Tate McRae is no stranger to stardom, having made history at age 13 as the first Canadian finalist on *So You Think You Can Dance*. Fiercely ambitious and a relentless hard worker, McRae saw dance as just one part of her toolbox, not a defining artistic characteristic. The Calgary-born artist began releasing singles in 2017, eventually dropping her first EP, *all the things i never said*, in 2020. Two years later, she shared her debut LP, *i used to think i could fly*. It was a statement, a shout from the mountaintop: “I’m here to stay.” McRae has followed up that defining moment with an even more determined album, *THINK LATER*. The push between id and ego emerges most playfully on “greedy,” the album’s lead single and one of the biggest tracks released in 2023. Over steel drums and booming bass, McRae sings, “Baby, please believe me/I\'ll put you through hell/Just to know me, yeah, yeah/So sure of yourself/Baby, don\'t get greedy/That shit won\'t end well.” The temptation is there, McRae knows better, but she might not be able to help herself. *THINK LATER* is full of similarly self-aware pop bangers, unfiltered highs and lows that come with growing up as a celebrity.
When Olivia Rodrigo shocked the pop music landscape with her ballad “drivers license,” she drew influence from an unexpected place: Gracie Abrams, an introspective bedroom-pop newcomer with an incredible knack for writing her interior world into a whispered hook—and who had yet to release a debut LP. *Good Riddance*, Abrams’ first full-length, is a triumph, from coming-of-age rockers (“Difficult”), mournful ruminations on past relationships (“I Know it won’t work”), and guitar ballads (“Full machine”) to the lyrical wisdom that only comes with distance (“You were there all the time/You’re the worst of my crimes/You fell hard/I thought good riddance” in the opener “Best”). Straight from the frank, lushly detailed Taylor Swift school of songwriting, Abrams has clearly learned a thing or two from her tourmate; for good measure, *Good Riddance* was co-written with one of Swift’s collaborators, Aaron Dessner of The National.
For many rock bands, there comes a moment when they have to confront a particular question. It’s one that has often inspired dazzlingly inventive and progressive work. Occasionally though, it only brings shame and derision. For Southend-formed five-piece Nothing But Thieves, that question became too loud to ignore while they gathered ideas for their fourth LP. So they finally asked themselves, “Is it time to make a concept album?” Released in October 2020, NBT’s third album *Moral Panic* presented their most adventurous work to date—absorbing drum ’n’ bass, hip-hop, Balearic dance pop, and R&B into their sound. With the group unable to tour during the pandemic, their heads stayed with that record for longer than they normally might, and they eventually extended its universe the following summer with the *Moral Panic II* EP. They were keen to continue their sonic explorations on this follow-up but needed to ensure they were completely detached from *Moral Panic*. “A concept was almost like a tool to feel automatically fresh,” guitarist Joe Langridge-Brown tells Apple Music. “But it wasn’t lost on us that it’s kind of a cliché. ‘How do we do this and not make it too pastiche?’ was very much a daily conversation and consideration.” While starting to write songs for the record, Langridge-Brown pondered a few concepts, eventually settling on the idea of a city-sized members-only club. Here, the stories and characters within and outside its walls could reflect on the potential consequences of the way we live today. “The concept is pointless unless there is real-world meaning behind each of the songs,” he says. “*Moral Panic* felt like it was about the health of our society and what I was viewing on Twitter, the chaos of that. This album feels like it’s in the future—what the nth degree of \[that chaos\] is if things kept going. What might happen in this sort of dystopian, segregated, members-only city?” Read on as he guides us through that vision, track by track. **“Welcome to the DCC”** “This is the advertisement for this world we’d created. We were like, ‘Can this be a single, because it’s so conceptual?’ I think that was a lesson in giving fans and listeners more respect, as in, ‘People are going to understand that this is a metaphor.’ You haven’t always got to hold the listeners’ hands so tightly the whole way through a song and an album. As with a lot of the record, it’s a lot more sort of synth-based and widescreen, cinematic. That’s kind of how I hear a concept record, that sort of expanse—which really made sense with this city vibe. The riff after the intro changed massively in the studio. It had more of a Justice thing before, but then it turned into this Prince-style thing. With Conor \[Mason, singer\]’s vocal, as well, that was a big consideration. More ’80s-style stuff is what we’re referencing a lot.” **“Overcome”** “I’m a huge Tom Petty fan, so some of that definitely found its way into this song. I think I actually wrote about 80 different verses for this, like a stupid amount. What I found was that when the verse was getting almost too intricate, and you were trying to say too much, it was taking away rather than adding to the song. It felt like you really just wanted to curate this feeling of a road trip into the DCC—creating a world with the words rather than saying a load of things.” **“Tomorrow Is Closed”** “The first draft was written in 2019 maybe. We recorded it twice before and abandoned it. We went about recording in the wrong way. It was all a bit too soft, a bit polite. The unhinged nature of the song, it sounding a bit blown out and raucous, it’s part of the charm. It feels incredibly desperate, that song, and we had to record it in that way. Once we gathered some songs for the concept, it really welcomed itself into the world—with ‘the only piece of heaven I have ever had,’ feeling like there was this desperation, there was no choice but to get to the Dead Club City.” **“Keeping You Around”** “This has more of a hip-hop-leaning thing to it, which has formed in NBT quite recently—for *Moral Panic* and *Moral Panic II*. That’s maybe a hangover from there. There’s also a ‘chicken or egg’ thing with the lyric ‘I’m still a broken machine, babe.’ The song reminded us a little bit of ‘Soda’ on \[2017 album\] *Broken Machine*—the nature of Conor’s singing, and, thematically, it’s got a particles thing to it. I don’t know whether the lyrics came because of the way the song was sounding, or that we leaned into that sound because the lyric allowed us to do that. I like this sort of peek, just a bit of a cue, from old NBT.” **“City Haunts”** “I think this was the first time I had the beginnings of the city concept. That initial chorus idea, with Conor singing in that very Al Green, higher register, soul-y thing, was a reaction to other stuff we’ve been doing. Conor said before that he feels he’s done a lot of the big, belting rock thing. In another effort to try to keep this fresh, he’s always creating singing characters. We have a list of characters almost, like Prince, Al Green, or whoever, voices. When we’re the studio, it’s ‘Can you make it a bit more like this or more like this?’ I’d say this is a few new characters that Conor’s been trying on.” **“Do You Love Me Yet?”** “I think we really leaned into that disco thing. It’s got a Motown vibe in the chorus as well. Within the concept, this is the first introduction to a fictional band called The Zeros. I had this idea for one of the songs, which I later called ‘Talking to Myself,’ being about this lonely character who’s been chewed up by Dead Club City. I was thinking, ‘Well, what’s different about this character? Maybe he’d be part of a band.’ Finding their way to Dead Club City, they’re trying for this level of stardom and success. I really reveled in writing in character. Obviously, there’s real-world meaning behind all the songs and it gave me an excuse to talk about the music industry in general.” **“Members Only”** “This took a bit of a left turn in the studio. It kind of felt a little dull before we went in. I think that was one of the songs we were less sure about going into the recording process. And then there was a lot of work in the studio that kind of made it feel a little bit more modern—the feedback loop, using that on the drums, and leaning into more of a hip-hop nature so it didn’t feel too rock standard.” **“Green Eyes :: Siena”** “Normally, as a writer, I find it quite daunting writing love songs. I’ve actually avoided it a lot because there are just so many. But because it’s got this backdrop of Dead Club City, it made it feel very, very fresh to write. Before the album, I think this is just after the pandemic, I went to a writing course by Jay Rayner, the writer and food critic. He did a course on writing about the same subjects a million times and making it feel different. For a songwriter, that’s invaluable. When you’ve only got two verses and a chorus and a middle eight to write about love, or something else that’s been written about a million times before, it’s incredibly useful.” **“Foreign Language”** “I had that lyric for a while, ‘Well, it’s a foreign language to me, baby/But I love hearing you talk.’ Once I figured out the concept, I was like, ‘Oh, that just works so well as a love story between someone who felt they were in the club and someone who was outside.’ That sort of cross-borders love story was what I was trying to get at. Dom \[Craik, keyboardist and co-producer\] really buried himself away for a long time in the studio, getting all the synth textures perfect. There’s almost like an orchestra of synths going on, which sounds amazing. I really love the guitar sounds that happen after the first chorus. It’s got a very harmonized guitar solo. To me, it was kind of the order of the day—feels new and old at the same time. It kind of feels prog. And that was another conversation for the whole album: It kind of feels prog, it’s got those notes, but it also feels different.” **“Talking to Myself”** “This lives quite well with ‘Keeping You Around.’ They’ve both got that ‘The Macs: Mac Miller, Mac DeMarco’ sort of thing. I’d say it’s the same characters, the same band, as in ‘Do You Love Me Yet?’ It’s the fallout of that—this band have been chewed up by Dead Club City. It was pretty much a one-take thing for Conor. A lot of the time, he’ll do vocals and we’ll do a load of verses, then we’ll do load of choruses, and we’ll see what’s working better. But for that song, we were like, ‘Just give it one go the whole way through.’ I’m pretty sure nearly everything you hear is his first take. He absolutely smashed that.” **“Pop the Balloon”** “It’s an ending of sorts. It’s not a perfect ending. It feels very messy and noisy. And that’s really different for Nothing But Thieves to end an album that way. Normally, we’d end on quite a soft moment or, very purposefully, an emotional touch. This song felt almost like the start of a revolution or something. We wanted all the characters to be wrapped up into this big finale. I think it comes back home again as well. It comes back to ‘Welcome to the DCC’ with \[the lyric\] ‘Kill the Dead Club City.’”
