There's almost nobody better at creating complex musical worlds, but on her new album The Age of Pleasure, Janelle Monáe's aim is to stop thinking. Or at least start thinking about feeling.
From Kendrick Lamar and Megan Thee Stallion to Coldplay, here they are: the magnificent, the flawed-but-forceful, the forgettable and the truly, epically misbegotten.
'Wait Til I Get Over,' an homage to Jones' hometown of Hillaryville, Louisiana, paints a deeply nuanced portrait of Jones and of the Southern customs that raised him.
Bobby Caldwell's smooth soul jam "What You Won't Do for Love" went to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. It became a long-term standard and career-defining hit for Caldwell, who also wrote the song.
Raised in lily-white Cape Cod, Mass. while one of the few persons of color around, Esperanza found their voice the old-fashioned way: by searching for it.
If the singer was taking herself apart before, she is now presenting a unified and independent version of herself, all while actively maintaining a sense of distance from the audience.