F=1/T

Whiplash - The 5th Mini Album - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 aespa Five months after the release of their first studio album   Armageddon , which included the megahit “Supernova,” aespa returned with   Whiplash . The six-track EP is the girl group’s fifth mini album since their explosive debut on the K-pop scene in 2020, and it continues their reign as the queens of hyperpop hooks. “One look, give ’em whiplash/Beat drop with a big flash,” cool girls Giselle, Karina, Ningning, and Winter express on the title track, an EDM-driven dance track about aespa’s ability to make everyone look twice. Elsewhere on the album, the intentionally abrasive hip-hop dance song “Kill It” is simultaneously a declaration of K-pop dominance and a warning to any haters in the audience (“I’ma shine as I watch the bodies drop”), while the R&B track “Flights, Not Feelings” slows things down to confess a commitment to letting go of negative feelings (“I'm not tryna hurt myself, tryna burn myself”). “Pink Hoodi

I'LL LIKE YOU - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 ILLIT Girl-group rookies ILLIT returned in late 2024 with   I’LL LIKE YOU , a five-track follow-up to their debut EP   SUPER REAL ME . The latter included the fleet-footed pop magic of “Magnetic,” one of the breakout K-pop singles of 2024, and   I’LL LIKE YOU   is constructed to continue the TikTok virality while also building the young group’s dreamy discography of bubbly young-love songs. In a debut year where ILLIT’s debut single perhaps broke out more than the group itself, single “I’ll Like You” explicitly calls to mind the group’s name, a moniker that is constructed for fans to choose their own verb to place between “I’ll” and “it.” A slight track in both length and construction, “I’ll Like You” invites listeners into the teen girls’ pop-youth perspective on innocent attraction: “When I look at you/The world is in a moment, filter mode on.” In “Cherish (My Love),” the theme of a willful young love continues, starting with the lulling de

Somliga av oss Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2024 Thåström

Livet, döden, skiten däremellan Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2024 Miss Li

KM 33 - EP Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 JC Reyes

HOTEL MALIGNO Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 Los Diozes

DESTINO 2014 (49 EDITION) Album ∙ Urbano latino ∙ 2024 Raul Clyde

3AM (LA LA LA) Album ∙ Dance ∙ 2024 Confidence Man “We’re very lucky to move here and we’ve been loving it,” Confidence Man’s Sugar Bones—Aidan Moore—tells Apple Music, reflecting on the act’s relocation to London. “[We’re] figuring it out and just having lots of fun in a new place. And it really rubbed off on this album.” Energetically co-fronted by Moore and fellow vocalist Janet Planet (Grace Stephenson) over dynamic, nostalgic backing from producers Reggie Goodchild and Clarence McGuffie, Confidence Man taps into that fresh thrill of exploring a new place on its third album. From the nocturnal headiness of the title track to the bratty festival fun of “BREAKBEAT”—on which Planet announces that she’s not dropping the pill in her pocket until she hears the titular rhythmic flourish—the record celebrates partying at any hour in any setting. Read on as Moore takes us behind the scenes on five extra-playful tracks in particular. “WHO KNOWS WHAT YOU’LL FIND?” “This song took a while to p

LYFESTYLE Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 Yeat The enigma born Noah Olivier Smith—better known as Yeat, to use the word “known” loosely—broke through in 2021 as a maverick of rage-rap. These days, the 24-year-old exists in his own orbit entirely, recording and engineering his own songs that are possibly informed by extraterrestrial wisdom and rife with bizarro ad-lib soundscapes, dystopian-sounding beats, and non sequiturs that could either be profound or total nonsense. (And umlauts inserted where no one has ever dared to insert umlauts before, naturally.) The songs across his deep, curious catalog sound like World War 16 battle cries, or the moment a UFO beam makes contact with a cornfield, or the sound of an old world being replaced with a new one. Yeat’s known (again, loosely) for his strange preoccupations: sui generis slang terms, face-shielding headgear, bells and flutes.   LYFESTYLE , his fifth studio album, shows off a handful of new obsessions: telling lies, gazing with wonderment

Que Sigan Llegando Las Pacas Album ∙ Latin ∙ 2024 Chino Pacas “Everything happened so fast,” Chino Pacas tells Apple Music. “It’s been a short while, but even my voice has changed. The transition of adolescence has become noticeable.” Cristian Humberto Ávila, the boy from Apaseo el Alto, Guanajuato, was only 16 when he decided to record his first song: “El Gordo Trae El Mando” was a corrido that someone had commissioned from him, and he decided to share it online on a whim. Soon after, he had signed a record deal and collaborated with major genre artists, and his future seemed bright. “ Ya no la bajo y ni pienso bajar   [I’m not going down, don’t even think about it],” he sings on “Dijeron Que No La Iba Lograr,” a statement of purpose that is now confirmed with the release of his first album. On the day of his 18th birthday, Pacas dropped   Que Sigan Llegando Las Pacas , his full-length debut and an official landing in the major leagues. The album assembles his most notorious songs—bot

