July’s Hottest New Albums

By JC Villamere. 5 Jul 2021 11:59 AM

Summer is in full effect and it’s packing a big, bright list of new bangers. From Billie and Lana to Blondie and Prince, here’s this month’s crop of hot new releases.

Kelia Anne MacCluskey

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Arts & Crafts

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RCA

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Mat Dunlap

Sony Music

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Matt Barnes

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Billie Eilish
Kelia Anne MacCluskey
Of course, you already know that the seven-time Grammy Award winner has a new record coming out because when a teenage megastar announces a second album, it makes headlines. And now, we have all the details for you. Her latest track, "Lost Cause", is the fourth single from her upcoming album, 'Happier Than Ever'. The record drops on July 30, and there are plans for a massive world tour to kick off in New Orleans on February 3, 2022. In the meantime, the 19-year-old Californian is working with the BBC on something for fans. Details are sketchy but look for something akin to the "At The BBC" TV specials that Harry Styles, Adele, and Ariana Grande have created. In a statement reflecting the challenges of the pandemic era, Eilish said, "It's been a blessing, huge blessing and a curse, but I'm really, really happy that we've been able to make the things that we're making. And I can't wait for you to hear this s***. I can't wait to have the world hear. I'm very excited and hopeful for the future."
Lana Del Rey
CP Images
‘Chemtrails Over the Country Club’ was finally released in March after repeated pandemic delays. Now, just three months later, the 35-year-old indie-rock singer-songwriter is set to unveil ‘Blue Banisters’, a wholly different new album featuring the recently released title track. It’s due out on July 4. So if you’re, like, “Wait. July 4 is a Saturday, and all albums come out on Fridays!” then you’re right, and you also realize the mystic power of Del Rey.
Pop Smoke
Steven Ferdman/Shutterstock
His debut album, ‘Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon’ was released just months after the 20-year-old trap star’s passing last February. His second posthumous release features 17 tracks. The as-yet-untitled album is due out on July 16. In the meantime, you’ll hear him on Migos and Polo G’s new albums, the “F9” soundtrack, and the soundtrack for the basketball drama “Boogie”, in which he also starred.
K.D.A.P.
Arts & Crafts
K.D.A.P. stands for Kevin Drew a Picture, wherein the Kevin in question is Kevin Drew (get it?) of Broken Social Scene. He has a new instrumental album coming out on July 16 called ‘Influences’. The opening track is called “The Slinfold Loop” and here’s what K.D. said about its new visualizer in a statement: “We live in a society that’s based on selling yourself back to yourself. It’s created an underground battle to constantly be searching for ‘true identity’. We wanted to create a video presentation that promotes exploring over searching and brings the mystical slide show of never-ending opinion to the forefront of this battle. We used available footage found on the World Wide Web from other artists and cut together a blender of images to tell a love story about continuing to move forward amongst the never-ending information of how one is supposed to live.”
Tones and I
Gus Stewart/Redferns/Getty Images
‘Welcome to the Madhouse’ is the debut album from the “Dance Monkey” hitmaker. The Australian pop-dance star’s breakthrough single is the most Shazamed song of all time and boasts more than seven billion plays on Spotify. “I’ve taken the time to just really make sure it’s what I want... It will be my first-ever album, so I really want to make sure I’m proud of it,” Tones and I (a.k.a. Toni Watson) said in a statement.
Bleachers
RCA
‘Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night’ is the plea that closes out our online dating profile, and it’s also the name of the third record from American indie-pop band Bleachers. Superproducer Jack Antonoff is the main man, who will release the followup to 2017’s ‘Gone Now’ on July 30.
The Kid Laroi
MediaPunch/Shutterstock
The Australian rapper and singer behind the smash hit “Without You” has been teasing the third chapter of his ‘F Love’ series. As fact-hungry reporters, we love vague allusions to possible upcoming projects about as much as we love it when Drake drops a surprise album on the Friday afternoon before the August long weekend. Bear with us as we report on all the facts we have to date:
1. On June 13, the 17-year-old posted to Instagram, “JULY! THE WAIT IS OVER #F*CKLOV3”. The all-caps is his. The asterisk is ours.
2. He released his debut album, ‘F*ck Love’, in July 2020. So maybe he likes a July album launch.
3. That is all.
Bros
Mat Dunlap
Ewan and Shamus Currie of the platinum-selling Canadian rockers the Sheepdogs will release their second album, 'Vol. 2' on July 16. The lead single, "Garbanzo Man" is out now. "This carefree little number was inspired by the tasteful Latin grooves of masters like Sergio Mendes and Cal Tjader," Bros said in a statement. Shamus continued, "Since Ewan and I have lived in Toronto, we've met a lot of great musicians who we've thought would be great to collaborate with. So we were able to bring in some horn players, a tabla player, and anyone able to do what we couldn't do ourselves. We also called on [Sheepdogs guitarist] Jimmy Bowskill, but only had him play instruments he wouldn't normally pick up, like fiddle and sitar. Exploration was really the name of the game."
John Mayer
Sony Music
You know, a lot of stars announce their new album on social media, but Mayer is extra, so he took out billboards and print ads, too. It's all to hail the arrival of his eighth record, 'Sob Rock'. The followup to 2017's 'The Search for Everything' is out on July 16. His latest single, "Last Train Home", features Maren Morris. The Grammy winner teased the song back in March on TikTok and generated 1.4 million streams in the process. 'The Search for Everything' peaked at #2 on the Billboard Top 200, so let's see if 'Sob Rock' can go all the way.
Blondie
Getty Images
Blondie played a gig in Cuba, and it's a big deal because they're American. It was such a big deal that they filmed the whole situation and made it into a documentary called "Blondie: Vivir en la Habana". It just debuted at the Sheffield Doc Fest. Will it play at TIFF? Will Blondie come to promote it? Those are both excellent, exciting questions that we just thought of and have no answers for. But when answers are created, we will find them and tell you about them. In the meantime, we have details about an EP that Blondie are releasing to accompany the doc. It's called 'Blondie: Vivir En La Habana' (Hey! Just like the movie!), it has six songs, and it's out on July 16.
Barenaked Ladies
Matt Barnes
‘Detour de Force’ is their sixteenth record, it’s out on July 15, and it has 14 tracks. “Flip” was the lead single, but they have a new one out now called “New Disaster”. In a statement, Ed Robertson said, “’New Disaster’ is about the distraction of modern politics coupled with the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle. It seemed like the Nostradamus predictions of new disasters were getting worse and worse, even after we recorded the song.” Barenaked truth.
Prince
Richard E. Aaron/Redferns
This is the first release of unheard Prince material since the superstar’s sudden passing in 2016. It’s called ‘Welcome 2 America' and is a full album that Prince recorded at Paisley Park Studios in 2010 but then mysteriously shelved. In a statement, Prince’s estate says the album documents “Prince’s concerns, hopes and visions for a shifting society, presciently foreshadowing an era of political division, disinformation, and a renewed fight for racial justice.” The title track, out now, is described as a powerful song. “Prince delivers a searing, spoken-word soliloquy set to music about golden parachutes, the superficial nature of social media, reality TV-fueled celebrity culture, and corporate monopolies in the music industry, ultimately concluding that America is the ‘Land of the free / home of the slave.’” Here’s what the Purple One himself had to say about the record at the time: “The world is fraught with misin4mation. George Orwell’s vision of the future is here. We need 2 remain steadfast in faith in the trying times ahead.” ‘Welcome 2 America’ is out on July 30. The new season of the "Official Prince podcast, the Story of Welcome 2 America" kicks off on July 22.

July’s Hottest New Albums

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