Pop Spotlight

As a rapper, Slowthai has plenty of technical ability and charisma but the same can’t be said for his singing. One of his signature moves is to change the pitch of his voice mid-line, a […]

For at least 15 years, Chunky has been the unofficial voice of Manchester’s underground club scene: a toasting host in the old tradition, but with a soft humor and musical demeanor that eschew the usual macho […]

Gina Birch is frustrated with her friends, fuming at the neighbors, and spiteful of the in-crowd—but she saves her deepest and most abiding rage for the patriarchy. Birch unwittingly became a feminist icon in 1977 […]

Burt Bacharach’s songs are deft studies in light and dark, order and chaos, major-key optimism and minor-key doubt. The lyrics to songs like “Walk on By,” “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself,” […]

In Daisy Jones & the Six, the bestselling novel inspired by Fleetwood Mac’s tumultuous history, Taylor Jenkins Reid writes an album’s worth of song lyrics to hint at her fictional band’s pathos. In the climactic “Regret Me,” […]

Weeks before quarantine, babybaby_explores were already going feral in the kitchen. In a split-screen YouTube session from February 2020, the avant-pop trio performs “Duck Song” in a house in Rhode Island. As their bandmates scratch out a […]

Ugliness is underrated these days. Somewhere down the line, as the underground gave in to poptimism, the freaks made peace with the cheerleaders. But not Morgan Garrett. Reared in the small town of Portsmouth, Ohio, and […]

Franz Kafka wrote about animals a lot: a monstrous bug, a young panther in a menagerie, a mouse named Josephine who wants to wow you with her song, a dog who sees a powerful triumvirate of […]

This past Valentine’s Day, Tink hosted what was essentially a master class on overcoming heartache. At a Morehouse College event in Atlanta, fans lined up with blue baseball bats branded with the Chicago artist’s name […]

Beneath John Talabot’s catalog runs a pipeline tunneling from euphoria to dread—from sunset reveries to midnight rituals. In just over a decade, the Catalan electronic musician (aka Oriol Riverola) has gone from being a serenader of […]

In “feeling body,” the twelve-minute title track of Nyokabi Kariũki’s debut album, the composer’s voice wavers as she asks a vulnerable question: “If you’re not hopeful for your body, then who is?” Amid a wash of […]

After reconfiguring the rock-based Revolution on Sign o’ the Times in 1987, Prince expanded his touring band to bring in horns and additional musicians on the magnificent Lovesexy shows. Since introducing the New Power Generation (NPG) on Diamonds […]