When BTS began a group hiatus in 2022 to allow the members to perform mandatory military service, Jung Kook used the opportunity to collaborate with Western artists and producers for his solo album debut, *GOLDEN*. The result is an 11-track English-language LP that is not only perfectly primed for a mainstream American listening audience, but also embraces an exploration of more explicitly sexy subject matter for the Korean superstar. Pre-release tracks “Seven” (featuring Latto), about the power of good sex, and “3D” (featuring Jack Harlow), about the limits of good phone sex, immediately set the tone for *GOLDEN*’s role in showcasing a more adult side of Jung Kook. The latter track was written (alongside BloodPop® and Harlow) by “Dynamite” co-writer David Stewart, who also contributes to *GOLDEN* with breakup tracks “Too Sad to Dance” (“And this Christmas, I got no gifts/Do I really deserve all this?”) and “Shot Glass of Tears” (“She got some dangerous hobbies/Like chasing after the sun and making me fall in love”). Elsewhere on *GOLDEN*, Jung Kook explores other relationship themes. Ed Sheeran has a co-writing credit on the playful, boy-band-esque bop “Yes or No” about maybe falling in love (“Are you feeling the rush?/If so, then I think I know what\'s going on”), while Shawn Mendes was behind the scenes for “Hate You,” a confessional broken-heart ballad (“I’m gonna hate you/Paint you like the villain that you never were/I\'m gonna blame you/For things that you don\'t do”). On “Somebody,” Jung Kook tells the story of a person who is ready to move on from a relationship (“Oh, I hoped you\'d find somebody/I hope you know that somebody ain\'t me”), while “Please Don’t Change” is a plea from one star-crossed lover to another that they stay the same until they can find a way to be together (“Please don’t change/’Cause I love you, yeah, I love you”).
K-pop girl group IVE follows up their studio album debut with *I’VE MINE*, a six-track EP that continues the group’s prioritization of self-acceptance as a theme beyond the singles-heavy strategy that made up a majority of their prior discography. In “Baddie,” the fourth-generation sextet communicates the message through a trap-infused swaggering K-pop song (“I’m a baddie, ba-ba-baddie, baddie, pretty little risky baddie/Catch me if you ca-an”), while “Either Way” uses a stripped-down synth ballad format to explore a more vulnerable side of the same subject. Though the latter track’s lyrics speak to the narrow tightrope K-pop idols must walk when it comes to public image (“The countless versions of me made from misunderstandings/All of them are ‘me’ in the end”), they are relatable to any listener who struggles to fit neatly into others’ expectations. Elsewhere on the mini album, An Yujin, Gaeul, Rei, Jang Wonyoung, Liz, and Leeseo switch their focus to the infinitely generative topic of love. Groovy pre-release track “Off the Record” gamely broaches the often off-limits-for-idols subject of late-night, um, talking (“Reveal your darkest desires/There\'s no way you don\'t have any/Now we\'re in private mode”), while the dreamy midtempo pop song “OTT” encourages listeners to “like what they like” when it comes to attraction. Funky B-sider “Holy Moly” incorporates similar sonic elements to IVE’s 2021 smash-hit debut track “ELEVEN,” but it\'s album-ender “Payback” that brings the group\'s signature verve. The breakup bop (“Winter’s coming/You better get going”) pulls IVE to new vocal heights in the song’s simple yet stirringly melodic chorus.
P!nk\'s ninth album gets into the deep stuff right away. The piano ballad “When I Get There,” which opens the record, is a letter to her father, who passed away in August 2021. “Is there a bar up there where you\'ve got a favorite chair/Where you sit with friends/And talk about the weather,” P!nk wails, her voice breaking. “I know you\'ll tell me when I get there.” It\'s an intense way to begin an album—but the pop star has always invited her listeners into her life in an intimate way. “You\'ve got to just dive right into it,” P!nk tells Apple Music. “That\'s kind of how it is to sit with me, though. It\'s like, \'Hi, do you want to hear about that one time?\' It\'s like an invitation.” Over *TRUSTFALL*’s 13 tracks, P!nk digs into her past few years, grappling with the ever-encroaching feeling that even as people get older, the idea of life having a road map is more and more remote. Take “Turbulence,” a windswept anthem that reminds listeners of how even the most harrowing parts of life are just momentary parts of a long journey: “The panic is temporary/But I\'ll be permanent/So when it hits, don\'t forget/As scary as it gets/It\'s just turbulence,” she sings, her voice breaking slightly on the song\'s title. “I love \'Turbulence\' for that reason,” says P!nk. “I played it for my friend\'s teenager and she was just reduced to tears, and I knew that it was speaking to her anxiety. I hope that that song helps a little, because it\'s such a nice idea—as bumpy as it gets, as scary as it gets, it\'s just turbulence.” “TRUSTFALL,” which P!nk co-wrote with Fred again.. and Johnny McDaid, has a completely different vibe, but it\'s another example of P!nk showing how life\'s lowest moments can result in beauty. It\'s a simmering dance track that shows off P!nk\'s airy upper register as she invites listeners to “go where love is on our side”—and it\'s the first moment where, as P!nk puts it, “I\'m like, \'You know what, fuck this. I\'m going to dance. I am so exhausted, I\'m going to take my clothes off and I\'m going to dance. I\'m going to roller-skate.” *TRUSTFALL* also throws a couple of curveballs with P!nk\'s collaborators, who allow her to showcase her powerful voice in country-folk settings. She duets with folk-pop outfit The Lumineers on the tense, spare “Long Way to Go,” in which she and vocalist Wesley Schultz regard each other warily, unsure about whether to take the plunge into romance. Swedish sisters First Aid Kit accompany P!nk on the wistful “Kids in Love,” which features a restlessly fingerpicked acoustic guitar and breezy vocal harmonies. And Chris Stapleton helps P!nk close out the album on “Just Say I\'m Sorry,” a starlit duet that tackles, with empathy and tenderness, the ways that pride can encroach on love. “It\'s awesome that I can be this polarizing pop star who then is like, \'Hey, Lumineers, you guys want to do a song?\'” she says. “And they\'re like, \'Yeah, cool.\' I\'m like, \'Awesome. Stapleton, you want to sing a song?\' And he\'s like, \'Absolutely.\' And First Aid Kit. I\'m like, Who am I? This is rad.” These three duets, along with tracks like the glittery disco-funk cut “Never Gonna Not Dance Again” and the punky anti-hater broadside “Hate Me,” show how P!nk\'s rise to pop\'s upper echelons has been as successful as it has because of the way she\'s defied expectations. “I\'ve always been a mystery bag,” P!nk notes. “I\'m excited about this album in the way I was excited about \[2001\'s\] *M!ssundaztood*, because it\'s a body of work, even though it\'s all kinds of genres.”
