Thrillist's Best Albums of 2017

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.

Syd, of The Internet and Odd Future fame, shows another side of her musical persona. *Fin* takes a carnal R&B turn with all the complex emotions it brings. Her demure voice gives strong vapors of Aaliyah and *Velvet Rope*-era Janet Jackson on “Drown In It,” “Body,” and “Know.” Syd gives herself a pep talk on “All About Me” and gets lit on “Dollar Bills” and “Nothin to Somethin.” And this being Syd, the tracks glisten with futuristic shine.

ORDER A PHYSICAL COPY HERE: www.pwelverumandsun.com P.W. ELVERUM & SUN box 1561 Anacortes, Wash. U.S.A. 98221 WRITTEN AND RECORDED August 31st to Dec. 6th, 2016 in the same room where Geneviève died, using mostly her instruments, her guitar, her bass, her pick, her amp, her old family accordion, writing the words on her paper, looking out the same window. Why share this much? Why open up like this? Why tell you, stranger, about these personal moments, the devastation and the hanging love? Our little family bubble was so sacred for so long. We carefully held it behind a curtain of privacy when we’d go out and do our art and music selves, too special to share, especially in our hyper-shared imbalanced times. Then we had a baby and this barrier felt even more important. (I still don’t want to tell you our daughter’s name.) Then in May 2015 they told us Geneviève had a surprise bad cancer, advanced pancreatic, and the ground opened up. What matters now? we thought. Then on July 9th 2016 she died at home and I belonged to nobody anymore. My internal moments felt like public property. The idea that I could have a self or personal preferences or songs eroded down into an absurd old idea leftover from a more self-indulgent time before I was a hospital-driver, a caregiver, a child-raiser, a griever. I am open now, and these songs poured out quickly in the fall, watching the days grey over and watching the neighbors across the alley tear down and rebuild their house. I make these songs and put them out into the world just to multiply my voice saying that I love her. I want it known. "Death Is Real" could be the name of this album. These cold mechanics of sickness and loss are real and inescapable, and can bring an alienating, detached sharpness. But it is not the thing I want to remember. A crow did look at me. There is an echo of Geneviève that still rings, a reminder of the love and infinity beneath all of this obliteration. That’s why. - Phil Elverum Dec. 11th, 2016 Anacortes

Released within two weeks of his 2017 self-titled project, *HNDRXX* is a master statement of soulful, sly R&B from the Atlanta rapper. If *FUTURE* echoed the spontaneity and double-time flow of his now-classic mixtapes, the follow-up is stacked with anthems that are calibrated for a massive mainstream audience. Two marquee cameos—The Weeknd and Rihanna—add extra star power, but highlights like “Damage,” “Incredible,” and “Fresh Air” are all about Future’s brilliant mix of brutal honestly and unchecked hedonism.

After playing the last of their 200 shows in more than 40 countries in support of their critically acclaimed 2012 album Celebration Rock, Japandroids took a much needed break to rest and recover after their last show in November of 2013. The band would not play again for three years. This month, they made their triumphant return to the stage, playing intimate shows in Vancouver, LA, Toronto, London and NYC, in which they treated fans to their favorites from Celebration Rock and Post-Nothing, and previewed a handful of new, unreleased songs. Now, the band has announced their much anticipated third album, Near To The Wild Heart Of Life, out worldwide on Anti- this January 27, 2017. Near To The Wild Heart Of Life, was written clandestinely throughout 2014 and 2015 in Vancouver, Toronto, New Orleans, and Mexico City. It was (mostly) recorded by Jesse Gander (who had previously recorded both Post-Nothing and Celebration Rock) at Rain City Recorders in Vancouver, BC (September-November, 2015). One song, True Love And A Free Life Of Free Will, was recorded by Damian Taylor during an exploratory recording session at Golden Ratio in Montreal, QC (February, 2015). The album was mixed by Peter Katis at Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, CT (May, 2016) and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound in New York, NY (July, 2016). Like Post-Nothing and Celebration Rock, the album is 8 songs. This is because 8 songs is the standard template for a great rock n roll album: Raw Power by The Stooges, Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen, Marquee Moon by Television, IV by Led Zeppelin, Horses by Patti Smith, Paranoid by Black Sabbath, Remain In Light by Talking Heads, Master Of Puppets by Metallica, etc. Like Post-Nothing and Celebration Rock, the album was sequenced specifically for the LP. On Near To The Wild Heart Of Life, side A (songs 1-4) and side B (songs 5-7) each follow their own loose narrative. Taken together as one, they form an even looser narrative, with the final song on side B (song 8) acting as an epilogue.

