Teyana Taylor – Audiofemme

AF 2020 IN REVIEW: Our Favorite Albums & Singles of The Year

In a year that’s been like no other for the music industry, it feels a bit weird to make a best of 2020 list – there have been no tours, venues and clubs across the globe are in danger of closing their doors for good, release schedules were shuffled beyond recognition, and musicians have had to find other ways to make ends meet while those in the U.S. await the next round of paltry stimulus checks. With a situation so dire, the metrics have changed – should we ascribe arbitrary value to the skill of producers, songwriters, performers, and the execution of their finished projects, or simply celebrate records that made us feel like the whole world wasn’t crumbling?

Definitively ranking releases has never been the Audiofemme model for looking back on the year in music. Instead, our writers each share a short list of what moved them most, in the hopes that our readers will find something that moves them, too. Whether you spent the lockdown voraciously listening to more new music this year than ever before, or fell back on comforting favorites, or didn’t have the headspace to absorb the wealth of music inspired by the pandemic, the variety here emphasizes how truly essential music can be to our well-being. If you’re in the position to do so, support your favorite artists and venues by buying merch, and check out the National Independent Venue Association to stay updated on what’s happening with the Save Our Stages act. Here’s to a brighter 2021.

EDITOR LISTS

Marianne White (Executive Director)
- Top 10 Albums:
  1) Mary Lattimore – Silver Ladders
  2) the Microphones – Microphones in 2020
  3) Soccer Mommy – Color Theory
  4) Megan Thee Stallion – Good News
  5) Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
  6) Amaarae – The Angel You Don’t Know
  7) Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia
  8) Adrianne Lenker – songs/instrumentals
  9) Perfume Genius – Set My Heart On Fire Immediately
  10) Lomelda – Hannah
- Top 5 Singles:
  1) Kinlaw – “Permissions”
  2) Billie Eilish – “Therefore I Am”
  3) Little Dragon & Moses Sumney – “The Other Lover”
  4) Yves Tumor – “Kerosene!”
  5) Megan Thee Stallion – “Shots Fired”

Lindsey Rhoades (Editor-in-Chief)
- Top 10 Albums:
  1) Land of Talk – Indistinct Conversations
  2) Dehd – Flower of Devotion
  3) SAULT – Untitled (Black Is)/Untitled (Rise)
  4) Public Practice – Gentle Grip
  5) Cindy Lee – What’s Tonight to Eternity
  6) Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters
  7) Benny Yurco – You Are My Dreams
  8) Eve Owen – Don’t Let the Ink Dry
  9) Porridge Radio – Every Bad
  10) Jess Cornelius – Distance
- Top 10 Singles:
  1) Little Hag – “Tetris”
  2) Elizabeth Moen – “Creature of Habit”
  3) Yo La Tengo – “Bleeding”
  4) Caribou – “Home”
  5) Jess Williamson – “Pictures of Flowers”
  6) Adrianne Lenker – “anything”
  7) Nicolás Jaar – “Mud”
  8) Soccer Mommy – “Circle the Drain”
  9) New Fries – “Ploce”
  10) El Perro Del Mar – “The Bells”

STAFF LISTS

Alexa Peters (Playing Seattle)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Deep Sea Diver – Impossible Weight
  2) Blimes and Gab – Talk About It
  3) Perfume Genius – Set My Heart On Fire Immediately
  4) Tomo Nakayama – Melonday
  5) Matt Gold – Imagined Sky
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Stevie Wonder – “Can’t Put it in the Hands of Fate”
  2) Tomo Nakayama – “Get To Know You”
  3) Ariana Grande – “Positions”

Amanda Silberling (Playing Philly)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Frances Quinlan – Likewise
  2) Bartees Strange – Live Forever
  3) Told Slant – Point the Flashlight and Walk
  4) Diet Cig – Do You Wonder About Me?
  5) Shamir – Shamir
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Kississippi – “Around Your Room”
  2) Sad13 – “Hysterical”
  3) The Garages – “Mike Townsend (Is a Disappointment)”

Ashley Prillaman (Contributor)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Perfume Genius – Set My Heart On Fire Immediately
  2) Lasse Passage – Sunwards
  3) Megan Thee Stallion – Good News
  4) Grimes – Miss Anthropocene
  5) Yves Tumor – Heaven To A Tortured Mind
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Megan Thee Stallion – “B.I.T.C.H.”
  2) Perfume Genius – “On the Floor”
  3) SG Lewis & Robyn – “Impact” (feat. Robyn & Channel Tres)

Cat Woods (Playing Melbourne)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Jarvis Cocker – Beyond the Pale
  2) Róisín Murphy – Róisín Machine
  3) Run the Jewels – RTJ4
  4) Emma Donovan & The Putbacks – Crossover
  5) Various Artists – Deadly Hearts: Walking Together
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Emma Donovan & The Putbacks – “Mob March”
  2) Laura Veirs – “Freedom Feeling”
  3) Miley Cyrus – “Never Be Me”

Chaka V. Grier (Playing Toronto)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Lianne La Havas – Lianne La Havas
  2) Joya Mooi – Blossom Carefully
  3) Lady Gaga – Chromatica
  4) Witch Prophet – DNA Activation
  5) Tremendum – Winter
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Lianne La Havas – “Green Papaya”
  2) Lady Gaga – “Free Woman”
  3) Allie X – “Susie Save Your Love”

