In complicated times, a simple pleasure can feel more important than it’s meant to be. Certainly the news that Allison and Katie Crutchfield were going to make their first album together since the demise of P.S. Eliot, the DIY-punk band they’d formed as teenagers, could have been rapturously greeted by a substantial sector of the 21st-century indie-rock fandom. Add to that the revelation that this project was being made in collaboration with MJ Lenderman, contemporary avatar of the loose-limbed guitar-driven rock that the sisters have been helping to keep from falling out of vogue, and Snocaps could have been hailed as conquering heroes. Instead, the existence of the band was a secret until the moment their self-titled (and appropriately candy-themed) debut arrived on Halloween 2025. As surprises go, it’s a modest one, but maybe more welcome than could have been anticipated. The same can be said of the music itself: 12 songs (and a cute album-ending reprise) led by chiming guitars and the twins’ vocals that feel simultaneously low-stakes and vital, logically splitting the difference between the rougher-hewn rock of Allison’s post-P.S. project Swearin’ and Katie’s (Grammy-nominated!) Americana-skewing Waxahatchee. The Crutchfields and Lenderman play all the instruments, along with North Carolina-based producer Brad Cook, who also helmed the last couple of Waxahatchee albums; it would be tempting to float the dreaded “supergroup” label if everything else about the project didn’t resist that kind of portentousness.

“There was basically an urgency to this record. It came out of me in this furious burst,” Florence Welch tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe of Florence + the Machine’s sixth full-length. “And it’s one of those records where if I hadn’t have put it out now, it never would’ve come out because I think how I felt about things is so specific to this moment in time, and this roared out of me. It was made almost like a coping mechanism.” That moment in time began for Welch during the *Dance Fever* tour. “I actually ended up having a ectopic miscarriage onstage that was dangerous, and that I had to be hospitalized for, and I had to have immediate surgery because I had a Coke can of blood in my abdomen,” she explains. Her health crisis and ensuing feelings fueled *Everybody Scream*, which offers a haunting yet cathartic experience for both the singer and those listening. “I felt so out of control of my body, it was interesting,” she says. “I looked into themes of witchcraft, and mysticism, and everywhere that you looked in terms of birth or stories of birth, you came across stories of witchcraft, and folk horror, and myths.” Infusing those elements throughout the album, Welch wails, warbles, belts—and, yes, screams—with emotional clarity and appropriately witchy charisma while getting quality assistance in the form of Mitski, Aaron Dessner, and IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen. The title track muses on fame and pushing through the pain to perform: “But look at me run myself ragged/Blood on the stage/But how can I leave you when you’re screaming my name?” Conjuring up a bacchanalian forest rave, “Witch Dance” casts a spell with its heated pace and Welch’s breathy chants. And for the singer, “Perfume and Milk” helps alleviate her own agony. “It was about healing and having watched seasons change and having watched other things growing and then returning to the earth and a sense that I was also part of that nature and part of that cycle,” she says. *Everybody Scream* ends with the stirring “And Love,” striking a hopeful note: “Peace is coming” she repeats on the ballad. “Let this one be the one that comes true,” she says. “Let this one be the one that is realized in the world. I think the songs are always three steps ahead of me. It’s been that way my whole life.”

When it comes to New York City’s hip-hop history, Big L remains one of the most influential and resonant MCs ever to grace the genre. Though the proud Harlemite released only one studio album in his far-too-short lifetime, 1995’s *Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous*, his impact on generations of rappers continues to this day. While a handful of posthumous projects have trickled out in the two and a half decades since his passing—not the least of which being his DJ Premier-helmed *The Big Picture*—the release of *Harlem’s Finest: Return of the King* stands to become the definitive final statement on his artistic might. Big L’s choice of words here sometimes calls back to slang and slander prevalent in ’90s rap, but the relative timelessness of his lyrics makes this 16-track collection superior to the typical odds-and-sods compilation foisted upon fandoms. The blend of past and present in both beats and rhyme form unquestionably contributes to this, with appearances by his contemporaries, like DITC co-founder Showbiz and fellow Children of the Corn spitter Herb McGruff, coming alongside those by his spiritual successors, including Joey Bada\$$ (“Grants Tomb ’97”) and Errol Holden (“Big Lee & Reg”). Both happen concurrently on “Fred Samuel Playground,” in which producer Conductor Williams lays down a dank boom-bap rhythm for a newly recorded Method Man verse. Blurring things further is the rare and very special Mac Miller verse that opens “Forever,” acknowledging the meaningful breadth of Big L’s sway. Even with these inventive hybrids, the fortunate inclusion of his seminal, downright magical freestyles for the likes of DJ Doo Wop and Stretch & Bobbito—inclusive of a monumental JAY-Z tag-team moment—truly makes this an essential listen.

