The Best Spoken Word Album GRAMMY category has typically provided an opportunity for figures outside the music industry to get their hands on one of those coveted gold-plated trophies. In recent years its winners have flitted between the fields of ex-White House figures (Michelle Obama, Jimmy Carter) and beloved showbiz veterans (Joan Rivers, Carol Burnett, Carrie Fisher), while cult filmmaker John Waters and celebrated humorist David Sedaris are both regular nominees.

Contemporary music, though, has found a wide range of pop/rock talent merging into spoken word territory. Seemingly out of nowhere, spoken word has become the art form of choice for the more poetically-minded musician keen to prove they know their Poes from their Plaths.  

Lana Del Rey, a six-time GRAMMY nominee for her more familiar brand of femme fatale pop, has had an impressively prolific 18 months; the sadcore queen has recorded two regular LPs and written two poetry collections, the first of which she’s also released in audio form.

Of course, with her tales of tragic romance and warped depictions of the American Dream, Del Rey’s output has always had a literate quality. She’s regularly spoken of finding inspiration in the works of Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman – the former’s "Howl" and the latter’s "I Sing the Body Electric" were even recited in her 2013 short film Tropico.

But Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass allowed Del Rey to fully embrace her poetic ambitions. Penned amidst a bout of writer’s block while working on what many consider to be her masterpiece, Norman F*ing Rockwell, the audiobook doesn’t entirely abandon musical accompaniment. Regular cohort Jack Antonoff provides plenty of electronic shimmers and delicate piano backing throughout. But the focus here is very much on Del Rey’s expressive tones and freestyle musings on everything from indecision and alienation to the fallacy of worshipping Jim Morrison.     

Backed by the claim that she "tore apart every word until I was able to write the perfect poem," Del Rey’s spot of moonlighting arrived during an unexpected boom period for the spoken word album. Only a month previously Imelda May, an Irish songstress renowned for her jazz-tinged rockabilly, had also displayed her wordsmithery on Slip of the Tongue.

As with Del Rey, May also uses subtle musical arrangements to add texture to her words on womanhood, sexuality and spirituality. But frustrated by how her previous record had been misinterpreted as a marriage break-up album, the Dubliner ensures her lyrical themes are far clearer this time around with a delivery every bit as commanding as her signature 1950s quiff.  

Soon after, The Kills' frontwoman Alison Mosshart proudly declared her gearhead tendencies on Sound Wheel, a companion piece to a book of photography, poetry and paintings titled Car Ma. Although there’s the occasional concession to the gutsy blues rock of her day job, the majority of its 47 (yes, 47) tracks are unaccompanied reflections on the "never-ending search for the spirit under the hood" delivered in Mosshart’s unmistakable tobacco and whisky-soaked speaking voice.

Elsewhere, Mercury Prize nominees Black Midi have released Tales of Suspense and Revenge, an anthology of short stories by the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Robert Tressell read over some typically experimental jams. And even Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page has got in on the action, adding bursts of feedback and echo as producer of poet girlfriend Scarlett Sabet’s debut album Catalyst.

Of course, well-known artists channeling their inner poet is nothing new. See the likes of David Bowie ("Future Legend"), The Velvet Underground ("The Gift") and Morrissey ("Sorrow Will Come in the End"). The Shangri-Las ("Past, Present and Future"), James Brown ("King Heroin") and Daft Punk ("Giorgio by Moroder") even graced the Billboard charts with their spoken word efforts. But dedicating entire albums to the craft used to be the preserve of full-time storytellers like Gil-Scott Heron, Henry Rollins and John Cooper Clarke.

So what’s encouraging such artists to speak rather than sing into their microphone? Well, a new wave of spoken word performers are now proving that the art form can work on a bigger platform. Album of the Year winner Dave stole the show at this year’s BRIT Awards with a powerful piece of performance poetry addressing his homeland’s institutional racism.  

Ted Hughes Award recipient Kae Tempest, meanwhile, has brought their Wu-Tang Clan-meets-William Blake vibe to the masses with several high-profile festivals slots including Glastonbury. Spoken word has even reached prime-time TV thanks to the inspirational speeches of Californian Brandon Leake, "America’s Got Talent"'s first-ever poet finalist, and indeed winner.

And then there’s the rise of the InstaPoet. Artists like Rupi Kaur and R.M Drake have amassed millions of followers with their daily words of wisdom. Perhaps as a result, a SSPA study in 2017 showed that more Americans (28 million, in fact) are engaging with poetry in the social media age than they’ve done the rest of the 21st Century.

Few pop star poets better exemplify this than Mike Posner. Three years after topping charts across Europe with a super-meta ode to dropping Molly in Ibiza, the party boy dropped a 16-track spoken word collection verbosely titled i was born in detroit on a very very very very very very very cold day.

"It's all just water and it's coming out of different faucets," Posner told Billboard about the unlikely poetic streak he developed on his 2016 tour. Tear Drops and Balloons, a more expansive collection featuring poems titled "My Favorite Stain" and "i'm thinking about horses," arrived just two months later.  

