Melissa Kacar

"Merry Christmas, Please Don't Call" // Bleachers Is it too soon to say this is one of Bleachers ' best songs yet? Because it is! "Merry Christmas, Please Don't Call" is a song draped in nostalgia and really captures some of the melancholy feelings this season can bring. I never heard a song quite like this though, it evokes such a specific emotion in me that I don't even know if I can fully describe, but just feels like something that I needed to hear. All of the best Bleachers music does that for me though. While it is technically a Christmas song, it isn't overtly festive, which is a genre that is so hard to pull off but Jack and the rest of the band did it perfectly. I have been looking forward to finally hearing this song for a couple of years and it came at the perfect time. I have been listening to it on repeat every single day ever since it was released, I truly cannot get enough of it! "Defying Gravity" // Cynthia Erivo & A

After many years of waiting, the Wicked film adaptation is finally here and it is everything I ever hoped it would be and more! It was truly the most amazing and magical film, I loved every single second of it. The entire cast was incredible and perfectly cast in their parts, but Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande  were truly born to play these roles. They both manage to find a way to pay homage to all of the Elphaba's and Glinda's that came before them, while still being able to carve out their own spaces in Oz history.  Wicked  details the origin story of the beloved characters from  The Wizard of Oz ,  specifically Elphaba, The Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. Their origin story is complicated and tragic at times, but it is also filled with so much love. In the very first song of the film, Glinda poses the question that shapes the entire story, "Are people born Wicked? Or do they have Wickedness thrust upon them?" Cynthia and Ariana

For Cryin' Out Loud!  marks the beginning of a new era for Finneas as a solo artist with this freeing and uplifting body of work. It is heartfelt, honest, and introspective - as he fully embraces a more collaborative approach than ever before. It features a blend of modern pop and alternative rock, along with classic, rich orchestral elements as well.  Stylistically it expands upon parts of his 2021 debut solo album, Optimist , but in many ways is much sharper and more focused than that that record because of the ways it was made in basically the complete opposite way than before.  Optimist  was created solely by Finneas - every single song was written, performed and produced completely by himself alone in his home studio during the pandemic. The ability to do all of that alone is a massively impressive feat in itself, but is now what he described to Rolling Stone as a lonely experience and not necessarily creatively fulfilling in the way he hoped it would have been looking back.