Blackpink, “Blackpink: The Album”
When the four members of Blackpink walked offstage at Coachella in April 2019 — the first K-pop girl group to perform there — everyone who keeps up with the genre expected them to sweep the U.S. in a matter of months. A turbulent 18 months delayed their ascent, however, as the Burning Sun scandal upended their Korean label YG and COVID-19 put a stop to touring. Now after months spent tweaking the record, they’ve finally popped the cork on their full-length rap and
electro-pop-influenced debut. With singles like the smash “How You Like That?” and Selena Gomez collab “Ice Cream,” it’s as surefire a hit as anything in K-pop without BTS on the cover.
Loudon Wainwright III, “I’d Rather Lead a Band”
The veteran singer, songwriter and actor Wainwright is best known for his insightful, painfully honest folk-based songs. Rather than update his sound for millennials, “I’d Rather Lead a Band” travels back to Wainwright’s bigband-era youth. In conference with noted music supervisor Randall Poster, Wainwright dipped into the Great American Songbook, rounded up a big band and went to work. The aim, according to advance notes, was to explore songs that his parents used to have on when Wainwright was a kid “sitting at the top of the stairs while they danced together before going out on dates.” on noted experimental filmmaker and music collector Harry Smith’s famed 1951 six-album Folkways Records collection, “The Anthology of American Folk Music,” producers compiled remastered versions of those folk, blues and country songs’ B-sides. It features both the Carter Family’s foundational rural twang and Mississippi John Hurt’s sweet blues music; and mixes Southern Black jug bands with banjo-playing white coal miners.
Gorillaz, “Song Machine: Season One — Strange Timez”
2002 LP “The Rising” helped speak to the grief of 9/11, and “Letter to You” will no doubt be some kind of salve for the most divisive election in a generation. His 20th album, recorded in a five-day blitz with his longtime comrades in the E Street Band, betrays no signs of age. Recorded live at his New Jersey home studio, it’s loud and passionate and maybe the last thing you’ll be able to talk to your Republican dad about after November.
Johnny Rotten, the marvelously inyour-face singer-rapper Rico Nasty delivers rhythmic fury while reveling in the performative requirements of her job. Last year’s breakout mixtape, “Anger Management,” found her collaborating with producer Kenny Beats. For her forthcoming follow-up, Nasty has wandered even further afield from the mainstream. The first single, “iphone,” is a collaboration with experimental pop duo 100 Gecs.