By Jon Pareles and Jon Caramanica
Dear listeners,
In the streaming era, the grand event of an album release has been replaced by assorted strategies for creating a rollout — more like a string of firecrackers than a big bang.
Still, major albums are on the way this fall. Some of them break long gaps between releases; others take the next steps (or swerves) in already prolific careers. Jon Caramanica and I have plucked out 10 to spotlight here: a hardcore punk band propelling the genre’s evolution, a tech-loving R&B singer and songwriter who always brings her fiddle, a social-media-savvy hip-hop crew and more.
Today’s newsletter kicks off our preview of the coming season — there’s much more on the way in the next two weeks.
So let’s get started with a playlist of songs that are streaming right now from those 10 much-anticipated albums. They’re arranged by release date, with each one looking a little further ahead.
Who’s having fun?
Jon Pareles
Listen along while you read.
1. Cardi B: “Imaginary Playerz”
A testament to the power and influence of Cardi B? She remains one of the most visible female rappers working, and one of pop’s most entrancing celebrities. All in spite of the fact that she’s released precisely one studio album, “Invasion of Privacy” in 2018. Seven years later she’s back with “Am I the Drama?” (due Sept. 19), returning to a female-rap landscape that’s almost been shaped in her image — bawdy, testy, lighthearted, absolutely unbothered with what the boys are doing. She’s even released the vicious “Imaginary Playerz,” an update on an old Jay-Z song, as a flag-planting statement of intent. — Jon Caramanica
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. Sarah McLachlan: “Better Broken”
Nine years after her last album, Sarah McLachlan returns with a new collection of somberly comforting ballads: songs about connection and estrangement, empathy and longing, love and its sometimes bitter aftermath. The tempos are stately and the production is plush, full of subtle luxuries, as in the resolute, post-separation title track, “Better Broken.” The album is due Sept. 19. — Pareles
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Robert Plant and Saving Grace: “Everybody’s Song”
Robert Plant must have enjoyed sharing vocal duets on his two albums with Alison Krauss. He fronts his new band, Saving Grace, alongside the singer Suzi Dian. On the album “Saving Grace,” they harmonize while the band reconfigures some of Plant’s favorite musical elements: the blues, Celtic picking, Arabic modes. He chose songs from multiple eras and styles, covering Memphis Minnie, Moby Grape, the Low Anthem and this track, an Arabic-tinged revamp of “Everybody’s Song” by the indie-rock duo Low. “Saving Grace” will be released Sept. 26; a tour comes to the Brooklyn Paramount on Nov. 5 and the Capitol Theater in Port Chester on Nov. 8. — Pareles
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Jeff Tweedy: “One Tiny Flower”
As if he hasn’t been busy enough leading Wilco, Jeff Tweedy will release “Twilight Override,” a triple solo album with 30 songs. Quietly strumming an acoustic guitar, Tweedy muses on time, memories, love, change, music and contradictions, in mostly unplugged tracks that sound like real-time jams, not studio concoctions. Folky with occasional outbreaks of psychedelia, the album is a low-key magnum opus. Songs like this one, the Eastern-tinged mini-jam “One Tiny Flower,” may seem relaxed on the surface, but they’re never complacent. “Twilight Override” will be released Sept. 26; Tweedy’s band performs at Brooklyn Steel on Oct. 22 and the Patchogue Theater on Oct. 24. — Pareles
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Bryson Tiller featuring Rick Ross: “Mini Kelly”
A decade ago, Bryson Tiller emerged from Louisville, Ky., as a logical inheritor of Drake — not as a rapper, but as an R&B singer who’d fully absorbed all the lessons of rapping and used them as a tool to modernize and enhance his vocals. His debut album, “Trapsoul,” remains the peak of that approach. He’s experienced steady success since then, and this year is releasing a two-part album. “The Vices,” full of hip-hop features from Rick Ross, BossMan Dlow, Plies and others, was released in August, and “Solace,” advertised as a more R&B-focused project, will come Oct. 2. — Caramanica