You wouldn’t be surprised if Billie Eilish committed to the concept, either. Last year's five-time GRAMMY winner has acknowledged Del Rey as a major influence and has already ventured into spoken word territory with "Not My Responsibility," a short film featuring a defiant statement against body shaming.

It’s easy to see the appeal. Sure, artists have more platforms to speak directly and candidly to their audience than ever before. But most Instagram captions and Twitter posts get lost in the social media ether within hours of their upload. Spoken word offers both freedom of expression and a capturing for posterity away from the confines of the 280-character box. And there’s no need to pander to any Spotify algorithms, either. It may not be a stretch to say that former presidents and comedic legends should expect to face some spoken word category competition in the future.

Diamond Platnumz Talks Growing Up In Tanzania & Breaking Into American Popular Music

Nick Waterhouse holds an affection for a certain version of San Francisco — one that is reminiscent of Beat culture, but decidedly contemporary. His is a North Beach life filled with drunken, late-night trips to the famed City Lights bookstore, DJ gigs at clubs that no longer exist, hours spent behind the counter at one of the city’s most revered record stores, and long, stoney car rides with its most lauded music critics.

And yet, in a refrain familiar to many denizens of the cool grey city of love, Waterhouse’s San Francisco has slipped away with time, gentrification and disease. On his sixth album, The Fooler, the singer/songwriter, guitarist and producer earnestly attempts to recapture the essence of his city lost. Waterhouse doesn’t indulge in nostalgia, instead using it to frame a universal story about what happens when your "heart and your memories can betray you in really nice ways." 

"It's a record about human connection and memory, and places and the disappearance of places," Waterhouse tells GRAMMY.com. "The life that we've all led the last few years — everything is radically changing. [But] I don't posit mourning in remembering these things or these lost places."

An evocative, cerebral portrait of time, place and space, The Fooler’s 12 tracks meld R&B, garage and soul — the primordial aural ooze seeping from jukeboxes in San Francisco institutions like Tosca, Specs and Café Trieste during Waterhouse's salad days. He channels the sonic boom of Phil Spector and the voice of Lee Hazelwood on lead single "Hide And Seek," evokes Dylan and the surf-rock of the Allah-Las (whom he produced) on "Late In The Garden," while literary greats like Virginia Woolf inform the narrative.

While Waterhouse has achieved what he calls a "new creative impetus" and newfound narrative songwriting skills, he has kept busy outside the confines of memory. In recent years he left his native Los Angeles for Europe, co-produced and played guitar on Lana Del Rey’s latest album, and collaborated with Jon Batiste on 2021’s GRAMMY-winning We Are. He’s revived efforts on his label, Pres, and will embark on a small tour of the U.S. and European this spring.  

But for all the physical and sonic terrain traversed, Waterhouse is pulled back to the place where he first found creative success — beginning with his 2012 revival soul-leaning debut, Time’s All Gone — and found his voice. "This is the total distillation of all the spirit of what my time in San Francisco was. And what I was, in my heart, thinking and feeling too — but with some good distance and perspective," he says of The Fooler. 

You needn’t haunt the bars along Columbus and Vallejo streets in San Francisco, have found love on Muni, or know the difference between the Lower and Upper Haight to enjoy The Fooler, but you’ll certainly find yourself enraptured by the dreamy figures in Waterhouse’s nuanced, yet capacious city of memory.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The press release for this album is one of the headiest I’ve read recently, with a lot of literary references and existential questions. Was this always more of a conceptual album for you?

Completely. Then this record is like the skeleton key to decode earlier works. But with this record, I also had a breakthrough in writing. And I had a sudden knowledge of how I could use perspective as a songwriter; there were traces of it in earlier works, but this is finally what I think was a holistic expression.

That feeling of discovery was a big part of what drove this, and the themes in it. It's a record about human connection and memory, and places and the disappearance of places. I was listening to an interview with John Vanderslice this morning and he talked about how radically changed in such a short period of time [San Francisco] was, but even now, it's a major metropolitan area with the most vacancies of any first world nation.

With your previous work, were you mostly writing from your own perspective, asserting yourself as the character?

In a way, yes. I always was very careful not to write selfishly — the editor in my head was like, there has to be a reason that the song makes it to being done.

This record exists in the same city that Time’s All Gone was happening in, but that record was from the street level. It was like from the bus, from only where I was sitting. I was working two jobs and anxious; it was paycheck to paycheck, going through a relationship that was fragmenting; going through an apocalyptic breakup with somebody that ended up being very meaningful in my life, but I'm not with them anymore.

Now it's like 10 to 12 years later, I can see all of that floating above it. It's like this big dialogue between the characters and the world around it. And it's looking in the windows of all these places in the city, looking into other people's lives, and almost looking into people's spirits.

I thought a lot about Virginia Woolf and consciousness. The thesis is like, what does it mean to be in a space and have human connection? How do people change your life, and who changes? 

The genesis of The Fooler occurred during a trip to San Francisco earlier in the pandemic. In addition to that cataclysmic change, I read that you had a number of really big changes happen in your life — you moved out of the country, you ended a relationship. How has that impacted the sound and spirit of this record?

