Lav's Music Corner

April Don Toliver's debut record flashes unique personality but gets stuck in way to many generic trap pitfalls that makes it hard to pick it out of a lineup.  Review Joywave strips it back to basics with some frequently comfortable rock songs that rarely try to push the envelope of their songwriting or performances. Review Grouplove falls face first on their 4th record completing the dive into generic desperate attempts to achieve another rock radio hit.  Review Morrissey is creative and unrelentingly political across Chain  which makes for a wide variety subjects and performances on these songs.  Review Partymobile is definitely a few tracks long but it may surprise you how often PND pulls together slick, catchy and intimate R&B tunes. Review Dirty Projectors are back with a new line-up and lead vocalists and their return to indie folk results in a set of short but incredibly sweet tunes.  Review Dua Lip FAR exceeds the limitations of her debut record with...

Lady Gaga is one of the biggest artists in the world by all measure. Since her 2008 single Just Dance  hit #1 on the Hot 100 Stefani hasn't looked back as she released one commercially successful album and single after another. Over the years she has transitioned from the world of electro dance pop she made her debut in towards the more folk inspired album Joanne  in 2016 as well as her huge part in the A Star Is Born  soundtrack a few years later. But with the teaser tracks leading up to Chromatica Gaga signified a return to her dance floor roots and takes a dive headfirst into the sound.  Review By Lavender: If you are around my age then you have not only grown up with the music of Lady Gaga but have grown up in a world where it was inescapable. From the nauseating Born This Way  to the creative but messy Artpop  and even to the genre shifting Joanne  commercial success has followed Lady Gaga like a shadow. While Lady Gaga hasn't put out a record I t...

Gunna is an Atlanta trap artist who has emerged as a Young Thug protege and is signed to his YSL label. This is Gunna's 2nd official album but he is much more known for his collaborative project with Lil Baby Drip Harder  back in 2018. Lil Baby released his big sophomore record earlier this year to commercial success and Wunna  sees Gunna attempting to do the same.  Review By Lavender: I skipped out on reviewing Gunna up to this point for one key reason, I had nothing to say. You could describe his solo debut Drip Or Drown 2  as well as his slightly better collaborative project with Lil Baby Drip Harder  as nearly comatose generic trap records with inconsistent vibes and underwritten songs. It was clear that nobody in the process was really trying as they made music so I didn't try when it came to reviewing it. But Wunna  felt like a more significant statement from an artist who has proven to have some more commercial staying power than I anticipated given ...

Jeff Rosenstock is a New York based singer-songwriter who spent much of the 2000's with bands like Bomb The Music Industry and The Arrogant Sons Of Bitches. Despite a solo mixtape coming shortly after BTMI announced their split it was still a few years until Jeff's breakout solo moment on his debut album We Cool? . When the track Nausea  caught on like wildfire across indie blogs and music news sites he set out on a trilogy of critically acclaimed punk rock records with his distinct lo-fi flare.  Review By Lavender: Even though I wasn't fully equipped to appreciate it at the time, Bomb The Music Industry was something pretty special in its heyday, and Jeff's commitment to the lo-fi aesthetic of the work to this very day is awesome. But when Jeff broke off on the back of his debut solo album in 2015 I was all in, even more so when he followed it up with Worry, likely my favorite record he has ever released under any of his projects to date. Even though I wasn't quite...

Carly Rae Jepsen is a Canadian pop singer who released a pair of critically acclaimed albums over the last five years that both attained cult status with those who don't generally indulge in much pop music. After her last record which she allegedly wrote hundreds of songs for she released a B Sides EP that was also met with critical acclaim and spawned numerous fan favorite songs. Dedicated  however got an even more through secondary release as this is a full 40 minute record.  Review By Lavender: If it wasn't apparent enough that I've been a Carly Rae Jepsen fan for years based on the fact that both Emotion  and Dedicated  cracked my top 5 albums of their respective years, Emotion Side: B  made it onto my list of my favorite EP's the year that it came out. Given how great Carly has been I wasn't surprised that even her rejected songs were as good as her peers and I had no doubt that Dedicated  had some excellent leftovers too. I was surprised to see that t...

The 1975 are a Manchester pop rock band who has been releasing commercially and critically successful records for the better part of a decade now. Notes  follows a long run of singles in the two year gap since the bands last record and it was delayed in order to be fully completed, and the result is the groups longest record yet at 80 minutes and 22 tracks.  Review By Lav: I have been a 1975 fan for as long as the band has been around and both their self-titled debut record The 1975  and their third record A Brief History Into Online Relationships  landed on my albums of the decade list at the end of last year. Normally with a record this long with this many songs I would generalize to try and synthesize my opinions but with a bad that I have the respect and admiration for like The 1975 I want to do this right, so strap in. This record is long, indulgent and features a wide variety of sounds and genres which means making any sense of the record can be difficult but I...

The Magnetic Fields is the long running indie music project of Stephin Merritt that has released a number of heavily themed album in their nearly 30 year existence. Quickies  follows Merritt's 50 Song Memoir  which contained a song for every year of his life, and this new album is centered around shorter songs with it's 28 tracks totaling just 46 minutes.  Review By Lavender: I have been a pretty casual fan of The Magnetic Fields for a long time now. I have just as much admiration for their 1999 classic 69 Love Songs  as most people do and when they show up to drop a unique conceptual record every few years I always tune in and they usually provide a few pretty great moments. Quickies  is no different and while I won't drive myself crazy breaking down every single one of the records often brief 28 tracks I will just say that as a blanket statement I like more of these songs than I don't and I'm happy to pick out a few highlights.  The Day The Politicia...