In the six years since Shania Twain released her 2017 album *Now*, the country-pop trailblazer has been through the wringer. In 2018, she underwent open-throat surgery—an attempt to fix lingering vocal issues caused by a 2003 bout with Lyme disease—that required her to not only be conscious, but to *sing* through the operation so that the doctors could identify any misalignment. “Terrible,” she tells Apple Music. But getting her voice back after 15 years? “Euphoric.” Then, at the height of the pandemic, a bad case of COVID morphed into life-threatening pneumonia that led to Twain being airlifted to a hospital. “I was pretty much dying,” she says. But she prevailed. Twain has made a career out of turning trauma into triumph. Her warm, winking, wholesome hits have always offered more than comfort; they reframe the way we see ourselves and our circumstances for the better. Bad breakup? Relish your freedom! Disrespected? Reclaim your womanhood. Not impressed much? Demand better. On album after album, she’s led by example, processing her many hardships—a violent, abusive childhood; the death of both of her parents in a car crash; a messy divorce sparked by her husband’s affair with her best friend; and so on—through relatable, hopeful songs that depict someone stronger, bolder, brighter. On her sixth full-length, she does it again—only this time, raspier and a little more sensual with her new post-surgery voice. (She has leaned into the change, of course, noting that she “actually got more depth.”) *Queen of Me* is more complex than its bumper-sticker title lets on; these songs explore loneliness, regret, motherhood, marriage, survival, and the strength it takes to keep your head held high. These would be heavy topics in anyone else’s hands, but Twain, a seasoned, savvy songwriter, has always had a way of floating over her misfortunes, making even the most dispiriting obstacles feel surmountable and small. The woman simply refuses to wallow. Instead, she flips the script: A toxic, controlling ex inspires a toast to her financial independence (“Queen of Me”); breaking up with a dead-end narcissist sparks an empowerment anthem about knowing her worth (“Brand New”); and a harrowing near-death experience prompts a tribute to the invisible, life-giving forces we all take for granted (“Inhale/Exhale AIR”). “You celebrate when you get through something difficult,” she says. “I do, anyway.”
When Olivia Rodrigo shocked the pop music landscape with her ballad “drivers license,” she drew influence from an unexpected place: Gracie Abrams, an introspective bedroom-pop newcomer with an incredible knack for writing her interior world into a whispered hook—and who had yet to release a debut LP. *Good Riddance*, Abrams’ first full-length, is a triumph, from coming-of-age rockers (“Difficult”), mournful ruminations on past relationships (“I Know it won’t work”), and guitar ballads (“Full machine”) to the lyrical wisdom that only comes with distance (“You were there all the time/You’re the worst of my crimes/You fell hard/I thought good riddance” in the opener “Best”). Straight from the frank, lushly detailed Taylor Swift school of songwriting, Abrams has clearly learned a thing or two from her tourmate; for good measure, *Good Riddance* was co-written with one of Swift’s collaborators, Aaron Dessner of The National.
As leader and main vocalist of TWICE, the best-selling Korean girl group of all time, JIHYO has a lot of eyes on her with the release of her debut EP. The 26-year-old artist not only has eight years of TWICE superstardom under her belt, but another decade as a JYP trainee before that. The almost two decades of K-pop industry experience shine through on *ZONE*, which is far more polished than a debut EP has any right to be. With songwriter and/or composer credits on six of *ZONE*’s seven tracks, JIHYO was actively involved in many stages of the record-making process. Groovy, upbeat opener “Killin’ Me Good” veers closest to TWICE’s trademark sound. In it, JIHYO mostly stays in her lower register, crooning about giving herself over to a new attraction: “You\'re makin\' me feel so brand new/You\'re killin\' me, killin\' me good.” She explores similarly sensual themes in soulful B-sides “Closer” (“I just can\'t leave you alone/Can we get even closer, babe?”) and “Wishing on You” (“In a dream that I dream with my eyes open/Love me at the end of my lips”). Things get more complicated in “Talkin’ About It,” featuring American singer 24kGoldn, where JIHYO explores the intensity of pursuing a relationship in the public eye: “Run away, let\'s leave the pressure, you are all I need forever.” In the album-ending belter “Nightmare,” JIHYO invokes the same suggested escape, this time urging someone else to run away from her. Korean singer-songwriter HEIZE lends her wispy vocals to “Don’t Wanna Go Back,” a duet about moving on after a breakup, while “Room” gives us a kind of conclusion to this story in JIHYO’s determination to leave the past in the past. “I\'m not coming back to this room,” she sings in the song’s chorus before repeating the \"Not coming back, coming back\" refrain for the song’s hypnotizing outro.
P!nk\'s ninth album gets into the deep stuff right away. The piano ballad “When I Get There,” which opens the record, is a letter to her father, who passed away in August 2021. “Is there a bar up there where you\'ve got a favorite chair/Where you sit with friends/And talk about the weather,” P!nk wails, her voice breaking. “I know you\'ll tell me when I get there.” It\'s an intense way to begin an album—but the pop star has always invited her listeners into her life in an intimate way. “You\'ve got to just dive right into it,” P!nk tells Apple Music. “That\'s kind of how it is to sit with me, though. It\'s like, \'Hi, do you want to hear about that one time?\' It\'s like an invitation.” Over *TRUSTFALL*’s 13 tracks, P!nk digs into her past few years, grappling with the ever-encroaching feeling that even as people get older, the idea of life having a road map is more and more remote. Take “Turbulence,” a windswept anthem that reminds listeners of how even the most harrowing parts of life are just momentary parts of a long journey: “The panic is temporary/But I\'ll be permanent/So when it hits, don\'t forget/As scary as it gets/It\'s just turbulence,” she sings, her voice breaking slightly on the song\'s title. “I love \'Turbulence\' for that reason,” says P!nk. “I played it for my friend\'s teenager and she was just reduced to tears, and I knew that it was speaking to her anxiety. I hope that that song helps a little, because it\'s such a nice idea—as bumpy as it gets, as scary as it gets, it\'s just turbulence.” “TRUSTFALL,” which P!nk co-wrote with Fred again.. and Johnny McDaid, has a completely different vibe, but it\'s another example of P!nk showing how life\'s lowest moments can result in beauty. It\'s a simmering dance track that shows off P!nk\'s airy upper register as she invites listeners to “go where love is on our side”—and it\'s the first moment where, as P!nk puts it, “I\'m like, \'You know what, fuck this. I\'m going to dance. I am so exhausted, I\'m going to take my clothes off and I\'m going to dance. I\'m going to roller-skate.” *TRUSTFALL* also throws a couple of curveballs with P!nk\'s collaborators, who allow her to showcase her powerful voice in country-folk settings. She duets with folk-pop outfit The Lumineers on the tense, spare “Long Way to Go,” in which she and vocalist Wesley Schultz regard each other warily, unsure about whether to take the plunge into romance. Swedish sisters First Aid Kit accompany P!nk on the wistful “Kids in Love,” which features a restlessly fingerpicked acoustic guitar and breezy vocal harmonies. And Chris Stapleton helps P!nk close out the album on “Just Say I\'m Sorry,” a starlit duet that tackles, with empathy and tenderness, the ways that pride can encroach on love. “It\'s awesome that I can be this polarizing pop star who then is like, \'Hey, Lumineers, you guys want to do a song?\'” she says. “And they\'re like, \'Yeah, cool.\' I\'m like, \'Awesome. Stapleton, you want to sing a song?\' And he\'s like, \'Absolutely.\' And First Aid Kit. I\'m like, Who am I? This is rad.” These three duets, along with tracks like the glittery disco-funk cut “Never Gonna Not Dance Again” and the punky anti-hater broadside “Hate Me,” show how P!nk\'s rise to pop\'s upper echelons has been as successful as it has because of the way she\'s defied expectations. “I\'ve always been a mystery bag,” P!nk notes. “I\'m excited about this album in the way I was excited about \[2001\'s\] *M!ssundaztood*, because it\'s a body of work, even though it\'s all kinds of genres.”
