Pop Spotlight

In 2023, every rapper sings and every singer raps, but 6LACK is one of the few who truly stands in the middle. Growing up in Atlanta’s infamous Zone 6, the artist born Ricardo Valentine was […]

A Certain Ratio took to slap bass like Petrarch did to the sonnet. At the dawn of the 1980s, while many white UK artists emulated the endorphin rush of disco, the Manchester combo sounded more […]

Listening to Australian punk band 3D & the Holograms is like thumbing through a comic book killing spree. The carnage is splashy and colorful, an addictive thrill that keeps you turning the page. The Sydney miscreants […]

Since 2015, Arooj Aftab has gradually distilled the essence of her work. On her debut album, Bird Under Water, the Pakistan-born, Brooklyn-based composer fused ghazal—a South Asian style focused on loss and love, both romantic and divine—with […]

Family runs deep in the life and music of Sage Elsesser. In the eight years since he first began sharing songs on SoundCloud as Navy Blue, his relatives have maintained a constant presence: glimmers of light […]

Caroline Rose has a penchant for reinvention. They turned from their Americana origins to nervy indie pop on 2018’s LONER, then slipped into hyper-stylized digital pop on 2020’s Superstar. Released just days before COVID-19 sent America into […]

Danny Brown likes to tell the story of how he almost signed with G-Unit. In 2010, around the time of The Hybrid’s breakthrough, the Detroit rapper was palling around with Tony Yayo, workshopping a joint project. 50 Cent liked […]

Rumors of jazz’s demise have hung over the genre for decades. In 1960, composer and filmmaker Edward Bland asked, “What, then, is the future of jazz? None. Jazz is dead!” His 1959 film The Cry of Jazz […]

For over a decade, Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix has cloaked her shapeshifting metal band Liturgy in a dense matrix of symbology. Diving into her Substack and YouTube channel, where she connects dots between Marxist thought, the […]

You can find Selena’s face on prayer candles, tote bags, and coin purses; coffee mugs, ’90s-style band tees, and poster prints; throw pillows, air fresheners, and baby onesies. MAC Cosmetics created a limited edition Selena […]

There’s a long, storied tradition of alt-rock band names that employ superfluous punctuation (and annoy the music journalists forced to type them out), but in the case of Black Country, New Road, that comma is […]