It’s Friday

And singer/songwriter/producer MADISON MCFERRIN’s music floats through notions of neo-soul, jazz and pop without ever quite landing on any of them on her overdue debut album, I HOPE YOU CAN FORGIVE ME. McFerrin’s songs keep floating on, carried through space by breathtaking layers of vocals that might also serve to remind you of her familial heritage. The album follows a few years’ worth of shorter collections that she says helped her “figure out how I want to present myself in an album context, because an album is a more definitive statement. I want to make sure that the album is an album and it’s not just, ‘Here are a bunch of songs put together’”...

Contemporary Christian music star LAUREN DAIGLE takes another step into the mainstream pop world with her self-titled fourth album, her first for a major label (Atlantic) and her first featuring secular love songs. Doubling down on a 2018 appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” that got her into trouble with her more conservative fans, she wrote several songs with gay Nashville (and Broadway) songwriter Shane McAnally. “I’ve seen people ask, ‘Is Lauren Daigle even a Christian anymore?,’" she told the New York Times. "It’s to be expected, so it doesn’t bother me.” (Others, meanwhile, may wonder how secular she can be)...

RP BOO’s LEGACY VOLUME 2 collects tracks recorded between 2002 and 2007 by the Chicago footwork godfather, many of them never properly released before. His skittery, repetitive, minimalist, sample-heavy productions have a singular goal—transforming a roomful of dancers, as he explained a few years back, because “the dancefloor—the party place—is the actual science lab of everything.” The results are immediate and glorious... RICHEST OPP is YOUNGBOY NEVER BROKE AGAIN’s second album in [hang on, checking my archives] three weeks and his third of 2023, which puts him on pace to match the eight he released in 2022. The speed of that turnaround may explain why there are no features on the album, or maybe it's that he doesn’t much like the competition... CELINE DION’s soundtrack to the rom-com LOVE AGAIN, in which she plays herself, features five new Dion songs and several older ones that also appear in the film.

Also today: New music from Overmono, Alison Goldfrapp (her first solo album), Jonas Brothers, Parker McCollum, Bailey Zimmerman, Béla Fleck/Zakir Hussain/Edgar Meyer, Cattle Decapitation, the Acacia Strain (two albums in one day from the Massachusetts metallers), Devildriver, Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean, Moby (remakes of his own tracks from the ‘90s and ‘00s), Belinda Carlisle (EP of songs by Diane Warren), Eluvium, Blawan, Sub Focus, Oval, James Ellis Ford (of Simian Mobile Disco), Helen Money/Will Thomas, Rahill, Heem B$F, Chuck Strangers, Soulja Boy, Deante’ Hitchcock, Boogey the Beat, Dropkick Murphys (another album of songs written from Woody Guthrie lyrics), Bruce Cockburn, BC Camplight, Parker Millsap, Savannah Conley, Vivek Shraya, waveform, Seán Barna, Island of Love, Never Ending Game, Mike Gordon, Jeffrey Silverstein, Midwife & Vyva Melinkolya (shoegaze), Hot Mulligan and Softee.

Etc Etc Etc

Entertainer of the Year CHRIS STAPLETON, LAINEY WILSON and an absent MORGAN WALLEN were the big winners Thursday night at the ACM AWARDS, which also featured ED SHEERAN trading a courtroom for sawdust in a duet with LUKE COMBS, and co-host DOLLY PARTON trying out some material that may or may not be legal anymore in a couple states... Also absent was last year’s co-host, JIMMIE ALLEN, who was suspended by his label and dropped from next month’s CMA FEST after Variety reported Thursday that he’s being sued by his former day-to-day manager, who says he raped her and repeatedly abused her during the 18 months she worked for him. Allen told the magazine he and the woman, identified as Jane Doe, had a consensual relationship. Please note the Variety story linked here is graphic and disturbing... JOHN NÉMETH, BUDDY GUY and ALBERT CASTIGLIA were multiple winners at the BLUES MUSIC AWARDS, handed out Thursday night in Memphis... EUROVISION’s Grand Final will be broadcast live from Liverpool at 3 pm ET Saturday on Peacock Premium.