#like lana was also told that she's not a part of clark's future and she ended up leaving too?

[cerealbishh]

"You get to see her understanding of how things really are. And so that becomes much more present on the surface. (...) In this season, we get to see her fall deeper in love with him but also navigate those challenges. And also becoming an anchor for Rhett but also struggling with his decision, 'Is this what I want for my future as well, as much as I love this man?'." - Isa in an interview with The Knockturnal(x)

[crackspinewornpages]

Superman: Miracle Monday 5/27 -Elliot S. Maggin

1 

“The boy would be ready, Jonathan Kent decided, when he was able to feel pain.”p.9 Jonathan had trouble sleeping that night, finally waking Martha when he screamed, and she shook him from his nightmare. He doesn't want to talk about it and tells her to go back to sleep. “But Jonathan had to tell himself about it. It was more than a dream, of course. It was the future-the real future-and not distant at all.”p.10 He tortured himself with it until he had a solution. 

It began that afternoon on Thanksgiving Day, they had stopped raising animals for slaughter after adopting Clark. Martha bought a turkey from Maynard Stone (James Stone’s son) who used it to support his father after his long illness. (yeah drug addiction) Martha brought the live turkey home and nine-year-old Clark snapped its neck and began plucking it in a blink. Lana and her mother joined them they all enjoyed dinner except for Jonathan. Throughout the dinner Martha bragged what a help Clark was, all through it something bothered Jonathan. Part of the dream was real, from that afternoon the rest was from the future, also real. 

Within the next few years Clark went to the basement for a package and reveal himself as Superboy. He would fly to where robbers where escaping under a lake with air tanks and would pierce holes in them and the police would watch the corpses float up. Superboy wasn’t done, in a forest a ranger was running from a timber wolf, Superboy would shatter the wolf’s bones before the ranger’s hand and fly off. He removed the tumor from a girl's brain and publicly call the nervous surgeon incompetent. He went about building roads and dropping tyrants into volcanoes (that went from 0 to 100 real quick) and suggest to the president to make him commander in Chief of all American military. he’d be in charge of everything soon anyway. (well that’s not ominous at all) 

Jonathan knew about Kryptonite, a glowing rock Clark buried in a lead tube under the barn, no one knew yet that it was a fragment of Krypton. When Clark was five there was a meteor shower over the farm and Clark flew up to catch some then felt dizzy and fell to Earth. Martha heard him fall and found him in a ten-foot crater and dragged him to the house away from the rocks and he woke up crying. The next day Clark and Jonathan looked at the rocks in the barn and the green one caused Clark to fall again. That was years ago they never spoke of it, maybe he forgot. 

Now Jonathan dreamed the boy was being worshipped, the public and Superboy should know better. “Soon he would take the power of the life and death of the planet into his hands. He was a boy- no more than a boy, with a boy’s emotions, a boy’s caprices, a boy’s lack of restraint-with the power of the gods of fable.”p.13 (this is why a child with the powers of a god is a bad thing) Jonathan didn't want to kill his son, fathers don't kill their sons, he didn't even want to punish him just talk make him listen, a boy should listen to his father. He drove out to the barn to dig up the meteorite, but a blue sleeve shot out of the dirt and grabbed his shovel. The boy dug himself out of the hole, took the shovel and before the blow hit him Jonathan woke up. (this is an interesting take were the Kents ever afraid of Clark you have an alien child with powers you can’t keep in check this could have turned into a Brightburn or Bump In The Night situation) 

Jonathan wouldn’t get back to sleep, he didn't have to wait until morning, Clark never slept more than an hour and suspected it was only that to be polite. (I think I said it before but I like the little touches where you’re reminded he’s not quite human) When he got to Clark's door the boy told him to come in. Jonathan saw him at the microscope and felt scared again and reminded himself it was only a dream. He asks what he's doing Clark shows him a cross section of a grasshopper's nerve ganglia, he dissected it himself with his nails and microscopic vision. Clark showed him the virus feeding off the nerve cell wall and tried to explain how he used his own optic nerve to enhance the magnification. Jonathan tries to tell him he could have done the study with a twig instead of using a dead thing. Clark apologizes not knowing that stuff bothered him, he just wanted to know what killed it. 

Jonathan asks if he didnt kill it, there were grasshoppers all over, no obvious reason why this one was dead, so he went to look, terrible thing to twitch to death. Jonathan calls it the best news he’s heard; Clark says it's not because the virus could spread to other grasshoppers. Jonathan explains the circle of life on the farm. “All you’ve got to remember, being a thinking kind of creature, is not to tamper with the balance as much as you might be tempted to. Understand, boy?”p.16 Clark could see his father’s eyes change from when he walked in, close to tears and more relaxed, he understands. Jonathan tells him he just wanted to tell him that, they tell each other good night. Clark would figure out his questions later and Jonathan slept. 

2 

He grew up in a universe of macrocosm and microcosm could see ant colony wars and the entire electromagnetic spectrum as he saw a truck in the street. (so he sees shrimp colors) See cosmic rays as easily as humans saw light, he could feel the sunspot activity as someone could feel rain, the world was his playground and teacher. “He was alone in all this sense and knowledge, monumentally alone; but less alone, he realized, than were those other Earthmen, glued to their world and trapped inside bodies that could do no more than touch the outsides of other bodies. The boy was alone, but he was never bored.”p.20 Jonathan sold the farm and bought a general store and house next to the Lang’s, Maynard was ow a loan officer at the bank and gave them a ten-year loan expecting Clark to pay it off, it was now Smallville did business. On the school bus Clark was watching a bee hive four miles away not paying attention as Lana talked about Clark Gable. As Clark was insisting he was listening the driver slammed on the brakes, on the left side kids were gasping, an old dog was hit. The students were quiet on the rest of the ride and seemed to forget about it later, Clark left by lunch. 

Jonathan planned to like the store, retiring from the farm was doctor's orders, late due to Clark’s arrival. “It’s just plain common sense that a little kid can't keep a big secret in a small town, and little Clark’s secret was as big as they come.”p.21 He was restocking when Martha called, Clark is home from school with a fever, but Clark’s never been sick. Martha says he’s hasn't stopped crying and won’t say what's wrong; it could be an unknown ailment they don't know about and she doesn't know if she should call the doctor. (who broke a needle on Clark’s arm) Martha would one day know Clark's origin but for now only knew as much about him as he did, and now she’s scared for him. (I had a head canon about this scenario once an alien child you can’t exactly take them to the doctor and you don’t know what hidden pathogens they carry) 

Jonathan sends Martha to make tea as he checks on Clark, he leaves his room a few minutes later explaining its growing pains. Martha doesn't buy it, Jonathan tells her he was in love with her so much he was sick for two days; Martha suspects it’s Lana. Jonathan says it’s not that, “There’s a lot of hurting a boy goes through if he wants to be a man. And when a boy wants to be a special king of man like Clark’ll be- well a lot of hurting.”p.23 Jonathan gets Martha to stop worrying as he goes to talk to Clark again. 

Clark felt sick, he did not like it, why did Pa want to talk about it, he felt like throwing up or how he thought people felt when they threw up. Clark thought about the dog again, “Living things have a kind of glow around them, like a halo. Living happy things glow in color, living sad things glow in another color. Living intelligent things still another color, living innocent things in yet another.”p.24 The colors didn't have names, Clark didn't bother too either, no one else saw them. “But dead things, especially dead things that have lately been alive, look awful. They’re all grey and empty.”p.24 (you can see what this looks like in the comic Superman Birthright) Then after a while the grey fades and disappears leaving behind a lump. Pa was there talking, asking questions and listening, before he left patted Clark’s head softly. 

Clark slept for two hours and woke up around dinner, Jonathan asks if he remembers their talk, some of it. Clark then bursts it’s not all right, no one could have helped the dog except him, Jonathan reminds him he didn't see it. Clark doesn't eat and goes for a walk, Jonathan suggests putting on the outfit they made him. That night, by the road, stood a boy in primary colors not looking like any of the boys in Smallville. That night Superboy promised himself that his life would preserve life and improve conditions of living things everywhere. “That under no circumstances would he ever be responsible for the loss of a single conscious life; that failing in any of these affirmations he would renounce his powers forever. There could be no nobler mission for a superman.”p.26 (side eyes Zack Snyder) That night he ate dinner and went to bed and Jonathan said to Martha, knowing the boy could hear, that Clark’s ready. 

3 

If you got the feeling you were being watched you most likely were, Superman was watched since his infancy, his natural parents, the Guardians, Green Lanterns, the Kents and those in the future like Kristin Wells. She was a history student from Columbia University from the year 2857 and CW Saturn, an agent of the Underworld. Superman had yet to come to terms that some beings pursued evil just to serve evil. “He was convinced that all one needs to do to persuade someone to do what is right is to educate that person to the fact that it is his interest to do what is right.”p.27 Superman was convinced no one would serve evil if they understood right and wrong, he had not met CW Saturn. 

CW Saturn stood in a place that didn't exist in space or time, the center point of Creation’s evil, the throne room of Samael. (also known as Lucifer) CW Saturn was not a human, animal, vegetable, mineral or energy and watched six hundred and sixty-six (gasp that’s the bad number) naked humans walk hunched over and suffer by his hands. CW Saturn had many exploits on Earth and never failed the same way twice, some of his pawns Tutankhamen, Daniel Webster, Hitler Pope John Paul I, Dan Hammarskjold, Socrates, Copernicus and Lincoln. Some defied him, some defied him and won, some defied him and lost, some defied him but he still found a way to turn it into a win. “Men marched to war and women-though they often knew better-cheered them on. Crowds rioted. Mobs lynched. Demagogues roared. Hordes swarmed.”p.30 

The floor of the emptiness cracked and fell in widening into the shape of a pyramid, burst into blue fire burning cold, a new being arrived, Samael. (he has horns pointed ears devil wings and snake features) Samael congratulates him on creating chaos on Earth, now to his final mission stage, the moral and physical destruction of Superman. This was CW Saturn’s origin, all this preparation to ruin the greatest symbol of goodness and order. After Superman’s fall the world will suffer and collapse, all sensibilities and laws of the continuum itself will crumble into oblivion. CW Saturn was dispatched from Hell to be an agent of Hell on Earth. 

 Kristin Wells was intense and foxy on purpose, she loved disco dancing, had her hair done like models, believed in Equal Rights, worried about election politics, indigent of women’s exploitation and concerned with astrology. (a typical 1980s modern woman) She answers the phone and tells the caller the popular name for Peter Noone is Herman, her apartment was modest but contemporary for the time. In the evening she answered the phone again and says a Krugerrand is a South African coin. She then watched Mork and Mindy (she laughed for the whole episode I doubt Robin Williams was that funny) until she had to get ready for her date hanging up on the next call.  Prismo Grandee sat in the control center in the Field Work Training Center watching four trainees practicing for their assignments. Prismo was relieved by Carleton Hampshire, his outfit was for the disco the student went on and Prismo tells him good Miracle Monday as he teleports out. Carleton calls Kristin questioning her, and she complained about her wimpy date with no chest hair not knowing it was Carleton. He continued to quiz her on pop culture and civics. It was a nice spring day in Metropolis in the year 1980 everywhere else it was 2857 on Earth, the third Monday of May, Miracle Monday. The spirit of humanity flew free, a spring wherever humanity was celebrated. (like the Armstrong City on the moon founded 2019) “It was a day for friends, family, recreation and-if it brought happiness-reflection.”p.36 Prismo felt a bit of envy for Kristin to live through the first Miracle Monday meeting Superman. All three watched him stop an unrecorded tidal wave and reconstructed probable causes. 