Some of the things you're describing happened after this record, some of them were happening during, some of them were happening, maybe unconsciously before. A lot of the topics in the record are also me touching those things. And taking from them the meaningful collagen, the bone marrow, and using it to tell a story that isn't a literalized, confessional story. That was a huge breakthrough for me writing.

Is there one tune that you feel is a high watermark of this newfound ability to write in this narrative style?

"The Fooler" to me is that song, because lyrically it's so tight and it tells this story. It’s about space and memory and it's obscure enough for people to hang their own meanings on, but to me it still has meaning. "Was It You" is more of a literal storytelling, but it's also a city song. "The Fooler" and "Late In The Garden" are epiphany songs.

I wanted to write a musical novel. I wanted to write something that made me feel like James Salter’s Light Years, one of my favorite books, Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, or Mrs. Dalloway. They're going inside and outside, and perspectives change, but it's hitting at the same core human element.

I'd love to hear more of your history about you in San Francisco. Do you see this record as a sort of tribute to that time in your life?

When I was 19, I moved on to Vallejo Street with my then closest friend from Southern California. It was hanging out at [bars like] Specs and Tosca and going to City Lights drunk at 11 o'clock to buy a book, and hang out and write, and talk to people that have ideas, and talk about all the stuff that needs doing and will be done. I also studied literature at San Francisco State and the University of East Anglia.

On my last day of university, I lived in the Upper Haight at the time — I was in exile from North Beach — and I had gone through a massive tragedy that completely disrupted and ruptured my world. I was in a really bizarre state of mind, and I was comforting myself. I was just surviving. 

I was listening to a lot of Them and Van Morrison, and I was working at the record shop that brought me joy, which was Rookys in the Lower Haight. And a lot of the sound that went into the sonics of this record are these specific types of New York City records made by people like Bert Berns, and Bob Crewe, and Ellie Greenwich. Dick Vivian, who ran Rookys, was playing those records a lot.

There was this girl who I thought was the most mysterious and beautiful person I'd ever seen. We took the train twice a week to San Francisco State and we never spoke. The very last day of this course we were in, I realized she was sitting in the back of that class. She came up and sat in front of me, and she turned around and she's like, "So where are we gonna go get a drink right now?"

And I fell in love with this person. We ended up living together. Her father was the piano player for Van Morrison. All these confluences of strange things started happening. I'm not a mystical person, but it was this feeling. The way that she lived, and her humor, and her mind — she was so literary and intelligent and wry and funny, and stylish. Our life was this life that I had dreamed of.

We [once] went to a book signing at Tosca in North Beach, and the journalist Joel Selvin turned to us and he goes, "I'm writing a book on Bert Berns right now." Then Selvin started inviting me over on weekends, where he'd smoked dope and take me for a drive in his Shelby Cobra and play me all this Bert Burns stuff, and tell me all the stories that I've been dying to hear.

That sound became North Beach for me. That sound became like my salad days, because it was always on in the background and everywhere I went. I was DJing a lot — we would be at  Edinburgh Castle, or at the Knockout or at Casanova, or the Elbo Room, or Koko in the Tenderloin and all the music in that period of time was like girl groups and ‘60s soul and the R&B I liked.

I orbited in similar circles, and went to many of those bars and soul DJ nights. I remember seeing you perform your first album at Bimbo’s in North Beach.

When I had my career from my first record, I went out on tour and I basically left the city and never came back fully, and the city never came back to me too.

I struggled for a long time. I had a really hard couple years trying to enter another part of my life like, Do I make records now? I tour? I don't like this. I want to go back to North Beach. I want to listen to Bert Berns records in Tosca and have my girlfriend and have my life back and have my network of friends.

Then I realized everybody else's life was getting totally disrupted, and everybody was leaving or moving. That ex, when we split up, she went to New York and I went to L.A. All our friends went off to New York or to L.A. or to Austin or to Chicago or to Berlin. And those were the people who could tell the wind was changing then.

So much of what you're saying resonates really deeply with me as a Bay Arean who no longer lives there — you want to revisit that life, but realize that it's not there anymore.

Goodbye to all that, really. The cheap thing is for it to be nostalgia, right? But it gets to a deeper thing about what is memory, what is desire, what is unrequited love? What is society doing to people?

It's about release, surrender. But also why everything's worth doing even if it's gone, or you're tricked. "Unreal" and "No Commitment" are songs about the outside world to show what these characters are rebelling against or living among. And then like other songs like "Looking For A Place" or "Was It You" or "Was The Style" those are like, what is worth living for?

"Hide and Seek" is about adult relationships; they're not about visceral stuff that could be mistaken as youthful. All these songs, too, are love songs with no love in the choruses. "Hide And Seek" is not a toxic relationship, but it's about the uncertainty of what love feels like, and when people are glancing off each other instead of connecting all the way.

Cover art for The Fooler — a couple in front of City Lights Books in North Beach

I and others have previously cast you among the wave of retro soul artists. How has that characterization shaped your music, if at all?