Cillea Houghton (Playing Nashville)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Chris Stapleton – Starting Over
  2) Brett Eldredge – Sunday Drive
  3) Little Big Town – Nightfall
  4) Ingrid Andress – Lady Like
  5) Ruston Kelly – Shape & Destroy
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) The Weeknd – “Blinding Lights”
  2) Billie Eilish – “Therefore I Am”
  3) Remi Wolf – “Hello Hello Hello”

Eleanor Forrest (Contributor)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Grimes – Miss Anthropocene
  2) Rina Sawayama – SAWAYAMA
  3) Allie X – Cape Cod
  4) LEXXE – Meet Me in the Shadows
  5) Gustavo Santaolalla, Mac Quayle – The Last of Us Part II (Original Soundtrack)
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) CL – “+5 STAR+”
  2) Yves Tumor & Kelsey Lu – “let all the poisons that lurk in the mud seep out”
  3) Stephan Moccio – “Freddie’s Theme”

Gillian G. Gaar (Musique Boutique)
- Top 10 Albums:
  1) Dust Bowl Faeries – Plague Garden
  2) Ganser – Just Look At That Sky
  3) Oceanator – Things I Never Said
  4) Loma – Don’t Shy Away
  5) Maggie Herron – Your Refrain
  6) Pretenders – Hate for Sale
  7) The Bird and the Bee – Put up the Lights
  8) Partner – Never Give Up
  9) Bully – Sugaregg
  10) Olivia Awbrey – Dishonorable Harvest

Jason Scott (Contributor)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Mickey Guyton – Bridges EP
  2) Katie Pruitt – Expectations
  3) Mandy Moore – Silver Landings
  4) Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia
  5) Cf Watkins – Babygirl
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Mickey Guyton – “Black Like Me”
  2) Ashley McBryde – “Stone”
  3) Lori McKenna feat. Hillary Lindsey and Liz Rose – “When You’re My Age”

Jamila Aboushaca (Contributor)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Tame Impala – The Slow Rush
  2) Khruangbin – Mordechai
  3) Kid Cudi – Man on the Moon III: The Chosen
  4) Tycho – Simulcast
  5) Run the Jewels – RTJ4
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Tame Impala – “Lost In Yesterday”
  2) Phoebe Bridgers – “Kyoto”
  3) Halsey – “You should be sad”

Liz Ohanesian (Contributor)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Róisín Murphy – Róisín Machine
  2) Jessie Ware – What’s Your Pleasure?
  3) Phenomenal Handclap Band – PHB
  4) Khruangbin – Mordechai
  5) TootArd – Migrant Birds
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Anoraak – “Gang”
  2) Kylie Minogue – “Magic”
  3) Horsemeat Disco feat. Phenomenal Handclap Band – “Sanctuary”

Michelle Rose (Contributor)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia
  2) Taylor Swift – folklore
  3) Shamir – Shamir
  4) Jessie Ware – What’s Your Pleasure?
  5) HAIM – Women in Music Pt. III
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Porches – “I Miss That”
  2) Annabel Jones – “Spiritual Violence”
  3) Wolf – “High Waist Jeans”

Sara Barron (Playing Detroit)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Summer Walker – Over It
  2) Yaeji – WHAT WE DREW
  3) Liv.e – Couldn’t Wait to Tell You
  4) Ojerime – B4 I Breakdown
  5) KeiyaA – Forever, Ya Girl
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Yves Tumor – “Kerosene!”
  2) Kali Uchis, Jhay Cortez – “la luz (fin)”
  3) fleet.dreams – “Selph Love”

Sophia Vaccaro (Playing the Bay)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Charli XCX – how i’m feeling now
  2) The Front Bottoms – In Sickness & In Flames
  3) Zheani – Zheani Sparkes EP
  4) Various Artists – Save Stereogum: A ’00s Covers Comp
  5) Halsey – Manic
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Charli XCX – “forever”
  2) Doja Cat – “Boss Bitch”
  3) Wolf – “Hoops”

Suzannah Weiss (Contributor)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Galantis – Church
  2) Best Coast – Always Tomorrow
  3) Overcoats – The Fight
  4) Holy Motors – Horse
  5) Suzanne Vallie – Love Lives Where Rules Die
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) CAMÍNA – “Cinnamon”
  2) Naïka – “African Sun”
  3) Edoheart – “Original Sufferhead”

Tarra Thiessen (RSVP Here, Check the Spreadsheet)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Brigid Dawson & The Mothers Network – Ballet of Apes
  2) Ganser – Just Look At That Sky
  3) Death Valley Girls – Under The Spell of Joy
  4) The Koreatown Oddity – Little Dominiques Nosebleed
  5) Ghost Funk Orchestra – An Ode To Escapism
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Miss Eaves – “Belly Bounce”
  2) Purple Witch of Culver – “Trig”
  3) Shilpa Ray – “Heteronormative Horseshit Blues”

Victoria Moorwood (Playing Cincy)
- Top 5 Albums:
  1) Lil Baby – My Turn
  2) A$AP Ferg – Floor Seats II
  3) Polo G – The Goat
  4) The Weeknd – After Hours
  5) Teyana Taylor – The Album
- Top 3 Singles:
  1) Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion – “WAP”
  2) Roddy Ricch – “The Box”
  3) Big Sean & Nipsey Hussle – “Deep Reverence”

Music’s Most Sex-Positive Moments of 2019

Doja Cat photo by Vijat Mohindra courtesy of RCA Records).

Sex has long been a popular topic among musicians. But what’s unique about the past few years, 2019 included, is that artists are consciously using their platforms to promote sex positivity. Here are some moments in 2019 where musicians combatted sex-shaming and taught people to embrace their sexual identities.

