For its 10th annual New York City-based music festival, Governors Ball has officially announced its 2020 lineup.

The festival is set to host 2020 GRAMMY nominees Steve Lacy, Flume, Vampire Weekend and others across three days and multiple stages in New York City’s East River Randall’s Island Park.

Visitors to the festival will also have the chance to catch performances from artists including budding r&b songstress Summer Walker, dream-pop singer-songwriter and producer BANKS, five-time GRAMMY nominee Swae Lee of Rae Sremmurd and "Slide Away" singer Miley Cyrus, in addition to Ellie Goulding, Portugal. The Man, Jon Bellion, Bleachers, Khruangbin, Danny Brown, Cuco and more. The full lineup is available here.

Tickets for the festival go on sale Jan. 17 at 12 p.m. EST on governorsballmusicfestival.com.

Gov Ball 2019: What Went Down Before Mother Nature Took The Headline Slot

Over the past 15 years, Cults have captivated audiences with their atmospheric, layered compositions that pack a pop-friendly punch. Now, on the brink of releasing their fifth album, To The Ghosts, on July 26, Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion reflect on their journey and new creative freedom. 

While their previous albums required the duo to stick to deadlines precariously organized between tours, the pandemic provided new circumstances. Freed of distractions and obligations, Follin and Oblivion traveled to Los Angeles in 2022 to join up with their longtime producer Shane Stoneback (Vampire Weekend, Sleigh Bells) to craft an album that looks back on their past while pushing their sound ahead.

"We don't have the sales pitch for the album down yet, but there's no other band that sounds like us," says Oblivion. "We're digging into our thing, and if you're into anything we've done before, you'll love this one."

Adds Follin, "We're like no other."

The album title is addressed to the ghosts of both Oblivion and Follin's past selves. As Oblivion explains, their four prior albums were time capsules that reflected the period in which each album was written and recorded. This release is something different.

To The Ghosts is a personal landmark for Follin, particularly. In 2020, upon the release of Cults' fourth album Host, she admitted that she'd been too shy to bring her own songwriting and demos to the table for the band's first three albums. It was Stoneback's encouragement that altered the creative process for the duo, resulting in their most collaborative album to date, and significantly more reliance upon live instrumentals in the studio.

"We spent a month in an AirBnB then a week in the studio with Shane," explains Follin.

"It was a mad dash to replace all the midi instruments with real ones, so we were running around playing vibraphones, organs, and guitars and all these things we'd recorded in demos and laying it all back down in one week."

It may have been a mad rush at the end, but over the years the duo have refined their formula for making albums. They're no longer the giddy art students and lovers making DIY music with no plans for world domination.

In 2010, Follin and Oblivion founded Cults and released their debut EP "Cults 7", followed by their debut self-titled album in 2011, which was similarly lauded. By the time their sophomore album "Static" arrived in 2013, the pair had freshly broken up and the themes of being creatively and emotionally stagnated resonated in dramatic, spacious orchestral compositions. They followed up with "Offering" in 2017, which was the first of the duo's albums to lean into optimism and a sense of embracing a more pop-friendly path.

That optimistic pop thread is picked up once more in "Crybaby", the first of 10 tracks that kicks off the new album. It launches with a lush, reverb-rich guitar hook and shuddering church bells, then shifts into a calypso beat and Follin's dreamy ode to escaping the modern malaise ("dry your eyes / turn off the screen"). Like the other catchy, bittersweet synth-pop numbers on To The Ghosts, "Crybaby" wraps up in close to three minutes. 

The lengthy outliers are "You're In Love With Yourself" and the closing track "Hung The Moon," which runs over five minutes. Ending an album with an epic power ballad is their signature style and "Hung The Moon" bathes in drama, love, loss and redemption. "In a storytelling way, that's the only ending that makes sense to us, a melancholy resolution," Oblivion says.

To The Ghosts captures everything fans adore about Cults and they'll have ample opportunity to catch them performing live this year. The duo are set to return to Lollapalooza opening for Vampire Weekend on Aug. 4, followed by their own headlining U.S. tour the same month. 

Ahead of their intensive touring schedule, the duo joined GRAMMY.com on a group video chat from their respective homes in New York’s East Village one evening, to discuss their upcoming release.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

You began working on this album during the pandemic. Tell me where you wrote and recorded material, and whether you did that together or separately?

Madeline Follin: We were writing and recording in Brian's spare room. Can you see him?

Brian Oblivion: This tiny room! [directs the camera around a room not much bigger than 7 x 10 feet].

Follin: I sat on that couch right there, and we spent a lot of time in that little room [laughs]. For the most part we were together for the entire thing.

**Madeline, you revealed that before making your fourth album Host, you were too shy to show your own music to Brian and producer Shane Stoneback. What broke that barrier down for you to fully participate in the creative process?**

It was really hard to get it out of me. I had really strong imposter syndrome. Even though Brian was just starting out, he had taken a few recording classes in college, so he knew a lot more of the recording lingo and ways of communicating technically. I didn't know, so I felt so nervous to even communicate what I wanted. Shane helped with that a lot in terms of translating what I wanted into the language of studio speak. Shane is unlike any other producer we've worked with. He heard me out.

Tell me about working with Shane Stoneback in terms of what you came into the conversation with, and what he contributed to shaping this album.

Follin: We thought that we were not going to work with Shane again because he'd largely gotten out of the business. During [the] pandemic he switched careers and began working in the movie business. So, we started working with a few other people, we were feeling it out, and it just wasn't working. We reached out to [Shane], and he randomly happened to have 30 days off and said if we can finish it in 30 days, we can do it. We said, "we're coming out tomorrow."

What were the creative decisions you made in the earliest stages, and how much did you change your mind or allow outside ideas in as you were working on this album?

Oblivion: It took us a really long time. We definitely wrote over 100 songs. I put it all on an iTunes playlist and it was over 6 hours of music. This time we got a lot of confidence from some of our older songs being popular with young people. We thought, maybe the time has come around where we can do exactly what we do, and that's kinda 'new' again. Once we went through all the permutations and landed on "Crybaby," which was the first song on the record, we just thought "this just feels like us, so let's lean into what makes us unique." The messing around period was just trying out new tricks and trying to expand our possibilities.

John Congleton has a real knack for guitar sounds and finding a rawness to live instruments. How did he come to mix this album?

Oblivion: I've been a fan of John's going back to Xiu Xiu and my high school days. He's a master of distortion, him and Dave Fridmann, that's their thing. They can make things really fuzzy and interesting, but also fit it all in the speakers in a way that's like a weird magic trick. We have kind of a vintage sound, and he gets that but he's also smart at highlighting things that are new. He mixed our last record too and from the first conversation, in which he said he thinks like a musician and wants to do something strange, we knew we wanted him.

