Yazmin Lacey’s second album, Teal Dreams, builds on her well-received multi-genre debut, “Voice Notes” (2023). Featuring a ...

Here, five writers with roots and homes across the continent and diaspora sift through a wide world of sounds for some of the ...

Everyone knows these three '00s pop songs for their choruses. Far fewer know the rest of the words. How much do you know of ...

Lady Gaga, Olivia Dean and Lily Allen are responsible for some of the past year's most talked-about new releases.

These three songs boast some of the greatest country music lyrics ever written, according to more than a few famous songwriters.

This is what the Defector staff listened to and enjoyed this year. From the Pyre, by The Last Dinner Party In a year where ...

From chart-toppers Ghost and Sleep Token to rising stars Lorna Shore and Spiritbox, 2025 has been a massive year for metal ...

Here is the third part of our playlist of the essential 100 (or so) tunes to come out of Scotland. It marks eleventh year of this rundown of the best Scots tracks of the year.   As ever, in 2025, ...

Lebanese singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan returns with mournful minimalism, Mohinder Kaur Bhamra’s 1982 album of Punjabi disco makes a comeback and Venezuelan-Guatemalan duo Titanic serve up ecstatic ...

And then, of course, there’s the sheer fear of birth. So much blood to bring love into the world! The real Nativity—for Mary, ...

The iconic Christmas song Happy Xmas (War Is Over) was released as a single by the Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community ...

White Christmas” is one of the world’s best-selling tunes and continues to be in rotation more than eight decades later ...