Kehlani Parrish reached the release of her debut album the hard way—dues paid in a teen pop band and on *America\'s Got Talent*, various personal struggles—but it’s helped sharpen her silky R&B with a bewitching edge. She can do radio-friendly summer jams (“Distraction” and “Undercover”), but really comes alive when the Sweet and Sexy gets outmuscled by the Savage. “Not Used to It” hits deep, while “Too Much” and “Do U Dirty” are gloriously lewd and completely brilliant.

After his breakthrough *Lost in The Dream*, Adam Granduciel takes things a step further. Marrying the weathered hope of Dylan, Springsteen, and Petty with a studio rat’s sense of detail, *A Deeper Understanding* feels like an album designed to get lost in, where lush textures meet plainspoken questions about life, loss, and hope, and where songs stretch out as though they\'re chasing answers. For as much as Granduciel says in words, it’s his music that speaks loudest, from the synth-strobing heartland rock of “Holding On” and “Nothing to Find” to ballads like “Clean Living” and “Knocked Down,” whose spaces are as expansive as any sound.

Demi Lovato’s always had the most powerful pipes of their fellow Disney Channel alumni, but with their sixth album, they officially hit their stride. On *Tell Me You Love Me*, Lovato reaches peak soulfulness: “You Don’t Do It for Me Anymore,” a slow-burner for breaking up with your vices, smolders without sacrificing their voice’s strength, and on the triumphant “Sorry Not Sorry,” they send gospel harmonies soaring. But the album\'s just as striking in its vulnerability, fitting for a singer who’s radically transparent about their mental health: The deceptively upbeat “Daddy Issues” is a wry, raw appraisal of the relationships with the men in their life.

Until a late flurry of percussion arrives, doleful guitar and bass are Solána Rowe’s only accompaniment on opener “Supermodel,” a stinging kiss-off to an adulterous ex. It doesn’t prepare you for the inventively abstract production that follows—disembodied voices haunting the airy trap-soul of “Broken Clocks,” “Anything”’s stuttering video-game sonics—but it instantly establishes the emotive power of her rasping, percussive vocal. Whether she’s feeling empowered by her physicality on the Kendrick Lamar-assisted “Doves in the Wind” or wrestling with insecurity on “Drew Barrymore,” SZA’s songs impact quickly and deeply.

Before *War & Leisure*\'s release, its carefree lead single, “Sky Walker,” was a revelation that there’d been a Miguel-sized hole in R&B for the two years since *Wildheart*. *War & Leisure* as a title is a metaphor for the singer’s affection, Miguel singing, “No matter where I go on the map/You got my protection” on “Banana Clip.” His love for fuzzy guitars is clear throughout, and “Told You So” recalls Prince at his most danceable. Add to this the off-kilter bounce and multilingual verses of “Caramelo Duro (featuring Kali Uchis),” and *War & Leisure* is geared to propel Miguel to even greater heights.

