Here, on her sixth album, she fixes her gaze on another place primed for exploration: the art world. No music has ever sounded quite like it. Winking and vivid, Norman Fucking Rockwell! She finds the nuance and enduring pleasure in her game of faces. The result is a poetic and courageous work that traces heartbreak, health, and personal growth. Fake It Flowers is pretty much her whole life in one album. Taylor Swift’s eighth album is a sweater-weather record filled with cinematic love songs and rich fictional details. Be the Cowboy, displays Mitski’s knowledge of song structure and her ability to bend any idea to her will. Young, growing, or old, these singers express their vulnerabilities and emotions in this list of style-changing albums not just for the alt-pop genre, but for the listeners as well. The Japan-born, New York-based singer, Mitski Miyawaki's fourth studio album praises her emotional delivery and lyrically complex themes. At least she’s made very thoughtful use of this one, surely. Tucked inside her dreamscapes about Hollywood and the Hamptons are reminders—and celebrations—of just how empty these places can be. The Morissette collab “Alanis’ Interlude,” which features a reference to John Mayer’s “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” is almost too irritating to endure: “Your pussy is a wonderland,” the pair warbles, infinitely more times than necessary. “Your poetry’s bad and you blame the news,” she proclaims on the title track, with a raised eyebrow, and this forthright song grows more savage from there. This attitude defines Lush, and Jordan turns it into a mantra on “Full Control”, the song in which she finds her moving past another failed romance, done with waiting for someone to love her back. But hope does not elude us yet. “Yeah, I guess the end is here,” she deadpans. The debut EP by the Los Angeles teen nudges things along nicely with its minimalist beats and lifting-yet-sinister lyricism. Still trading in piercing vulnerability, Clean is Allison’s excellent studio debut: a compact album of clear melodies, plainspoken lyrics, and the impossibly tangled logic of infatuation. Lindsey Jordan does not have all the answers. However you interpret it, the line, the song, and the album speak the language of transcendence. Oh, we forget the best one but the saddest one. “I don’t wanna be somebody in America just fighting the hysteria,” she sings on the album opener “Ashley,” framing her personal frustrations within the broader sociopolitical context shaping our collective experiences. Here, she suggests something even bolder: that the only thing more dangerous than a complicated woman is one who refuses to give up. The fingerpicked riff is played on a guitar that seems to be dissolving; a low, male voice comes in like a record playing at the wrong speed; a steady pulse seems to rise from somewhere deep in your headphones. In contrast to its bigger and brighter sound, the mood is grimmer, the emotional truth darker than ever. And on “Relay,” after listing off a series of things she resents about an ex, she offers a critique of our hyper-socially-mediated world so savage it practically demands a standing ovation.” The title track, and the album’s peak, is like a teenage girl’s diary, detailing the futility of fighting your way through a friendship, crying, and the secret power of a Kate Bush song. Powered by .css-v0w4zo-Footer:hover,.css-v0w4zo-Footer:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1wxdhtw-SiteLink-Footer{color:#1A1A1A;}.css-1wxdhtw-SiteLink-Footer:hover,.css-1wxdhtw-SiteLink-Footer:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}Vocal © 2021 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved. "Fake It Flowers" was released on October 16, 2020, via Dirty Hit. But its turbulent grandeur could speak to the whole Lana Del Rey story. And Lana has an anthem for that, too. Too often, she jumps to John Hughes-ian climaxes without laying the foundation that would grant them the proper emotional heft. It’s hard to believe this all came from a 15-year-old. Clean has only subtle flourishes. From the music to her emotions, Mitski has the power to make the complex seem dazzlingly clear. The sophmore LP from the New York-native is a story of pain and passion, both tasting the same in a pastel-painted world with pop-polished and edgy-entitled records. Many of the songs on the 25-year-old’s emotional third album Manic were written from the eye of the storm. But, fret not; many artists from various decades will get their just due 'lists: Fleetwood Mac, Commodores, Billy Joel, Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince are all due for 'lists this year, so hang tight, and