Many people rolled their eyes, and I did too a little, when it was announced that Jack Antonoff co-wrote and co-produced most of the songs on the fifth Florence + The Machine album, since Florence Welch was one of the few big acclaimed female singer-songwriters that Antonoff wasn't already working with. But I don't really have a problem with the work he does or his seeming ambition to be the alt Max Martin, and Dance Fever is one of Florence's best albums. I particularly think she captured the emotional state of being cooped up during the pandemic and being very worried and stressed out even while you yourself are relatively safe and kind of questioning the point of life and making art on "Free" and "Choreomania," which opens with Welch saying "I am freaking out in the middle of the street with the complete conviction of someone who's never had anything actually really bad happen to them." That little self-deprecating bit of humor really counts for a lot in helping this stuff resonate without seeming too melodramatic. And she's still just an incredible vocalist, I gained a new appreciation for her after my wife and I saw her on the High As Hope tour. Here's the 2022 albums Spotify playlist where I keep all the new albums I listen to. 

I only became aware of Zach Bryan recently, when his song "Something In The Orange" debuted on the Hot 100 -- a rarity for a country song with no radio support (for some perspective, even someone as famous as Kacey Musgraves missed the Hot 100 entirely when country radio ignored her last album). Bryan, a young guy from Oklahoma who was still enlisted in the Navy when he self-released his first couple albums, has packed 34 songs onto his spare, uncompromising 2-hour major label debut. At one point he tosses off a radio-friendly song, "If She Wants A Cowboy," as sort of a meta prank, laying on the satire thick at one point by adding "if she wants Nashville, I'll Nashville the best" and singing the last verse with heavy AutoTune. I find that snobby move kind of eye-rolling, personally, but I respect the kids guts to make an album this long and this good, "Sober Side of Sorry" and "The Good I'll Do" and "Heavy Eyes" are great songs. 

To Kendrick Lamar's credit, I think each of his albums is kind of a distinct world unto itself. But the previous album that Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers resembles the most is my favorite, To Pimp A Butterfly, although not necessarily for good reasons ("Mortal Man" probably would've included the phrase "cancel culture" too if people were saying it back then). In fact, it's probably his weakest proper album, but obviously it's still pretty good. And the more I listen to it, the strong I think the second half is in comparison to the first half, and it really ends on a high note with "Mother I Sober" and "Mirror" -- perhaps even moreso since "The Heart Part 5" was added to the album last week. 

Most of the time, the biggest solo star from a boy band is a force of nature, such a huge charismatic personality and/or driven master entertainer, that their success feels inevitable. But One Direction are one of my favorite boy bands in part because the lack of any one Justin Timberlake or Robbie Williams figure looming over everything, and even though Harry Styles is now decisively the group's biggest alumnus, he had to play the long tame with a sort of tortoise-and-hare approach relative to Zayn Malik's bigger initial success. His third album, Harry's House, is the closest thing he's made to a purpose built blockbuster, and it's still kind of a slouchy, quirky salute to his diverse influences that's about 1% as hell bent on world domination as any Ed Sheeran album. He's just kind of a chill dude with a pleasant, unshowy voice, and I love that he seemed to stumble into enormous fame and decided to do some interesting things with it, "Late Night Talking" and "Sattelite" and "Matilda" are lovely songs. 

A little surprising to hear a great hip hop album released on Jagjaguwar, but this duo from Tampa Bay are really talented. It is 'experimental' in a way that I still find very accessible and based on good beats and rhymes, kind of reminds me a little of '90s Outkast or Pharcyde, and I enjoy how often drum'n'bass breaks are in the mix. 

I respect that a band as big as Radiohead can give themselves space for side projects, but in practice it the distinction feels a little superfluous: Thom Yorke's solo stuff mostly sounds like Radiohead, even Thom Yorke's band with Flea sounds like Radiohead. And Yorke starting a band with probably the other most creatively dominant member of the band, Johnny Greenwood, and a drummer who doesn't play a whole lot differently from Phil Selway is just kind of funny. In any event, I think The Smile's debut album is about as good as most of Radiohead's later albums, "You Will Never Work In Television" and "Speech Bubbles" are great stuff. 

Johan Lenox is a guy I'm friendly with on Twitter, a conservatory-trained composer who's done string arrangements for a bunch of G.O.O.D. Music projects and other big rap records. His first official album as a solo artist is cool, thumping beats and extravagant orchestral arrangements and melodic vocals and occasional rap features, "Get My Shit Together" and "Don't Wait For Me" a couple of my favorites so far. 

I was 16 when a friend who worked at a record store gave me a promo of the first Black Star album a couple weeks before it was released and that album rocked my world, and I spent the next few years as a big fan of both rappers' solo careers and hoping they'd eventually do a second Black Star album. Almost 24 years later, whatever expectations or hopes I once had a decade or two ago feel irrelevant, especially after Talib Kweli became this weird internet troll who got himself banned from Twitter. But I have to admit I'm happy to hear these guys make an album together, even if it's kind of a casual 33-minute record with slightly lo-fi vocals recorded in hotel rooms. It feels like people who usually call any album produced by Madlib a masterpiece have been unenthusiastic about No Fear of Time, but I think he's an interesting choice to helm this record and helps remove any expectation of it sounding like their first album, I particularly like "So Be It and "Frequency," and "The Main Thing Is To Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing" is probably my favorite thing Yasiin Bey has done in a long time. I interviewed the CEO of Luminary Podcasts for my Okayplayer piece about unorthodox album releases like this one, check it out if you haven't already. 

I'm glad this finally got out, as I wrote a few months ago, it was getting kind of ridiculous that it felt like Ella Mai wasn't even getting a chance to follow up her multi-platinum debut that came out almost 4 years ago. It doesn't feel as hit-packed as her first album but it's a good evolution in her sound, a little moodier and more textured, "Trying" is agreat opening track. 

It was fun to write my Stereogum piece inspired by this 'mysterious' band that's probably Duff McKagan and get trolled back by them a little bit. I do think it's a cool record, regardless of who made it, though, a cantankerous little blast of old-fashioned punk. 

I didn't particularly like these guys when they were 'good,' but I will grant that their last couple albums were a big step down from their earlier stuff. So when this new album got some raves as a return to form, I tried to give it a chance, but yeah, they're really just not my thing, and once I got to that 'I unsubscribe' song it just felt like a lost cause. 

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