Ariana Grande Responds to Vogue

Nobody plays the role of sex-positive pop princess like Ariana Grande. She’s long been spreading sex positivity through songs like “Sweetener” and “God is a Woman,” but her biggest sex-positive moment of this year was undoubtedly when Vogue’s Rob Haskell asked what it was like to sing songs like “Side to Side” to nine-year-olds, and she replied, “They’re for sure gonna have it. I promise. I promise that your kid’s gonna have sex. So if she asks you what the song’s about, talk about it.” Talking to kids about sex instead of pretending it doesn’t exist? What a novel idea.

Harry Styles’ “Lights Up” video

The video for the first single from Harry Styles’ second album Fine Line gave people plenty to get excited about. Not only do we get closeups of Styles’ sexy tattooed upper body; it’s being touched by a variety of attractive men and women, leading some fans to dub the song a bisexual anthem. Styles himself hasn’t confirmed this but has said it’s about “freedom” and “self-discovery,” two things our society sorely needs when it comes to sex.

Kablito’s “Yo Nunca te Quise” video

Ecuadorian pop artist Kablito told PAPER in August, when her “Yo Nunca te Quise” video came out, that she intended it to be an ode to self-pleasure. “I thought it was a really cool thing to talk about masturbation and sexuality in women and girls. It’s a topic that we don’t talk about,” she said, explaining that the song is about staying with someone just for the sex, while the video presents the obvious alternative. The imagery is subtle and centers on Kablito’s own self-expression as she feels herself in a bedroom.

Summer Walker’s Over It

There were lots of things to celebrate about singer-songwriter Summer Walker’s debut album, one of them being refreshingly unabashed lyrics (she confronts a demanding lover on “Stretch You Out” and points out double standards of desire on “Girls Need Love”). She told Clash, “I feel like ‘Girls Need Love’ is a song that’s trying to make sure people know that we have an even playing field when it comes to intimacy.”

Doja Cat’s Hot Pink

Doja Cat gave us yet another album full of no-holds-barred sexual empowerment this year. She celebrates the safest form of sex in “Cyber Sex”: “Pussy all pink with a tan / And I play with it ’til my middle fingers are cramped up.” In “Juicy” featuring Tyga, she raps, “Okay, he on his knees, attend the mass / He beg for that, I bend and snap.”

Miley Cyrus’s She Is Coming

Miley’s been standing up for her right to sexual expression ever since she licked a sledgehammer in the “Wrecking Ball” video, but her sex-positivity reached new heights on She Is Coming, an album as full of sexual innuendos as its name would suggest. For the accompanying tour, she released merchandise including a $20 condom and a shirt with her photo behind the words, “she came.”

Teyana Taylor’s “Morning” Featuring Kehlani

For all the songs out there about sex and all their mentions of dicks, it’s refreshing to actually hear the word “clit” in this one: “Talk that shit, play with that clit and watch it rain on you, baby.” Taylor and Kehlani, who both identify as queer, unabashedly love on each other in the sensual video.

Let’s hope for even more sex-positive musical moments in 2020. These artists have certainly set the stage for them.

PLAYING CINCY: Dave Chappelle Brings Stevie Wonder, Chance the Rapper & More to Dayton Benefit Concert

For this week’s Playing Cincinnati, we traveled 20 miles north to Dave Chappelle’s Gem City Shine Benefit Concert in Dayton, Ohio.

Chappelle, who lives in the neighboring Ohio town of Yellow Springs, threw the enormous block party to commemorate the nine lives lost in a recent mass shooting at a local bar that left nine people dead. Over 20,000 people attended the star-studded event to see Stevie Wonder, Chance the Rapper, Teyana Taylor, Jon Stewart, and more.

Throughout Gem City Shine, Chappelle preached unity and resilience.

“We’re not just doing this for our city,” Chappelle said. “We’re doing this for every victim of every mass shooting in our country.”

For his efforts, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley also took the stage to deem August 25 as Dave Chappelle Day.

The day began with a Sunday Service lead by Kanye West in Dayton’s RiverScape MetroPark. Rumors had been circulating about what A-listers would attend the evening benefit, including Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, John Legend, and Barack Obama. There were some murmurings about Gaga working the funnel cake booth – however, she did not perform.

gem city shine — The crowd gathers in the Dayton Oregon District Sunday, August 25.

DJ Trauma kicked off the event, with performances followed by Thundercat, Talib Kweli, and Teyana Taylor.

Taylor, who brought her daughter Junie onstage, broke down while a video montage of the shooting victims played on the screen behind her.

Jon Stewart arrived to lead the crowd in singing “Happy Birthday” to Chappelle, who turned 46 on Saturday, and to introduce Chance the Rapper.

“Dayton, Ohio, you have reclaimed this area with love, with hope, and with resilience,” Stewart said.

Chance turned up with old favorites and new songs off his latest album, The Big Day.

“I appreciate ya’ll so much for showing up as a city, for representing love, to represent healing and to represent community,” Chance said. “I pray that we get some type of protection from this and grow from it.”

Stevie Wonder emerged as Gem City Shine’s headliner, performing hits like “Higher Ground,” “Superstition,” and even singing another round of “Happy Birthday” for Chappelle.

“This is how we really will honor them,” Wonder said of the Dayton victims. “By making sure we change the gun laws of this nation.”

