There have been long stretches this past year when I didn't want to listen to anything other than hardcore -- where music didn't sound right unless it had volcanic mosh parts and I-just-ate-bad-curry-and-I'm-angry-about-it vocals. I could attempt to be cute and blame my hardcore fixation on the perilous state of the world or whatever. But it's not that. It’s just that I started paying better attention...

Ethereal is one of those words music critics overuse to the extent that editors often caution their writers to avoid it entirely. Grimes feels differently. Earlier this week she posted a new playlist and manifesto arguing that "ethereal" should be an officially recognized genre on streaming platforms. Here's what she wrote: We petition that ethereal should be an official genre on streaming platforms!...

Taylor Swift was honored as the Woman Of The Decade at the Billboard Women In Music event on Thursday night in Los Angeles. She took her speech as an opportunity to publicly address Scooter Braun, who she has been feuding with over the last few months over the rights to her master recordings. "Lately there’s been a new shift that has affected me personally, and as your resident loud person, I feel...

The year is almost over, and the lists are abundant. This one is called The Top 40 Pop Songs Of 2019, which is a double entendre, see? Here is the context you need for understanding what you're about to see: The list is intended as a culmination of my column The Week In Pop, which appears here every Thursday (and is now going into hibernation until 2020). As conceptualized from the outset, TWIP is...

Tweets! At the end of every year, for the past four years, we have collected memorable music tweets from artists and musicians into a handy little list for you. It's tradition! And tradition, as we all know, is always good and never bad. Sorry, we don't make the rules. Or the tweets. But, as previously explained, we do collect the tweets, so that is exactly what we have done for you. Some of them are...

Every winter, Cyndi Lauper hosts her all-star Home For The Holiday benefit. The show raises money for True Colors United, the nonprofit that Lauper founded in 2008 to battle against LGBTQ youth homelessness. Last night, Lauper headlined the 2019 edition of the show at the Novo in Los Angeles. This time around, Lauper performed alongside people like Marilyn Manson, Kesha, King Princess, Perry Farrell,...

A year ago, Juice WRLD asked a rhetorical question: "What's the 27 Club?" And then: "We ain't making it past 21." The we there is crucial. Juice WRLD asked that question, and gave his own heavy-hearted answer, on the song "Legends." He released it in June of 2018, the day after the murder of XXXTentacion. Juice WRLD wrote the song in immediate tribute to his late peers XXXTentacion and Lil Peep: "This...

If you’re looking for the stories behind your favorite songs, but don’t have time to read, say, Flea’s 400-page memoir or even all the liner notes on the latest Numero Group release, podcasts can be the answer for the music fan in need. Even if you just want to hear more from Kim Gordon or Bun B while waiting for them to put out a new album or want to figure out how the hell Slipknot made "Unsainted"...