new album

For the first time in seven years, Lily Allen is back with a new album. It’s intimate, raw and autofictional.

Last week, the “Smile” singer shared a 14-track breakup record, “West End Girl.” Amid her split with “Stranger Things” actor David Harbour, Allen provides an in-depth look into a broken relationship where the line between being open and being unfaithful is thin, where dating apps are on the table and where heartbreak seems inevitable.

The album, which was written in 10 days last December, begins with Allen’s move to New York. The singer relocated to the East Coast in 2020 with her two daughters and then-husband, following the couple’s whirlwind wedding in Las Vegas. When Allen started dating Harbour in 2019, she had just finalized her divorce from Sam Cooper, with whom she shares her children.

On “West End Girl’s” opening track, she sings about receiving an offer to be in a West End production in London. In 2021, Allen made her debut in the supernatural play “2:22 — A Ghost Story.” From that moment on, tensions and distance only continued to build between the pair. Toward the end of the title track, Allen includes her end of a call where her partner is seemingly asking to open up the marriage.

As the pop melodies continue to ebb and flow, Allen reveals accusations of infidelity, the complications of being in an open marriage and mentions a pseudonym for a mistress on a track named “Madeline.” She doesn’t stray away from details, especially when it comes to finding boxes of sex toys, love letters from other women and calling her partner a “sex addict” on “P— Palace.”

By the end of the record, she makes it clear that the relationship is irreparable. The pair announced their separation last February after four years of marriage. Since the project’s release last Friday, critics have been quick to fawn over Allen’s return to music and Allen has been sure to let the press know the album is not fully based in fact.

In an interview with The Times, the U.K.’s oldest national daily newspaper, she says, “I don’t think I could say it’s all true — I have artistic license. … But yes, there are definitely things I experienced within my relationship that have ended up on this album.”

She similarly told Perfect Magazine that the work can be considered “autofiction” and that an “alter ego” is singing. When sitting down with British Vogue, she clarified that the album is inspired by what went on in the relationship between, but “that’s not to say that it’s all gospel,”

Harbour has yet to directly speak out about their relationship and has strayed away from the public eye, disabling comments on his Instagram page.

In an interview with GQ in April, he said, “There’s no use in that form of engaging [with tabloid news] because it’s all based on hysterical hyperbole.”

The highly anticipated final season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” where Harbour plays the role of police chief Jim Hopper, will be released Nov. 27.

Chance the Rapper is opening up about co-parenting with his ex-wife as he prepares to release a new album and go on a national tour.

The rapper from Chicago stopped by the “CBS Morning” studio on Monday to discuss the release of his second studio album, “Star Line.” Chance, whose real name is Chancelor Bennett, described the new EP as his “most expansive work.”

“It covers a lot of different areas in my life,” he said.

Chance etched his way into the music world after recording a mixtape during a high school suspension. He self-released “10 Days” in 2012 and began his career as an independent artist, a path that he continues to follow.

He followed up his debut LP with “Acid Rap” a year later, and “Coloring Book” in 2016. In 2023, Chance celebrated the 10th anniversary of his second mixtape by performing the entire tape at the Kia Forum.

“I wrote [Acid Rap] when I was opening up for artists playing 300-cap rooms. I’m rapping about doing open mics but closing my eyes and seeing arenas. Going back and playing arenas for that project just makes me proud,” Chance said in a 2023 interview.

Now, the rapper behind tracks like “Cocoa Butter Kisses” and “No Problem” said his new album reflects the change his personal life has gone through in the last six years, including his divorce from Kirsten Corley, with whom he shares two children.

“It’s always just a good thing to, as an artist … release and to like, you know, just share with the world,” he added.

The couple married back in 2019 and announced their separation last year on their Instagram. Corley filed for divorce in December 2024. They continue to raise their two young daughters together.

“You know, family is like one of the biggest things for me, for [Corley], for my kids, for my mom and dad, so I think the most important thing for anybody that’s ever navigating [parenting after a divorce] is making sure that you keep an environment for the kids where they understand that [family is] the priority,” Bennett said.

His last album, “The Big Day,” was released in 2019. Chance the Rapper is releasing his follow-up on Friday and will go on tour starting in September, with a stop in L.A. on Oct. 20.

Mexican corrido singer Gabito Ballesteros has always been a hopeless romantic. His newest album, “Ya No Se Llevan Serenatas,” or “They No Longer Perform Serenades,” tugs at those delicate heartstrings.

Released Thursday, the album pays tribute to romance in the digital era of smartphones and social media. Invoking modern-day references, like sending Instagram DMs and going to Disneyland, he puts his own spin on the traditional serenade, a ballad one typically sings below the windowsill of their lover. It’s the kind of profound romance that regional Mexican acts such as Joan Sebastian, Vicente Fernandez and Juan Gabriel honed for decades.

“I like to sing to women, bring them roses, be romantic, and I want to convey this to my audience,” said Ballesteros in a statement to The Times.

Sprinkled across the 21 tracks is a roster of star-studded Mexican homegrown talents, including longtime collaborator Natanael Cano, Tito Doble P, Christian Nodal, Neton Vega, Carín León, Oscar Maydon and Luis R Conriquez.

Colombian reggaeton superstar J Balvin is also featured in the Latin-EDM fusion track, “La Troka.”

Ahead of its release, the rising star teased his sophomore album on Instagram with a clip of him driving a classic Ford Mustang filled with dozens of red roses. Once parked, Ballesteros pulls out his guitar from the trunk as his joint song with Carín León, “Regalo de Dios,” begins to unfold in the background — a sign that Ballesteros is ready to pour his heart out to whoever that fortunate soul might be.

The song is one of the few pre-released tracks of the album, alongside poetic singles like “Cleopatra,” which compares a woman’s beauty to that of the famed Egyptian queen, and the agonizing track “Perdido,” which looks to fill the void of true love lost with vice.

The already popular, anxiety-riddled “7 Diás,” featuring Tito Double P, is also included in the track list; Ballesteros also performs an acoustic rendition of this heartbreak song on YouTube.

“This is a very important album because it tells a very different story than what [I] have been doing],” said Ballesteros. “The audience will get to learn more about my love and heartbreak.”

Ballesteros, who is originally from Sonora, Mexico, first gained recognition in 2020 with his breakthrough conjunto song “El Rompecabezas.” After obtaining his degree in industrial engineering in 2023, he joined his longtime friend Natanael Cano and Peso Pluma on the chart-topping hit “AMG,” which debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 92, marking the trio’s first appearance on the chart. Ballesteros later appeared on the chart that same year with the megahit “Lady Gaga” with Peso Pluma and Junior H,” which remained on the Billboard Hot 100 for 20 weeks, peaking at No. 35.

The release of “Ya No Se Llevan Serenatas” comes a year after Ballesteros launched his critically-acclaimed debut album, “The GB,” which landed at No. 65 on the Billboard 200. The 25-year-old singer— who is under Natanael Cano’s record label Los CT and Peso Pluma’s Double P Management— has quickly become a force in the new wave of corridos tumbados, amassing more than 50 million monthly Spotify listeners.

“If you’re in love, I would like for you to dedicate a song to your lover [from this album]. If you’re going through a breakup, listen to it and heal with the music,” Ballesteros said. “Everything is guided by love.”