4 

“Always there have been heroes.”p.37 Achilles, David, John Henry, Davy Crockett, John Kennedy and Superman. “Real or imagined, the heroes lived; they lived in the world not as it was, but as it should have been.”p.37 Heroes lived under responsibility (well of course they have great power) for those that aspired for what they stood for. In a universe of right and wrong, Superman didn't make a hard decision to calm a tidal wave before it hit Metropolis. A week ago Clark reported a minor earthquake in Greenland the world quickly forgot about it, but it too almost destroyed Metropolis. Most of Greenland was covered by glaciers, the quake caused a chunk to shatter off. In New England a nuclear power plant’s reactor supplied power to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. For years a (politically naive) group Oysterbed Alliance protested against the reactor, the governor stood against them and was defeated. In a reelection for it, as a result the plant was built on a floating platform. (seems more dangerous) 

Six months later the original town suffered an icequake caused by the iceberg shattered off the Greenland quake. The reactor wasted more heat that it directed into power, so it generated more energy across the ocean than the states, so when icebergs floated in they quickly melted into stream. (this doesn’t sound good for the ocean ecology) These rapid clashes of temperatures caused the current to rise into a two-hundred-meter wall to Metropolis, the people had no hope besides a man who could fly. He blasted thirty heat holes slowing its progress and he flew through, the sonic boom then hit the wave it couldn't support its own weight. Superman moved quickly under it circling counterclockwise flattening the wave into a cylinder. He dragged it into the stratosphere then blasted it with his heat vision so that the steam became a cloud. That February morning Metropolis would have snow sixteen inches thick; a blizzard people could deal with. “Like matter and energy, forces of nature cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed and diverted.”p.42 

That morning the bus driver didnt like the smiling man who said good morning but most people actually like the news broadcaster. The driver lurched hoping to trip the man who unnerved him, (this is interesting does Clark set off warning bells in anyone sure he looks human but there has to be something uncanny about him few can detect) but the bus was stuck. Clark waited for the driver to find another reason to be angry, few blocks behind there was another bus. Nobody would mind transferring; Clark wouldn’t mind being a few minutes late for work either. 

5 

The idea was to escape the Galaxy building before the associate producer arrived and told everyone to do something else. It was Jimmy’s idea, Eve and Jerry played along at worst an interesting day, at best a story for their grandchildren. Jimmy arrived fifteen minutes early in time to see the list of stories Clark was responsible for assigning. When he saw the name Lex Luthor, he wanted Clark to arrive late. Years ago, Jimmy’s father told him a man that knew what he wanted was halfway to getting it, by that logic Jimmy reasons Clark will be late for work. (Jimmy it doesn't work like that) Because of the snow he thought at first to wait fifteen minutes then took the freight elevator to avoid the lobby. Unfortunately, Jimmy pulled on Fifty Second Street as Clark stepped off the bus. Jimmy called out he’s going to catch Luthor’s escape at Pocanto and drove by noting to thank Superman for the snow. 

Last year Luthor escaped from Pocanto eight times, eleven the year before, once back in for something he forgot. This year he broke out once and vanished, this time he called the press for his next prison break. By being around newsmen for almost a decade he was aware of patterns of improbable events, little took him by surprise. Jimmy told Jerry to speed up, they’d be late but on time for the main show. Meanwhile Luthor was practicing his speech, three main points, he discovered an energy source. Petition to work on the development his proposals weren't unsurprisingly rejected so he’d demonstrate by escaping.  

Meanwhile, Warden Haskell was addressing the press how the prison is escape proof when Jimmy’s group interrupted by arriving late. The guard said they showed a fake pass and tried to force their way in, but Haskell knows Jimmy and allows them in apologizing the guards are on edge turns out Jimmy brought his rocket club card. (almost as bad as forgetting the camera film when the damn exploded) Jimmy followed Haskell to the other reportors who didn't complain, this is what it's like to be a star. (don’t let your head swell up too much Jimmy) The maximum-security prison had a special cell built for Luthor who for days was bragging he’d escape that week, he was not one to boast hollowly. Haskell was the ninth warden, four fired, two broke down, one had a seizure, and one was Luthor’s alter ego, the governor lost his job over that one. Haskell was eight months from retirement, but no one would blame him for Luthor. (except the commissioner the regional director the Federal Bureau of Prisons Director and the governor)  

Haskell told the press there would be no questions then there was a sound from the hall and the press was escorted to see Luthor being transferred. He was hurling verbal insults (they let him say whatever because once a fan boy cared LL on a guard for not apologizing to Luthor) as he was put in a glass cell, now the press could come near. Despite being locked up, handcuffed, surrounded by eighteen larger men, Luthor looked in charge, Haskell assured the cell was escape proof. (well now you jinxed it) On the way back Jimmy wrote the story of his escape for later that week and two weeks later Haskell would be transferred to the Kansas Juvenile Reformatory where his salary and pension was cut by twenty percent. (see people did blame him) 

NEXT

[lilaccatholic]

Ugh, this article from Vanity Fair (copied below the cut for those of you who have run out of free articles for the month) about how many old Hollywood stars were forced into abortions to keep up their “images”—with some of them being absolutely destroyed by the procedure—is absolutely horrifying. How anyone can look at this and not see how these poor women were abused and manipulated is beyond me.

Abortions were our birth control,” an anonymous actress once said about the common procedure’s place in Hollywood from the 1920s through the 1950s. While patriarchal political powers connive to block women’s legal access to abortion in 21st century America, in Old Hollywood, abortions were far more standard and far more accessible than they often are today—more like aspirin, or appendectomies. How and why did a procedure that was taboo and illegal at the time become so ordinary—at least, among a certain set? 

Much like today, in Old Hollywood, the decisions being made about women’s bodies were made in the interests of men—the powerful heads of motion pictures studios MGM, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and RKO. As Aubrey Malone writes in Hollywood's Second Sex: The Treatment of Women in the Film Industry, 1900-1999, “If you want to play in this business, you play like a man or you’re out. And if you happen to be a woman, better not mention it to anybody.”

From the very infancy of America’s film industry, abortions were necessary body maintenance for women in the spotlight. Birth control, including prophylactics, were about as new as “stars” themselves—movie performers who went overnight from being “Little Mary” or “The Vitagraph Girl” to “America’s Sweetheart” or “Sex Goddess.”

“These newly wealthy men and women didn’t know how to control their money, their bodies, or their lives, spending, cavorting, and reveling in excess,” writes Anne Helen Petersen in Scandals of Classic Hollywood. In the working environment of the Hollywood studio system, society’s 19th-century sexual segregation had fallen away. Women—flappers, It girls, sirens and seductresses—were spared their destiny in the kitchen, and for the first time, they earned large incomes they could spend on whatever and whomever they wished. Many believed the publicity they read about their own erotic powers, and they went toe-to-toe professionally with men. Sparks were bound to fly.

And so it became necessary for the studios to implement reformatory measures to prevent stars from destroying their value through scandal. In 1922, Will H. Hays Hays collaborated with studios to introduce mandatory “morality clauses” into stars’ contracts. Consequently an unintended pregnancy would not only bring shame to these top box-office earners—it would violate studio policy. “[I]t was a common assumption that glamorous stars would not be popular if they had children,” writes Cari Beauchamp in her book on powerful women in Old Hollywood, Without Lying Down.

These clauses may have extended to an actress’s right to marry. According to Petersen, rumor had it that “Blonde Bombshell” Jean Harlow couldn’t wed William Powell because “MGM had written a clause into her contract forbidding her to marry”—a wife couldn’t be a “bombshell,” after all. When Harlow became pregnant from the affair, she called MGM head of publicity Howard Strickling in a panic. Shortly thereafter, according to E.J. Fleming in The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM Publicity Machine, “Mrs. Jean Carpenter” entered Good Shepherd Hospital “to get some rest.” She was seen only by her private doctors and nurses in room 826, the same room she had occupied the year before for an “appendectomy.”

In the 1930s, vamp and man-eating thespian Tallulah Bankhead got “abortions like other women got permanent waves,” biographer Lee Israel quips in Miss Tallulah Bankhead. When virtuous singing sensation Jeanette McDonald found herself pregnant in 1935, MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer told Strickling to “get rid of the problem.” McDonald soon checked into a hospital with an “ear infection,” according to Fleming’s The Fixers.

Many of these Silent Sex Goddesses either fell victim to their own hedonism, fell out of favor, or burned out, such as Theda Bara and Clara Bow. Others, like Joan Crawford, kept going. Kenneth Anger writes that Crawford was a “gutsy jazz baby” who marched through the “twin holocaust of the Talkies/Crash unscathed” to escape her dirt-poor origins. “Joan knew where she came from,” he continues, “and did not want to go back there.”

Get 1 year for $15.Join Now In 1931 Joan Crawford, estranged from her husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr., became pregnant with what she believed was Clark Gable’s child and Strickling arranged for an abortion. Rather than reveal the truth, Crawford told Fairbanks that during the filming of Rain on Catalina Island, she slipped on the deck of a ship and lost the baby.

Crawford’s rival Bette Davis also willingly chose to have abortions for the sake of her career. Davis was the breadwinner for her entire family—her mother and sister, and her husband, Harmon Nelson, whom she married in 1932. If she’d had a child in 1934, she told her biographer Charlotte Chandler in The Girl Who Walked Home Alone, she would’ve “missed the biggest role in her life thus far”—that of Mildred in Of Human Bondage, which earned Davis her first Oscar nomination. Other great parts—“Jezebel, Judith, Elizabeth, Charlotte, and Margo Channing”—may not have followed, either. “But I didn’t miss any of these roles, and I didn’t miss having a family,” she said. Later in life, Davis had three children.

Her first child, Barbara Davis Sherry—known as B.D.—was born when Davis was 39. As biographer Whitney Stine notes in I’d Love to Kiss You: Conversations with Bette Davis, “she was proud of the fact that, after her abortions, she could have a baby at last and a career, because her mother had always insisted that she couldn’t have both. She never tired of reminding [her mother] that she could be a mother and an actress.”

“A child could wait; her career could not.” That’s the reasoning Jean Harlow’s mother gave about her daughter’s own abortion at age 18. Ava Gardner, too, expressed a similar sentiment when discussing her abortion, which she had when married to Frank Sinatra—unbeknownst to him. “‘MGM had all sorts of penalty clauses about their stars having babies,’” Jane Ellen Wayne quotes Gardner saying in The Golden Girls of MGM. “‘If I had one, my salary would be cut off. So how could I make a living? Frank was broke and my future movies were going to take me all over the world. I couldn’t have a baby with that sort of thing going on. MGM made all the arrangements for me to fly to London. Someone from the studio was with me all the time. The abortion was hush hush . . . very discreet.’”

