1998
1998 Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2025 Coez
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Tropicoqueta
Tropicoqueta Album ∙ Latin ∙ 2025 KAROL G With every album since 2017’s Unstoppable , KAROL G progressively moved beyond expectations. Clearly not content with being the top reggaetonera on the scene, the Colombian singer refined and repositioned herself with each new full-length, from the beach dreaminess of OCEAN through the diverse sides of her MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO era. Her unapologetic eagerness to cross genre lines while still building with longtime allies like Ovy On the Drums grew her global fanbase exponentially, outpacing just about everyone else in Latin music who emerged during the mid-2010s boom. Now fully vested in the trappings of megastardom, she offers what is easily her most ambitious album to date in Tropicoqueta , its titular portmanteau a marked pivot that reflects how reggaetón’s baddest bichota successfully evolved into one of the world’s biggest pop artists. Among the album’s triumphs is just how at ease KAROL sounds on these 20 s...
Idols
Idols Album ∙ Alternative ∙ 2025 YUNGBLUD “Would this be the album you would expect me to make next?” Dominic Harrison, better known as perky pop punk YUNGBLUD, asks Apple Music. “Fuck no.” Idols is an ambitious, swaggering affair, from the nine-minute-long opener “Hello Heaven, Hello” to the heart-on-a-ripped-open-sleeve opus “Supermoon.” YUNGBLUD actually started making Idols , his fourth studio album, after his second, 2020’s weird! , but the timing wasn’t right. So he made 2022’s YUNGBLUD instead. Now, it’s time for Idols . “This is not an album for your head, it’s an album for your chest,” he says. “It’s five-dimensional. Limitless. Everyone’s had a lot of opinions about YUNGBLUD, which I think is beautiful, good and bad, because that means my art’s doing something to people. But I really want to show that I could orchestrate and I have imagination to use horns, brass, strings, and classical elements.” Idols swings from big, bold stadium ro...
Hollow - EP
Hollow - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 Stray Kids In 2025, Stray Kids used their third Japanese mini album, Hollow , to sing and rap about the highs and lows of life as an active, successful K-pop group, exploring feelings of emptiness despite success and defiant pride in the face of criticism across five tracks. Stray Kids released Hollow in the middle of their global dominATE tour, eight years into their career. The context is vital for a self-produced album that gets emotional but never strays far from Stray Kids’ signature high-energy bravado or the buoyant urgency of the J-rock sensibility from which it occasionally borrows. Title track “Hollow” is the most explicit in the album’s exploration of a deep loneliness, not easily shaken. “I embrace everything and run, but why do I feel hollow?/Loneliness haunts me no matter where I am, I’m alone,” Han sings in the chorus, shining some light on the realities of life as a hard-working K-pop idol. In the rat-tat-tat of “Parade,...
Olamidé
Olamidé Album ∙ African ∙ 2025 Olamide Since first making waves in 2011, Nigerian singer, rapper, and YBNL label head Olamide has released 10 albums, numerous hits, and shepherded the careers of chart-toppers such as Asake, Young Jonn, Fireboy DML, and Lil Kesh. He hasn’t restricted himself to Afropop, fùjí, rap, or R&B; he has been an Afropop innovator, with a voice which he variously modulates across genres, a knack for indelible hooks that reflects his fùjí music heritage, and a non-hierarchical collaborative spirit. Now, with his 11th album, 2025’s self-titled Olamidé —which means “wealth” in Yoruba—the artist turns inward without being indulgent, the focus never straying from the songmaking even when the source of some songs is personal and private. “I name things how I feel them,” he tells Apple Music. “I wanted to create more mellow sounds for listeners who prefer laid‐back tracks over heavy drums. Knowing there’s fans who love that keeps me motivated to perfect each re...
V8
V8 Album ∙ Regional Indian ∙ 2025 Jass Bajwa , Mandeep Maavi , Desi Crew & Black Virus The artist powers up a kinetic blend of bhangra, pop and hip-hop.
bomb - EP
bomb - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2025 ILLIT Naming their third mini album bomb was clearly a statement of intent for a nascent girl group like ILLIT. The South Korean-based multinational act embellishes their signature beat-driven-yet-dreamy sound on five tracks that incorporate a modern vintage feeling (“little monster”) and playful moods (the boisterous “oops!”). In particular, the lead single “Billyeoon Goyangi (Do the Dance)” compares the thrill and trepidation of a first date to the shyness of a “borrowed cat” over chic French house beats. Exclusively for Apple Music, the group’s five members take us through the record, track by track. “little monster” Yunah: “‘little monster’ is built around a vintage-inspired, simple sound and an addictive hook. The lyrical feel of the vocals really adds to the vibe of the track. In the lyrics, the ‘monsters’ represent all the negative emotions, like sorrow or gloom, that bother us. The point here is cheerfully saying that we’re going to gob...
