Category: Music

Over the past three years or so, I’ve found myself listening to a lot more country and country-influenced music, both voluntarily and involuntarily. The involuntarily piece should be familiar to anyone who’s currently living in the United States: country’s chart ...

The first time I ever wrote about the Grammys was when I was in high school, when I had a dinky little Blogger site that has apparently been wiped from the Internet. The year was 2011, and it would turn ...

As I mentioned in my intro blurb for my songs of the year list, my listening habits weren’t exactly expansive this year. I tended to lean on a lot of the same albums and genres throughout the past 12 months, ...

As I mentioned in my intro blurb for my songs of the year list, my listening habits weren’t exactly expansive this year. I tended to lean on a lot of the same albums and genres throughout the past 12 months, ...

For whatever reason, this 2023 list was the most difficult I’ve ever put together. And yet, it was also the easiest list for me to write. That might be because it’s also not a very adventurous list – it mainly ...

I’ve been compiling lists of my favorite songs of the year since at least 2013. For whatever reason, this 2023 list was the most difficult I’ve ever put together. Part of that is that my relationship to music has changed ...

The evolution of Terrace Martin is anchored and centered around one consistent element and that’s simply musicality. From the blog era of rap to the multi-hyphenate music culture of 2023, there are two elements that make him stand out from ...

I go to a lot of shows alone. The short version as to why is that one, I no longer live near the people I would usually go to concerts with in the past; and two, I listen to more ...

In “all-american bitch,” the dynamic opening track of twenty-year-old pop phenom Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album GUTS, the former Disney Channel sneers to the listener that “I know my age, and I act like it.” It’s a line that sums up ...

The Houston rapper's followup to Astroworld is ambitious, if a little inconsistent

Rant: I purposefully waited to publish this article a week later to see the responses of the BET awards from cultural critics and how the audience responded.  One of the criticisms I saw again and again was that people were ...

Despite what the Grammys and Twitter stan armies would have you believe, music is not a competition. Sure, it’s competitive in the sense that every industry is competitive, but there are no win/loss records, no championship titles, and no playoffs.  ...

A couple weeks ago, Mac DeMarco informed everyone that he would be releasing One Wayne G, a 199 song album.  Like, 199 in one album. Not broken up into smaller versions, not spread out over a year. One whole shebang.  ...

I have to admit that I don’t always understand what Mo Troper is going for. The prolific Portland, Oregon songwriter’s cracked, sometimes crude take on power-pop straddles the line between earnestness and irony, delivering otherwise sweet lyrics with a warped, ...

Earlier this year, I covered the announcement of the release of Wednesday’s Rat Saw God and boygenius’ the record in the same article. I did so because both announcements were made on the same day, and because both albums figured ...

Midway through “Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider,” the second song of 2nd Grade’s Saturday night gig opening for Kiwi jr. at Berlin NYC, Peter Gill’s microphone fell out of its stand. This might not have been a problem at most ...

“To really get it, you’ve got to see them live” may be a music fan cliche as tired as yelling “Free Bird,” but, what can I say – I feel that I can never truly understand a band or artist ...

Last year we checked in on Hoodie Allen, who was just beginning to emerge from a three year hiatus. Be it for personal or public reasons, Hoodie went underground and emerged different. He had struggled with infidelity, a breakup, a ...

Lana Del Rey has always existed in an awkward in-between state. By most metrics, she’s a pop star – she has multiple platinum and gold records, has been nominated for six Grammys (including Album of the Year), and worked with ...

Yves Tumor’s rise to indie rock stardom has felt both obvious and unlikely. Beginning as an experimental noise artist, Tumor (birth name Sean Bowie) didn’t really start writing melodic music until 2018’s Safe in the Hands of Love, which merged ...

 After what I considered to be a pretty down year for music in 2021, 2022 felt like it bounced back in a big way, with releases from some of my favorite artists, some new discoveries, and even releases from old ...

Earlier last week, I awoke to a text from my younger godbrother, who’s my designated person to go to for his opinion on the latest music impacting the culture – you know, the type of youth who relates more to ...