“Say it with your chest,” aja monet commands in the opening seconds of the color of rain. The phrase, popularized by an old Kevin Hart bit, tends to be a taunt, but monet freaks it. With growing vim, she likens a chest to an engine waiting to be fired, the cavity within to a “darling darkness,” the heart to a tenderly cupped firefly-each metaphor diluting the machismo of the saying.
“I like to be silly,” she said. “I also wanted an artist name that felt lucky. I'm a Sagittarius rising, which means my chart is ruled by Jupiter, the planet of luck. When I started making music, I was anxious all the time. The name helped me feel confident enough to keep pursuing it. I also like the work of bell hooks, a feminist writer and social critic, who uses lowercase to decenter identity and challenge hierarchy.”
We are looking for something that we've never seen or heard before. We're looking sometimes for things that we don't even know we want. And that's what we got in this song called 'Welcome' by a Utah group called The King Will Come.
Metalachi takes the pumping, undeniable, brass-winded sounds and haunted soul of Mariachi and combines forces with metal songs. Out of Los Angeles, and composed of classically trained musicians, this isn't a schlock shop enterprise.
Fargo feels like Blood Simple, the Coens' neo-noir debut, got fed through the genre, well, woodchipper, producing a pitch-black comedy about the emptiness of greed. It's messing with you from the moment it opens with a blatant lie about being a true story, with Joel Coen later saying, 'If an audience believes that something's based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they may otherwise not accept.'
It's a film that uses James Whale's 1935 classic Bride of Frankenstein as the jumping-off point for a horror-gangster-musical-romance mashup starring Jessie Buckley as the titular reanimated character and Christian Bale as Frank, her stitched-together swain. Whatever its other qualities, The Bride! is unquestionably a huge swing of a movie, one that kicks off with Mary Shelley herself speaking to the camera from a black-and-white purgatory.
The artist has described herself as a black hole where people can dump their feelings, but her music moves beyond ugly emotions toward catharsis. "Still, nobody wants me / And I know no one will save me, I'm just asking for a kiss / Give me one good movie kiss and I'll be all right," she sings on her 2018 nu-disco single "Nobody," her voice at once covetous and wistful.
Albarn and Hewlett, joined by producers James Ford, Samuel Egglenton, percussionist Remi Kabaka Jr. and Argentine EDM DJ Bizarrap, recorded the album all over the world, making for their most cosmopolitan affair yet, and mostly for the better. While unexpected artistic pairings have become less novel in their quarter century since 2001's Gorillaz broke down genre lines, Albarn still has a flair for the unexpected.
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.
Great cinema has never died, but there's something particularly heartening about the fact that it survived 2025. Looking back at this turbulent year, rife with the usual industry concerns over the viability of the theatrical experience, young people's slipping attention spans, and Hollywood's overreliance on franchises, unearths a diverse crop of gems. Many of my favorite films were major studio releases-blockbusters, even-that challenged audiences in innovative, surprising ways.
'The albums are journeys of discovery,' he says. 'They're adventures in rock music-but not just rock music now. We sometimes play around with bits of country, folk, and even Italian cinematic music. We close the album with 'Weekend in Rome.''
What began as casual rehearsals in a basement has evolved into a polished, high-energy sound that blends the city's grit with a fearless approach to experimentation. Pan Arcadia is a five-piece band that has grown from high school jam sessions to one of New York's most exciting rising acts. Hailing primarily from New York, with drummer Brian representing Connecticut, the group's members met in middle and high school and have been making music together ever since.
I say this every year, but it does become more true: The width and breadth of what we loosely call Latin music is astounding. In fact, this may be the year that I finally stop using that term altogether. Consider the stylistic gaps in these top 10 lists: Mexican American country/Americana, jazz, Puerto Rican folk music, Barcelona-based experimental acoustic music, an ethereal film soundtrack from a Brazilian classical cellist and a couple of Afro Caribbean-based burners it truly defies any categorization.
I think I've always admired and somewhat envy people that know just exactly who they are. I have a couple of friends in my life, they show me pictures of them as a baby, and they look the same. You look at pictures of me as a child, and I'm in a Hannah wig, and then I'm making Bangerz I'm all over the place. I've just never really been a super consistent person.
moves through LA as if she's mastered the art of turning daily life into a slow ritual. Her mornings begin with Lavender Honey Spice at M Street Coffee, afternoons slip between art posts and studio sessions, and nights belong to The LA Flakes, her all-women rock band that plays like they've got something to prove but no one to impress.
4Batz isn't waiting quietly for his debut album to arrive. With Still Shinin' slated to drop September 12, the Dallas-born rapper-singer is feeding anticipation with "my lil shootah," a moody, R&B-laced single that continues to showcase his unconventional approach to songwriting. Known for blunt lyricism and an ability to bend genres into his own shape, 4Batz delivers something that feels both throwback and contemporary, tapping into the minimalist intimacy of 2010s Drake while drawing from the smoother textures of '90s slow jams.