What I'm doing is not aping. I'm expressing myself with the tools and the vocabulary that I have on hand, and a listener has to trust me, that I'm doing what I'm doing in good faith.

I always had much more in common with — and actually lived among and worked among and incubated with — the San Francisco garage scene. Ty Segall is playing drums on my first record. But you know, when you make your first record with horns and gospel-style vocals, and the people who work on your record — including your publicist and your distributor — put out Daptone-related stuff or Mayer Hawthorne or Aloe Blacc related stuff, you're put into the bloodstream as another one of those cells. It also switches how people hear stuff. I struggled with that from the beginning.

Back to The Fooler, is there anybody playing on it that you want to highlight or any interesting production facts that you think are worthwhile to note?

Making it with Mark Neill, at his place, was really revelatory for me. I surrendered to Mark to be the artist. And I also brought in my childhood best friend, Anthony Polizzi, who's playing second guitar or piano, who's a part of my DNA. Almost every record I've put out has a song co-written by us; we haven't lived in the same city together since we were 17.

[Mark] understood the sound was the place and we talked a lot about these records specifically that were influencing us whether they were little Anthony and the Imperials records, or they were loving spoonful records, or they were Bert Berns records. And he was looking into me to find who I was, and for me, it helped push me.

What else is on your plate that is contributing to your new creative impetus?

I'm writing a lot. I have been working on a lot of other projects; I'm working on another record with Jon Batiste to follow up the work that we won a GRAMMY for. 

I'm finding that in a lot of my writing, [my breakthrough] helped me comprehend how I want to write and what I'm actually trying to strike at. Every day, I try to get closer or touch it if I can. So it's been good. It's turbulent, but it's productive.

Inside The National Museum Of Gospel Music — A Beacon Of American Music Rising From The Ashes

Lana Del Rey is "straight vibing." At least, that's how she approached creating her profound ninth studio album, Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. Rather than tapping into the world-building technique she used on Norman F—ing Rockwell!, Del Rey's latest work feels more natural and personal.

On Did You Know, Del Rey's dreamy alternative pop drifts from saccharine to unearthly, her tracks tangling together in curious harmony. Her voice reverberates often, as if she's actually traveling through the ​​now-hidden Jergins Tunnel under Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach — yet, unlike its titular inspiration, her album is anything but hollow.

A painstaking honesty ricochets throughout the record as Del Rey unveils familial grief and reflects on the intensity of love in its many forms. A spirituality and self-awareness hover in each mature and intimate track, while the album benefits from a list of collaborators long enough to match her song titles.

In honor of the artist's spectacular new self-portrait and ahead of her headlining sets at Lollapalooza and Outside Lands, here are five key takeaways from Lana Del Rey's Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.

She Pays Homage To Her Family

While some of Del Rey's most well-known songs unravel romantic fantasies, familial relationships are the linchpin of Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.

Del Rey longs for intergenerational connection on her track "Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep-sea fishing," its title taken from the chorus. Contrasting a domestic closeness with the vastness of the Pacific, the singer/songwriter offers a spark of comforting warmth.
The musician, born Elizabeth Grant, also honors her family name by opening the album with "The Grants." Inspired by John Denver's 1972 "Rocky Mountain High" — specifically, the line "And he lost a friend, but kept the memory" — Del Rey reflects on loving her family now as well as after death. With a heavy heart, the song's tender offering of hope is a masterclass in coping with grief.

"When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too," she said in a past interview while promoting Born To Die. "I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn't believe that we were mortal."

Within this context, Del Rey's deep reflections on death and family on Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd feel weightier. In the interview, she explained how her fear of mortality tended to overshadow her life — but now, in accepting life's transience, she's finding the light.

She Thrives With Tonal Shifts

Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd might be Del Rey's most tonally sporadic album yet, but it works to her advantage. Where Born To Die and Norman F— Rockwell! cling to listeners with cohesion, Del Rey's latest album waxes and wanes.

While the musician is renowned as dream baroque pop royalty, her latest creative ventures dip into other genres. Gospel chimes in on "The Grants," folk weaves its way into the Father John Misty collaboration "Let The Light In," and trap flickers memorably across "Taco Truck x VB" and "Fishtail." (The latter two are produced by Jack Antonoff, Del Rey's close collaborator and friend who remains alt pop's ubiquitous producer.) Elsewhere, idiosyncratic rap verses stand out as the highlights of ambitious single "A&W" and Tommy Genesis' raunchy collaboration "Peppers," interrupting Del Rey's more classic balladry.

The album also boasts the highest number of features of all her records. Jon Batiste, SYML, RIOPY, Father John Misty, Bleachers, Tommy Genesis and Judah Smith all make welcome appearances, adding to the album's distinct tonal shifts with their own styles. Though some moments feel especially jarring — namely, Smith and Batiste's interludes — Del Rey ultimately finds strength in this risk-taking diffusion.

She Weaves In Her Past — Not Just Lyrically, But Sonically

Beyond its lyrical reflections on family and past relationships, the album also peers into Del Rey's sonic past. Pieces of Norman F— Rockwell! reappear in many tracks on Did You Know, bridging her sixth and ninth studio albums with an aural nostalgia.