But things didn’t work out quite so well for Judy Garland. Famous primarily for playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and struggling to maintain both her weight and her image as an ingenue, Garland was never free to make her own choices.

“Married or not, the MGM girls maintained their virginal image,” Wayne observes, and this was especially true of Garland. In 1941, at age 19, she married the bandleader David Rose without the approval of MGM, and within 24 hours was ordered back by to work. When she became pregnant by Rose, her mother, Ethel, in cahoots with the studio, arranged for Garland to have an abortion. Audiences loved her as a child—not as a mother. In 1943, Garland became pregnant from her affair with Tyrone Power, according to Petersen. Strickling arranged for her to have an abortion. Arguably, these incidents affected Garland psychologically; eventually she became the first public victim of stardom.

Tyrone Power also got Lana Turner pregnant. Again, Strickling arranged for an abortion. Power was one of a constellation of male stars—such as Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, and Charlie Chaplin—whose unbridled dalliances left women paying the price, according to The Fixers. (The phrase “In like Flynn” alludes to Errol’s ease at bedding women—and his good fortune at being acquitted of statutory rape of two teenage girls.)

Strickling, who was by now referred to as a “fixer,” had his hands full with Turner. The “Sweater Girl” allegedly found herself pregnant by bandleader Artie Shaw in 1941, and Strickling arranged an abortion during her publicity tour of Hawaii. The procedure took place without anesthesia, on her hotel bed. Turner’s mother covered her mouth with her hand to stifle her daughter’s cries. A studio doctor, paid $500 that was then deducted from Turner’s paycheck, performed the procedure. A week later, she was back on set filming Ziegfeld Girl, according to The Fixers.

Some actresses struggled with whether or not to keep their child. Mexican screen siren Lupe Velez committed suicide in 1944 because she was pregnant by her lover Harald Ramond, who wouldn’t marry her. A devout Catholic, she declined to call “Doctor Killkare” (“the joke name for Tinseltown’s leading abortionist,” according to Kenneth Anger in Hollywood Babylon), and downed 75 Seconal instead, according to Hollywood Babylon.

The decision was equally tragic for Dorothy Dandridge. Otto Preminger had directed her in Carmen Jones and made her a star. When she became pregnant by him in 1955, he refused to divorce his wife and marry her. Dandridge was forced to have an abortion; the studio demanded it, according to Scandals of Classic Hollywood, not only because a child would compromise her image as the sexy Carmen Jones, but also because Preminger was a white man. And, while miscegenation laws were repealed in California in 1948, nationwide they were still very much in place.

Ironically, the rebel of her day was Loretta Young—not because she had an abortion, but because she refused to have one. A devout Catholic, Young journeyed abroad in 1935 to recuperate from a ‘mystery illness,’ after she found herself with child by Clark Gable under shady circumstances—and avoided the press. She gave birth to her daughter at home in Los Angeles. Young initially gave the child up for adoption—and then, a few months later, officially adopted her, according to The Fixers.

In the heyday of the Hollywood studio system, women were at their most desirable and their most powerful—but it still didn’t afford them the right to choose when it came to governing their bodies. Hollywood’s production codes extended to women’s reproduction. In the hundred years or so that have passed since the birth of American cinema, everything has changed—though, then again, perhaps nothing has.

[alltheworldsinmyhead]

MAKE MY MESSES MATTER (MAKE MY CHAOS COUNT)

THE 100 / BELLARKE/ CANON DIVERGENCE SINCE S2 FINALE

AO3

{First letters come when frost finally lets go of the river. / a.k.a. clarke leaves to heal herself; it doesn't mean she abandons anyone }

This fic is dedicated to the best reviewer, best beta and best friend in the entire world - Lana, darling, I don't deserve you <3 <3.

**********************************************************************

I‘ll see you in the future when we’re older

And we are full of stories to be told

Cross my heart and hope to die

I’ll see you with your laughter lines

- Laughter Lines, Bastille

I.

First letters come when frost finally lets go of the river.

It’s not spring yet, and Echo told him not to let anyone get their hopes too high-  weather is unpredictable and cold can come back quickly and violently, but – fuck, winter was so hard and now there are flowers blooming in-between ponds of mud and still-remaining snow. People are laughing again, letting yellow light of spring sun kiss their pale, frostbitten faces and Bellamy slowly, very slowly lets himself take a breath. It feels as if he was holding it ever since first snows hit them, when they were so epically unprepared and if it wasn’t for Lincoln, they’d probably all be dead by Winter Solstice (what an irony- Bellamy thinks sometimes, looking at Lincoln wrestling with kids, helping Abby, kissing Octavia- what an irony indeed).

And even with Lincoln, there was nothing easy about those last few months and Bellamy’s hands are calloused and rough from digging too many graves in the frozen ground. And then flu hit them and there were too many bodies to bury, so they burned them instead. He can still almost smell it; this strangely sweet smoke smelling like meat, which was making their empty stomachs growl, which in turn would make them sick.

There was nothing easy from the beginning till the end and the hardest part was that there was a huge hole with jagged edges where Clarke was supposed to be and where she wasn’t, his ‘together’ haunting his dreams and hers ‘you won’t be by yourself’ mocking him over and over again.

But now spring is finally truly coming, days become longer and he manages to sleep more than an hour or two during most nights, so he decides to focus on positives.

Letters come when Bellamy’s on a hunting trip deep in the forests; they are waiting for him in Arkadia along with Echo. She was a frequent visitor during the winter; serving as their link to the situation between clans, telling them all about Lexa’s trial, about the fall of the treaty, about wars coming and ending and beginning ( because all this world is war, war and war, constantly. Never stopping, not even to take a breath). The only thing she wasn’t telling them about is, well.  

Clarke.

Bellamy knows Echo knows where Clarke is. Or at least, has a general idea. She slipped it, once or twice, mentioning some ‘Wanheda’ in a tone living legends are spoken about, but the person she described didn’t seem like his Clarke at all. His Clarke was soft eyes and steel turned skin and blood under her fingernails because she was saving somebody, not because she strangled someone with them. His Clarke was hummed lullabies and her father’s worn-out watch and grace with every movement…  but his Clarke is gone and he doesn’t know if she’s ever coming back and hearing about new Clarke is too painful, so he’d rather not know anything at all.

Echo is sitting in front of his cabin, eyes closed, facing the sun and well, it turns out that not only Sky People are done with winter. She greets him with a simple nod and tells him that she has something for him. He expects everything, but a small package haphazardly wrapped in some kind of green cloth, smooth under his fingers and tied with a piece of string.

“This went through a long journey”- Echo informs while handing him the bundle. “One of the traveling clans from North brought it to my village, asking if anyone still keeps any kind of contact with Sky People. They really didn’t want to bring it in here themselves. “

Echo draws abstract lines on the fabric of her pants with her index finger, looking down and apparently thinking how to tell him something, while Bellamy fights with an urge to smile grimly. Apart from Echo and Lincoln, they haven’t spotted a single Grounder during winter. Not that Bellamy complained about it- they certainly had enough trouble even without them- but he had found it strange, until he realized that the legend of Clarke is not only a legend of Clarke but also the  legend of Sky People- Those Who Burn, he heard Echo saying one time, Those Who Burn everything standing in their way.

(what an irony)

“Just- just open it.”- says Echo eventually, raising her head to look into his eyes. “ And if you want to send anything back, let me know.”

She waves to him goodbye before he can get a chance to say anything and turns around quickly, her boots making soft, cracking noises on wet snow and mud. He is left standing in front of the hut with the package still in his hands, frozen in time and space, a good few minutes before he manages to move again.

He leaves the bundle by the doors and just - goes. To do things that don’t really need to be done, supervise people who are doing just fine without him hovering, piss off O ( ‘’What the fuck is wrong with you, Bell’’ ) and have yet another unnecessary shouting match with Abby before he’s able to come back and dare to unwrap it.

The string lets go easily, the cloth parts and Bellamy can see pile of – paper? Is it really paper?- few dried flowers, which slip from his knees and land on the ground and a greenish, nice smelling thing, which appears to be some kind of bark.

Half of the sheets of paper- which is also gray-green and there are tiny plant veins visible on their surface – turn out to be empty. The other half is full of words- words spilling on the margins, words on words, words chaotic and wild and crazy and-

II.

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been twenty –two days and I think I’m losing my mind. I bumped into a Grounder hunting party today; they just dropped their weapons and things and ran away from me, so I took their things I guess I’m a thief now, why not, actually so they had this paper and a pen, it must be from before the Apocalypse and it still works, can you believe? And I started to write this, I heard people used to write letters to their loved ones when they were away-

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been thirty –seven days, I wonder how Monty’s doing, how you are doing, how are you all doing, it’s so cold, I fell asleep on a tree branch and now I can’t feel my fingers, it hurts, Bellamy, it hurts to even-

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been fifty days, I found a bark which works miracles on frostbites you should give it to my mother or Lincoln, or I should’ve given it to them, but I’m not with you, I’m alone here, I think I’ve lost my mind-

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been exactly fifty-eight days-

I miss you

I miss you

I miss you

I miss you

Dear Bellamy,

I’m haunted by myself.

III.

First, she catches a terrible cold. Then she slips on a thin layer of ice while hunting and injures her head and she doesn’t even remember how she manages to crawl into the cave she has been living in for some time and collapse on the fur. Her head is spinning, burning red and she sees Wells and Finn and her dad and Bellamy-

“Are you dead?”- she asks, confused and then he looks at her and she sees his body drained out blood, his eyes desperate, his hands stretched out, reaching for her:

“You told me to go.”- he says and his voice makes her shiver.” You told me to go and I went, was it worth it?”

Was it worth it was it worth it was it worth it Clarke was it worth it tell us Clarke tell us weren’t we worth it was it worth us – dead men of her life repeat and repeat and Clarke screams and screams and screams until her voice dies out and she drifts into a blackness and there’s nothing and nobody around her anymore.

IV.

Dear Bellamy,

I’m on the coast now, in Luna’s clan village. Their language is like a song on a wind; you’d love it. Luna sends her love to Lincoln. I had- rough time during winter, you can probably tell from the other letters. But those people helped me and –

Bell, they don’t seem to be afraid of me. I don’t remember them being involved in Mount Weather war, but they must’ve heard of it, heard of me. Still, nobody here treats me like other Grounders. Travelers stopped in a village and they agreed to bring my letters to Camp Jaha, even if they didn’t seem completely comfortable with it. I hope you’ll get it. It’s not much –and I don’t expect to get anything back – but that’s the best I can do now.

I just want you to know I think about you every day. All the time. And I’m so, so sorry, Bell.

Out of all the terrible things I’ve done, I’m most sorry for the ones I did to you.

I miss you,

Clarke

V.

“She doesn’t get to do this shit!”