Chappell Roan is not afraid to tell you—or, really, sing at you—about how she\'s feeling, in vivid detail. On her debut album, the Missouri-born upstart, who has been making waves since the 2017 release of her intense debut single “Good Hurt,” collects tales of debauchery and despair as it chronicles her realization of being queer and coming into her own. *The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess* opens with Roan singing mournfully about a dastardly ex-boyfriend over trembling pianos and starlit choirs; an insistent beat rises up gradually at first, then overtakes the song as she realizes she needs to be part of a “Femininomenon” that demands pleasure and respect from anyone lucky enough to be in her orbit. Left turns like that abound over the next 13 songs. Take the synth-pop “Casual,” which dissects a friends-with-benefits relationship in brutally specific detail, or the euphoric club cut “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl,” an insouciant dismissal of “hyper mega bummer boys” that opens with a sardonic mini-monologue and closes with a triumphant sing-along. Roan still traffics in ballads, too: “California” grapples with homesickness and frustration, Roan dipping down into her voice\'s low reaches, while the plush “Coffee” examines the idea of fully closing the loop with an ex, with the reality of its impossibility closing in as the music swells. There\'s a hunger that drives Roan\'s music, even in its more introspective moments. It isn\'t just sexual, although songs like the smirking poison-pen letter “My Kink Is Karma” and the flirty electro-psych come-on “Red Wine Supernova” show off how Roan\'s erotic awakening has helped her whole outlook on life come into sharp relief. Her willingness to take pop in unexpected directions, combined with her frankness about the tangled feelings that arise even when good things seem to be happening, make her debut compulsively listenable.
With his first proper solo album since the dissolution of his former band, ex-HIM leader Ville Valo is testing his personal vision under the moniker VV. On *Neon Noir*, the Finnish vocalist and songwriter explores new facets of gothic rock by turning up his ’80s influences in tandem with moody David Lynch-isms and ’60s folk rock in an effort to, as he puts it, find the sweet spot between Depeche Mode and Black Sabbath. “After playing with HIM for a quarter century, it felt very daunting to call it a day,” he tells Apple Music. “It was such a huge part of my life. I really didn’t have any expectations about what would happen afterwards because I didn’t know if the inspiration would be there, or if I would just feel like I’d lost a limb. So, it took me a while to get inspired again.” After HIM split up in 2017 as one of the most commercially successful Finnish bands of all time, it took Valo over two years to pick up a guitar again. “I ended up producing and engineering and writing and doing everything by myself,” he explains. “I was stupid enough to think that that’s what a solo album’s supposed to be like. Some of it has to do with COVID because there was no chance to put a band together. But I’ve also always had a strange fascination with artists like Prince, who do everything by themselves. Because if you work completely in a solitary fashion, the vision is very undiluted. It doesn’t necessarily mean the result is better, but I think it’s more unique and special because you can hear who the artist really is.” Below, he details each track on *Neon Noir*. **“Echolocate Your Love”** “It was written during the darkest times of the pandemic. I’ve always been fascinated by bats and how they navigate using echolocation. I started thinking that maybe people should use the same at times—close your eyes and you can actually see and understand things better in the dark. And also, the classic line of ‘love is blind.’ In this case, you could interpret the darkness as being the pandemic. Let it wash you over because you’re going to be stronger afterwards.” **“Run Away From the Sun”** “That’s the first song I wrote for the album and the first song I wrote after HIM disbanded. So, it was a big deal for my self-confidence to be able to show myself that I can still pull it off and actually get a song that makes me tickle in just the right spots at the right time. I think the song is very ’80s—the whole album is pretty ’80s—but it’s quite anthemic. I was in a very bad place mentally and spiritually when I wrote it, and I couldn’t see a way out. So, I asked the one I love to join me in the darkness as opposed to trying to drag me out. It’s a love song.” **“Neon Noir”** “When I wrote this, I was still trying to find the right spot for me, which is somewhere in between Depeche Mode and Black Sabbath. The song has a very classic-rock feel to it with the guitars, but then the midsection has this shoegaze-y Cocteau Twins/Jesus and Mary Chain feel to it. I think I found a way to combine all that stuff within a single song and send as many mixed messages as I could for the listener. For me, the song represents the dance of life—all the good and bad that we go through in order to develop and grow as individuals.” **“Loveletting”** “It’s weird that this was the first single because it’s quite a departure. It does have similarities to my previous band, and you can recognize who’s singing, but it has a lot of folky influence to it. The verses of the song are very ’60s. I love Cat Stevens and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and all of that melancholy folk music of the time, and I was trying to bring some of that into the music, which is very new to me. It has a lot of ’80s dance-goth feel to it, too. That is very un-HIM.” **“The Foreverlost”** “That’s the second single, if I’m not mistaken, and it’s definitely the most gothic-rock song on the album. I was able to bring a lot of the musical perversions into the song that I wasn’t able to fulfill with HIM. The guys in HIM were more hard rockers, God bless them, but this time I didn’t have them holding me back. So, it’s very Sisters of Mercy, and it’s quite tongue in cheek as well because there’s a lyric about the ‘nyctophile’s Shangri-la,’ and that’s obviously Helsinki because it’s dark all the time here.” **“Baby Lacrimarium”** “‘Lacrimarium’ is a weird Latin word that I heard about from a friend. It’s what’s called a tear vessel, where back in the day people would weep and save their tears in a tiny jar. I just thought the idea was quite extraordinary. Lyrically speaking, I love combining good old ’50s or ’60s American, ‘(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear’ pop music with semi-poetic goth themes. Musically speaking, it’s the poppiest track on the album. It’s got a lot of jangly, clean guitars with the super-chorus \[effect\], like The Cure.” **“Salute the Sanguine”** “This is a fast rock track with a bit of The Cult in the guitars. The chorus is, ‘Go salute the sanguine, red in tooth and claw. It has to feel.’ It’s about the animalistic, instinctual aspect that is so important in life. To me, it’s not about ones and zeroes or social media. It’s about letting yourself go and letting the animal out—howling at the moon a bit. It’s probably the most HIM-like track on the album. It’s like a freight train, and it’s probably going to work great live.” **“In Trenodia”** “I was trying to think of a melancholy utopia. ‘Threnody’ means a sad song, usually a solitary song sung by one person, so I turned the idea of that into a world-building exercise. Trenodia is the land of the sad song, a place where I would feel at ease and at home. It’s a beautiful place where the sun is always setting, and the birds sing the most melancholy tunes. It has a bit of *Siamese Dream*-era Smashing Pumpkins guitars coming together with a sort of Type O Negative gothic pop. It’s one of the odder bits ’n’ bobs on the album.” **“Heartful of Ghosts”** “That’s my favorite of the album because it’s something very different. It has this weird lava lamp sort of feeling. It’s very ’60s and—rest in peace—Angelo Badalamenti, talking about *Twin Peaks* and all that stuff. I think the theme from *Twin Peaks* was such a big influence on all the musicians my age. You want to be able to create something that’s beautiful but ominous at the same time. ‘Heartful of Ghosts’ has this brooding sense of something terrible about to happen, and super-weird lyrics about tarot cards and a planchette, the thing you use with a Ouija board.” **“Saturnine Saturnalia”** “That’s the most Black Sabbath thing on the album. I’m a huge Black Sabbath geek. I grew up with that stuff, and they were one of the main idols for HIM. We were such fanatic fans when it came to Sabbath, and I think we still are. So, you have to have a couple of really big, monstrous, fuzzy guitar riffs on a rock album. I also grew up with Type O Negative and that sort of stuff in the early ’90s that incorporated a sense of the romantic and melancholy pop with the very Sabbath-y riffs, so that’s what I was aiming for here.” **“Zener Solitaire”** “Zener cards are the telepathy cards—the ones with the crosses, the circles, the waves. One person holds them to themselves, and the other person is trying to guess them. I thought the saddest thing in the world would be to play solitaire with Zener cards because that’s something you can’t really do by yourself. This is an instrumental track, kind of a Phil Spector production meeting up with Goblin, who did the music for the original *Suspiria*. It’s meant as an intro for the next song, ‘Vertigo Eyes.’” **“Vertigo Eyes”** “I didn’t purposefully set out to do an eight-plus-minute song, but that’s what happened. I was thinking of the dream sequences from David Lynch’s *Lost Highway*, those subliminal messages he keeps giving the viewers with the editing. There’re so many weird things. You know that semi-surreal feeling when you have a really high fever? You’re not sure what’s true and what’s not true. You’re not well, and you’re in this in-between state. That’s what I wanted to create with this song. Musically, it’s like psychedelic U2 coming together with Sisters of Mercy and then *Welcome to Sky Valley*-era Kyuss at the end.”
With his first proper solo album since the dissolution of his former band, ex-HIM leader Ville Valo is testing his personal vision under the moniker VV. On Neon Noir, the Finnish vocalist and songwriter explores new facets of gothic rock by turning up his '80s influences in tandem with moody David Lynch-isms and '60s folk rock in an effort to, as he puts it, find the sweet spot between Depeche Mode and Black Sabbath. "After playing with HIM for a quarter century, it felt very daunting to call it a day," he tells Apple Music. "It was such a huge part of my life. really didn't have any expectations about what would happen afterwards because I didn't know if the inspiration would be there, or if I would just feel like I'd lost a limb. So, it took me a while to get inspired again." After HIM split up in 2017 as one of the most commercially successful Finnish bands of all time, it took Valo over two years to pick up a guitar again. "I ended up producing and engineering and writing and doing everything by myself," he explains. "I was stupid enough to think that that's what a solo album's supposed to be like. Some of it has to do with COVID because there was no chance to put a band together. But I've also always had a strange fascination with artists like Prince, who do everything by themselves. Because if you work completely in a solitary fashion, the vision is very undiluted.
A bee leaves its hive after falling in love with the idea of freedom. Gingerbee is an internet band composed of: Melody Sohani (Toronto ON) Dani Giguere (SC) Gustavo Nome (CA/Brazil) Jordan de Graaf (Japan) They formed in April 2022 on the Bedroom Skramz/DIY Jams Discord started by Jordan. Gingerbee collaborates over discord and has not played together in person (yet) Samples: Starmie Pokémon Cry (Track 2) Elite Beat Agents (Track 4) The Bee Movie (Track 4) Bee and PuppyCat (Track 6) Vine Boom (Track 1, 4, 5) Special thanks and influences: Bedroom Skramz/DIY Jamz Discord Server gf.os Philia (haptic kid) The Best Deal in Town Rehearsal Studios Godfuck, Home is Where, Garden Angel, Paranoid Americans, Ed from SHH, bright, little stars, lemon bread, elizabeth whitington, exciting!!excellent!!, that same street, Brave Little Abacus, Nouns, Salem's Corydalis, Sam Ray, deademms, Elias Amini, theneedledrop Melody’s Special Thanks: Max Wirt AKA Gold Paint Boy. May you rest in peace. Dev, Ryan, Jesse, Megan, Nate Cullen, Nate Friedman, Char, Mar, Caden, Lauren, Morgan, Dr. Lai, todos nos equivocamos, Dillon/Bee, Brynhildre, Jamie Barker, Dimension 20, hunkofplastic, 3snowmen, Markiplier Dani’s Special Thanks: Jem Targal, Daniel “Coach Dan” Giguere, Faust, Cam, Ocean, Kai, LLOYD'S ASMR, Jerma985, Drew Gooden, Bladee Gustavo’s Special Thanks: Cam, Gabe, Zane, Leila, Clementine, Abe, Ron Jamison, Alex J (my boss), Linus tech tips, and uhhh my parents
Arriving almost a year after Lovejoy’s debut gig (as Lampwith Sock at Brighton’s UnBarred Brewery), the six tracks on this EP suggest a band that\'s fully absorbed the sweat, adrenaline, and chaos of playing shows as one of Britain’s fastest-rising guitar groups. From the opening rumble of barbed bass on “Portrait of a Blank Slate” to the moment Wilbur Gold spits, “I won’t announce my sheer descent/But holy fuck there will be signs” during the discordant climax of “It’s Golden Hour Somewhere,” *Wake Up & It’s Over* is the sound of Lovejoy finding even more vigor, velocity, and explosiveness in their music. While the sound recalls various eras—Britpop (“Consequences”), ’80s city pop (“Call Me What You Like”), and taut, post-Strokes indie (“Warsaw”)—the lyrics root the EP firmly in the now. Post-pandemic uncertainty provides the backdrop for relationship dramas, coming-of-age anxieties, and a withering portrait of conspicuous consumption (“It’s Golden Hour Somewhere”). “The place that she got her first kiss/Is now a vaccination clinic,” notes Gold on “Warsaw.” It’s a volatile world, but with *Wake Up & It’s Over*, Lovejoy’s place in it seems ever more assured.
