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Cover art for Lorde's album Virgin, an X-ray image.

The X-Ray on the Cover of Virgin Is Not a Metaphor

Thirty-four minutes and fifty-one seconds, no cool-down, no exit ramp. Lorde's fourth record is the first one that sounds like a body instead of a report from one.

Jules Okonkwo·20 Jul·4 min

A pink-lit tour bus parked outside a venue at dusk

Music

Short n' Sweet: Sabrina Carpenter's Fully-Funded Year

A year on from Short n' Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter is the first pop star of her generation who has successfully metabolised the Disney-pipeline training into something that is not, finally, Disney.

Jules Okonkwo·19 Aug·5 min

A club exit doorway at 4am, fluorescent lit, with a fire extinguisher in the corner

Music

Brat Summer: What Actually Happened

Charli XCX's Brat was the pop event of 2024. A year on, the question is not whether the record was good. The question is what Brat Summer actually was, who it was for, and why almost everything it inspired was bad.

Jules Okonkwo·15 Jul·5 min

A rodeo arena at dusk with a single saddle laid across a fence rail

Music

Cowboy Carter: The Beyoncé Record That Became a Genre Argument

A year out, Beyoncé's country album is not a country album. It is a demolition project. An argument for Cowboy Carter as one of the most important genre interventions of the decade.

Jules Okonkwo·30 May·5 min

A translucent plastic disc floating above a soft pink gradient, lit from below in cool blue.

Music

Magdalena Bay's Imaginal Disk and the Slow Return of the Album

Magdalena Bay's second full-length arrived in August 2024 to a slow critical build and a fanbase already waiting. Five months on, the album is the strongest argument for the form in current pop.

Jules Okonkwo·12 Jan·7 min

A neon pink stage curtain pulled half-open, empty seats in the foreground

Music

Chappell Roan: The Slow-Motion Pop Star

Chappell Roan's album came out in September 2023. Her stardom arrived in summer 2024. The eleven-month gap is the interesting thing.

Jules Okonkwo·18 Sep·5 min

An underwater image of a body sinking below a blue-lit surface

Music

Hit Me Hard and Soft: Billie Eilish Grown Up

Billie Eilish's third album is a quieter, longer, more patient record than the one she was commercially expected to make. It is also, easily, her best.

Jules Okonkwo·8 Jun·5 min

An old typewriter on a wooden desk with a stack of handwritten pages beside it

Music

The Tortured Poets Department: Taylor Swift's Unedited Record

Taylor Swift's eleventh studio album, released as a double in April, is the longest piece of popular music she has ever put out, and the most urgently in need of an editor.

Jules Okonkwo·6 May·5 min