Pop Spotlight

After 50 years as one of the biggest bands in the world, there’s something charming in the way that U2 keeps acting like they have something to prove. We all watched how actors, artists, and […]

Tei Shi’s first two albums wore their love for 1980s and ’90s pop and R&B on their sleeves. Moving from sugary, Britney-inflected pop to glistening ballads, the artist born Valerie Teicher synthesized her influences into […]

Ali Farka Touré lived life on his own terms. Hailing from a noble lineage, he overcame his family’s disapproval to become a musician, and as a young boy taught himself to play the njerkle (single-string guitar), njarka […]

Driving across West Texas can feel a little like piloting a Mars rover: life signs minimal save for the stray prairie dog, an endless sky suffocating overhead. The cities of Amarillo and Lubbock appear like […]

Many people have a defining moment of their childhood; for M83’s Anthony Gonzalez, childhood seems like the defining moment of his life. Each album since 2008’s John Hughes-inspired Saturdays=Youth has communed with a specific set of nostalgic […]

Doug Paisley’s records have always evoked big, broad rivers, drifting across the Earth without hurry. His smooth country songs are doing ancient work, asking questions of love and death and doubt; these are not fleeting […]

Some artists require a certain measure of distance to thrive. That’s the case for Ukraine’s Ganna Bryzhata, aka Bryozone. She’s best known as the bassist of Chillera, a trio of dub aficionados who developed a gently psychedelic […]

Across nearly a decade under the alias Kedr Livanskiy, Moscow’s Yana Kedrina developed a dark, ethereal style of techno and electro pop on records like Ariadna and Your Need. With 2021’s minimalist Liminal Soul, her music turned colder, further whetting […]