April was a phenomenal month for new releases here, and of course when the influx is so great many fantastic albums end up falling through the cracks.  Here are a few of the most criminally overlooked albums of April, please to be sharing your lists as well!

Last week Becca Stevens — who you might know as the lead vocalist in Travis Sullivan’s Bjorkestra — released a solo LP, Weightless (thanks to Ann Powers at NPR for the tip!). It’s a breezy and delicate blend of jazz, folk and pop, with unconventional time signatures, layered vocals and complex instrumentals. Most of the [...]

So, this just blew my mind: Apparently my favorite sassy Norwegian rocker Ida Maria released a new album, Katla, in Norway last fall and I did not know about it until five minutes ago. I have no clue how this happened, but thanks to SPIN magazine, I can now tell you that this album exists [...]

Truly one of the greatest voices popular music has ever known, Roy Orbison’s greatest talent was his ability to convey oceans of heartbreak in his high, lonesome falsetto. The purity and clarity of tone was — and still is — astonishing. To quote Lenny Kaye’s excellent column on the man, “His bel canto voice, a [...]

New, Improved, LIVE: Thao & Mirah – “Love is a Battlefield” from The Bay Bridged on Vimeo. Yesterday, Thao & Mirah released their excellent collaboration called — wait for it! — Thao & Mirah. And in case you’re not satisfied with all the wonderful oddities that record has to offer, the duo swung by The [...]

By now, most of us have seen the incredible array of videos that author Dan Savage and his partner Terry Miller have put together for their “It Gets Better” campaign to support LGBT youth. The audiobook version of It Gets Better–a collection of essays edited by Savage and Miller–landed on eMusic today, and in celebration [...]

Laura Stevenson and the Cans hail from a scene of punk rockers — Stevenson and many of the Cans are of the collective Bomb the Music Industry!; they share a label with Screaming Females, Shellshag, et al — and while their music leans more toward pop/rock, the band’s ragtag, DIY aesthetic hints that they’re still [...]

(one of the greats) Jesus. First Ari Up, now Poly Styrene. Two legends and inspirations gone way, way too soon. I had to really barrel through this morning’s picks, so I probably missed a few – please fill me in in the comments!

Horrible news this morning: Poly Styrene, former lead vocalist of the X-Ray Spex, on the eve of the release of her first solo album in years, has succumbed to cancer at age 53. We were fortunate enough to be able to interview Poly last month, and we’ll be running the piece here later on today. [...]

Looking for a guide to this week’s new releases? Look no more. After the jump, Times New Viking, Burial, Of Montreal, Thao & Mirah, Amon Tobin, and much more.

On May 3, the venerable Thrill Jockey label will release Aesthetica, the second album from the Brooklyn band Liturgy. Over the course of the last few years, Liturgy has grown increasingly difficult to pin down. Their early outings scanned as a kind of American scholar version of black metal (and, if I’m being honest here, [...]

I’m not going to lie to you: we’ve all been losing our collective shit over Past Life Martyred Saints the forthcoming full-length from ex-Gowns vocalist Erika M. Anderson, aka EMA. Jayson brought it in one day raving about it, and he was not wrong. The album will be here May 10, but I can already [...]

By Jayson Greene Every rapper has a pseudonym or five, and every major pop star has toyed with an “alter ego.” But no one turned those personalities into a bloody Cuisinart blur like Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem, aka Slim Shady. In his hands, identity was more than a branding exercise: It was a thrilling, high-stakes [...]

Lately, I’ve been spending a whole lot of time with In Case I Don’t Make It, the latest full-length from Philly rapper Has-Lo. My hip-hop tastes are almost embarrassingly retro: the stuff I react the most strongly to is the stuff that draws inspiration from what’s commonly referred to as “The Golden Age.” Has-Lo’s record [...]

Every now and then, a song turns up in my inbox from a band I’m unfamiliar with, and it turns out to be really lovely. And lo and behold, it’s happened again! Snow & Voices — who, as it turns out, are an LA band who have recorded three albums of moody, emotive pop — [...]

So this is pretty much all you need to know for the next 10 years, right here in this video. This is the secrets of the universe. I’ve been pretty obsessed with this record for the last few weeks (as evidenced by my staff picks selections) and now, clearly, I need to see them live. [...]

“I used to be cold and emotionless. I think my disease, sickle cell anemia, made me that way. I now know that good is the correct way to be. You have to choose a side.” This flat, affectless statement, made early on in Albert “Prodigy” Johnson’s My Infamous Life, sets the tone for his memoir, [...]

It’s that time again — time to take a look at what eMusic staffers and members have been listening to lately. As usual, this month’s installment runs the spectrum and, no matter what your musical taste, you’re sure to find something you love. If you’re in the US, you can read it here — international [...]

Well, if there’s one thing we know about Kevin Barnes, it’s that we don’t know anything about Kevin Barnes. If you look up “flummox” in the dictionary, you’ll find the definition of the word “flummox,” this way you’ll know what it means when I say Kevin Barnes is one of the most consistently flummoxing personalities [...]

Jack McBrayer & the Watson Twins talk NIGHT COVERS from The Watson Twins on Vimeo. Just yesterday, the Watson Twins released Night Covers, an EP that found them applying their knack for soft, twinly harmonies and back porch strumminess to songs by PJ Harvey and the Black Keys. And so what’s the natural next move [...]