Allow me to pull the curtain back on the way that this particular website operates during the holidays. Once we finalize all our year-end lists, things tend to get way slower around here, and Scott lets us take most of late December off. But someone is always working. Scott is always working, pretty much for […]
The 10 Best Experimental Albums Of 2025
The Agnes Varda of deep listening returns with another piece of intimate audio vérité, a two-CD headphone collage made from recordings of her mother’s final four months. Here, Rossetto’s mom tells stories, but they are fractured, overlapped, and rendered indecipherable — distorted like memory itself. Life is painted by snatches of conversations, radio, street musicians, […]
Recording Academy Announces Lifetime Achievement Grammys For Fela Kuti, Paul Simon, Cher, More
Every year, the Recording Academy hands out a handful of Lifetime Achievement Grammys. Some of the recipients are alive to get the award, and some are not. The Academy has unveiled the list of next year’s honorees, and it includes legendary figures like Fela Kuti, Paul Simon, Cher, Chaka Khan, and Whitney Houston. Two of […]
SZA Performs At LA Crystal Shop, TDE Holiday Show With Kendrick Lamar
Ultra-famous superfriends SZA and Kendrick Lamar spent most of 2025 on what amounts to one long victory lap together. They played the Super Bowl. Their song “Luther” topped the Hot 100 for months, and the two of them took their stadium show all over the world. (I caught the Raleigh date, and it was great.) […]
Cameron Winter Gives Chicago New Song, Gets Photo Ops With Debbie Harry And Jeff Tweedy
It’s Cameron Winter Winter. You already knew this. Geese’s Getting Killed is the critical-consensus album of the year, and it’s topping all kinds of year-end lists, including ours. Winter’s solo debut Heavy Metal is also placing high on lots of year-end lists, even though it technically came out last year. (Maybe last winter was Cameron […]
Paul McCartney Mourns Höfner, Maker Of His Iconic Bass
Ever since the early Beatles days, Paul McCartney’s signature instrument has been the Höfner 500/1 violin bass guitar. In 1961, an 18-year-old McCartney bought the instrument in Hamburg for £30. That was McCartney’s primary instrument for the Beatles’ entire run. His bass was stolen in 1972, and it was returned to him more than 50 […]
Kennedy Center Is Being Renamed Trump-Kennedy Center
Donald Trump is renaming the Kennedy Center after himself. The John F. Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts, better known as the Kennedy Center, will know be known as the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. Trump put his own name first and everything. White House press […]
Jam City – “star 2” & “angels”
Jack Chatham, the forward-thinking British dance producer who records as Jam City, released the album Jam City Presents EFM in 2023. On that record, he worked with artists like Aidan, Empress Of, and Wet. Today, Jam City follows that LP with a new two-song single called death of an english high street. This time, he’s […]
The 10 Best Shoegaze Albums Of 2025
It’s easy to pinpoint when trends in music begin: People rally around a specific band or album, a new scene forms around a shared sensibility, or a particular sound permeates the zeitgeist. It’s more difficult to determine when something ends. After years of slowly creeping back into the fore, shoegaze’s popularity exploded in 2023 due […]
Watch Yo La Tengo Cover Patti Smith With Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Matt Berninger, & Lenny Kaye
Indie rock legends Yo La Tengo are now one third of the way through their annual Hanukkah residency at New York’s Bowery Ballroom. The band’s Hanukkah shows always feature cool covers and surprise guests, and this year’s shows have been especially action-packed. In the first few nights, they paid tribute to. Ace Frehley and Spinal […]