I was prepared to loathe Bon Iver’s new album, 22, A Million, as soon as I read the song titles. How do you say “______45_____” out loud? And when you talk about “00000 Million,” do you say “zero zero zero zero zero million” or just “zero million?”

Once I suspended my aversion to the song titles with infinity signs and Greek letters, I began to appreciate Justin Vernon’s innovative combination of natural images and mathematical references. While 22, A Million’s distances the album from Bon Iver’s earlier, more organic works, it also allows Vernon to explore his anxieties in greater depth. In “715, CRΣΣKS,” for example, Vernon sings about longing and loss in a coarse, autotuned voice, much like that in “Woods,” from his previous work Blood Bank. The electronic modulation creates a dissonance with the natural scene of the “low moon don the yellow road” that is exacerbated by the strange, almost glitchy title.

Anxiety about the disorientation of the digital age permeates the album. Only a few songs, particularly those whose titles contain Christian allusions, have easily decipherable titles. For example, the title track,“22, A Million,” may reference David’s cry to God for help in Psalm 22: “It might be over soon,” sings Vernon, as if to answer his call. Two other songs whose titles allude to religion, “666 ʇ” and “33 GOD,” reference the album’s pseudo-religious process of synthesizing memories, physical spaces, and virtual or imagined reality into a coherent sense of self. “I find God, and religions too,” Vernon’s voice seems to buzz in the lull before the climax of “33 GOD.”

Once you start to think of 22, A Million’s metaphysical questions, it’s easy to get sucked into one of Vernon’s most complicated works yet. But for the casual listener, apart from a few stand-out songs such as “22,” and “33 ‘GOD,’” the album is nearly inaccessible. Vernon’s stylistic evolution is comparable to Kanye West’s sonic shift from the radio-ready “Watch the Throne” in 2011 to “Yeezus” in 2013. Perhaps not coincidentally, West has said in interviews that Vernon is one of his favorite living artists. In dealing with more complicated and personal themes, their tones become darker and more difficult to listen to, though perhaps more worthy of your time.

It’s been four years since Adele released her Grammy-winning album 21. Now, she’s finally back from her hiatus. “Hello? It’s me,” she sings, in a near-whisper, at the beginning of the first song on 25. It’s a greeting both to her ex-lover and to her fans after a long absence.

If 21 was the ultimate break-up record, then 25 is the make-up.  Adele herself has said as much: “[25 is] making up for lost time. Making up for everything I ever did and never did. 25 is about getting to know who I’ve become without realizing it.” “Hello” is a reconciliation with her fans who have waited so long for her return—and the record-breaking popularity of the track shows that all is forgiven.

In 25, Adele remains true to her style of mixing classical vocals with R&B and jazz, focusing mostly on themes of love and heartbreak. Songs like “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” and “Water Under the Bridge,” however, lighten the mood with an injection of bright pop. “When We Were Young,” the second most popular song on the album so far (after “Hello”) is a piano ballad with R&B influences and a belting chorus.

Like Taylor Swift, Adele chose not to stream her music, a testament to her commitment to the craft as well as to her staying power on the pop charts. Few artists make albums that millions of people are willing to purchase in full, but in the first week alone, Adele sold 3.38 million copies.

So what is it about the 27-year-old from Tottenham that people find so universally appealing? The earth-shattering choruses allow listeners to sink into the drama—who doesn’t love belting out “Hello from the outside!” with their arms outstretched, face towards the heavens? SNL even parodied the universal appeal of “Hello” in the clip “A Thanksgiving Miracle” by showing a family arguing over politics at the Thanksgiving table, only to put aside their differences when the song plays. The record-breaking popularity of 25 seems to prove that the love of a good, cathartic weeping session can transcend all boundaries.

At times, it’s difficult to distinguish the Dead Weather’s recent album Dodge and Burn from their earlier albums; all could be considered rock and roll with a heavy influence from blues and indie music. But what the album lacks in innovation, it makes up for in energy and extravagance.

“I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)” opens Dodge and Burn with a wailing, distorted electric guitar. Like rappers announcing themselves in the opening bars of a song, the bluesy riff serves as Jack White’s stamp on the album. The Dead Weather, one of White’s many musical ventures, certainly has a grittier, more produced sound than the White Stripes, but its sound still carries White’s trademark spontaneous, energetic simplicity.