On her first proper album as Jay Som, Melina Duterte, 22, solidifies her rep as a self-made force of sonic splendor and emotional might. If last year's aptly named Turn Into compilation showcased a fuzz-loving artist in flux—chronicling her mission to master bedroom recording—then the rising Oakland star's latest, Everybody Works, is the LP equivalent of mission accomplished. Duterte is as DIY as ever—writing, recording, playing, and producing every sound beyond a few backing vocals—but she takes us places we never could have imagined, wedding lo-fi rock to hi-fi home orchestration, and weaving evocative autobiographical poetry into energetic punk, electrified folk, and dreamy alt-funk. And while Duterte's early stuff found her bucking against life's lows, Everybody Works is about turning that angst into fuel for forging ahead. "Last time I was angry at the world," she says. "This is a note to myself: everybody's trying their best on their own set of problems and goals. We're all working for something." Everybody Works was made in three furious, caffeinated weeks in October. She came home from the road, moved into a new apartment, set up her bedroom studio (with room for a bed this time) and dove in. Duterte even ditched most of her demos, writing half the LP on the spot and making lushly composed pieces like "Lipstick Stains" all the more impressive. While the guitar-grinding Jay Som we first fell in love with still reigns on shoegazey shredders like "1 Billion Dogs" and in the melodic distortions of "Take It," we also get the sublimely spacious synth-pop beauty of "Remain," and the luxe, proggy funk of "One More Time, Please." Duterte's production approach was inspired by the complexity of Tame Impala, the simplicity of Yo La Tengo, and the messiness of Pixies. "Also, I was listening to a lot of Carly Rae Jepsen to be quite honest," she says. "Her E•MO•TION album actually inspired a lot of the sounds on Everybody Works." There's story in the sounds—even in the fact that Duterte's voice is more present than before. As for the lyrics, our host leaves the meaning to us. So if we can interpret, there's a bit about the aspirational and fleeting nature of love in the opener, and the oddity of turning your art into job on the titular track. There's even one tune, "The Bus Song," that seems to be written as a dialog between two kids, although it plays like vintage Broken Social Scene and likely has more to do with yearning for things out of reach. While there's no obvious politics here, Duterte says witnessing the challenges facing women, people of color, and the queer community lit a fire. And when you reach the end of Everybody Works, "For Light," you'll find a mantra suitable for anyone trying, as Duterte says, "to find your peace even if it's not perfect." As her trusty trumpet blows, she sings: "I'll be right on time, open blinds for light, won't forget to climb."

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.

↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓ VINYL STOCK AVAILABLE AT: forestswords.ochre.store Forest Swords, aka acclaimed Merseyside-based producer Matthew Barnes, returns with his eagerly anticipated new full-length record. “Compassion" is the follow-up to 2013's critically lauded debut “Engravings” and released via Ninja Tune. The album will be followed by a set of projects across multiple mediums by Forest Swords’ own Dense Truth, a new experimental studio and record label, including a series of music videos. “Compassion" engages with an uncertain world we’re experiencing, distilling it into a unique sound territory: Barnes' exploration of the mid-point between ecstasy and frustration, artificial and human feels timely and affecting. The result is an assured, compelling body of work, tying together the ancient and future: weaving swathes of buzzing digital textures, field recordings, clattering beats and distorted jazz sax with fizzing orchestral arrangements. "Like many, with all that's been going on since I started making the record, I've struggled to see any kind of light at the end of the tunnel," says Barnes, "so I realised there's some sort of power in trying to create our own instead. I'm inspired by the ways we're communicating now, for better or worse, and thinking about new channels we can distribute ideas. The idea of looking for flexible future ways of expression and language, that bends to our needs quicker, really excites me”. Barnes launched the record with a unique experiment in new ways to disseminate music, personally sending album tracks through messaging app WhatsApp to anyone who asked. The album shifts from 'The Highest Flood's skeletal bounce to 'Panic's claustrophobic paranoia; the rapturous hyperballad 'Arms Out' to the windswept and cinematic ‘Knife Edge’, navigating through the orchestral glitch of 'War It' to decaying jazz thump of ‘Raw Language’. The album is equal parts disorienting and immersive, balancing bold sweeping gestures and crumbling textures; tracks seemingly disintegrating and reassembling at points across the album. Blending both digital and specially recorded brass, strings and vocals, Barnes's processing never truly makes it clear what's new or old, sampled or unique, constantly blurring and toying with the line between digital and acoustic. There will also be a variety of multidisciplinary projects set to run through his Dense Truth umbrella over the coming year: collaborations across dance, performance, film and music. Previous Forest Swords projects include devising and scoring contemporary dance piece ‘Shrine’, composing for the ‘Assassin’s Creed’ video game, collaborating with Massive Attack on their new music, and scoring the first movie made entirely with drones – 'In The Robot Skies’ – which debuted at the BFI London Film Festival. Central to this enthralling world is “Compassion", an album that's as weighty as it is vulnerable, sculpting the most striking parts of his previous work into something that feels urgent and necessary, and cementing Barnes as one of the UK's most significant electronic artists and composers.

