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Brian Ennals declares “Netanyahu is the new Hitler” in the first 30 seconds of A City Drowned in God’s Black Tears, and continues to have absolutely no chill for the next nine songs. While the album has a vicious bite with its bleak reflections on modern life, it isn’t all vitriol. While rehabbing a concert-related injury, the group’s dynamic and magnetic frontperson Shirley Manson recalibrated, channeling emotions and observations into the music her bandmates sent her. Garbage’s latest album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, is a visceral release of anger and frustration, but also love and gratitude. FKA Twigs has been healing, moving from wrenching honesty toward songs about joyous dancefloor revelations.
My sister gives me good advice because she’s experienced the industry and my mom’s an artist as well—we’re a family of artists, so it’s like create or die! Writing and releasing music simply felt “natural” and necessary. “I wanted to work on my creative voice and figure out what I had to say first,” she adds about her unhasty transition into music. The creative stimulation meanwhile spawned two poetry books, sticky notes and Dudette, which helped her develop her artistic identity enough to feel ready to venture into songwriting. So, I don’t know if there was ever a point where it was going to make our lives different.” “I loved it though because I got to do cool things like go up to Katy Perry and studio soho tap her on the shoulder.
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“But sometimes there’s a power imbalance, especially if they’re 10 or 15 years older. “When you’re in your early 20s and forming your adult voice, it’s easier to have your hand held by someone instead of learning who you are,” she says. Indy also credits her New Zealand background for instilling traits which have proved beneficial in the cutthroat music industry, like talking to anyone and not taking herself too seriously. Having her guidance has helped me so much with remembering to protect my art and remembering it’s my art.” I’ve had to fight for a melody or guitar part to be a certain way. Having released three records, topped the charts and toured the world, Lorde, 28, has urged Indy to trust in her personality, experience and musical instincts.
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Mostly written and recorded shortly before the singer-songwriter received a medical diagnosis that entailed open-heart surgery, Cardiac Country nonetheless deals in matters of the ticker. Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis stays busy, working in several different contexts (he’s already released a second album this year, with a quartet, on Intakt Records), but his trio work on the eclectic Anti label always delivers something special. Space is carved out for resilience and light, and it’s all delivered through Manson’s unapologetically grim but generous lens. ” She is spinning her diary-like stories into Latin pop gold. Like Dream, Antigone opens with a kind of orchestral fugue, but one which, unlike its ancestor, soon takes a turn for the smooth and sultry, a move carried out by the rest of the album.
- Indy also credits her New Zealand background for instilling traits which have proved beneficial in the cutthroat music industry, like talking to anyone and not taking herself too seriously.
- You’re flying over 300,000 people, drinking Jack Daniels.
- Luke Spiller cuts quite a figure as the Struts’ frontperson, but on his debut solo album, Love Will Probably Kill Me Before Cigarettes and Wine, it’s clear the charismatic Spiller has been holding back—until now.
- Last year, the Spanish singer-songwriter was tapped by Karol G to open one of her stadium shows in Madrid.
- “The lyrics were, ‘I thought love was a cure.
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Last year, the Spanish singer-songwriter was tapped by Karol G to open one of her stadium shows in Madrid. Following his Best New Artist nomination at the 2023 Latin Grammy Awards, life has been a wild ride for Borja. From Ice Cube and drummer Daru Jones (who plays on “The JBs Tribute Pastor P,” a nod to Collins’ days with James Brown’s backing band) to Kokane and Daz Dillinger, each collaboration shines on its own, once again proving Collins is a master of his craft. Hearing Snoop Dogg rhyme over a Bootsy Collins bassline is so natural, it’s no wonder Dr. Dre lifted a significant portion of Parliament-Funkadelic’s catalog for his landmark debut, The Chronic. We’re all asking this in 2025, but only Bartees Strange thought to put it to alternately grooving and blistering genre-bending indie rock.
The accomplished guitarist has stepped nimbly into the high-heeled boots of the group’s former guitarist, Mick Mars — albeit with platform crocs. And I want the listener to walk away from that thinking, like Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ said, ‘Scarred But Smarter.’ I want you to go forward into your life with the tools that you have gained from being harmed or being hurt or harming or hurting somebody else.” “‘True Believer,’ that would be a terribly sad song if there wasn’t any hope,” he says.” And there’s supposed to be this sort of determination. Tension alone doesn’t work in a narrative, nor does it work musically, he says. He tells me that in writing a song, one that tells a story with the goal of making the listener feel good, one they’ll come back to, you have to create tension and release. She also created the album’s cover art.
With his 1940 Martin 0-17 Acoustic guitar—which he felt created a softer sound, allowing more space for his vocals—Isbell recorded the album over five days at the legendary Electric Lady Studios in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. And when I feel uncomfortable, then I usually think, well, I must be on to something because if I can feel uncomfortable in these songs and share them with everybody else, then maybe the audience will say, ‘You know, I’m not alone in the way that I feel.’” “I knew that I could write songs, and I had been writing songs at that point. Ironically, the 22-year-old Isbell was quickly recruited into the group in 2001 when the band’s guitarist, Rob Malone, failed to show up for a house concert put on by SPIN magazine. And all three of those songs deal with that.”
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And then, being around Patterson, I realized that there are a lot of different reasons to write the songs, and it’s not a lottery ticket, whereas you either make it and get rich and famous, or you have to go back into the workforce. But I considered my primary job to be playing guitar for a rock band. “With those three songs, especially, I’m trying to talk about a period in my life that was difficult, a lot of change,” he tells me in his North Alabama drawl. While Isbell had been planning on making an acoustic solo album before he wrote the 11 tracks that comprise this album, these songs—particularly “Eileen,” “Gravel Weed,” and “True Believer”—are most likely not what he originally had in mind. “Even though you know that the results are going to get broadcast to everybody, there’s something about sitting with a guitar and singing a song that makes sense to me when it’s this personal.” Swimming foregrounds his graceful guitar playing, his quietly intense vocals, and most of all his observant songwriting, all of which reveal new wisdom with each spin.
But while home may be half a world away, she holds the words of loved ones near, especially Sonja’s greatest advice. And while New York has proved her own savior, making her feel “more alive than ever,” she’s unsure if it’s her forever home. In between musical endeavors, she plans to study psychology.
In fact, he was well aware of how hard it would be. Jason Isbell didn’t make Foxes in the Snow—his first solo effort in 10 years without his trusty 400 Unit band—because he knew it would be easy. If such an accomplishment sounds like your cup of meat, the rest of the album—expanded or not—will too. The song’s about a guy who needs therapy because he has run over a “creature” and “disfigured” himself in a car wreck while high on a drug given to him by his therapist.
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But dudes don’t have a monopoly on heartbreak, yearning, and hard times. As the title suggests, the album’s 10 songs are shaped by Spiller’s relationships. Had I been a fan of Arcade Fire, maybe this seventh album of theirs would have pissed me off, as it has for more than a few former lovers of Montreal’s formerly shiny indie rock royalty. “He looked at me and had a hard time speaking. And brought to life with guitars and violins, the toe-tapping tune is both heart-rending and empowering. You’ve got to let people learn the hard way.”