Long-form essays on the albums, artists, and moments that shaped music history.
Twenty years ago this month, Yeah Yeah Yeahs released Show Your Bones and divided their audience with such precision that it almost felt intentional. The band that had...
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Twenty years ago this month, Yeah Yeah Yeahs released Show Your Bones and divided their audience with such precision that it almost felt intentional. The band that had...
Lorde signed with Universal Music Group when she was 12 years old. Taylor Swift signed with Big Machine Records when she was 15. These facts sit at the...
Somewhere between 2007 and 2012, indie folk became the soundtrack to a generation’s late-20s existential negotiation. Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, The National, Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine, Joanna...
In late 2022, BTS announced they were going on hiatus. The reason was unavoidable: South Korean law requires all able-bodied men to serve in the military, typically for...
There is a specific experience that post-metal creates and that no other genre quite replicates: the feeling of standing very still while something enormous moves past you. Not...
In 1996, Def Jam didn’t believe in it. Jay-Z’s debut album Reasonable Doubt was released on Roc-A-Fella, the independent label he co-founded because the majors weren’t interested. It...
Post-punk was always about disciplined rage - and understanding why that combination was so powerful helps explain why its influence never fully fades.
The 2000s indie rock revival is quietly arriving - scattered across anniversaries, returning bands, and younger listeners discovering it all for the first time.
Band of Horses' debut turns 20 this year - and the anniversary is a good moment to look at what it actually costs to make one perfect indie rock record.
The Live Nation monopoly didn't happen overnight - it was constructed piece by piece through regulatory capture, strategic acquisitions, and the specific way concert economics reward scale. Here's how it happened and why it's so hard to undo.