Follin: We'd mixed with other people before but when we got a mix back from John, he was bringing out parts of the song that we hadn't even recalled leaving in there. He makes our songs sound new to us again. We have a lot of trust and respect in him, and we were trying for so long to get our schedules lined up.

Oblivion: We work on our music for so long that by the time it's ready for the mix, we really want to hear something new. It's refreshing for us that John hears something new in us.

Tell me about "Crybaby," the first single. What were you going for in terms of the music, the mood and the message?

Follin: We'd been working on that song as part of the 100 songs that didn't make it. Brian started working on that song and I had never heard anything like that come out of his computer before, and I was shocked. It's funny because people say it's so "Cults sounding", but I thought it was unlike anything we'd done before. It's got a '60s vibe, an island vibe, to me and I thought we needed to zone in on it.

Oblivion: That was at the point where we decided "let's see if we can still make Cults songs that hark back to the earliest record." I love the lyrics, they're simple and there's no hidden meaning, which is great. A lot of the music that we love and that inspired the start of our band, is really obvious but also really weird in terms of lyrics. "Crybaby" is a fun, whacky diss track.

Let's talk about what inspires you musically.

Oblivion: What gets me excited is spending a lot of time sharpening my Spotify algorithm, so every Monday I get a collection of weirdo emotional love songs about heartbreak, these obscure, catchy B-sides, and whenever I find a song like that, I'm so inspired. Something that has kitsch, gravitas, and a bit of humour, that John waters, David Lynch combination lights me up.

Follin: Right now, I'm really into a lot of Fontaines D.C. I felt a 'Cults' vibe from them even though they probably have no idea who we are. It's been a while since I've put on a song, and then I want to put it on again right away.   

"Left My Keys" is an anthem for growing up. Tell me about your experience growing up in this band.

Oblivion: What makes this record different is that historically, we'd do all the music together over a span of two years, then Maddy would squirrel away to take a month or two to write all the lyrics, and that made the records very reflective of that moment, that time. For this record, because we had a protracted work schedule with nothing else to do, we took the time to slow down and look back. "Left My Keys'' is about being a teenager, and "Crybaby" is about things that happened a long time ago. Growing up is being comfortable enough to address your own past and realizing everything turned out okay so far. It's the first album where we're looking backwards and processing stuff from the last 15 years and before.

This album feels brighter than 'Host.' What happened between 'Host' and 'To the Ghosts' that explains the transition?

Oblivion: There's a lot of stuff we got out of our system. Host and Offering were both dark records, to me. It's wild to see that young people have picked up on "Gilded Lily" and that was such a crazy, cathartic song for us, so now it is crazy and cathartic for them. Most of my favorite bands are dark, sad bands, but that's not the totality of who we are. Being able to explore both sides of who we are was refreshing for us.

Follin: Personally, we were both feeling a lot better in our lives. We worked through a lot of anxiety, and because of the pandemic there was less partying, clubs, and bars. We had time to get healthier.

Oblivion: In a lot of ways our band is defined by our limitations. We have made music for 15 years, just the two of us with the same producer. But every time we make something new and interesting and all the things we think of as roadblocks help to provide a framework for what we do.

You released 'Host B-Sides & Remixes' in 2022, two years after 'Host.' Are there outtakes, or planned remixes, that are planned for this album too?

Follin: Definitely. 100 percent, we will be having something, but I'm not saying.

Oblivion: It's been really fun with the last few albums to put out songs that showed what would have happened if we went in a different direction. Sharing that part of the process with listeners has been fun.

You have a huge schedule of touring. Tell me about the plans and how you mentally and physically endure all the travel and performances. Does it get easier the more you do it?

Follin: No. Every single night, even if we're in the middle of nowhere, whether there's 15 people or 1000, I almost have a heart attack before walking on stage each night. You're crammed in a box with 7 people every night, there's a lot of emotions…

Oblivion: …and something is always breaking at soundcheck, it's like arghhhh! It's really hard, but when we put out Host and we didn't get to tour for two years, we missed that connection. The feeling of sharing your music with people allows us to move past it and get into something new. It's a big part of our personal growth and experience. We love touring.

Follin: In normal daily life, we hang out together. We hang out on weekends. It's not a forced thing. It feels so good to meet fans every single night, too, and hearing stories of how you affected somebody's life.

Most of the tracks on this album fall at around the three minute mark, and many end quite abruptly without fading out or dwindling down. Was that a deliberate strategy, and then why did "Hung The Moon" require that extended time as the finale?

Oblivion: It's verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus and you're done in three minutes!

Follin: Brian is very concerned about time, and I don't think it matters. I like shorter, he likes longer. We're compromising.

Oblivion: "Hung The Moon" is the big epic ballad that ends the record. We have had one on every record, it always ends with a big power ballad. In a storytelling way, that's the only ending that makes sense to us, a melancholy resolution. I love that song because it starts off as a sweet love song then it gets tense and spooky towards the end, but the lyrics stay really loving. It's that transition between the rush of an initial relationship and then the long game, where it's sweet and delicate, but it's also real life, so you're afraid that you'll lose things and you're trying to hold on to that original thing. So, the album ends on a bittersweet note.

We’re fortunate enough to be living in the middle of a Missy Elliott resurgence — not that she ever went away.

Three decades into her groundbreaking career, Missy is readying her very first headlining tour, which begins July 4 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Out of This World Tour runs through August and features her longtime collaborators Timbaland, Busta Rhymes, and Ciara.

The fact that it is her first headlining tour may be surprising, given that she’s been on the scene since debuting with the group Sista in the mid-1990s, and has been a chart-topping star since becoming a solo artist in 1997.

The hip-hop icon released her last full-length album, The Cookbook, nearly two decades ago but time hasn’t diminished her influence at all. In fact, we’re all still catching up to the futuristic vision that Missy and Timbaland introduced to the world in the late 1990s in their songs and videos.

Missy began her career as a member of Sista, which was a part of the Swing Mob, a musical collective working under Jodeci’s DeVanté Swing. That crew included a number of future world-changers, including Missy, Timbaland, Ginuwine, Tweet, Stevie J., and two legends who have since passed on, Magoo and Static Major. After Sista was dropped from their label, Missy, by all accounts, would have been perfectly happy to settle into a life as a songwriter and producer. But something bigger was beckoning. 

Persuaded by Elektra’s Sylvia Rhone with the promise of her own label, Missy agreed to turn in one album as a solo artist. That album, 1997’s Supa Dupa Fly, made Missy not just a star but an icon, and changed the course of her life. It began a career that, over a quarter-century later, found her inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame — she was the first female rapper ever to be nominated for the latter.

