The modern music business is suffering from a crisis of uniformity — and it’s absolutely fine with it. Scan across streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, Pandora, and YouTube Music, and you’ll find almost exactly the same 50 million songs, presented via similar playlists, similar user interfaces, …
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On her 2018 LP Clean, Soccer Mommy (a.k.a indie-rock artist Sophie Allison) proved herself a budding master at crafting the kind of casually cutting tunes that might’ve been alt-rock radio hits if there was still alt-rock radio around to have hits on. She called her style “chill but kinda sad,” …
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Born in 1951, attending college at Kent State in the early Seventies (where she lost close friends at the 1970 Kent State massacre), clocking time in London at the height of punk (where she wrote rock criticism and worked at Vivienne Westwood’s legendary SEX shop among other adventures), Chrissie Hynde …
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As the 2010s come to a close, rappers are beginning to look backwards. Drake put his 2009 mixtape So Far Gone on streaming services for the first time in February; Chance the Rapper followed suit, making several of his releases officially monetizable at the end of June. Drake returned Friday …
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On an afternoon in early 1989, a group of musicians gathered at a house tucked away on a quiet street in New Orleans. Inside, amplifiers were set up in closets, and a studio had been built in the kitchen. “When you looked at the house from the outside, you would …
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Sugar Ray has never been known for deep, sad songs. So it’s fitting that their upcoming album Little Yachty — the band’s first collection of new songs in a decade — is packed with joyous tunes ready for a beach party. But when the group’s frontman Mark McGrath got on …
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Robert Christgau is one of the most influential rock critics of all time. He’s also an invaluable book critic, and now he’s releasing Book Reports: A Music Critic on His First Love, Which Was Reading, via Duke University Press, a collection of reviews covering everything from fiction to cultural theory …
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Mike Rutherford had a lot working against him when he revived Mike and the Mechanics in 2010. Not only had it been 15 years since the band — best known for their songs “The Living Years” and “All I Need Is a Miracle” — scored a hit, but original singer …
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On Sunday night, Justin Bieber hopped on Instagram to announce his latest musical crush to 106 million followers. “This shit bangs,” the star wrote, flashing a picture of Lil Nas X‘s “Old Town Road.” Lil Nas X’s genre-defying creation blends banjo strums and jaw-rattling bass, rural imagery and hip-hop signifiers. …
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Spotify’s most popular R&B playlist includes 40 songs, and almost every one contains drums. But you won’t find any percussion in Pink Sweat$’ “Honesty” — little more than a tranquil line on guitar and a series of harmonies, the track is like a demo that never got beefed up but …
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