brian

Artist: Joan Armatrading

Album: Starlight

Joan Armatrading, who released her debut album in 1972, has had an impressively varied career. Starting with generic folk-pop elevated only by her soulful voice, she grew to experiment with Elton John-style rockers, disco, reggae, collaborations with Springsteen’s E Street Band, perky New Wave synth-pop, and — as her voice got deeper and richer — into roots-rock and blues. Starlight shows her still venturing, now into jazz-pop that sounds like the work […]

Artist: Louis Logic

Album: Look on the Blight Side

The year 2012 — which is, I agree, not the one I’m reviewing currently — was to me a year of extraordinary flowering in hip-hop. That’s not a proper belief among the true hip-hop fans I know, who hold that hip-hop’s Best Year Ever cannot possibly be any year after 1995. But I am a false hip-hop fan, or at least an odd one, and hip-hop — despite […]