And that’s just the beginning of the accolades. There are the four GRAMMY wins and head-spinning 22 nominations. She was also honored alongside Dr. Dre, Lil Wayne (who has not been shy about calling Missy his favorite rapper), and the woman who gave Missy her first solo record deal, Sylvia Rhone, at 2023’s Black Music Collective’s Recording Academy Honors event. Missy was also a key participant in the GRAMMYs tribute to a half-century of hip-hop that same year.

Throughout it all, Missy has remained humble. When speaking to GRAMMY.com in 2022, she reflected on how she and longtime collaborator Timbaland had no idea of their impact at the time.

"We really just came out with a sound that we had been doing for some time, but we had no clue that it would be game changing, that we would change the cadence — the sound of what was happening at that time," she said. "No clue!"

"Her whole existence is based on moving us and influencing us," says her longtime manager Mona Scott-Young. "She wants to be able to touch people."

And that she has. To celebrate the Missy-aissance, GRAMMY.com spoke with Missy's colleagues and collaborators for an insider’s view on the course of her career and what makes the four-time GRAMMY winner unique. 

The quotes and comments used in this feature were edited for clarity and brevity.

Missy’s Impact Began With Her First Guest Verse 

The first time many people took note of Missy Elliott was her verse on the 1996 remix of Gina Thompson’s "That Thing You Do."  

Gina Thompson (singer): I was in the process of completing my first album, Nobody Does It Better. Actually, it was complete. So what happened was, my A&R at the time, Bruce Carbone at Mercury Records, wanted to have Puffy do the remix.

Puffy was like, "We have this person that's really talented. Her name's Missy, and she used to be with the group Sista, and she's a phenomenal writer. She's working with a lot of other artists, she’s definitely the next big thing in the R&B/hip-hop world." We were like, cool.

I believe we actually heard it over the speaker phone in Bruce’s office. I know that I said that I loved it, and I felt her style was unique and different. It grew on me in a great way. I just felt like it was a smash. She definitely had added a great touch to it. I was super-excited about it.

Merlin Bobb (former Executive Vice President, Elektra Records): I was blown away by the simple fact that I knew she was a great songwriter. But when I heard her rhyming, I thought it was the most unique style that I had heard in some time.

Digital Black (former member of Playa, part of the Swing Mob): A lot of people only knew her as a writer or an R&B artist, but when she came on that Gina Thompson record with that rap, it changed everything. It allowed her to be even more herself.

Mona Scott-Young (manager): Oh my God, have you heard that song? It’s her ability to use expression and evoke emotion without even using words. She said, "He he he haw," and we all found a new way to bounce. There was something fun and magical and different that spoke to what we would come to know was this incredibly vivid imagination that would take us places sonically and visually that we didn’t even know we needed to be. 

Read more: 50 Artists Who Changed Rap: Jay-Z, The Notorious B.I.G., Dr. Dre, Nicki Minaj, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem & More 

She Changed The Sound Of Hip-Hop With Her Debut LP 

Missy’s first solo album, Supa Dupa Fly, came out the following year. It gave new energy to a hip-hop scene that was still reeling from the deaths of 2Pac and Biggie.

Anne Kristoff (former Vice President of PR, Elektra): She 100 percent did not want to be an artist. She's like, "I'm not an artist. I want to be Diane Warren. I'm going to write the songs. I'm going to be behind the scenes."

Merlin Bobb: I started talking to her regarding being an artist. She was totally against it. "No, I want to be a songwriter." And also, just to be honest, [Sista] had been dropped from Elektra prior to my conversations with her, so she wasn't too eager, I think, to jump back aboard.

It took about six or seven months of us discussing ways to do this. I spoke to Sylvia [Rhone, then-head of Elektra], and I said, "She's an incredible songwriter. Let's offer her a production deal or a label deal where she can not only just look at herself as an artist, but at the same time develop and nurture artists under her own banner." Sylvia thought it was a great idea. 

We both talked to Missy about it, and she said, "Okay, I'll do one album." I was ecstatic because she was writing some great songs, but she also gave us her first album, which was, needless to say, a classic.

Kathy Iandoli (author, "God Save the Queens: The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop and Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah"): In God Save the Queens, I referred to her as the Andy Warhol of hip-hop, in the sense that she took the art and the cultural aspect of it, and she just put this spin and interpretation of the art that no one had ever really done prior.

With Missy’s arrival around ‘97, we were at a point in time where hip-hop was in a complete state of confusion. We did not know where it was going to go. Missy made high art hip-hop that was commercially accessible. And for that, she changed the entire game. 

Gina Thompson: When she had her first project with the whole vision — not only her sound, but her songwriting style, the look — everyone was like, "This girl went out on edge. I'm gonna do a little bit of the same thing and not be so worried if I don't sound so average, what people are going to think. Because she's out on the edge doing it." And I promise you, ever since she came out, that you started hearing a lot more of female rappers tweaking their voices.

Lenny Holmes (guitarist): In hip-hop, everybody would think that it's a whole bunch of computer generated stuff. Missy Elliott does not approach it like that. She loves live instrumentation, but she likes to take bits and pieces of it. She simplifies it, and it is placed uniquely in the track at certain points. That's what makes up the structure of the song.   

Mona Scott-Young: Everything from the way she looked to what she was talking about to the way she delivered that music and what she represented in terms of being nonconforming, not looking like the other female rappers of the day — I think all of those elements were the perfect lightning in a bottle. The way she rode that beat, both lyrically and with her delivery, was very, very different from everything else that we were hearing. 

Read more: Revisiting 'Supa Dupa Fly' At 25: Missy Elliott Is Still Inspired By Her Debut Record 

She Reinvented The Music Video 

You can’t think of Missy Elliott without picturing her iconic music videos, many done in collaboration with director Hype Williams. 

Brian Greenspoon (former International Publicist, Elektra): I mean, she came out of the gate wearing a garbage bag, and made it the coolest thing anyone had ever seen. 

Merlin Bobb: She said, if I put out this album — initially we were talking about a single deal, but we went into an album — there’s two things very important to me: the dance aspect and the visual aspect.

Kathy Iandoli: The thing that I really loved about Missy's music videos, she was a big budget music video person. She got the men's music video budget.

Anne Kristoff: When you think about the "Rain" video — I'm just guessing, I don't want to put words in her mouth — but I think when she saw that the vision in her head could become real out in the world, that anything she could think of could happen, that maybe it made it a little more fun for her to be an artist. I hope.

Digital Black: Missy is one of the funniest people you’ll ever meet. People maybe don't know. She loves joking. So that was just her being her. 

Gina Thompson: You started seeing a lot of people doing certain robotic-type images or moves in their videos to almost mimic her "Supa Dupa Fly." She’s the creator of that.

Earl Baskerville (manager/producer): Missy would get with the director, and she would sit there and go over the whole treatment. A lot of the visuals came from her. She was very hands on. Today, you can shoot a video in four or five hours. But Missy’s video shoots was so long, I used to hate it. We would be there fifteen hours for a three minute video!

