Matthew Hocter

1 week ago | albumism.com | Matthew Hocter

[As an Amazon affiliate partner, Albumism earns commissions from qualifying purchases.] Happy 55th Anniversary to Diana Ross’ eponymous debut studio album Diana Ross, originally released June 19, 1970. In June 1970, Diana Ross released her self-titled debut solo album, a record that didn't simply mark the end of her tenure with The Supremes but redrew the contours of what artistic reinvention could sound like.

2 weeks ago | beyondtheencore.com | Matthew Hocter

Judith Owen does not perform. She converses—through song, through silence, through sidelong glances that say more than a thousand lyrics ever could. In Unapologetically Judith Owen, her return to Australia and the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, the Welsh singer offered up more than just a setlist; she curated a living, breathing homage to the rebellious matriarchs of 1940s and 1950s jazz and blues—women who wielded sensuality, wit, and raw truth like weapons and lullabies all at once.

2 weeks ago | albumism.com | Matthew Hocter

[As an Amazon affiliate partner, Albumism earns commissions from qualifying purchases.] Happy 30th Anniversary to Alanis Morissette’s third studio album Jagged Little Pill, originally released June 13, 1995. I didn’t grow up in a traditional family. My parents divorced when I was just five and through that, I became acutely aware of just how the world treated and continues to treat women.

2 weeks ago | albumism.com | Matthew Hocter

[As an Amazon affiliate partner, Albumism earns commissions from qualifying purchases.] Happy 35th Anniversary to Mariah Carey’s eponymous debut album Mariah Carey, originally released June 12, 1990. In the churn of early 1990s pop, where production gloss was often mistaken for substance and vocal acrobatics risked becoming caricature, Mariah Carey—Mariah Carey’s eponymous debut album released in June 1990—arrived as a paradox.

3 weeks ago | beyondtheencore.com | Matthew Hocter

In an age where musical authenticity is often drowned out by synthetic production and performative sincerity, Davina & The Vagabonds offer something rare: not nostalgia, but reclamation. Performing as part of this year’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival at the Dunstan Playhouse, the Minnesota-based quintet didn’t just play music—they reanimated it. This wasn’t retro-chic or Gatsby cosplay. It was a thunderous invocation of jazz, blues, and New Orleans soul, built not on pastiche but on principle.