Music

Albums, artists, scenes, and the sounds defining our moment.

Justin Bieber Played His Old YouTube Videos on Stage and It Was the Most Honest Thing at Coachella
music

Justin Bieber Played His Old YouTube Videos on Stage and It Was the Most Honest Thing at Coachella

Saturday night, 11:25 PM. The main stage at Coachella. Justin Bieber — the most streamed Canadian artist in history, a man who has sold...

Blood Orange Turned the Mojave Into a Cathedral
music

Blood Orange Turned the Mojave Into a Cathedral

There is a version of Coachella that exists only after midnight — when the main stage crowd thins out, when the desert cools just enough...

Kelsey Lu Took Seven Years to Make Her Second Album and Every Day of It Shows
music

Kelsey Lu Took Seven Years to Make Her Second Album and Every Day of It Shows

Seven years is a long time to disappear. For most artists, it is career death -- the algorithm forgets, the press cycle moves on, and...

Lolo Zouai's Coquelicot Is a Love Song That Refuses to Pick a Language
music

Lolo Zouai's Coquelicot Is a Love Song That Refuses to Pick a Language

The word coquelicot means poppy in French. It is also one of those words that sounds exactly like what it describes -- bright, sharp,...

Sung Holly Posted a Cover and Ended Up in a Room with Rostam
music

Sung Holly Posted a Cover and Ended Up in a Room with Rostam

The trajectory goes like this: at the end of 2023, a young artist posts a cover of Mk.gee online. The cover circulates. The right ears hear...

Tiwayo's Outsider Is What Happens When a Busker Gets a Grammy-Winning Producer
music

Tiwayo's Outsider Is What Happens When a Busker Gets a Grammy-Winning Producer

There is a specific kind of musician who exists out of time. Not nostalgic -- nostalgia is a pose. Out of time in the sense that the music...

Turnstile Played Through Grief and Fury and Came Out the Other Side
music

Turnstile Played Through Grief and Fury and Came Out the Other Side

There is no version of Turnstile that holds back. That has been true since the Baltimore hardcore band started playing basements in 2010,...

anaiis Made an Album About Breaking and Becoming -- 'Devotion & the Black Divine' Is Both
music

anaiis Made an Album About Breaking and Becoming -- 'Devotion & the Black Divine' Is Both

Born in Toulouse. Raised between Dublin, Dakar, Oakland, and New York. Studied at Tisch. Settled in London. anaiis has spent her entire...

Avalon Emerson's Written into Changes Is the Sound of Someone Refusing to Go Back
music

Avalon Emerson's Written into Changes Is the Sound of Someone Refusing to Go Back

Club music and personal confession are supposed to be opposites. DJs build anonymity — the room is the point, not the person behind the...

Deki Alem Turned Stockholm's Underground Into a Continental Obsession
music

Deki Alem Turned Stockholm's Underground Into a Continental Obsession

There is a particular kind of band that sounds like the nineties never ended — The Prodigy's menace, Tricky's fog, JPEGMAFIA's...

GENA Is What Happens When Two of Neo-Soul's Best Stop Playing It Safe
music

GENA Is What Happens When Two of Neo-Soul's Best Stop Playing It Safe

The name stands for God Energy, Naturally Amazing -- loosely inspired by Gina from *Martin*, because of course it is. When Liv.e and...

Isaiah Falls and the Art of the Slow Jam Comeback
music

Isaiah Falls and the Art of the Slow Jam Comeback

"What's your fantasy / I'll take you there / No time to spare." The lyric lands like a whisper in a crowded room — unhurried in a world...