“Three Dollar Hat” stands out from the rock-and-roll tracks of the album with its hip-hop influenced introduction, where White raps “shootin’ everybody down with my thirty-three” over a repetitive baseline. Increasingly disorderly notes from an electric keyboard create a sense of pent-up energy until a drumroll transitions the song into an explosive rock-and-roll section in which Alison Mosshart (vocalist for indie rock band the Kills) wails, “I’m so much better than that three-dollar hat!” The hip-hop style section of the song is almost reminiscent of “Hustle and Cuss” from 2010’s Sea of Cowards, but the band distinguishes “Three Dollar Hat” by replacing the electric organ and crunchy guitar with keyboard and bass.

Throughout the album, White and Mosshart trade roles as the lead singer. Their aggressive, energetic vocals complement each other, especially on “Rough Detective,” when their back-and-forth singing mimics a conversation between a detective and an interviewee. The two seem almost possessed with a dark energy as electric guitar scratches cause the song to descend into chaos: “What’s happening?” White yells as Mosshart begins laughing maniacally.

The Dead Weather currently has no plans to tour for Dodge and Burn due to schedule conflicts; for most members of the band, this is only a side project. That’s unfortunate, since some of the rawer songs on the album would probably sound better live. Still, it’s an impressive product for a side project, and while Dodge and Burn may not be as interesting as Sea of Cowards, Jack White fans will find it worth a listen.

In her 2012 album Born to Die, Lana Del Rey sang about endless, romantic love. “I will love you till the end of time,” she promised on “Blue Jeans.” But on Honeymoon, Lana is ready for the breakup. She longs for independence rather than a man with a motorcycle. Lana is on a honey- moon with herself.

“Honeymoon” opens the album with cinematic strings reminiscent of the opening to a Cold War-era spy film. “We both know that it’s not fashionable to love me,” she croons. The opening line could be a subtle reply to critics of her stylized aesthetic and mysterious persona—Lana doesn’t care. Unlike other female pop artists, including Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, Lana’s style has remained consistent since her debut album Born to Die. Her mood changes between albums, but her cool aesthetic and whispery, smooth vocals accompanied by moody background music stay largely the same.

In “High by the Beach,” Lana sounds exhausted from the demands of a waning relationship: “The truth is I never bought in to your bullshit,” she sings in annoyed, staccato triplets. In the music video, Lana basks in the solitude of a beachside mansion until a paparazzi helicopter disturbs her. Instead of hiding, Lana pulls a bazooka out of a guitar case and blows up the helicopter: “All I want to do is get high by the beach, get high, baby baby, bye bye!” It’s an aggressive display of independence: don’t mess with Lana’s honeymoon.

Almost all of the songs on Honeymoon exceed four minutes in length, adding to the album’s cinematic feel. On “Salvatore,” perhaps the most cinematic song on the album in terms of imagery and storyline, Lana shows off her vocal range, from sultry low notes to an airy, cascading riff. Lines such as “Catch me if you can, working on my tan” reveal Lana’s sense of humor under the overall drama of the song.

While the album as a whole may seem somewhat lethargic at first listen, a few stand- out songs, such as “Music to Watch Boys To,” “High by the Beach,” “Freak,” and “Salvatore,” hold their own among Lana’s past hits. While Lana makes little effort to change her dark and dreamy musical style and “sad girl” aesthetic on Honey- moon, lyrical differences indicates a shift in focus towards embracing her independence, though she still dreams about the perfect romance.

As the three-minute video for “No No No” progresses, it becomes apparent that beneath the brightness and whimsy, something is not quite right. The dead-eyed band plays in front of a salmon-colored screen, accompanied by a mustachioed old man with a psychopathic smile, a painter, and a stuffed skunk that makes an appearance as an instrument in the horn section. A makeup artist powders singer-songwriter Zach Condon’s face at the beginning of the video, but a minute later his eyes are bloodshot and puffy and his face is sweaty. The painter mimes the motion of painting while not actually doing anything, and the old man breaks a bottle over Condon’s head. By the end of the video, the band is invisible, instruments floating in the air in front of bodiless, clapping hands.

Like the video for its title track, Beirut’s latest album, No No No, loosely covers its strange furniture of desperate melancholy with a thin sheet of bright horns and smooth vocals. Its surface cheer comes to seem like the strained smile of someone desperately trying to hold himself together after a personal disaster, reflecting what might be Condon’s fragile emotional state following his physical and mental breakdown after 2013’s touring cycle for The Rip Tide and the end of his marriage.