Goodbye Horses Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 ian ian went from being a bubbling, enticing prospect to one of rap’s hottest commodities in a matter of a few months in 2024. What began with breakthrough single “Figure It Out” snowballed into the breakthrough success of his May debut,  Valedictorian . If that project is a summation of his life and influences, its follow-up,  Goodbye Horses , is an attempt to define and showcase the breadth of his vision. “Till I Die” features 2010s Chicago trap horns and an Auto-Tuned vocal performance from the St. Louis-born rapper. The molasses-thick flow gives way to a bevy of double-time bars, which highlight ian’s dexterity on the mic. Elsewhere, on “Sh*t Sad,” he recruits Chief Keef for another trap-leaning banger that employs the yearning melodies of emo rap to give the song a dash of pathos. It’s a trick ian employs throughout the project, but one that produces some of the most memorable moments of  Goodbye Horses .

Don't Mind If I Do Album ∙ Country ∙ 2024 Riley Green Riley Green’s third album opens with some sage advice. On “That’s a Mistake,” a warm and tender track with ’90s Tim McGraw vibes, Green runs through a laundry list of minor miscalculations—forgetting to get an oil change, perpetually running late—before revealing the kind of misstep that leaves a lasting impression: a romantic one. It’s an understated opening to Green’s boldest release yet, one that finds the Alabama-born star pushing himself as both a songwriter and a vocalist. Standout tracks on the record, which follows 2023’s   Ain’t My Last Rodeo , include “Turnin’ Dirt,” a laidback ode to blue-collar life, and “Don’t Mind If I Do,” an emotional duet with country singer-songwriter Ella Langley. The record wraps with the hit song “Worst Way,” a soulful solo write that shows off Green’s sultry side. Green wrote four of the album’s 18 tracks by himself, telling Apple Music that he’s unlocked a new level of artistry since refra

STABBED & SHOT 2 Album ∙ Rap ∙ 2024 Benny the Butcher   &   38 Spesh The NY state rappers reunite for a second installment of hard street tales.

SABLE, - EP Album ∙ Alternative ∙ 2024 Bon Iver Justin Vernon was just a few years removed from self-releasing his now legendary debut—2007’s   For Emma, Forever Ago , recorded in wintry solitude—when he won an actual Grammy Award for its more polished follow-up in 2012. He’d become famous enough to watch his backstory become a punchline and his likeness parodied by Justin Timberlake on   Saturday Night Live . (Timberlake would attempt to borrow the same mystique for his 2018 album,   Man of the Woods .) You can understand why Vernon would want to change the subject for a time. For nearly a decade, he’s obscured some part of himself, hidden behind symbols and numbers, bandannas and bandmates, vocoders and vast collages of bleep and bloop—not to mention a still astonishing list of celebrity collaborators to whom he’s been more than happy to cede the limelight, Taylor Swift chief among them. The three-song   SABLE,   EP is immediately notable because it finds Vernon running it back, retu

Containers Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 Night Skinny

ESCI DAL TUNNEL Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 Simba La Rue

CALMOCOBRA Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2024 Tananai

BISHA Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 Il Ghost The rapper unmasks complex realities shaped between Italy and Albania.

The Secret of Us (Deluxe) Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2024 Gracie Abrams Gracie Abrams may be fresh off her teenage years, but she’s old enough to know risk and reward belong together. That’s part of why she’s done leading with fear on her stripped-down new record   The Secret of Us . She tells Apple Music: “This album is kind of like the inner tornado, I guess, when you’re trying to present a way and then it just doesn’t actually really ultimately work.” Since Abrams began releasing music in 2019, the singer-songwriter has homed in on emotional leaps of faith, her tremulous vocals expertly evoking the tear-splattered diary scribbles a great young love inspires. On   The Secret of Us , she takes stock of every crush and contradiction that led her to this chapter, reflecting the glow of formative past romances through soft prisms of pop, folk, and indie rock. The through line between these different shades of Gracie’s warm style, of course, is the kind of intimate writing she developed in a private j

Tension II Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2024 Kylie Minogue It’s not hard to see why Kylie Minogue wanted to keep the   Tension   era going. The Princess of Pop’s 2023 record—her 16th—met the moment and set the mood, captured best by “Padam Padam,” the unexpectedly viral hit that ruled over summer ’23 in what will always be known as the “Padamic.” Released just over a year on from that record, this sequel is a celebration of that career high—and a collection that feels primed to get the party started again ahead of 2025’s global   Tension   tour. Tension II   lives in the same world as its predecessor, but here, things feel darker, clubbier, later-night. And as for all the original’s sexual tension? It   still   hasn’t been broken. Across these tracks, Kylie’s overpowered by “electric energy” (on the disco-laced, ABBA-recalling “Taboo”) and “raw emotion” (“Kiss Bang Bang”); by 4am, she’s even standing outside someone’s door on the rushing “Hello,” unable to stay away. If on   Tension   Kylie felt ultr