Fans correctly speculated that Norman F— Rockwell!s iconic "Venice B—" would surface in new track "Taco Truck x VB," and Antonoff's grittier, trumpeting version indeed shimmers through in the song's second half. "A&W" welcomes strings from "Norman F— Rockwell!", and "Candy Necklace" featuring Batiste sweetly references "Cinnamon Girl" (and even calls back to Born To Die's "Radio").

These interpolations exhibit the playful extent of Del Rey's masterful discography. Although her sound is ever-changing, the multifaceted musician can still return to her musical roots in a way that experimentally builds upon her catalog. Her music almost always feels reminiscent and bittersweet, and this album takes this nostalgia to a new, otherworldly level.

She Leans Into Spirituality More Than Ever

Del Rey's music seems to be unfailingly cinematic. Historically, her tragic romantic storytelling enlightens Americana tales with an often glamorous melodrama. With Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, Del Rey continues to captivate her audiences, but this record taps into a different form of transcendence — a spiritual one.

Featuring heavy gospel influences, opener "The Grants" sees the musician hold memories of her loved ones close to her heart and into the afterlife. "Do you think about Heaven? Oh-oh, do you think about me?" she asks. "My pastor told me when you leave, all you take/ Oh-oh, is your memory." (Later on "Taco Truck x VB," she shouts, "Never die!").

Del Rey takes a step back for "Judah Smith Interlude," a four-and-a-half-minute-long sermon by pastor Judah Smith, who also appeared on Justin Bieber's 2021 EP Freedom. Though Del Rey and her friends occasionally punctuate the track with snide background remarks, Smith leads the track with abrasive preaching against lust.

While the album strays into darker territory here, Del Rey finds her way back to a somewhat uncharacteristic optimism — on standout "Kintsugi," she sings of thoughts "brought by the sunlight of the spirit to pour into me." Just like that, her radiance returns.

As Always, She Finds Beauty In Brokenness

Del Rey's track "Kintsugi" is named after the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold. The artform highlights the beauty in embracing flaws, even underscoring them, and Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd exquisitely champions this notion.

"That's how the light gets in," Del Rey gently repeats in the chorus, the line doubly serving as a nod to the art of kintsugi and Leonard Cohen's "Anthem." As Del Rey learns to nurture the cracks of her broken heart, she learns how to be kinder to herself, how to love herself.

At the end of the track, she reassures herself a final time: "That's how the light gets in/ Then you're golden." She can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

For The Record: Why Lana Del Rey's 'Born To Die' Is One Of Pop's Most Influential Albums In The Past Decade

It would be a near-impossibility to cover all the diverse women making art during Women's History Month — and celebrating creators every day, week and month is the goal — but any opportunity to elevate deserving female musicians is one to jump on.

This March, GRAMMY.com shines a spotlight on female-identifying music-makers. This month's 15 releases include entries from the Phoebe Bridgers-Lucy Dacus-Julien Baker supergroup boygenius, Chloe (of R&B sister duo Chloe x Halle), and indie creators like Lana Del Rabies and Jen Cloher; and Radie Peat of Irish dark folkies Lankum.

From bold returns (Sophie B. Hawkins) and buzzy up-and-comers (Nia Archives) to superstars (Miley Cyrus) to metal groundbreakers (Entheos), GRAMMY.com offers up a guide to the must-hear music from women this March.  

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the new release date for Ellie Goulding’s album.

Kali Uchis - Red Moon in Venus

Release date: March 3

Kali Uchis is clearly universal and boundary-crossing in her collaborations and appeal: She was nominated for a 2017 Latin GRAMMY Award for "El Ratico" (with Juanes); won a GRAMMY for Best Dance Recording for her feature on Kaytranada's single "10%" and was nominated for Best R&B Performance. Uchis (who sings in Spanish and English) has also toured with Lana Del Rey, worked with Diplo, Tyler, the Creator.

On Red Moon in Venus, her third studio album, the Colombian American singer continues her hot streak. Uchis describes her 15-track LP as a " timeless, burning expression of desire, heartbreak, faith, and honesty, reflecting the divine femininity of the moon and Venus."

Jen Cloher – I Am The River the River Is Me

Release date: March 3

On I Am The River the River Is Me, the fifth album from Aussie-born singer/songwriter Jen Cloher digs deep into their Māori roots. The LP features songs about theirancestry, with powerful choruses/phrases in the te reo Māori language. The gently intimate single "Mana Takatāpui" is rife with sweet ‘70s-sounding guitar work, and celebrates queerness as a Māori woman. 

In contrast, the irresistible "Being Human" is delivered with a driving rock ‘n’ roll urgency, dynamics and shimmering and quirky guitar tones.  "My Witch" also mines creative ‘70s guitar sounds, and as Cloher told NPR, "It feels immediately fresh. It feels catchy. It's in your ear straight away." I Am The River the River Is Me arrives via indie label Milk! Records, run by Cloher in part with Courtney Barnett.