Throughout the event, attendees were encouraged to donate to the victims’ families through the Dayton Oregon District Tragedy Fund and to sign the petition in support of gun control laws in Ohio. Donations are still being accepted online here.

NEWS ROUNDUP: Grimes is (Sort of) Back, RBMA Announce 2019 Shows, and MORE

So, About Grimes…

Where to begin? Claire Boucher (who turned 31 on Sunday and now prefers to be addressed as the italicized, lowercase letter ‘c‘) gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal; between the very odd conversation and her recent Instagram posts, it seems like she’ll be appearing in our News Roundups for a while, so buckle up.

First of all, she’s officially announced a new Grimes record. It’s called Miss_Anthropocene, and revolves around the concept of the “anthropomorphic goddess of climate change,” according to her own Insta post. She describes the character thusly: “A psychedelic, space-dwelling demon/ beauty-Queen who relishes the end of the world. She’s composed of Ivory and Oil” and continues, “Each song will be a different embodiment of human extinction as depicted through a Pop star Demonology. The first song ‘we appreciate power’, introduced the pro-AI-propaganda girl group who embody our potential enslavement/destruction at the hands of Artificial General intelligence.”

In the same post, she also hinted that there might be an EP coming soon as well, which would ostensibly contain some of the stand-alone stuff she’s been working on while putting the LP together, like “Pretty Dark.”

On to the interview, which is behind a paywall I can’t afford and don’t want to pay to a conservative pub, so bear with me. c wants to “kill off” Grimes in a “public execution” because she feels limited by the branding she created back in 2009; her vision of herself as an artist is much more expansive, necessitating a Game of Thrones-esque book that will create a “lore” around her art and music. “It’s super, super pretentious,” she notes.

Reiterating her Instagram post, she says that she aims to make climate change “fun” with the new record, feeling that people ignore it largely because it makes them sad. Her solution to this dilemma is a series of “apocalyptic PSAs” in which she sits nude at a Last Supper-style dining table eating species on the brink of extinction, like a big bloody elephant head. You know, fun.

The album features an epic love ballad called “So Heavy I Fell Through The Earth” which Grimes says was inspired by the Assassin’s Creed movie trailer rather than her relationship with Elon Musk, whom she all but refused to talk about. She did say she “loves him” but was “simply unprepared” for the attention/criticism that dating him has brought her. WSJ did quote an email Musk sent to them about Grimes, saying, “I love c’s wild fae artistic creativity and hyper intense work ethic.”

Grimes tweeted that she was mostly pleased with the interview, but that generally she hates doing them because “it’s like fighting a battle with a fake version of urself to see who the public believes more.”

Red Bull’s NYC Music Academy Lineup is Here

Taking place across NYC throughout May every year, Red Bull Music Academy has become one of our favorite non-festivals – the lineup is always diverse and well-curated, with an eye on slightly more obscure avant-garde acts playing off-the-beaten path venues. Now in its 16th year, the programming for 2019 has been announced, and there’s a lot to be excited about.

For one thing, RBMA will host breakout Spanish singer-songwriter Rosalía for her first live appearances stateside. Her stunning 2018 album El Mal Querer flips Flamenco on its head, and the elaborate visuals that characterized her gorgeous visuals will likely make their way into the two performances scheduled for the newly-reopened Webster Hall.

Also performing over two nights, FKA Twigs returns to NYC for her first shows here since 2015, when Red Bull staged her vogue-opera Congregata in an abandoned hangar. This time, she’ll take over the Park Avenue Armory’s similarly cavernous drill hall. She hasn’t released new music in a while, so we’re curious to see what form these shows will take.

Four more women will bring immersive shows to the fest: Harlem’s own Teyana Taylor presents House of Petunia, a “spectacular audio-visual experience spearheaded by her all-female production company, The Aunties, featuring provocative stage design and mesmerizing choreography from a world-class team of dancers;” Tierra Whack headlines New York for the first time at the iconic Rainbow Room with “quirky and surreal stage design” that mirrors her surreal “Whack World” project; composer and sound artist Holly Herndon premieres the live iteration of her forthcoming album PROTO, “incorporating a fluid ensemble of eight vocalists, Spawn (a nascent machine intelligence), machine learning specialists, choreographers, and visual artists;” and Moor Mother weaves sound and history together with a “large-scale performance” she’s curated alongside an installation by Black Quantum Futurism, both of which are based on the race riots that engulfed America in the “Red Summer” of 1919.

That New New

Speaking of Red Bull, break out that Hennessy – it’s Jenny Lewis Day, bitches.

Fresh off her Tim Presley collab DRINKS’ sophomore LP and tour, Cate Le Bon has announced her next solo album, Reward, out May 24 via Mexican Summer, with lead single “Daylight Matters.”

Nearly fifteen years after the release of their collaborative EP In The Reins, Calexico and Iron & Wine have reunited to record a full-length, Years to Burn. “Father Mountain” is the first single from the LP, out June 14 via City Slang.

Damien Jurado shared a new song from his stripped-down acoustic record In The Shape of a Storm, out April 12.

Juan Wauters has released the first single from Introducing Juan Pablo, out May 31. “Letter” was written in 2015; the record as a whole is something of a companion piece/prequel to his recently released La Onda de Juan Pablo LP.

Surprising no one, there’s a second volume to Broken Social Scene’s recent Let’s Try the After Vol. 1 EP on the way. Vol. 2 is out April 12 and its first single is “Can’t Find My Heart.”

Papercuts released a new three song EP, Kathleen Says, this week.

Lizzo and Missy Elliott have collaborated on a track, so music is basically over. Lizzo’s Cuz I Love You is out April 19.

