Melissa Kacar

"Modern Girl" // Bleachers  New Jersey's finest New Yorker is back and better than ever with "Modern Girl", the first song off of Bleachers ' upcoming fourth album. This song is pure joy and encapsulates all of the things I have always loved about the band. It is so high-energy with lyrics like, "all the modern girls shakin' their ass tonight". The line about being a "pop music hoarder" is so great too! I can only imagine how incredible this song is going to be to hear live, as it feels like such a celebration of the band, their fans and the incredible atmosphere their shows create. 🍅 "love is embarassing" // Olivia Rodrigo Olivia Rodrigo 's latest album GUTS has been on repeat all month and I truly love every song off of it. One of my favorite tracks from it is "love is embarrassing" , which is simply a great pop song about a rollercoaster of emotions. I love the lyricism too, it's so catchy. The line &qu

With the release of AM a decade ago, Arctic Monkeys reinvented themselves as a band and showcased what the defining sound of modern rock music would be. It's sound and aesthetics have shaped so much of the genre in the past ten years. This is the album that first introduced me to the band, as well as my personal favorite. The guitar-driven melodies, vocals, and lyrics are all just so effortlessly cool and made this album an instant classic. After dominating the British rock scene for much of the 2000's, Arctic Monkeys does take a bit of a different approach to their music in what felt like a natural evolution for the band at the time. It is a bit more mature with a very timeless sound, mixing a cosmic blend of classic and alternative rock, with elements of R&B, blues, indie rock, and psychedelic rock. It incorporates so many of the band's influences through rock history and makes it all their own. The Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, and The Velvet Underground, to name a

Ten years ago, Lorde released her record-breaking debut album and changed the course of pop music forever at only 16 years old. No one was making music like this before  Pure Heroine, it truly was the antithesis of so much that was popular at the time. This was such a revolutionary album and pushed pop music forward in a way like no other. She paved the way for so many artists and the legacy she solidified for herself with this album alone is so remarkable and inspiring. The echoes of Pure Heroine  are present in every single alternative pop album released in the past decade . It is such a timeless album and feels just as relevant today as it was ten years ago. For her to be so young and to have had the foresight to create an album like this makes her such a visionary in my eyes.  Pure Heroine  consists of ten songs, a truly flawless track list. It is concise and devoid of any filler. The curation of her music is something she has always excelled at with her albums, being able to cut i

GUTS  is the highly anticipated sophomore release from Olivia Rodrigo , following up her massively successful debut album, SOUR , in 2021 . To have the level of success she has had right out the gate with her first-ever single "driver's license" in early 2021 is so rare and she quickly became one of the most notable pop artists to debut this decade so far. There are a lot of songs that I have come to really enjoy on this album, some of which are among my favorites of the entire year so far. When comparing  GUTS *  to  SOUR *,  they are alike in a lot of ways, both sonically and aesthetically. In my opinion,  GUTS  builds upon the foundation she and her producer/co-writer, Dan Nigro, set in place with  SOUR  really well. Olivia is in such an interesting and unique position as an artist right now. The closest, or most recent, comparison I have to it is where Billie Eilish was at with her career a few years ago after her debut album . Both her and Olivia went from being vir