Entheos – Time Will Take Us All

Release date: March 3

The progressive metal genre may not be packed with women, but Entheos singer Chaney Crabb is a powerhouse on stage and in the metal scene. Time Will Take Us All, the band’s third release and first for Metal Blade Records, is darker and heavier than previous outings with a wealth of influences.

The dynamic and melodic "I Am The Void" illustrate the album’s concept of "growth and self-reflection that focuses on the true human commonality – that our time on Earth is fleeting," according to a release. Entheos furthers that "what we choose to do with that knowledge is up to each of us as individuals." Entheos, normally a two-piece with drummer and band co-founder Navene Koperweis, will bring an expanded, powerful live lineup on European and American tour dates in 2023.     

Nia Archives – Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against Tha Wall

Release date: March 10

Mining her life for material, Nia Archives told NME that on Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against Tha Wall, she’s "broadly talking about growing up as a person, reaching new levels of maturity, love and loss, rejection, estrangement, the come-up and the comedown… It’s six tracks with six different moods soundtracking the recent chapter in my life." 

The year 2022 was a big one for the English record producer, DJ and songwriter, whose "future classic" sound uses jungle, drum and bass and neo-soul.  Along with European and UK dates, look for Archives, who is a 2023 nominee for a  Brit Award for Rising Star, to perform her new single "Conveniency" — and more — at this year's Coachella.

Miley Cyrus – Endless Summer Vacation

Release date: March 10

Miley Cyrus has clearly empowered legions of listeners with "Flowers,'' its lyrics asserting, "I can take myself dancing / I can hold my own hand / I can love me better than you can." With more than 560 million Spotify streams, it's likely that "Flowers" and the album it’s on, Endless Summer Vacation, will be laurel in Cyrus’ crown. 

According to a release, the music and imagery of Endless Summer Vacation serves as a "reflection of the strength she’s found in focusing on both her physical and mental well-being." Cyrus, who produced her album with Kid Harpoon, Greg Kurstin, Mike WiLL Made-It and Tyler Johnson, describes the album as her love letter to LA, where the album was recorded.  

Fever Ray – Radical Romantics

Release date: March 10

Swedish singer/songwriter/producer Karin Dreijer, aka Fever Ray, has long earned her music bona fides, kickstarting  a career with guitar band Cool Honey, then electronic music duo the Knife, formed with brother Olof Dreijer. Dreijer released their debut solo album under the alias Fever Ray in 2009, and now, the third Fever Ray album features Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross along with sibling Olof.  

A visual and musical shape-shifter, Dreijer explained the title Radical Romantics: "Everything needs to be dissected and loved and torn and built back up again and we're dreamers aren't we?" On the lead single "Carbon Dioxide," shades of Nina Hagen and ‘80s new wave lead the bubbling, electro-pop tune.

Frankie Rose – Love as Projection

Release date:  March 10

With a lengthy resume that includes Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls and Beverly, Frankie Rose has an impressive legacy, and further cements her status with Love As Projection. 

The drummer/guitarist/singer's sixth solo album melds '80s influences with contemporary electronic pop; the single "Anything" sounding like it could be on the soundtrack of a John Hughes movie. (Fittingly, Rose interpreted the Cure’s iconic Seventeen Seconds LP in 2019.) "This album is about having to focus our collective energies on the small things…we can control to find joy," Rose told the Vinyl Factory. "A distraction from the larger systemic problems that feel so overwhelming and are so very out of our collective hands… for now."

Lankum – False Lankum

Release date: March 24

"Go Dig My Grave" from 2023’s False Lankum is nearly 9 minutes long, featuring singer Radie Peat’s plainspoken singing and ominous, mesmerizing musicality inspired by the Irish tradition of keening (lament). Together, these effects create a marching doom vibe. The dark folk lineup (Cormac Dermody, and brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch), utilize traditional Irish instruments, including uilleann pipes, along with guitars, percussion, fiddle, banjo, piano and double bass. Peat employs bayan, concertina, harmonium, organ, electric organ, harp, mellotron for a sound that mines the traditional for a modern context. 

The end result, as The Guardian described, contains "ambient textures of Sunn O))) and Swans, plus the sonic intensity of Xylouris White and My Bloody Valentine." False Lankum follows the Dublin doom folk quartet’s 2019 breakthrough The Livelong Day, which garnered the band numerous awards in Ireland, including the RTE Choice Music Prize (Ireland’s equivalent to the Album of the Year GRAMMY). 

Sophie B. Hawkins – Free Myself

Release date: March 24

Sophie B. Hawkins' 2023 "anti-Valentine" song "Better Off Without You" features wrenching words about an ex: "We changed the world / Until you took my best friend to bed." The song and sentiment appear on Free Myself, the singer/songwriter’s first album in more than a decade. 

Tracks such as "Love Yourself" and "I’m Tired Of Taking Care Of You" further themes of romantic empowerment. The Free Myself, Hawkin's seventh studio album, shows the multi-instrumentalist in top form:  raw, poetic but accessible and relatable, as inclusion of her tracks in cinematic and moody television shows "Ozark," "Stranger Things" and "Euphoria" have proven.

