Music Features

Musclecars’ “Shelter” is airy and urgent. The production is uncluttered; the piano refuses to settle on any easily memorable vamp; singer Brandon Markell Holmes unfurls long, wordless ad-libs in daredevil falsetto, content to take his time and play around in the upper register. Later, all the parts start to coalesce, …

Sunday’s on the phone to Monday, but last Tuesday feels like years ago. Thanksgiving weekend was an epic journey for Beatles fans, thanks to Get Back. Peter Jackson’s docuseries finally arrived on Disney+, dropping surprise after surprise on our heads. So much to process. So much to argue about. Any …

Bittersweet, midtempo chords. A softly falling melody. Lyrics that look back on a heartbreak that may never fully heal, examining that loss with a tone of tender regret. The song, of course, is Taylor Swift‘s “All Too Well” — unless it’s Don Henley‘s “The Heart of the Matter.” Wait, wait, …

Back in 2016, as the snappy, swooping “Lake by the Ocean” was blanketing R&B radio, Maxwell was already thinking about the end of a long-gestating album trilogy that started in 2009. He had just released the second part, blackSUMMERS’night, and he was daydreaming aloud about following it quickly with part …

There wasn’t a dry champagne flute at the Apollo Theater. On December 5th, 2014, Daptone Records’ Super Soul Revue had gathered most of the Brooklyn-based independent label’s acts together for the second of three nights in Harlem. The vibe was that of a rowdy family reunion, starting the moment the …

Things in life tend to come full circle, which is the best way to understand the pairing of Tyler, the Creator and Maxo Kream on the latter’s new single, “Big Persona.” Both rappers, now in their early thirties, set off distinct movements in the cities in which they reside. Tyler’s …

Tatiana Hazel has been strengthening her DIY abilities for a long time now: She’s a Chicago-born, Mexican-American singer, writer, producer, and fashion designer who has been quietly releasing her own music and videos since she was 13. Her latest EP, And the World Will Turn, was an opportunity for her …

Earlier this year, vaultboy set himself a challenge: Write a song a day and share the results on TikTok. He had a knack for the negative; one of his first-ever TikTok posts was tagged “potential breakup song but more sad,” and he followed that with covers of various mega-hits that …

Action Bronson makes sure to let me know that he does not want to promote his new book, F*ck It, I’ll Start Tomorrow: A True Story. Over Zoom, he’s animated and seems relieved that the process of putting it together is finally over. It’s not that Bronson, born Ariyan Arslani, …

Jim Steinman is best known, with good reason, for the songs he wrote for Meat Loaf’s epicBat Out of Hell. But his aural footprint on pop wasn’t limited to that singer and that 1977 album. As it turned out, Steinman’s songs were equally at home in the two decades that …