She Was Avant-Garde But Still Pop 

Missy’s musical and visual style was like nothing anyone had ever seen. Yet she still became a star. How did she manage to be both innovative and accessible? 

Kathy Iandoli: You can't make something that the general public can't access, or speak over their heads.

Digital Black: Even if you said it sounded weird, it still had some soulfulness to it. I think that was what allowed her to touch so many different people. 

Merlin Bobb: When you have an artist that stands out, but it doesn't go over your head musically, artistically, lyrically, then it works. People, when they heard and experienced something new and fresh that was easy to digest, but it was unique, they gravitated to it. 

Brian Greenspoon: How was it sold to a mass audience? I mean, the sound was breakthrough. What Timbaland was doing with drum sounds, and the way they were building these very sparse rhythms and sound beds, they were breaking ground. But the thing that worked is that they had these incredible songs that Missy was writing and that she had these incredible featured artists on. 

Gina Thompson: To try to figure out what her brain is doing, I’ve been gave that up.

Earl Baskerville: Nobody could figure out what we were doing, because they couldn’t understand the sound.

Lenny Holmes: Her rhythmic style of how she would do the vocals was just unheard of. Like, doubling up accents. The things that she started doing — you would hear a deejay do a scratch on a record. You would not hear a singer do it. I was like, What in the world?

Anne Kristoff: She was doing these really creative things that no one else was doing visually. And the sound was different than whatever everyone else was doing. So it wasn't a hard sell for the press.

She Was A Master At Working With Other Artists 

Missy was far more than just a solo star. All throughout her career, she continued her first love: writing and producing for other artists — including Ciara, Aaliyah, Destiny’s Child, and Whitney Houston. 

Lenny Holmes: Missy had a great relationship with singers and rappers, because she could do both. A lot of people don’t know, but Missy can sing. So when we worked with groups that had singing parts on them, a lot of times she would go ahead and lay down the guide track for the actual artist to sing.

Kathy Iandoli: Missy just really understood the artists that she worked with. She saw their strengths, and she helped them utilize them to the best of their capabilities. 

Angelique Miles (former music publishing executive): She was able to relate to the artist and express that artist. She was able to customize and express that artist's story. Whatever she wrote for 702 didn’t sound like what she wrote for Whitney Houston. 

Digital Black: She was good at listening to the artist, seeing what they do, and then, how can you enhance what they do well? Those are the best records. She was great at tailor-making records for people, just from her doing her due diligence on learning who the artist is. Not just going in, "I’m Missy, I can write whatever." I'm gonna write something specifically for you that enhances what you’ve already done.

Merlin Bobb: She would have made an incredible A&R person. I would have hired her back then. She was able to come up with lyrics and melodies and songs and chords and production that to me stood out. She worked with both male and female artists. She really knew how to get an artist not only to sing a great song, but to sing very uniquely and in their own way, because she was a great vocal production coach.

Mona Scott-Young: She's always listening beyond what we hear. Even if there's a song an artist has [that she’s not involved with], she'll say, "Yeah, I would have done this thing differently with this artist. Because if you listen to what she did on this one part of the song, you can hear that there's more range there. But for some reason they didn't push her to go there." That to me is just one of the things that makes her such a great producer and star finder, because she always is looking for what more they can do and how they can challenge themselves to be better.

Earl Baskerville: She had signed an artist that I used to manage named Mocha. And she told Mocha to go in there and just rap. I think Mocha might have did 30-something bars, 60 bars. know. Missy listened to all of the stuff she did, took it, and dissected it. She went in there and took eight bars, not from the beginning of the track — I don’t know where she found it, in the middle or something — and put it on the Nicole Wray record "Make It Hot." When Mocha comes in, that’s actually the middle of the verse somewhere! That was crazy to me.  

Her First Love Was Always Songwriting 

Through it all, Missy’s strength remained (and remains) her songwriting. But what makes her songs stand out, and stand the test of time? 

Earl Baskerville: Missy didn’t want to be an artist. She just wanted to be a songwriter. 

Merlin Bobb: Her songwriting was very soulful, but it also had great melodic edge to it. They’re very realistic lyrics to a young scene that was happening in R&B and hip-hop at the time. So it was somewhat of a fusion of R&B and hip-hop lyrically, and she just had a very strong sense of melody and great hook lines.

Mona Scott-Young: She wasn't talking about the same thing that we were hearing from a lot of the other females in the genre at the time — overt sexuality and material possessions and that kind of stuff. She was engaging, having a good time lyrically, and holding her own with her male counterparts. 

She was giving us music that was great, and it didn't matter that it was coming from a female. She was kind of this androgynous being that was delivering great music. You listen to the song, you just want to party.

Read more: Missy Elliott Makes History As First Female Rapper Nominated For Songwriters Hall Of Fame 

She Changed The Artists Who Came After Her 

As with all major innovations, it didn’t take long after Missy broke big for her influence to be felt. 

Kathy Iandoli: The special relationship between Aaliyah, Missy, and Timbaland was the fact that together they all created a new sound that would set the standard of hip-hop and what we now define as alt-R&B. They invented a new subgenre. It was something that Missy was able to continue along and then create a sound on her own terms. 

Gina Thompson: Many people were trying to emulate her whole different style.

Lenny Holmes: [Were people copying her?] Most definitely. But there's only one Missy. And I got to say, there’s only one Timbaland too. You hear that trademark voice or the trademark lick, and you just know that's them. 

Brian Greenspoon: I think she influenced just about everybody that came after her. The sound of hip-hop changed after her and Timbaland dropped that music. The way the people produced their drum sounds and their beats, the use of hi hats, it all changed based on Missy and Timbaland.

Merlin Bobb: Most hip-hop/R&B collaborations at that time were hip-hop records with vocal hooks from R&B artists. She kind of flipped it, where she worked from the R&B side and made the vocals and the production more hip-hop friendly.

Mona Scott-Young: Her whole existence is based on moving us and influencing us. She wants to be able to touch people. So when we see artists who you can hear or see the influence, then you know that she's done her job.

There's so many artists — Flyana Boss, a little bit Cardi, a little bit Nicki. They all, I think, have been influenced by Missy, her look, her sound, in one way, shape or form. And that is the greatest compliment, to inspire a generation and see them take what you've done to another level. But then she's constantly also evolving and keeping everyone on their toes.

Learn more: 8 Ways Aaliyah Empowered A Generation Of Female R&B Stars

Considering Missy And Her Legacy 

Everyone interviewed for this piece had so much love for Missy. Here’s a small sample.

Brian Greenspoon: Missy is one of the most professional, talented, creative artists I've ever had the luck to work with. I'm happy to see that she is being recognized for being the icon that we all saw that she was becoming back then. 

