# Hearing Things > Independent music journalism. All ears, all the time. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### Tip Jar URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/tip-jar/ Last updated: 2024-10-09T13:47:55.000Z If you’re interested in subscribing to Hearing Things—and receiving perks like full access to the site and commenting privileges—[sign up here](https://www.hearingthings.co/membership/). If you would prefer to give a one-time donation to help us keep going and lift our spirits, that’s great too! Simply click the button below. Thanks for your generosity. ### Give a Gift Subscription URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/gift-subscription/ Last updated: 2024-11-18T16:19:17.000Z If you ask us, there is no better gift than the gift of independent music journalism! Fill out the form below to send someone special a one-year CD Quality subscription to Hearing Things, so they can access all of our articles and playlists, and comment on the site. Thanks! ### About URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/about/ Last updated: 2025-02-14T22:28:27.000Z Hearing Things is a new home for independent music journalism. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2024/10/portraitcrop.jpg) The founders of Hearing Things, clockwise from top left: Andy Cush, Dylan Green, Jill Mapes, Ryan Dombal, and Julianne Escobedo Shepherd. Photo by [Victor Jeffreys II](https://www.victorjeffreys.com/?ref=hearingthings.co). The music industry is once again at a crossroads. Streaming was supposed to democratize music, making it more equitable for all. That didn’t happen. Now the most famous artists are dominating the industry like never before, while everyone else is scrounging for pennies. What’s left of music media is chasing those same huge artists for an ever-decreasing slice of the SEO pie. Virality is king, stan armies run rampant, A.I. is ascendant. It can sometimes feel like the urge to make a meaningful connection with an artist, album, or song is almost passé. --- #### *Hearing Things is a bulwark against all the bullshit.* --- We are a worker-owned music and culture platform with the freedom and expertise to delve into the art we love (or absolutely *do not* love!) in a way that furthers the conversation instead of just regurgitating it. We are writers and editors with many decades of collective experience covering music and culture at Pitchfork, The Fader, Vibe, Spin, Gawker, Jezebel, and elsewhere. There’s a good chance we’ve played a part in introducing you to some of your favorite artists and deepened your appreciation of some of this century’s most important records. At Hearing Things, we’re continuing to do that work—and more—on our own terms. An antidote to the information overload that has poisoned the internet, we are a destination for curated and considered music journalism. Hearing Things offers honest, authoritative interviews and reviews that decode the work of artists from a wide variety of genres including rap, rock, pop, R&B, Latin, electronic, experimental, and whatever microgenre is bubbling up at a given moment. There are investigations that put an infamously corrupt industry under necessary scrutiny. There is analysis of where and how music intersects with the culture at large, playing an essential part in everything from tech to social movements to fashion to film. There will be a podcast where we crack jokes and discuss the music of the week. There is also plenty of fun, random stuff because, hey, music is fun too! --- #### *Read what people are saying about us in [The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/15/business/media/pitchfork-hearing-things.html?ref=hearingthings.co), [The A.V. Club](https://www.avclub.com/hearing-things-former-pitchfork-writers-music-new-site?ref=hearingthings.co), [Hell Gate](https://hellgatenyc.com/worker-owned-music-journalism-were-hearing-things/?ref=hearingthings.co), and [Columbia Journalism Review](https://www.cjr.org/business%5Fof%5Fnews/afterlife-journalists-leaving-traditional-media-jobs.php?ref=hearingthings.co).* --- We cover anyone we choose, whether they’re playing stadiums or basements. We have no corporate overlords demanding more traffic at all costs, no one forcing us to play it safe. We’re curious and more than willing to get weird. There is no sniffy house style here. Sometimes we write like we’re going off in the group chat and sometimes we will write like we’re vying for a freaking Pulitzer. We fearlessly break down industry trends—who’s being exploited and how it can be fixed. Music has changed all of our lives for the better, and listening closely to understand how it affects us has been our lives’ work. That connection is important, and it’s in danger. Hearing Things is a site that will wrinkle your brain, make you laugh, piss you off, and move you to listen differently. Support independent music journalism and [become a member of our Hearing Things community today](https://www.hearingthings.co/membership/). Your membership makes it possible for us to exist. --- ## Our Founders [**Andy Cush**](https://www.hearingthings.co/author/andy-cush/)is a writer and musician who’s done time at Pitchfork, Spin, Gawker, and in the indie-psych-jam band Garcia Peoples. Beginning in 2020, he was a contributing editor at Pitchfork, where he wrote about the pandemic’s effects on working musicians, helped to shape the site’s investigative reporting, and occasionally edited the Sunday Review. His writing is informed by his dual perspectives as a musician and listener, seeking a middle path between the sometimes divergent ways that each side thinks and talks about the music they both love. If he could time-travel to any one concert, he’d head to the Fillmore West on April 10, 1970, to catch the double bill of Miles Davis and the Grateful Dead. [**Ryan Dombal**](https://www.hearingthings.co/author/ryan-dombal/) established and spearheaded features coverage at Pitchfork during his 15 years on staff there. He edited, produced, and wrote multimedia cover stories, reviewed some of the most crucial albums of the century so far, and interviewed everyone from Erykah Badu to Randy Newman. He helped create the wonderfully dumb web series “Over/Under.” He’s constantly searching for new and exciting artists, and wrote early profiles on the likes of James Blake, Charli XCX, and Ethel Cain before they were famous. He would happily live inside D’Angelo’s album *Voodoo* if given the chance. [**Julianne Escobedo Shepherd**](https://www.hearingthings.co/author/julianne-escobedo-shepherd/)is a Xicana writer, editor, and author. She was formerly the top editor at both Jezebel and The Fader, and over the past 25 years has written for a slew of publications including Hell Gate, Vibe, Rookie, Spin, The Guardian, Flaming Hydra, Vogue, and Pitchfork, where she was a contributing writer. Her forthcoming book from Penguin, *Vaquera*, is about growing up Mexican American in Wyoming and the myth of the American West. Her go-to karaoke joint is Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody?” (which is deceptively hard to sing). [**Dylan Green**](https://www.hearingthings.co/author/dylan-green/)is a journalist, critic, and podcast host who has written about hip-hop, film, and culture for publications ranging from DJBooth and Okayplayer to The Fader, Complex, and The Face. They are a former contributing writer at Pitchfork and the host of the Reel Notes podcast, and have interviewed artists both seasoned (Sean Paul, Lupe Fiasco, Large Professor) and fresh (Mike, Clip, BbyAfricka) in the decade they’ve been writing professionally. They’re probably in a Wawa mumbling a Gangsta Boo verse to themselves. [**Jill Mapes**](https://www.hearingthings.co/author/jill-mapes/)is a culture writer and editor with past lives at Vulture, Billboard, Flavorwire (RIP), CBS, and The Indianapolis Star. She spent eight years on staff at Pitchfork, expanding the site’s blog, The Pitch, into a hub for short-form features; editing deep dives on everything from TikTok hits to queer nightlife to big ticketing; and penning reviews and profiles of personal favorites like Angel Olsen, Beach House, Mitski, Big Thief, and Caroline Polachek. The best thing that ever happened to her on assignment was getting unsolicited life advice from Cher (“Always wear black eyeliner and ‘do you’”); the worst thing was getting doxxed by Swifties after giving *folklore* an 8.0. --- ## Our Editorial Independence Hearing Things is committed to serving our readers above all else. We have no corporate overlords dictating our coverage, and no ulterior motives beyond sharing and talking about music with you. We have a strict firewall in place around Hearing Things’ editorial decisions, so that they can be made independently from the considerations of investors, advertisers, donors, and any other sources of revenue. If we run ads, the associated companies will have no say in our coverage. Likewise, though Hearing Things may accept donations in the course of operations, we will never allow donors to influence what we publish. When you make a purchase through links on the site, we may earn a commission, but the linked companies have no say over our writing or decision-making. As members of various musical communities, we may occasionally have social or personal relationships with musicians whose work merits coverage on Hearing Things. Generally, writers will not work on stories about musicians they know personally. In