British retro divas have been a staple of popular music for decades now, and Raye is conscious of her place in that lineage, referencing comparisons to Amy Winehouse a few minutes into her second album. And while Raye has a great voice and a solid command of a few different styles of mid-20th century popular song, This Music May Contain Hope is just bursting at the seams with words and humor and big ambitious ideas, it reminds me more of Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city than Adele's 21. It's very earnest and heart-on-its-sleeve in a way that I can see being offputting to some people, but I really get swept up in the emotion of "I Know You're Hurting" and "Goodbye Henry" and "Nightingale Lane" and even the 6-minute closing track where she thanks every person who worked on the album, including every single member of the London Symphony Orchestra, which is oddly kind of beautiful and affecting. 

I remember saying a year ago that I expected big things from Raye's next album, and I'm very happy that I was right. Here's the 2026 albums Spotify playlist that I'm constantly putting new releases in. 

After Darsombra's Ann Everton died in a car crash last year, I spent a week talking to people who knew her for a Baltimore Banner piece. And at first I didn't even have any expectation of talking to Brian Daniloski, who survived the crash, just because I had no idea what state he was in physically or emotionally. But I let people who knew him pass my number along, and one morning my phone rang, and I spent an hour talking to someone who'd just lost their wife and bandmate, and I'm really grateful that Brian was willing to give me some of his time in the aftermath of that tragedy and share happy memories of Ann. A few weeks ago there was a two-night Ann Everton tribute concert at the Ottobar, I only got up there from D.C. for the very last set of the second night by Celebration, which was awesome, and soon after, Brian released a new Darsombra album. Brian told me about how excited he and Ann were about the next album they were planning to make together, but SYZYGY is a collection of more minimal ambient work from their fertile 2020-2022 COVID-era sessions, and I love this really spacey 'slowly drifting in the ether' side of their catalog. 

In the early 2020s, Jack Harlow released two platinum albums driven by hit singles that swiftly expanded his audience and made him the latest in a long line of white rappers that have seduced America. And then, for whatever reason, he decided to decouple his album efforts from his single efforts, and his last two albums will probably never go gold. 2023's "Lovin On Me" was an absolutely enormous hit, #1 on the Hot 100 and #5 on the year-end Hot 100 for 2024, and if he'd put it on an album of similar material he'd have probably had a blockbuster on his hands. Instead, that song was not on 2023's Jackman, 10 songs of 'serious' raps with no guests or crossover-friendly hooks, or on 2026's Monica, 9 songs of mumbly half-assed R&B that have been widely ridiculed over a rollout that included Harlow proudly saying "I got blacker" to two white music critics. Maybe he'll bounce back from this, maybe he won't, I really don't care because always been kind of a dull middleweight talent. But it's grimly funny to watch someone who had a winning formula dismantle it for a couple of really misguided, unsuccessful plays for musical credibility and acclaim.