Melissa Kacar

Halsey begins their 2020 album Manic with her name, "Ashley" , and ends it with her birthday, "929", creating a full‑circle narrative arc that beautifully captures just how deeply personal the album is. The closing track is a raw, diaristic look at her life and her journey, told through a free‑flowing, conversational reflection of memories, lessons, and wisdom that she has picked up along the way.  Produced by her frequent collaborators Jasper Sheff and John Cunningham, "929" perfectly encapsulates the personal journey Manic takes the listener on. This record is one of self-discovery and acceptance of every side of yourself, in the most unfiltered way.  "I really was born at 9:29 AM on 9/29, you think I'm lying, but I'm, I'm being dead serious," she jokes in the intro, speaking casually in the studio when working on the album. The rest of the song goes into a stream-of-consciousness style of confessional that is so unguarded and self...

"Mr. Mountebank" by Djo The Crux (Deluxe) gives so much more insight into the journey Djo took while writing this album and all of the different directions he could've taken with it narratively. It's more than just a regular deluxe album, it's more so a companion project of twelve songs that were written during the same creative period as The Crux , but didn't make the initial cut. That said, they don't feel like leftovers. Each track truly feels like a natural expansion of the time in his life that inspired this music, and collectively, they feel like a culmination of some of the more unhinged parts of himself that he had to work through to arrive at the final version of The Crux . "Mr. Mountebank" is one of my many favorites, he goes fully Djo XCX on it, diving into a wild and abrasive hyperpop sound that's completely different from anything he's made before. It offers a sharp commentary on fame and virality, especially in the wake of ...

As a part of her seven-date record store promo tour celebrating the release week of her long-awaited sophomore album Am I The Drama? , Cardi B made a stop at one of my favorite local record stores for a special meet and greet event. Spin Me Round, located in the Palmer Park Mall in Easton, Pennsylvania, was the second stop, the day after her album was released. It was so exciting to see one of my favorite local record stores included on this tour and I couldn't believe that she was actually in person for this event! Spin Me Round has built a massive platform across TikTok and Instagram and have definitely garnered a reputation as one of the most popular independent record stores in the North East. This is always one of my go-to record stores to visit for Record Store Day , early listening parties, and vinyl shopping in general, so it was cool to be able to see an artist as big as Cardi there! The price of admission was only about $15 and preordering a CD copy of Cardi's new al...

A generational anthem of unrequited love, Robyn 's "Dancing On My Own" captures the courage it takes to keep on dancing through heartbreak. She wrote it after going through a breakup and seeing her ex at a club with another girl. That moment of watching him, wanting him to notice her, and realizing he wouldn't, became the emotional core of the song. "I'm in the corner watching you kiss her, I'm right over here, why can't you see me?" she sings in the chorus. "I'm giving it my all, but I'm not the girl you're taking home, I keep dancing on my own". Musically, she pulled from the lineage of great sad‑disco icons like Donna Summer and Ultravox. She was also deeply inspired by club culture itself while she was making her three-part record Body Talk . "I'm fascinated by club culture at the moment,” she told Pop Justice. "Clubs are like the new church for people...it's where you go to feel a part of something big...

With "Nice To Each Other", Olivia Dean adds a beautiful layer of hope to her sophomore album The Art of Loving . The track captures the in‑between phase of a relationship, the space where things may not be long‑term, but still carry meaning and joy in the moments shared together. Modern love is represented with a light and airy approach, which shines through both in the music itself and in the attitude she conveys in her performance. She embraces the idea that casual relationships can still be meaningful, regardless of how long they last or how traditional they may seem. "Nice To Each Other" celebrates these fleeting yet impactful connections, balancing emotional depth with lighthearted charm. The vivid imagery, like quick getaways to Italy and the overall chaos of a whirlwind romance like this, centers the song's overall breezy tone.  In the second verse, Olivia sings, "I don't know where the switches are, or where you keep the cutlery, and I'll ...

"The Good Side" stands out as one of the most heartfelt and introspective moments in Troye Sivan 's entire discography. Released as a part of his 2018 sophomore album Bloom , the track is a beautiful reflection on the aftermath of a breakup, but not necessarily from the perspective of heartbreak, but from the complicated view point of someone who was able to walk away from that relationship relatively unscathed emotionally. In an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1 Troye said, "This song's a little rough. It's basically about a breakup that I went through a while ago. You know, in a breakup, I think just the sheer nature of it, is that someone is going to get it rough. And I happened to be on the good side of things..."   "I got the good side of things, left you with both of the rings," Troye sings in the opening verse. "My fingers danced and swayed in the breeze, the change in the wind took you down to your knees, I got the good side of y...