Summer 2018 was a great time for creative and interesting new music. In these three months, we saw the introduction of many artists’ new ideas and sounds. This article will explore some of the best releases we saw in the recent months.

Parquet Courts’ Wide Awake!

New York-based Alternative Rock band Parquet Courts come together for their fourth album Wide Awake!. For this project, the band teams up with producer Danger Mouse, who has produced for musicians such as Portugal, The Man, Adele, and A$AP Rocky. Wide Awake! seamlessly blends the sounds of art punk and garage rock, while still managing to experiment with funk and noise rock. With this project, the band takes on very difficult topics politically. “Total Football”, “Violence”, and “Normalization” are songs which tackle subjects such as racial injustice, media bias, and gentrification. Wide Awake, the album’s funky title track is one of the best basslines this year, which goes hand-in-hand with the syncopated and groovy percussion part. Without a doubt, this album is one of the most memorable this year.

Ariana Grande’s Sweetener

Sweetener is the most recent full-length project from pop star Ariana Grande. For this album, Grande brought in producer and songwriter Pharrell Williams, who also makes an appearance in the song “blazed”. Grande’s released singles for this album contained “no tears left to cry”, “god is a woman”, and “breathin”. Her style on this album blends pop, R&B, trap and soul. With this project, Grande shows off her powerful singing voice and great talent with songs like “raindrops (an angel cried)” and “sweetener”. This album was a great collection of summer bops.

Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD

After a long wait and years of anticipation from fans, Travis Scott dropped his album ASTROWORLD. With this album, Scott is able to stay true to his distinctive sound of spacey trap beats and strong hooks. It was because of these that Scott’s third album was able to land number one on the US Billboard Chart (and not Nicki Minaj’s.) The features on this album serve very well, as Scott brings in Drake, Frank Ocean, Rae Sremmurd and more. This album proves to be another great release of the  Summer of 2018.

John Coltrane’s Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album

As the title implies, John Coltrane’s album was recorded in 1963 and lost for decades. However, these recordings happened right at Coltrane’s peak of popularity and success. With this posthumous release, John Coltrane shows why he is revered as one of the greatest saxophonists ever. Coltrane and his quartet show their musical versatility with the stylistic change of the same melodies with different takes (Villia takes 4 and 5.) Even after death, John Coltrane proved to release the best jazz record in years.