Lenny Holmes: Even today, in whatever we're doing, we use what we've learned from Missy Elliott. It’s mixed in whatever we do. It’s amazing what she has done for herself, but she has definitely helped people along the way, and we will forever be grateful to her.

Digital Black: She's a one-of-one, God-given talent. She earned every award, every accolade, accomplishment. Her work ethic was phenomenal, and nothing was given. Big sis earned everything, and I just want to say I love her, and it's been a pleasure and an honor to be a part of her career.

Kathy Iandoli: There’s so much of the art that we have right now that we have to thank her for.

Mona Scott-Young: This has been an incredible journey. I always talk about being incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to play a role when you have somebody like her who has touched so many people globally and whose music and entire presence hold this special place in fans’ hearts. 

Every day it's just about, how do we continue to push forth, break boundaries, challenge ourselves to do things bigger and better than we did it the last go round.  

GRAMMY-winning French electro duo Justice have always moved to the tune of their own drum machine.

Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay's debut release, 2003's "We Are Your Friends," was a radical reimagining of a tune from experimental psych-rock group Simian. Originally a remix made for a Parisian college radio contest, "We Are Your Friends" didn't win, but grabbed the attention of Daft Punk's manager Pedro Winter, who had just founded his impactful indie dance label Ed Banger Records. The track eventually became an anthem of the bloghouse era.

Response to their second single — 2005's glitchy, fuzzy "Waters of Nazareth" — nearly made them reconsider their decision to switch careers from graphic design to electronic music. Two years later, the duo had another major hit — along with their first GRAMMY nominations and some international chart success — with their third single, "D.A.N.C.E.", a joyous bop sung by a youth chorus. 

While their core influences of disco, electro, funk and psych rock remain, Justice is not interested in rehashing the same sounds. They are interested in making you feel, and the sounds that get them the most excited in the studio are the strange and boundary-pushing ones.

They're beloved for their high-production live show, where they mashup and reimagine their biggest tunes into a frenzy of sound and lights. They debuted a new live show at Coachella 2024, which features a dizzying new light contraption created over 18 months by their long-time lightning designer Vincent Lérisson. After each studio album, they produce a live album from the subsequent tour, a costly and time-consuming project which they recently told Billboard nearly bankrupts them every time. Yet their last, 2018's Woman Worldwide, won a GRAMMY award for Best Dance/Electronic Album.

Justice is just as meticulous in the studio. For their first studio album in eight years, Hyperdrama, (out on April 26 on Ed Banger/Because Music), they created hundreds of versions of each track and spent an extra year on the album stitching the best parts together. While they've produced for and remixed plenty of big names over the years, the new album is their first to feature recognizable stars like Tame Impala, Miguel and Thundercat, along with Rimon, Connan Mockasin and the Flints.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Xavier de Rosnay to dive deep into the creation of Hyperdrama, the album's new collabs, Justice's new live show, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

How were your performances at Coachella?

It was good. It was only the second show of the tour. And the beginning of the tool is generally where there's a lot of space for improvement. We could definitely feel that we did better [on weekend 2] than the week before because we were a bit more relaxed, a bit more accustomed to the stage setup and to what we used to conduct the music and everything. Everything felt more fluid. But there can be a difference between what we feel and how the crowd feels, and that's impossible for us to say.

How did you envision this new live show and what are you excited about bringing it around the world?

The way we envision it is as has been the same since the beginning, it's just now we have access to a larger array of technologies to be able to do that. We've always liked the idea of instead of hiding the technical aspects of the stage, enhancing them in every way possible. Everything you see on stage at the beginning [of the show] is stuff that is very mechanical, technical and that are meant to be on stage. As it evolves, everything is moving and lit up.

We hope that there's a lot of moments where the audience can actually get lost [in the moment] and not fully understand what's happening on stage because of the way things are lit. We know the matrix of the stage in and out, but sometimes we see things we don't really understand because it creates a dimensional space that is difficult to comprehend at times. For us, that's the best, it's when we have kind of magic moments.

And musically, same thing, it's always the same as from the beginning but better, freer, bigger. Justice live is Justice's greatest hits; we're not the kind of band that won't play the hits and will force feed the weird [tracks]. For us, it has to be a big party, it has to be fun from top to bottom. Although it's only our fourth album, now we feel we have enough of a catalog to make something that is relentless and fun from the beginning to the end.

I definitely feel a cinematic journey on the new album, is that intentional? And what's the story you're trying to tell with Hyperdrama?

Well, it's intentional in the way that the most powerful music is music that brings images to the mind. Classical pieces of music, like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, are the biggest hits ever and they have no drums, no beats, no lyrics. But they've been the biggest hits for centuries because they have a very powerful, evocative strength. For us, music is first and foremost meant to reveal this. So we never make music with the idea that it has to be for dancing or pop or anything, we always make music to try to convey powerful emotions. Although we didn't work with a theme like cinematic in our mind, we're happy to hear that some listeners are feeling that way.

The way the album is structured is very classic in the sense that it's structured like a lot of narrative forms. The beginning of the record, let's say the first third, is setting the tone and feeling at home. After our first album, we entertained the idea of starting every album with the theme of "Genesis," a bit like when you go to the cinema and hear the 20th century theme.

You feel good for three, four songs, you go on cruise control and then things start to drift a bit. For [Hyperdrama], that's "Moonlight Rendez-Vous" and "Explorer" — when things start to turn wrong a bit and, and then you go into a sort of vortex, like on "Muscle Memory," "Harpy Dream." In a film, that would be when the goofy sidekick of the protagonist dies. At that moment, you think everything is at its worst, then you have the final drop with "Saturnine" and "The End," which is a bit like the homecoming and happy ending situation — you're back at home again and hopefully you end on a positive note.

Is it kind of a Justice Space Odyssey?

Yeah, totally. I think for as long as we make music, we'll always try to make everything sound a bit like a space odyssey. It's funny that you mentioned space odyssey because [Hyperdrama] has four different sections that are very distinct. That's something that we love too — connecting things that don't really make sense at first glance.

Within some tracks, for example "Incognito," we're going from this almost psychedelic funk intro, and then you have a straight cut and you're in the future, everything is electronic. Things don't really make sense at first, but you listen to it and you get used to [this kind of transition].

And that was something where we really worked on a lot on this album, to make those different universes coexist and sometimes in a not very peaceful way. It can be a bit off-putting at first listen, but that's what's great with the record. You can feel it's a bit strange and you return to it and hopefully you start getting used to these kinds of things until they become almost natural.

The two of us have been working closely for a long time, so getting surprised and sometimes getting a bit unsettled is really what we're looking for in the studio. Generally, when we start to track and we're having a laugh because we are feeling we're going too far, it's something we've haven't done before, or we're making something ridiculous, that's a very good sign. These are typically the things we're looking for when we write a track or produce a song. 