Building on the momentum of recent single “Not What I Thought,” Somalia-born, Toronto-based vocalist Amaal brings the heat with another scorcher, “Coming & Going.”

Czarface, a hip-hop and comics collective featuring Inspectah Deck, has just released a collab LP with old Wu-Tang buddy Ghostface Killah. Czarface Meets Ghostface is out now, and so is this rad video for “Powers and Stuff,” seen from the POV of a very good boy.

Obliques are back with their first single since 2017’s “Instant Pleasure.”

Reptaliens’ sophomore LP VALIS arrives on April 26 – on cassette and limited edition pink vinyl. Watch the video for “Venetian Blinds” below.

Kero Kero Bonito released a video for “Swimming,” from last year’s Time ‘n’ Place.

Fat White Family return with a new video directed by Roisin Murphy. “Tastes Good With The Money” will appear on their third studio album, Serfs Up!, out April 19.

Plague Vendor unleash their new John Congleton-produced Epitaph Records LP By Night on June 7, and have shared a rowdy video for the raucous first track “New Comedown.”

Ibibio Sound Machine have a new album, Doko Mien, out today, and have shared a video for “Wanna Come Down.”

The latest video from Colombian breakout “Artist on the Rise” Elsa y Elmar is a journey, fam – and “Ojos Noche” is the Spanish-language alt-country bop you didn’t know you needed. Her next LP Eres Diamante arrives May 17.

Analogue special effects make for some gorgeous visuals in the dreamy new single from Heather Woods Broderick, who releases her newest album Invitation April 19. She’ll open for longtime collaborator and bandmate Sharon Van Etten at Webster Hall May 4.

Following the official announcement of her April 5 release Titanic Rising (and a video for “Everyday“) Weyes Blood shares a video for the album’s next single, “Movies.”

Tame Impala has released a new stand-alone single, “Patience,” to promote a headlining Coachella spot, numerous other festival appearances, and Saturday Night Live debut on March 30.

Honeyblood, now the solo project of Stina Tweeddale, releases their third LP In Plain Sight May 24, and have released a lyric video for “Glimmer.”

Here’s a ripper from new Queens-based band WIVES, who drop a two-part seven inch on City Slang in May.

Wes Miles unironically sings “Got the crew back together/Feels like it’s been forever” on “Bad To Worse,” the first song from Ra Ra Riot since the 2016 release of the LP Need Your Light; it’s produced and co-written by Discovery cohort Rostam Batmanglij.

End Notes

Iconic surf guitarist Dick Dale, best known as the man behind “Miserlou,” passed away on Saturday at the age of 81.
Myspace deleted your shit.
Did you know that Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst hosts a jazz night at Los Angeles club The Black Rabbit Rose every Thursday? Lady Gaga does – she showed up last week to perform some Frank Sinatra covers.
San Francisco’s Outside Lands have announced the semi-retired Paul Simon as a headliner and reveal the rest of the lineup on Tuesday.
Woodstock 50 has official released their previously leaked lineup.
The Lollapalooza lineup has been announced; we’d save you a click thru and tell you who’s playing except that it’s literally the same bands playing every other festival, but in Chicago.
Justin Vernon and The National’s Aaron Dessner will bring a topsy-turvy version of Berlin event PEOPLE called 37d03d (get it? good, because it’s annoying to type) to Red Hook’s Pioneer Works; it’s a five-day residency featuring experimental-ish musicians like Vernon, Dessner, Sinkane, Boys Noize, Greg Fox, Shahzad Ismaily, and others, culminating in two performances on May 3 and 4.
The David Lynch Foundation, which brings transcendental meditation to sufferers of PTSD, have also announced a lineup for their benefit showcase on May 17 and 18 at Brooklyn Steel, featuring Wye Oak, Garbage, Phoebe Bridgers, Nancy Whang of LCD Soundsystem, and more.
Presumably riding high on Pepsi’s Super Bowl endorsement, Cardi B has filed paperwork to trademark “Okurrr.”
In other Cardi B news, she’s been announced as part of the ensemble cast for Hustlers, a movie about vengeful strippers based on this New York Times article.
The Wyld Stallyns have announced a most excellent reunion.
Madlib squashed some rumors that his collab EP with the late Mac Miller (dubbed “Maclib”) will see ever the light of day.
Questlove is teaming up with SF-based vegetarian “meat” purveyor Impossible Burger to created a Questlove Cheesteak sold at sports stadiums nationwide.
~~Democratic~~ Hot but actually pretty centrist presidential candidate hopeful Beto O’Rourke has unveiled a unique platform: reuniting the Mars Volta.

NEWS ROUNDUP: Alternative Beef, Cancel Chris Brown, and MORE

Courtney Love & Kathleen Hanna have had ongoing beef since the mid ’90s.

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Rekindling a decades old beef, Courtney Love had some choice words for Kathleen Hanna following the news that the latter’s riot grrl act Bikini Kill would play a handful of reunion shows in LA and NYC this spring. In the comment thread of a Bust Magazine Instagram post lamenting the shows’ record sell-out times, Love referred to Bikini Kill as “the biggest hoax in rock and roll,” later adding: “Two of the band total amateurs. Hanna is a good hype man but her persona is such a diy nonsense dilettante. A big idea they cannot convey, because they suck.” Hanna has not responded and Love has since deleted the comments, but her words reminded everyone that these two feminist icons haven’t seen eye to eye since Lollapalooza ’95, when a backstage altercation ended any hope of them uniting to crush the patriarchy. We have a sneaking suspicion that Love’s dislike of Hanna is rooted in jealousy over Hanna’s friendship with Love’s late husband Kurt Cobain (Hanna is credited with inspiring the title of Nirvana’s breakout single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”). We’re taking Hanna’s side on this one; Love’s comments were petty and we’re impressed Hanna didn’t take the bait.

