While DAYTONA could easily have been Pusha-T’s victory lap, it only builds on the heft of his weighty legacy.

Faced with the unexpected, Prass evolved, trading inward-facing confessionalism for outward-facing perseverance and releasing one of 2018’s minor masterpieces in the process. Plus, you can most certainly dance to it.

Many of these songs will soar in arenas and on festival main stages. They’re expansive, epic, and Mayberry’s powerful voice never wavers. But that openness comes at a price, and throughout Love Is Dead, every time CHVRCHES have the chance to get stranger, messier, and more unique, they rein in their eccentricities, going cleaner and more general.

The end result sees Misty at his most desperate, heartbroken state, making a solid comedown record from I Love You, Honeybear and Pure Comedy that doesn’t quite hit the profound highs of its predecessors, but gets carried quite a long way on the backs of its honest songwriting.

Lyrically, Barnett feels more accessible this time around, letting us share her anxiety when it comes to daily threats like toxic masculinity (“Nameless, Faceless”) and even scaling back the syllables (again on “Charity”) to simply reassure us that we’re not alone.

Sparkle Hard is at once his most sonically adventurous and structurally tight set of music in over a decade and easily stands among his most rewarding work with the Jicks.

Easily the weirdest record in the band’s catalog, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is a fun, flawed aberration (at least, for now). Even in failure, there’s enough to explore within Turner’s thicket of lyrics and the haze of this inviting, yet not quite fully realized sonic setting to warrant a few active listens.

7 is a lush record that grabs you from the onset and contains tremendous depth beyond the surface. Not quite a full rebirth, the band feel free to indulge their experimental inclinations and loosen up, filling the record with a bright spark that makes it as exciting to listen to as it must have been to make.

Tracks like “An Urn” and “Blessed Alone” are some of the best material The Body have released to date due to strong vocal performances and powerful lyrics. A few tracks feel predictable, though, and as a whole the project feels like the band dipping their toes into new territory rather than jumping all the way in.

On Sr3mm, Discs One, Two, and Three are all hanging out on the same street corner. There are plenty of interesting moments. But it would have been nice to go on a journey.

Roughly half the tracks being available prior to this release isn’t much of an issue when they are of such high quality, and the fresh tracks are some of the best the band have ever written. The group seem rejuvenated with a long road ahead of them.

“Same Bitches” sounds like a song Ty Dolla $ign once made and ultimately scrapped, and Post was more than happy to turn another man’s trash into his treasure, no matter how awkward or forced he sounds among more natural fits G-Eazy and YG.

Monáe is, as always, a true master of melding genres, influences, and styles. Her central themes of identity and internal conflict are as tangible on Dirty Computer as they ever have been.

He doesn’t finesse his points; he douses them in gasoline and blows them up. And that’s great! We could all do with more fiery explosions in our music. Sometimes Cole gets wacky, but thankfully he’s never dull.

Essential for fans and sporadically thrilling for newcomers, Eat the Elephant is the kind of reunion record that most bands would kill for. While it doesn’t court the same kind of controversy as the band’s previous political statements, it rewards multiple listens enough to overcome the vast majority of its shortcomings.

It’s a grief we hope to avoid and yet a grief we can’t help tasting. Saba makes it near impossible to turn away.

On Isolation, she never sounds trapped in another era; she sounds free and inventive. And with nary a dud to be found among its 15 tracks, Isolation deserves a spot in the dance pop and neo-soul pantheons.

It’s not perfect, but the album is remarkably cohesive, the right length, and filled to the brim with songs that already feel like inevitable summer smashes.

My Dear Melancholy, has cohesion, but it’s a listless, murky sound that never unhinges the way you want it to. Had he pushed a little further, it could have made for something more substantial, rather than walking up to the cusp and then backing down.

Virtue delivers a bracing set of experiments and amounts to the most interesting record of Casablancas’ career.

PRhyme’s progressive approach to the evolution of “real hip-hop” suggests that somewhere beneath the growing pile of impassioned, but largely semantic internal arguments plaguing rap might lie the reconciliation and unity necessary to elevate the art form in a manner that allows all parties to avoid a messy, public divorce where the kids are forced to pick sides.

Musgraves hits one high note after another on Golden Hour; her talent as a songwriter and melody-maker is second to none, and each song is thoughtful, well-formed, and a delightful experience on its own. Together, the tracks on Golden Hour add up to an honest, cohesive musical experience that will linger in your mind and heart long after the final notes have faded.

White’s reverence for classic music of the past is still a big part of who is he here; he’s just shifting focus with a more manic and multi-faceted approach. That’s not weird. That’s smart.

While this new self-titled album may point to a band dedicated to writing a new chapter for itself, the music they’ve made here only acts as the tentative (and skippable) introduction.

Sunflower Bean have all the ingredients at hand to achieve something truly spectacular. And they’re right on the precipice.

Though it contains a number of experiments that don’t quite work, I’ll Be Your Girl offers tracks that point to a very exciting way forward for the band.

It’s a worthy effort from a living legend, full of songs that are at least interesting and at times breathtaking.

This LP is loud, clanging, and communal, but also, in its own way, dreamlike. There’s something warped at the core of these songs, as if they’ve been yanked through some kind of wormhole and have reemerged into our world as aliens. And, for the most part, that makes for some fascinating listening.