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Belief can be a funny thing. It can misguide if one puts faith in the wrong idea. But it can also buoy and, like a rising ride, raise all boats. For the big-voiced singer Danielle Ponder, belief has been crucial to her now-burgeoning career. At first, Ponder, who boasts one of the best voices on Earth, didn’t believe that was the case. She looked to others in her family whom she thought had more talent. For Ponder, singing and songwriting at first was more of a lark, something fun to dabble in, to pass the time. But soon people began to recognize and realize her gifts. She earned praise. Audiences cheered her. And Ponder’s confidence grew. She started to believe.

Now, that belief becomes stronger every day as more people share their joy for the artist’s singular performances. There are billboards in New York and Tokyo. There are shows with some 15,000 attendees. There is acclaim from industry insiders. All of this has brought Ponder, who worked as a lawyer (a public defender) for years, to believe in herself. Now, in a way, the public is defending her talent with every ticket purchase, every song stream. And Ponder’s new album, Some of Us Are Brave, is set to drop on Friday (September 16), offering one more reason to keep the faith when it comes to her career.

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Talent is one thing, luck is another. Making it in any field requires both. Ben Gibbard, frontman and principal songwriter for the Northwest-born indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie, knows this well. And it’s more apparent to the Grammy-nominated artist with each passing day, he says. Gibbard’s popular band has earned significant recognition since its formation in the mid-to-late-1990s and now, as time has passed, the group is experiencing several significant anniversaries. But with each milestone, Gibbard knows that he was often in the right place at the right time as an artist. Combine that with excellent songwriting, skillful musicianship, lovely singing and one has a lasting recipe. The band has once again showcased that winning amalgam on its latest album, Asphalt Meadows, which is set to drop on Friday (September 16). It’s a record born of reflection and buoyed by some new songwriting methods. And now that it’s out in the world, it hits at the right moment.

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We all have an inner voice. That silent whisper that offers advice, a sense of morality, and ambition. It can push us to great heights or keep us from making poor decisions. It can even direct us toward healthier choices that keep us alive or thriving. For Kenyan-born artist, Ondara, that voice pushed him to leave the, at times, claustrophobic confines of his homeland and native culture to become the poet, songwriter, and performer he’d felt destined to be. As a kid growing up in Nairobi, Ondara found music first via the radio, late-night broadcasts he’d listen to via crackling BBC broadcasts. He’d wait until everyone went to sleep to take his chance. Later, walking around local markets in the early 2000s, he came across pirated CDs. That’s where he discovered the artist who would change his life: Bob Dylan. Today, Ondara lives in the United States, arriving here after winning an immigration lottery. He’s now a Grammy-nominated songwriter. But his latest project, he says, is both the easiest and hardest thing he’s ever done. His new album, Spanish Villager No: 3, which is out September 16, may end up saving his life.

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Musician and entrepreneur Steve Aoki is committed. To hard work, to family, to ideas, and to growth. But the funny thing about commitment is that when one invests in something, worlds open up. It’s like the pursuit of knowledge. Scholars will tell you, that the more they learn about something, the more they realize they don’t know. A breadcrumb can turn into a life of cooking, which can turn into a complete state of reverence for history, technique, and possibilities for much more.

Today, Aoki is capable of reminiscing about his developmental DIY past as he is projecting ahead to new realms and new offerings. But both past and present collide on his new album, HIROQUEST: Genesis, which is set to drop on Friday (September 16). The album is diverse, bombastic, and personal. It’s the culmination of years of learning the music industry and also the first step, in many ways, to what’s coming next for Aoki: world-building. But everything Aoki does today stems first from finding music as a kid.

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For guitarist Derek Trucks, learning the six-string came largely on the job, at gigs, and on stage. Such is the story for many musicians. But in Trucks’ case, his life’s work began when he was nine years old. It led quickly to sharing bills with all-timers like Buddy Guy and Bob Dylan.

Trucks, who was born in Jacksonville, Florida, says he can’t remember a time without music. Records constantly played. His parents took him to festivals to see artists like Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Charles. It helped that his uncle, Butch Trucks, was a founding member and drummer of The Allman Brothers Band, a group his nephew later joined formally.