Octavia’s all flaming anger, standing in the middle of his hut and waving her hands.

“Not after she left.  She left us, she left you; she doesn’t get to write you things like that!’’

But Bellamy’s angry too, anger to match Octavia’s, slowly burning his insides.

“Who the fuck allowed you to read it? How do you even know I get this, huh? You’re going through my stuff now, O?”

“Yes, because apparently you’re not capable of making rational decisions like burning this shit without reading! You’re probably already writing her a reply, aren’t you?”  

“It’s not your damn business, Octavia!”

They circle each other like wild dogs thrown into the pit, ready to fight with their fangs and claws. Octavia’s still holding Clarke’s letters and she throws them into his face, bares her teeth and fucking hisses.

“You know it’s all her fault. Everything that went wrong, is because of her. She killed all those people- TonDC, Month Weather, it was all her. “

Bellamy sees red and he could never, ever hurt his sister, but he feels his hands fisting, muscles clenching, bloodthirst swallowing him whole and he’s just so angry.

“I killed all those people along with her, Octavia.” – he says lowly, breath heavy and head low, facing her like a charging bull. “If Clarke’s a murderer, then so am I.”

“Because she made you this way!”- Octavia shouts so loudly, that her voice breaks in half and his fists drop to his sides and he just looks at her. He feels his lungs collapsing, his heart-stopping, entire freaking world freezing for a moment.

His sister is shivering like a leaf on a wind, hands outstretched towards him and shining eyes.

“She sent you away.-“ she whispers, stuttering like a little child and then she turns around so he won’t see her crying. “She sent you away and you went for her and I could- I thought I- I could lose you.”

Her shoulders are shaking and she wraps her arms around herself, sobbing and Bellamy’s standing still, hearing white noise in his ears and suddenly coming back to the times, when Octavia had bangs and curious eyes and clean hands and he was her only lifeline, the only thing connecting her with the whole wide world bigger than two chairs, two bunk beds and endless darkness under the floor.

“Octavia..”- he wants it to sounds like an apology, but instead it comes out like a plea.

Understand. Please. I can only forgive myself, if Clarke’s forgiven too.  

He hesitantly takes two steps and raises one hand to touch her back, to comfort her, but something stops him halfway. His hand’s frozen in its track, frozen in the air, hanging between him and Octavia like a blown-up bridge between two worlds which will never be connected anymore.

She hiccups, wipes the tears with the palm of her hand and turns around. Her braids are coming undone and the dark make-up around her red eyes is smudged, but she stands straight, with chin up high and says, clearly and calmly:

“She doesn’t deserve you.”

O marches out of the hut and he doesn’t stop her.

Instead, he kneels down to pick up the letters and puts them in order.

And then he takes the pen he asked Lincoln to bring him from the last trade and presses the tip of it to the clean sheet of paper.

Dear Clarke,

Winter was fucking awful and spring’s not much better, but at least it’s warmer now.

VI.

Clarke decides she likes the ocean most.

It’s big and wide and endless; silver-gray waves with white manes,  cool sand under her bare feet, wild wind and the smell of salt, smoked fish and crown made of finger-cutting sharp seagrass -  it’s everything she dreamed it would be, long, long time ago, and so much more and nothing less.

She wasn’t planning to stay, truth to be told. For the first few weeks she was constantly waiting for this sharp tug of ache inside just go, just go, far and far and never come back but it never came and Luna’s people are more gentle and kinder than anyone who she has ever met and they’re the only ones who seem not to be afraid of her. So she stays.

She patches up hunters and delivers children along with the old, nearly blind healer; she kisses scraped knees of kids and learns how to knot fishing nets and breathes in, breathes out, washes her face in icy, salty water.

One time,  girl from the village brings her charcoals and she spends hours on playing with them, morbidly fascinated with how different they feel, when her hands are no longer soft and white, but callused and cut and scarred and short on one finger and red, so, so red.

Clarke draws sea and people and a little, chubby boy chewing his fist and before she can even notice, she draws constellations of freckles and messy hair and soft, sad eyes; brown ponytails and sharp elbows and braids; goggles and gentle smiles and she wants to weep, she misses them all so much.

She wonders about her package, she wonders if it ever reached Bellamy, she wonders if it even matters at all.

She –well, she’s healing. But she’s still aching, something is still tearing her apart from the inside and she still can’t seem to let go of so many things, so she can’t go back.

She hasn’t had any hallucinations ever since she’s been around humans again, but her nightmares still have brown eyes and are holding a little football ball in their clawed hands.

VII.

“Bellamy, Bellamy tell us a story!”

Bellamy stares at the fire as kids are chirping loudly in his ears; he keeps his hands on his knees, palms out, fingers outstretched as if he was holding something.

“Once upon a time, there was a princess-”

“Clarke! Clarke!”

“Okay, okay!” – she laughs, with her head thrown back, but her eyes sad when she says-

“Once upon a time, there was a rebel – “

“-turned queen-“

Octavia’s bright eyes, narrowed lips, sharp pain in his chest.

“-turned king.”

Flames dancing on a pile of sea wood, her voice full of nostalgia.

VIII.

By the next spring, Clarke has a baby inside of her.

She doesn’t know whose it is; she doesn’t really want to know, to be honest. There were few,  men, women, nothing to grow attached to, just a tension relief, fuck and forget. She needs to get rid of it, but she spends too much time thinking about what she needs and what she wants and about Ark and Octavia Blake and then she can feel it move and everything in her screams mine mine mine.

So she lets it stay.

She lets it grow.

She lets herself grow bigger; soon enough her spine starts to hurt like a bitch and her eyes water when she sees little kids, little birds, little dogs and apparently every single damn little thing in the world. Her feet swell and her breasts ache and she suddenly craves wild mushrooms and tuna and apples.

She goes through twenty- hours- long labor, clutching Lila’s hand all through it and crying for her mom and Bellamy, delirious with pain, sweat and tears and blood and then-

A pair of very brown eyes,  strangely calm; a cloud of delicate blonde hair.  They look at each other and it’s like the world stops turning and for a moment there are just Clarke and this tiny alien thing covered in her blood,  small starfishes of her hands fisted, small feet kicking the air.

Clarke’s daughter has long lashes, pink, wrinkled skin and a nose like a tiny button and Clarke can’t stop looking at her, won’t stop looking at her. She feels some kind of –oblivion. Everything that was messed up before, everything she couldn’t deal with, now perfectly in order and she can’t remember being in such peace ever in her entire life.

IX.

Dear Bellamy,

Her name is Julia.

Bellamy clenches the paper in his hand, head thrown back and just- breathes out.

X.

When Julia’s eight months old, Clarke slowly starts packing.

It’s unintentional, at first; cleaning her hut, throwing some things away or giving them as a gift to those who needed it more than her anyway, packing the rest in sacks, trading with travelers for material for a travelling carrier for an infant– she does all those things before even realizing what she’s doing, until one day Aidan walks on her while she’s asking Rhea where she could get a horse, or maybe even two and how can she pay for them.

“So you’re really leaving, huh?”- he doesn’t sound accusing, but a bit sad and like he has been expecting it for some time now.

And Clarke… Clarke takes a deep breath and nods.

Dear Bellamy,

It’s been three years now. I think it’s time to go home. Would you like to meet my daughter?

The reply comes fast as the wind,  two lines written on a piece of paper apparently torn from the bigger one, letter bold and honest.

Dear Clarke,

Can’t wait.

XI.

They leave at dawn, moon and stars still visible on the golden-pink sky, Julia napping in her sling. Luna hugs her tightly and then Lila and Mara and Devon and Rhea and then the whole village kissing her cheeks and touching her hair and saying thank you and Clarke has such a lump in her throat that she can barely breathe, because she’s the one that owes them everything she has now.

Aiden helps her up on the saddle and pats her thigh.

“You’re always welcomed here, you two. And I have a feeling we’ll see each other again.”- he winks, a wide grin spread on her face and she suddenly remembers why she even let this man, those people, get closer to her in the first place. “Also, I want to meet this man of yours and remind him how lucky he is. Being loved by a woman like you, Clarke- tragedy, but what a privilege at the same time.”

And to that, she can only blush.

XII.

She comes back at sunrise;  appears like a ghost from between trees on the white horse,  baby strapped to her chest, sacks hanging from both sides of her saddle.

He abandons his post near the gate and runs and runs and runs and she jumps off the horse and runs too,  but when they’re ten feet apart from each other, they slow down.

It’s been three years -

( but when Bellamy looks at her beaming, all golden hair and blue eyes and pink-cheeked baby glancing at him curiously half-hiding his face in the crook of her neck,  he feels like not a day has passed since dropship)

“Hi.”- she says, breathless,  taking one tiny step closer.

“Hello.”- he responds, taking another.

She looks him in the eyes, smiling, and she has damn laughter lines on her face. God, he wants nothing else but to spend the rest of his life giving her more. He raises his hand and traces them delicately and she shivers under his touch, leaning into his hand.

“Bell.”-   her voice is hoarse with emotions and low, just above a whisper. “ I  missed you, Bell.”

Sun is setting, casting reds and goldens on her hair as he wraps his arms around her and her daughter and she presses her face to his shoulder and the forest is so wonderfully, wonderfully green.

And in this one moment, they are everything and nothing and Bellamy knows there are storms in the future and broken hearts and bloody hands; but right now, when he can feel her lips on his skin and her baby’s little hand fisting his shirt,  all they are is right and real and exactly, where they are supposed to be.

[zombiesbecrazy]

fragile creatures

Summary:  I’m human, Clark. Sometimes we trip over stationary objects.

AO3

The smell of the inside of his childhood home was his favourite thing in the world. A warm mix of cedar and apples and what could only be described as butterflies filled his senses whenever he stepped through the door and it always made him pause and smile at the threshold before entering further. His father had always laughed and told him that butterflies didn't have a smell whenever he did it, and Clark had always argued back that just because they couldn't smell butterflies didn't mean that that the scent wasn't there.

"Hey, Ma?" Clark shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the rack, same hook as he always had.

"In the dining room!" She called out, even though he knew perfectly well where she was in the house. He detoured through the kitchen, grabbing an apple from the bowl, biting into it as he walked through the door, about to ask how her day was when he froze mid-step. He inhaled the apple in surprise and almost choked on it before rushing to his mother's side, inspecting her casted arm carefully, or at least he tried to, but she was folding laundry and she pulled her arm free of his grasp multiple times before he gave up. “What happened?”

“It was nothing. I tripped in the barn last week over the old auger and landed funny.”

“And you didn’t call me?” That wasn’t completely true. They had spoken every day this week, except on Thursday, and now that he thought about it that was probably the day that this had happened. She hadn’t even mentioned the fall, nor the fact that her left arm was in a multi coloured fiberglass cast up to her elbow. He had heard all about her lunch with her friends earlier in the week, and the gossip of old Sal down at the feed shop, but when it came to anything like this? Nothing.

“It’s just a hairline fracture. Nothing to get frazzled about.”

“It’s broken in two places!”

“Clark Kent. It’s rude to x-ray your mother without permission.”

