Selena Gomez first started tinkering away at the followup up to Revival in 2016. The superstar converted a tourbus into a mobile studio and invited along a group of songwriters and producers to record demos between concerts. Unfortunately, life got in the way and they were never released (with the exception of "Feel Me"). Since then, Selena has experimented with different sounds on a steady stream...

2020 is well and truly on track to be Shakira's year. The Queen of Latin Pop is currently preparing for one of the biggest performances of her life. Next month she shares the stage with Jennifer Lopez during the Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show. Based on their incredible discographies and excellent performance skills, this is bound to be one of the best lineups in recent memory. And it looks like she has...

Grateful the glut of Year-End lists is over? Ready to Men In Black 2019 from your memory and dive into a new decade? Well, here's a little something to cleanse your pop palate! I've put together a list of 40 artists expected to make serious noise in the next 12 months. The goal isn’t so much to predict The Next Big Thing (although all of them are legitimate contenders) as to introduce you to a group...

2019 was a fascinating year for pop. Genre lines blurred to the point of obsolescence, while streaming services continued to level the playing field. Those factors resulted in a slew of hybridized bops (country-rap is now a thing) and an ever-growing number of crossover viral hits (think Tones And I's "Dance Monkey"). The general sense of doom and gloom that hung over 2019 like a black cloud was also...

With physical album sales plummeting and downloads following suit, the fate of the once-hallowed Long Player is uncertain. Record labels can't quite figure out how they fit into our playlist-dominated world and many pop acts have given up trying — choosing to drip-feed fans a constant stream of singles instead. Which is a shame because an album offers the bandwidth to experiment and tell a story....

While the rise of streaming has had an overwhelmingly negative impact on albums, the opposite is true for EPs. Abbreviated offerings are all the rage — largely due to their versatility. You can use them as a dumping ground for singles or as a stepping stone to something bigger. There's also a lot less risk involved. Nobody expects an EP to set the charts on fire, which means artists can experiment...

Taylor Swift belatedly lays out the mission statement for Lover on its final track. As "Daylight," a thoughtful and lushly composed love song, closes, the 29-year-old delivers a spoken outro. "I wanna be defined by the things that I love not the things I hate," she muses. "I just think that you are what you love." That's abundantly evident from one listen to the 18-song collection. Released on August...

2019 was a banner year for film, that is if you knew where to look. Between the (largely dire) superhero movies, unnecessary remakes and robotic reboots, multiplexes plumbed new depths in the year that was. For every decent blockbuster, there were half a dozen unwatchable monstrosities. It was a different story at the arthouse, however, with the titans of world cinema coming through with gripping,...

Sasha Sloan released two of the best EPs of 2018 (Sad Girl and Loser), so it shouldn't be too surprising that the just-released Self Portrait is an early frontrunner for the best Extended Play of 2019. A brutally honest collection of songs that dives deep into traditionally uncommercial topics like religion, loss and mental illness, Self Portrait finds the renowned songwriter coming into her own as...

Céline Dion has been slowly chipping away at her 12th English-language album since at least 2016. That year is significant as it marked the passing of her late husband, René Angélil, after a long battle with cancer. The songs that arrived immediately thereafter ("The Show Must Go On" and "Recovering") directly referenced that event, and the music she has been working on ever since is indelibly shaped...

In many ways, an artist's sophomore album is more important than their debut. The first time around, they just need to prove they can get the public's attention. The stakes are higher after that. Now they need to keep the listener fully engaged. That's a feat Camila Cabello achieves with Romance. Out December 6, the LP arrives nearly two years after the 22-year-old made her solo debut. Her second effort...

Turning around a speedy review of a Lana Del Rey record is a thankless task. While the album is increasingly treated as a relic from the past, Lana still views it as an art form, cramming in layers of melodies and ideas that slowly seep out over time. It took me months to get a handle on Honeymoon, while Ultraviolence continues to unfold five years later. Until Friday (August 30), I considered those...