Cara)** “I think that Alessia is freakishly talented, I really, really do. I just remember being so excited about her being on the song. It feels very, very youthful and fun, and when I look back at the music video, we were actual kids. It\'s just very sweet to look back on.”
On Florence + The Machine’s third album, their focus is clear from the cover art. While the group\'s first two albums featured frontwoman Florence Welch posed in a theatrical side profile with her eyes closed, this one finds her eyes open and staring straight into the camera. This sense of immediacy and alertness infuses the band’s most mature, cohesive album yet, starting with propulsive opener, “Ship to Wreck.” Lush arrangements combine a rock band, strings, and brass with Welch’s volcanic, soaring voice, serving high drama on tracks like the driving “What Kind of Man” and the transcendent “Mother.”
Thanks to multiple hit singles—and no shortage of critical acclaim—2012’s *good kid, m.A.A.d city* propelled Kendrick Lamar into the hip-hop mainstream. His 2015 follow-up, *To Pimp a Butterfly*, served as a raised-fist rebuke to anyone who thought they had this Compton-born rapper figured out. Intertwining Afrocentric and Afrofuturist motifs with poetically personal themes and jazz-funk aesthetics, *To Pimp A Butterfly* expands beyond the gangsta rap preconceptions foisted upon Lamar’s earlier works. Even from the album’s first few seconds—which feature the sound of crackling vinyl and a faded Boris Gardiner soul sample—it’s clear *To Pimp a Butterfly* operates on an altogether different cosmic plane than its decidedly more commercial predecessor. The album’s Flying Lotus-produced opening track, “Wesley’s Theory,” includes a spoken-word invocation from musician Josef Leimberg and an appearance by Parliament-Funkadelic legend George Clinton—names that give *To Pimp a Butterfly* added atomic weight. Yet Lamar’s lustful and fantastical verses, which are as audacious as the squirmy Thundercat basslines underneath, never get lost in an album packed with huge names. Throughout *To Pimp a Butterfly*, Lamar goes beyond hip-hop success tropes: On “King Kunta,” he explores his newfound fame, alternating between anxiety and big-stepping braggadocio. On “The Blacker the Berry,” meanwhile, Lamar pointedly explores and expounds upon identity and racial dynamics, all the while reaching for a reckoning. And while “Alright” would become one of the rapper’s best-known tracks, it’s couched in harsh realities, and features an anthemic refrain delivered in a knowing, weary rasp that belies Lamar’s young age. He’s only 27, and yet he’s already seen too much. The cast assembled for this massive effort demonstrates not only Lamar’s reach, but also his vast vision. Producers Terrace Martin and Sounwave, both veterans of *good kid, m.A.A.d city*, are among the many names to work behind-the-boards here. But the album also includes turns from everyone from Snoop Dogg to SZA to Ambrose Akinmusire to Kamasi Washington—an intergenerational reunion of a musical diaspora. Their contributions—as well as the contributions of more than a dozen other players—give *To Pimp a Butterfly* a remarkable range: The contemplations of “Institutionalized” benefit greatly from guest vocalists Bilal and Anna Wise, as do the hood parables of “How Much A Dollar Cost,” which features James Fauntleroy and Ronald Isley. Meanwhile, Robert Glasper’s frenetic piano on “For Free? (Interlude)” and Pete Rock’s nimble scratches on “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” give *To Pimp a Butterfly* added energy.
One Direction’s fifth album demonstrates just how far the group has come since their early days on the *X Factor* stage. *Made in the A.M.* is filled with charisma, confidence, and sparkling group chemistry. Upbeat sing-alongs like “Drag Me Down” and “Perfect” are perfectly crafted pop anthems, but the guys shine just as brightly on an epic power ballad like “Infinity.”
Mark Ronson reaches new collaborative heights on the wonderfully funky *Uptown Special*. In addition to writing lyrics alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon, the multi-instrumentalist DJ/producer enlists musical genius of all stripes, from Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker to Mystikal to Jeff Bhasker. While Stevie Wonder lends his touch to the astral melodies of the album’s opening and closing cuts, Bruno Mars pays brilliant homage to Prince on the propulsive “Uptown Funk.” Get ready to move.
After a 12-year break between studio albums, Blur remain as intrepid and inventive as they’ve ever been. *The Magic Whip* finds the Britpop icons reuniting with a collection that\' s both wonderfully familiar and endlessly surprising. “Lonesome Street” kicks off with the ecstatic crunch of guitar and then takes on new colors and textures, with psychedelic synth flourishes and kooky harmonies. While the gleefully distorted “I Broadcast” buzzes and roars, the melancholy sway of “New World Towers” and the serpentine soul of “My Terracotta Heart” leave a haunting afterglow.
Ditching the dubstep and EDM influences of 2012’s *The 2nd Law* in favor of old-fashioned rock ballistics, Muse’s seventh album is a wide-angle, bold-faced attack on the dehumanizing effects of modern war. Produced by Mutt Lange (famous in part for the tank-like sound of AC/DC and Def Leppard in their prime), *Drones* mashes together the high drama of late-\'90s Radiohead (“Psycho”) with the pyrotechnics of Van Halen (“Reapers”) and the grand sweep of both U2 and Pink Floyd—bands who have always chosen to go big or go home.