Lav's Music Corner

Reviews by Lavender: For this week's rapid fire reviews, I'm taking a look at some rap albums I missed from earlier this year, with the underlying theme of artists who I absolutely adored at one point in their career. That's pretty much it, glad I finally got to talk about a lot of these. Enjoy! 13 Months Of Summer  - Amine My soft spot for Amine has been around for basically his entire career. Since the moment I first heard his song “Caroline,” overflowing with Amine's own charm and charisma, I was hooked on his catchy flows and sense of humor. On the flip side of that, I think most of his projects tend to be on the inconsistent side, including the last time we heard from him on a collaborative record with Kaytranada that seemed like a slam dunk, but didn't quite live up to it. In fact, 2020’s Limbo remains the only time in Amine's career that he's put it all together and made a truly great album.  13 Months Of Sunshine led off with a pair of vibey single...

Review by Lavender:  Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist are a pair of hip-hop veterans who first collaborated on Alfredo  in 2020. For the album, Freddie largely adapted to Alchemist's production style, delivering lowkey rapping over lush jazz-sampling beats. For that reason, it's never been a personal favorite of mine in Freddie's discography, despite how proficient and consistent the talent of both veterans is. With a lead single that feels like it meanders for far longer than it needs to, I went into this record hoping for the pair to simply operate at the level I was used to. With that expectation in mind, this was just about as good as I could hope for.  That was a complaint-heavy intro, so let me go ahead and get my gripes out of the way. Most of those gripes come in a trilogy of tracks right in the middle of the record. Much like the lead single with its lingering, unnecessary outro, "Empanadas" doesn't really feel like there's enough actual song in ...

Review by Lavender: Tyler, The Creator is a California rapper, singer, producer, and all-around creative who has been an iconoclast of music for 15 years now. Though he's certainly had his ups and downs along the way, albums like his timeless embrace of pop, 2017's  Flower Boy , have stood the test of time remarkably well. DON'T TAP THE GLASS  is Tyler's 9th album, and it arrives with virtually no rollout less than a year after 2024's CHROMAKOPIA . That album dug further than ever before into Tyler's vulnerabilities and insecurities, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. But on his new album, Tyler insists that you leave the feelings at home and try dancing instead. While the results aren't as memorable, a lot of his charm persists.  The first song in the tracklist that really blew me away was "Sugar On My Tongue." Longtime Tyler fans will recognize this immediately for what it is: a munch anthem. I love the rumbling drums in the beat and the extremely una...

Review by Lavender: Wet Leg is an English post-punk and indie rock outfit that first debuted back in 2022 to pretty enormous praise from critics. Their tongue-in-cheek revitalization of vintage post-punk struck a chord with a lot of people, myself included. I still love songs like their breakout hit "Chaise Lounge," and my personal favorite "Angelica." But when their debut album as a whole came out, I was a lot more mixed on it than most. But even then, I had a lot of excitement for the band's potential. Though it took a little longer than I anticipated, their sophomore album pays off in pretty much every way I was hoping for.  The singles for this album are among my favorite Wet Leg songs to date, none more than “catch these fists.” It's the perfect combination of the band's punchy energy with their unmistakable humor. Rousing drums on the hook are wrapped around an absolutely irresistible chorus, and their baiting calls for a fight are hilariously dry...

Clipse is the hip-hop duo of brothers Pusha T and Malice. The pair first broke through with a pair of killer albums in the early 2000s, but called it quits when Malice retired from hip-hop for almost a decade while Pusha T pursued a critically acclaimed solo career. Now the duo has re-formed with Malice fully coming out of retirement for their first new album in 16 years. Also along for the ride is Pharrell, a longtime collaborator of Clipse, who dishes out some of his best production in years throughout the record. All parties involved are amazingly still operating at their peak, and with a combination of new ambitions and timeless techniques, the pair crafted a comeback album that most artists can only ever hope for.  We will talk about the album's lead single later, but I want to start off with its stunning second single, "So Be It." It has this eerie beat that is some of the best production work Pharrell does across the entire album. It also has a hook that has been a...

Reviews by Lavender: After finally getting my thoughts out on the new Lorde album, I wanted to look back on the year so far and cover some of the mainstream pop releases I hadn't gotten the chance to yet. So, for better and very much for worse, that's what I did in this week's rapid fire reviews.  Addison  - Addison Rae TikTok star turned pop singer Addison Rae has been one of the most divisive pop storylines of 2025 so far. While she doesn't have anywhere near the most haters of any of the artists we will talk about on this list, a lot of people seem to find her music agonizingly boring and hold her up as an example of why influencers should stay influencers. (Though I'd argue Alex Warren is a much better example.) But there's also a subset of surprisingly devoted Addison Rae fans, and not just among TikTok refugees and teenage pop stans. Actual music critics have been quick to praise her work, and looking at some of the singles from this record, I totally see ...

Review by Lavender: Lorde has developed into one of the most beloved pop stars of the past 15 years. Her 2013 debut album Pure Heroine  was packed full of stark, youthful pop songs like the landscape-altering mega-hit "Royals" and the critically-acclaimed masterpiece "Ribs." She doubled down on that impressive debut with 2017's Melodrama , which, when all is said and done, stood as one of the best pop albums of the entire decade. But her first outing of the 2020s Solar Power  was nowhere near as interesting sonically or thematically. After seemingly undergoing quite a lot of maturity as a songwriter in just 4 years, Lorde returned with an album that feels like a true grown-up version of her beloved sound and style.  Virgin 's lead single is probably my least favorite of the three, and I still think it's great, how's that for a start? Despite some silly lyrics, “What Was That” is genuinely propulsive, especially on the hook, where it really does feel ...