When Christine And The Queens emerged with 2015’s self-titled effort, the album was a welcome antidote to sterile pop music. Héloïse Letissier, the French musician behind the project, wasn’t just a refreshingly honest songwriter. She was also a mesmerizing live performer who seemed to melt into rhythms and grooves—and…

Courtney Barnett’s debut full-length, 2015’s Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit, established the Australian indie-rocker as a potent musical force. With its tumbling guitars, ragged vocals, and grunge-punk tones—all of which coalesced on the scorching, sassy “Pedestrian At Best”—the album exceeded the…

Permanent Records is an ongoing closer look at the records that matter most.

Historically, pop artists have launched new albums with a “statement single.” As Slate pointed out last year, these songs might introduce sonic U-turns (see Taylor Swift’s electroclash revenge fantasy “Look What You Made Me Do”) or underline trenchant points of view (Dixie Chicks’ self-explanatory, non-mea culpa “Not…

This week’s question comes from A.V. Club alum Becca James:

In a year as full of outstanding music as 2017, best-of voting can be a difficult task, and the wide variety of nominees across this year’s ballots reflects just how many great albums there were to choose from. After giving our Best Albums Of 2017 a read, dig into the individual lists our writers submitted of their…

There was too much to listen to in 2017—not just albums, of which there were once again thousands, a barrage of releases from major-label veterans and SoundCloud up-and-comers alike, all vying for your attention. There was just too much of everything: a persistent, buzzing storm of push notifications and free-floating…