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.

After investigating UK club culture on 2014’s *The London Sessions*, Mary J. Blige returns to hip-hop soul to process her broken marriage. Survivor’s spirit, regal horns, and a bravura verse from Kanye West combine on invigorating opener “Love Yourself,” while her F-you vocal outshines a supporting cast of Missy Elliott, DJ Khaled, and Migos’ Quavo on “Glow Up.” Turning pain into compelling music has long been Blige’s trademark, but her choice of inventive producers—particularly KAYTRANADA on “Telling the Truth”’s glitchy soul—keeps pushing her sound forward.

You can purchase this album on vinyl or CD at store.spoontheband.com.

Between 2014 and 2016, Philadelphia’s Sheer Mag announced themselves with three EPs that explosively bonded lo-fi punk energy, stadium-sized hooks and Tina Halladay’s gale-force voice. Both political and personal, this full debut returns to that base formula while broadening their sonic palette too. Opener “Meet Me in the Streets” is a typically bracing, riffed-up call for revolution, but the band’s impeccable songcraft also lets them venture into swaggering funk (“Need to Feel Your Love”) and heartbroken, jangling folk (“Until You Find the One”) with highly satisfying results.

A tear in the firmament. Beyond the noxious haze of our national nightmare - as structures of social justice and global progress topple in our midst - there lies a faint but undeniable glow in the distance. What is it? Like so many before us we are drawn to the beacon. But only by the bootstraps of our indignation do we go so boldly into the dark to find it. And so SHEER MAG has let the sparks fly since their outset, with an axe to grind against all that clouds the way. A caustic war cry, seething in solidarity with all those that suffer the brunt of ignorance and injustice in an imbalanced system. Both brazen and discrete, loud yet precise, familiar but never quite like this - SHEER MAG crept up from Philadelphia cloaked in bold insignia to channel our social and political moment with grit and groove. Cautious but full of purpose. What is it? By making a music both painfully urgent and spiritually timeworn, SHEER MAG speak to a modern pain: to a people that too feel their flame on the verge of being extinguished, yet choose to burn a bit brighter in spite of that threat. With their debut LP, the cloak has been lifted. It is time to reclaim something that has been taken from us. Here the band rolls up their sleeves, takes to the streets, and demands recompense for a tradition of inequity that's poisoned our world. However, it is in our ability to love - our primal human right to give and receive love - that the damage of such toxicity is newly explored. Love is a choice we make. We ought not obscure, neglect, or deny that choice. Through the tumult and the pain, the camaraderie and the cause, the band continues to burn a path into that great beyond. But where are we headed? On NEED TO FEEL YOUR LOVE, they makes their first full-length declaration of light seen just beyond our darkness. Spoken plainly, without shame: It is love. This - is SHEER MAG. Music by Sheer Mag Produced by Hart Seely Mixed by Hunter Davidsohn at Business District Recordings Mastered by Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering NYC Released by Wilsuns Recording Company WRC-092

Some bands take a few years to regroup for their next move; dream-pop pioneers Slowdive took 22, a return all the more bittersweet given how many bands their sound has influenced since. Combining the atmospherics of ambient music with rock ’n’ roll’s low center of gravity, *Slowdive* sounds as vital as anything the band recorded in the early ‘90s, whether it’s the foggy, countryish inflections of “No Longer Making Time” or the propulsive “Star Roving.”

