Aretha Louise Franklin was an American singer, songwriter, actress, pianist, and civil rights activist. Franklin began her career as a child singing gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father C. L. Franklin was a minister.

Either/Or is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. Recorded in several locations mostly in Portland, Oregon while Smith was still in Heatmiser and produced by Smith, Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf, Either/Or was released on February 25, 1997 through record label Kill Rock Stars following the demise of Heatmiser. Book-ended by the two singles "Speed Trials" and "Ballad of Big Nothing", Either/Or did not chart in the US but was acclaimed by critics.
Following the album's release, Smith would be struck to the forefront of popular culture after performing the song "Miss Misery" at the 1998 Academy Awards, which appeared in the film Good Will Hunting.

Fresh off the worldwide success of Natural Brown Prom Queen, Sudan Archives levelled up, evolving from a hands-on DIY artist to executive producer of her third album – her most ambitious record to date. Recorded in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit, THE BPM is this innovative artist’s most club-forward music yet, with Sudan Archives taking a dancefloor-ready approach to her unique brand of violin-infused music.

Kelela Mizanekristos is an American singer. She made her debut in the music industry with the release of her 2013 mixtape Cut 4 Me.

Taylor Swift Announces New Album ‘The Life of a Showgirl’
Taylor Swift has announced her 12th studio album “The Life of a Showgirl,” hours after posting a mysterious countdown on her website.
Swift does little by accident, and fans instantly started speculating that something would be revealed on the 12th day of the month at 12:12 a.m. ET, when the countdown ran out. In classic Swift form, she did just that, revealing the album title on Travis Kelce’s podcast “New Heights Show.”
The announcement of “The Life of a Showgirl” comes just after Travis Kelce revealed on Instagram that Swift would be appearing on Wednesday as a guest on his “New Heights” podcast, hosted alongside his brother Jason. On Monday, the podcast teased that there would be a special guest, with fans sleuthing that an image with Swift’s outline suggested that she would join them on the show.
Spotify billboards started popping up in New York City and Nashville shortly after the album announcement, with a code leading to a playlist entitled “And, baby, that’s show business for you.” Though it’s a collection of Swift’s tracks, Swift fans will likely try to discern some Easter eggs from the tracklist based on prior record releases. Some have already noted that all the tracks on the playlist were produced by Max Martin and Shellback, suggesting that they could play a pivotal role in the new project.
Swift last released her studio album “The Tortured Poets Department” in April 2024, and followed up two hours later by expanding it into a double album titled “The Anthology.” It would continue to become the best-selling album of the entire year.
“The Life of a Showgirl” comes after a milestone in Swift’s career. In May, she announced that she had purchased her catalog of recordings initially released through Big Machine Records. She retained ownership from Shamrock Capital for a rumored nine-figure sum, revealing that she will be reissuing her old albums that were first sold by Big Machine against her wishes in 2019.
“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it,” she said at the time. “All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy. I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me. … My first tattoo just might be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead.”
Manager Scooter Braun had purchased the catalog in 2019 from Big Machine, which Swift had left the previous year, before Shamrock acquired it in 2020. According to a source close to the sale, the rumored price range of nine figures was “highly inaccurate,” with insiders saying that it was closer to the $300 million Shamrock paid for it.
Swift attempted to reclaim ownership of her narrative by re-recording her past records. She released the first of her re-recordings — “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” — in April 2021 with more than a dozen bonus tracks. She did the same for three other albums in the years that followed.
Fans had been eagerly anticipating the release of the remaining two “Taylor’s Versions” re-recordings: “Reputation” and her self-titled debut. Just before Swift’s announcement about acquiring her catalog, fans speculated that “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” would be released around Memorial Day, though Swift said that she was still hedging around the re-recording.
“What about Rep TV? Full transparency. I haven’t even re-recorded a quarter of it. The Reputation album was so specific to that time in my life, and I kept hitting a stopping point when I tried to remake it,” she stated. “Those 2 albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right, if that would be something you guys would be excited about. But if it happens, it won’t be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have. It will just be a celebration now.”
After the announcement that she’d acquired her catalog, sales of “Reputation” surged on the charts as it landed at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 with 42,000 album-equivalent units.

Mariah Carey is Here For It All. The pop icon announced the title and release date of her 16th album on Monday morning (July 21), revealing that the LP fans have been calling “MC16” will drop on Sept. 26. The news came in a brief Instagram video in which MC flipped her hair back and walked slowly in shiny black leather high-heeled boots and black cat suit in front of a giant mural of herself, with the album title spelled out over and over in black and white behind her.
“Featuring the singles "Type Dangerous," and "Sugar Sweet," the album marks Mariah's first studio album in 7 years. The project is a rich, genre-blending body of work that pays tribute to every era of Mariah that fans know and love, while introducing new collaborators and modern influences that allow the music to seamlessly span generations.”

“I believe the weirdest ones survive,” Doja Cat sings on “Stranger”—a line that just as easily applies to her unpredictable trajectory as it does a shimmering power ballad for misfits in love. With her world-conquering third album, 2021’s <i>Planet Her</i>, Doja Cat completed her evolution from viral internet oddball to full-on pop-rap star. Well, sorta: Ever the contrarian, the musician born Amala Dlamini announced in early 2023 that she was leaving pop music behind; months later, her fourth album, <i>Scarlet</i>, showcased her formidable rap skills with flinty songs that rejected the terms of her mainstream success. But when she began to conceptualise her fifth album last year, the pendulum swung the other way. “I think I love talking about love,” Doja tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “And I also think music is just such a door for expressing love in its different forms.”

On <i>Vie</i> (the French word for life, or the phonetic interpretation of the Roman numeral five), Doja pulls up via DeLorean with a whole new sound and style. Artfully grounded in the decadence of the ’80s, she spiffs up songs about love-bombing and limerence with skittering drum machines, punchy basslines and the occasional sax solo. She channels Queen on “AAAHH MEN!”, an ode to the maddening, demoralising, irresistible pleasures of men, and brings new jack swing into the 2020s on lead single “Jealous Type”. Naturally, what she called “that ’80s tacky romance sort of spin” demanded Doja’s first meet-up with pop’s premiere nostalgist, Jack Antonoff. “And so it’s the grappling with talking about something personal and creating something fresh, and then getting to know someone new,” she tells Lowe of their collaboration. “All of these things fell together really naturally.”

More playful than its predecessor, <i>Vie</i> relishes in its campy mood board and dishy subject matter: On “Silly! Fun!”, a punch-drunk R&B throwback about romantic delusion, the honeymoon’s over nearly as soon as it starts (“I know it could be a blast to just pop out a baby/We’re so very silly, getting married in Vegas”). But just because it’s flamboyant doesn’t mean it can’t be deep. “This album really grew from my sessions in therapy, and being so gung-ho on being there twice a week,” she says. “And learning about the human experience and how our brains function subconsciously and consciously.” Meanwhile, she mastered her singing skills—note the chops towards the end of “Jealous Type”. “I feel like I can do a lot more things that I could never do,” she says. “It’s just a more evolved, more mature version of whatever I’ve been doing since the beginning.”

High-gloss romance aside, love manifests in other ways. “I think that creativity is love,” Doja tells Lowe. “You risk a lot for love. And so when a musician loves what they do, sometimes that entails things that are kind of uncomfortable and scary. But it doesn’t matter, because you love that thing so much.”