"Incognito" feels very classic Justice, although you've said Travis Scott's "Sicko Mode" kind of inspired its shifts. How did "Incognito" come together and how did it shake up your songwriting process? 

I think the "Sicko Mode" thing is getting a bit bigger than what it is. It was not like we had an epiphany hearing that song. We think it's a great track, but for us, it was more of a reminder that it's always possible in any context to approach things in a very naïve way in a sense, and that it's possible to escape the canon of classical structures and classical writing and still achieve something that is surprising and free and that is legible for a vast amount of people. The principle of juxtaposing things that are foreign next to each other is not new, but to see it on such a big song always gives us a lot of hope about music in general. 

"Incognito," "One Night/All Night," "Generator," "Afterimage" and "Dear Alan" all work a bit on that principle that we had where we recorded several versions of the same track, of the same riff separately. For "Incognito," we had a plan of the song very precisely from the demo. But when we produced it, we recorded the intro and outro, that was one track that we mixed and produced separately. All the electronic parts were another track, all the disco parts in the middle were another. We produced and mixed them separately and only during mastering, we brought them back together. We really wanted to feel like it was separate songs that we'd put together.  

Would you say you are perfectionists? 

No, because there is no such thing as perfection. For us, the best we can do is make something that we feel good about, and this is when we know it's done. It's not perfection because we're not looking to make something that checks all the boxes of what perfection should be. 

Most of the music that we listen to is not perfect to any extent. But for us, it's perfect when it's faithful to the original feeling and idea we had when we started putting those songs together.

I've been really obsessed with "One Night/All Night." What was it like working with Tame Impala's Kevin Parker, and how did you find that mesh between your sounds?

We didn't think of "One Night/All Night" as a song with vocals at first.  We played [the demo] for Kevin and he was like, "I can hear something in that one." His vocal topline really adds some sort of weird sadness and melancholy to the track. The main riff is so simple, I think the simplest we've ever made, the dun dun dun. That's what is great with collaborating, a topline can very much shape a song. We fell in love with that new emotion that he brought to the song.

We really wanted to sound like we had found an unused Kevin Parker song, and sampled it and made a futuristic song with it. So we re-recorded the disco parts; it's almost like the disco part in the middle was the original record and what's before and after is the modernized version of it. And in the intro, his voice is in a key that is a bit off-putting. It builds up slowly and when the first chorus hits, you have his real voice that is instantly recognizable and very powerful and everything comes together — it's a beautiful moment to us.

It was really fun working with him. I mean, it was fun working with everyone [on Hyperdrama]. We almost felt like a mouse in a hole just looking out at things; you get to see everybody's idiosyncrasies and the way they think about music.

Why did you want to make a sonic tribute to Alan Braxe on "Dear Alan"? 

It's more of an inside joke than anything, but in the realm of electronic music, he's been an inspiration for us from the beginning. He's always had this kind of melancholic thing to his music that a lot of other bands from the French Touch first wave don't really have. For us, the French Touch first wave is more like shiny club music that's very euphoric. Alan Braxe was always a bit less dance-y but a bit more melancholic and elegant in a way, and that touches us a lot more than straight dance music. 

We also love his persona. The guy has been releasing maybe one song every three years for the past 20 years. This guy is even less productive than we are. But every time he puts one song out, it's always a gem, it's perfect. I don't think he's ever released one bad track.

The track is based on the sample of "Dear Brian" by Chris Rainbow. Chris Rainbow is a musician from the '70s and '80s that was doing post-Beach Boys music and "Dear Brian" was to Brian Wilson. For a long time, the working name of our track was "Dear Brian" and when we had to give it a proper name, we were like, Okay, the vocal sample reminds us of Alan Braxe, let's call it Dear Alan. It's a way for us to pay tribute to Alan Braxe and also Chris Rainbow.

When you think back to 2007 and "D.A.N.C.E." and having that kind of fast success on a global scale, what memories remain for you from that early era of Justice?

The truth is that it was not fast. There were four years between the moment we started the band and "D.A.N.C.E." and our first album came out. It was four years of doubts and thinking we were doing artistic suicide, for real. All those tracks took a lot of time to actually reach an audience.  

In the meantime, we did our first commercial suicide with "Waters of Nazareth" in 2005. We felt really bad about that track for a couple of months because we had no positive feedback about it. When we would play at festivals, as soon as the song would start, the technical people from the festival would run on stage to see if everything was plugged in correctly. Finally, a year after, it started to reach the underground, people more coming from rock music that felt there was something cool about it. 

Once that was settled, we released "D.A.N.C.E." which was not at all what people wanted us to make, because that was a disco track with a kid singing on it. It took some months, but then it made [an impact]. Then we made "Stress" and had a huge backlash on the video.

Our first album sold a lot of units, but it was over the course of maybe two years. It was really at the end of 2008, beginning of 2009 that it had reached its kind of cruise speed. So, retrospectively, it looks a bit like we came out of nowhere and found a spot for us, but it was made over five, six years; it was a proper development in a way. 

How do you feel you've grown as individuals and as producers since that early Justice era?

 We didn't grow up too much, to be honest. Every time we go back to the studio, we start a bit from zero again, mainly because we try to get rid of old habits every time we start something new. We also change the instruments that we use. The first months of Hyperdrama were really almost like R&D. We were trying to find new ways of making sounds. We didn't produce much music then, we were just trying things and getting accustomed to the new setup. We learn everything as we're making a record and especially on this one. We also wanted to get rid of all habits we have in terms of writing and producing. 

To us, knowledge, a lot of times, can be the enemy of the good. We're trying to find the good balance between, of course, using what we've learned throughout the years to make things that get better hopefully with time and at the same time not to get stuck into patterns that can make you feel old. We're very aware that we're entering a phase of being an old band in a lot of ways. 

We really hope that Hyperdrama does not translate as an old record made by an old band. Hopefully it still sounds fresh and naive and playful, as if it was a record from a young man.

Chromeo On Their New Album 'Adult Contemporary,' Taking Risks And 30 Years Of Friendship

This year, April brings more than just showers to beget May flowers. Instead, there must be something in the stars: In the fourth month of 2024, four artists are releasing their fourth studio albums. These are pop-rock band X Ambassadors’ Townie, R&B singer Bryson Tiller’s Bryson Tiller, rapper PartyNextDoor’s P4, and Irish rockers Picture This’ Parked Car Conversations.

Numerology aside, April will also contemplate exciting new works from pop masters Taylor Swift, whose The Tortured Poets Department drops mid-month, and St. Vincent’s All Born Screaming, country star ERNEST’s Nashville, Tennessee, jazz master Kenny Garrett and electronic producer Svoy’s What Killed AI?, and — allegedly — the second part of Future and Metro Boomin’s first joint-effort, We Don’t Trust You.

