10 New Albums to Stream Now: Rolling Stone Editors’ Picks
Shania Twain, NOW
The first album in 15 years from the Canadian country-pop superstar is “taking inspiration from the expansively chaotic sound of contemporary country pop – a sound she helped to shape in the first place,” writes Rob Sheffield.
Read Our Review: Miley Cyrus, Shania Twain Reinvent Themselves Via Country Roots on New LPs
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Pearl Jam, Let’s Play Two: Live at Wrigley Field
Longtime Cubs fan Eddie Vedder and his bandmates played two headlining shows at Wrigley Field in 2016 – the same year that Chicago’s National League team captured the World Series title, breaking its long-standing drought. This album, the companion to a concert film that’s screening around the U.S. before being released to the home video market in November, collects 17 songs from the pair of gigs.
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David Bowie, A New Career In a New Town (1977 – 1982)
This in-depth look at the Thin White Duke’s Berlin era includes Tony Visconti’s remastering of Bowie’s 1979 album Lodger, which “loosens the sound of the album up a bit,” writes Kory Grow. The lavish box set, which includes Visconti-penned liner notes and a hardcover book in its physical form, also includes the rarities comp Re:Call 3. “The only thing A New Career in a New Town is missing, at least for the diehard fans who would buy a lavish box set like this, is more of everything – more rarities, more photos, more stories,” writes Grow. “But that’s also precisely why this period in Bowie’s career remains captivating. There’s enough curious music here to last several lifetimes.”
Read Our Review: David Bowie’s Heroically Experimental Berlin Era Explored in 11-CD Box Set
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Miley Cyrus, Younger Now
The headline-grabbing singer is “out to rebrand herself as a dues-paying twerk-free Nashville adult – any remaining Flaming Lips influence has gotten toned way down,” writes Rob Sheffield. “Miley’s ace in the hole has always been the dusky country ache in her voice, which she’s carried with her through all her incarnations. All over Younger Now, she revives her Southern accent, demonstrating her Nashville bona fides by including a voicemail from her godmom Dolly Parton to cue their Monkees-esque duet ‘Rainbowland.'”
Read Our Review: Miley Cyrus, Shania Twain Reinvent Themselves Via Country Roots on New LPs
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Kamasi Washington, Harmony of Difference
The latest release from the acclaimed saxophonist is a “a tidy EP under 32 minutes [that] still manages to cover plenty of ground,” writes Christopher R. Weingarten. Side A consists of five tracks that “warmly flirt with gentle Brazilian flourishes, smooth jazz and a slinky sound that feels like glossy Seventies funk fusion,” while the flip is ” a mash-up of the other five pieces that crescendos and cascades like Pharoah Sanders’ Black Unity meets Godspeed You! Black Emperor.”
Read Our Review: Kamasi Washington Follows Up Acclaimed Epic With Tidy Yet Complex EP
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David Crosby, Sky Trails
The latest album from the folk-rock pioneer is a jazz-tinged collection produced by his son, keyboardist James Raymond.
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Wolf Alice, Visions of a Life
The second album from this British rock quartet “dares to both sprawl skyward and focus its volume introspectively,” writes Joe Levy, “[fashioning] clouds of guitar noise into a crown for singer-guitarist Ellie Rosewell. It glitters seductively, but it will draw blood if you step to her wrong.”
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Ibeyi, Ash
Franco-Cuban twins Lisa-Kaindé Díaz and Naomi Díaz have made great strides since their spellbinding self-titled debut came out in 2015 – they were featured prominently throughout Beyoncé’s visuals for Lemonade, and they returned to Cuba, the home of their legendary percussionist father Angá Díaz. Where the sisters’ first full-length honored ghosts of loved ones passed, this electro-soul manifesto for a budding resistance flaunts the potential held by the future. Jazz luminaries Kamasi Washington and Meshell Ndegeocello slink into the foreground in “Deathless” and “Transmission/Michaealion”; clips of Michelle Obama’s monumental New Hampshire speech anchor the track “No Man Is Big Enough for My Arms,” and they resound like sacred incantations. Suzy Exposito
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Torres, Three Futures
The third album from Mackenzie Scott places her gleaming-blade voice amidst textures that feel heavy even when they’re sparse. “Skim” stomps while riffs play catch-up with Scott’s professions of insecurity; “Helen in the Woods” turns over-the-fence gossip about a local miscreant into Krautrock-edged nightmare fuel; “Concrete Ganesha” is post-apocalypse synth-pop, blowing up the New Wave’s shiny-shiny machine then piecing it back together in slightly askew fashion; album opener “Tongue Slap Your Brains Out” churns as Scott revisits her past selves, a flickering guitar acting as counterpoint to her apologies. Scott’s take on the American Gothic ideal is singular and vital, borrowing from old folk traditions and new ideas of noise alike. Maura Johnston
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Ben Frost, The Centre Cannot Hold
Digital expressionist Ben Frost wowed critics with 2014’s Aurora, a blown-out explosion of space-noise. On his fifth album, recorded live with producer Steve Albini, he paints with sharper edges. A collection of huge throbs, stuttering buzz and deep crunch, The Centre Cannot Hold is the first Frost album to feature just the Iceland-based musician and his sounds. The album’s ambience and tension still have unpredictable, swarming qualities, but Centre also showcases a leader of mutant techno playing, essentially, a “stripped down” set. Christopher R. Weingarten
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