Gustav Åhr, a.k.a. Long Island’s emo-rap prodigy Lil Peep, masters the art of dejection on his debut album, *Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 1*. Mixing live guitar samples, reverbed trap beats, and howling lead vocals, Peep formulates a haunting tour through his own personal hell, whether he’s slurring words on the drug-addled opener, “Benz Truck (гелик),” or leading a downcast shout-along on “Better Off (Dying).” His music may be dark, but Peep finds a way to make it shine.
Four years after Lorde illuminated suburban teendom with *Pure Heroine*, she captures the dizzying agony of adolescence on *Melodrama*. “Everyone has that first proper year of adulthood,” she told Beats 1. “I think I had that year.” She chronicles her experiences in these insightful odes to self-discovery that find her battling loneliness (“Sober”), conquering heartbreak (“Writer in the Dark”), embracing complexity (“Hard Feelings/Loveless”), and letting herself lose control. “Every night I live and die,” she sings on “Perfect Places,” an emotionally charged song about escaping reality. “I’m 19 and I\'m on fire.\"
In the two years since *To Pimp a Butterfly*, we’ve hung on Kendrick Lamar\'s every word—whether he’s destroying rivals on a cameo, performing the #blacklivesmatter anthem *on top of a police car* at the BET Awards, or hanging out with Obama. So when *DAMN.* opens with a seemingly innocuous line—\"So I was taking a walk the other day…”—we\'re all ears. The gunshot that abruptly ends the track is a signal: *DAMN.* is a grab-you-by-the-throat declaration that’s as blunt, complex, and unflinching as the name suggests. If *Butterfly* was jazz-inflected, soul-funk vibrance, *DAMN.* is visceral, spare, and straight to the point, whether he’s boasting about \"royalty inside my DNA” on the trunk-rattling \"DNA.\" or lamenting an anonymous, violent death on the soul-infused “FEAR.” No topic is too big to tackle, and the songs are as bold as their all-caps names: “PRIDE.” “LOYALTY.” “LOVE.” \"LUST.” “GOD.” When he repeats the opening line to close the album, that simple walk has become a profound journey—further proof that no one commands the conversation like Kendrick Lamar.
Self-assured and sonically restless, Charli XCX is a chameleonic pop force. This mixtape lets her middle-finger-flipping attitude loose on \'80s synth-pop and it’s a cinematic experience loaded with sharp plot twists, A-list cameos, and an epic finale. The curtain rises with the Carly Rae Jepsen-starring “Backseat”’s sparse, coiled electro, and Charli sharply questions the cost of love across staccato beats on “Porsche,\" but “Out of My Head” is the real scene-stealer. United with Tove Lo and ALMA, the trio bid to rid themselves of a no-good lover on a shimmering pop gem. This is the sound of girl power in 2017.
Playboi Carti arrived at a time when mumble rap was boosting hip-hop’s bottom line, making it a ubiquitous but captivating innovation in music. On later releases like 2018’s *Die Lit*, Carti would tip a hat to his humble beginnings, priding himself on his ability to build wealth and buy his mom a house “off that mumbling s\*\*t.” This self-titled 2017 mixtape was the beginning of Carti laying that very foundation. Born Jordan Terrell Carter in Atlanta in 1996, the rapper and singer takes a wide-eyed, unconstrained approach to creating—not unlike the stylistic technique he employed with his breakthrough 2015 single, “Broke Boi.” After Carti sprinkled a smattering of official and unofficial songs across the internet in the mid-2010s, his star power grew exponentially, thanks to fans who couldn’t get enough of his creative appeal. *Playboi Carti* is propelled by Carti’s sheer charisma and trend-setting persona. The artist, known globally for his unique fashion sense and an affinity for all things divergent, uses this radical mixtape as a launchpad for his brand of unconventional self-expression. The project is buoyed by repetitive chants and earworm phrases that stretch themselves into trance-inducing anthems and mantras, custom made for a new generation of ragers and moshers. “Magnolia,” the smash single produced by frequent collaborator Pi’erre Bourne, was Carti’s moment of arrival in the mainstream, thanks in large part to his breezy rapping style. Playboi Carti’s songs, lyrics, and ad libs have embedded themselves into the broader pop culture landscape, but don’t get confused: On “Half & Half,” he lets it be known that “This is not pop, this some rock.” Equally inspired by the unapologetic air of hip-hop and the irreverent attitude of rock ’n’ roll, he dedicates *Playboi Carti* to the merging of the two influential genres. The punk-inflected hit “Wokeuplikethis\*” featuring Lil Uzi Vert shows the MCs directly addressing copycats and simultaneously flexing in their imitators’ faces. Lyrical minimalism is the ace up Playboi Carti’s sleeve, and he strategically plays his cards to bring us into his complex sonic universe.
R&B singer Kelela’s deeply personal debut LP does just what it says on the label. Over beats from Jam City, Bok Bok, Kingdom, and Arca—which swerve from warped and aqueous to warm and lush to icy and danceable—Kelela turns her emotions inside out with a sultriness and self-assuredness that few underground artists can muster. She’s tough and forthright, tender and subdued on songs about breakups (“Frontline”), makeups (“Waitin”), and pickups (“LMK”)—and the way she spins from one mode to the next is dizzying in the best way possible.
The album that finally reveals a superstar. Sampha Sisay spent his nascent career becoming music’s collaborator à la mode—his CV includes impeccable work with the likes of Solange, Drake, and Jessie Ware—and *Process* fully justifies his considered approach to unveiling a debut full-length. It’s a stunning album that sees the Londoner inject raw, gorgeous emotion into each of his mini-epics. His electronic R&B sounds dialed in from another dimension on transformative opener “Plastic 100°C,” and “Incomplete Kisses” is an anthem for the broken-hearted that retains a smoothness almost exclusive to this very special talent. “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano,” meanwhile, makes a solid case for being 2017’s most beautiful song.
2014’s 'Too Bright' showcased Mike Hadreas stepping out saucily onto a bigger stage, expressing, with the production help of Portishead’s Adrian Utley, emotions arranged all along the slippery continuum from rage to irony to love. Here in 13 new ferocious and sophisticated tracks, Mike Hadreas and his collaborators blow through church music, makeout music, an array of the gothier radio popular formats, rhythm and blues, art pop, krautrock, queer soul, the RCA Studio B sound, and then also collect some of the sounds that only exist inside Freddy Krueger. Tremolo on the electric keys. Nightclubbing. Daywalking. Kate Bushing, Peter Greenawaying, Springsteening, Syreetaing. No Shape was produced by Blake Mills, the man behind Alabama Shakes’ Grammy Award winning album. He added precision and expansion. Some things are pretty and some are blasted beyond recognition. Records like this, records that make you feel like you’re 15 and just seeing the truth for the first time, are excessively rare. They’re here to remind you that you’re divine.