“I…” he hung his head and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling like he was fourteen again and getting in trouble for using his powers to do his chores faster. “Sorry, Ma,” he supplied. “I just worry. I don’t like the idea of you living here by yourself.” He knew as soon as he had said it that it had been the absolute wrong thing to say and the look on her face could melt steel.

“Well, I don’t like you getting trapped in the Phantom Zone, but that happened,” she snapped without missing a beat, continuing to fold the laundry, staking the pile of shirts into a neat stake before loading them into the basket. It was harsh, but it wasn’t the words that stung, but more the implication. She had to let him throw himself into dangerous, world ending situations all the time without knowing if he’d be back and he wasn’t trusting her simply walk from Point A to Point B without assistance.

“That was one time.” He went behind her and wrapped his arms around her, trapping her warm and tight in his embrace as he rested his chin on her head. She paused her folding and placed a hand on his arms. He’d know that touch anywhere in the universe. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I’m 53, not 83. I’m perfectly capable.” She said quietly, patting his arm with the familiar three four taps that she always did what she was trying to calm him down, usually on his back, but it was the same idea now and he was finding himself more relaxed. “It would have happened whether I lived by myself or not. I’m human, Clark. Sometimes we trip over stationary objects.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

Clark inhaled sharply at her question. Of course he knew that she was human. Warm, soft and breakable human. Just like Lana and Pete. Just like Lois. Just like Pa. There were times when he just wanted to wrap all the important people in his life up in bubble wrap and put them in a terrarium just to keep them from getting sick or hurt. “It’s just,” he tried to think of a way to explain his thoughts, to think of the words that could describe how much she meant to him, but he kept coming up short. “You’re my mom. It’s my job to keep you safe.” He kissed the top of her head, inhaling her scent in deep. She was where the butterfly smell came from and he loved it. He looked around the room, to the pictures on the wall of his family and the worn furniture that looked like it would be lumpy but somehow was soft enough that it let you have the best naps in the world. This was his home and he missed it so much sometimes. “Maybe I should move back home.”

“You absolutely will not,” she laughed and stepped out of his arms, letting them fall to his sides. She put a soft hand on his cheek, the one in the cast, and he can feel the rough feel of the blue and red cast on her palm. “I love you, but you have your own new life in Metropolis and I’m happy here on my own. I’m not alone, Clark. I have friends and a life and the added benefit that I have a son that can hear me if I just holler loud enough. I love having you here, but you’ve moved on past this life. You know that.” It was reminiscent of a talk he had with Pa when he was trying to figure out to do with college applications and thinking about life after Smallville High. They had sat in this very dining room, pamphlets spread across the tables, overwhelming him with all of the options in front of him and he just didn’t know how to choose.

There are those who stay in Smallville for life, Clark, and those who take Smallville with them into the world and spread it like a gift. We both know that you are the latter.

“I think about it from time to time. Coming back here. Just being Clark Kent, farmer extraordinaire.”

“I don’t think that’s really what you want. We can settle on you just coming back to visit more often if that helps? It’s not like it’s far for you to just pop over.” She patted him on the arm again, four pats, just as always and then she squeezed, like she always did when she was teasing him. “Also if you moved back, I don’t think you’d like Naked Wednesday’s and I’m not giving those up.”

“Ma!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s true.” She winked at him. “Your father loved Naked Wednesday’s.”

“Ma!” Clark chuckled but pulled her into a proper hug this time and her arms squeezed him tight in turn as they stood in the middle of the room, swaying slightly. “I still worry.”

“I know. That’s what family does. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my arm,” she said. “I worry about you too.”

“I’m fairly indestructible.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t worry anyway. And I worry about the parts of you that aren’t.” She reached up and ran her hand through his hair a few times and watched him carefully. “I understand that you worry, and that you always will, but you have to trust that I can look after and if a day comes that I can’t, I will let you know.” They didn’t talk about it much, the future and the inevitable of age and growing older. It scared him much more than it did her, the pure humanness of it. “You’re my baby, Clark. Space baby, but still mine.

“I love you, Ma.” He reached out his hands again, to look at her arm closer. He didn’t necessarily need to, but he felt better being able to hold it in his own hands and feel for himself. This time she let him inspect it and he took the time to take in the red and blue pattern that they had created, criss crossing the colours. He raised an eyebrow and she nodded before he took another closer look. The bones were feeling nicely, settling in as they should be. She’d be right as rain in a few more weeks. It still didn’t make him worry and less but it was a start. “I like your cast.”

“It reminded me of you.”

[suerusselldj]

The Pitchfork Guide to Upcoming Albums: Spring 2017

Spoil me - I'm a DJ and I'm cute!

Welcome once again to the Pitchfork Guide to Upcoming Releases, our seasonal guide to new music. Four times a year, we round up a list of albums, singles, EPs, reissues, and more arriving in the coming months. This installment covers spring 2017, starting with this Friday, April 7. (Please note that release dates may change.) To start things off, we’ve highlighted a few particularly notable releases, including albums by Kendrick Lamar, Gorillaz, Lana Del Rey, Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes, Lorde, and others. For more about the releases we’re most excited for in 2017, check out our feature from the beginning of the year.

Arca: Arca (April 7, XL Recordings)

The new self-titled album from producer Alejandro Ghersi under his Arca alias is the follow-up to his his 2015 album Mutant and 2016 project Entrañas. It includes the recently released songs “Piel,” “Anoche,” and “Reverie,” and features Arca stepping out in front of the microphone for the first time, singing exclusively in Spanish. 

Father John Misty: Pure Comedy (April 7, Sub Pop)

The irreverent Josh Tillman returns in full force with Pure Comedy, his newest studio album under the Father John Misty name. The announcement of the 75-minute LP came with a 25-minute making-of documentary filmed during the album’s recording as well as a nearly-2000 word explanation. It features a 13-minute song called “Leaving LA,” plus a track that begins with a line about virtual reality sex with Taylor Swift. Read our extensive new interview with Father John Misty here.

Future Islands: The Far Field (April 7, 4AD)

Synth-pop trio Future Islands are set to release their latest album The Far Field, following the breakout success they found on 2014’s Singles. It includes “Ran” and “Cave,” was produced by John Congleton, and includes a guest appearance by Blondie’s Debbie Harry.

Kendrick Lamar: TBA (April 7 [probably], Top Dawg Entertainment)

Ever since the release of To Pimp a Butterfly in 2015, fans have been waiting with bated breath for details on a new album from Kendrick Lamar. Last year, the rapper followed up with a collection of outtakes and demos, untitled unmastered. On his recent track “The Heart Part 4,” Kendrick teased a date in his final verse: “Y'all got ’til April the 7th to get your shit together,” but it hasn't been confirmed if the album will, in fact, be released this Friday. He also released the Mike WiLL Made-It-produced “Humble.” Read our rundown of what Kendrick has been up to since his last album.

Feist: Pleasure (April 28, Universal)

Pleasure marks singer-songwriter Leslie Feist’s first new full-length record in over half a decade. Produced by Feist alongside Mocky and Renaud Letang, the album was recorded “without guile or go-to’s,” the goal being “to pin the songs down with conviction and our straight up human bodies,” according to Feist. She’s thus far released one song, the album’s title track. 

Gorillaz: Humanz (April 28, Parlophone/Warner Bros.)

Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett have finally gotten the animated band back together. Humanz features a massive all-star cast, including Vince Staples, Savages’ Jehnny Beth, Noel Gallagher, Grace Jones, Popcaan, D.R.A.M., Mavis Staples, Danny Brown, De La Soul, Pusha T, Kali Uchis, Kelela, and others. It was recorded in London, Paris, New York, Chicago, and Jamaica and produced by Gorillaz, the Twilite Tone of D /\ P, and Remi Kabaka. The album’s announcement was accompanied by four brand new songs as well as a performance of the entire thing in London.

Mac DeMarco: This Old Dog (May 5, Captured Tracks)

Mac is back with the follow-up to 2015’s mini-album Another One and 2014’s regular-album Salad Days. DeMarco recorded the album after he moved to Los Angeles from Queens. “The majority of this album is acoustic guitar, synthesizer, some drum machine, and one song is electric guitar,” he said in a statement. “So this is a new thing for me.” The album’s announcement was accompanied by two new songs: “My Old Man” and “This Old Dog.” Read Pitchfork’s interview with DeMarco about the new album.

Perfume Genius: No Shape (May 5, Matador)

Mike Hadreas has announced the follow-up to his excellent 2014 album Too Bright. His fourth Perfume Genius album features the new single “Slip Away,” as well as the Weyes Blood-featuring track “Sides.” ��I think a lot of [these songs] are about trying to be happy in the face of whatever bullshit I created for myself or how horrible everything and everyone is,” he said in a statement. Hadreas will tour this year alongside serpentwithfeet. 

Slowdive: Slowdive (May 5, Dead Oceans)

The shoegaze originals return 22 years later with Slowdive, their self-titled follow-up to 1995’s Pygmalion. Despite the lengthy gap, the band’s principal songwriter, Neil Halstead, said, “When you’re in a band and you do three records, there’s a continuous flow and a development. For us, that flow re-started with us playing live again and that has continued into the record.” So far, we’ve heard “Star Roving” and “Sugar for the Pill.”

Girlpool: Powerplant (May 12, Anti-)

Girlpool are back with the follow-up to Before the World Was Big, their debut. Powerplant, which has been preceded by “123” and its gruesome video, sees them step up to Epitaph sister-label Anti-. Catch them on tour behind the record.

Planetarium (Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, James McAlister): Planetarium [June 9, 4AD]

Back in 2011, Nico Muhly, the National’s Bryce Dessner, percussionist James McAlister, and Sufjan Stevens set out on a project that would encompass the breadth of the solar system. The resulting album, Planetarium, will finally be released in June. The record, led by Sufjan’s voice, features songs about “Halley’s Comet,” “Black Hole,” and “Mars”—as well as the previously released “Saturn.”

Fleet Foxes: Crack-Up [June 16, Nonesuch]

Fleet Foxes’ long-awaited follow-up to Helplessness Blues follows a six-year disappearance in which songwriter Robin Pecknold studied at Columbia University. The first single, a nine-minute epic called “Third of May / Ōdaigahara,” addresses Pecknold’s relationship with bandmate Skyler Skjelset—“the feeling of having an unresolved, unrequited relationship that is lingering psychologically,” Pecknold told Pitchfork. Read more about the album in the full interview, and see their upcoming tour dates.

Lorde: Melodrama [June 16, LAVA/Republic]

Lorde returns with her highly anticipated sophomore album, following 2013’s Pure Heroine. It includes her new single “Green Light,” which details her “first major heartbreak,” as well as the stark piano ballad “Liability.” Lorde performed both tracks on “SNL” earlier this year. The album was produced with Jack Antonoff.

Vince Staples: TBA [Def Jam]

Vince Staples’ upcoming album is the follow-up to 2015’s Summertime ’06 and last year’s Prima Donna EP. Earlier this year, he released the new song “BagBak” and announced that VIP packages for his Life Aquatic Tour would include a free copy of the upcoming record. Staples also collaborated with Gorillaz on “Ascension,” from their upcoming album Humanz.