cases where the editors decide that such relationships are not compromising or detrimental to the quality of a story, the relationship will be properly disclosed. In our investigative reporting on the music industry, we pledge to follow the facts wherever they lead, and to publish them honestly, without omitting essential context or inconvenient details. As music critics, we also have strong opinions. You’ll be getting plenty of those, too. Before you ask: We will never accept money or favors in exchange for a review or any other coverage of an artist. Whether it’s a rave, a pan, or something in between, we publish what we publish because we really believe it. --- ## Thanks So many people helped Hearing Things become in a reality including Vaughn Millette, Asha Fuller, and Maya Davila; [Justin Thomas Kay](https://justinthomaskay.studio/?ref=hearingthings.co) (logo and design); [Shena Yoshida](http://shenayoshida.com/?ref=hearingthings.co) (website design); [Gabe Wilk](https://read.cv/gabrielwm1?ref=hearingthings.co) (website development); Ryan Singel at [Outpost](https://outpost.pub/?ref=hearingthings.co); Alex Kisielewski at [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=hearingthings.co); Dan Charnas at the [Clive Davis Institute](https://tisch.nyu.edu/clive-davis-institute?ref=hearingthings.co); Elia Einhorn and Mark Yoshizumi at [3dB](https://www.hello3db.com/?ref=hearingthings.co); and all of the brilliant and enterprising independent journalists at [Defector](https://defector.com/?ref=hearingthings.co), [404](https://404media.co/?ref=hearingthings.co), [Hell Gate](https://hellgatenyc.com/?ref=hearingthings.co), [Racket](https://racketmn.com/?ref=hearingthings.co), [Flaming Hydra](https://flaminghydra.com/?ref=hearingthings.co), and [Aftermath](https://aftermath.site/?ref=hearingthings.co). ### Get on the guest list URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/membership/ Last updated: 2026-05-22T23:06:23.000Z Subscribe to Hearing Things for everything you need to know about music and the culture around it—plus perks like comments, merch, listening sessions, and the glory of supporting an independent, worker-owned music publication. You can also purchase a [gift subscription](https://www.hearingthings.co/#/portal/gift). ### Reviews URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/reviews/ Last updated: 2024-09-28T02:40:36.000Z _No content available._ ### Features URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/features/ Last updated: 2024-09-28T02:39:26.000Z _No content available._ ### Privacy Policy URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/privacy/ Last updated: 2025-05-16T14:55:09.000Z *Last updated: May 16, 2025* Hearing Things Media Inc. (“we” or “us”) wants you to be familiar with how we collect, use, and disclose information. This Privacy Policy describes our practices in connection with information that we collect through: - hearingthings.co and any other Hearing Things-operated websites from which you are accessing this Privacy Policy (the “Websites”); - Our social media pages (collectively, our “Social Media Pages”); and - HTML-formatted email messages that we send to you that link to this Privacy Policy or other communications with you. We refer to the Websites, Social Media Pages, and emails as the “Services.” ## **Personal Information** “Personal Information” is information that identifies you as an individual or relates to an identifiable individual. The Services collect Personal Information, including: - Name - Postal address (including billing and shipping addresses) - Telephone number - Email address - IP address (we may also derive your approximate location from your IP address) - Payment card data **Collection of Personal Information** We and our service providers collect Personal Information through the Services, for example, when you sign up for a newsletter, register an account to access the Services, make a donation online, purchase a subscription, post a message on a forum we operate, or contact us through the Services. We collect Personal Information in order to provide the requested Services to you. If you do not provide the information requested, we may not be able to provide the Services. **Use of Personal Information** We and our service providers use Personal Information for the following purposes: - To provide the Services’ functionality to you, such as arranging access to your registered account, and providing you with related services and support. - To complete your transactions, including processing your subscriptions, donations, or orders, and verifying your information. - To respond to your inquiries and fulfill your requests, for example, when you send us questions, suggestions, tips, or complaints, or requests for information about our Services. - To send administrative information to you, such as changes to our terms, conditions, and policies. - To send you our newsletter or other marketing communications, with information about our services, new topics or series, and other updates about our organization. - To analyze or predict our users’ preferences in order to understand how our digital content is used and consumed. - To better understand your interests and preferences, so that we can personalize our interactions with you and provide you with information or offers tailored to your interests. - To allow you to participate in a sweepstakes, contest, or other promotion. Some of these promotions have additional rules containing information about how we will use and disclose your Personal Information. Please read those additional rules before choosing to participate. - To accomplish our business purposes, including: - For data analysis, for example, to improve the efficiency of our Services; - For audits, to verify that our internal processes function as intended and to address legal, regulatory, or contractual requirements; - For fraud prevention and fraud security monitoring purposes, for example, to detect and prevent cyberattacks or attempts to commit identity theft; - For developing new content and services; - For enhancing, improving, repairing, maintaining, or modifying our current content and services; - For determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns, so that we can adapt our campaigns to the needs and interests of our users; and - For operating and expanding our business activities, for example, understanding which parts of our Services are of most interest to our users so we can focus our energies on meeting our users’ interests. **Aggregated or Anonymized Personal Information** We may aggregate and/or anonymize Personal Information so that it will no longer be considered Personal Information. We do so to generate other data for our use, which we may use and disclose for any purpose, as it no longer identifies you or any other individual. **Disclosure of Personal Information** We disclose Personal Information: - To our third party service providers, to facilitate services they provide to us. - These can include providers of services such as website hosting, data analysis, payment processing, fraud prevention, information technology and related infrastructure provision, customer service or related benefits (including special promotions), email delivery, auditing, and other services. - By using the Services, you may elect to disclose Personal Information. - On message boards, chat, profile pages, blogs, and other services to which you are able to post information and content (including, without limitation, our Social Media Pages). Please note that any information you post or disclose through these services will become public and may be available to other users and the general public. **Other Uses and Disclosures** We also use and disclose your Personal Information as necessary or appropriate: - To comply with applicable law and regulations. - To cooperate with public and government authorities. - To cooperate with law enforcement. - For other legal reasons. - To enforce our terms and conditions; and - To protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or others. - In connection with a sale or business transaction. - For example, in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings). - To accomplish any additional purposes disclosed to you at the time you provide the information. ## **Other Information** “Other Information” is any information that does not reveal your specific identity or does not directly relate to an identifiable individual. The Services collect Other Information such as: - Browser and device information - Information collected through cookies, pixel tags, and other technologies - Demographic information and other information provided by you that does not reveal your specific identity - Information that has been aggregated in a manner such that it no longer reveals your specific identity **Collection of Other Information** We and our service providers may collect Other Information in a variety of ways, including: - Your browser or device. - Certain information is collected by most browsers or automatically through your device, such as your Media Access Control (MAC) address, computer type (PC or Mac), screen resolution, operating system name and version, device manufacturer and model, language, Internet browser type and version and the name and version of the Services (such as the App) you are using. We use this information to ensure that the Services function properly. - Cookies. - Cookies are