Lana Del Rabies – STREGA BEATA

Release date: March 17

Lana Del Rabies is the alter-ego of Phoenix-based musician, producer and multimedia artist Sam An. In her Del Rabies guise, as hinted at by the moniker, An seeks to  "re-contextualize  the more ominous aspects of modern pop music made by women," creating what she calls a "dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project." As such, she’s done a spare, industrial take on Tori Amos’ "Cornflake Girl,'' plus two LPs, including the boldly titled In the End I Am a Beast. 

On her third full-length album, STREGA BEATA (loosely translated as "Blessed Witch") Del Rabies delves into dark themes, buoyed by elements of industrial, gothic noise, metal, darkwave and ambient. From opener "Prayers of Consequence" to the final cut, "Forgive," the album, as its creator explains, "is told through the evolving perspective of a cryptic and obscure "Mother" creator figure, specifically echoing the mother and crone goddess archetypes."

Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd

Release date: March 24

Lana Del Rabies is the alter-ego of Phoenix-based musician, producer and multimedia artist Sam An. In her Del Rabies guise, as hinted at by the moniker, An seeks to  "re-contextualize  the more ominous aspects of modern pop music made by women," creating what she calls a "dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project." As such, she’s done a spare, industrial take on Tori Amos’ "Cornflake Girl,'' plus two LPs, including the boldly titled In the End I Am a Beast. 

On her third full-length album, STREGA BEATA (loosely translated as "Blessed Witch") Del Rabies delves into dark themes, buoyed by elements of industrial, gothic noise, metal, darkwave and ambient. From opener "Prayers of Consequence" to the final cut, "Forgive," the album, as its creator explains, "is told through the evolving perspective of a cryptic and obscure "Mother" creator figure, specifically echoing the mother and crone goddess archetypes."

Boygenius – The Record

Release date: March 31

Boygenius is made up of the girl geniuses Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, together a super-group collective whose debut EP expanded minds in 2017. As Baker told Newsweek, the trio of friends took the tongue-in-cheek band name because of "the archetype of the tortured genius, [a] specifically male artist who has been told since birth that their every thought is not only worthwhile but brilliant." 

The trio’s debut full-length, The Record, offers bright indie rock bounce on "$20," a low-key haunting on "Emily I'm Sorry" and to the straight-ahead fullness on "True Blue." Other intriguing song titles from the full-length include "Leonard Cohen" "Satanist." In addition to a headlining tour, boygenius will appear at Coachella in 2023.  

Deerhoof – Miracle-Level

Release date:  March 31

Deerhoof singer/bassist/songwriter Satomi Matsuzaki’s origin story is the stuff of dreams: She joined Deerhoof within a week of immigrating to the United States from Japan in May 1995 to attend college. And in 2023, the singer and self-taught bassist is front and center on Miracle-Level, Deerhoof’s 19th LP and the first sung in Satomi’s native Japanese. It’s also the influential DIY band’s first to be made totally in a professional recording studio with a producer (Mike Bridavsky). 

Miracle-Level kicks off with the joyful noise of "Sit Down, Let Me Tell You a Story," and contains the delightfully oddball "My Lovely Cat!" plus one song that’s as awkward but interesting as its title: "Phase-Out All Remaining Non-Miracles by 2028."

Critical praise has been near-universal over the lineup’s career, the New Yorker praising an "adventurous compositional style that features complex rhythms, electronica, atonal flourishes, and the pacific singing of Satomi Matsuzaki, whose sonic detachment from the group’s noisier and more aggressive side is curiously affecting." 

Chloe Bailey - In Pieces

Release date: March 31

As half of the GRAMMY-nominated powerhouse R&B duo Chloe x Halle, Chloe debuted as a solo artist in 2021 with platinum single "Have Mercy." The singer/dancer/producer’s full-length solo debut, In Pieces, launches with the sonorous "Pray It Away" before then teaming with Chris Brown for her "How Does It Feel" single. Inspired by naysayers, Chloe posted about In Pieces on her Instagram, writing "My tears are like the water. My heart is like the sun. Through chaos, beauty grows. There’s power in my pain.. It’s me breaking free."

Ellie Goulding – Higher Than Heaven

Release date: April 17 (adjusted)

On the energetic new single "Like a Saviour,"  Ellie Goulding expresses what so many felt during the last several years: "Trying to find my faith in tomorrow" and wishing for a saviour to lead her "out of the dark." The tune, off Higher Than Heaven, the English singer-songwriter’s fifth album, was inspired by the pandemic. But it’s not a wallow in darkness. In short: Expect musical and lyrical celebrations of love and sex, plus the wisdom and power of cutting out when things go bad.

As Goulding teased on Instagram: "‘Let it Die’ is about when a relationship plays out much longer than it needed to. Instead of giving love to yourself you spend it all on someone else and have nothing left, which is when it can become toxic and harmful." "Let It Die," which has notched 13 million streams, preceded the LP, along with  "Easy Lover" (featuring Big Sean) and "All by Myself."  Given the singles’ out-of-the-box success, it’ll be no surprise if  Goulding has another "Love Me Like You Do" (from the  Fifty Shades of Gray soundtrack) on her hands, the hit that  earned Goulding her first GRAMMY nom for Best Pop Solo Performance. 