Westside Gunn fans ought to have known that the Griselda rapper’s *HEELS HAVE EYES* franchise would end up as a trilogy. The Buffalo-bred artist’s well-documented kayfabe tendencies assuredly drove him to execute a dramatic finishing move, which this project most certainly is. After all, his ongoing side quest to build the world’s best new pro wrestling league hasn’t kept him far from the mic this year, dropping installments in this series to correspond with concurrent live 4th Rope events that mix matches with bars. With producers like Daringer and Denny Laflare in his corner, songs like “R Truth” and the Rome Streetz tag-team demonstration “Tito Santana” play to his love for the sport. Others more overtly call back to his dope-dealer lore, deftly navigating the street politics of “Tiffany Blue” and whipping up that work on “Free Roleys” alongside Benny the Butcher. Notably, the presence of departed wrestler Virgil on the album’s cover blends in Gunn’s mind with the late Virgil Abloh, evidenced best on the cavernous “Babas.”

*Again* may be the second album from Melbourne indie rockers The Belair Lip Bombs, but it also has the distinction of being the first release by an Australian band on Jack White’s Third Man Records label. Produced by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s vocalist/guitarist Joe White and The Teskey Brothers’ sound engineer Nao Anzai, the album distills the group’s penchant for ragged, tightly wound indie guitar rock and deceptively catchy pop melodies, while introducing dreamy piano to the restrained “Burning Up,” a synth loop to the Kings of Leon-esque “Hey You,” energetic horns to frantic opener “Again and Again,” and a Replacements-like swagger to “If You’ve Got the Time.” Lyrically, vocalist/guitarist Maisie Everett draws inspiration from myriad places. “Don’t Let Them Tell You (It’s Fair)” is a lesson in resilience and believing in yourself, inspired in part by a conversation with fellow songwriter Alex Lahey, who told Everett that you have to make your own luck. The singer puts her emotive voice to heightened use in “Back of My Hand” as she implores a romantic partner to trust in their connection, while “Hey You” is a solemn yet catchy account of complications in a relationship (“I don’t really know where I went wrong/Are you really done turning me on?”). The band take their greatest creative leap in the gentle “Burning Up,” trading white-hot six-strings for piano and waves of atmospheric guitar as Everett combs through the wreckage of a failed romance (“If you ask me, baby/For a second chance/I would hold onto you until my final breath/I never meant to hurt you, baby”).

Before Daniel Avery earned one-to-watch status with the leftfield techno of his 2013 debut *Drone Logic*, he was a teenager playing bass in rock and shoegaze bands. But the London producer never really left them behind. Over the next decade, as he swapped his guitar for synths and DJ decks, he drew their distortions and droning soundscapes into his world. Though the club still thumps through *Tremor*, the noisy textures of his youth push to the surface, shrouding the record in a thick haze that feels both heavy and weightless. *Tremor*’s shape formed almost by accident. A chance run-in with Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell led to a joint studio session; once she hit the mic, he knew he’d found its sound. That song, “Haze”—heaving rock with frayed edges—was one of its first finished tracks, along with “A Silent Shadow,” whose spectral acid creep dissolves into bright piano and sunrise synths. The juxtaposition of light and dark, control and chaos, continues: the whispered intensity of “Greasy off the Racing Line,” swirling serenity swallowed by a fuzzed-out drone on “Until the Moon Starts Shaking.” *Tremor*’s wealth is also in its collaborations. Rowsell joins a wide cast of guests—from friends and contemporary peers Cecile Believe, yunè pinku, and yeule to Avery’s musical heroes Alison Mosshart (The Kills), Walter Schreifels (Gorilla Biscuits, Quicksand), and Andy Bell (Ride, Oasis). Behind the console, he recruited mixers David Wrench (FKA twigs, Frank Ocean) and Alan Moulder (Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails). *Tremor* is less a producer’s solo vision than what he calls a “living and breathing collective.”