 Beirut’s music is often described as “world music” because of its global influences (primarily mariachi, Balkan music, and French chanson), and its use of somewhat unconventional instruments. Condon, for example, plays the trumpet, flugelhorn, and ukulele, and the band often uses a strong, sweeping horn section to heighten the sense of wanderlust, tragedy, or nostalgia in otherwise unexceptional indie songs. In No No No, disparate elements fit together like well-worn puzzle pieces to create an album that, while not a major evolution for the band, is distinctively Beirut.

 Within the indie genre, Beirut excels in its “world music” niche. But while few bands could incorporate such a variety of instruments without sounding strained, Beirut often fails to differentiate itself from its indie contemporaries. At times, Beirut starts to sound like other contemporary indie bands: “At Once” sounds like a melancholy Grizzly Bear song, violins on “As Needed” are reminiscent of Arcade Fire’s “Funeral,” and “Pacheco”’s warm guitar and slurred vocals harken to a My Morning Jacket track. Beirut’s familiar indie tropes tend to overshadow its more distinguished “world music” qualities, leading to an album that sounds tired rather than innovative.

But “world music” takes on a different meaning in No No No as the songs themselves reflect a burning desire for movement and change. “If we don’t go now, we won’t get very far,” sings Condon in the title track, the second track of the album. The “la-la-la’s” throughout the song are reminiscent of a sea shanty, but their edges have been gently smoothed out into an lilting indie singsong. In “August Holland,” in which crisp piano chords pay homage to the crisp, breezy transition between the end of summer and the beginning of fall, Con don repeatedly sings, “I wanna be there now,” the rising and falling of his voice reflecting his longing.

At times, the band strips away its outward cheerfulness in moments of raw sadness and nostalgia. In “At Once,” Condon asks: “How do you know at once, at last, at all?” over steady, melancholy piano chords. The seemingly nonsensical questions hint at Condon’s tumultuous mental state in spite of the steady rhythm, and a crescendoing chorus of horns, like the beginning of birdsongs at dawn, interrupts the questions and adds urgency to Condon’s confusion.

“As Needed,” a three-minute instrumental halfway through the album, uses soft acoustic guitar, jazzy piano and drums, and cascading violins to create the sound of a lazy rainy day. Ironically, in spite of its name, the song is not needed as an interlude; the album is already mellow enough. Its subtle moodiness, however, is not an unwelcome addition to the album as a whole.

 In spite of the interplay between moments of forced cheerfulness and confused vulnerability, the band does not take itself too seriously on No No No. On “Fener,” the almost excessive choral backup, the glockenspiel, and the spacey keyboard that begin as soon as the song suddenly shifts rhythm suggest that Beirut may be self-consciously mocking its own style; the song is excessively indie. Beirut even reveals this self-deprecating sense of humor in the video for “No No No”: It parodies Wes Anderson’s iconic style, often associated with hipsters and the over-the-top “twee”-ness.

 While No No No is by no means Beirut’s worst album, at times it seems like a somewhat reluctant or lackluster attempt to follow up on 2011’s The Rip Tide. The sound of No No No is shrunken in scale compared to the The Rip Tide’s grandiosity, as Condon has replaced some of the heavier horns with greater use of soft piano chords and violins. But what the album lacks in scale, it makes up for in subtlety: complex emotions peek out from under shabby carpets woven from upbeat rhythms and bright chords, and the sadder songs are nostalgic rather than tragic or angst-ridden. Although listening to No No No is by no means an immersive experience, the album is interesting enough to play as casual background music. And if you like it enough to listen to twice, it contains a surprising amount of emotional depth.

Compared to their 2012 release Shrines, Purity Ring’s Another Eternity sounds cleaner and less claustrophobic but isn’t bland. While Another Eternity has a generally lighter sound, Purity Ring has not lost its haunting vocals, mysterious lyrics, or the dark sound that separates the duo from more traditional pop. “I’ll take you out and up and light/ I’ll bury you good and straight and right/ if you ask in that soft voice,” sings Megan James on “Flood on the Floor,” one of the album’s more seductive tracks.