ITZY’s first comeback since 2022’s *CHESHIRE* EP, *KILL MY DOUBT* delves into the struggles and aspirations for self-discovery of JYP’s fourth-generation girl group. Known for their onstage charisma, the five-member band is still searching for their niche in the K-pop and international music markets since their debut in 2019 and the breakthrough success of 2020’s “WANNABE.” *KILL MY DOUBT*, a mini-album featuring six songs, is a good start. “No matter how loud I shout, there’s nothing in me,” members Ryujin and Yuna sing in the opening lines of low-key single “BET ON ME.” The song—co-written by Korean music mogul J.Y. Park—is a request for a little more time as Yeji, Lia, Ryujin, Chaeryeong, and Yuna work to figure it all out for themselves, repeating in the song’s percussive chorus: “I say, ‘Trust me.’ I talk to myself. Do I believe me? I can’t figure it out yet. But I hear this voice inside of me. I’m going to follow it.” The track is meant as a comfort for ITZY fandom MIDZY as much as it is for the members themselves. Also featuring the trap-pop trappings of anti-love song “None of My Business” and the decadent, sugary fun of lead single “CAKE,” the *KILL MY DOUBT* EP is a short, energetic statement on ITZY’s continuing search for identity within the K-pop scene.
Jimin, the beloved countertenor and dancer, is known the world over for his work in K-pop’s greatest boy-band success story, BTS. On his solo debut, the perfectionist steps out on his own with a collection of six new tracks, leading with the triumphant single “Set Me Free, Pt. 2” and its reverberating choral cheers, resounding brass sounds, and hyperpop vocal effects. (It’s a far cry from, say, the ghostly harmonies, spring-y production, and gorgeous vocal runs of his 2016 solo track “Lie.”) There are no official collaborations on *FACE*, but there are innovative producers (Pdogg, GHSTLOOP, EVAN, Supreme Boi, BLVSH, Chris James) and one extremely familiar name credited: RM, BTS’s leader, wrote on the opening track “Face-off” and the dreamy, soft synth track “Like Crazy,” which appears on the release twice, closing *FACE* out with an English-language version.
While making their sixth album, Thirty Seconds to Mars—the brother duo of Jared and Shannon Leto—decided to rethink what their band meant, which resulted in the brothers engaging in their artistic version of Truth or Dare. The two would send ideas back and forth, getting bolder as their collaboration continued, almost daring each other to redefine Thirty Seconds to Mars in more audacious ways. The result is an 11-song set that sharpens the band\'s trademark intensity into pointed songs that are short in length—the longest track clocks in just under the 3:30 mark—but long on emotion. “For us, the bravest thing to do was to make an album like this,” Jared Leto told Zane Lowe. “I could have gone back and made a 12-minute prog rock song or done something really esoteric.” Thirty Seconds to Mars makes the most of their songs\' brief timeframes, exploring new motifs while doubling down on the visceral feelings that have filled arenas for two-plus decades. “Life Is Beautiful” begins like a ghostly hymn, then swells into a stomping 21st-century modern rock track, with an insistent refrain urging the listener to “rise up again.” “Get Up Kid” is part power ballad, part emo-rap wail, Leto coaxing someone whose “heart ain\'t home” to keep going despite a crushing heartbreak. The regretful “Lost These Days” begins as an acoustic ballad and then begins to glitch, with the electronic effects encroaching as the song progresses—until its closing seconds, when a forceful dance beat takes over and yanks the song out of its haze. “It does feel like a new beginning to us,” Leto said. “It\'s important, as you continue to be an artist, to be willing to destroy a bit of yourself—to let go of the past in order to move forward.”
Becoming the first girl group to win the Rising Star BRIT Award must be as daunting as it is thrilling—perfection takes time. So it’s small wonder that R&B trio FLO took the slow and steady approach to establishing their sound. Still, *3 of Us* (released five months after their triumph at the 2023 BRIT Awards)—a compact bundle of sleekly produced midtempos—should satiate even the most impatient of fans, whetting appetites with a taste of what’s likely to come. The EP is co-written and produced by hitmaker MNEK (Dua Lipa, Little Mix)—with assists from talent including TSB (Stormzy, J Hus) and Ryan Ashley (H.E.R., Mahalia). On it, Londoners Jorja, Renée, and Stella pour their feelings about various flavors of no-good lovers into four songs’ worth of skyscraping runs and honey-smooth harmonies. *3 of Us* cherry-picks references that stretch from all the way back to the early 2000s (on the punchy distortion of “Control Freak”) to as recently as SZA’s 2017 album *Ctrl*, which echoes through the love-triangle saga of the title track. It sounds unmistakably of the now, but with its through thread of R&B history, there is a timelessness to the production that coats each song with a classic sheen. Come for the glimmers of nostalgia, stay for FLO’s shining interpretation of the future.
After Maisie Peters released her 2021 debut, *You Signed Up for This*, she was hit by a feeling of anticlimax. “It was honestly a bit of a strange time for me,” she tells Apple Music. “I’d been so proud of the album. I’d worked so hard on it, but it was done and I found it very difficult to fathom that. I didn’t know what to do, actually physically, with myself.” Naturally, Peters—who’s always been a prolific songwriter—got straight back into the studio. And it soon turned out she had a lot to write about: There was a big breakup, the slow and careful process of piecing herself together again, and, in 2022, a tour, with Peters writing the rest of her second LP in between live dates. “I had so much to say because I was going through a personal crisis, one could say,” she says. “I just wanted to have it down on paper, how I felt, what had happened. I was trying to be honest.” When Peters says that, you know she means it. This is a singer-songwriter whose trademark is radical candor. Here, you can expect songs about crushing insecurity (the superb “Body Better”), missing someone even though they’ve hurt you (“Want You Back”), and wishing you could go back to before any of this happened (“Two Weeks Ago”). But there are also clear-skies moments, as Peters slowly moves on (see “There It Goes,” a poignant moment about the healing power of time passing) and realizes she’s better off without. And it’s all set against assured, infectious, and often synth-led pop laced with tender piano ballads and sassy anthems inspired by Shania Twain or Britney Spears. “This is my big life lesson of 2022,” adds Peters of the material here. Read on as the singer lets us in on the record’s creation—and what it, and the 12 months that inspired it, taught her. **You know what you’re doing more with album two.** “After the first album, I felt like I’d done a round of the track in my F1 car. This time it was like, ‘OK, I know what I’m doing a little bit now. I’ve done this before.’ I was touring so much that I just didn’t have time to think about it—I just had to make it. But there was a pressure for myself. I loved my first album and know it meant so much to my fans. I just felt this huge pressure to make something else that meant as much. When people ask me who I’m making music for, it’s primarily me, but there are also about 30 girls on Instagram too. I think about them constantly. But there was a point when I was probably doing it too much and had to say, ‘I can’t have these people on my mind.’ They love me because it’s me, so I need to trust that.” **Going to Sweden taught me about pushing boundaries.** “After the first album came out, I went to Sweden for the first time in October 2021. I worked with Fat Max Gsus (Tove Lo, Lewis Capaldi, Zara Larsson), Oscar Görres (Troye Sivan, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears), and First Aid Kit’s Klara Söderberg. It was a game changer for me, and I was so in love with the way these guys write music. The cliché of Sweden is that it’s pop by numbers—and obviously they’ve written some of the biggest hits in the world. But out of everyone I’ve ever worked with, the Swedish crew were the most open and the most interested in pushing boundaries. It’s easy to feel like you have to work within a set of guidelines—and I very much learned not to do that.” **You don’t realize how lyrically honest you can be until you go there.** “With a song like ‘Body Better,’ we’re sat there dissecting my innermost insecurities and deepest fears. There is a separation between feeling something deeply and writing it—I don’t write songs sitting there and sobbing. But this album taught me that I could do that \[be so lyrically honest\] and that I could go to those places.” **It also taught me that I won’t feel like this forever.** “There’s a Lucy Dacus song, ‘Night Shift,’ where she goes, ‘In five years, I hope the songs feel like covers.’ At some stage, it does—and you can’t believe you once felt like that. When I released ‘Two Weeks Ago,’ it was a year on from when I wrote it. It was an accurate reflection of who I was then, just a transcript of my brain. It was interesting to release it when I was in such a different place. I can recognize who I was and I’m very fond of the girl who wrote that song. It’s sort of like a shadow you have that’s walked off on its own. This album is the coolest reminder of what’s passed—it was an era of my life that I’m out of now and grateful for, but I don’t miss it.” **I needed a song to tie the bow.** “‘There It Goes’ is almost a sister song to ‘Two Weeks Ago.’ It was another screenshot of my mind. I’d just gone back to London after touring, we’d thrown a house party and I’d gone to a yoga class to try to get better. We were hanging up art. I was going on dates. And that song was so important to me, because this whole album was a reflection of my life, and I needed a song that tied the bow. I couldn’t let this record exist without a song that reminds me—and tells everyone else—that there is an ending to this. There’s a lyric on the song: ‘The comedown of closure/The girls and I do yoga/I wake up and it’s October/The loss is yours.’ Suddenly everything is a bit boring in the nicest way ever. You’re not angry. You’re not bitter. You’re just going to yoga or going on a walk. I find it really moving to talk about that song. I also learned that you can dig your heels in and think, ‘I refuse to feel anything apart from this. I only want to feel this way forever, for good or for bad.’ But the fact is, you just can’t. One day you will just wake up and you won’t feel the way you did. And that’s a good thing. It’s good to move along with the tide.” **The person you love isn’t your whole world.** “There’s a song on this album called ‘Coming of Age,’ which is a song about the fact that—how to put this?—sometimes I give magic to people. I think they’re magic, but they’re not: I just wrote them that way or I created them that way. You pin all your hopes and dreams on them. And the song, to me, is about seeing that actually I was the magic. The other person was there, but it was me that made this what it was and made this so special and shiny and glittery and beautiful. There’s another lyric on this album I think of a lot, which is on ‘BSC,’ where I go, ‘I can write you out the way I wrote you in.’ It doesn’t mean the person wasn’t great and didn’t teach me something. But it’s also knowing the person isn’t your whole world. You are your whole world.” **If a man tells you he wants you in his life forever, run!** “I’d had a conversation with another friend where one of us said, ‘Next time a man says I want you in my life forever—and then proceeds to act in the most atrocious way any man has ever acted ever—we’re out.’ I wrote the song ‘Run’ in January/February 2022, just after that conversation, with one of my best friends, \[songwriter\] Ines Dunn. We had that line going. In my own heart, I was no longer sad about it—I was just trying to take the lesson from it. I really tried to get that song right. I kept referencing Britney Spears and ‘If U Seek Amy.’ I wanted to do a song like Britney did, or like Gwen Stefani did.” **There are some songs that can only be written once about a moment in your life.** “On the first album, that was ‘Brooklyn,’ and on this one, it’s ‘The Band and I.’ It was almost ‘Brooklyn Part Two’ for me, because I remember when I was trying to put that song on my first record, I had someone I worked with say, ‘It’s so specific. I’m not sure it’s for an album—who can understand this?’ But those are the most important songs. For me, I had to have ‘The Band and I’ on this album because \[touring\] was such an integral part of my year. It just captured a moment in time that I’ll never be able to do again.” **I learned how special it is to be doing what you dreamed of when you were nine.** “There’s a lyric on ‘The Band and I’ where I say, ‘It was a far-flung wish when we were young/Now we’re living the dream and I hope we never wake up.’ I think about all of us \[Peters and her band\] on these tour buses and how it’s absolutely ludicrous that we’re allowed to do this. It’s such a one-in-a-billion chance to do music the way I do it. And I feel crushed under the weight of that sometimes—of how lucky I am. How dare I live my dream? That song is, I think, my favorite on the album, because of exactly that.” **I don’t know if I’d recommend writing an album to get over a breakup. But I’d do it all again.** “I definitely don’t write for catharsis. I do it for documentation purposes, which is kind of useful. Plus—and I’m sorry to say this, I *really* am—but there’s no breakup hack. You can’t speed yourself through it. At the time, it feels difficult and sad and you wonder what that was for. But, in \[the relationship\] not going like I wanted it to, I made this album. I learned innumerable things about myself. You grow for the better. Every time I write something that I really deeply love and believe in, I learn something about myself. And that’s the greatest, coolest gift ever. That’s why I’d do it all again.”
(G)I-DLE’s first wholly English-language album *HEAT* introduces listeners less willing to engage with Korean-language tracks to the K-pop quintet—or that\'s presumably the intent behind the English-forward production. (G)I-DLE is known for writing and producing a majority of their songs. However, this is not the case with *Heat*, which brings in a bevy of Western talent—including OneRepublic lead singer Ryan Tedder, Meghan Trainor, and BTS collaborators Michel “Lindgren” Schulz and Melanie Fontana—to shape the five songs. “I Want That” serves as an introduction to (G)I-DLE for those who may be unfamiliar, pairing a synth-driven Euro-dance beat with a catchy hook: “I want the oh, my, oh, my, O-M-G/I want that right now, no B-R-B.” There’s more to dig into in pre-release single “I DO”; inspired by ’80s synth-pop, the track goes gloriously melancholic in its commitment to a lost love: “Don\'t you go falling in love/’Cause I\'ma break that shit up.” While “Flip It” is the umpteenth K-pop iteration of the “boss girl” track (“My crew so hot, and you are not”), “Eyes Roll” moves laterally to give a more memorable, third-person version of the boastful banger format (“She a work of art/She gon’ break your heart”). Midtempo pop track “Tall Trees” explores the fear that comes with falling in love (“If there\'s an axe behind your back/Just let me know”), and gives (G)I-DLE a chance to show off their vocals.
For Beartooth’s fifth album, lead vocalist and mastermind Caleb Shomo wanted to go in the opposite direction of 2021’s *Below*. Where that album is dark and depressing, *The Surface* is full of positivity. Where *Below*’s front cover is black and ominous, *The Surface*’s cover is bright pink and hopeful. The dramatic shift comes from Shomo’s decision to quit drinking and move from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, to Los Angeles. The result is possibly the metalcore band’s poppiest album to date. “This album is a story of change,” Shomo tells Apple Music. “This album is a story of growth. At the end of the day, it’s about doing what it takes to be happy. That can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but to me being happy is chasing what I love with every ounce of my being. This record is me manifesting that and speaking it into existence.” Below, he comments on each track. **“The Surface”** “It’s me trying to describe the manic high I had when I first quit drinking alcohol. It truly felt like I had unlocked something that was going to change my entire life. I felt invincible in that moment.” **“Riptide”** “This is the first song I wrote for this album. I wrote it a week after I quit drinking and realized that I wanted to do something different with this record. ‘Riptide’ is really the mission statement of this whole album, and hopefully every album to come.” **“Doubt Me”** “It’s about when people doubt what you’re doing, doubt your vision, and don’t see the bigger picture that you see. Sometimes you have to just trust that you know what’s best for you, and that you need to do whatever it takes to be true to yourself and get done what you need to get done.” **“The Better Me”** “This is simply about making that change in your life that you know you need to make. I think everyone has those moments when you look in the mirror and know there’s something that could make us happier or healthier, whatever that may be. This song is about chasing that.” **“Might Love Myself”** “It’s about the first time I felt self-love. That’s something that was very unusual and confusing, but absolutely amazing. So I tried to just put it into words and turn it into a song.” **“Sunshine!”** “This is about me realizing that my seasonal depression is getting out of hand and I really need to make a change. I ended up moving to Los Angeles about seven or eight months after I wrote that song, and never looked back.” **“What’s Killing You”** “This is about dealing with loss. Throughout the process of this record, I went through a very significant loss in my life. It’s something that we all deal with in this world, so this song was just me trying to put those emotions into words.” **“Look the Other Way”** “It’s a song about speaking out into existence that you need help with something. There were a lot of things in my life that I was dealing with and hiding. They were killing me, and not good in the slightest. This song is about the moment that I told somebody that I want to change those things in my life for the first time.” **“What Are You Waiting For”** “It’s about doing whatever you gotta do to be the best version of yourself and not making excuses and just going for it. Sometimes the only way to make big changes in your life is to take a leap of faith and go for it.” **“My New Reality”** “This is another song about manifesting what you want out of life. For me, it’s understanding that I still have a whole life ahead of me that I can do anything I want to with—and I need to take advantage of that.” **“I Was Alive”** “This was inspired by the last conversation I had with my late grandfather. He talked about how he lived a life that he was happy with, and he was ready to go. He was one of the most amazing and inspiring people in my life, and this song is—as many of these songs are—me manifesting the best version of myself that I can possibly be for the rest of my life.”