Trucks says his father, who was an atheist, treated music as if it was a religion. The way he would speak about certain shows, and how specific songs would give him the chills. Today, looking back on it, Trucks notes that he had a “really unique upbringing and career arc.” But that’s the kind of origin story that leads to Grammy Awards, and lands players on greatest guitarists lists. That unusual arc also includes the release of four new LPs in 2022 by the group Trucks started with his acclaimed musician wife, Susan Tedeschi, the final of which, I Am The Moon: IV. Farewell, drops Friday (August 26).

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Playing music can feel magical. Songwriting, too. The perfect note can pop into your head mid-jam and the whole room can explode. Or the right lyrical line can flutter into your fingers and a universe can open up. But without practice, without sitting down and doing the thing, none of this can happen. Songwriting and performative excellence come to those who do. You have to be in the stream to get wet, so to speak. Lake Street Dive frontwoman, Rachael Price, knows this well. In fact, her favorite aspects about music are getting in a room and hunkering down to dive in headfirst.

She thinks about the band’s upright bassist, Bridget Kearney, who says it’s like fishing. You may not catch a fish in the lake, but you have to go fishing to catch a fish. There are no two ways about it. You have to write, and practice if you’re going to be a musician. So, Price, Kearney and the rest of the band do just that: they work. And that effort is evident on all their records, and most recently on the band’s new EP, Fun Machine: The Sequel, which is out Friday (September 9). It’s an album born of musical appreciation and dedication.

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For Son Little, a weight has been lifted. The artist, born Aaron Livingston, had been carrying around the trauma and shame of experiencing sexual abuse as a young person for his whole life. As such, for years, as he kept the secret silent, he “absorbed” anxiety and difficult moments. He built his life around an absence of security, what he calls “a hole.” While he’d built a successful music career for himself, something was always off. Like a person walking down a dark street late at night, wondering at every moment if a stranger would leap out and hurt him, Livingston felt vulnerable and targeted.

This is common amongst those who have been hurt in their childhood in the ways Livingston unfortunately had. But in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the world (and Livingston’s touring schedule) shut down, he rediscovered some old writings, disconnected from his contemporary life, and reconnected to his roots. The result was the strength to admit what happened, let loose the trauma and write new songs. Now, Livingston is poised to release a new LP, Like Neptune, in September. And he feels free.

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In America today, seemingly every conversation about art or politics or society, in general, includes the concept of identity. And it’s regularly understood in singular terms. Person X is often reduced to either this or that. But this is not the way everyone expresses themselves around the world. People, like countries, can be melting pots. Can be fluid. Can be comprised of many different influences, which themselves are comprised of many different influences, too. In the country of Malaysia, for example, which is the home of the celebrated songwriter and performer Yuna, people are understood to reflect where they come from: a region rich with different national influences, from Chinese to Indian to British to Malay. And it’s this cornucopia of styles that comprise the music that Yuna makes and shares with her listeners. It’s these types of songs that drew audiences to her. And Yuna’s latest release—well, releases—reflects this, too. This year, Yuna will drop five EPs that will, come November 11, make an entire full-length. And her latest, Y4, is out today (September 2). But careers do start somewhere and for Yuna, it was as a kid with her father and his guitar.

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When it comes to the music of R&B star Eric Bellinger, there is a great deal of world-building, character crafting, and message delivery. In some ways, Bellinger is like a novelist, composing story arcs and wielding his pen-like punches, breaking through the proverbial blank page. To do so, Bellinger has been blessed with many significant inspirations. The first came from church and the second from his grandfather. Bellinger, who grew up singing in church services, didn’t think at the time that it would become his career. But it helped lead him to his first musical group and later to songwriting, before eventually going out as a solo artist. But Bellinger was buoyed by his own family in this way, too. Namely by his grandfather, Bobby Day, who blazed a trail with his own group in the 1950s, The Hollywood Flames, which Bellinger would later study and follow. Today, Bellinger has released a myriad of albums, earned Grammy nominations and award victories, and is set for much more as his career unfurls.

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When Beatrice Laus (aka the popular songwriter and performer beabadoobee) was first thinking about what her life might look like professionally, she didn’t consider being a global pop star. Who would ever assume something like that could happen? Instead, she wanted to be a nursery school teacher. Bea loved the idea that she could be the first person for young children to learn from outside of their homes and help explain to them what the world was all about. She would teach them about music and culture. “Just the very basic stuff,” she says, just to help them get on their first feet.

