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.) […]

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 […]

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 […]