It’s easy to be popular and commercial. It is less so to be popular, commercial AND brilliant. Yelich-O’Connor, aka Lorde, runs straight into this category reserved to a fortunate few. With Melodrama, the young New Zealander confirms a talent that was already impressive on Pure Heroine, her first album from 2013 released when she was only 16! All the elements of the pop identity are there. Lorde talks about herself, about being a 20 year old woman from the suburbs, about her dreams, solitude and ennui, about the transition to adulthood, about love of course, and also about disillusionment. In short, no pop cliché is missing. Lorde works wonders with the raw material accessible to all. Without trying to make the genre appear more complex, and staying firmly rooted in it, she establishes her singularity, her style, her name. “Writing Pure Heroine was my way of enshrining our teenage glory, putting it up in lights forever so that part of me never dies. Well, Melodrama is about what comes next... The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world.” With this second album, she highlights even more the quality of her writing, and of her voice too. Musically, there is no lurid effect because everything is done to magnify the song, and nothing but the song. In a way, the mastery radiating from Melodrama puts her closer to Madonna, Elton John or Kate Bush than to Katy Perry or Miley Cyrus. And in her post teenager coating, she almost offers the ingenuousness of a rather mature soul singer… In short, such an understanding of the pop dialect at only 20 is rather astounding… © CM/Qobuz

One of the underrated aspects of Drake's charm is his prowess as a vocalist. Paired with the right mood or set of lyrics, he can conjure up a pretty convincing case that he's something of an R&B visionary. On the albums leading up to 2022's Honestly, Nevermind, Drake seemed to mostly forget his status, focusing mainly on rapping over dragging trap beats and only rarely showing off his skills as a singer. Amazingly, at some point prior to the recording of the album, trap fever seems to have broken and some different flavors finally started to creep back into the mix. Working with an array of producers including longtime ally 40, Carnage, and Black Coffee, Drake touches on new sounds like house music and Baltimore club, delves into guitar jazz fleetingly, and only invites a couple guests along to contribute instead of the usual cast of hundreds. It makes for one of his most varied and interesting records, with a melancholy, slightly defensive lyrical viewpoint that's familiar to all who have ever heard a Drake song, but here it feels somehow like the words cut a little closer to the bone. Perhaps it's the fact that he keeps the focus pointed directly at himself and doesn't bring anyone else in to distract from his litany of desperate heartbreaks, bitter revenge fantasies, hurt feelings, and romantic betrayals. Unlike his recent albums where the listener might have felt locked in with no escape from the darker side of Drake's psyche thanks to the monochromatic production, here one could choose to ignore the deluge of self-pity and focus instead on the rollicking late-night house jams ("Texts Go Green"), slippery club ballads ("Flight's Booked" and the sample-damaged, Mr. Fingers-sounding "Massive"), bubbly summer tunes ("Down Hill"), and the slinky "Tie That Binds," which brings just a touch of Latin soul to the proceedings. Of course, it's never exactly fun, since there is a thick coat of ghostly synth pads and backing vocals pulling the clouds over any hint of sun. Nobody really comes to a Drake record for fun, though; they come for a mood, and this record delivers it fully, only wrapped in some new, almost bright threads. There are a few tracks where Drake does some rapping: the pumping Baltimore-influenced "Sticky" is the most fun, while the album-ending, 21 Savage-featuring "Jimmy Cooks" is typical boasty Drake, but since it's an outlier, it has a little more impact than when it's surrounded by 20 more of them. Honestly, Nevermind is a welcome development in the Drake saga, a left turn off what was starting to seem like an endless stretch of trap-heavy highway. The destination is still sad and self-involved, but at least the scenery is colorful and never boring. © Tim Sendra /TiVo

Carly Pearce named her 2021 project -- an album teased as a mini-LP in February, then delivered in full as 29: Written in Stone in September -- after a tumultuous year in her life, 12 months that saw her get married and divorced and lose her close collaborator busbee to cancer. Pearce found empathetic collaborators in Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, a pair of Nashville heavyweights who help the singer/songwriter process these significant life changes by co-writing a collection of seven songs where she grapples with loss and growth, often in a quiet, introspective fashion. There are exceptions to this rule, of course. With help from Patty Loveless, Pearce sings an effectively gritty tribute to Loretta Lynn, "You're Drinkin', My Problem" is much more effervescent than the title suggests, while the project's lead single, "Next Girl," is a sprightly kiss-off. "Next Girl" is poppy but in a retro sense -- it has none of the bright modern sheen busbee brought to his productions -- and it helps set the stage for six keening, searching autobiographical tunes. While Pearce's lyrics can occasionally be a bit too on-the-nose -- it's not that she delves into personal details, it's that she ties up her messy emotions with a tidy bow -- her vulnerability is endearing, and the craftsmanship, aided by producers Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, is sturdy, so the music retains its appeal even after the stories become familiar. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

