Shatter the Standards

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New Music Drops: July 3, 2026
As new albums and singles get constantly flooded into our radar, look no further than skimming through the release week of July 3rd. We know it can be a…
 • Shatter the Standards
Album Review: Confessions II by Madonna
Reunited with Stuart Price two decades on, Madonna runs the nonstop mix through grief, exes, and pre-fame New York. Her best album since the original.
 • Shatter the Standards and Charlotte Rochel
Milestones: Section.80 by Kendrick Lamar
A 23-year-old with a co-sign from Dr. Dre made an album about his generation’s addictions. Fifteen years later, the first week’s 5,000 copies look like…
 • Shatter the Standards and Brandon O'Sullivan
Album Review: Visitor by SIENNA SPIRO
On the debut of orchestral soul cut at Abbey Road and Electric Lady, a 20-year-old Londoner writes love as a lease and signs it with the end date…
 • Shatter the Standards and Darryl Keyes
Milestones: It Was Written by Nas
On his 1996 follow-up to Illmatic, Nas hands an entire song to a Desert Eagle, narrates a contract killing from the passenger seat, and opens the whole…
 • Shatter the Standards and Xavier Thomas
Milestones: Peaceful Journey by Heavy D & The Boyz
Heavy D cut it the year hardcore rap hardened, then hid grief and a street conscience inside the dance songs. Peaceful Journey is the widest record…
 • Shatter the Standards and Terryl Jameson
Milestones: Stakes Is High by De La Soul
Three albums deep in invented slang and inside jokes, De La Soul dropped the code on their fourth and said plainly what they thought of a culture they…
 • Shatter the Standards and Miles Everette
Milestones: blackSUMMERS’night by Maxwell
Seven years of quiet produced the most honest R&B album of 2016’s stacked summer, and the most ignored.
 • Shatter the Standards and Imani Raven
Wednesday Roundups #156: 25 New Projects You Should Listen to Now
Listen to new releases from Wyclef Jean, Cory Henry, Joseph Solomon, Nia Smith, Gwen Bunn, Nectar Woode, Rico Love, Devon Gilfillian, Radamiz, Kamaal…
 • Shatter the Standards

June 2026

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