POP/ROCK
Blood Orange, "Angel's Pulse" (Domino)
Blood Orange, aka Dev Hynes, says he always makes a little mixtape as a party favor to give to friends after each album he puts out, and following last year's "Negro Swan," he decided to make this one public. In the year of the R&B Mobius strip (including Solange's fairly improvisatory "When I Get Home"), the collagist behind 2016's brilliant "Freetown Sound" assembled one of the best. Go figure.
Maybe it's the length — 14 songs in 32 minutes run the pace of a J Dilla beat tape if not quite the song-per-minute mileage of Philly's own sui generis Tierra Whack. Or maybe he's so songful that legitimate tunes like the opening "I Wanna C U" and the arresting "Gold Teeth" sound like fully realized transmissions of Prince rarities from a passing radio. In fact, they beat actual Prince rarities.
And the guest list is a where-are-they-now trip of recent vintage that brings along Arca, Tinashe and, on the best moment, triplet-wielding Three 6 Mafia alumni Project Pat and Gangsta Boo. Now release the others.
Dan Weiss, Philadelphia Inquirer
Jaden Smith, "ERYS" (Roc Nation)
Willow, "Willow" (Republic)
This is hardly the first time that the children of Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith have made music. Willow's 2010 pop-hoppy "Whip My Hair" went double-platinum, making her the youngest artist to do so. Brother Jaden that same year flirted with guest features (including Justin Bieber's "Never Say Never"), and dropped his own kitchen-sink-filled debut album, "SYRE," in 2017. This is, however, the first time the siblings have released new music in which they seem so sonically and spiritually aligned. That is to say, goofy.
