Pop Spotlight

Twenty seconds into the music video for her hit single “good 4 u,” Olivia Rodrigo sits in front of two casting directors, partially obscured behind white text that reminds the viewer what we’re about to […]

Alabaster DePlume cuts a grand figure: ringed, tattooed, bestowed with a splendiferous stage name that also pokes fun at the idea of stage names. Yet the Mancunian singer-poet-saxophonist’s role in the fertile UK jazz scene […]

Techno, in 2023, is far removed from its roots. It is a keyword for lifestyle playlists. It sells tickets to clubs and festivals. It is merch. But techno, for the musician and writer Deforrest Brown […]

In the summer of 2020, the 79-year-old Linda Martell sat in her daughter’s home in Irmo, South Carolina, recounting a phase of life that had faded nearly five decades prior. She sounded at peace but, […]

No album screams “1995” like the soundtrack to Kids, Larry Clark’s voyeuristic, vértité-styled document of New York City youth gone wild, aka the Euphoria of its time. While Kids is best remembered today as the […]

The recording of Spirit of the Beehive’s new EP, i’m so lucky, was, in some senses, a peaceful reprieve from the chaos of years past. The Philadelphia band’s distortion-scuffed early records, like 2014’s The Spirit […]

James Blake’s early EPs had the tension of a pregnant pause, with tracks so spacious that it seemed as if his airy drums and vaporous keys might waft away if you averted your gaze. The […]

When Anjimile was a senior in high school, their conservative Presbyterian parents caught them emptying the household liquor cabinet. In response, they took Anjimile to church every week, even sent them to Christian counseling, hoping […]

Alan Courtis and Davis Grubbs’ dual guitar record Braintrust of Fiends and Werewolves zigzags between blown-out riffs and sunny strumming, spiraling and breaking into spiky shards. Exploration is second nature here, as it is across […]

Slowdive were a band built for eternal youth: They were teenagers, only 15 when they met and started rehearsing, not yet 20 when they found themselves signing with the legendary Creation Records, suddenly label mates […]

Izzy Hagerup isn’t afraid to get uncomfortable. On Through the Window, her debut album as Prewn, upsetting realities of human grief and greed live alongside scenes of nightmarish surrealism: Houses burn, bodies wither, and children’s […]

In midwxst’s hands, adolescence is less of a roller coaster and more of a drop tower, liable to leave the faint of heart swearing off rides forever. Since breaking out in the world of hyperpop […]