pieces of information stored directly on the computer that you are using. Cookies allow us to collect information such as browser type, time spent on the Services, pages visited, language preferences, and other traffic data. We and our service providers use the information for security purposes, to facilitate navigation, to display information more effectively, and to personalize your experience. We also gather statistical information about use of the Services in order to continually improve their design and functionality, understand how they are used, and assist us with resolving questions regarding them. We do not currently respond to browser do-not-track signals.If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, most browsers allow you to automatically decline cookies or be given the choice of declining or accepting a particular cookie (or cookies) from a particular website. You may also wish to refer to http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/index.html. If, however, you do not accept cookies, you may experience some inconvenience in your use of the Services. - Pixel tags and other similar technologies. - Pixel tags (also known as web beacons and clear GIFs) may be used to, among other things, track the actions of users of the Services (including email recipients), measure the success of our marketing campaigns, and compile statistics about usage of the Services and response rates. **Uses and Disclosures of Other Information** We may use and disclose Other Information for any purpose, except where we are required to do otherwise under applicable law. If we are required to treat Other Information as Personal Information under applicable law, we may use and disclose it for the purposes for which we use and disclose Personal Information as detailed in this Policy. In some instances, we may combine Other Information with Personal Information. If we do, we will treat the combined information as Personal Information as long as it is combined. ## **Security** We seek to use reasonable organizational, technical, and administrative measures to protect Personal Information within our organization. Unfortunately, no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with the *“*Contacting Us*”* section below. ## **Choices and Access** **Your choices regarding our use and disclosure of your Personal Information** We give you choices regarding our use and disclosure of your Personal Information for marketing purposes. You may opt out from: - Receiving marketing-related emails from us. If you no longer want to receive marketing related emails from us on a going-forward basis, you may opt out by following the instructions contained within the emails and newsletters, or by emailing us at info@hearingthings.co. We will try to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that if you opt out of receiving marketing related emails from us, we may still send you important administrative messages, from which you cannot opt out. ## **Third Party Services** This Privacy Policy does not address, and we are not responsible for, the privacy, information, or other practices of any third parties, including any third party operating any website or service to which the Services link. The inclusion of a link on the Services does not imply endorsement of the linked site or service by us or by our affiliates. In addition, we are not responsible for the information collection, use, disclosure, or security policies or practices of other organizations, such as Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, RIM, or any other app developer, app provider, social media platform provider, operating system provider, wireless service provider, or device manufacturer, including with respect to any Personal Information you disclose to other organizations through or in connection with the App. ## **Third Party Advertising** We use third-party advertising companies to serve advertisements regarding goods and services that may be of interest to you when you access and use the Services and other websites or online services. You may receive advertisements based on information relating to your access to and use of the Services and other websites or online services on any of your devices, as well as on information received from third parties. These companies place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser (including through the use of pixel tags). They also use these technologies, along with information they collect about your online use, to recognize you across the devices you use, such as a mobile phone and a laptop. If you would like more information about this practice, and to learn how to opt out of it in desktop and mobile browsers on the particular device on which you are accessing this Privacy Policy, please visit http://optout.aboutads.info/#/ and http://optout.networkadvertising.org/#/.You may download the AppChoices app at www.aboutads.info/appchoices to opt out in mobile apps. ## **Use of Services by Minors** The Services are not directed to individuals under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from individuals under 13\. **Your Right to Request Removal of Content** Pursuant to California Business & Professions Code section 22581, if you are a resident of California, under 18, and a registered user of the Services, you may ask us to remove content or information that you have posted to the Services by writing to info@hearingthings.co. Please note that your request does not ensure complete or comprehensive removal of the content or information, as, for example, some of your content may have been reposted by another user. ## **Applicable Law** Hearing Things is located in the United States. Your Personal Information may be stored and processed in the United States and any country where we have facilities or in which we engage service providers, which may have data protection rules that are different from those of your country. ## **Sensitive Information** Unless we request it, we ask that you not send us, and you not disclose, any sensitive Personal Information (e.g., social security numbers, information related to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or other beliefs, health, biometrics or genetic characteristics, or criminal background) on or through the Services or otherwise to us. ## **Third Party Payment Service** The Services may provide functionality allowing you to make payments to the organization using third-party payment services with which you have created your own account. When you use such a service to make a payment to us, your Personal Information will be collected by such third party and not by us, and will be subject to the third party’s privacy policy, rather than this Privacy Policy. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, this third party’s collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information. ## **Updates to This Privacy Policy** The “Last updated” legend at the top of this Privacy Policy indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Any changes will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy on the Services. ## **Contacting Us** If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at info@hearingthings.co, or: Hearing Things 477 FDR Drive #M1407 New York, NY, 10002 Because email communications are not always secure, please do not include credit card or other sensitive information in your emails to us. ### Terms of Service URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/terms-of-service/ Last updated: 2025-05-16T14:57:33.000Z *Last updated: May 16, 2025* Please read these Terms of Service (the “Agreement”) carefully. Your use of the Site (as defined below) constitutes your consent to this Agreement. This Agreement is between you and Hearing Things Media Inc. (“Company” or “we” or “us”) concerning your use of (including any access to) the Hearing Things site currently located at hearingthings.co (together with any materials and services available therein, and successor site\[s\] thereto, the “Site”). This Agreement hereby incorporates by this reference any additional terms and conditions posted by Company through the Site, or otherwise made available to you by Company. By using the Site, you affirm that you are of legal age to enter into this Agreement or, if you are not, that you have obtained parental or guardian consent to enter into this Agreement. If you are an individual accessing or using the Site on behalf of, or for the benefit of, any corporation, partnership or other entity with which you are associated (an “Organization”), then you are agreeing to this Agreement on behalf of yourself and such Organization, and you represent and warrant that you have the legal authority to bind such Organization to this Agreement. References to “you” and “your” in this Agreement will refer to both the individual using the Site and to any such Organization. Any and all disputes arising from this agreement shall be decided solely and exclusively by state or federal courts located in New York, NY. 1. **Changes**. We may change this Agreement from time to time by notifying you of such changes by any reasonable means, including by posting a revised Agreement through the Site. Any such changes will not apply to any dispute between you and us arising prior to the date on which we posted the revised Agreement incorporating such changes, or otherwise notified you of such changes. Your use of the Site following any changes to this Agreement will constitute your acceptance of such changes. The “*Last updated*” legend above indicates when this Agreement was last changed. We may, at any time and without liability, modify or discontinue all or part of the Site (including access to the Site via any third-party links); charge, modify or waive any fees required to use the Site; or offer opportunities to some or all Site users. 