It’s been a minute since Lizzo dropped new music, and three years since her last studio album, 2019’s Cuz I Love You. But a whole new summer of Lizzo is on the horizon, with the planned release of her fourth album, Special, a week from today.
Setting the table is the rapper-singer’s fourth Top Five single, ‘About Damn Time,’ which has been burning up TikTok for awhile. This is a disco-funk banger that instantly brightens any room — in other words, a typical Lizzo song.
The release of a new Harry Styles album is a bit like Christmas morning in my house, at least for my two daughters. They have both been Styles fans since his days with One Direction, have seen him in concert twice, and obsess over him as both an artist and a human man.
Being adjacent to all of that has made me pretty familiar with his musical output, enough to know that he’s the real deal. He has an appreciation for a wide range of artists, mostly from the 70s, that makes his work a fun exercise in “name that influence” while being fresh and enjoyable in its own right.
It’s been ten years since Lyle Lovett’s last album, 2012’s Release Me, and that record was a contractual obligation featuring only two Lovett originals among a slew of covers. Before that came another cover-heavy release, Natural Forces in 2009.
So it has really been 15 years, looking back to 2007’s It’s Not Big It’s Large, since Lovett gave us an album featuring mostly his own compositions.
A couple of weeks ago we received our first taste of Beyoncé’s first solo studio album since 2016’s Lemonade. ‘Break My Soul’ is the lead single of Renaissance, a project due on July 29 that Queen Bey calls her “most ambitious musical project to date.”
Lemonade was both a groundbreaking release — a complete visual album recorded in secret and dropped with no advance notice — and a phenomenal piece of music. It’s a tough act to follow, especially after half a decade. I eagerly anticipate the new directions Beyoncé will no doubt take on Renaissance.
Our final performer inductee into the 2014 class of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a singer-songwriter who would have made it in much sooner if his music was the only consideration.
Eligible for induction since 1992, Cat Stevens waited until 2006 to first appear on a ballot, then had a second chance in 2014, when he finally made it in.
Meet Me In Montauk 