The saga between Grimes and Azaelia Banks deepens! Back in August, Banks visited Grimes at the home of Grimes’ then-boyfriend, tech mogul Elon Musk. The two musicians were supposed to collaborate on a single, but in a series of social media posts, Banks described being trapped in the home as Musk did damage control over a tweet where he claimed he planned to take Tesla private at $420 a share. Banks says that Musk was on acid at the time, and postulated that he and Grimes had invited her to Los Angeles for a potential threesome. But because the Securities Exchange Commission sued Musk over the tweet, texts between Grimes and Banks from that time period have been subpoenaed, and Banks posted some of the exchange on Instagram; the posts were deleted, but not before someone grabbed screenshots that Jezebel was all too happy to repost (and we are all too happy to recommend you go and read immediately). We can’t get down with either going for the low-hanging fruit of insulting one anothers’ appearances, but have to name Azealia Banks the winner of this spat. Maybe it’s all the practice she’s had talking shit to or about damn near everyone on the planet, but we have to give props to the biting specificity of referring to Grimes as a “brittleboned methhead” who smells “like a roll of nickles.”

And finally, Princess Nokia noted the similarities between her song “Mine” (from her 1992 mixtape) and recently released Ariana Grande single “7 rings.” “Ain’t that the lil song I made about brown women and their hair?” she asks in a video posted to Twitter (and since deleted), concluding “Hmmm… sounds about white.” Soulja Boy also chimed in, claiming Grande had ripped off portions of his 2010 hit “Pretty Boy Swag.” The opening bars of Grande’s single crib more obviously from The Sound of Music‘s “My Favorite Things;” though Julie Andrews has yet to jump on the outrage bandwagon, someone who must be a literal genius mashed up all four artists and it kinda slaps. While we’re no fan of Grande’s ongoing issues with cultural appropriation, we’re calling this beef a draw – there’s nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to hip-hop samples.

Chris Brown Accused of Rape in Paris

We’ll never forgive Chris Brown for using former girlfriend Rihanna as his personal punching bag – but we’re especially disgusted by the new lows he’s reached this week. A 24-year-old woman accused the singer and his entourage of taking turns raping her in his hotel suite at the Mandarin Oriental in Paris, where Brown had been attending Fashion Week events. The French are notoriously skeptical of rape victims, so it’s no surprise that Brown and the two other men accused of assaulting the woman were released within a few days on their own recognizance; the investigation is still ongoing. Rather than lying low, Brown took to social media in an attempt to discredit his alleged victim, even going so far as to create some truly tasteless merch that plays on the unfounded trope that women lie about sexual assault.

For what it’s worth, this isn’t the first time that someone has accused his entourage of mistreating women in their periphery – there’s a pending legal case against Brown, in which a woman claims she was raped by one of Brown’s friends at one of the singer’s drug-fueled parties.

That New New

Spanish sensation Rosalía released what has to be our favorite video this week, with a clip for “DE AQUÍ NO SALES” from her stunning 2018 album El Mal Querer.

Jenny Lewis is back with Stevie Nicks-ish jam “Red Bull & Hennessey,” a drink we do not recommend. It’s the first single from On The Line, due March 22.

Broken Social Scene shared details on their forthcoming EP Let’s Try The After – Vol. 1, which will arrive next month, along with early single “All I Want.”

Sneaks, the difficult-to-define solo project of queer black feminist Eva Moolchan, returns with Highway Hypnosis, her third studio album.

Sascha Ring, who produces electronic music as Apparat, announced LP5, his first album in six years, with diaphanous lead single “Dawan.”

J. Cole is producing a comp featuring artists from his Dreamville imprint entitled Revenge Of The Dreams II; his track “Middle Child” is the project’s official first single.

Groove Denied, an electronic solo album by Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus that was reportedly rejected by his label, will be released via Matador in March. The first single is the delightfully weird “Viktor Borgia.”

Lady Lamb announced her next album Even in the Tremor will arrive April 5th on Ba Da Bing Records, and has shared its title track.

Teyana Taylor, Lena Waithe, and Mykki Blanco vogue their way through a ballroom dance-off for the ages in Taylor’s new video for “WTP,” from last year’s Kanye West-produced K.T.S.E.

Capping off her EP trilogy in March with Blue Pine, Munya shared the first of its three songs, “It’s All About You;” all three EPs will be packaged together as a full-length LP released on the same day.

Seattle’s Dude York have released two new singles alongside two previously released singles as the aptly titled EP Happy In The Meantime via Bandcamp.

<a href="http://dudeyork.bandcamp.com/album/happy-in-the-meantime-ep">Happy in the Meantime EP by Dude York</a>

Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst have appeared on each other’s albums in the past, but now the pair have teamed up to release a surprise record as Better Oblivion Community Center.

Vampire Weekend are back with a pair of singles, titled “Harmony Hall” and “2021;” both will appear on their fourth album and first in nearly six years. Titled Father of the Bride, it’s supposedly got 18 tracks and future singles will be released in pairs as well.

Florence + The Machine released a jazzy stand-alone single and its b-side on the heels of last year’s rousing High As Hope LP.