There’s music for all tastes ready to fill your playlists for the rest of the year. Read on for 15 of the most exciting albums dropping in April 2024.

TOMORROW X TOGETHER - minisode 3: TOMORROW 

Release date: April 1

Luckily, fans of the K-pop quintet TOMORROW X TOGETHER (TXT) rarely have to wait for new music. Six months after releasing their third studio album, The Name Chapter: Freefall, the group is gearing up to release minisode 3: TOMORROW.

The seven-song EP is fronted by upcoming lead single "Deja Vu," which is said to mix trap, rage, and emo rock into their signature emotional intensity, as per a press release. The other tracks continue to expand the group’s versatility, experimenting with pop rock, house, and acoustic guitars. 

As usual, the concept of the album is connected to TXT’s overarching lore, and features several references to their past works — track "- --- -- --- ·-· ·-· --- ·–," for example, evokes their debut era where Morse Code was used in teasers and in the single "Crown."

TXT will embark on their Act: Promise World Tour starting May 3-5 in Seoul, South Korea, and then head to the U.S. for 11 shows across the country, including two dates at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Conan Gray - Found Heaven

Release date: April 5

Gen Z popstar Conan Gray has Found Heaven. After 2022’s Superache, his upcoming third album was co-produced by legendaries Max Martin, Greg Kurstin, and Shawn Everett, among others.

Gray had been teasing the 13-track record since last year with a slew of buoyant, '80s-tinged singles ("Never Ending Song," "Killing Me" and "Lonely Dancers") and poignant, Elton John-esque ballads ("Winner," "Alley Rose"). "When I was making the album, I was really obsessively listening to music of that era," he explained to NME. "I think also, because it was a deeply emotional time, I was almost hiding from reality. I didn’t listen to a song from the 2020s during the making of this album."

To celebrate this new, holy era, Gray will be touring Australia in July, North America in September and October, and Europe and the UK in November. "I want people to know that I was having fun and goofing around, and I want you to smile and I want you to feel like you can just be yourself," he added. "I just want the album to be a reminder to people that you can be so many things all at once."

Sinkane - We Belong 

Release date: April 5

Ahmed Gallab, the Sudanese American multi-instrumentalist behind Sinkane, has built his discography resisting musical genres. We Belong, his upcoming eighth studio album, is no different: it combines pop, funk, electronic, afrobeats, disco, and more into "a love letter to Black music," per a press release.

Sinkane’s first album since 2019’s Dépaysé, We Belong features 10 tracks and participations by Bilal, Money Mark, STOUT, and others. Each song tells the story of a different era in Black music and history, laced with love and hope for the future: the disco groove of "Come Together," the gospel choirs of "Everything Is Everything," the funky bassline of "How Sweet is Your Love."

Along with live band the Message, Sinkane has announced a select 10-city tour in the U.S., starting May 3 in New York City and wrapping up on June 9 in Pioneertown, California.

X Ambassadors - Townie

Release date: April 5

**Pop rock trio X Ambassadors dive deep into nostalgia for Townie, their fourth studio album. The record was inspired by their experience of growing up in the small city of Ithaca, New York, and how it shaped who they are.**

"As a grown man, I’ve fallen back in love with upstate NY, and I oddly feel blessed to have had something to rally so hard against/fight to escape from as a kid," vocalist Sam Harris said in a statement. "No Strings," the first single off the project, is an anthem for that restless feeling, and anchors their concept in a haunting, propulsive melody. "Your Town" and "Half-Life" continue the journey, although taking more melancholy tones.

X Ambassadors first set off their Townie tour in Europe and the UK during February and March. On the day of the release, they will begin the North American leg of the tour in Vancouver, Canada.

Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us 

Release date: April 5

Five years after releasing their latest record, 2019’s Father of the Bride, indie band Vampire Weekend will drop their fifth studio album, Only God Was Above Us.

According to a press release, frontman Ezra Koenig wrote most of the songs in 2019-2020, and spent the last five years refining them with bandmates Chris Baio and Chris Tomson. The result is a collection of 10 "direct yet complex" tracks, "showing the band at once at its grittiest, and also at its most beautiful and melodic," as seen in singles "CAprilicorn," "Gen-X Cops," and "Classical."

In addition to a sold out performance in Austin, Texas that will coincide with the total eclipse on April 8 and a headline show at Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, Vampire Weekend has announced an extensive North American tour throughout summer and fall.

Bryson Tiller - Bryson Tiller

Release date: April 5

Grab your tickets to Bryson Tiller’s upcoming tour while you can: he might go on a hiatus right after. That’s what the R&B singer and rapper told Complex, alleging that his number one passion is actually video games. "I've been designing a game for the past three years; been looking into internships for different companies. That's what I want to prioritize after this album comes out."

The album Tiller refers to is his eponymous fourth LP, a 19-track collection that includes a feature by Victoria Monét, and is described as "seamlessly blending R&B, dancehall, pop, drill, trapsoul, neo-soul, and hip hop" in a press release. "Bryson Tiller is not just an album; it's a declaration of artistic independence and a tribute to the relentless pursuit of greatness."

The project’s three alluring singles ("Outside," "Whatever She Wants," and "CALYPSO") exemplify how Tiller pushed the boundaries of R&B even more, and solidified his identity as one of music’s most singular artists. "My No. 1 goal with this album is just for everybody on Earth to hear it one time," Tiller also told Complex. "My guarantee is that they'll love [at least] one song."

Tori Kelly - TORI.

Release date: April 5

"You think you know who Tori Kelly is, but this album will prove that maybe you didn’t," said the YouTube-star-turned-singer in a NME interview about her fifth studio album, TORI. "I feel like I’m stepping into my power and owning my craft."

Her first LP since 2020’s A Tori Kelly Christmas, TORI. took inspiration from '90s and early aughts R&B and pop, as heard on singles "Missin U" and "Cut." "I was trying to create this world of nostalgia, but also there’s that balance with [TORI.] feeling fresh and new," she said. Comprising 15 tracks, it also includes participations by Ayra Starr in "Unbelievable," LE SSERAFIM’s Kim Chae-won on "Spruce," and Jon Bellion — who co-wrote and produced the album — on "Young Gun."

During the creation process, Kelly told Bellion that her guidelines were to be able to "belt out [songs] in the car" and "dance" to them, like one can do in the powerful "High Water." As far as it goes, it looks like they accomplished their mission.

Kelly will kick off her Purple Skies North American tour on April 12 in Ventura, California, and conclude it on May 3 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Future & Metro Boomin - TBA / We Still Don’t Trust You 

Release date: April 12

Rap titans Future and Metro Boomin have been personal friends and work peers for over a decade, but their first collaborative album is only coming out now. We Don’t Trust You, the first installment of a double album, dropped on March 22, while the second part — titled yet to be announced — is slated to release on April 12.