Lana Del Rey: Lust for Life [Polydor/Interscope]

Lana Del Rey announced her new album Lust for Life with a wonderfully mysterious black-and-white clip that found her wondering aloud, “What shall I cook up for the kids today?”. The first taste of her upcoming Honeymoon follow-up arrived with “Love,” a new single released earlier this year. The album will also likely include a collaboration with the Weeknd, following her appearances on “Party Monster” and “Stargirl Interlude” from his 2016 release Starboy. 

LCD Soundsystem: TBA [Columbia]

It’s been seven years since LCD Soundsystem released This Is Happening, their excellent third album. In the time since, the group disbanded, reformed, and embarked on a reunion tour. (They will headline Pitchfork Music Festival this summer). In early 2016, the band announced that they had signed to Columbia Records, with plans to release new music, but nothing has materialized yet. James Murphy offered an update on the album this January, saying he was “still working” on it, but “winter tends to mess with [his] voice.” Hopefully, the warmer weather will bring new LCD Soundsystem music with it.

April:

04-07

Allan Kingdom: Lines [So Cold/Empire]

Allred & Broderick: Find the Ways [Erased Tapes]

Annie Hardy: Rules [Full Psycho/American Primitive]

Anthony Naples: Us Mix EP [Proibito]

Arca: Arca [XL]

Aye Nako: Silver Haze [Don Giovanni]

CFM: Dichotomy Desaturated [In The Red]

The Chainsmokers: Memories...Do Not Open [Disruptor/Columbia]

Clark: Death Peak [Warp] 

Cold Beat: Chaos by Invitation [Crime on the Moon]

Cory Branan: Adios [Bloodshot]

Diet Cig: Swear I’m Good At This [Frenchkiss]

Ecstatic Vision: Raw Rock Fury [Relapse]

Father John Misty: Pure Comedy [Sub Pop]

Fuoco Fatuo: Backwater [Profound Lore]

Fujiya & Miyagi: Fujiya & Miyagi [self-released]

Future Islands: The Far Field [4AD]

Guided by Voices: August by Cake [Rockathon]

Joey Bada$$: ALL-AMERIKKKAN BADA$$ [Pro Era/Cinematic Music Group]

Karen Elson: Double Roses [H.O.T.]

Lil Ugly Mane: Mista Thug Isolation [Hundebiss] [reissue]

Michelle Branch: Hopeless Romantic [Verve]

The New Pornographers: Whiteout Conditions [Collected Work/Concord]

Sam Gellaitry: Escapism III [XL]

San Fermin: Belong [Downtown/Interscope]

Soundwalk Collective: Before Music There Is Blood [Apollo]

Sweet Spirit: St. Mojo [Nine Mile]

Timber Timbre: Sincerely, Future Pollution [Arts & Crafts/City Slang]

Vanbot: Siberia [Lisch Recordings]

Various Artists: Resistance Radio: The Man in the High Castle Album [30th Century]

White Reaper: The World’s Best American Band [Polyvinyl]

04-14

Actress: AZD [Ninja Tune]

Fionn Regan: The Meetings of the Waters [Abbey]

John Mayer: The Search for Everything [Columbia]

Little Dragon: Season High [Loma Vista]

Mary Lattimore: Collected Pieces [Ghostly] [compilation]

Sam Outlaw: Tenderheart [Six Shooter]

Talib Kweli & Styles P: The Seven [Javotti Media/3D]

04-21

Artificial Brain: Infrared Horizon [Profound Lore]

The Black Angels: Death Song [Partisan]

Charly Bliss: Guppy [Barsuk]

Foreseen: Grave Danger [20 Buck Spin]

GAS: NARKOPOP [Kompakt]

Ghosts: Crash Ensemble [Bedroom Community]

Harriet Brown: CONTACT [Innovative Leisure]

Hisato Higuchi: Kietsuzukeru Echo [Root Strata]

J Dilla: Motor City [Dillatronic]

Joe Goddard: Electric Lines [Greco-Roman/Domino]

Kamaiyah: Don’t Get It Twisted [self-released]

Mr. Mitch: Devout [Planet Mu]

Ray Davies: Americana [Legacy]

Real Life Buildings: Significant Weather [Lauren]

Robyn Hitchcock: Robyn Hitchcock [Yep Roc]

Tara Jane O’Neil: Tara Jane O’Neil [Gnomonsong]

Valgeir Sigurðsson: Dissonance [Bedroom Community]

Vampire: With Primeval Force [Century Media]

Various Artists: Thank You, Friends: Big Star’s Third Live... And More [Concord Bicycle]

Woods: Love Is Love [Woodsist]

04-22

RECORD STORE DAY: See list of releases here

04-28

ANAMAI (Egyptrixx & Anna Mayberry): What Mountain [Halocline Trance]

BNQT: Volume 1 [Dualtone/Bella Union]

Colin Stetson: All This I Do For Glory [self-released]

The Cranberries: Something Else [BMG]

Feist: Pleasure [Universal]

Gorillaz: Humanz [Parlophone/Warner Bros]

John Mellencamp: Sad Clowns & Hillbillies [Republic]

Juliana Hatfield: Pussycat [American Laundromat]

Lone: Ambivert Tools Vol. 1 [R&S]

Mark Lanegan Band: Gargoyle [Heavenly]

Mary J. Blige: Strength of a Woman [Capitol]

Mew: Visuals [Play It Again Sam]

The New Year: Snow [Undertow]

Ryuichi Sakamoto: async [Milan]

Shugo Tokumaru: Toss [Polyvinyl]

Sophia Kennedy: Sophia Kennedy [Pampa]

Sufjan Stevens: Carrie & Lowell Live [Asthmatic Kitty]

Swans: The Great Annihilator [Young God/Mute] [reissue]

Sylvan Esso: What Now [Loma Vista]

Thurston Moore: Rock n Roll Consciousness [Caroline International]

WALL: Untitled [Wharf Cat]

Willie Nelson: God’s Problem Child [Legacy]

May:

05-05

The Afghan Whigs: In Spades [Sub Pop]

Alice Coltrane: World Spirituality Classics 1 - The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda [Luka Bop] [reissue]

At the Drive In:  in•ter a•li•a [Rise]

Big Walnuts Yonder: Big Walnuts Yonder [Sargent House]

Bill MacKay: Esker [Drag City]

Black Lips: Satan’s graffiti or God’s art [Vice]

Blondie: Pollinator [BMG]

Bonnie “Prince” Billy: Best Troubador [Drag City]

Brother Ali: All the Beauty in This Whole World [Rhymesayers]

Forest Swords: Compassion [Ninja Tune]

Full of Hell: Trumpeting Ecstasy [Profound Lore]

The Grateful Dead: May 1977: Get Shown the Light [Rhino]

Hoops: Routines [Fat Possum]

Ian William Craig: Slow Vessels EP [Fat Cat]

Jesu/Sun Kil Moon: 30 Seconds to the Decline of Planet Earth [Caldo Verde]

Joan Shelley: Joan Shelley [No Quarter]

John Moreland: Big Bad Luv [4AD]

Juana Molina: Halo [Crammed Discs]

Logic: Everybody [Visionary Music Group/Def Jam]

Mac DeMarco: This Old Dog [Captured Tracks]

Moon Duo: Occult Architecture Vol. 2 [Sacred Bones]

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Lovely Creatures: The Best of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 1984-2014 [Mute]

Nightlands: I Can Feel the Night Around Me [Western Vinyl]

Niia: I [Atlantic]

Nite Jewel: Real High [Gloriette]

Penguin Café: The Imperfect Sea [Erased Tapes]

Perfume Genius: No Shape [Matador]

Pond: The Weather [Marathon Artists]

Robin Trower: Time and Emotion [V-12]

Slowdive: Slowdive [Dead Oceans]

Tall Juan: Olden Goldies [BUFU]

Tiny Vipers: Laughter [Ba Da Bing]

Walter Martin: My Kinda Music [Family Jukebox]

05-12

Eyedress: Manila Ice [Lex]

Girlpool: Powerplant [Anti-]

PWR BTTM: Pageant [Polyvinyl]

Slackk: A Little Light [R&S]

Todd Rundgren: White Knight [Cleopatra]

Various Artist: The Bob’s Burgers Music Album [Sub Pop]

Will Stratton: Rosewood Almanac [Bella Union]

05-19

!!!: Shake the Shudder [Warp]

Alex G: Rocket [Domino]

Coldcut x On-U Sound: Outside the Echo Chamber [Ahead of Our Time]

Demen: Nektyr [Kranky]

Do Make Say Think: Stubborn Persistent Illusions [Constellation]

Faith Evans/The Notorious B.I.G.: The King & I [Rhino]

George Michael: Listen Without Prejudice/MTV Unplugged [Legacy] [reissue]

Heather Trost: Agistri [LM Dupli-cation]

Helium: The Dirt of Luck/The Magic City/Ends With And [Matador] [reissue]

Jlin: Black Origami [Planet Mu]

Land of Talk: Life After Youth [Saddle Creek]

Lord RAJA: Amadeus EP [Ghostly International]

Loss: Horizonless [Profound Lore]

Man Forever: Play What They Want [Thrill Jockey]

The Mountain Goats: Goths [Merge]

The Radiophonic Workshop: Burials in Several Earths [Room 13]

Roger Waters: Is This the Life We Really Want? [TBA]

Sam Amidon: The Following Mountain [Nonesuch]

She-Devils: She-Devils [Secretly Canadian]

Tigers Jaw: Spin [Black Cement]

T.RAUMSCHMIERE: Heimat

Wavves: You’re Welcome [Ghost Ramp]

05-26

The Charlatans: Different Days [BMG]

Justin Townes Earle: Kids in the Street [New West]

Martin Rev: Demolition 9 [Atlas Réalisations]

New Order: NOMC15 [Mute]

June:

06-02

Alt-J: Relaxer [Canvasback Music]

Beach Fossils: Somersault [Bayonet]

Benjamin Booker: Witness [ATO]

Chastity Belt: I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone [Hardly Art]

Coldplay: Kaleidoscope EP [Parlophone]

Dan Auerbach: Waiting on a Song [Easy Eye Sound]

Kacey Johansing: The Hiding [Night Bloom]

Marika Hackman: I’m Not Your Man [Sub Pop]

Mavis Staples: I’ll Take You There—An All-Star Concert Celebration [Blackbird Presents]

Pixx: The Age of Anxiety [4AD]

Saint Etienne: Home Countries [Heavenly]

TOPS: Sugar at the Gate [Arbutus]

U2: The Joshua Tree [30th Anniversary Edition] [Interscope] [reissue]

Whitney: You’ve Got a Woman/Gonna Hurry (As Slow As I Can) [Secretly Canadian] [12” single]

06-09

Agent Blå: Agent Blue [Kanine/Luxury]

Cigarettes After Sex: Cigarettes After Sex [Partisan]

Planetarium (Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, James McAlister): Planetarium [4AD]