Outlandish, volatile, and immensely popular, Kodak Black somehow still rises above it all with each and every new release. After putting out no fewer than four projects in 2024, *Just Getting Started* marks his first substantial release of 2025, a late-in-the-year drop that acts as the promising precursor to a fresh run for the Florida rapper. He’s still living life on his own luxe, individualistic terms on cuts like “All Black Rolex” and “Really Liv’n,” shutting down those who speak ill on his name on “Imma Shoot” and the unapologetic “Project Blue.” With no less than Pharrell Williams by his side, he casually dismisses one of the most tired criticisms of his music on “Mumble Rap,” a bass bin-rattling victory lap boosted by that Neptunes pedigree. The guests here reflect his massive profile and appeal, building up momentum with Chance the Rapper, Gunna, and Lil Yachty, among others. That said, the reflective and ruthless nine-minute solo centerpiece “Prison Deform” offers fans insight and entertainment in equal measure.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a music fan who was around for Outkast’s 2000 opus *Stankonia* and doesn’t remember that album’s impact. The *Aquemini* follow-up catapulted the Atlanta duo from their status as the foremost spokespeople for Southern hip-hop to bona fide pop-culture celebrities whose reach and influence—though still very much rooted in rap—extended far beyond a single genre. *Stankonia*’s singles were monsters, to be sure, but once you get past the apocalyptic frenzy of “B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad),” the off-kilter balladering of “Ms. Jackson,” and the snap-along funk of “So Fresh, So Clean,” what do casual fans actually remember about *Stankonia*? Can they call out the alien synth warbles and fiery Killer Mike verse of “Snappin’ & Trappin’”? Do they remember the cacophonous beat switch for André 3000’s verse on “Humble Mumble”? Do they scrunch up their faces when they think of the hard-as-nails posse cut “Gangsta Sh\*t”? Would their hearts sink if you were to bring up “Toilet Tisha”? Outkast had always gone their own way, but the album that would land them a KIDZ BOP rendition also has guest verses from steely rap veterans B-Real and Khujo Goodie, a song entitled “?” where Andre alone sounds off for a single fitful verse, and “I’ll Call B4 I Cum,” featuring the queen of Memphis hip-hop Gangsta Boo. *Stankonia*’s sonics are built on fuzzy rock guitar and unendingly funky basslines directly descendent from Parliment-Funkadelic’s trippiest material, and it sounds as otherworldly decades later as it did when it was up against other chart-shaking, much more straight-ahead projects of 2000, like Nelly’s *Country Grammar*, Eminem’s *The Marshall Mathers LP*, and JAY-Z’s *The Dynasty - Roc La Familia*.

“This is God’s plan/He said it to me.” So opens *The Boy Who Played the Harp*, the third album from Dave, his first full-length offering since 2021’s *We’re All Alone in This Together*, which cemented his legacy as one of UK rap’s most consummate storytellers. “My mum told me what my name really means and the powers just kicked in,” he continues on the James Blake collaboration “History,” aligning himself with the biblical King David—“the boy who played the harp” referenced in the album title. Certainly, Dave has his own giants to face. He lays out his fears most explicitly on “Selfish,” another James Blake joint, reeling off a litany of sins and self-suspicions over ominous chords and haunting vocal samples. “My 27th Birthday” underscores his inner conflicts across almost eight minutes of restrained piano and hi-hat-centric percussion: new money clashes with old, moral conviction with the ethics of consumption, work ethic with the sacrifice of ambition. The state of the world weighs heavy; “How can you be King?/How can you be King?/Don’t speak for the people,” he asks on the title track, closing out the record with a powerful interrogation of his own commitment to social justice and a sage reminder that the push for change is a collective, intergenerational effort. The introspection is admirable but the album’s highlights occur when Dave steps outside of himself, whether it’s to position himself as a narrator—unpicking the psychology of a criminal with “Marvellous,” calmly outlining the reasons women may fear men on “Fairchild”—or to engage with his peers as on the sultry Tems teamup “Raindance” or “Chapter 16,” which sees him form an inquisitive dialogue with grime heavyweight (and *Top Boy* co-star) Kano. And while *The Boy Who Played the Harp* is a more sonically somber affair than his previous works, the standard of observational insight and lyrical wordplay that have so far earned him an Ivor Novello, a BRIT, and the Mercury Music Prize, remains unchanged. Bending the word “Exodus” so that “there’s repentance in the Bible...” lands with the punchline “…God, remind my ex of this” (“175 Months”) is a shining example. It’s a timely record, arriving in a moment where problems seem insurmountable. In the Bible, Dave’s namesake was tasked with playing his harp to soothe a mind plagued by evil spirits—*The Boy Who Played the Harp* rises to the same challenge with aplomb.

Seven years have passed since Lily Allen bagged herself a Mercury Music Prize nomination for *No Shame*, a peppy yet vulnerable record that chronicled the singer-songwriter’s attempts to pick up the pieces following the breakdown of her first marriage. Her fifth studio album, *West End Girl*, adheres to a similar formula—eviscerating themes concealed within bright pop melodies—pulling the listener into a tightly contained soap opera that arrives in the wake of her second marriage (to *Stranger Things* star David Harbour) ending. Announcing the record, she said it was an attempt to document “the events that led me to where I am in my life now” while also describing it as a “mixture of fact and fiction.” Setting the scene with the title track—a dreamy, orchestral number that depicts a couple moving into a new home but hitting a bump when one of them lands a role in a play—the album narrates a bait-and-switch story in which the boundaries of a relationship (and Allen’s narrator along with them) warp and mutate. “Ruminating” is a drum ’n’ bass spiral into her racing thoughts after an admission of infidelity, while “Relapse” finds her struggling to maintain her sobriety in the wake of ever more painful revelations, her vocals chopped and echoing. Later, “Beg For Me” taps into heartbreak over a pitch-shifted sample of Lumidee’s “Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh),” before resigning herself to the stark reality of her situation on “Let You W/In,” a soft, folky production. There are, it must be said, very few moments of levity to be found throughout *West End Girl*, but tracks like “Nonmonogamummy” and “Dallas Major,” which portray reluctant participation in a newly opened relationship, are patterned from the same sardonic cloth as the more biting cuts from her early catalog—albeit dampened by the weary sadness that permeates the album at large. *West End Girl* closes the window on the drama at the same time as Allen closes the door on her marriage, leaving the listener to mull over events with no return for a triumphant encore—but her razor-edge lyricism and stunning attention to production detail provide ample reasons to wind back to the start and press play all over again.

