Melissa Kacar

"BLUE" // Billie Eilish Words can't express how much I've been loving Billie Eilish 's latest album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT this month. Dare I say it's my favorite album of the year already!? Every single song is so incredible, and it was so hard to choose just one favorite, but for the sake of this list I went with the incredible ending track "BLUE". I was literally transcending the first time I heard this song, it's so rare to have an experience like that while listening to music. The first part of the song blends the chorus of a song called "True Blue", a previously unreleased demo from Billie's early career, while also lyrically connecting every single song from the rest of the album together at once. About mid-way through, the song switches up again into an ethereal and emotional ballad. It perfectly closes out the album. I was so blown away by her stunning vocals, emotive lyricism, as well as Finneas ' incredible production...

SHE IS COMING is among the most liberated, bold, and empowered moments of Miley Cyrus ' career. At the same time, it often feels like the lesser known and often overlooked project that she has ever released too. From the start, Miley has always been this sort of musical chameleon that is known to shift and change her entire image with each new album cycle. One of the reasons why this six song EP is so interesting is because it feels like a culmination of every style she has ever experimented with.  SHE IS COMING was released in between two massive eras for Miley; right after her return to her country roots in 2017 and 2018 with Younger Now and her "Nothing Breaks Like A Heart" collaboration with Mark Ronson , but also right before her full transition into a 1980's glam rockstar in 2020 . Since both of those records are massive highlights in her career, this brief in-between phase she was in with this EP has kind of turned into this hidden gem in Miley's discograph...

All's fair in love and poetry.... Taylor Swift 's  The Tortured Poets Department  is a 31 song masterpiece that is so incredibly complex in her depictions of love and loss in what is likely her most self-aware and transparent album yet. It is evident that this album was made with a different intention behind it than all of her past work.  The Tortured Poets Department  doesn't seem like she made it expecting it to have any massive hits or be commercially successful in the way the majority of her music has been up to this point. Most of these aren't instantly gratifying pop songs, but instead read like emotional excerpts from her diary detailing a whirlwind phase of her life. Much of this album is meant to sat with for a bit to fully understand what she is trying to convey.  Folklore   and  Evermore   remind me of  The Tortured Poets Department  in that way too, although these were made under different circumstances. The origina...