1. **Information Submitted Through the Site**. Your submission of information through the Site is governed by Company’s Privacy Policy, located at hearingthings.co/privacy-policy (the “Privacy Policy”). You represent and warrant that any information you provide in connection with the Site is and will remain accurate and complete, and that you will maintain and update such information as needed. 2. **Jurisdictional Issues**. The Site is controlled or operated (or both) from the United States, and is not intended to subject Company to any non-U.S. jurisdiction or law. The Site may not be appropriate or available for use in some non-U.S. jurisdictions. Any use of the Site is at your own risk, and you must comply with all applicable laws, rules and regulations in doing so. We may limit the Site’s availability at any time, in whole or in part, to any person, geographic area or jurisdiction that we choose. 3. **Rules of Conduct**. In connection with the Site, you must not: - Post, transmit or otherwise make available through or in connection with the Site any materials that are or may be: (a) threatening, harassing, degrading, hateful or intimidating, or otherwise fail to respect the rights and dignity of others; (b) defamatory, libelous, fraudulent or otherwise tortious; (c) obscene, indecent, pornographic or otherwise objectionable; or (d) protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret, right of publicity or privacy or any other proprietary right, without the express prior written consent of the applicable owner. - Post, transmit or otherwise make available through or in connection with the Site any virus, worm, Trojan horse, Easter egg, time bomb, spyware or other computer code, file or program that is or is potentially harmful or invasive or intended to damage or hijack the operation of, or to monitor the use of, any hardware, software or equipment (each, a “Virus”). - Use the Site for any commercial purpose, or for any purpose that is fraudulent or otherwise tortious or unlawful. - Harvest or collect information about users of the Site. - Interfere with or disrupt the operation of the Site or the servers or networks used to make the Site available, including by hacking or defacing any portion of the Site; or violate any requirement, procedure or policy of such servers or networks. - Restrict or inhibit any other person from using the Site. - Reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, create derivative works of, sell, rent, lease, loan, timeshare, distribute or otherwise exploit any portion of (or any use of) the Site except as expressly authorized herein, without Company’s express prior written consent. - Reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble any portion of the Site, except where such restriction is expressly prohibited by applicable law. - Remove any copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights notice from the Site. - Frame or mirror any portion of the Site, or otherwise incorporate any portion of the Site into any product or service, without Company’s express prior written consent. - Systematically download and store Site content. - Use any robot, spider, site search/retrieval application or other manual or automatic device to retrieve, index, “scrape,” “data mine” or otherwise gather Site content, or reproduce or circumvent the navigational structure or presentation of the Site, without Company’s express prior written consent. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Company grants to the operators of public search engines permission to use spiders to copy materials from the Site for the sole purpose of (and solely to the extent necessary for) creating publicly available, searchable indices of such materials, but not caches or archives of such materials. Company reserves the right to revoke such permission either generally or in specific cases, at any time and without notice. You are responsible for obtaining, maintaining and paying for all hardware and all telecommunications and other services needed to use the Site. 1. **Products**. The Site may make available listings, descriptions and images of goods or services or related coupons or discounts (collectively, “Products”), as well as references and links to Products. Such Products may be made available by Company or by third parties, and may be made available for any purpose, including general information purposes. The availability through the Site of any listing, description or image of a Product does not imply our endorsement of such Product or affiliation with the provider of such Product. We make no representations as to the completeness, accuracy, reliability, validity or timeliness of such listings, descriptions or images (including any features, specifications and prices contained therein). Such information and the availability of any Product (including the validity of any coupon or discount) are subject to change at any time without notice. Certain weights, measures and similar descriptions are approximate and are for convenience only. We make reasonable efforts to accurately display the attributes of Products, including the applicable colors, however the actual colors you see will depend on your computer system, and we cannot guarantee that your computer will accurately display such colors. It is your responsibility to ascertain and obey all applicable local, state, federal and foreign laws (including minimum age requirements) regarding the purchase, possession and use of any Product. Company reserves the right, including without prior notice, to limit the available quantity of or discontinue making available any Product; to impose conditions on the honoring of any coupon, discount or similar promotion; to bar any user from making any Transaction; and to refuse to provide any user with any Product. Refunds and exchanges will be subject to Company’s applicable refund and exchange policies. You agree to pay all charges incurred by you or on your behalf through the Site, at the prices in effect when such charges are incurred, including all shipping and handling charges. In addition, you are responsible for any taxes applicable to your Transactions. 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All rights reserved. ### Contact URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/contact/ Last updated: 2025-11-26T17:31:20.000Z **General inquiries:** [info@hearingthings.co](mailto:info@hearingthings.co) **Pitch us your article ideas:** [pitch@hearingthings.co](mailto:pitch@hearingthings.co) *Learn more about how to pitch Hearing Things* [*here*](https://www.hearingthings.co/pitch-us/)*.* **Pitch us your music:** [music@hearingthings.co](mailto:music@hearingthings.co) **Send us news tips:** [tips@hearingthings.co](mailto:tips@hearingthings.co) *We’re always on the lookout for tips about music industry corruption and malfeasance.* **Partner with us/inquire about advertising:** [partnerships@hearingthings.co](mailto:partnerships@hearingthings.co) *Learn more about our partnerships* [*here*](https://www.hearingthings.co/partnerships/)*.* **Subscription questions:** [info@hearingthings.co](mailto:info@hearingthings.co) ### **Contact our founders:** **Andy Cush:** [andy@hearingthings.co](mailto:andy@hearingthings.co) **Ryan Dombal:** [ryan@hearingthings.co](mailto:ryan@hearingthings.co) **Julianne Escobedo Shepherd:** [julianne@hearingthings.co](mailto:julianne@hearingthings.co) **Dylan Green:** [dylan@hearingthings.co](mailto:dylan@hearingthings.co) **Jill Mapes:** [jill@hearingthings.co](mailto:jill@hearingthings.co) ### Pitch Us URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/pitch-us/ Last updated: 2025-03-17T17:31:53.000Z Hearing Things is an independent, worker-owned publication covering music and the culture around it. Our mission statement is [here](https://www.hearingthings.co/about/). If you'd like to send us music for coverage consideration, email [music@hearingthings.co](mailto:music@hearingthings.co). ### The Blog URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/blog/ Last updated: 2024-10-04T07:52:29.000Z Takes, strays, and meditations on music and culture ### Events URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/events/ Last updated: 2024-10-04T07:54:20.000Z Hearing Things IRL ### Must Hear URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/must-hear/ Last updated: 2025-05-21T14:47:20.000Z All about our favorite music ### Super Deluxe Remastered Hi-Fi Members URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/super-deluxe-remastered-hi-fi-members/ Last updated: 2026-10-17T17:07:56.000Z [Sign up](https://www.hearingthings.co/membership/) for our most exclusive membership tier and your name will be added to this page. Thank you for supporting independent music journalism! --- - **Michael K Olund** - **James Socol** - **Phonte Coleman** - **John Ewald** - **Yoshizo Yoshimura** ### Sign in URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/signin/ Last updated: 2024-10-07T03:47:04.000Z Sign in to Hearing ThingsText ### Sign up URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/signup/ Last updated: 2024-10-07T04:01:16.000Z Sign up for Hearing Things ### Advertising URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/partnerships/ Last updated: 2025-12-10T17:46:25.000Z Hearing Things is committed to trustworthy music journalism, and we have a strict firewall in place around our editorial decisions so that they can be made independently from the considerations of investors, advertisers, donors, and any other sources of revenue. We also understand that partnerships and advertising can be key in maintaining a sustainable media company, and are open to opportunities and ideas from those who want to work with us. If you're interested in partnering or advertising with Hearing Things, email partnerships@hearingthings.co. ### Hearing Things Freelance Policies, Created in Partnership With The National Writers Union URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/hearing-things-freelance-policies-created-in-partnership-with-the-national-writers-union/ Last updated: 2024-10-15T14:52:20.000Z This unilateral announcement will be in place for one year from the date of acceptance by both the Hearing Things editorial collective and the National Writers Union. At the end of that period, Hearing Things will re-evaluate the conditions outlined below, and update the unilateral announcement with any necessary amendments offered by their freelancers, contract workers, and with the assistance of representatives from the National Writers Union. Hearing Things will make freelancers aware of any UA and contract updates as soon as possible. For the purposes of this announcement, all parties agree that freelancer is defined as any media worker providing labor and/or services to Hearing Things, including but not limited to writers, photographers, artists, video and/or audio producers, among others. All parties agree that “the publication” refers to Hearing Things. A contractor is any media worker contributing to Hearing Things on a mutually agreed-upon ongoing basis. The negotiated rate is the full fee stated by the assigning or accepting member of the Hearing Things editorial board, as stated in any contracts or email correspondence related to the freelancers’ assignment or submission. ## **Rates** The standard base rates at Hearing Things are as follows: - The minimum rate for shorter written-out pieces (at least 800 words) is $350, and $1,000 for longer stories (at least 2,000 words). Hearing Things will never pay less than the minimum rate. Hearing Things commits to increasing rates as our budget and resources allow and will update freelancers on any applicable rate increases annually. - Hearing Things will commit to reducing pay discrepancies across the industry for people from disadvantaged and underrepresented groups. - Hearing Things commits to fully complying with New York City’s [Freelance Isn’t Free](https://www1.nyc.gov/site/dca/about/freelance-isnt-free-act.page?ref=hearingthings.co) law. - All freelance contributors will be paid within 10 business days of publication. - Standard rates and other conditions for photographers, audio and video producers and engineers, illustrators, and other media workers will be posted as Hearing Things determines its needs for such freelance services, in collaboration with the National Writers Union. - In the event an assignment of an editorial nature (including but not limited to text, photo, design, video, or audio) is accepted or commissioned but cannot run in Hearing Things as anticipated, Hearing Things will offer a kill fee of 40% of the original rate. ## **Intellectual Property** - Hearing Things agrees that each accepted pitch or assignment is the sole property of the freelancer. - The freelancer retains the right to republish the work after 90 days of the date of publication in a book, anthology, collection, or similar product, with original credits and acknowledgments given to Hearing Things. The freelancer does not have the right to republish in another website, magazine, or similar publication. However, the freelancer does have the right to republish an excerpt (of reasonable length) of their work in a newsletter, self-run or otherwise, with original credits and acknowledgments given to Hearing Things, along with including a link to the full original article. ## **Editing Process** - Hearing Things will maintain a commitment to diversity and equity among its freelancers from the point of soliciting pitches to the final stages of publication. - All pitching and submission guidelines will be clearly detailed and made public on Hearing Things’ website. - Contact information for editors will be made public, with instructions on where to direct freelance pitches. - An assignment from a Hearing Things editor or a submission from a freelancer is considered accepted upon email confirmation from a Hearing Things editor. Freelancers will be issued a contract as soon as possible following email correspondence. Editors shall formally notify freelancers of the acceptance or rejection of subsequent drafts or revisions within a commercially reasonable period of time after receipt. Hearing Things will make good faith efforts to communicate about the status of an assignment on an ongoing basis. - Once a freelancer has finished their piece and submitted it (via Google Docs) to the assigning editor, a Hearing Things editor will edit the piece and return it to the freelancer within a commercially reasonable amount of time. - When a freelancer receives the draft back, they should expect to see copy and line edits as well as suggestions for revisions. The amount of revisions and correspondence will vary from piece to piece, depending on the complexity and length of the story. Freelancers can expect to work with one point editor, typically the editor who approved their pitch, but pieces may be reviewed by others on staff, depending on complexity and length. - Hearing Things pledges to work with writers to maintain the writer’s voice as much as possible while maintaining our journalistic standards. - Hearing Things pledges to provide freelancers final right to review their work before publication. In the case of a timely piece, Hearing Things also reserves the right to publish as soon as possible, and will still make a good-faith effort to give the freelancer an opportunity to review prior to publication, albeit on a tight turnaround." - When pieces go live, Hearing Things pledges to post freelancers’ names and preferred social handles on our website and all social channels. Freelancers can choose to opt out of being named in any capacity for any reason. - Hearing Things pledges to credit freelance writers with top billing on both the website and any social media shares for any cover stories they write. ## **Expenses** - Assignment-based expenses will be discussed prior to the assignment on a case-by-case basis. No expenses will be considered eligible for reimbursement unless they have been explicitly approved by a Hearing Things editor in advance. Freelancers must submit expenses alongside the first draft of their work, and will be reimbursed along with payment for said piece. ## **Grievance Procedure With the National Writers Union** - Hearing Things will make every effort to work out any freelance grievances on an informal basis. - If Hearing Things cannot work out a freelancer’s grievances on an informal basis, and if that freelancer designates a representative of the NWU to meet with the magazine in an attempt to work out the grievance on the freelancer’s behalf, the process shall be as follows: - (a) Before filing a grievance, the aggrieved freelancer and/or NWU representative will present the grievance to the freelancer’s assigning editor to try to resolve the matter without formal proceedings. - (b) If step (a) is unsuccessful, the NWU shall submit the grievance in writing to a Hearing Things representative. - (c) If there is no resolution within two weeks of step (b), there shall be a conciliation conference including the NWU representative, the freelancer, if possible, and a Hearing Things representative. Hearing Things shall respond to the grievance within three weeks of the conference. - (d) If the NWU and Hearing Things cannot resolve the grievance, a board shall be convened consisting of one representative of the NWU, one of Hearing Things, and one member acceptable to both parties. The third member shall receive no compensation from either side for participation in this board. A majority opinion by the board shall be accepted by all parties. ## **Legal Protections** - Hearing Things will set clear safety and legal protections for freelancers, both abroad and at home, and will share those procedures with freelancers upon assigning work. - Hearing Things will indemnify and defend a freelancer up to the limit of its available insurance, against any third-party claim arising out of or related to any article published, distributed, or assigned and any newsgathering related thereto unless such claims arise out of the freelancer’s breach of representation, warranty, or obligation under their contract. Such indemnification will include all losses, costs, and expenses, including reasonable attorney’s fees, damages, and recoveries arising out of any such third-party claim. Hearing Things will do this if the freelancer agrees to cooperate with Hearing Things and its parent and affiliated entities, and their members, shareholders, directors, officers, employees, representatives, and agents. - Hearing Things will commit to providing a work experience for freelancers that is free of harassment and discrimination. - In the event a freelancer experiences physical and/or psychological harm, harassment, discrimination, or abuse of any nature in their course of work for Hearing Things, Hearing Things will resolve any dispute that arises from such harm, harassment, discrimination, or abuse through the below stated National Writers Union grievance procedure. ### Podcast URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/podcast/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T05:05:43.000Z _No content available._ ## Posts ### Let Jacques Greene Teach You How to DJ URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/let-jacques-greene-teach-you-how-to-dj/ Last updated: 2026-10-21T17:57:31.000Z [*In Theory*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/in-theory/) *is a semi-regular column in which Andy Cush takes a close look at the compositional underpinnings of songs new and old in search of a deeper understanding of how and why they move us.