they are being drafted as we speak. Compositions as "Green Light" and "Perfect Places" are upbeat and eclectic songs laced with an un-noticeable streak of heartbreak and fear. Throw in a cheeky, extended riff on an episode of “The Office” on “my strange addiction”—which smatters in clips of the Dunder Mifflin crew reacting to Michael Scott’s own contentious creative efforts—and you have an album as widely collagist as a teen’s bedroom wall. The gasping-for-breath pleas such as "I Bet on Losing Dogs", and "Your Best American Girl" is the album's most notable and creative works. The concept is ambitious, but the product ticks all the boxes: the staid breakup ballad “Bad at Love”, the outspoken and edgy “Walls Could Talk”, depressing R&B dilettantism of “Alone”, the heart-thud pace and breathless quotables in “Heaven in Hiding”, the begging and manic in "Now Or Never" and the Lauren Jauregui-assisted “Strangers”. It's a handful of songs that showcase where she is here and now. Cottrill’s voice exudes a quiet warmth and intimacy, whether confessing a personal crisis on “Alewife”. Nilüfer Yanya: “Baby Luv” (2017) London upstart Nilüfer Yanya does a lot with a little on “Baby Luv.” The song spotlights her insistent guitar strums, her urgent vocals, and little else. In this way, Be the Cowboy radiates assurance. Don't forget to check out part three. Without the guitar and her typically doubled vocals, she allows herself to crack; for the first time, she seems fully content with the vulnerability. On Claire Cottrill's debut album, the young viral star moves beyond the lo-fi bedroom-pop of her early recordings and into a restrained, detailed style of songwriting all her own. Filipino-born and British-raised Beatrice Laus uses the slanted melodies and flannel-loving aesthetics of ’90s alternative rock in service of massive pop hooks. None of her music released has ever sounded quite like Fetch The Bolt Cutters. We're revisiting some of the best alternative albums made by the music industry's best women. I can imagine many listeners finding comfort across its 16 songs, and similarly bridging angst and self-discovery to navigate personal crises of their own. Over the rubbery electro beat, she says she’s the “Make-your-girlfriend-mad type/Might-seduce-your-dad type.” The quieter moments of When We Fall Asleep nod more to Eilish’s past, and to mixed results. When she claims “I’ll never love anyone else” on her debut album, Lush, she is not moping—she sounds psyched, turning the sad sentiment into a singalong, as a rush of bass, drums, and jangling chords raise her up high. It's a work of art with its angels and even its demons. And its something special about Allison. She revealed that the Hopeless Fountain Kingdom itself is a sort of purgatory for people who are too bad for heaven, but too good for hell. Her delivery is light, insistent—the casual tone you use to convey passing thoughts to the closest person in the room. We fall in love again and again because a little self-sabotage never stopped anyone. Those themes are also displayed on "Washing Machine Heart" and "Me and My Husband". Vic Mensa, Chaz French, Rob Markman and more — here are all the standout debuts of this year... part four, that is. "Liability" is a pop-piano ballad, where she sways alone wondering if she’s too complicated to find love, it is heartrending and uncomfortably relatable. Olsen has described All Mirrors as an “angry” record, and even when she isn’t explicitly cursing “DREAM ON DREAM ON DREAM ON” on the skyrocketing “Lark” at an ex who failed to register her desires, the synth-abetted production seethes and shudders, grandeur and ruin existing side by side. “My Boy” is a sinister and edgy track about how her boy ain't honest. For its intro "!!!!!!! The songwriting of her earliest direct-to-Bandcamp material was still hazy at the edges, but by her 2018 studio debut Clean, a world-class indie rock singer-songwriter was standing in her place. On her second album, Phoebe Bridgers defines her songwriting: candid, multi-dimensional, slyly psychedelic, and full of heart. Across the song’s two halves, she tethers the anxiety of leaving home to a vivid depiction of an actual apocalypse: lightning crashes, fire rises, people scream. “Without Me” and the country-pop manifesto “You Should Be Sad,” are rooted in the exploration of deep pain and what Halsey has described as an interest in “female rage.” Notably, Halsey describes the album as the first project she has written as herself, New Jersey’s Ashley Frangipane, and not under the protective cover of her alter ego. She sounds like a person you might know. "K-12," tells a contemporary tale of self-acceptance. Did it teach you to