Released in advance of his Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City album, Kendrick Lamar's "Backseat Freestyle" felt like an out-of-nowhere burst of snarling rap virtuosity, an uncharacteristically vengeful vent…   Read Story »

There was no getting away from EDM in 2012. While the three-letter hashtag has certainly caused buzz among radio stations and indie blogosphere alike, it's been a big year for dance on and off of the…   Read Story »

Throughout the course of my life I have not been what you would call an R&B listener. A brief history of my dabbling: I owned a cassette copy of Boyz II Men's II because who didn't? A year later I…   Read Story »

If I'd made a list like this last year, probably 80% of the albums listed would've been free-download mixtapes. There are still plenty of those in the list you'll find below, but there are more…   Read Story »

This morning, Pitchfork finished posting its list of the top 50 albums of the year, and if you've been reading the site all year, it doesn't exactly have any huge, sweeping shocks. One minor surprise…   Read Story »

On "1 Train," a massive six-minute posse cut from his forthcoming LONGLIVEA$AP album, A$AP Rocky has lined up pretty much every single rapper who's had the internet going nuts in the last couple of…   Read Story »

The music website FACT, which typically focuses on leftfield electronic stuff, always puts out a fascinating end-of-year list, and this year is no exception. The site has just made its contribution…   Read Story »

A$AP Rocky recruited a hell of a lineup for "Fuckin' Problem," the sex-talk posse cut from his forthcoming album LONGLIVEA$AP. And all four guys show up in the brand-new video. It's a pretty…   Read Story »

Usually, when we run other publications' year-end best-album lists on this site, those lists are the products of long intra-staff email threads and target-audience triangulation. Hell, our own list…   Read Story »

Before Kendrick Lamar released his masterful smart-rap opus Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City last month, much of the scuttlebutt around it revolved around a collaboration with his buddy Lady Gaga, reportedly…   Read Story »