Pop Culture

Trio recordings by jazz groups don’t often feature a trumpet accompanied only by bass and drums. The chord-less (no piano or guitar, that is) saxophone trio has a long history, but the format of Strange Heavens, the new album from bassist Linda May Han Oh, is rare. Chet Baker recorded with such a trio in

The first 24 seconds of Swiss director Jasmin Gordon and her co-writer Julien Bouissoux’s The Courageous (Les Courageux) don’t suggest a drama about a single mother’s struggles raising her three children. Instead, it communicates terror and suspense, even a foreboding or haunting presence hidden from our view. As the camera slowly inches us towards a

With over 150 albums to his credit and counting, Bill Nelson may be one of the most prolific artists to emerge from the rock scene of the 1970s. This sonic chameleon has repeatedly damned the commercial consequences to follow his unquenchable muse into a multitude of genres – from glam, art-rock, and prog to ambient

Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but calling it a coincidence would be overlooking that Saint Etienne don’t just create pop music, they obsess over it. They are music archeologists, curators, and historians, parsing the esthetics and minutiae like botanists in a rainforest. What’s more, Saint Etienne‘s very career got off the ground with a brilliantly

When it comes to feminist music and what, if anything, is fashionable in feminism these days, Nancy Sinatra’s song about those soft-toe boots doesn’t come to mind. We’re more likely to think about how Taylor Swift presents herself on the world stage. “I don’t dress for women. I don’t dress for men,” she says, “Lately

My Light, My Massage Parlor Cassandra Jenkins Dead Oceans 15 August 2025 Cassandra Jenkins apparently doesn’t like leaving her work alone, choosing not only to tinker with it after its initial release, but also to make those updated versions available to listeners. In February 2021, she released An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, followed nine months

As the name suggests, West Texas Exiles are a ragtag group from assorted areas of the western region of the Lone Star State. The guys are rooted in Austin now, where 8000 Days was recorded (Studio 601) and where they have a residency at the country’s best dive bar (the Continental Club). The glory days

Water from Your Eyes exult in blasting through genre barriers to forge a bewildering and captivating persona. The Brooklyn-based outfit thrillingly contain multitudes; every song exudes acontagious vigor, and yet there is a studied intensity to their worldly music as well. On Water from Your Eyes’ breakthrough, the critically lauded 2023 album,Everyone’s Crushed, vocalist Rachel

In an interview, Apple Music’s Zane Lowe and Shane Boose, the musician also known as Sombr, agreed that social media “should be a tool, not a lifestyle”. However, this conclusion bites the hand that feeds it: TikTok drove Sombr’s singles “Back to Friends” and “Undressed” up the charts. Consequently, the singer described the completion of

This month, Cherry Red Records will release a four-disc box set, You’re No Big Deal: Grunge, The US Underground and Beyond 1984-1994, forsaking the usual selection of tracks from Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam in favour of deep cuts and rarities. As with any compilation of various artists, fans like me will almost certainly

Director Thomas Vinterberg’s acclaimed 1998 film, The Celebration, Festen in his native Danish, may be one of the best dark comedies in the global canon. It is both the best depiction of familial struggles, while, more broadly, the most important film to help viewers understand our current state of rising authoritarianism. Consider The Celebration’s basic

Artists generally dislike being labeled in the end. Musical mavericks would prefer that their music be met on its terms rather than lumped in with any passing trend and be free to roam wherever their muse might take them. Yet among musicians and fans alike, no label might be more often refuted than grunge. The

Katharina Volckmer’s new novel, Calls May Be Recorded, is a workplace satire taking place over the course of a single workday. While one can say of any novel that it is not for everyone, that would be a gross understatement in the case of this thoroughly kinky novel. The protagonist, Jimmie, works in a London

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s music lies at the intersection of new age, pop, ambient, and everything in between. Her body of work is defined less by genre than by a common theme—the musical resonance of the body. In her 2021 interview with me forPopMatters, she described her music as an “ode to the wonderment that I

Caught in a cross-section of decorative Russian tragedy and numinous 1970s psychedelia, First Love makes an initial impression as deep as a thumbprint; the true effects of the film are only felt long after its close, when its floral brume can finally settle into the skin. Such are the subtleties and minor notes of the