“It felt like we were in a movie that had a totally implausible ending...” Slowdive’s second act as a live blockbuster has already been rapturously received around the world. Highlights thus far include a festival-conquering, sea-of-devotees Primavera Sound performance, of which Pitchfork noted: “The beauty of their crystalline sound is almost hard to believe, every note in its perfect place.” “It was just nice to realise that there was a decent amount of interest in it,” says principal songwriter Neil Halstead. The UK shoegaze pioneers have now channelled such seemingly impossible belief into a fourth studio opus which belies his characteristic modesty. Self-titled with quiet confidence, Slowdive’s stargazing alchemy is set to further entrance the faithful while beguiling a legion of fresh ears. Deftly swerving what co-vocalist/guitarist Rachel Goswell terms “a trip down memory lane”, these eight new tracks are simultaneously expansive and the sonic pathfinders’ most direct material to date. Birthed at the band’s talismanic Oxfordshire haunt The Courtyard – “It felt like home,” enthuses guitarist Christian Savill – their diamantine melodies were mixed to a suitably hypnotic sheen at Los Angeles’ famed Sunset Sound facility by Chris Coady (perhaps best known for his work with Beach House, one of countless contemporary acts to have followed in Slowdive’s wake). “It’s poppier than I thought it was going to be,” notes Halstead, who was the primary architect of 1995‘s previous full-length transmission Pygmalion. This time out the group dynamic was all-important. “When you’re in a band and you do three records, there’s a continuous flow and a development. For us, that flow re-started with us playing live again and that has continued into the record.” Drummer and loop conductor Simon Scott enhanced the likes of ‘Slomo’ and ‘Falling Ashes’ with abstract textures conjured via his laptop’s signal processing software. A fecund period of experimentation with “40-minute iPhone jams” allowed the unit to then amplify the core of their chemistry. “Neil is such a gifted songwriter, so the songs won. He has these sparks of melodies, like ‘Sugar For The Pill’ and ‘Star Roving’, which are really special. But the new record still has a toe in that Pygmalion sound. In the future, things could get very interesting indeed.” This open-channel approach to creativity is reflected by Slowdive’s impressively wide field of influence, from indie-rock avatars to ambient voyagers – see the tribute album of cover versions released by Berlin electronic label Morr Music. As befits such evocative visionaries, you can also hear Slowdive through the silver screen: New Queer Cinema trailblazer Gregg Araki has featured them on the soundtracks to no less than four of his films. “When I moved to America in 2008 I was working in an organic grocery store,” recalls Christian. “Kids started coming in and asking if it was true I had played in Slowdive. That’s when I started thinking, ‘OK, this is weird!’” Neil Halstead: “We were always ambitious. Not in terms of trying to sell records, but in terms of making interesting records. Maybe, if you try and make interesting records, they’re still interesting in a few years time. I don’t know where we’d have gone if we had carried straight on. Now we’ve picked up a different momentum. It’s intriguing to see where it goes next.” The world has finally caught up with Slowdive. This movie could run and run...

“WE IN YEAR 3230 WIT IT,” Vince Staples tweeted of his second album. “THIS THE FUTURE.” In fact, he’s in multiple time zones here. Delivered in his fluent, poetic flow, the lyrical references reach back to 16th-century composer Louis Bourgeois, while “BagBak” captures the stark contrasts of Staples’ present (“I pray for new McLarens/Pray the police don’t come blow me down because of my complexion.”) With trap hi-hats sprayed across ’70s funk basslines (“745”) and Bon Iver fused into UK garage beats (“Crabs in a Bucket”), the future is as bold as it is bright.