06-16

B Boys: Dada [Captured Tracks]

Chuck Berry: Chuck [Dualtone]

The Drums: “Abysmal Thoughts” [Anti-]

Fleet Foxes: Crack-Up [Nonesuch]

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: The Nashville Sound [Southeastern]

Kevin Morby: City Music [Dead Oceans]

Lorde: Melodrama [Republic/Lava]

Michael Nau: Some Twist [Suicide Squeeze]

Ride: Weather Diaries [Wichita]

Royal Trux: Platinum Tips + Ice Cream [Drag City]

06-23

Banditos: Visionland [Bloodshot]

TBA

Alice Glass: TBA [TBA]

Amber Coffman: City of No Reply [Columbia]

Arcade Fire: TBA [TBA]

Beck: TBA [Capitol]

Bleachers: TBA [RCA]

Cashmere Cat: 9 [Mad Love/Interscope]

Chic: It’s About Time [TBA]

Chromatics: Dear Tommy [Italians Do It Better]

CyHi the Prynce: No Dope on Sundays [Brooklyn Knights/Sony RAL]

Danzig: Black Laden Crown [Evilive/Nuclear Blast]

Earl Sweatshirt: TBA [TBA]

Fischerscpooner: SIR [TBA]

Grizzly Bear: TBA [TBA]

GZA: Dark Matter [TBA]

Haim: TBA [TBA]

Halsey: Hopeless Fountain Kingdom [Astralwerks]

The I.L.Y’s: Bodyguard [TBA]

Kane Strang: TBA [Dead Oceans]

Katy Perry: TBA [Capitol]

Kelela: TBA [TBA]

King Krule: TBA [TBA]

Kendrick Lamar: TBA [Top Dawg Entertainment]

The Killers: TBA [TBA]

Lana Del Rey: Lust for Life [Interscope/Polydor]

LCD Soundsystem: TBA [Columbia]

Lil B: Black Ken [self-released]

Major Lazer: TBA [TBA]

Post Malone: Beer Bongs & Bentleys [Republic]

Queens of the Stone Age: TBA [TBA]

Sky Ferreira: Masochism [TBA]

SZA: CTRL [TDE]

Vampire Weekend: Mitsubishi Macchiato [TBA]

Vince Staples: TBA [Def Jam]

Wolf Parade: TBA [TBA]

Zack de la Rocha: TBA [TBA]

[Read More ...]

IN MY Dreams

[ricardosousalemos]

The Pitchfork Guide to Upcoming Albums: Spring 2017

Welcome once again to the Pitchfork Guide to Upcoming Releases, our seasonal guide to new music. Four times a year, we round up a list of albums, singles, EPs, reissues, and more arriving in the coming months. This installment covers winter 2017, starting with this Friday, April 7. (Please note that release dates may change.) To start things off, we’ve highlighted a few particularly notable releases, including albums by Kendrick Lamar, Gorillaz, Lana Del Rey, Father John Misty, Fleet Foxes, Lorde, and others. For more about the releases we’re most excited for in 2017, check out our feature from the beginning of the year.

Arca: Arca (April 7, XL Recordings)

The new self-titled album from producer Alejandro Ghersi under his Arca alias is the follow-up to his his 2015 album Mutant and 2016 project Entrañas. It includes the recently released songs “Piel,” “Anoche,” and “Reverie,” and features Arca stepping out in front of the microphone for the first time, singing exclusively in Spanish. 

Father John Misty: Pure Comedy (April 7, Sub Pop)

The irreverent Josh Tillman returns in full force with Pure Comedy, his newest studio album under the Father John Misty name. The announcement of the 75-minute LP came with a 25-minute making-of documentary filmed during the album’s recording as well as a nearly-2000 word explanation. It features a 13-minute song called “Leaving LA,” plus a track that begins with a line about virtual reality sex with Taylor Swift. Read our extensive new interview with Father John Misty here.

Future Islands: The Far Field (April 7, 4AD)

Synth-pop trio Future Islands are set to release their latest album The Far Field, following the breakout success they found on 2014’s Singles. It includes “Ran” and “Cave,” was produced by John Congleton, and includes a guest appearance by Blondie’s Debbie Harry.

Kendrick Lamar: TBA (April 7 [probably], Top Dawg Entertainment)

Ever since the release of To Pimp a Butterfly in 2015, fans have been waiting with bated breath for details on a new album from Kendrick Lamar. Last year, the rapper followed up with a collection of outtakes and demos, untitled unmastered. On his recent track “The Heart Part 4,” Kendrick teased a date in his final verse: “Y'all got ’til April the 7th to get your shit together,” but it hasn't been confirmed if the album will, in fact, be released this Friday. He also released the Mike WiLL Made-It-produced “Humble.” Read our rundown of what Kendrick has been up to since his last album.

Feist: Pleasure (April 28, Universal)

Pleasure marks singer-songwriter Leslie Feist’s first new full-length record in over half a decade. Produced by Feist alongside Mocky and Renaud Letang, the album was recorded “without guile or go-to’s,” the goal being “to pin the songs down with conviction and our straight up human bodies,” according to Feist. She’s thus far released one song, the album’s title track. 

Gorillaz: Humanz (April 28, Parlophone/Warner Bros.)

Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett have finally gotten the animated band back together. Humanz features a massive all-star cast, including Vince Staples, Savages’ Jehnny Beth, Noel Gallagher, Grace Jones, Popcaan, D.R.A.M., Mavis Staples, Danny Brown, De La Soul, Pusha T, Kali Uchis, Kelela, and others. It was recorded in London, Paris, New York, Chicago, and Jamaica and produced by Gorillaz, the Twilite Tone of D /\ P, and Remi Kabaka. The album’s announcement was accompanied by four brand new songs as well as a performance of the entire thing in London.

Mac DeMarco: This Old Dog (May 5, Captured Tracks)

Mac is back with the follow-up to 2015’s mini-album Another One and 2014’s regular-album Salad Days. DeMarco recorded the album after he moved to Los Angeles from Queens. “The majority of this album is acoustic guitar, synthesizer, some drum machine, and one song is electric guitar,” he said in a statement. “So this is a new thing for me.” The album’s announcement was accompanied by two new songs: “My Old Man” and “This Old Dog.” Read Pitchfork’s interview with DeMarco about the new album.

Perfume Genius: No Shape (May 5, Matador)

Mike Hadreas has announced the follow-up to his excellent 2014 album Too Bright. His fourth Perfume Genius album features the new single “Slip Away,” as well as the Weyes Blood-featuring track “Sides.” “I think a lot of [these songs] are about trying to be happy in the face of whatever bullshit I created for myself or how horrible everything and everyone is,” he said in a statement. Hadreas will tour this year alongside serpentwithfeet. 

Slowdive: Slowdive (May 5, Dead Oceans)

The shoegaze originals return 22 years later with Slowdive, their self-titled follow-up to 1995’s Pygmalion. Despite the lengthy gap, the band’s principal songwriter, Neil Halstead, said, “When you’re in a band and you do three records, there’s a continuous flow and a development. For us, that flow re-started with us playing live again and that has continued into the record.” So far, we’ve heard “Star Roving” and “Sugar for the Pill.”

Girlpool: Powerplant (May 12, Anti-)

Girlpool are back with the follow-up to Before the World Was Big, their debut. Powerplant, which has been preceded by “123” and its gruesome video, sees them step up to Epitaph sister-label Anti-. Catch them on tour behind the record.

Planetarium (Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, James McAlister): Planetarium [June 9, 4AD]

Back in 2011, Nico Muhly, the National’s Bryce Dessner, percussionist James McAlister, and Sufjan Stevens set out on a project that would encompass the breadth of the solar system. The resulting album, Planetarium, will finally be released in June. The record, led by Sufjan’s voice, features songs about “Halley’s Comet,” “Black Hole,” and “Mars”—as well as the previously released “Saturn.”

Fleet Foxes: Crack-Up [June 16, Nonesuch]

Fleet Foxes’ long-awaited follow-up to Helplessness Blues follows a six-year disappearance in which songwriter Robin Pecknold studied at Columbia University. The first single, a nine-minute epic called “Third of May / Ōdaigahara,” addresses Pecknold’s relationship with bandmate Skyler Skjelset—“the feeling of having an unresolved, unrequited relationship that is lingering psychologically,” Pecknold told Pitchfork. Read more about the album in the full interview, and see their upcoming tour dates.

Lorde: Melodrama [June 16, LAVA/Republic]

Lorde returns with her highly anticipated sophomore album, following 2013’s Pure Heroine. It includes her new single “Green Light,” which details her “first major heartbreak,” as well as the stark piano ballad “Liability.” Lorde performed both tracks on “SNL” earlier this year. The album was produced with Jack Antonoff.

Vince Staples: TBA [Def Jam]

Vince Staples’ upcoming album is the follow-up to 2015’s Summertime ’06 and last year’s Prima Donna EP. Earlier this year, he released the new song “BagBak” and announced that VIP packages for his Life Aquatic Tour would include a free copy of the upcoming record. Staples also collaborated with Gorillaz on “Ascension,” from their upcoming album Humanz.

Lana Del Rey: Lust for Life [Polydor/Interscope]

Lana Del Rey announced her new album Lust for Life with a wonderfully mysterious black-and-white clip that found her wondering aloud, “What shall I cook up for the kids today?”. The first taste of her upcoming Honeymoon follow-up arrived with “Love,” a new single released earlier this year. The album will also likely include a collaboration with the Weeknd, following her appearances on “Party Monster” and “Stargirl Interlude” from his 2016 release Starboy. 

LCD Soundsystem: TBA [Columbia]

It’s been seven years since LCD Soundsystem released This Is Happening, their excellent third album. In the time since, the group disbanded, reformed, and embarked on a reunion tour. (They will headline Pitchfork Music Festival this summer). In early 2016, the band announced that they had signed to Columbia Records, with plans to release new music, but nothing has materialized yet. James Murphy offered an update on the album this January, saying he was “still working” on it, but “winter tends to mess with [his] voice.” Hopefully, the warmer weather will bring new LCD Soundsystem music with it.

April:

04-07

Allan Kingdom: Lines [So Cold/Empire]

Allred & Broderick: Find the Ways [Erased Tapes]

Annie Hardy: Rules [Full Psycho/American Primitive]

Anthony Naples: Us Mix EP [Proibito]

Arca: Arca [XL]

Aye Nako: Silver Haze [Don Giovanni]

The Chainsmokers: Memories...Do Not Open [Disruptor/Columbia]

Clark: Death Peak [Warp] 

Cold Beat: Chaos by Invitation [Crime on the Moon]

Cory Branan: Adios [Bloodshot]

Diet Cig: Swear I’m Good At This [Frenchkiss]

Ecstatic Vision: Raw Rock Fury [Relapse]

Father John Misty: Pure Comedy [Sub Pop]

Fuoco Fatuo: Backwater [Profound Lore]

Fujiya & Miyagi: Fujiya & Miyagi [self-released]

Future Islands: The Far Field [4AD]

Guided by Voices: August by Cake [Rockathon]

Joey Bada$$: ALL-AMERIKKKAN BADA$$ [Pro Era/Cinematic Music Group]

Karen Elson: Double Roses [H.O.T.]

