Flop Star Anne Hathaway and Micaela Coel’s promising pop-star flick 'Mother Mary' is like a would-be hit song without a hook.

Maybe the real dress was the toxic relationships we made along the way

Who Plays Metal in Morocco? An inside view of how one music scene fought to exist—and came to flourish.

Read @akramherrak.bsky.social's dive into how the Moroccan metal scene he came up in developed into the thriving community it is today—from bootleg VHS tapes of 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘉𝘢𝘭𝘭, to the brief 2003 jailing of metal musicians, to local bands gaining fans worldwide:

Hudson Freeman Is the Indie-Rock Philosopher Who Happened to Go Viral The pensive singer-songwriter embodies a jumble of contradictions: He’s a Brooklyn leftist who was raised in the evangelical church. An indie boy with grand ambitions. A viral phenom with songs that are built to last.

Hudson Freeman is a viral artist who knows that, for a certain sect of the music world, going viral is lame—even though it’s one of the only ways people without connections or rich parents can get noticed in the modern music industry

The Return of Kelela (and Los Thuthanaka) Plus: one extremely bitter birthday text.

Must Hear dreamy DMV rap about kicking the habit and world-weary R&B from a modern great; plus sensory-overload electro-pop, new heat from everybody's favorite Andean electro-folk futurists, and more

Girlhood at the Epicenter of Alternative Music’s Mainstream Moment Hole’s Melissa Auf der Maur looks back lucidly on her 1990s in “Even the Good Girls Will Cry,” as I seek out memoirs by levelheaded women artists from the generation before mine.

Something that lives rent-free in my head since reading the Hole bassist's memoir: Courtney Love once called Melissa Auf der Maur "Billy Corgan's purse."

The Most Expansive Pop Minds Working Hit the Desert for a Jam Sesh Dijon's eight-man band takes Coachella. Plus: a low-key rapper/producer with more lore than a Greek myth.

Dijon live from Coachella! Jazzy guitar-synths that go haywire in unexpected ways! Songwriters on the outer limits of art-rock! Two rapper/producers—one extremely storied, one still just starting out— challenging convention! Five Albums has it all!

Earl Sweatshirt, Mike, and Sideshow Are Proving That Rap Doesn’t Need to Have a Chosen One Recent albums from the indie rap heroes gracefully toe the line between humility and divinity

On their latest albums, Earl Sweatshirt, Mike, and Sideshow acknowledge that hip-hop doesn't have a chosen one, but they all rap like they are anyway

25 Tours We’re Looking Forward To HT staffers pick their most anticipated live shows for spring and summer 2026.

Ticket prices remain out of control, but most of the tours we're looking forward to are actually... affordable?

Bon Iver's Religious Non-Religious Music Plus: Two electronic geniuses' surprising collab, a beloved bass virtuoso gets lost, and more.

“Man Like U” is even more relevant now, deep into the manosphere era, than when it came out seven years ago—a sentimental hymn steeped in ’80s pop balladry that rolls its eyes at “phallic repetition” and implores males everywhere to, simply, “improve.”

This Record Store Talk Show Is My Favorite Thing on the Internet Revival of the Fittest might just heal America.

Who are all these people hanging out in the shop, shouting at each other? And why do I find myself yearning to shout along with them? www.hearingthings.co/revival-of-t...

You Need to Hear This Trance Song About Why Apples Are Awesome In which we Waste or Taste equine DJ Horsegiirl’s fruity new anthem, Flea’s Frank Ocean cover, and Gelli Haha’s springy psych-pop.

New Waste or Taste: on horsegiirL, Gelli Haha, and Flea's jazz fusion take on Frank Ocean

Fizzy House Beats for Going Outside Plus: Robyn bravely goes deep into the heart of sexistentialism.

We're getting a strong duality from this week's Five Albums picks, with two dance artists primed for self-actualizing in the streets, a rapper and an indie-rock musician both contemplating various manifestations of their worst nightmares, and more.

The New New Jack Swing A handful of new albums gives one woman hope for the resurgence of new jack swing ballads.

Is the era of 3 a.m. booty call R&B giving way to another epoch of MAKING LOVE—even, perhaps, one with the devotion and ferocity of Johnny Gill or Babyface?

How PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson’s “Stateside” Interrogates the American Dream A possibly too-close reading of one of the most ubiquitous songs of the year

If so many people hate American boys right now, why do so many of those same people love this song about crushing over American boys?

Elucid on the Music He Wants to Soundtrack His Funeral The Queens-born rapper/producer speaks on fatherhood, the joy of celebrating life, and the nooks and crannies of his album I Guess U Had To Be There.

We had New York rapper-producer, and one-half of Armand Hammer, Elucid explain why he'd want songs by Funkadelic, Rakim, Maze, & more played at his funeral (he prefers the title "homegoing service").

