Pop Spotlight

You probably know the story of Animal Collective, the band that started out making electronic-acoustic noise jams with lots of babbling and screaming, gradually learned to pull melodies and song structures from the iridescent muck, and […]

“Functional” is a dirty word in dance music. No one wants to be merely functional, nor find themselves on the receiving end of utilitarianism. You don’t want to be invited to a “function,” either—you want […]

In 1973, the late Ruth Anderson wrote an exercise for her students at Hunter College in New York City. It was titled Sound Portrait: Hearing a Person, and its instructions reveal a remarkable sensitivity for how […]

When did the cheesiest American sounds of the 1980s become the hippest Canadian music of the 2020s? When did smooth jazz become an underground concern? You might call it Kaputt-core: In the years since Destroyer’s landmark album—but especially […]

Scientists call it the Goldilocks zone: the narrow band around a star where it’s neither so cold that liquid water freezes nor so hot that it vaporizes. Within this zone are the conditions needed for life […]

Given his reputation as a thought leader in the dirtbag space, it’s ironic that Mac DeMarco’s most recent projects are essentially lo-fi jams to study to. This year’s Five Easy Hot Dogs only represented a trickle of his […]

No one can accuse William Patrick Corgan of skimping on lore. He’s produced reams of it as a bandmate, interviewee, blogger, Infowars guest, wrestling impresario, and tea-shop proprietor. His musical output with the Smashing Pumpkins is also lore-heavy, albeit haphazard: The band’s […]

The central theme of Tony Shhnow’s dozen-plus mixtapes and albums is constant effort. “I want this shit more than anyone,” he declared on 2021’s “Want It,” a grindset ethos reinforced by the titles of releases like […]

Fred again.. seemingly blinked into existence fully formed, a shining new star in the EDM firmament. His debut album, Actual Life (April 14 – December 17 2020), released late into the pandemic lockdowns, made his reputation […]

The media entrepreneur Jamal Edwards, Ed Sheeran’s friend and first industry champion, died unexpectedly last year at age 31. Around the same time, Sheeran’s wife, Cherry Seaborn, was diagnosed with a malignant tumor while six months pregnant with […]

Ask any 16-year-old who uses their mom’s credit card to buy Rick Owens what they’ve been listening to lately, and they’ll tell you the same thing: Destroy Lonely is the future. After working under the radar […]

When SBTRKT recently returned to the public eye after a six-year absence, it wasn’t with a bang so much as a groan. The groggy, distorted vocal of 2022’s “Bodmin Moor” suggested an artist waking from a […]