Pop Spotlight

At some point over the past decade, young singer-songwriters got the memo that specificity is key. It’s the details that draw in a listener, that make the personal vividly universal: the forgotten scarves, acne pits resembling moon […]

Each Califone album has been a madcap second-hand store, a trove of treasures tucked away in some overlooked corner of a busy city. For a quarter century, Tim Rutili’s songs have lined their shelves like cryptic […]

Like the shifting atmosphere of a distant planet, Chris Clark’s music is subject to violent extremes. With little warning, a reassuring beat might furiously morph into an instrumental storm, breaking just as suddenly into a diamond rain […]

Among rock’s underclassmen, Water From Your Eyes’ Rachel Brown and Nate Amos present like back-of-classroom slackers with drool stains on their hoodie sleeves, their minds too clogged with Vine compilations to pay attention to World History. […]

It’s an audacious move to put a single song with vocals and lyrics in the middle of an otherwise instrumental album. There’s no avoiding the significance the words will take on, standing like a lone […]

Most underdog rock documentaries paint a doleful portrait of neglected geniuses who have been cruelly denied their due. Director Edgar Wright’s 2021 love letter to Sparks, The Sparks Brothers, doesn’t exactly make that case: The copious clips […]

Over the past decade, Jay Worthy has become one of the most dependable members of the West Coast underground. The Compton-by-way-of-Vancouver emcee is half of LNDN DRGS, the project he formed with producer Sean House in 2014. […]

Sheryl Crow’s self-produced second album begins with a woman scanning the sky for extraterrestrial life. “I swear they’re out there,” she sings, barreling down the highway in hot pursuit. It ends, 12 songs later, with […]

Long before Four Tet ascended to the top of this year’s Coachella lineup, Kieran Hebden was still best known for his high-school band: a gently post-rocking trio called Fridge, whose music was as abstruse as their name was […]

At just 22, Monaleo has already been through it. Before the Houston musician became a viral sensation and Ivy Park ambassador, expectant mother and rising rap royalty, she was a young girl from Missouri City dealing with suicidal ideation […]

There are few things more emotionally gutting than being abandoned by a romantic partner during your first pregnancy. Well, maybe the women he cheated on you with gloating about it on social media. On 2021’s Still […]

Erik Satie casts a long shadow. The eccentric French composer’s distinctive approach to melody and harmony has traveled decades downstream from his starting point in the 19th century, imparting lessons not only to musicians in […]