Lav's Music Corner

5.  BACK ON  - SBTRKT SBTRKT has kinda been on one recently, that's something I bet you didn't expect to hear in 2024. Despite what I thought was a huge miss with THE RAT ROAD  last year I've enjoyed a number of the singles that have followed in the wake of it. This is another pretty direct embrace of sunny summery house music but it's consistently delightful throughout.  Listen 4.  Lies Lies Lies  - Morgan Wallen "Lies lies lies, eyes eyes eyes" is a lyric that's below Morgan Wallen's pay grade, let's start with that. While he can be one of the most obnoxious artists in music when he's coming with ego, but he's still an earnest conceptualizer of songs. This is a vulnerable cut where he gives in to the numerous lies he tells himself and others about having moved on from a woman no longer in his life.  Listen 3.  kms  - Los Campesinos! The first single from their new record might be the best Los Campesinos song I've heard in 15 years, bu...

Pop Smoke was a New York drill rapper who was tragically murdered last year, and has since proven to be a force of commercial music. Faith  is Pop Smoke's 2nd posthumous album and likely to be his 2nd #1 album, following last years Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon . Just a few days before the record the tracklist and production credits for the album were revealed, showing off a myriad of talented features.  Review By Lav: It's always difficult to review a posthumous record, since it can often have so little creative input from the artist whose name it's released under. In the recent years, hip hop in particular has frequently been criticized for it's posthumous records which either release recordings that are clearly unfinished and shouldn't be heard by the masses, or packing the songs full of trendy features that the original artist would have never worked with. This record does both, but it isn't quite as bad as it seems like at the outset. The biggest pr...

Pop Smoke was an up and coming rapper from New York who became one of the most prominent voices of the cities drill scene off of his hit song Welcome To The Party last year. Pop Smoke was tragically murdered in February of this year, a crime for which arrests were just made this week. Shoot For The Stars  is his posthumous debut album which was unfinished at the time of his death and was completed under the guise of executive producer 50 Cent. The record also attracted some controversy directed at designer Virgil Abloh for his original album cover design, which was changed before the records release.  Review By Lavender: Just typing the words posthumous debut album is something I find difficult, especially in the case of an artist like Pop Smoke who had so much creative and artistic potential ahead of him. While I have never outright loved any of his music he was carving out a unique lane for himself with unmistakable vocals and a thirst to push further beyond the mundane soun...

DaBaby is a Charlotte based rapper who blew up last year with a couple huge singles, and has kept his profile high through 2020 off of a number of successful features. Review By Lavender: If you'll refer to my last review you may remember that DaBaby was an artist I was pulling for initially. He's from my home town and gave Charlotte a chance to get on the map for hip hop and some of his biggest singles are not bad songs, particularly the excellent Intro from his last record and his marquee feature on Camila Cabello's My Oh My . But DaBaby's short time in the spotlight has shown off two things very quickly. Firstly he is quite the problematic character as he is constantly embroiled in new controversy just about everywhere he goes, and secondly and much more importantly for our purposes here he has proven to be a pretty one note artist and Blame It On Baby  shows that even further. The record had two singles that didn't have me very confident in Baby's vers...

Justin Bieber is a Canadian mega pop star who first blew up off of some viral singles in the beginning of last decade. Even though it has been five years since his last studio album he has maintained a consistent presence in the news as well as on the charts as he has featured in a number of major hits. Review By Lavender: I never really hated Justin Bieber as much as the basic ass tasteless dudes who shit on his personality for internet points when he was famous as a 15 year old. Rather I just thought his music was a bit too boring and generic for me to really grab onto it. This definitely got better on his 3rd proper record Purpose  which at the very least had some defining personality that made the tracks actually sound like Justin Bieber music rather than computer generated pop tunes. But the 5 years since then clearly hasn't helped the problem, as Changes  sounds as devoid of anything defining as any of Bieber's previous works. The singles did not have me excited...

Young Thug is an Atlanta hip hop artist who arrived in a wave of trap music in the mid 2000's coming with connections to artists like Gucci Mane, Migos and Travis Scott, eventually dropping a critically acclaimed and commercially successful debut Barter 6 . In 2016 Thugger released what many believe to be his magnum opus record with Jeffery  which was cited by numerous publications as one of the best albums of the year and spawned many fan favorite and cult-classic tunes. Since then he has released one studio album focused on a specific experiment, as well as a number of collaborative albums and EPs with various artists, but So Much Fun  seems to be a more focused and important entry into his ever growing discography. Review by Lavender: Young Thug has long been one of the best personalities in hip hop, both with hilarious and zany lyrics and performances, as well as a killer personality and thirst for experimentation in the genre. He got off to a fantastic start to his...

1. XXXTETACION - Royalty (Feat. Ky-Mani Marley, Steffelon Don & Vybz Kartel) Over a year after his tragic dead X finds himself back on top of the charts with a fan favorite snippet finally making its way into a finished product featuring some of its original collaborators. 2. Charli XCX - Gone  (Feat. Christine And The Queens) Charli drops yet another single from her collab heavy upcoming album this time recruiting the services of Christine and The Queens, its safe to say hype is successfully built up. 3. Wilco - Love Is Everywhere (Beware) Legendary indie band Wilco is back after a three year absence with the lead single to their album coming later this year. 4. Whitney - Valleys (My Love) Whitney got their new era off to a hot start with their excellent first single and they hope to follow it up with this track as the release date of their sophomore record approaches. 5. Four Tet - Dreamer After dropping a record to criminally low profile last year Four Tet drops...

Madonna is a legendary pop artist who has been releasing hit albums one after another since the early 80's and has amassed a level of commercial success that is almost completely unmatched, but has found less and less critical praise as the years have gone by, including two poorly received albums earlier this decade. Review By Lavender: I absolutely LOVE Madonna and there's no two ways about it. One album after another after another she has released some of the sharpest and most essential pop albums of all time throughout her career. Madonna , Like A Virgin , True Blue , Like A Prayer , Erotica , Ray Of Light  and Confessions On A Dance Floor  all make up a discography that topples nearly every other artist in pop music new and old. While the 2010's haven't been the kindest to pop's golden child I have found myself on the defensive side of both of the albums she's released so far this decade. 2012's MDNA  was met with overwhelming hate upon its re...

Offset is an Atlanta rapper and one third of superstar trap trio Migos. The group blew up over the course of a few viral singles in the mid 2010's and have exploded into one of the most popular acts in the world, and as each member has ventured off into various collaborations and solo projects Offset is the last in line to release a solo album after poorly received projects from Quavo and then Takeoff preceded Father of 4. With only one promotional singles very close to the albums release it is hard to get a read on what exactly to expect from Offset this time around. Review By Lavender: When Migos dropped Culture in early 2017 it felt like the most important album in the entire world. After Childish Gambino shouted out the groups hit Bad & Boujee and it blew up to one of the biggest hits of the year they used the album as a platform to launch a full scale takeover of the music industry. 2017 also included a flurry of features for the trio and more imitators than anybody...