Instead, listening to Love in Exile, which also features Shahzad Ismaily on bass and Moog, is more akin to visiting some sort of beautiful, strange sonic landscape made from strings, keys, and breath. Nor is it “global music” - whatever that means - even though it showcases Urdu vocalist Arooj Aftab, who won a Grammy in that category last year. Love In Exile is not jazz, despite featuring pianist Vijay Iyer, a heavy in that world. Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, and Shahzad Ismaily You feel the burden she’s carrying as it crushes her back, and quite often it is beautiful. Anohni’s voice sounds delicate, angry, and exhausted, as she grieves track by track - for the unfulfilled promises of civil rights, for friends lost to drugs and depression, for the immolation of a world succumbing to ecocide. Every track on My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross feels like a Greek statue frozen in some tragic visage of horror. Johnson, who graces My Back’s cover - has carried the weight of her worries for decades. AnohniĪnohni and her band, the Johnsons - named in honor of gay-rights activist Marsha P. On Fountain Baby, Amaarae doubles down on the thrill and amps up the danger, pulling influences from Afro rhythms, Asian standards, and punk-rock rage for a brooding adventure through her world. AmaaraeĪmaarae has been wild and thorough since her excellent 2020 breakthrough, The Angel You Don’t Know, featuring the luxurious and lusty “Sad Gurlz Love Money,” which quickly went viral and attracted a remix with the similarly decadent Kali Uchis. Abrams might have a delicate voice, she might even sing about blocking an ex on the internet, but the way she can deliver seething lines in an angelic whisper sets her apart from her bedroom-pop peers. Proclaimed as “Gen Z’s melancholy maven” in a Rolling Stonefeature earlier this year, Abrams harnesses the emotions of the rising generation into a unique sound full of soft-spoken, simple melodies that are steeped in sadness but still pack a punch. In her stunning debut, one of pop music’s most promising stars sticks the landing in more ways than one. Here are our favorite LPs of 2023 so far, unranked and in alphabetical order. Along with blockbusters by Miley Cyrus, Janelle Monáe, Lil Yachty, boygenius, and Lana Del Rey, this year has given us an exciting new crop of promising pop stars like GALE and Gracie Abrams, a pair of great BTS solo joints, brilliant music from rap radicals like Danny Brown (with JPEGMAFIA) and billy woods (with Kenny Segal), innovative R&B from Jordan Ward and Amaarae, plus much, much more.
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