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Rewards. Immediately the idea seems positive, right? But it can be a mixed bag. What if the reward comes for a poor practice or habit? What does it reinforce then? In other ways, though, a reward can be wonderful. Hard work can pay off and that’s almost always a good thing—right?

For Jim Adkins, frontman and principal songwriter for the acclaimed rock group Jimmy Eat World, the concept of a reward has been both life-changing and at times fraught. When his band rose to immense popularity in the early 2000s with their song, “The Middle,” they reaped the rewards. Heck, the song itself was even about the thought: Just try your best, Try everything you can… It just takes some time… Everything, everything’ll be just fine. Those are the lines Adkins sings, the lines that helped propel his Mesa, Arizona-born group, which was started in high school amongst friends, to world fame. Rewards. But life is hard, curious, and rife with unknown futures. Sometimes the rewards can rain down and hit strangely. Since its early days, though, the band has worked through its ups and downs (like any group, really) and these days they have a new single out, “Something Loud,” that fans crave.

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If songwriter and performer Regina Spektor was ever to write a memoir, she says it would probably be fiction. Reality for the standout is often merely a jumping-off point for her relentless imagination. But whether she’ll ever need to write a memoir, in the end, may be a moot thought, since so much of Spektor’s experience is already embedded in her bevy of brilliant songs. Not necessarily literally, of course. Rather, emotionally so. For Spektor, it’s about the feeling of a work rather than its adherence to real-life detail. But that doesn’t mean her life has been boring. In fact, it’s been tumultuous since her birth abroad in the censorship-rich country of Russia. Spektor, who moved to the United States at the age of 9, has often known a tough day. For example, her beloved musical father passed away earlier this year. Now, though, Spektor has a new album out in the world: Home, before and after, which dropped on June 24. It marks her latest marvelous and gut-wrenching chapter.

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Rock ’n’ roll and the genre of music that birthed it—the blues—are immediate art forms. Within a few beats of a drum kit or a few notes on the electric or acoustic guitar, the listener is taken to the core of the sound. Whether it’s rock and its electric punch or the blues with its solemn intimacy, feelings are transmitted quickly and true. And it’s this reality that drew a young Billy Gibbons to their sounds. Gibbons, who would go on to co-found the legendary blues-rock band ZZ Top as an adult, was first introduced to these styles of music as a kid. At a time when most his age were preparing for kindergarten, Gibbons was getting a different education. Now, some six or seven decades later, Gibbons has harnessed those lessons into an acclaimed career that continues to this day with the release of ZZ Top’s new live 12-track album, Raw, which features many of the band’s biggest hits and is officially out on July 22.

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Grammy-winning artist Jewel Kilcher—better known simply by her first name—became a star in the ’90s starting with her 1995 LP, Pieces of You. At the time, bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam had a hold on the music-loving public consciousness. But Jewel also worked her way into fame. While many considered the blonde Alaskan the antithesis of the flannel-wearing, stringy-haired rockers, in a more precise way, she was complementary to the grunge ethos.

Today, Jewel says she loves grunge. It was a revolution. When glam and synth-pop ruled the airwaves, grunge came along with an honesty that said we’re not all fine, we’re not all happy. At the time, Jewel says, she knew deep sadness, too. She appreciated grunge’s message. And her own added to the ideas grunge offered. You can only be in pain for so long before you either end it or build out of it, Jewel says. Thankfully for her fans, Jewel didn’t find her end then. Instead, she prospered and continues to today with the release of her 2022 LP, Freewheelin’ Woman.

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Mandy Moore is ready for new roads. For the famed artist who rose to popularity in the late ’90s at 15 years old with the bubblegum hit “Candy,” music has long been the key that unlocks the best sides of her life. Moore, who has enjoyed a parallel career in acting throughout her professional days, crescendoing in her role on the immensely beloved television show This Is Us, has benefited from the confluence of her two careers and found ways to appreciate them individually.

Now, though, Moore is set to embark on the newest chapter. With her time taping This Is Us now behind her, she is set to hit the road and tour this summer on the back of her latest LP, In Real Life, which dropped on May 13. For someone who has been in the public eye over varying stages in her career, to be on the highway and supported by her family (and accomplished musician husband, Taylor Goldsmith) is the cherry on the sundae of the past few decades.

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