5 stars out of 5 -- "SWAY is the one that’ll cement Styrke’s place as nouveau-pop royalty....Crafted over the past 18 months, Styrke’s third album is a soundtrack to falling in love and navigating its complexities."© TiVo

Download not available

One of the underrated aspects of Drake's charm is his prowess as a vocalist. Paired with the right mood or set of lyrics, he can conjure up a pretty convincing case that he's something of an R&B visionary. On the albums leading up to 2022's Honestly, Nevermind, Drake seemed to mostly forget his status, focusing mainly on rapping over dragging trap beats and only rarely showing off his skills as a singer. Amazingly, at some point prior to the recording of the album, trap fever seems to have broken and some different flavors finally started to creep back into the mix. Working with an array of producers including longtime ally 40, Carnage, and Black Coffee, Drake touches on new sounds like house music and Baltimore club, delves into guitar jazz fleetingly, and only invites a couple guests along to contribute instead of the usual cast of hundreds. It makes for one of his most varied and interesting records, with a melancholy, slightly defensive lyrical viewpoint that's familiar to all who have ever heard a Drake song, but here it feels somehow like the words cut a little closer to the bone. Perhaps it's the fact that he keeps the focus pointed directly at himself and doesn't bring anyone else in to distract from his litany of desperate heartbreaks, bitter revenge fantasies, hurt feelings, and romantic betrayals. Unlike his recent albums where the listener might have felt locked in with no escape from the darker side of Drake's psyche thanks to the monochromatic production, here one could choose to ignore the deluge of self-pity and focus instead on the rollicking late-night house jams ("Texts Go Green"), slippery club ballads ("Flight's Booked" and the sample-damaged, Mr. Fingers-sounding "Massive"), bubbly summer tunes ("Down Hill"), and the slinky "Tie That Binds," which brings just a touch of Latin soul to the proceedings. Of course, it's never exactly fun, since there is a thick coat of ghostly synth pads and backing vocals pulling the clouds over any hint of sun. Nobody really comes to a Drake record for fun, though; they come for a mood, and this record delivers it fully, only wrapped in some new, almost bright threads. There are a few tracks where Drake does some rapping: the pumping Baltimore-influenced "Sticky" is the most fun, while the album-ending, 21 Savage-featuring "Jimmy Cooks" is typical boasty Drake, but since it's an outlier, it has a little more impact than when it's surrounded by 20 more of them. Honestly, Nevermind is a welcome development in the Drake saga, a left turn off what was starting to seem like an endless stretch of trap-heavy highway. The destination is still sad and self-involved, but at least the scenery is colorful and never boring. © Tim Sendra /TiVo

Minneapolis rapper Prof attacks rhymes in the same way that Jackass' Stevo-O attacks an exposed nail or a bathtub full of tarantulas. Dig his album Liability's hyper single "Bar Breaker," and listen to the way this lyrical stuntman barks out some Kool Keith-like rhymes ("Quick, grab the trophies/You can leave behind the opium") but at a breakneck speed, and then know that the great "I Had Sex in the '90s" delivers on its glorious title. Guest shots from Tech N9ne ("Ghost") and Petey Pablo ("King") represent how weird and wild this guy plays it, but the local emo kids Atmosphere love the man as well, and they're likely appreciative that his brand of chaos is crafted as it comes. Liability is proof that Prof is an off-kilter but discerning MC. © David Jeffries /TiVo

Minneapolis rapper Prof attacks rhymes in the same way that Jackass' Stevo-O attacks an exposed nail or a bathtub full of tarantulas. Dig his album Liability's hyper single "Bar Breaker," and listen to the way this lyrical stuntman barks out some Kool Keith-like rhymes ("Quick, grab the trophies/You can leave behind the opium") but at a breakneck speed, and then know that the great "I Had Sex in the '90s" delivers on its glorious title. Guest shots from Tech N9ne ("Ghost") and Petey Pablo ("King") represent how weird and wild this guy plays it, but the local emo kids Atmosphere love the man as well, and they're likely appreciative that his brand of chaos is crafted as it comes. Liability is proof that Prof is an off-kilter but discerning MC. © David Jeffries /TiVo

Minneapolis rapper Prof attacks rhymes in the same way that Jackass' Stevo-O attacks an exposed nail or a bathtub full of tarantulas. Dig his album Liability's hyper single "Bar Breaker," and listen to the way this lyrical stuntman barks out some Kool Keith-like rhymes ("Quick, grab the trophies/You can leave behind the opium") but at a breakneck speed, and then know that the great "I Had Sex in the '90s" delivers on its glorious title. Guest shots from Tech N9ne ("Ghost") and Petey Pablo ("King") represent how weird and wild this guy plays it, but the local emo kids Atmosphere love the man as well, and they're likely appreciative that his brand of chaos is crafted as it comes. Liability is proof that Prof is an off-kilter but discerning MC. © David Jeffries /TiVo