End Notes

Ariel Palitz, NYC’s new Nightlife Mayor, sat down with Billboard to share what she’s learned in her first year on the job, and how she plans to support the city’s DIY music community.
A Michael Jackson musical is in the works.
The Oscar nominations are in and we’re totally rooting for Lady Gaga, who’s up for Best Actress for her role in A Star Is Born. The film is nominated for best Best Picture, alongside Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (despite some recent sexual abuse allegations against its director). Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper seem like favorites to win Best Song for “Shallow” but Kendrick Lamar and SZA could give them a run for their money with “All The Stars,” from Black Panther. David Rawlings and Gillian Welch (“When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings” from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (“The Place Where Lost Things Go” from Mary Poppins Returns), and Diane Warren and Jennifer Hudson (“I’ll Fight” from RBG) round out the Best Song nominations.
Spotify introduced a “mute” feature that allows users to essentially block particular artists from popping up on your playlists. It’s a nice compromise given their failed attempt to censor artists they’d deemed problematic, not to mention allowing folks to avoid that overplayed earworm-of-the-moment.
Pickathon 2019 lineups have been announced, with Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats and Khruangbin scheduled to headline.
It’s been a good week for cool band merch – check out this stuffed Ozzy Osbourne bat (with detachable head) and the new Morrissey Funko Pop.
We’re still not sure if it’s really the Pixies without Kim Deal, but the rest of the band are gearing up to release their seventh studio album (due in September), and a podcast about the band called “The Past Is Prologue” and hosted by Tony Fletcher will debut in June.
Some of hip-hop’s biggest stars, including Jay-Z and Meek Mill, have founded REFORM Alliance, aimed at much-needed criminal justice reform.
As the government shutdown stretches on, musicians from Kiss to Nile Rodgers are donating concert tickets, hot meals, and more to furloughed workers.

AF 2018 IN REVIEW: Our Favorite Albums and Singles of the Year

Here we are again! As the new year approaches, it’s time to look back and take stock of the albums and singles that defined this moment in music history. 2018 was an eclectic year, to say the least, and there are a lot of new names on the list: Tirzah, Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy, Noname, King Princess, and Kali Uchis all had phenomenal debuts this year, not to mention the inimitable Cardi B, who made good on the promise of last year’s smash hit “Bodak Yellow” with Invasion of Privacy in April. There were established artists who still managed to surprise us, whether in the form of unearthed Prince demos, The Arctic Monkeys’ loungey sci-fi concept album, Tim Hecker introducing us to ancient Japanese court music, Dev Hynes making his most personal Blood Orange record yet, or Lil Wayne finally dropping Tha Carter V. And then there are those artists who fall somewhere in between, their ascendant careers a thrill to watch as 2018 saw them finally hit their stride. US Girls. Yves Tumor. serpentwithfeet. And perhaps most spectacularly, Mitski and Janelle Monáe.

As each of our writers (and editors, too) created their own mini-lists, those were two names that kept cropping up, and there’s no doubt you’ve seen them on just about every year-end list on the interwebs. If there’s any chance you haven’t heard Be The Cowboy or Dirty Computer, by all means, fire up that Spotify Premium post haste. But the recommendations here are as diverse as our writers themselves, so we hope you’ll take time to explore some of the lesser-known, hardly hyped artists we’ve highlighted, too – and keep your eyes peeled for more year-end coverage as we cruise in to 2019.

EDITOR LISTS

Marianne White (Executive Director)

Top 10 Albums:
1) boygenuis – boygenius
2) Soccer Mommy – Clean
3) Nenah Cherry – Broken Politics
4) Mitski – Be the Cowboy
5) serpentwithfeet – soil
6) CupcakKE – Ephorize
7) Blood Orange – Negro Swan
8) Autechre – NTS Sessions 1-4
9) Snail Mail – Lush
10) Cardi B – Invasion of Privacy
Top 5 Singles:
1) Let’s Eat Grandma – “Hot Pink”
2) Jon Hopkins – “Emerald Rush”
3) The Internet – “Look What You Started”
4) Cardi B, Bad Bunny, J Balvin – “I Like It”
5) boygenius – “Bite The Hand”
Lindsey Rhoades (Editor-in-Chief)

Top 10 Albums:
1) Low – Double Negative
2) US Girls – In A Poem Unlimited
3) Madeline Kenney – Perfect Shapes
4) Yves Tumor – Safe In The Hands of Love
5) DJ Koze – Knock Knock
6) Caroline Rose – Loner
7) Tim Hecker – Konoyo
8) Virginia Wing – Ecstatic Arrow
9) Frigs – Basic Behaviour
10) bedbug – i’ll count to heaven in years without seasons
Top 10 Singles:
1) Janelle Monáe – “Make Me Feel”
2) Loma – “Black Willow”
3) The Breeders – “All Nerve”
4) SOPHIE – “Is It Cold In The Water?”
5) Jonathan Wilson – “Loving You”
6) Empath – “The Eye”
7) Sibile Attar – “Paloma”
8) Jono Ma & Dreems – “Can’t Stop My Dreaming (Of You)”
9) Shopping – “Discover”
10) Ed Schrader’s Music Beat – “Dunce”
Mandy Brownholtz (Social Media)

Top 5 Albums:
1) Miserable – Lover Boy/Dog Days
2) Snail Mail – Lush
3) Mitski – Be The Cowboy
4) Teyana Taylor – K.T.S.E.
5) Janelle Monáe – Dirty Computer
Top 3 Singles:
1) Nothing – “Blue Line Baby”
2) Hinds – “The Club”
3) Mitski – “Nobody”
Lauren Zambri (Events)