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Silvana Estrada: “Lila Alelí”
The Mexican songwriter Silvana Estrada thrives on delicacy, transparency and a poet’s sense of language. She often sets her lyrics to her gentle fingerpicking on a Venezuelan cuatro with just a handful of other instruments. Estrada produced her second album, “Vendrán Suaves Lluvias” (“There Will Come Soft Rains”), and even as it opens up her palette with orchestral arrangements, it holds on to her intimate tone, as in this upbeat song about unrequited love, “Lila Alelí.” “Vendrán Suaves Lluvias” will be released Oct. 17; her tour comes to Webster Hall on Nov. 23. — Pareles
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Sudan Archives: “Dead”
Sudan Archives — the songwriter, singer, fiddler and producer Brittney Parks — layers everything together. Her songs hold riffs, memories, beats, impulses, melodies, effects, taunts, pleas, boasts, dancing. On “The BPM,” her album due Oct. 17, she aligns instinct and intellect, human and machine, bravado and desire. Every song is crammed with ideas and sonic surprises, like this electronic but visceral song, “Dead.” Her tour visits Under the K Bridge Park, Brooklyn, on Sept. 13. — Pareles
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. They Are Gutting a Body of Water: “American Food”
The Philadelphia outfit They Are Gutting a Body of Water can be deeply bracing. Beginning as a solo project of Doug Dulgarian, and now a full band, its sound takes in the contours of shoegaze, classic indie rock, a touch of noise and more. The result vividly bridges despondence and hope. After years of playing around with digital production techniques, the band makes a shift toward live recording on a new album, “Lotto” (out Oct. 17), with all of its attendant sloppiness and feeling. — Caramanica
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. Whatmore: “Eastside W My Dogs”
There’s a winning ease to the TikTok videos made by the emergent New York collective Whatmore, a five-member hip-hop troupe — Jackson August, Elijah Judah, Yoshi T., Cisco Swank and Seb — with roots at the arts-centric LaGuardia High School. But there’s also careful choreography, in terms of how the members trade whimsical but intricate bars back and forth and also how the camera seems to find them at just the right moments. It is a very polished and professional approach to extremely casual and playful music. Whatmore’s debut self-titled album, due Oct. 17, follows some made-for-the-feed use of clever samples (Clairo) and some enthusiastic live performances in tight spaces. — Caramanica
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
10. Drain: “Who’s Having Fun?”
The growth and stylistic spread of American hardcore music continues apace, and its strength owes heavily to acts like the Santa Cruz, Calif., band Drain, which for a decade has been working through a ferocious combination of thrash and punk and loosening some of hardcore’s strictures along the way. It’s a path from rule follower to rule breaker walked by several recent influential bands like Trash Talk and Turnstile. Onstage, Drain offers an approachable kind of intensity, and “Who’s Having Fun?” — from its third full-length album, “ … Is Your Friend,” out Nov. 7 — suggests a growing curiosity about what happens when a hardcore band stops being punk and starts acting (at least a little bit) pop. — Caramanica
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“The Fall’s Most Anticipated Albums: 10 Picks” track list
Track 1: Cardi B, “Imaginary Playerz”
Track 2: Sarah McLachlan, “Better Broken”
Track 3: Robert Plant and Saving Grace, “Everybody’s Song”
Track 4: Jeff Tweedy, “One Tiny Flower”
Track 5: Bryson Tiller featuring Rick Ross, “Mini Kelly”
Track 6: Silvana Estrada, “Lila Alelí”
Track 7: Sudan Archives, “Dead”
Track 8: They Are Gutting a Body of Water, “American Food”
Track 9: Whatmore, “Eastside W My Dogs”
Track 10: Drain, “Who’s Having Fun?”
Jon Pareles has been The Times’s chief pop music critic since 1988. He studied music, played in rock, jazz and classical groups and was a college-radio disc jockey. He was previously an editor at Rolling Stone and The Village Voice.
Jon Caramanica is a pop music critic who hosts “Popcast,” The Times’s music podcast.
The post The Fall’s Most Anticipated Albums: 10 Picks appeared first on New York Times.