Irish quintet Just Mustard had already cut an intriguing figure prior to the release of *WE WERE JUST HERE*, developing a gorgeous squall of friction and angst that allowed them to stand apart from the post-punk sound so thoroughly embraced by many of their contemporaries. On their third album, the group takes their biggest leap yet, incorporating the tricky rhythms of electronic music—the dissonant squelch of industrial, 2step’s unmistakable clip-clop gait—into their already tough-to-pin-down sound. The dusky dubstep environs of “DANDELION” and the propulsive mountain-scaling of “SILVER” suggest superhuman qualities behind Shane Maguire’s drum kit, while he pounds against squalls of noise on “THAT I MIGHT NOT SEE,” sounding as if a storm is beating against the windows of the studio itself. All this elemental wonder is brought down to Earth courtesy of singer Katie Ball, whose eerie, steady vocals resemble standing in the eye of a storm—watching pure chaos unfold in 360 degrees while maintaining a sense of calm.

The early 2020s was a period of leveling up for Daniel Caesar. The Toronto R&B artist signed to a major label, logged No. 1 hits with Justin Bieber and Tyler, The Creator, and with 2023’s *NEVER ENOUGH*, scored his highest-charting album to date and graduated to arena-headliner status. But as a child of the church, Caesar has always seemed less interested in indulging in the spoils of stardom than in forging a deep spiritual connection with his congregation of fans. In the lead-up to the release of his fourth full-length, *Son of Spergy*, Caesar hosted surprise pop-up concerts in various cities, turning up in local parks on a few hours’ notice with just an acoustic guitar—a fitting prelude to his most intimate and off-the-cuff album to date. Named for his gospel-singer father, *Son of Spergy* is a moment for Caesar to recalibrate after years of whirlwind success, and reconnect with family, old flames, and the church. “Lord, let your blessings rain down,” he sings on the opener, “Rain Down,” a hazy-headed hymn that sets the soul-searching tone for the album. Compared to the beat-driven experimentation of *NEVER ENOUGH*, *Son of Spergy* is both a more organic and psychedelic experience, favoring folky instrumentation that Caesar weaves to delightfully daydreamy effect on openhearted serenades like “Have a Baby (With Me)” and the Bon Iver-assisted beauty “Moon,” where jazzy piano wafts through the dulcet acoustic arrangement like a misty drizzle. But *Son of Spergy*’s Zen vibe is counterbalanced by Caesar’s growing confidence at drawing far outside the lines of R&B: “Call on Me” is an upbeat outlier that pairs crunchy alt-rock guitars and reggae riddims, while “Baby Blue” is a beautifully dazed ballad that just turns stranger and stranger over its six minutes, layering woozy strings, chopped-up vocals, and sound-effect samples with White Album-style wanderlust.

At this point in their respective production careers, Hit-Boy and The Alchemist are responsible for so many hip-hop hits and faves that it seems pointless to try and list them. Their contributions to the culture span generations, with decades in the game and no signs of slowing down for either artist. Yet one area where the two don’t get nearly enough shine is in the vocal booth, their rap talents often overlooked by contrast with their widely recognized instrumental prowess. That’s precisely what makes *GOLDFISH* and their prior duo collabs of the past few years: their skills both behind the boards and on the mic put on proud display. Off the rip, they’re in fighting form with the one-two punch of “Doing My Best” and “Business Merger,” maintaining energetic confidence for the album’s full 50-minute runtime. “God Is Great” snarks at lesser beatmakers and wack wannabes with a pointed use of gospel flair, while “Show Me the Way” covers both parenthood and personal ambition as powerful midlife motivators. Indicative of Alchemist’s lengthy history with Mobb Deep, Havoc’s appearance on “Celebration Moments” emphasizes his own dual lane. Other rapper guests like Boldy James, Conway the Machine, and Jay Worthy offer features that serve to remind listeners of the headliners’ curatorial clout. Yet perhaps it’s the presence of Hit-Boy’s father, Big Hit, on “All Gas No Breaks” that best drives home the intimacy of the core duo’s partnership—one that hopefully has plenty of road ahead of it.

