Opening this new question for people to request notable albums released this year that they feel merit a review, just to help AllMusic keep track - the final decision will of course be up the editors, whom I'd like to thank in advance for their generally excellent reviews and much-appreciated efforts to keep up!
With the end of the year in sight, I hope someone will still find a moment for The Lumineers' 'Automatic', Lauren Spencer-Smith's 'The Art of Being a Mess' and Paul Kalkbrenner's 'The Essence'.
You're highlighting an album here that's not even listed on AllMusic. I am all for this feature, but it would be nice if it would be accompanied by a review. Because anyone who clicks through now will find no listing for 'The Nightlife', and no reviews of 'The Best of Both Worlds', 'Black Girl Magic' or last year's 'DJ-Kicks' mix. And wonder why they clicked it.
Too late to make any last minute recommendations? Wanna suggest reviewing Nothing by Darkside and Magic Alive! by McKinley Dixon? Both are excellent albums that reward will your time. Especially that last one - best hip-hop project of the year!
Hope someone will still find a moment for CMAT's 'Euro-Country' and Tom Smith's 'There Is Nothing...'.
Looks like Paul Simpson made it through the year wtihout awarding 4.5 stars to anything. :)
It will be interesting to see what he selects when the editorial team publishes their 'AllMusic Loves 2025' list, within the next few weeks. In the past, some editors have used the end of the year as a chance the revisit albums and even regrade reviews.
That may also explain why we've had so few rap albums with that grade this year. Up until a few weeks ago, the only one with that score was 'All the Quiet (Part I)', which I would regard as being more of a jazz album.
And Paul, if you're just stumped for a worthy electronic release from this year and need a top recommendation, my favourite was 'Under Tangled Silence' by Djrum, which tv previously suggested and still remains unreviewed.
You're currently listing Powell as trending on streaming services, tempting people to click through to his artist page. There they will find that his first full-length, released in 2025 and hinted at in the biography, isn't even listed on AllMusic.
I think it would be great if you'd use the algorithm that makes these boxes now to alert you to trending artists internally first, so you can ask a writer to update the discography and review the most notable full-length release(s) before the artist appears here. They'll probably still be pretty trending, and you'll have more to offer.
The data set that AllMusic licenses only contains albums that have had distribution in North America. The album in question was released by Diagonal Records from the UK and may not have distribution in North America.
Not sure if the album is trending in North America. As far as him trending as an artist, he is a musician who is worthy of recognition and people are aware of him, moreso than they were a year ago.
If I were able to wave my magic wand, we'd be able to expand the editorial team tenfold and cover every one of the hundreds of releases that come out each week. The editors spend the majority of their focus on artist information, to expand the coverage for their customers (AllMusic being only one of them). Most of their customers are using artist biographies, similar artists connections, and other elements around musician-level data. We're taking this increasingly robust data set and trying to come up with a feature that might bring new artists to our users' attention. There are many situations where albums will be mentioned in a biography but we won't be able to offer reviews on all of them (and in this case we don't have a North American record for the album).
You are 100% right that it isn't as complete as it could be, and your requests are being passed on to the team.
Many thanks, Zac, that background info is illuminating and it helps us album nerds to better understand the feature and the focus on biographies. :) And to be clear, your efforts and communication on here are sincerely appreciated. Enjoy your holidays!
Thanks for the kind words.
It seems like a simple concept: Make a website, display album info and artist details, recommend new things, give detail on classic recordings, have users offer their opinions.
The nuts and bolts of data licenses and browser compatibility and DMCA takedowns and GDPR privacy requirements and colocation costs and A.I. scrapers and DDOS attacks and staff "reductions in force" and the advertising CPMs/Time On Site/YoY pageviews/Revenue Per Thousand/blah blah can really take away from the reason we all got involved in the first place.
I personally appreciate your dedication (and the dedication of the die-hards I see in this forum every day).
We all want to make this thing a resource and tool that gives music fans the ability to find their next favorite album. We're doing what we can to make sure it continues for another 30 years.
I hope someone will still find a moment for Nas & DJ Premier's 'Light Years'. His recent output has received very favorable ratings at AllMusic.
