Brandi Carlile’s seventh studio album, In These Silent Days, is due this October. The record is dropping three years after her previous album, the much-loved and multiple Grammy-winning By the Way, I Forgive You.
Interestingly, the sales for that album weren’t much higher than her previous efforts, and it climbed only a few notches higher on the Billboard chart, and yet it feels like it marked a sea change in her career.
The four-year wait for Lorde’s followup to the excellent 2017 album Melodrama is nearly done, with Solar Power due out on August 20.
I found the album’s first single, and title song, a bit underwhelming after such a long wait. But I enjoyed its breeziness, and I think it’s just fine if she doesn’t try to redefine the sound of modern pop music every time she drops a record.
When Lil Nas X set a record by placing 2018’s ‘Old Town Road’ atop the Billboard Hot 100 for 19 consecutive weeks, many people (myself included) figured he was the very definition of a one-hit wonder.
A few years later, I’m happy to have been proven so wrong, as he has churned out one hit banger after another, all in advance of a debut album that doesn’t even have a release date yet.
I’ve been underwhelmed by the new songs Billie Eilish has released from her sophomore album Happier Than Ever (which was released a few days ago as you’re reading this post, but a week after I’m writing it).
Following my lukewarm reaction to her Grammy-sweeping smash When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, I figured maybe her 2017 debut EP Don’t Smile At Me was an exception and she just isn’t my cup of tea.
Speaking of bands that could use the deep dive treatment… The Kinks surely qualify. I know very little of their work, but I’m a big fan of pretty much everything I’ve heard.
With 24 albums over 30 years, an exhaustive deep dive would be quite an endeavor. But maybe a sampling of the five to ten albums considered their best is in order.
Meet Me In Montauk 