After building a fanbase and a reputation among other artists as an MC of earnestness, emotional depth, and conceptual density, Saba took a different approach. He created 2025’s *From the Private Collection of Saba and No ID*—a collaboration with legendary hip-hop producer and fellow Chicagoan No ID (Common, JAY-Z)—as what he described as a “tasting menu”: a compelling collection of songs whose connective tissue is the artists who made them, not a specific theme or topic. His second project of the year, *COFFEE!*, is a mixture of both approaches. It’s named after his car, a black Bronco Wildtrak that he wrote and recorded the project’s nine songs in over the course of a week. (The vehicle itself is even personified as a character on “don’t be long.”) But while it may seem conceptual by title, the album plays more like a sketchbook than a fully realized artistic vision. That works to its benefit, though: Instead of the studious intentionality that distinguished his previous albums, *COFFEE!* plays like a carefree, jazzy vibe session that gives oxygen to his artistic instincts. Saba’s supple sense of melody and casual introspection means that even his doodles provide just as much comfort as other artists’ complete portraits. “don\'t be long” affectionately describes the intrapersonal relationships between his loved ones with conversational catchphrases. “itachi” starts as a slow, airy reflection of perseverance before shifting into a catchy, percussive set of whispered vocals, all within less than a minute and a half. The best contemporary comparison to *COFFEE!* is Kendrick Lamar\'s *untitled unmastered.*: a brief, satisfying detour for one of hip-hop’s best.

Shortly before releasing her eighth album in 2022, Demi Lovato posted a photo dressed in all black with her middle fingers up, captioned “a funeral for my pop music.” That album, *Holy Fvck*, channeled heavy feelings through hard rock and pop punk, abandoning the sweetness of her biggest hits to embrace her early inspirations. Lovato’s first remix album, 2023’s *REVAMPED*, doubled down on the pivot, reworking songs like “Heart Attack” and “Cool for the Summer” into tough rock numbers. But as she teased her ninth studio album in summer 2025, the 33-year-old singer captioned a cheeky TikTok from the studio: “My pop music coming back to life after we held a funeral for it.” Popvato had officially returned. On *It’s Not That Deep*, Lovato sweats it out under the strobe lights, reveling in the sultry, celebratory sounds of house, EDM, and club pop. “I wanna go fast/I wanna go hard,” she sings on “Fast,” a pulsing ode to letting go of inhibitions. She breaks out the choreo for the first time in years in the video for “Here All Night,” a synth-pop jam about hitting the club after a breakup. Executive producer Zhone (whose past credits include Troye Sivan’s “Rush” and Kesha’s “Joyride”) maintains the frisky, fully embodied mood. “It’s not that deep, unless you want it to be,” Lovato winks on the electro thumper “Kiss,” though it’s not shallow, either. See “Sorry to Myself,” a sparkling synth-pop reckoning: “I was my favorite hater, but I’m tired,” she belts out. “Now I’m flirting with hope.”

After exploring doomsday scenarios on past albums, shape-shifting metalcore heavyweights The Acacia Strain offer a vision of a distant future in an alternate reality. *You Are Safe From God Here* imagines a timeline in which humanity tries to escape the wrath of an omnipresent being run amok. The Acacia Strain vocalist Vincent Bennett calls it the “existential dark low fantasy era” of the band, which plays out in dual meanings across the songs. Bookend tracks “eucharist i: BURNT OFFERING” and “eucharist ii: BLOOD LOSS” provide a snapshot of the stark musical contrasts that permeate the album; the former short, fast, and brutal, the latter long, crushing, and featuring a mournful guest shot from Sunny Faris of all-female psych-rock troupe Blackwater Holylight.

There’s nothing subtle about cupcakKe’s music, and the Chicago-born rapper delights in how little she leaves to the imagination. After all, her biggest hit to date, “CPR,” is an extended metaphor for oral sex. Her 2025 album *The BakKery* takes things in even more explicit directions. Led by the stunningly titled dance-floor banger “One of My Bedbugs Ate My Pussy,” cupcakKe showcases why no one else in the rap game has her boldness or imagination. While it’s easy to shock, humor propels this album to exciting heights. The way she embraces dance music and the history of house in her hometown of Chicago gives *The BakKery* its electrifying energy, and its one-liners illustrate how thoughtful sex rhymes can really be. As she raps on “Bedbugs,” “It’s givin’ Lady Gaga, standin’ in a shoe/She love tall inches and I do too.”