In We Don’t Trust You, the duo showcased their flawless chemistry with grandiose tracks, haunting trap beats, and star-studded features, such as "Like That" with Kendrick Lamar, "Young Metro" with The Weeknd, and "Type S—" with Travis Scott and Playboi Carti. As Metro defined in an interview with Complex, "it’s the classic Future and Metro, but just updated."

So far, no further details have been shared about the second album, but expectations remain high for the duo to outdo the first effort.

girl in red - I'M DOING IT AGAIN BABY!

Release date: April 12

"I wanted to sincerely apologize for the events that happened directly after the release of my second album, I'M DOING IT AGAIN BABY!" prefaced Norwegian singer girl in red — real name Marie Ulven — on a solemn social media video last month. But while viewers caught their breaths, she revealed it was all a witty joke: the album will only come out on Aprilil 12.

"This is a big year for me. 2024 is, like, my year," she added in the video. I'M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! follows Ulven’s 2021 debut If I Could Make It Go Quiet, but feels "more fun and more playful, and a little bit more confident," as she told Billboard. Lead track "Too Much" brings that novelty heads on, while singles "Doing It Again Baby" and "You Need Me Now?" with Sabrina Carpenter prove that Ulven’s powerful pop is only getting better.

Ulven will kick off her Doing It Again tour from April 16-June 2 in North America, and from Aug.27-Oct. 5 in Europe.

Kenny Garrett & Svoy - Who Killed AI?  

Release date: April 12

For his first electronic foray, NEA Jazz Master and GRAMMY-winning saxophonist Kenny Garrett enlisted the acclaimed producer-musician Svoy. The result is Who Killed AI?, a seven-track daring exploration of jazz and pop culture.

"The first two songs are really reminiscent of Miles [Davis]," Garrett shared in a statement. "The way I’m stretching the melody — that’s how I played with Miles." The opener and lead single "Ascendence" is a strong preview of what’s to come: distorted synths and drum and bass beats fused with Garrett’s fun and brilliant lines, a compelling portrait of what the future of music can be.

Later in the year, Garrett plans to take the album on a live tour. "I think my fans will find this interesting," Garrett shared in a statement. "Some people forget that my teacher was Miles Davis. So for me, it’s not that I have to do something different. It is just something that I do. All you have to do is present the music and let them take the journey." 

ERNEST - Nashville, Tennessee 

Release date: April 12

Early in March, singer/songwriter ERNEST announced on social media that he would be running for mayor in order to "legalize country music." Of course, fans started to get their hopes up for new music — and they were right. The plot was just part of his promotion for the newly announced Nashville, Tennessee, out April 12.

A tour de force with 26 tracks, the record features a bevy of guest stars: from Jelly Roll ("I Went To College, I Went To Jail"), to Lainey Wilson ("Would If I Could"), and ERNEST's two-year-old son, Ryman Saint. It also includes a bluegrass cover of Radiohead’s "Creep" with HARDY, and a cover of John Mayer’s "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room."

In addition to "I Went To College, I Went To Jail," four other advance tracks have been shared: "Why Dallas" with Lukas Nelson, "Ain’t As Easy," "Ain’t Too Late," and "How’d We Get Here."

Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department 

Release date: April 19

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On the same night that she won her  lucky 13th GRAMMY for Best Pop Vocal Album with 2022’s Midnights, Taylor Swift also announced her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department. Coming out April 19, the record will feature 16 tracks and collaborations by Florence + the Machine on "Florida!!!" and Post Malone on "Fortnight."

"I needed to make it, it was really a lifeline for me, it sort of reminded me why songwriting gets me through life," Swift said during her The Eras Tour show in Melbourne. "I've never had an album where I needed songwriting more than I needed it on Tortured Poets."

Along with the statement, Swift also shared an alternate cover for the physical album, titled after and including bonus track "The Bolter." Later on, three other versions named "The Manuscript," "The Albatross," and "The Black Dog" — all including an eponymous bonus track —  were also made available for purchase.

For the rest of the year, Swift will be touring through Europe and North America. As usual with the singer, more surprises are likely to come soon.

PartyNextDoor - PartyNextDoor 4 (P4)

Release date: April 26

**Canadian hitmaker and singer PartyNextDoor will make his long-awaited return this month. PartyNextDoor 4, also dubbed P4, is his first full-length work since 2020’s Partymobile, and continues his eponymous albums series after 2016’s P3.**

"This is the hardest I’ve ever worked on an album. This is the proudest I’ve felt," Party told Billboard for his March cover story. "I’m excited to grind even more for the next [one]. I’m in love with how hard you should work for it." 

He also explained that love is the reason why he takes so long to release new stuff. "I get into relationships and then music becomes second," he said. "I think I’m going to take a break from relationships, a long break, and just get back to making music."

In support of the release, Party shared moody, intimate singles "Resentment" and "Real Woman" — inspired by the same relationships that kept him off stage.

St. Vincent - All Born Screaming

Release date: April 26

In an interview with Mojo, St. Vincent — also known as Annie Clark — defined her upcoming seventh album, All Born Screaming, as "post-plague pop." Since its creation started right after the release of 2021’s Daddy’s Home, the years of seclusion and adjustment due to the COVID pandemic were a prominent influence in her new work.

"That kind of isolation breeds paranoia and loneliness, and loneliness can breed violence," she said. "It’s been a time of loss collectively and personally. [But] loss and death are very clarifying things, they make everything that doesn’t f—ng matter go away."

Comprising 10 tracks and features from Dave Grohl, Cate Le Bon, and Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa, All Born Screaming is St. Vincent’s first entirely self-produced set, and an attempt at showcasing what does matter. "This record is darker and harder and more close to the bone. I’d say it’s my least funny record yet. There’s nothing cute about it," she added.

Clark released two singles off the album, "Broken Man" and "Flea," and is gearing up for a North American tour starting May 22.

Picture This - Parked Car Conversations

Release date: April 26

"Parked Car Conversations is by far the most personal album we have ever created," said vocalist and lyricist Ryan Hennessy in a press release about Picture This’s upcoming album. "It is an album about everything involved with being human. Love and loss and hurt and euphoria and all of those other complex emotions that flutter in between."

The album consists of 15 songs, but a third of it can be previewed through bittersweet, soaring singles "Get On My Love," "Song To Myself," "Leftover Love," "Call It Love," and "Act Of Innocence." Overall, Parked Car Conversations is a soundtrack "not to a movie, but to life," and aims to convey "the ups and downs of living" through ballads and anthems alike, according to Hennessy. 

Coming almost three years since the Irish band’s last release, 2021’s Life in Colour, the new record will be celebrated in high spirits with an Europe and U.K. tour, starting April 21 in München, Germany.

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