Pop Spotlight

One night in 1969, 20,000 people gathered at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, in the Indian state of Gujarat, to witness a vision of the future: the Moog synthesizer. An audiovisual spectacle called […]

Dan Knishkowy has spent much of his career as Adeline Hotel exploring the breadth of his acoustic guitar, from the minimalist blues of 2016’s It’s Alright, Just the Same to the reflective folk of 2021’s […]

By 1991, Too $hort was the foul-mouthed face of Oakland rap. He was fresh off a massive three-album run—1987’s Born to Mack, 1988’s Life is…Too Short, 1990’s Short Dog’s in the House—that went a long […]

Leo Takami finds joy in simple melodies played in a straightforward manner. Though his compositions often lead somewhere unexpected, the jazz guitarist and pianist keeps his tunes as rounded and safe as kindergarten toys. Like […]

A minute or so into the opening song on UK electronic musician Pangaea’s Changing Channels, something strange happens. Over a rubbery, insistent bassline and crisply swinging drums, an unidentified vocalist is spitting out a string […]

New York City courses through Parquet Courts’ discography. The quartet that tapped the streets’ pulse on 2021’s “Walking at a Downtown Pace” has long captured the full spectrum of life in the city, from heady […]

Hemlocke Springs explains her creative process as a haphazard exercise with only three steps: collapse into neurosis, keyboard smash on your preferred DAW, and spill your guts. It’s a characteristically insular approach for a young […]

Out and About, the fourth album from Rotterdam quartet Lewsberg, is a collection of hypnotic, talky post-punk that hinges entirely on atmosphere. It’s music for small rooms with weird lighting, old churches where you have […]

Once when Sufjan Stevens was in college, he brought an injured crow to the biology lab to help save its life. “You are doing the universe a great favor,” a woman who ran an animal […]

On Cherry Glazerr’s first new album in four years, I Don’t Want You Anymore, Clementine Creevy pushes herself to extremes. As a lyricist, she explores devotion and surrender, apathy and dependency. As a musician, and […]

Slow Pulp know how to ground extreme emotion. Their shoegaze-tinged country rock can transform euphoria into a mellow CBD gummy high, anchor combustible bursts of rage, and buoy depression. Their self-produced 2020 debut, Moveys, was […]

Maxo’s music, especially as of late, has felt like those coming-of-age movie scenes where the frenzied young protagonist meets someone they aspire to become—picture Benny “the Jet” Rodriguez and Babe Ruth—and realizes that today’s stressors […]