Gia Margaret – Singing: I wake up in the middle of the night and quietly play Singing, the dog lying beside me as I turn the volume as low as possible to avoid waking the house. Hearing the record in this way lets me hear parts of it that I’ve never heard before, like the heartbeat behind “Everyone Around Me Dancing.” Every sound is here for a reason, and sleeplessly listening in the dark is the perfect way to hear each sound and each reason.
Donny Hathaway – Everything Is Everything: I have a theory that the late 1960s music industry was so influenced by hit factories like Motown and Atlantic that it insisted R&B artists water down their social messages and musical experiments with listener-friendly pop gems. Even revolutionary albums like Sly & the Family Stone’s Stand! sandwiched fiery civil rights anthems next to relatively benign feel-good tracks. I’m not an expert on the period, but I’d argue Marvin Gaye finally broke that cycle in 1971 with What’s Going On, an album that takes a bold thematic stand (both musically and lyrically) from start to finish.
Everything Is Everything predates What’s Going On, and it shows. The record is solid from front to back, but it dabbles in so many styles and themes that it loses its ability to make a singularly powerful statement. The record has fantastic praise songs, fiery social songs, tender love songs, and a couple of songs that just make me want to party. By sandwiching them on top of each other, though, the album feels like it’s trying to be accessible to everyone who was buying records in the summer of 1970 without alienating any of them too badly. Now, maybe my complaint is actually Hathaway’s superpower. Maybe he’s conveying the diverse complexity of the human experience. That’s a fair interpretation too. For me, though, the only thing keeping Everything Is Everything from being a perfect album is that it pulls me in too many different directions and never challenges me to sit in one place and dig deep.
Cardinals – Masquerade: Masquerade is creeping up and becoming one of my defining albums for the first half of 2026. The band’s frequent references to Catholicism make me question whether songs like “St. Agnes” have a deeper Biblical meaning or if the band is simply trying to update the slice-of-life storytelling that artists like Pulp have done so well over the years. The record is young and bratty, but its energy is irresistible. It’s a staple for me right now.
Mitski – Nothing’s About to Happen to Me: I only listened a couple of times this week and I didn’t have any insights. I am slowly peeling back its layers, though, which is a reminder that Mitski never disappoints with how she creates layers within her records.
Old friends who made it into rotation this week: HAAi: Humanise; Prince: Sign O’ the Times; Interpol: Turn on the Bright Lights; Japanese Breakfast: For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women)