* --- The first time I interviewed Jacques Greene, about a decade ago, we got to talking about Retro/Grade’s “[Moda](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZDnhpgHgWk&ref=hearingthings.co),” a track from 2009 that had a reputation as something of a secret weapon among DJs. At 10 minutes long, it renders the noirish sonics of Italo disco at the epic scale of progressive house, with an amazingly funky synth riff and a breakdown that, heard in the wrong context, might seem preposterous. The Montreal producer-DJ born Philippe Aubin-Dionne cued the song up and talked about what made it tick. He pointed out that the riff is nine beats long instead of the eight that you’d expect, and the rest of the track is in regular old 4/4, an effect that tickles your brain even if you don’t hear it consciously, the music sliding in and out of alignment with itself as it builds and repeats. Then we got to the breakdown, a section inaugurated by “the biggest clap you’ve ever heard,” as Greene put it. The whole track clears away, leaving just a single repeated note, and builds itself back piece by piece over the course of two whole drumless minutes before the groove finally hits again. I asked him: *If you were playing this out, you’d skip this part, right? Can you really leave people hanging that long without a beat to dance to?* He corrected me: the extra-long breakdown was the whole point. “You have to play it toward the end of the night, and you’ve got to make sure everyone is on your side,” he said. “And then this creates probably the biggest moment of the night, every time I’ve ever played it.” This exchange has always stuck in my head as a rare interview moment that genuinely taught me something. About boldness: how a musician’s choice to actively disrupt their audience’s enjoyment of what they’re doing can help to create an even more powerful feeling of uplift later on. And about context: how a decision that might fall flat in one scenario could turn you into a hero on a different night, in a different club, or even just an hour later. Greene is a great talker and thinker about his art form, with a fan’s infectious enthusiasm, a scholar’s sense of history, an expert practitioner’s knowledge of inner workings, and a natural way of articulating the ways that all sides of that dialectic work together. When he announced his new album *jg*, which dropped via LuckyMe last week, I knew I wanted to talk to him for this column, which aims to bring a similar insider-outsider perspective to music of all kinds, from [avant-rock](https://www.hearingthings.co/horse-lords-perpetual-motion-machine/) to [classic disco](https://www.hearingthings.co/the-psychological-horror-of-diana-ross-upside-down/). Greene has led a dual career since breaking out in 2011 with “[Another Girl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79J58LlPiAg&ref=hearingthings.co),” a softly glowing two-stepper built on a series of disembodied R&B samples that gets a steady stream of “still listening to this classic with tears in my eyes” type YouTube comments 15 years later. (Or, if you prefer, since making his onscreen debut as the swaggy white guy in Azealia Banks’ “[212](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Jv9fNPjgk&ref=hearingthings.co)” video around the same time.) On one hand, he’s a hardworking and in-demand club DJ whose recent itinerary had him in L.A. one weekend and Shanghai the next. On the other, he’s a devoted album artist, whose full-lengths—from 2017’s near-perfect *Feel Infinite* to last year’s Nosaj Thing collaboration *Verses GT*—form a halo just outside the limits of the sort of straight-up dancefloor fare he would play in his sets. *jg* is the first Jacques Greene album that’s not just *about* the club, in the nebulous, dreamy way of his earlier releases, but actually *for* it. Tracks like “[What You Say](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX4jP-RIQQA&ref=hearingthings.co)” still carry the old nostalgic warmth, but they yoke it to the biggest beats of his production career. It’s the first album, he says, whose tracks he can drop straight into a DJ set without making a club edit first. I haven’t had the pleasure of hearing it in a club yet, but I have listened a lot while running—the next best thing, perhaps—and I can confirm that I’m consistently logging faster 5k times with it in the earbuds than without. I was curious to hear from him about the differences between the two approaches to producing, both on a conceptual level and a granular one. Our conversation includes a fair amount of the latter, but presented in a way that I hope remains inviting to those who haven’t spent time in the Ableton trenches. We talked a lot about frequency ranges: the way that music for home listening often emphasizes the middle—the wide range where a guitar or a voice might sit—and club music tends to live in the extremes on either end (the deep bass of a kick drum you feel in your body; the trebly prickle of a shuffling hi-hat that gets your limbs moving). We also talked about the art of DJing, feeling a room and reacting to it; how you know when to keep things moving and when “we can all stay in this moment a little longer together.” --- **Your previous albums as a producer draw from club aesthetics, but are really aimed more at the listener at home. This album is full of tracks that you envision DJs playing in their sets. What different considerations are in your mind when you’re producing for each setting?** **Jacques Greene:** There are some things that are obvious on the level of the mix. In the past, I would make sure that my record had a lot more prominent midrange. A lot of my prerogative in the mixing was to send the drums to the back of the mix, actually. To have them have a lot of character, for sure, but to really have the melodies drive the record. Almost like an alternative rock record, where the lead guitar is the main thing. Even Jimmy Chamberlain in the Smashing Pumpkins, his drum parts are really powerful and interesting, but they’re way behind James Iha and Billy Corgan. But on a club record, that kick drum has gotta pop. And then there’s stuff about the structures of the songs themselves, like letting some parts ride out a little longer, or having other parts change a little faster. I was trying to analyze the way that I play [on my Rinse show](https://www.rinse.fm/shows/jacques-greene?ref=hearingthings.co), for instance, and a lot of the newer club music that I gravitate toward—like some of the [umru](https://umru.bandcamp.com/?ref=hearingthings.co) stuff, or [Cloudcore](https://cloudcore.bandcamp.com/?ref=hearingthings.co), a lot of the UK underground electronic stuff. And there’s a distinct ADD side to a lot of that music. Sixteen or 32 bars of an idea, then let’s move on. Without ever fully making prog house or trance, a lot of my stuff, like “Another Girl,” has this almost prog-house approach to just luxuriating in a moment and getting lost in it. This one is more like, here’s a fun idea, here’s a rush of adrenaline—OK, you’re used to it? Cool, next part. And that’s really reflective of how I started DJing. Some of the first club music that I loved was the crazier stuff, like Night Slugs, or the way Hudson Mohawke or Jackmaster would DJ. It was this exciting, sugar-rush way to treat the club. I’ve had a lot of moments in my music where the creative impulse for the song was: here’s what it feels like to *think about* when a song really hits when you’re on ecstasy. It’s like the memory of that really euphoric track. Whereas, building breakdowns and intros and drops, things that are really for the DJ, is functionally a little different. They’re less impressionistic. And they allow the DJ to create the moment themselves. I was following those impulses in the studio—thinking about that functionality in a more streamlined, direct way. **For a listener who is not in the club all the time, it might not always be clear that your past records *aren’t* really club records. The familiar kick drum pulse is usually there, but like you said, there’s more emphasis on the midrangey melodic stuff. What is it about that music that *doesn’t* really work in the club setting?