There’s wild rock, chiseled old school rap, solo piano and country by a well-rounded tattooed rapper: in this summer harvest, there might be an album for you.
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Reading time: 5 min
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It was the holidays. You were lounging in your hammock in the torpor of summer and you had finally put the din of the world at a respectable distance. Between the song of the cicadas and the birds, only the music of your favorite artists was allowed to be heard. During this blessed time, the planet continued to turn and albums to be released, especially across the Atlantic – in France, record companies generally observe a summer break from releases. Here are four albums, released in July and August and in totally different styles, that you may have wrongly missed.
Jack White: “No Name”
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Whether you need a good cry about current events or a kick in the butt to get going again, Jack White has you covered. Given as a gift one day in July to lucky customers at his Third Man Records stores (in Detroit, Nashville and London), in a neutral white sleeve with the words No Namethis sixth solo album by Jack White was finally released by surprise in the middle of summer. An explosive, let-off-blood album, on which he lets loose without any complexes, ulterior motives or concepts. Recorded in his Nashville studio between 2023 and 2024, these thirteen raw tracks see him return to basics – we often think of the White Stripes – with jubilation. Teeming with wild riffs and slide guitars, mixing garage rock and boiling blues, No Name contains a hell of a collection of mind-blowing firebrands such as Bless Yourself and his fury worthy of RATM, or Archbishop Harold Holmes and its riff straight out of Led Zep’s thigh, on which its siphoned phrasing puts the turbo on. A pure moment of rock’n’roll.
(Third Man Records, released August 2)
Ryūichi Sakamoto: “Opus”
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The Japanese composer, who died of cancer last year at the age of 71, recorded six months before his death, which he felt was coming, a final solo piano concert film and an album of the same name, OpusStripped down, contemplative and expressive, this sumptuous testament bears witness to his creativity to the end: for this disc, the maestro of film music revisited and developed new arrangements for the classics of his repertoire, such as Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Furyo), The Last Emperoror the poignant, slowed-down version of Tong Pooa favorite title of his Yellow Magic Orchestra. He added three new tracks, including BB, addressed to the director Bernardo Bertolucci (1978-2018) and for Johann dedicated to the Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, who died prematurely in 2018. Heartbreaking.
(Sony Music, released August 9, 2024)
Common and Pete Rock “The Auditorium, Vol.1”
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This is a collaboration of big names that is sure to flow like honey between the ears of rap’s “old timers”. Considered one of the guardians of hip-hop integrity, Chicago rapper Common, 52, has joined forces with legendary producer Pete Rock – who was notably at the helm of The World is Yours Nas, that puts the guy in your place – for his fifteenth album. A “conscious” rapper if ever there was one, Common has never stopped proving how dear hip-hop is to his heart (the classic I Used to Love HER) and he continues with constancy. From the opening, on the nostalgic Dreamerbuilt around a moving sample of Aretha Franklin, it pays homage to the pioneers of the movement – ”it was our religion, wow” – and those who came before him, citing Queen Latifah and Biggie as well as Prince and Gladys Knights. On the seductive beat of This Manhe recalls “My goal is unity for my culture“, and everywhere deploys his poetic spirituality via beautiful metaphors on life, death, faith – “Our destination is constant elevation“, he asks on We’re On Our Way. For his part, Pete Rock works wonders in production, summoning all his heroes in his sound carpets, from Curtis Mayfield to Roy Ayers. An inspired album made up of “dreams combined into beats and rhymes”.
(Loma Vista, released July 12, 2024)
Post Malone “F-1 Trillion”
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Never where you expect him, the hyper-tattooed, magnetic rapper, who wowed us during lockdown with his impeccable Nirvana covers, is releasing a pure country album. While the genre is experiencing a meteoric rise – after Cowboy Carter Beyoncé in March, Lana Del Rey is getting in on the act with Lassoin September – and is a hit in the American charts, this turn of the rapper, composer and producer could be seen as opportunistic. Except that Post Malone, who was brought up on the genre throughout his childhood, partly spent in Texas, had prophesied in a tweet in 2015 that he would be a country singer by the age of 30. And so he is (a bit ahead of schedule since he is still only 29), and this in the company of a slew of legends like Dolly Parton, Hank Williams Jr and big names in the genre such as Tim McGraw, Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs. All recorded as it should be in Nashville with an enthusiasm and brilliance that commands respect. Whether we like it or not, we take our (cowboy) hat off to him.
(Mercury/UMG released August 16, 2024)
Note that the rappers’ albums were also released this summer Eminem (The Death Of Slim Shady) who symbolically killed his alter ego Slim Shady, Childish Gambino (Bando Stone in the New World)an ultra-varied album in which the actor and director also put an end to his musical career under this name, Killer Mike (Michael & The Mighty Revival, Songs for sinners and saints), a very successful combative album after three Grammys won for his previous opus, and Kanye West in tandem with Ty Dollar Sign (Vultures 2) in a half-tone exercise. The techno icon Jeff Mills released his second album of the year at the beginning of July (The Eye Witness) in which he looks at the psyche and traumas of humanity, while the Australian gifted and Stakhanovites King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard delivered on August 9th a penultimate album (Flight b 741) this time infused with seventies southern influences, and that the Irish post-punk group DC Fountains tries new things on his fourth album (Romance) released on August 23 to critical acclaim.