In a 2025 interview with Rolling Stone, Ava Max referred to herself as “the most mismanaged pop star ever”. Lately, Max’s presence has been inconsistent. Her third studio album, Don’t Click Play, was released with minimal promotion in the aftermath of a cancelled tour. “I almost lost myself,” Max told Rolling Stone, referring to the

The punk movement that swept across the United States and the United Kingdom was a revolution based on nerve, power chords, and swagger. Under that paradigm, the 2025 record Opaque by Street Eaters strives to create a compelling throwback: a tactic that works for the majority of the album. Themes like alienation, frustration, youthful abandon,

Josh Ritter has never been in a hurry with songs. Over the last two decades, the Idaho-born songwriter has learned to let them arrive when they’re ready—much like unannounced guests or weather patterns rolling across a vast Western sky. In that space of waiting, he has filled his life with novels, paintings, fatherhood, and touring,

During our tender years, the bursting of sacred bubbles can be devastating, especially when it comes to our heroes, who rarely live up to expectations any better than we do. Yet life’s hard truths can deliver wistful amusement with age, rather than disappointment. Discovering that the suave, debonair, 1990s playboy-about-London Neil Hannon – man and

Keep Quiet hides its intentions for the briefest of moments. The picturesque opening image, a field of golden reeds, is disturbed by a melancholic tune, followed by the clang of prison cell doors, the stern voice of a prison guard, and the sound of handcuffs being removed. Come the film’s end, this opening collision between

Before releasing his first solo album, Lingyuan Yang was already an established musician and composer, earning a BFA from the New School in New York City, writing the string quartet compositions The Heart of Ge’Nyen and Interference (performed by JACK Quartet), in addition to Yin-Yang, a wind and string quartet premiered by the Mannes American

I Believe in You, My Honeydew Josh Ritter Thirty Tigers 12 September 2025 In I Believe in You, My Honeydew, Josh Ritter still sounds refined, if not a little rough around the edges. He recorded the album with longtime collaborators, the Royal City Band, which features Zachariah Hickman (acoustic and electric bass, thumb piano, mandolin),

As an artist, David Byrne has spent decades dazzling listeners with showy theatrics, while subtly disguising his role as a commercial popsmith. Byrne‘s latest record, Who Is the Sky?, does a great deal to rectify this transgression by showcasing a work rippling with commercial and colorful sensibilities. It belongs to a burgeoning genre of music

With Euro-Country, Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, the artist who performs professionally under the acronym CMAT, is making a statement. The Irish artist is blossoming creatively, commenting on politics and grappling with grief and loss, both individual and shared. It’s all choreographed to a contagious mixture of alt-country, soul-pop, and indie pop sensibilities, producing one of the

“Best get new dreams, these old dreams won’t last.”“Soon enough, work and love will make a man out of you.” After their self-titled debut and Sub Pop-released follow-up Shine a Light, Constantines seemed primed for a significant breakthrough. The Guelph, Ontario-based band’s fiery, energetic brand of punk was indebted to greats like Fugazi and the

In 1993, Michael Jackson was weighing his next move in the film industry. He set up a series of meetings in Los Angeles with his longtime collaborator, the Oscar‑winning producer and animator Will Vinton. “I always thought animation would be perfect for him,” Vinton recalls. “The projects he’d tried up to that point hadn’t really

The anniversaries keep piling up as the years tick by. In 2024, it was 30 years since Kurt Cobain’s death by suicide. In 2026, it will be 35 years since the release of Nevermind. That makes me feel both old, although I was only 12 then, and sad, as I don’t think there’s been a

Hodari is “Iradoh” spelled backwards – a wordplay on “irado”, Brazilian slang for something dope or badass, though it literally means “angry”. This duality of naughty playfulness and raw emotion runs through Hodari’s music. Based in Brasília, the capital of Brazil, Hodari is a singer, songwriter, musician, and model whose music lies at the intersection

The Cinema of Extractions: Film Materials and Their Forms Brian Jacobson Columbia University Press February 2025 There is a scene in the first third of Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (2024), which sees László Tóth (Adrien Brody) shoveling coal after being fired from a remodeling project by an irate Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce). Knowing

The term “New Wave” is open to many interpretations, but a simple description might be this: a more pop-oriented version of punk rock, with its anarchic edges smoothed and replaced by synthesizers and hooks. Musical artists of all stripes who weren’t quite raw enough to sound like the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Ramones, or the