** The physicality of the low end is just truly it. I got this record mixed by [Pearson Sound](https://pearsonsound.bandcamp.com/?ref=hearingthings.co), David Kennedy, who I think is one of the best technicians of the physicality of a club system. And he really comes from the school of what you would call a smile curve: It’s a lot of super low end, and a really bright, present high end, and scooping out the mids. But what’s kind of funny about all this, with the indie sleaze moment happening right now: mids are back, baby. If you go back to Justice and Sebastian and those guys, that was the most rebellious thing about that movement. What dance music was, in 2005, was extremely clean, technical stuff: minimal techno, prog house. And they were just, like, *no. We’re coming in at 800 Hz.* But it sounds good in a rock club, which is where that music was first played: by 20-year-olds in rock clubs. And the new indie sleaze stuff is being played in clubs with shitty soundsystems in New York. It makes sense. But when you’re at Fabric or Public Records or someplace like that, there’s nothing like the physicality of the low end. And unfortunately, that’s why the system’s gotta be loud, and you gotta bring earplugs. I wouldn’t say it’s a political act, but the physicality of the sound is a radical act against atomization, and the powers that be who want us to stay home and watch Netflix. Some people have a little bit of a subwoofer at home. But there really is nothing like a Danley at 105 decibels, with a bunch of 18-inch cones, and the strobes hitting at the same time. There is something about the inherent physicality and the demand for physical space of that kind of music that feels particularly potent and interesting to me. **Is the imaginary DJ who might be playing these tracks part of your creative process? Are you thinking about being in the booth as you produce?** The DJ I’m thinking about is often myself. One of the funnest parts about making a club album is that you can go road-test it like a standup comic before the special, in a way that you can’t as much with other styles of music. And the tracks all evolved through that process. *This part’s not long enough*, or *this snare is too loud.* Even picking the singles from this record, I’d go to the label, like, *I’ve been playing this one for people who have no idea what it is, and it’s a good reaction every time.* That’s really thrilling. I don’t want to sound like I think I’m a super-empath, but I am extremely sensitive to other people’s energy. I will feel extremely anxious if I feel that I’m making someone uncomfortable with a bad joke, or cutting a line at an airport. I want to make sure that people are having a good time. And I think that predisposition helps in a DJ booth. **I was thinking about this while doing my version of DJing at** [**the Hearing Things anniversary party**](https://www.hearingthings.co/hearing-things-second-birthday/) **the other night, which is just playing records. Even if it’s not in an environment for dancing, there are moments when I can just tell something is creating an atmosphere that people are responding to.** You feel people’s energy, dude. **How does that feeling figure into your sets?** It’s such an interesting thing to talk about, because it’s something I so intrinsically feel. And I think it’s a very good argument to not DJ too inebriated. Cocaine in the DJ booth sucks so bad. Avoid it at all costs. It’s terrible, because it blocks your empathy receptors. It doesn’t work. Two tequila sodas, to lose a little of the self-consciousness, to make you a little more daring—there’s an argument for that. But to block off too much of your capacity to feel a room is wild. And like you said, I could be in a date bar kind of spot, just playing some records, and I can feel it. I don’t know if it’s micro-movements, or what. I’m not so much of an aura, spirituality guy, but sometimes it does feel like it’s the energy emanating off of people. You just feel people tense up. Or vice versa, you play another thing and realize, *the room is better right now than it would be if I wasn’t here*. You could just be playing Ryuichi Sakamoto. It doesn’t have to be Carl Craig to 800 people. No matter the setting, you can feel if you’re doing a good or a bad job. **Are there particular moments on this album that you can remember being shaped by those experiences of playing the tracks out?** “[Presence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN1f8PGjKEg&ref=hearingthings.co),” in particular, was made with a couple of different rooms in mind. Stuff like Lights Down Low and the Under the 6th Street Bridge outdoor party, these L.A. parties that I ended up playing quite a few times in the last few years. And that’s one of the most midrangey tracks on the album. There’s these groovy, hypnotic, polyrhythmic moments, but there’s also these bright, jarring, in-your-face elements that snap you out of your groove and back into focus. That was specifically drawn from the way these systems are kind of not that great, but they’re very physical. I was trying to make a song that could be contained within that. **That’s something you don’t encounter in styles of music that aren’t geared toward DJs: The way a specific space, or even a specific soundsystem, can shape a piece of recorded music so directly.** You can really hear it. Talk about Ben Klock, “[Subzero](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmY6Dh-DLRc&ref=hearingthings.co)”—that record was made in a lab to be played at Berghain. And then there are hundreds of records that were made for that place and will never even get played there, they’re just made by people who went there a few times and thought, *I want to make something that hits in exactly the way that room hits*. And Panorama Bar records are completely different. The other room in the same club, totally different records. [nd\_baumecker](https://soundcloud.com/ndbaumecker?ref=hearingthings.co), all those records from up there, they have a totally different character. They have an Italo kick drum, and they’re picturing the shutters, and the layout of that room. Sometimes, I’ll almost try to imagine a theater play of different people attending a night when I’m DJing. Let’s say it’s a night when I’m headlining; it’s not just a heads-down, keeping the same vibe kind of night. I know people paid money to see me. It’s 1 a.m. at Elsewhere, I’m about to come on after this other guy, *let’s go.* You start with something extremely attention-grabbing, maybe it’s an intro kind of thing, it gets people going. Track two: even bigger. Then, track three, find the most perfectly good, perfectly boring record. That gets people to settle in. And then I game it out in my mind: I’m picturing someone like, “OK, cool, another tequila soda,” or, “Mark’s still in the bathroom, let’s go find him,” or, “My dealer just got here,” whatever it is. OK, that’s gonna be two and a half songs. So, two or three songs later, I’m like, “What’s the record to reel you back in?” I really try to imagine being the soundtrack to the movie of all these people’s nights out. **That reminds me, in a roundabout way, of something I remember** [**Wendy Eisenberg**](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/wendy-eisenberg/) **saying about a piece she had composed that was like an hour long. And it’s a totally different musical world from what you’re describing, but she was like, if you’re composing at that scale, you have to build in moments for people to tune out. It can’t be action all the time.** I had to learn that at a certain point. For a long time, my DJ sets were good, but they were *exhausting*, because I’m just constantly building and building, and it’s exciting the whole time. But when I’m clubbing, I’m not on the dancefloor for 90 minutes or two hours straight. I’m not even on the dancefloor for 35 minutes. You go on the dancefloor, you catch a dance for a few songs, you go give your ears a break, talk to your friends, you go, “Oh, that one sounds good,” you go back in, you come back out. It’s this stream that you can dip in and out of. And to build those ebbs and flows naturally into the thing, and take it in different places—that makes a lot more sense to me now than just pedal-to-the-metal. ### An Existential Film Score That Sees Right Through You URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/an-existential-film-score-that-sees-right-through-you/ Last updated: 2026-10-21T17:58:24.000Z Every entry in this week's Five Albums is digging at some essential and/or uncomfortable truth. From the score to a probing film about the head of Theranos to Puerto Rican liberation to our collective tendency to skip the fine print, reflections abound! a special offer two years in the making [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/annisale.