#contemporary-vocal-music

#contemporary-vocal-music

Karaoke is community, right? Everybody can sing along and it won't make people think, Is she going to try some vocal acrobatics?' All the leather mommies and leather daddies are going to be on their feet.

The petition accuses the school of promoting OpenAI's ChatGPT, which 'steal the art of [tens of thousands] of artists and rot the essence of the industry and have devastating consequences on the environment all to create facsimiles of real human art.'

Odeal's music sits loosely within R&B, also drawing on Afrobeats, neo-soul and contemporary pop. Across his catalogue, love is rarely conclusive. Instead, songs live in emotional grey areas.

Zara Larsson could be called a veteran pop star... because there's an undertow of struggle to her glittering party-girl persona. The teen-age version of her... remains lodged in my memory—a closeted power vocalist dulling her instrument to fit catchy and anodyne tracks.

Jesca Hoop has announced a tour in support of her upcoming album Long Wave Home. Dates are with Faun Fables and include NYC's Le Poisson Rouge on June 29.

Grande appears to be teasing a new album ahead of her Eternal Sunshine tour this summer. Recent posts show her in the studio, suggesting new music is on the way.

Tiny Desk Radio features a series of home concerts that include performances by Norah Jones, gospel artist Kirk Franklin, and pop sensation Dua Lipa, showcasing their unique musical talents.

I do not turn to celebrities for trenchant political takes or honestly really expect them to know what's actually going on in the news. However, I also think that most good art engages with the world in which it's being created, and now that we're in good-art-naming season (aka awards season), ignoring that world is privileged at best and evil at worst.

Taylor has always been supportive and kind to me. Only love over here. In a separate reply, he encouraged his followers to spread love on these apps and added a rose emoji for emphasis.

R&B in the 21st century has been in a constant state of flux, tugged between safe traditionalism and blurry attempts at progression. For the last decade-plus that "progression" has seen R&B music become more indebted to trap records and the moody atmospherics of alternative bands like Radiohead, Coldplay, or My Bloody Valentine.

Natanya tears genres open and rebuilds them in her own image. Her drums swing loose and jazzy over heavy 808s; synths drift dreamily before snapping into gritty guitar riffs. Writing, producing and arranging all her own work, she weaves together neosoul silk, R&B groove, indie edge, and flashes of grunge, all carried by a buttery falsetto that nods to Aaliyah, Amy Winehouse, Janet Jackson and early Destiny's Child.

The only song here that really matters. Written just hours after the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and released a few days later, Springsteen names names (looking at you, Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem) and speaks bold, specific truth. With a title that recalls his own impactful Streets of Philadelphia, a melody reminiscent of Bob Dylan, and an urgency not felt since Neil Young's Ohio, it may not be groundbreaking musically, but Streets of Minneapolis is exactly what we need right now.

Not only does the track show off Anjimile's lush, patient vocals, it's got a pretty fascinating rhythmic structure; his drummer offsets the groove when they arrive at the chorus, almost like the song gets caught between moving too fast and too slow. That momentum really ramps up in the final refrain, complete with some guitar shredding and open hi-hat smashing. It's a great demonstration of Anjimile's tasteful ear and his ability to match a song's subject with its instrumentation.

The song reflects on two contrasting visions. In the first verse, he looks back on his childhood growing up female and compares it to living in a dream. Then, after a stirring bridge, he revisits the same reflective structure and ponders his childhood growing up as a boy: "When I was a little boy I wanted to be real/ I wanted to feel all of the things my body wanted me to feel," he sings.

With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week's batch includes new albums from Ari Lennox, Lucinda Williams, and Cat Power. Subscribe to Pitchfork's New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week.

Summer Walker has announced The Trilogy Tour 2026 which kicks off May 26 in Toronto and includes a Brooklyn show at Barclays Center on June 2 with Monaleo and Odeal who are on most dates of the tour. Along with announcing they'd signed to ANTI- after 20 years on Atlantic, Death Cab for Cutie also announced a tour that has them out with Japanese Breakfast, Jay Som, and Nation of Language.

When director Emerald Fennell needed to hire a musician to score her Wuthering Heights adaptation, only one person came to mind: Charli XCX. Not only did the British pop star accept the offer, but she used her soundtrack to capture love in all of its grandiose, moody, and elusive ways. As she described the soundtrack on her Substack, it's a "dive into persona, into a world that felt undeniably raw, wild, sexual, gothic, British, tortured and full of actual real sentences, punctuation and grammar."