On their debut album, fiery D.C. post-punk outfit Priests cram a record’s worth of drama into opening track “Appropriate” alone; after sprinting out of the gate with a riot grrrl-schooled screech, the song rebuilds into something far more sinister. It’s the first startling moment on a collection packed with sucker-punch surprises: “JJ” spikes its surf-rock surge with playful piano, while the Cure-like title track turns from mournful to cathartic thanks to Katie Alice Greer’s bracing voice, soulful and serrated in equal measure.

Sister Polygon Records SPR-021, out January 27 2017 Produced by Kevin Erickson, Engineered by Hugh McElroy in Washington, DC. Mixed by Don Godwin at Airshow Studio. Mastered by TJ Lipple. All songs written by Priests: Katie Alice Greer, Daniele Daniele, Taylor Mulitz, GL Jaguar. Guest appearances by Janel Leppin, Luke Stewart, Mark Cisneros, Perry Fustero, Brendan Polmer. Cover photo by Audrey Melton

Best-friends duo girlpool’s second album often sounds like a fairytale scored by a \'90s indie folk band: dreamy, sweet, and deceptively simple. Expanding the sound and vision of 2015’s *Before the World Was Big*, *Powerplant* adds bass and drums to the mix without sacrificing the intimacy that makes the sisters’ songs so striking, whether it’s the yawning, anthemic “123” or the hushed intensity of “Fast Dust.”

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.

Phoebe Bridgers wrote her first song at age 11, spent her adolescence at open mic nights, and busked through her teenage years at farmers markets in her native Los Angeles. By age 20, she'd caught the ear of Ryan Adams, who listened to her perform her song "Killer" in his L.A. studio, inviting her to come back and record it there the next day. The session blossomed into the three-song ‘Killer’ EP, released to much acclaim on Adams’s Pax-Am label in 2015. In the two short years since, Bridgers has toured or played with Conor Oberst, Julien Baker, City and Colour, Violent Femmes, Mitski, Television and Blake Babies among others. On September 22nd, Phoebe Bridgers will release her debut full-length, Stranger In The Alps. From the weeping strings and Twin Peaks twangs of opening track Smoke Signals, to the simple heartbreak of Funeral and melancholic crescendo of Scott Street, Stranger in the Alps is a swooningly beautiful record with a gothic heart.

Outgrowing the wild-hearted club anthems that defined her ascent, Kesha sounds reborn on her third album, commanding a set of sonically broad, heartfelt pop. Here, she punctuates the assertive funk of “Woman” with The Dap-Kings’ horn section and sings country-touched harmonies with Dolly Parton. But *Rainbow* is held together by Kesha’s elastic, giggle-to-roar vocal, which sounds best on blasting, jittery confections like “Boogie Feet” and “Learn to Let Go.\"

You don’t need to hear Taylor Swift declare her old self dead—as she does on the incendiary “Look What You Made Me Do”—to know that *reputation* is both a warning shot to her detractors and a full-scale artistic transformation. There\'s a newfound complexity to all these songs: They\'re dark and meaningful, catchy and lived-in, pointed and provocative. She\'s braggadocious on “End Game,” a languid hip-hop cut with Ed Sheeran and Future, and then sassy and sensual on “…Ready for It?” and “I Did Something Bad.” But songs like “Call It What You Want” and “Delicate” bring Taylor\'s many emotional layers together and confront the dynamic between her celebrity and personal life: “My reputation’s never been worse/So, you must like me for me,” she offers. It all makes for a boundlessly energetic, soul-baring pop masterpiece—and her boldest statement yet.

Sinatra. Vandross. Thugger. Young Thug gets in touch with his inner crooner on this mixtape, touching on R&B, dancehall, even country. There are sublime music beds and acoustic guitar flourishes (“Me Or Us,” “Family Don\'t Matter”)—he’s clearly having fun accessing new levels of expression as guests like Snoop Dogg, Lil Durk, Future, Millie Go Lightly, and Jacquees serve as able foils.