Pop Spotlight

Sometime after completing Chrome Dreams in early 1977, Neil Young invited his Malibu neighbor Carole King over to hear his latest album. Years later he recalled, “About halfway through she went, ‘Neil, this isn’t an […]

At the forefront of the ongoing club rap explosion is Newark’s Bandmanrill, who alongside producer and longtime collaborator McVertt has worked hard to combine Jersey club’s pep and sped-up samples with the moody theatrics of […]

dreamTX’s debut album, living in memory of something sweet, is a hybrid of indie pop, shoegaze, emo, ambient, and R&B that’s as unsettling as it is soothing, feral as it is familiar, wily and gnarled […]

The Hives are the first to admit that all their songs sound the same. “We’re sharks,” lead singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist told Rolling Stone. “Sharks have been the same for billions of years, and they […]

A sense of unease drives Lea Bertucci and Lawrence English’s Chthonic. Rhythms crash like boulders and high-end shapes shriek like birds. An imaginary dive beneath the earth’s crust that finds inspiration in the mysteries of […]

As a member of Fuck Buttons, the dearly departed electronic noise duo, Andrew Hung helped elevate the experiential over the emotional, imagining Olympian feats of speed and strength far beyond anything that would be considered […]

Will Oldham, now 53, has not sounded young for a quarter-century. Perhaps he last did in the waning days of Palace Music, back when he sang about wanting to “fuck a mountain” with unmistakable élan […]

True to his name, ICYTWAT’s music sounds like it emerged from a frozen hell, cold and intense as an Arctic snowstorm. The Chicago rapper-producer distills the airiness of cloud rap, the blown-out noise of rage […]

In 1992, Warp’s Artificial Intelligence compilation launched a movement of cerebral, Byzantine techno rooted in proggy concept albums by ’70s visionaries like Kraftwerk and Pink Floyd. Informed by the rawness of footwork, contemporary rap, and […]

“My first experience composing was adding a note to the last chord of a Mozart concerto,” Keith Jarrett told Down Beat Magazine. “I’d play it right at the teacher’s house and the other way at […]

The cover of Sonic Youth’s 1985 album Bad Moon Rising is one of indie rock’s most striking pieces of iconography, featuring the silhouette of a scarecrow in a crucifixion pose, topped with an evil-grinning Jack […]

Sometimes the only way to work through the bullshit is to point at your close friends and ask, “Do you all see this, too, or am I bugging?” Their confirmations stop you from feeling like […]