Nine years after 2016’s *The Catastrophist*, Tortoise’s eighth album captures the legendary post-rock outfit operating in literally unfamiliar territory: *Touch* is the first record the quintet—whose members were once resolutely Chicago-based but are now spread across the US—has conceived in multiple settings, its 10 songs resulting from sessions in Los Angeles and Portland as well as their hometown. Despite the new approach, *Touch* showcases the near-mystical interplay and ingenuity that Tortoise has built a reputation on across the last three decades. There’s also a few surprises in tow—the pounding techno of “Elka” and the micro-odyssey of closing track “Night Gang,” which sounds like a lost Beach Boys instrumental from their post-*Pet Sounds* days—alongside moments of blissed-out, vibraphone-laden jazz harmonics that wouldn’t be a hair out of place on their seminal 1998 album *TNT*, driving home the timelessness of Tortoise’s approach, which still feels fresh to this very day.

With a title that translates to “Flame,” Soulfly’s 13th album sees ringleader Max Cavalera returning to his South American roots. *Chama* tells the story of a boy raised in Brazil’s favelas who seeks a higher power in the jungles of the Amazon. On opening invocation “Indigenous Inquisition,” Cavalera recites the names of extinguished native tribes before launching into the percussion-heavy “Storm the Gates,” a track reminiscent of his work on Sepultura’s groundbreaking 1996 world music/nu-metal fusion album, *Roots*. The star-studded “No Pain = No Power” features cameos from Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares, Unto Others mastermind Gabriel Franco, and No Warning vocalist Ben Cook, while Arch Enemy guitar wizard Michael Amott lends a blistering solo to “Ghenna” and NAILS lead singer Todd Jones takes a vocal turn on “Nihilist,” a track dedicated to fallen Entombed vocalist L.G. Petrov.

On their second album, indie-rock punks Spiritual Cramp take you on a spin through the fictional radio station Wild 87 and their “San Francisco rude boy” sound. Led by vocalist Michael Bingham and bassist Mike Fenton, Spiritual Cramp embraces a musical style that references the Ramones (“Go Back Home”), Interpol (“Automatic”), and Devo (“Young Offenders”), among others. *RUDE* is a love letter to their stomping grounds that includes a middle finger to Bingham’s new home of LA on “True Love (Is Hard to Find).” “I Hate the Way I Look” self-loathes in the tongue-in-cheek spirit of Viagra Boys, while “Violence in the Supermarket” goes full dub, and in an unexpected twist, Bingham duets with LA singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten on the reggae-inflected “You’ve Got My Number.”

Brandi Carlile is hardly the only songwriter to be inspired by Joni Mitchell. But she is on a short list of artists who can boast that her own album is a direct result of having been Mitchell’s close collaborator. “I had finished playing the Hollywood Bowl \[in 2024\] with Joni, and it took up so much of my spiritual space and my mind space,” she tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “I felt really emotionally make-or-break, because I just wanted that to be a pivotal moment for Joni.” Carlile’s stewardship of her hero’s comeback performances, alongside *Who Believes in Angels?*, her 2025 team-up with Elton John, another one of her idols and mentors, left her little time to tend to her own music. “It became so overwhelming and so all-consuming that this little voice did start to say, ‘OK, you’re not going to live very long if you keep setting the bar for yourself in these really stressful places,’” she says. “‘And you’re also hiding a little bit.’” Following her time in LA with Mitchell, she headed to Aaron Dessner’s Long Pond Studio in upstate New York to begin work on *Returning to Myself*. “I didn’t know whether we were going to be writing songs for someone else, or writing songs for me, or what we were going to be doing,” she explains. Though she admits to struggling initially with the process, the end result runs from the sweet and sentimental (“Anniversary”) to the angry (“Church & State”) and, of course, an emotional ode to Mitchell herself (“Joni”). Read below for Carlile’s thoughts on a few key tracks. **“Returning to Myself”** “I didn’t even bring a guitar. I went upstairs to the bedroom, and I sat on this bed looking at a blank wall, and I was so stressed to be that alone. I wrote the poem for *Returning to Myself*. It was just a poem; it didn’t have music or anything yet. I was just almost rejecting it. I was almost feeling like, ‘OK, this is it. This is a noble pursuit, me staring at this wall. This is what it means to learn to be alone. I guess I’m evolving right now. I feel like I’m not doing anything at all but just indulging myself and sitting here on this bed.’” **“Human”** “I do feel that every generation since recorded history believes that their generation is the one living through the end of the world. I think that’s really comforting. And we do. We all see our conflicts and our wars and our political upheavals and tyranny and democracy in constant balance. We are in a loop, and the loop is the loop of humanity. And don’t be apathetic. Don’t ignore it. Don’t look away. Do fight. Do be an activist. Do get out of bed every morning and think about how you can serve humanity. But also touch grass. Also realize that you’re here for a split second and that you don’t want to look back and realize you missed the whole thing because you believed you were living through the end of the world.” **“Church & State”** “We were set up to jam and that song was really carnal. We were in a circle. It was like rock ’n’ roll time, and it was November 5th, the night of the \[2024\] election. I went into the studio, laptop open, spiraling, just not doing great emotionally. I mean, I knew what was coming. I had written ‘Human’ the night before, and it was like a primal cry for self-preservation in a way, and not just for me, for everybody.”