“A lot of themes on the record have to do with time and space and this sort of mystical galactic kind of feeling,” said James in an interview with Stereogum regarding the recent release. On “Begin Again,” the titular phrase echoes over celestial synths. James’s voice lilts above the heavy beats as she sings, “My moon, oh my moon/ not even into another eternity will you stop your lovely orbiting.” The ethereal melody mimics the described orbit of the moon. And it’s lovely.

“Mystical galactic” might be an appropriate way of describing Purity Ring’s sound on Another Eternity, but as for their genre, the vague descriptor of “future pop” will have to do for now. Purity Ring continues to melt elements of indie rock, electronic music, and pop into a unique sound. The duo uses hip-hop production for their powerful, layered beats. While their sound might be considered electronic music and was made mostly on computers, it does not feel overly clean like a strictly techno song might.

Another Eternity is not a complete departure from the sound of Shrines; rather, it seems the next logical step in Purity Ring’s evolution. The album lags at times, and some tracks are difficult to distinguish from others. Overall, however, Another Eternity has life, and standout tracks such as “Begin Again” and “Push Pull” compensate for some of the repetitive moments.

“I’m here to crack the pavement,” Kanye West de­clared during the fashion show for his new collabora­tion with Adidas. “I want to create something better for you. We have been limited.”

Each model for YEEZY SEASON 1 for Adidas Origi­nals wore minimal makeup and a skin-tone bodysuit under one or two articles of clothing and a pair of boots or sneakers. With dark camouflage patterns, oversized jackets, ragged knitwear, neutral colors, and military-inspired vests, the overall aesthetic is post-apocalyptic. The see-through body suits, however, give the illusion of nakedness under a tough exterior.

It’s unclear whether West’s YEEZY SEASON 1 truly cracks the pavement or falls flat. West identifies himself as a genius and a creative visionary both in his music and his artistic endeavors, and it has made him a polarizing cultural force. How could anyone remain neutral about a man whose song titles include “I am a God”? West’s new fashion line has been received with amused criticism, scathing critique, and gushing praise. Although it’s not clear what to think about West’s new line, West has never shied away from provocative art; after all, as he quotes in “Ni**as in Paris,” “No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative. Gets the people going.” YEEZY SEASON 1 is definitely provocative. But would I wear it? Probably not.

“Moments of clarity are so rare, I better document this,” Björk sings, in “Stonemilker,” the first track of Vulnicura. Her intentions are clear from the beginning—this album is going to be a musical diary of sorts, or a personal confession.

Written after her separation from longtime partner Matthew Barney, Björk’s Vulnicura is a raw and emotional, with a sound that spans from deep, dark and electronic to soaring and celestial. Although some of Björk’s earlier works are abstract, Vulnicura is straight- forward and relatable to anyone who has experienced heartbreak—basically, anyone. Björk has broken down crying in interviews about the new album. She can’t speak about the album, she says, but the album speaks for itself. “I’m not trying to be difficult. It really is all in there,” Björk told The Atlantic.

What is there is a timeline of a relationship in decline—the album itself moves from pre- breakup to post-heartbreak, chronologically. The first three songs of Vulnicura describe Björk’s feelings as her relationship fell apart. In “Stonemilker,” Björk details the failings of communication: “I have emotional needs, I wish to synchronize our feelings.” Björk builds tension in “Lionsong” with complex harmonies and escalating violins as she describes her attempts to untangle her partner’s moods and find the ever-elusive clarity. She offers a messy kind of conclusion at the end of the song: “It’s a sign of maturity to be stuck in complexity. I demand clarity either way.”

In “History of Touches,” the last of the pre-breakup songs, Björk creates a sense of warped time with discordant, pulsing synth as she sings about compressing the timeline of a relationship into a single moment. In the album booklet, the first six songs are labeled according to the timeline of the breakup; “History of Touches” is “three months before.”

“Black Lake,” the centerpiece of the album, marks the transition from before to after Björk’s breakup. At ten minutes long, it ranges from accusatory to despairing to rebellious; at first, her heart is a “black lake” but then, she sings, “I am a glowing shiny rocket return- ing home.” The song will be featured in “an immersive music and film experience” in the Björk retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition, which will present a part biographical, part fictitious narrative on Björk’s artistic career, will run from March 8 to June 7. As with her album, MoMA crosses the bounds of music, life and art in order to showcase Björk’s work.