Lil Ugly Mane: Mista Thug Isolation [Hundebiss] [reissue]

Michelle Branch: Hopeless Romantic [Verve]

The New Pornographers: Whiteout Conditions [Collected Work/Concord]

Sam Gellaitry: Escapism III [XL]

San Fermin: Belong [Downtown/Interscope]

Soundwalk Collective: Before Music There Is Blood [Apollo]

Sweet Spirit: St. Mojo [Nine Mile]

Timber Timbre: Sincerely, Future Pollution [Arts & Crafts/City Slang]

Vanbot: Siberia [Lisch Recordings]

Various Artists: Resistance Radio: The Man in the High Castle Album [30th Century]

White Reaper: The World’s Best American Band [Polyvinyl]

04-14

Actress: AZD [Ninja Tune]

Fionn Regan: The Meetings of the Waters [Abbey]

John Mayer: The Search for Everything [Columbia]

Little Dragon: Season High [Loma Vista]

Mary Lattimore: Collected Pieces [Ghostly] [compilation]

Sam Outlaw: Tenderheart [Six Shooter]

Talib Kweli & Styles P: The Seven [Javotti Media/3D]

04-21

Artificial Brain: Infrared Horizon [Profound Lore]

The Black Angels: Death Song [Partisan]

Charly Bliss: Guppy [Barsuk]

Foreseen: Grave Danger [20 Buck Spin]

GAS: NARKOPOP [Kompakt]

Ghosts: Crash Ensemble [Bedroom Community]

Harriet Brown: CONTACT [Innovative Leisure]

Hisato Higuchi: Kietsuzukeru Echo [Root Strata]

J Dilla: Motor City [Dillatronic]

Joe Goddard: Electric Lines [Greco-Roman/Domino]

Kamaiyah: Don’t Get It Twisted [self-released]

Mr. Mitch: Devout [Planet Mu]

Ray Davies: Americana [Legacy]

Real Life Buildings: Significant Weather [Lauren]

Robyn Hitchcock: Robyn Hitchcock [Yep Roc]

Tara Jane O’Neil: Tara Jane O’Neil [Gnomonsong]

Valgeir Sigurðsson: Dissonance [Bedroom Community]

Vampire: With Primeval Force [Century Media]

Various Artists: Thank You, Friends: Big Star’s Third Live... And More [Concord Bicycle]

Woods: Love Is Love [Woodsist]

04-22

RECORD STORE DAY: See list of releases here

04-28

ANAMAI (Egyptrixx & Anna Mayberry): What Mountain [Halocline Trance]

BNQT: Volume 1 [Dualtone/Bella Union]

Colin Stetson: All This I Do For Glory [self-released]

The Cranberries: Something Else [BMG]

Feist: Pleasure [Universal]

Gorillaz: Humanz [Parlophone/Warner Bros]

John Mellencamp: Sad Clowns & Hillbillies [Republic]

Juliana Hatfield: Pussycat [American Laundromat]

Lone: Ambivert Tools Vol. 1 [R&S]

Mark Lanegan Band: Gargoyle [Heavenly]

Mary J. Blige: Strength of a Woman [Capitol]

Mew: Visuals [Play It Again Sam]

The New Year: Snow [Undertow]

Ryuichi Sakamoto: async [Milan]

Shugo Tokumaru: Toss [Polyvinyl]

Sophia Kennedy: Sophia Kennedy [Pampa]

Sufjan Stevens: Carrie & Lowell Live [Asthmatic Kitty]

Swans: The Great Annihilator [Young God/Mute] [reissue]

Sylvan Esso: What Now [Loma Vista]

Thurston Moore: Rock n Roll Consciousness [Caroline International]

WALL: Untitled [Wharf Cat]

Willie Nelson: God’s Problem Child [Legacy]

May:

05-05

The Afghan Whigs: In Spades [Sub Pop]

Alice Coltrane: World Spirituality Classics 1 - The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda [Luka Bop] [reissue]

At the Drive In:  in•ter a•li•a [Rise]

Big Walnuts Yonder: Big Walnuts Yonder [Sargent House]

Bill MacKay: Esker [Drag City]

Black Lips: Satan’s graffiti or God’s art [Vice]

Blondie: Pollinator [BMG]

Bonnie “Prince” Billy: Best Troubador [Drag City]

Brother Ali: All the Beauty in This Whole World [Rhymesayers]

Forest Swords: Compassion [Ninja Tune]

Full of Hell: Trumpeting Ecstasy [Profound Lore]

The Grateful Dead: May 1977: Get Shown the Light [Rhino]

Hoops: Routines [Fat Possum]

Ian William Craig: Slow Vessels EP [Fat Cat]

Jesu/Sun Kil Moon: 30 Seconds to the Decline of Planet Earth [Caldo Verde]

Joan Shelley: Joan Shelley [No Quarter]

John Moreland: Big Bad Luv [4AD]

Juana Molina: Halo [Crammed Discs]

Logic: Everybody [Visionary Music Group/Def Jam]

Mac DeMarco: This Old Dog [Captured Tracks]

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Lovely Creatures: The Best of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 1984-2014 [Mute]

Nightlands: I Can Feel the Night Around Me [Western Vinyl]

Niia: I [Atlantic]

Nite Jewel: Real High [Gloriette]

Penguin Café: The Imperfect Sea [Erased Tapes]

Perfume Genius: No Shape [Matador]

Pond: The Weather [Marathon Artists]

Robin Trower: Time and Emotion [V-12]

Slowdive: Slowdive [Dead Oceans]

Tall Juan: Olden Goldies [BUFU]

Tiny Vipers: Laughter [Ba Da Bing]

Walter Martin: My Kinda Music [Family Jukebox]

05-12

Eyedress: Manila Ice [Lex]

Girlpool: Powerplant [Anti-]

PWR BTTM: Pageant [Polyvinyl]

Slackk: A Little Light [R&S]

Todd Rundgren: White Knight [Cleopatra]

Various Artist: The Bob’s Burgers Music Album [Sub Pop]

Will Stratton: Rosewood Almanac [Bella Union]

05-19

!!!: Shake the Shudder [Warp]

Alex G: Rocket [Domino]

B Boys: Dada [Captured Tracks]

Coldcut x On-U Sound: Outside the Echo Chamber [Ahead of Our Time]

Demen: Nektyr [Kranky]

Do Make Say Think: Stubborn Persistent Illusions [Constellation]

Faith Evans/The Notorious B.I.G.: The King & I [Rhino]

George Michael: Listen Without Prejudice/MTV Unplugged [Legacy] [reissue]

Heather Trost: Agistri [LM Dupli-cation]

Helium: The Dirt of Luck/The Magic City/Ends With And [Matador] [reissue]

Jlin: Black Origami [Planet Mu]

Land of Talk: Life After Youth [Saddle Creek]

Lord RAJA: Amadeus EP [Ghostly International]

Loss: Horizonless [Profound Lore]

Man Forever: Play What They Want [Thrill Jockey]

The Mountain Goats: Goths [Merge]

The Radiophonic Workshop: Burials in Several Earths [Room 13]

Roger Waters: Is This the Life We Really Want? [TBA]

Sam Amidon: The Following Mountain [Nonesuch]

She-Devils: She-Devils [Secretly Canadian]

Tigers Jaw: Spin [Black Cement]

T.RAUMSCHMIERE: Heimat

Wavves: You’re Welcome [Ghost Ramp]

05-26

The Charlatans: Different Days [BMG]

Justin Townes Earle: Kids in the Street [New West]

Martin Rev: Demolition 9 [Atlas Réalisations]

New Order: NOMC15 [Mute]

June:

06-02

Alt-J: Relaxer [Canvasback Music]

Beach Fossils: Somersault [Bayonet]

Benjamin Booker: Witness [ATO]

Chastity Belt: I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone [Hardly Art]

Coldplay: Kaleidoscope EP [Parlophone]

Dan Auerbach: Waiting on a Song [Easy Eye Sound]

Kacey Johansing: The Hiding [Night Bloom]

Marika Hackman: I’m Not Your Man [Sub Pop]

Mavis Staples: I’ll Take You There—An All-Star Concert Celebration [Blackbird Presents]

Pixx: The Age of Anxiety [4AD]

Saint Etienne: Home Countries [Heavenly]

TOPS: Sugar at the Gate [Arbutus]

U2: The Joshua Tree [30th Anniversary Edition] [Interscope] [reissue]

Whitney: You’ve Got a Woman/Gonna Hurry (As Slow As I Can) [Secretly Canadian] [12” single]

06-09

Agent Blå: Agent Blue [Kanine/Luxury]

Cigarettes After Sex: Cigarettes After Sex [Partisan]

Planetarium (Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, James McAlister): Planetarium [4AD]

06-16

Chuck Berry: Chuck [Dualtone]

The Drums: “Abysmal Thoughts” [Anti-]

Fleet Foxes: Crack-Up [Nonesuch]

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: The Nashville Sound [Southeastern]

Kevin Morby: City Music [Dead Oceans]

Lorde: Melodrama [Republic/Lava]

Ride: Weather Diaries [Wichita]

Royal Trux: Platinum Tips + Ice Cream [Drag City]

06-23

Banditos: Visionland [Bloodshot]

TBA

Alice Glass: TBA [TBA]

Amber Coffman: City of No Reply [Columbia]

Arcade Fire: TBA [TBA]

Beck: TBA [Capitol]

Bleachers: TBA [RCA]

Cashmere Cat: 9 [Mad Love/Interscope]

Chic: It’s About Time [TBA]

Chromatics: Dear Tommy [Italians Do It Better]

CyHi the Prynce: No Dope on Sundays [Brooklyn Knights/Sony RAL]

Danzig: Black Laden Crown [Evilive/Nuclear Blast]

Earl Sweatshirt: TBA [TBA]

Fischerscpooner: SIR [TBA]

Grizzly Bear: TBA [TBA]

GZA: Dark Matter [TBA]

Haim: TBA [TBA]

Halsey: Hopeless Fountain Kingdom [Astralwerks]

The I.L.Y’s: Bodyguard [TBA]

Katy Perry: TBA [Capitol]

Kelela: TBA [TBA]

King Krule: TBA [TBA]

Kendrick Lamar: TBA [Top Dawg Entertainment]

The Killers: TBA [TBA]

Lana Del Rey: Lust for Life [Interscope/Polydor]

LCD Soundsystem: TBA [Columbia]

Lil B: Black Ken [self-released]

Major Lazer: TBA [TBA]

Post Malone: Beer Bongs & Bentleys [Republic]

Queens of the Stone Age: TBA [TBA]

Sky Ferreira: Masochism [TBA]

SZA: CTRL [TDE]

Vampire Weekend: Mitsubishi Macchiato [TBA]

Vince Staples: TBA [Def Jam]

Wolf Parade: TBA [TBA]

Zack de la Rocha: TBA [TBA]