“We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love),” the kinda-sorta Robyn homage from Ariana Grande’s new album eternal sunshine, was a #1 hit, so it follows that the song has a lot of fans. It’s also a good song, which probably helps. And why wouldn’t one of those fans be Keith Urban, the hunk...

The culty British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock has had a long, fascinating career. He led the Soft Boys, the influential UK psych-punk band. He filmed a concert film with Jonathan Demme and then acted in a few other Demme movies. He served as a key inspiration for bands like R.E.M., who covered his song “Arms Of Love.” A...

Julia Jacklin loves Céline Dion. A few months ago, when the Melbourne-based singer-songwriter was getting ready to release her new album Pre-Pleasure, she repeatedly named Céline as an influence on the record — not aesthetically, necessarily, but spiritually. Jacklin wanted to embrace the sheer comforting pleasure of music, and Céli...

The great British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, a man who’s been a rock ‘n’ roll cult hero since before most of us were born, is coming back next month with SHUFFLEMANIA!, his first new LP in five years. Hitchcock calls it his “proper pop album,” and he recorded it in different spots around ...

Julia Jacklin knows how to write a song that can turn you into a puddle. 2019’s Crushing opened with a sinister retelling of coming back to oneself after an unbalanced relationship shifted a sense of autonomy and self-awareness. The tracks that followed detailed social anxiety, familial intervention, and the emotional ruins left in hea...