K-Pop Finally Has Its Meta-Moment with the Dynamic Art of ARTMS
The K-pop market is oversaturated, but ARTMS cuts through the technicolor noise by remixing and defying lore conventions to create something drastically new.
Music Features
MetalMatters: The Best Metal Albums of June 2024
In June’s best metal, Crypt Sermon offer hooks in doom form, Insect Ark stay on the experimental path, and Ulcerate offer despair with technical death metal.
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The 50 Best Albums of 2024 So Far
The 50 best albums of 2024 offer sublime music as major artists return with new work and brilliant new sounds bubble up from the underground and worldwide.
If You Love Her, Let Her Know: How Olivia Newton-John Became a Country Star
Olivia Newton-John’s chart-topping 1974 album remains a touchstone for 1970s culture, bringing the best of country music into mainstream pop.
Joan of Arc Are Resurrected at Last (Just Ask Tim Kinsella)
By putting Joan of Arc’s collected works in a dynamic box set, Tim Kinsella gauges how fans and critics are reconciling with the band’s work with modern ears.
Pretty When She Cries: Lana Del Rey’s ‘Ultraviolence’ at 10
Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence used rock to kickstart a new career direction that culminated in autobiographical work without spoiling the mystery of her persona.
2 Tone: Race, Music, and Pop Culture in Thatcher’s UK
2 Tone found a sweet spot between punk anger and pop sensibility that mirrored the myriad poles they were trying to bridge in their band members and audiences.
Songs: Ohia’s ‘Magnolia Electric Co.’ Remains a Dark Triumph
Songs: Ohia’s Magnolia Electric Co. remains a dark triumph in the face of adversity. It was the turning point and apex of Jason Molina’s brief life and career.
The Dark Beauty of Alice In Chains’ ‘Jar of Flies’
Unplanned and unprepared, when Alice in Chains recorded Jar of Flies‘ catchy songs on the fly, they created some of their career’s darkest yet warmest music of their career.
Taylor Swift: The Great American Poet?
It’s not literary devices that make something poetry or the analysis we perform, but the emotion it elicits through them, which is why Taylor Swift is a poet.
Steve Albini’s Black Swan Song: Shellac’s ‘To All Trains’
Shellac’s To All Trains is as compelling as anything they ever produced and a swan song. In Steve Albini’s case, the swan must surely be big, angry, and black.
Kathleen Hanna, Riot Grrrl, and Punk
Riot Grrrl’s activism and grass-roots activity showed the movement was more concerned with breaking the rules and conventions than breaking through in punk.