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Five highly anticipated albums coming in 2020
Last August, Lana Del Rey took fans by surprise when she announced her seventh studio album hours after the release of her sixth one.
Lana Del Rey. Picture: Cover Media
Lana Del Rey, Kesha … Several of music’s biggest names are set to release new albums in the next twelve months.
Here is a selection of five upcoming studio opuses that will surely groove the new year.
Ozzy Osbourne, “Ordinary Man” – Unknown date in January
The 71-year-old metal legend is readying his first studio effort in a decade, Ordinary Man, which he teases as “quite possibly the most important album I have done in a very long time”.
The full-length, which will follow his 2010 Scream, was recorded in Los Angeles with the help of Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and producer Andrew Watt.
Ordinary Man was inspired by Osbourne’s recent collaboration with Post Malone for the power ballad “Take What You Want”, which appears on Post Malone’s chart-topping Hollywood’s Bleeding album.
“My first thing was ‘who the f**k is Post Malone?!’ I went to Andrew’s [Watt] house and he said we will work really quick. After we finished that song, he said ‘would you be interested in starting an album.’
“I said ‘that would be f***ing great, but now I am thinking I don’t want to be working in a basement studio for six months! And in just a short time, we had the album done,” the former Black Sabbath frontman said in a statement.
While the album’s official release date is still unknown, Osbourne has already unveiled the reflective “Under the Graveyard” for fans to listen to while they wait.
Kesha, “High Road” – January 31
This year, Kesha is returning with her fourth studio album, High Road,” which will follow her 2017 Rainbow.
The “Tik Tok” vocalist announced her forthcoming studio effort back in October with a fiery trailer, in which she details the creative process behind High Road.
“When I wrote Rainbow, I was in a very different headspace. I had to address some very serious things. But now, on my new record, I revisit my roots of pure and utter debaucherous joy.
“Kesha got her balls back, and they’re bigger than ever,” Kesha notes, briefly alluding to her ongoing legal battle with her former manager and producer Lukasz Gottwald, aka Dr. Luke.
High Road will include the previously shared singles “My Own Dance”, “Raising Hell” and “Resentment”, which finds Kesha teaming with Sturgill Simpson, Brian Wilson and Wrabel.
Big Freedia, Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds and Fun’s Nate Ruess act as additional guest collaborators on the album.
La Roux, “Supervision” – February 7
The British vocalist, born Elly Jackson, will unveil her long-awaited third album next month via her own Supercolour Records.
Supervision will arrive six years after La Roux released her critically-acclaimed sophomore opus, Trouble in Paradise.
The vocalist recently opened up to Dazed about the pressure she felt while making her third full-length, whose first version she worked on for three years.
“I started a journey with some other music. I was halfway through that journey, probably more than halfway through, and I just realised that everything had got even worse,” she recalled, adding that her manager David Bianchi advised her to start from scratch.
La Roux ended up crafting Supervision in three months, composing and arranging titles like “Do You Feel” and “International Woman of Leisure”.
The singer-songwriter collaborated with London-based filmmaker Nova Dando for the accompanying visual for “International Woman of Leisure”, in which she addresses gender inequality in the music industry.
Tame Impala, “The Slow Rush” – February 14
The Australian psychedelic rockers have spent the past 12 months working on their long-awaited fourth studio album, with frontman Kevin Parker telling BBC 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne that 2019 “has been the year of pressure”.
As is tradition for Tame Impala, the band worked in isolation on The Slow Rush between Los Angeles and Parker’s studio in his hometown of Fremantle, Australia.
The forthcoming album will feature “Borderline”, “It May Be Time” and “Posthumous Forgiveness”, all of which Parker produced and mixed himself.
Last May, the frontman detailed the influences that helped him craft The Slow Rush, which will follow the 2015 Currents.
“The way I’ve dabbled in influences in the past? I’ve been unafraid to go there all the way this time. To challenge what Tame Impala is in terms of how wide it can go. .. I’ve been embracing my love of weird Seventies stadium rock — like, epic Meat Loaf stuff,” he told Rolling Stone.
Lana Del Rey, “White Hot Forever” – Release date to be announced
Last August, Del Rey took fans by surprise when she announced her seventh studio album hours after the release of Norman F*****g Rockwell.
“I’ve already written parts of it. It’s called White Hot Forever. I feel like it probably will be a surprise release sometime within the next 12 or 13 months. I’m really excited right now. I don’t want to take a break,” she told The Times at the time, without sharing further details about her next opus.
While her album cycles tend to follow a two-year cycle, Del Rey has proven to be particularly productive in the past few months, releasing loosies like “Looking for America” and a cover of Donovan’s “Season of the Witch.”.
She has also been working on a new collection of “freestyle poetry”, with half of the proceeds going to Native American organisations.
The project is a spinoff of her upcoming collection of poetry, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, whose release is on hold.
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