Niall Horan\'s second album *Heartbreak Weather* came out in early March 2020—as the pandemic was forcing everyone indoors. The Irish singer-songwriter\'s promotional tour was canceled, and he went home to regroup—the first time he\'d had a chance to sit still and think since he broke through as a member of One Direction in the early 2010s. “I was like, ‘All right, okay, I don\'t think we\'re going anywhere for a while, I\'ll sit still and take this as still time for the first time,’” he tells Apple Music\'s Zane Lowe. *The Show*, Horan\'s third album, began coming together a few months later when he walked over to the piano in his house and began playing. “The first line I wrote was ‘Life is like a board game some of the time,’” he recalled. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, okay.’” That sweeping title track draws on Horan\'s experiences as one of the world\'s most scrutinized pop stars to offer support to people going through tough times, noting that if life was constantly easy, people wouldn\'t be able to appreciate the sunnier moments. When he\'d finished it, he knew he was ready to embark on his next chapter. “I felt like, \'Right, we\'re away, we\'re out the gates,’” he says. *The Show*, Horan says, is “the most emotional record I\'ve made.” The sleek 10-song collection shows off his airy voice on plainspoken pop songs like the anthemic “Heaven,” upbeat guitar-rock cuts like the breezy “Save My Life,” and the supportive ballad “Science.” Throughout, his lyrics dig deeply into emotions and relationships in a new way, the result of him finally having a moment to breathe. “I\'d had this massive period of reflection looking into the future a bit,” he says, “looking left and right more than I\'d ever done.”
Six years after calling it quits, the Jonas Brothers reunited for their fifth studio album and first new LP in a decade, 2019’s *Happiness Begins*, producing the first No. 1 of their career, “Sucker.” It was a remarkable success from a boy band of brothers learning to expertly navigate adult life post-Disney Channel. But the question then became: Could the trio sustain interest once the novelty of the reunion wore off? On their sixth studio album, simply titled *The Album*, the answer is yes. Now exploring themes of fatherhood (“Little Bird”), mature love (“Walls”), and nostalgia (“Waffle House”), all through the adult-contemporary Laurel Canyon-inspired sounds that inform those big life questions (“Montana Sky”), the JoBros have grown wiser and bolder. Read on to learn more about select tracks from *The Album* in the Jonas Brothers’ own words. **“Miracle”** **Nick Jonas:** “This was the first song we recorded with Jon Bellion, who we are big fans of, huge, and wanted to work with for a long time. He basically came into the studio and we just hung out first, which was kind of foreign for us. We\'re used to diving right into a songwriting session, but Jon wanted to meet and just talk and get to know each other. It allowed us to set the stage for what we wanted to talk about on this album, and where we wanted to go musically, which is tapping into our influences from the ’70s and early ’80s that our dad raised us on, and enter this new chapter. It\'s fitting that the first song we did was one that he played us and we all flipped out on and just said, \'Yeah, we have to record that right away.\'” **“Wings”** **Nick:** “We found out Haley Lu Richardson \[of *White Lotus* fame\] is a big fan. We called her up and said, ‘Hey, do you want to come be in our music video, bring a bunch of friends out to Vegas and come to the show?’ She shot the music video with her friends in a hotel suite and then came to the show and she absolutely crushed it.” **Kevin Jonas:** “She actually brought the tie that she wore to her first-ever meet and greet that she wanted you to sign. She wears it in the video.” **“Sail Away”** **Nick:** “This has become one of my favorites to play live. We\'re traveling now with a choir. So many of these songs kind of require it.” **Kevin:** “The first song we recorded \[for *The Album*\] was ‘Montana Sky,’ right? The second one was ‘Sail Away,’ and it actually went through over 20 different iterations until we got it right. That shows the difference in albums and how things can happen: You record something so early and the songs kind of have a journey that they go on themselves, and as you write, as you continue to record and produce, it\'s interesting to see it all evolve over time.” **“Americana”** **Nick:** “It\'s about inclusion. It\'s about the influences that we have in our music, but also I think culturally significant American influences. There is so much negativity out there and so much darkness. There\'s a cloud of darkness in the world in general. In this song, we really want to spotlight what makes up this beautiful melting pot that is the US and America. \'Americana\' is not about a person or a specific thing, but really an idea that there\'s good in all of us and the collective makes us who we are.” **“Waffle House”** **Joe Jonas:** “When we were younger, growing up touring, we weren\'t old enough to go and get a pint after the shows with our mates or band to celebrate such an exciting experience. What we ended up doing was finding the only place open, and typically they were Waffle Houses, or TGI Fridays or Fuddruckers, if you\'re in the Northeast, places like that, or IHOPs. Waffle House was just the one that kind of was the catchiest for this tune, and we have always felt really comfortable in that setting. It\'s become a safe place for us where we fight, laugh, cry, and now we can share it with the world.” **“Vacation Eyes”** **Kevin:** “I\'ve always wanted to write a song called \'Vacation Eyes\' because I met my beautiful wife Danielle on vacation in the Bahamas. We had just moved to Los Angeles. She was still living in New Jersey at the time, and we all met there. We have been what it feels like on a vacation together ever since.” **“Summer in the Hamptons”** **Nick:** “We have all at different points spent some time in the Hamptons, which is sort of an oasis here in the Northeast where there is just a magic in the air. I don\'t know how to describe it, but I\'ve had two trips there and both were absolutely incredible. That warm summer breeze in the air, you got a tequila in your hand... This song kind of continues that journey.” **“Summer Baby”** **Nick:** “This has quickly become my favorite song on the album. I think it\'s kind of that perfect summertime driving-with-the-top-down vibe. A big inspiration for the album as a whole was to do something similar to Kacey Musgraves\' *Golden Hour*. Listen, she obviously won Album of the Year for that, so it was beloved by many people. Our hope was to set out to do something similar to that.” **“Little Bird”** **Nick:** “‘Little Bird’ obviously is about a theme that we\'ve never spoken about in our music, and that is fatherhood. We\'re all girl dads. That\'s pretty awesome.” **Kevin:** “This song is just too special. It\'s the first song we ever wrote about this kind of experience, so I think that\'s why when we say you\'re meeting us where we are today with this album, this is the testament to that. I\'ve been \[a dad\] for a little longer than you guys, but I enjoy that we\'re all doing it together now.” **“Walls” (feat. Jon Bellion)** **Nick:**“This is the only feature on the album, and so it had to be Jon. It\'s become my favorite song to play live.” **Joe:** “There\'s really nowhere to go after this song. This is meant for the lights-out, good-night moment onstage and on the album. So it\'s perfect.”