bury your pain, to let it calcify, to build a gate around your heart that quiets the reaches of your one and only voice? On “Rose/Lotus/Violet/Iris,” joined by the disaffected chorus of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, she conjures a similarly haunted atmosphere, opening with ghostly, swirling vocals dense with delay. “Xanny” plumbs sincere anxiety over more marrow-shaking bass, the kind that could blast apart a few pairs of headphones. is the sound of a heart-shattering and reforming just to shatter again—of troubled people attempting to navigate the mess of love. On the wrenching “California,” Lana processes as much: “You don’t ever have to be stronger than you really are,” confessing in a tumbling rush that “I shouldn’t have done it but I read it in your letter/You said to a friend that you wished you were doing better.” Each word is on a pedestal; the song exists to amplify them. The energy centers of the song are reversed—the verses slink with gravity, the choruses are steadied and light. Not that All Mirrors is just a strong wind that blows in and leaves you undone. “Heat Wave” begins warily, with Jordan pining in yesterday’s clothes, her voice a groggy croak. There are intimate appeals, the kind that often comes with watery eyes and trembling chins. Hello, one and all. The rising pop star, Halsey's sophomore album goes for experiments that are full of anhedonic drama. BENEE's second EP is her most emotional and well-constructed work, and it's even her most assured composition. Without the guitar and her typically doubled vocals, she allows herself to crack; for the first time, she seems fully content with the vulnerability. She’s candid about how making music can be as depleting as it is fulfilling. Phoebe Bridgers is a master of collapse. She employs old-school lingo on the one hand (“Catch ya on the flipside”) and a narcotic slur on the other. These 14 complex compositions warp the pop textbook into something more knotty and internal, creating a unique zone where the then 27-year-old thrives: She’s never sounded so large, even in the record’s quietest moments. That's who she is. The breathtaking songs of Angel Olsen's fifth album are fleshed out by grand gestures about romance, authenticity, and being simply at the sole mercy of how we all feel. She has worked hard to make it sound this easy. “Fetch the bolt cutters,” Apple sings like a spell, “I’ve been in here too long.” She has always strung words together like armor, but “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” feels designed to protect us. She might be exhausted, but she is insatiable. It's short, sweet, and to the point. A hip-hop duo based in Sacramento, CA, Jive Hive is made up of Collin Jacka, aka Jaxa, and Chase Taormina, aka Chase Tea. Its her breakthrough as a rising-alt artist during quarantine. With its elongated violin notes, “Tonight” is fit for the last flush of romance in a silver-screen love story. When Sophie Allison sings, she sounds wide-open and guarded, casual and intense, intimate and coolly removed. As befitting its title, Angel Olsen’s fourth full-length album is in fact two albums. Part of the fun of listening to Lana Del Rey’s ethereal lullabies is the sly sense of humor that brings them back down to earth. If there is a recurring theme to be found in Phoebe Bridgers’ second solo LP, it’s the idea of having these inner personal issues while there's bigger turmoil in the world—like a diary about your crush during the apocalypse. .css-nuxzf3-Bold{font-weight:bold;}For the most part, women were responsible for the best music of this alternative era. Her faint country warble wells more with each verse, and it’s devastating. (On “The Next Best American Record,” she sings, “We were so obsessed with writing the next best American record/’Cause we were just that good/It was just that good.”) Whether she’s wistfully nostalgic or jaded and detached is up for interpretation—really, everything is. Many of these exquisitely narrated songs contain reminders that the trappings of masculinity—breaches in communication, emotional stiltedness, fear of vulnerability—come from the same toxic status quo as systemic patriarchy. Auckland’s Stella “BENEE” Bennett released her first two EPs before hitting age 20, so it’s no surprise she oozes confidence on these five songs, starting with the slow and easy bounce of the catchy opener “Find an Island.” Beyond colorful touches like the affectionate nod to Arabic music’s double harmonic scales on “Monsta,” these tracks’ grooves are spiked with an emotional resonance that draws equally from Bennett’s vulnerable singing and scathing lyrics. 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