Top 5 Albums:
1) Amen Dunes – Freedom
2) US Girls – In A Poem Unlimited
3) Beach House – 7
4) Iceage – Beyondless
5) Tirzah – Devotion
Top 5 Singles:
1) Jenny Hval – “Spells”
2) US Girls – “Velvet 4 Sale”
3) Yves Tumor – “Licking An Orchid”
4) Amen Dunes – “Believe”
5) Low – “Always Trying to Work it Out”

STAFF LISTS

Ashley Prillaman (Premieres, AudioMama)

Top 5 Albums:
1) Alice Ivy – I’m Dreaming
2) Sudan Archives – Sink
3) Marlon Williams – Make Way For Love
4) Earth Girl Helen Brown – Venus
5) Rüfüs Du Sol – Solace
Top 3 Singles:
1) Rhye – “Taste”
2) Alice Ivy – “Chasing Stars”
3) Sudan Archives – “Nont For Sale”
Tarra Thiessen (Check the Spreadsheet)

Top 5 Albums:
1) DRINKS – Hippo Lite
2) Shannon & the Clams – Onion
3) Lost Boy ? – Paranoid Fiction
4) Prince – Piano & a Microphone 1983
5) Sloppy Jane – Willow
Top 3 Singles:
1) Public Practice – “Fate/Glory”
2) The Nude Party – “Chevrolet Van”
3) Big Bliss – “Surface”
Natalie Kirch (Pet Politics)

Top 10 Releases Out of the Brooklyn DIY Scene (in Chronological Order):
1) THICK — Would You Rather? (Self-Released)
2) BODEGA — Endless Scroll (What’s Your Rupture?)
3) Baked — II (Exploding In Sound)
4) Pecas — After Dark (Broken Circles)
5) Big Bliss – At Middle Distance (Exit Stencil Recordings)
6) Kevin Hairs — Freak In The Streets (GP Stripes)
7) PILL – Soft Hell (Mexican Summer)
8) Stove – ‘s Favorite Friend (Exploding In Sound)
9) Lost Boy ? – Paranoid Fiction (Little Dickman Records/ Rich Moms)
10) Janet LaBelle – I Only See You (Loantaka Records)

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Sara Barron (Playing Detroit)

Top 5 Albums:
1) Kali Uchis – Isolation
2) Blood Orange – Negro Swan
3) Cardi B – Invasion of Privacy
4) Mitski – Be the Cowboy
5) Noname – Room 25
Top 3 Singles:
1) Ama Lou – “Tried Up”
2) Britney Stoney – “OD”
3) Janelle Monáe – “PYNK”
Luci Turner (Playing Atlanta)

Top 5 Albums:
1) The Arctic Monkeys – Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino
2) The 1975 – A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships
3) Charles Bradley – Black Velvet
4) Brandi Carlile – By The Way, I Forgive You
5) Jack White – Boarding House Reach
Top 3 Singles:
1) The Raconteurs – “Now That You’re Gone”
2) Mac Miller – “2009”
3) Dead Naked Hippies – “Rare”
Victoria Moorwood (Playing Cincy)

Top 5 Albums:
1) Cardi B – Invasion of Privacy
2) Lil Wayne – Tha Carter V
3) J. Cole – KOD
4) Preme – Light of Day
5) Jazz Cartier – Fleurever
Top 3 Singles:
1) Lil Wayne feat. Reginae Carter – “Famous”
2) Cardi B – “Thru Your Phone”
3) J. Cole – “Brackets”
Desdemona Dallas

Top 5 Albums:
1) Noname – Room 25
2) Flatbush Zombies – Vacation In Hell
3) Mountain Man – Magic Ship
4) Lucy Dacus – Historian
5) Nao – Saturn
Top 3 Singles:
1) Janelle Monáe – “Make Me Feel”
2) Twin Shadow – “Saturdays”
3) Sudan Archives – “Nont For Sale”
Erin Rose O’Brien

Top 5 Albums:
1) Mitski — Be The Cowboy
2) Antarctigo Vespucci — Love in the Time of E-mail
3) Car Seat Headrest — Twin Fantasy
4) Soccer Mommy — Clean
5) Janelle Monáe — Dirty Computer
Top 3 Singles:
1) Bad Moves — “Cool Generator”
2) The Beths — “Future Me Hates Me”
3) Miya Folick — “Stop Talking”
Ysabella Monton

Top 5 Albums:
1) Mitski – Be The Cowboy
2) Janelle Monáe – Dirty Computer
3) Brockhampton – Iridescence
4) Soccer Mommy – Clean
5) Cardi B – Invasion of Privacy
Top 3 Singles:
1) King Princess – “1950”
2) Childish Gambino – “This is America”
3) Pusha T – “If You Know You Know”

Tag: Teyana Taylor

AF 2020 IN REVIEW: Our Favorite Albums & Singles of The Year

EDITOR LISTS

STAFF LISTS

Music’s Most Sex-Positive Moments of 2019

PLAYING CINCY: Dave Chappelle Brings Stevie Wonder, Chance the Rapper & More to Dayton Benefit Concert

AF 2018 IN REVIEW: Our Favorite Albums and Singles of the Year

EDITOR LISTS

STAFF LISTS

Ticket Giveaways

Each week Audiofemme gives away a set of tickets to our featured shows in NYC! Scroll down to enter for the following shindigs.

See you there! xoxo