If you write about music online even once, something cool and unexpected happens: a handful of artists just like the one you originally covered will send you their music in the hope that you’ll write about that, too. Sometimes that doesn’t work and they’ll pursue other methods, like following you on Twitter, liking a…
Imagine: you’re in a crowded mid-size venue, 300 strangers surrounding you. Just an hour ago, this space was vacant; now you’re practically cuddling with some drunk dudes you’re praying won’t spill beer on your shirt. They don’t smell great. It’s Friday night and you’ve headed straight from work to happy hour to here,…
Here are just a few, tiny things that happened in a dark, bizarre, depressing Year of our Lord 2018:
Press play on this video and close your eyes:
I’ve been listening to a lot of KC and the Sunshine Band lately. Probably too much, by most definitions, but these extended cuts of ’70s songs on YouTube have been awesome for my productivity.
When we weren’t busy watching sports contests, we listened to some stuff. Here are the best things we heard this year.
U2 has a new album out, apparently.
Sled dogs. Snowy conditions. A Mountie escort. A 110-yard football field. The greatest country crossover artist in the world. Last night’s halftime show at the 2017 Grey Cup was not just the most Canadian thing ever, but also, simply, the best thing ever. While the Argonauts and Stampeders took shelter from the…
It’s a funny moment, when you’re a young person, and you come across an even younger person who is deeply, unambiguously, in every thinkable respect, cooler than you. Do you remember when this happened to you? It comes well before the body-wide, achy realization that you, as a fan of sports or music or any endeavor…
Last month, Taylor Swift and her team took some time away from interpolating novelty songs into disappointing singles and turned their attention to intimidating a little-known blogger. Swift took issue with Meghan Herning of PopFront, who accused Swift of dogwhistling to white supremacists in a post with the headline …
The current crop of athletes protesting during the national anthem has roots at the 1968 Olympics, with the Black Power salute of Tommie Smith and John Carlos after they finished first and third, respectively, in the 200 meters. John Dominis’s famous photograph of the two U.S. sprinters on the medal podium, their…
So there’s never going to be a Hüsker Dü reunion after all. Grant Hart is dead.
Elvis Presley died in a Graceland bathroom 40 years ago today. He was 42 years old.
This morning, Buzzfeed dropped a spectacular, sadly unsurprising story in which Jim DeRogatis further detailed the unsettling sex life of 50-year-old R&B singer R. Kelly, who was acquitted on charges of child pornography in 2008 and is now, according to DeRogatis’s report, running an “abusive cult” within his inner…
Grunge icon Chris Cornell died Wednesday night in Detroit at the age of 52. Cornell founded Soundgarden in the ‘80s and helped the Seattle grunge scene take over American rock music over the next decade. He was as essential as anyone in kicking off that movement, and remained active long after Soundgarden broke up the…
“Food is the new music” is a good phrase to memorize for when you get too old to really go to a lot of concerts any more, because that shit happens very late at night.
It’s a little sad that the latest high-profile edition of that classic, beloved hip-hop tradition—the rap beef—is yet more evidence of just how far the culture has fallen. Nicki Minaj and Remy Ma, two inarguably talented and entertaining rappers, have been going after each other on record for weeks, and regardless of…
Future is back.
It would absolutely break his heart if you told Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough that no one would go see his bad band perform if it weren’t for the fact that his real job is hosting a television show, so please, no one tell him.
If you love American music, it’s more than likely that in 2016 your favorite songwriter either published a bestselling memoir, died, or won a long-shot Nobel prize. This means that you probably read a greater-than-average number of essays and considerations about songwriting itself, and about some of the biggest…