Music Rocks

Special Lizzo

3x-GRAMMY Award-winning superstar

Lizzo has become a household name with well over 6 billion global streams and a Platinum-selling debut album to date. Three years in the making and with over 170 songs to choose from, ‘Special’ debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 album chart, making it the highest Billboard 200 charting album released this year by any female artist. For me, ‘About Damn Time’ is not the only possible single of this feel-good, toe-tapping pop album. Fast becoming a Lizzo fan with this album.

Quiet City

Alison Balsom

The concept of this project began decades ago when Alison decided that Copland’s film score to ‘Quiet City’ was a work that everyone needed to hear. When I listen to this album I envisage the growth of America back in the 30s and 40s, challenging and driven but set against a background of poverty and despair for many - quite pertinent today as we emerge from the loneliness of the pandemic and into another chapter of darkness in today’s turbulent world. Having said that, the album is a wonderful bridge between classical and jazz which is a delight.

Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones Madonna

Yes, there are 50 tracks on this album: Madonna’s favourite remixes, rare and unreleased versions and all newly remastered. On several songs, Madonna is joined by other incredible artists, including Britney Spears (‘Me Against The Music’); Justin Timberlake and Timbaland (‘4 Minutes’); and Nicki Minaj (‘Bitch I’m Madonna.’). Even if you’re not a Madonna fan, you must at the very least respect the sheer force of nature she has become, with the ability to reinvent her persona and also her music genre.

Good Person

Ingrid Andress

I wasn’t really aware of Andress until I heard her gold certified single ‘Wishful Drinking’ featuring Sam Hunt and it was one of those songs, that once in your head, you can’t get it out again! So I was delighted to see a new album and I wasn’t disappointed. Rolling Stone described it as “a gripping examination of the way we perceive others and compare ourselves without ever knowing the full story.” This description changed how I listened to each track and made the album even more enjoyable. Right up there with my favourite albums of 2022 so far.

Big Time

Angel Olsen

Big Time is an album about the expansive power of new love, written during the time Olsen was coming out as queer, and having her first experience of queer love and heartbreak. But this brightness and optimism is tempered by a profound and layered sense of loss; both of Olsen’s parents passed within weeks of each other, just after Olsen came out to them. I was a little undecided about the album after my first listen - worried that it was a bit too twangy for my ears but that impression didn’t last long the more I revisited it. It’s an album worth taking the time to listen to properly; for me, that’s through a good set of headphones and nothing to do for an hour or so.

Älskar

Nina Nesbitt

Made during a time of introspection, loss and fear of lockdown, Älskar celebrates life in all of its complexities as well as love in every form imaginable. It shimmers with both tender, intimate ballads and huge escapist ‘80s-tinged bangers that beg for the dance floor. Nesbitt describes making the album as a completely different experience from anything she’d made before and that even though a lot of the music was created remotely, she felt that she processed so much and learnt a lot about the relationships in her life during the last few years and as such wanted to capture all types of love in their raw forms, whether it be romantic, heartbreak, friendship, coming of age, familial or self-love.