Listen To GRAMMY.com's Women's History Month 2023 Playlist: Swim In The Divine Feminine With These 40 Songs By Rihanna, SZA, Miley Cyrus, BLACKPINK & More

Christmas came early for Lana Del Rey fans on Dec. 7, when the pop singer unveiled her upcoming ninth studio album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard.

Set to drop March 10, 2023 via Interscope Records, the new collection of songs comes more than a year after Del Rey’s incredibly busy 2021, which saw her release two albums: the spare, intimate Chemtrails Over the Country Club, and its moody sibling Blue Banisters.

Though she’s no longer on Instagram or Twitter, the enigmatic pop sensation born Elizabeth Grant shared a personal, type-written note along with the announcement: "What can I say! I’m so grateful to be present and feeling effervescent today. With a mind full of violets and a forehead warmed by the sun as I pray in the garden."

After taking a moment to thank all of her collaborators, friends and other people who made the forthcoming body of work possible, Del Rey closed the note with a message to her fans. "Thank you to you guys for listening!" she wrote, adding, "The music is for fun and for you and for me and not always free unless you’re streaming ha -but spirited with the best of intentions."

The Album Cover Exudes Brooding Hollywood Glamour

Del Rey channels vintage glam on the ‘70s-esque cover art for Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. With her chin resting in her closed hand and a giant satin bow in her hair, the superstar poses for a grayscale portrait shot by photographer Neil Krug that’s equal parts pouty and alluring. 

Balancing out the close-up, the singer follows recent collaborator Taylor Swift’s lead by including not only the aureolin yellow album title on the cover, but also the list of guest features, producers and other information. The whole affair exudes a nostalgic, throwback feeling.

The Title Track Is Also The Album’s Lead Single

Del Rey saunters into her newest era by asking the very question at the heart of the album’s title. "Mosaic ceiling, painted tiles on the wall," she teases, painting a picture of the hidden, underground space (possibly) beneath Long Island’s Ocean Boulevard before likening its depths to the beauty of her own secret spaces. 

All the hallmarks of Lana’s classic oeuvre are thankfully present and accounted for: her mournful, quavering soprano; a torchy, orchestral sonic palette; a sun-baked California setting (with a shoutout to Camarillo), crystalline nods to 1970s touchstones — this time Eagles’  "Hotel California" and an unnamed song by Harry Nilsson; carnality as a mask for pain and yearning and more.

"When’s it gonna be my turn?/ Don’t forget me/ When’s it gonna be my turn?" the singer-songwriter pleads over slow-burning piano as the song’s narrative builds to a gospel finish, replete with a spectral choir backing up her plaintive cries to be remembered. 

The Tracklist Is Stacked With Guest Features

Though Del Rey hasn’t revealed a single track besides the first single, the studio set’s vintage-style cover art promises a plethora of collaborations including Jon Batiste, Bleachers, Father John Misty and SYML, the solo project of former Barcelona frontman Brian Fennell. 

Interestingly, the list also includes appearances by more off-beat — and seemingly disparate — figures like Hillsong Church pastor Judah Smith and hyper-sexual rapper Tommy Genesis.

She’s Reuniting With Jack Antonoff

After being entirely absent in the credits for 2021’s Blue Banisters — which was largely helmed by Drew Erickson, Kassidy’s Barrie-James O’Neill and others — Jack Antonoff is back as a producer. Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard reunites Del Rey with the superproducer after working together on "Snow on the Beach" — the singer’s fan favorite, Janet Jackson-referencing contribution to Swift’s Midnights. 

Antonoff previously oversaw production on a string of Del Rey projects that included 2019’s GRAMMY-nominated Norman F—ing Rockwell!, the 2020 spoken world album Violets Bent Backwards over the Grass and 2021’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club. 

However, Antonoff isn’t the sole producer on Lana’s upcoming LP. The credits on the front cover reveal she’s also bringing past collaborators Erickson and Zach Dawes back into her musical sandbox along with film director Mike Hermosa and the cryptically mononymous Benji. 

There Will Be Multiple Vinyl Editions Of The Album

Shortly after unveiling the studio set’s cover art, Del Rey dropped another surprise on her unsuspecting fans: there would be four additional versions of the album available on vinyl, complete with unique covers, sleeves, gatefolds and photos.

The news is certainly great for collectors and superfans, but they’ll have to put in quite a bit of work to round up the LP’s many variations. The cherry red version will be exclusively available at retailers like Target and HMV, while indie record stores will receive a mint green vinyl with a saturated color photograph on the cover. The Amazon exclusive is light pink with the singer in a dark green cardigan and her exclusive web store is selling a white LP with an entirely text-free cover.

The Album Is Available For Pre-Order Now

Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd isn’t set to drop until early spring, but fans can pre-order the album in all of its vinyl variants on Del Rey’s official website now. 

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