Hannah Jadagu’s second full-length takes on decidedly darker shades than its predecessor *Aperture* from 2023. The newly dusky sound is far from a coincidence; the songs on *Describe* were specifically inspired by a long-distance relationship as Jadagu toured to far-flung locations with peers like Wet and Faye Webster. Accordingly, there’s a sense of longing that runs through cuts like the easy-shaking “Doing Now” and the slow build of “Gimme Time.” Sonically, Jadagu’s music takes on more layers here as well—check the “Period, pooh” chants underneath the airy tones of “Tell Me That !!!!,” as well as the dissonant ambience that courses through closer “Bergamont” as Jadagu sighs with a tinge of hope, “Just keep me in your mind/When you go.”

“I feel like I’ve combined the best out of the two albums I have out already,” Norway’s pop queen Sigrid tells Apple Music, as she thinks about *There’s Always More That I Could Say*. “It’s the same carefree, joyful, childlike wonder, bursting with creativity from the first album. And it has the ambition and the nitty-gritty detail and expansive production from the second album with some of the harder lyrics.” The down-to-earth star isn’t entirely comfortable talking about her music in such glowing terms, but she should be. Working with longtime collaborator and good friend Askjell Solstrand, she’s produced 10 perfect pop tracks, from Norwegian summer jam “Jellyfish” to the heartfelt breakup ballad that’s the title track. Unleashing herself from the studio was a key move for Sigrid as she and Solstrand headed out into coffee shops, parks, and remote places to write. “I really loved making this album,” she says. “Some of the lyrics are funny and silly, taking the piss out of myself. And other ones are raw and vulnerable. It’s never felt like work with Askjell and that line in ‘Jellyfish’ that says, ‘We’re just two kids in a crowded room’ is about him. It was super cathartic to make music out of pure joy.” This time around, Sigrid doesn’t shy away from writing about love in a deeper way. “It’s the thing that connects us all as people and it’s fun to write about because it’s a hard nut to crack,” she says. “But it’s also an album about how you respond to love, friendships, finding more out about yourself, and who you’ve become. Every time I talk to my mother, she’s like, ‘Why don’t you write about the hike you went for the other day or cooking?’ I tell her that’s not stadium-worthy. I want to write these big songs with larger-than-life lyrics.” Read on as Sigrid takes you through the album, track by track. **“I’ll Always Be Your Girl”** “We’d spent the whole of 2024 recording this album in cafés, parks, and studios. There’s one of the best studios in Ålesund called Ocean Sound Recordings where some of the songs are written, but we also had a makeshift studio in my parents’ house. The order of the tracklist landed in January 2025 and it felt like ‘I’ll Always Be Your Girl’ had to be the opener. I wrote that guitar line when I was in Tooting Broadway, South London—I was in the studio with Nick Hahn \[Rita Ora, Mimi Webb, James Blunt\], who I worked with before on \[2023 EP\] *The Hype*. It’s a song about having a crush and being irritated.” **“Jellyfish”** “‘Jellyfish’ sounds like a Scandinavian summer: breezy and never too warm. I think you can hear that in the song. It’s lighthearted, fun, and cute, but it has this urgency to it. I thought I was writing about flirting with someone, but then I realized it’s about how beautiful friendships are. It’s about my friends, my band, my crew, the producer, and writers that I work with and how we collaborate together. Sonically, it’s the first song we wrote for the album where we felt like, ‘OK, I think this is what it can sound like.’ You always have that one song that starts a new era. I never set out thinking, ‘Here’s the title, here’s the vision for it,’ I just sit in a corner and I write.” **“Do It Again”** “‘Do It Again’ is moving into the more reflective part of the album. It’s a fun pop song. I was thinking a lot about Keane and Gorillaz, where ‘Jellyfish’ is more Lykke Li and early Peter Bjorn and John. Scandipop is not only electro, it’s this indie-cutesy thing. This song is about thinking, ‘I could just do this over and over again, even if it isn’t the best idea, but fuck it.’ I was with Martin Sjølie, who I wrote most of my first songs with. We had a rendezvous again in the studio, which was so lovely, together with Will Taylor from the British band Flyte.” **“Kiss the Sky”** “‘Parody of myself’ was the first line I had for that song, and that came to me when I was out driving in Oslo. Then I had a session with a Norwegian writer and producer called Whammyboy. He’s really cool, and this song came out on our first time writing together. It’s about blowing everything up and riding into the sunset. This was the hardest song to produce—I remember I rewrote the verses with Nick Hahn, but me and Askjell nearly hit the wall with it. We ended up with something straight to the point, and that’s exactly what the song needed.” **“Two Years”** “We usually write in this really old studio in Bergen. It’s like a shed and there’s definitely mold on the outside, but I love it. It makes me feel like 19 again because it’s the studio we’ve been working in since day one. That’s where ‘Fort Knox’ was written, but we were like, ‘Maybe we should go somewhere else and get some inspiration.’ So we went to Tokyo and rented this really cool studio, and I had this idea for a piano hook. I knew the rhythm I wanted, referencing some of my favorite French dancey-but-cool songs, like Phoenix and Justice. It’s written from someone else’s perspective, and I’m trying to see the situation from another point of view, but it’s also this chaotic dance. It was basically a competition for me and Askjell to see how many key changes we can fit into this song. Towards the end, it spirals.” **“Hush Baby, Hurry Slowly”** “‘Hush Baby’ is a song that came around the time where I was having writer’s block. This album has taken me three years to get out: one year of writing, a year of overthinking it and another to wrap it up. Askjell, my bestie, was like, ‘I know what you need. I’m pulling a writing camp together.’ We were with Edvard Førre Erfjord, who wrote a lot of the Little Mix hits, Anders Nilsen, who comes from a bangers-only background, and Harald Sørebø, a Norwegian rap producer. We had the best two weeks. I can be a bit of a micromanager in the studio, but I felt so free because I approached it like I wasn’t writing for myself. Usually, I don’t like singing until I know exactly what I’m doing, but I got on the mic and freestyled, so basically I wrote it in one take.” **“Fort Knox”** “I’d been traveling a lot the summer I wrote this. I was really angry and I had to let it out. I was running around the studio, shouting and screaming and those vocals made it onto the record. It was important that we recorded it on the handheld mic. I tried to record it on the classic studio mic standing still, but I was like, ‘That’s not the vibe of this song.’ I feel more comfortable singing in a live environment because I love the feeling that I have one chance. And if you fuck it up, it happens. I think I have a good skill of pulling myself together when it’s needed, so I like it to feel like I’m on stage and imagine everyone watching. Production-wise, it’s a very dramatic song with Davide Rossi, who did the strings on Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida,’ doing the arrangements. He’s amazing.” **“There’s Always More That I Could Say”** “This song is so beautiful. And I think it’s funny how I start it with, ‘I should have done that differently. I hurt you. I’m so sorry. Really, you’re seeing the worst of my personality now.’ And then it snaps in the second half of, ‘You know what, actually? You weren’t that nice either. So both of us could have behaved better.’ This was written in London again with Will Taylor and Oli Bayston in an old BBC studio with a ’70s vibe, a lot of brown mahogany, leather couches, and rugs with orange, earthy tones. It’s a good example of how your environment can really inspire how you write. I love a good ballad and I’m really proud of this one. I could always give more of myself, but this is what you get.” **“Have You Heard This Song Before”** “The lyrics are all about potential. It’s about love, but it could also be about something else, like releasing my third album. Who knows how far it can go or what countries it will take me to? I wake up and then something new and crazy happens. This song is so optimistic, but the production is nostalgic. Melodies usually come first for me, but that day, it felt like the lyrics came just as easily. My favorite line is in the mid-eight, where I say, ‘You should catch me while you can/Before I change my mind again/These songs don’t write themselves.’” **“Eternal Sunshine”** “This is one of the songs I’m most excited to play live. It sounds epic. I feel like it’s a galloping beat—I imagine a horse on the American plains, like proper cowboy vibes, riding into the sunset. That’s how I hear it, but with a bit of Kate Bush and The War on Drugs, who are one of my favorite bands. It plays on the film *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind*, how it would be easier to just paint someone out of the picture sometimes, but you can’t erase the memory. I originally thought ‘There’s Always More That I Could Say’ should be the closer, but this is such a nice way to wrap it all up.”

If you’ve been tracking the career of Detroit’s Danny Brown over the last decade or so, you’d know that he’s one of rap’s most unpredictable characters: a streetwise MC who can go dark, go humorous, go punk, or go techno with the flip of a switch. “You’d be hard-pressed to find another rap artist with a musical range comparable to Danny’s,” DJ A-Trak, who assembled Brown’s *XXX for 30* megamix, tells Apple Music. “I wanted the mix to reflect that. I had to show his full wingspan. It’s truly uncanny.” Across this set, punctuated with drops from G-Unit member Tony Yayo, you’ll catch the full breadth of Brown’s oeuvre—from tracks dating back to his 2000s mixtapes and his debut album, *The Hybrid*, on through to collaborations with ScHoolboy Q, BROCKHAMPTON, Gorillaz, Kendrick Lamar, Fred again.., and more. “Danny is one hell of a rapper,” adds A-Trak. “It’s so fun to sit back and listen to the way he attacks so many types of beats, tempos, styles, and cadences.”