July music preview: Taylor Swift revisits Speak Now, and Barbie is ready to party

Other artists dropping albums this month include Blur, PJ Harvey, Guided By Voices, Post Malone, and Strange Ranger

Music Features Barbie
July music preview: Taylor Swift revisits Speak Now, and Barbie is ready to party
Clockwise from left: PJ Harvey (Photo: Steve Gullick), Taylor Swift (Speak Now album cover: Republic Records), Barbie: The Album (Cover: Atlantic Records), Blur (‘90s-era Photo: Kevin Westenberg)

Summer is in full swing, which means the race to decide 2023’s Song of Summer is on, and July is sure to bring plenty of contenders. This month, we’re getting the star-studded soundtrack to Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated Barbie movie, Taylor Swift’s re-recorded Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) featuring bonus track collaborations with Fall Out Boy and Paramore’s Hayley Williams, and new albums from reliable hitmaker Post Malone, Brit-pop legends Blur, PJ Harvey, and more.

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Julie Byrne - Summer Glass (Official Video)

“My hope for is that it lives as a love letter to my chosen family and as an expression of the depth of my commitment to our shared future,” singer-songwriter Julie Byrne says of her new album. Byrne started recording The Greater Wings, her first LP in over six years and the follow-up to 2017’s excellent Not Even Happiness, with her longtime collaborator Eric Littman, who passed away in 2021, and finished it with producer Alex Somers. “Being reshaped by grief also has me more aware of what death does not take from me. I commit that to heart, to words, to sound,” Byrne says. Tracks like “Summer Glass” and “Moonless” augment her signature fingerpicked guitar with incandescent synths and piano, buoying her stunningly lovely folk ever skyward.

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