Five Songs: Don't Fake the Phonk The greatest 25-minute space-jazz sax excursion you'll hear all week, guaranteed.

This week, we've got an important message for the frauds

NYC Electropunks Lip Critic Explain Their Credit Card Statement Including that one time a superfan stole singer Bret Kaser’s identity

"We spent $255 at Johnny Rockets in four days somehow. That’s amazing."

Grace Ives Goes for the Fences Plus: everyone's favorite Argentine pop-tricksters, an album that's like minimal techno for orchestra, and more.

Our Five Album picks this week all seem to be wrestling with themselves, whether a would-be computer-scientist seeking a path with a guitar strapped to her back, or a composer searching for humanity in an orchestra

How PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson’s “Stateside” Interrogates the American Dream A possibly too-close reading of one of the most ubiquitous songs of the year

Here we have a European woman who catalyzed a worldwide hit that’s mostly about lusting after American boys saying she thinks American boys are broken

Slowing Down With Jana Horn This experimental folk singer-songwriter moonlights as a short story author—or is it the other way around?

“A visiting writer told me my work was like background music in a restaurant,” recalled fiction writer/songwriter Jana Horn. “Like something you don’t really listen to, it’s just there. It was extremely traumatizing, but it also changed my whole writing.”

How PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson’s “Stateside” Interrogates the American Dream A possibly too-close reading of one of the most ubiquitous songs of the year

Yes, “Stateside” is a fun little pop song about wanting to date a guy who might have grown up next to a cornfield. But it can also be a wishful plea for American boys—and America, at large—to be better.

NYC Electropunks Lip Critic Explain Their Credit Card Statement Including that one time a superfan stole singer Bret Kaser’s identity

The fan thought he'd uncovered a hidden alternate-reality game buried deep in Lip Critic's lyrics and Discord posts. Instead, he’d stolen the frontman's identity and went on a shopping spree.

Breakout Club Poet Joshua Idehen on the Lyrics that Changed His Life From Dizzee Rascal’s screwface anthem to Rufus Wainwright’s heartfelt wisdom to Björk’s Scandinavian wisecracks, these are the tracks and lines the songwriter keeps closest.

"This is one of those lyrics that I can show to someone as a test as to whether I’m going to vibe with them or not—because if you listen to this line and you don’t gel with it, then we can’t be friends."

Hudson Freeman Is the Indie-Rock Philosopher Who Happened to Go Viral The pensive singer-songwriter embodies a jumble of contradictions: He’s a Brooklyn leftist who was raised in the evangelical church. An indie boy with grand ambitions. A viral phenom with songs that are built to last.

The viral popularity of Hudson Freeman's country-folk tune "If You Know Me" seems like a glitch in cyberspace—or maybe a collective SOS signal from those who are scrolling their way toward oblivion

NYC Electropunks Lip Critic Explain Their Credit Card Statement Including that one time a superfan stole singer Bret Kaser’s identity

“There’s all this slacker rock where people pretend they don’t care. We care a lot. Our veins are popping out of our necks trying to make this music.”

Does Horny Music Have to *Sound* Horny? Our podcast crew goes deep on the merits of thirsty tracks in honor of Kacey Musgraves’ horned-up new single. Plus: Mike and Earl Sweatshirt, and a clinically insane cover of Van Halen’s “Jump.”

Now on our podcast Waste or Taste: J Balvin, Amber Mark, and Steve Vai's methed-out World Cup song, horny country music, Earl Sweatshirt, and more

Slowing Down With Jana Horn This experimental folk singer-songwriter moonlights as a short story author—or is it the other way around?

You don’t just show up to breakfast with a stranger and stick your finger directly in the mother wound over pancakes and eggs. That kind of talk is for the cigarette afterwards.

Breakout Club Poet Joshua Idehen on the Lyrics that Changed His Life From Dizzee Rascal’s screwface anthem to Rufus Wainwright’s heartfelt wisdom to Björk’s Scandinavian wisecracks, these are the tracks and lines the songwriter keeps closest.

Dancefloor evangelist Joshua Idehen goes deep on the indelible lyrics that led him to create the most life-affirming album of 2026 so far

Kim Gordon Is Just Making Bangers Now Plus: A 19-year-old's spontaneous—and genius—take on Fela Kuti-style Afrobeat.

It’s a beautiful thing that Gordon remains so committed to exploring music’s bleeding edge

Breakout Club Poet Joshua Idehen on the Lyrics that Changed His Life From Dizzee Rascal’s screwface anthem to Rufus Wainwright’s heartfelt wisdom to Björk’s Scandinavian wisecracks, these are the tracks and lines the songwriter keeps closest.

“I didn’t want cringiness to stand in the way of telling myself that I deserve to be loved, and that is more important than any desire to be cool,” says Joshua Idehen of his album’s clubby self-help bent. “Plus, I’m 45—cool is no longer affordable to me.”