Ludacris has been focused more on acting in blockbuster movies than on making music in recent years. But on his first album since 2010, he’s still the same elastically flowing shout-rap dirty bird — gleefully wilding out on Southern party jams like “Get Lit” and “Beast Mode.” At 37, Luda also… Source: RollingStone Link: Ludaversal

It’s been more than 50 years since Ringo Starr declared himself a fan of Beethoven — “especially his poems.” But all that time, he’s reigned as one of rock & roll’s most beloved sages. Postcards From Paradise, his 18th solo effort, is a masterful summary of Ringo-ness: his cheer, his cheek,… Source: RollingStone Link: Postcards From […]

The 2012 passing of Sufjan Stevens’ estranged mother, Carrie, sparked an existential crisis in the 39-year-old singer-songwriter. Here, on his most emotionally draining album, he joins Nick Drake and Elliott Smith in the canon of artists who channel suicidal thoughts into impossibly pretty songs. Stevens strips his sound far enough… Source: RollingStone Link: Carrie & […]

Kintsugi is Death Cab for Cutie’s survival record. In the years since the indie-rock heroes put out 2011’s comparatively buoyant Codes and Keys, frontman Ben Gibbard went through a public divorce from actress-singer Zooey Deschanel, and founding guitarist and producer Chris Walla began to move out of the band’s orbit…. Source: RollingStone Link: Kintsugi

The duets album is often a stroke session that involves a minimum of thought — but not for Van Morrison. Duets is as cantankerous and eccentric as any of the man’s other projects. Rather than just bring in a few glossy names to decorate his greatest hits, he digs up deep… Source: RollingStone Link: Duets: Re-Working […]

Courtney Barnett is only on her first proper album, but she’s already setting herself apart as one of the sharpest, most original songwriters around — at any level, in any genre. The Australian singer-guitarist, 27, is a self-strafing humorist à la Lena Dunham who’s also a Dylan-style word ninja, spooling out… Source: RollingStone Link: Sometimes I […]

This deep set by the great R&B-gospel mediator Roebuck “Pops” Staples is a rare example of a posthumous reclamation that feels stronger than the original might’ve been. Working with unfinished 1999 tracks (originally intended for a lost Staple Singers album), producer Jeff Tweedy isolated voices and Pops’ quicksilver guitar — like… Source: RollingStone Link: Don't Lose […]

As Lady Lamb, 25-year-old Maine native Aly Spaltro spins heavy psychedelic tales that blur the borders between reality, dream and nightmare. “Dear Arkansas Daughter” compares heartbreak to sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor over gloomy, Crazy Horse-style guitar chug. On the dark prayer “Spat Out Spit,” Spaltro wonders,… Source: RollingStone Link: After

Producer and songwriter Emile Haynie has lent his expansive, high-drama sound to albums by Kanye West, Lana Del Rey, Eminem and fun., among others. On his solo debut, he pulls together a roster of A-list friends (Del Rey, Nate Ruess, Rufus Wainwright, Lykke Li) and idols (Brian Wilson, Randy Newman)… Source: RollingStone Link: We Fall

There’s a single moment on New Wave revivalist George Lewis Jr.’s third album as Twin Shadow where he throws off his leather coat to get lost in pure ecstasy. It comes on “Old Love/New Love,” a house-beat-driven highlight that offers rave-level bliss on an album that more often sticks to… Source: RollingStone Link: Eclipse