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/2nd-anniversary-sale) Two years ago, we started a worker-owned music journalism publication to escape corporate media and blaze a new path forward. And we’re still at it. To celebrate our continued existence and faithful readers like you, we’re offering annual subscriptions at 30% off—that’s just $49 for full access to all of our reviews, features, podcasts, and more. [30% DISCOUNT OFFER ](https://www.hearingthings.co/2nd-anniversary-sale) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Stoic Breaks Down 10 Perfectly Produced Records URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/stoic-breaks-down-10-perfectly-produced-records/ Last updated: 2026-10-20T15:31:54.000Z Stoic’s journey through the music industry is a testament to self belief fit for a feel-good biopic, or at the very least a lengthy three-part TikTok storytime. Born and raised on Staten Island, he grew up inundated with New York hip-hop from Jay-Z and 50 Cent to home-borough heroes like Wu-Tang Clan. But it was hearing the music of MF Doom that initially inspired him to try making beats of his own. Like many a Gen Z music lover before him, he took to making type beats and posting them online to [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@stoic%5F?ref=hearingthings.co) and [Bandcamp](https://stoicmusic.bandcamp.com/?ref=hearingthings.co). By the time he was in nursing school, he was making more money from YouTube than he would’ve through medicine. That hustle led to placements with Afroman and Mick Jenkins and to collaborative albums with rappers like New Yorkers CJ Fly and [LifeOfThom](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/lifeofthom/). Eventually, it also led to work with Doechii, whose team sent her one of his songs, which she turned into the track “Bullfrog” from her Grammy-winning 2024 breakout *Alligator Bites Never Heal.* The song earned Stoic his first Grammy (actually just a [certificate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKiyGlP5eIg&t=825s&pp=ygUPc3RvaWMgZG9uIGNoZW56&ref=hearingthings.co) instead of a statue, but still!) All of that grind brings us to *Paella!,* his first-ever full-length producer compilation. As the hearty rice and veggie meal of its title suggests, *Paella!* is a colorful variety pack of music chased with features from some of indie rap’s finest. “I’m at this point in my career where I have access to some of my favorite artists, so my taste and my reach have kind of lined up,” he explains. “I think this is also the most confident I’ve ever been as a producer. Something a lot of producers struggle with early on is building a world and taking the reins instead of having the artist take the reins. I feel comfortable being in a room and guiding a song now, where five or six years ago, that wasn’t the case.” Confidence comes through in how the vocalists fill in his arrangements of live and programmed instruments. [Mavi](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/mavi/) and [Ovrkast](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/ovrkast/) double-dutch their way through the jumpy percussion and bass plunks of “Freefall” while LifeOfThom and Portland’s Wynne trade stressful stories about exes over the wonky piano of “Haircut.” Mick Jenkins barrels his way through the blaring saxophones of “Up & Away” opposite fellow Chicagoan Kaicrewsade and the gauzy strings of “Heat Up.” Paella was a dish Stoic’s mother used to make for him, and one that he still makes to this day (She lovingly recites her recipe on “The Recipe” interlude near the album’s middle.) That inspired the album’s name, but Stoic’s knack for mixing a hearty dish also extends to his picks for The Producers: beats that are even-keeled but full-bodied, making a statement larger than the sum of their parts. a special offer two years in the making [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/annisale.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/2nd-anniversary-sale) Two years ago, we started a worker-owned music journalism publication to escape corporate media and blaze a new path forward. And we’re still at it. To celebrate our continued existence and faithful readers like you, we’re offering annual subscriptions at 30% off—that’s just $49 for full access to all of our reviews, features, podcasts, and more. [30% DISCOUNT OFFER ](https://www.hearingthings.co/2nd-anniversary-sale) --- ## Jay Z: “[The Story of OJ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM7lw0Ovzq0&pp=ygUPdGhlIHN0b3J5IG9mIG9q&ref=hearingthings.co)” *Producer: No I.D.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/3000x3000bb-100-1.jpg) I truly think the chop on “The Story of O.J.” is up there, neck-and-neck with J Dilla’s “Don’t Cry”. It might even be a bit better in terms of a pure sample chop. No I.D. took a song, completely reworked and rearranged it, created a bunch of new sounds, and is also telling a story with that beat. JAY-Z’s going back and forth and playing with the beat, too—it’s so masterful. And it slaps, too. Not only is it technically amazing, the drums are killer. It’s one of the most perfect beats I’ve ever heard. **Hearing Things: You could go back to what No I.D. was doing on Common’s *Resurrection* and see it in those beats. He’s one-of-one.** Obviously he gets his flowers, but I think he belongs in more top 10, maybe even top five, conversations. --- ## Kendrick Lamar: “[Institutionalized](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L1POXocFIQ&pp=ygUaa2VuZHJpY2sgaW5zdGl0dXRpb25hbGl6ZWQ%3D&ref=hearingthings.co)” *Producers: Rahki & F. Halldin* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/1500x1500bb-100.jpg) **I remember exactly where I was when *To Pimp A Butterfly* came out: The album had accidentally dropped a few days early on iTunes and I bought it before the purchase link was deactivated. I sat with that album for days just soaking it all in.** The album did drop on the Tuesday before it was supposed to come out. I have a similar story: I was in high school at the time and had to have been 15 or 16, and when it dropped, my homie who also loves Kendrick texted me about it. I had only been at school for two hours that day—I was in physics class, I’ll never forget it—and the second that class ended, I got on the bus and missed the rest of the school day just to go home, lay in my bed, and listen to that album. It was the best first listen I’ve ever had. I remember “Institutionalized” specifically. **The first beat is my favorite of the two.** I actually disagree. The first beat was tough, but then the switch comes in! It’s mainly those drums, the swing on those drums and that snare specifically? You can’t not fucking bob your head to that. I was like *Holy shit! Oh my god, how did they do that?* --- ## Stevie Wonder: “[Superwoman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYpcCMxQXaE&pp=ygUYc3RldmllIHdvbmRlciBzdXBlcndvbWFu&ref=hearingthings.co)” *Producer: Stevie Wonder* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/1500x1500bb-100-1.jpg) Stevie produced pretty much all of *Music of My Mind.*A lot of the instruments are being played by him, and “Superwoman” is an eight minute ballad with two sections that are just so—everything on the production, from the chords he’s using to the way it’s all mixed, is so elegant and warm. It sounds like you’re being brought back in time, but everything is still fresh, which is something I’ve admired about Stevie Wonder and even Michael Jackson’s music: It still sounds current 30, 40, 50 years later. That’s a testament to those guys; that puts them at the highest level. --- ## A Tribe Called Quest: “[Electric Relaxation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHRnvjCkTsw&pp=ygUTZWxlY3RyaWMgcmVsYXhhdGlvbg%3D%3D&ref=hearingthings.co)” *Producer: Q-Tip* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/3000x3000bb-100-1-1.jpg) I gotta be honest: I’m admittedly not the hugest fan of ’90s boom-bap beats. People get mad when I say I don’t like beats from the ’90s, barring guys like Q-Tip or Dilla or Madlib—they just don’t hit me like that. “Electric Relaxation” is the exception to me. It’s a classic sample \[Ronnie Foster’s “Mystic Brew”\] that a lot of people have flipped by now, but it’s so beautiful. The simplicity of it is what gets me. Amazing bassline, the drums aren’t doing too much; it isn’t overproduced and everything fits together perfectly. --- ## King Geedorah: “[Fazers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2bEeA8ws2g&pp=ygUPZmF6ZXJzIGdlZWRvcmFo&ref=hearingthings.co)” *Producers: MF Doom & E. Mason* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/ab67616d0000b27306d27171f66d218e564b7891.jpg) For me, this is similar to “Electric Relaxation.” The sample is so simple, the vibe of it. We got Doom here, under his King Geedorah moniker, he’s a supervillain three-headed dragon attacking a town, and the way the strings and whatever other instruments in there are arranged. Something about it is so perfect. It sounds almost evil but triumphant at the same time, like the villain is winning. It speaks to so much of what Doom’s vibe was. Some of my favorite Doom raps are on “Fazers.” That’s one of the most perfect rap songs to me. ***Take Me To Your Leader* is one of the best produced Doom albums in his whole discography.** Doom is actually the reason I started producing. I have really good memories of sitting in the car with the homies in high school and freestyling to all the *Special Herbs* tapes on YouTube. And then when I started making beats, I was trying to emulate that feeling, so I could bring them to the car and we could rap over them. It all clicked for me in those moments. --- ## BADBADNOTGOOD: “[In Your Eyes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PCauQozne0&pp=ygUaYmFkYmFkbm90Z29vZCBpbiB5b3VyIGV5ZXM%3D&ref=hearingthings.co)” (feat. Charlotte Day Wilson) *Producer: BBNG* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/3000x3000bb-100-2.jpg) I slept on this album \[*IV*\] initially, probably for the first year or two after it came out. A couple of buddies had sent it to me and I thought it was good background music or whatever. I had known about BadBadNotGood for a while. I’ve loved them since a video they posted of them covering “Electric Relaxation” in an apartment. But three or four years ago, I was living in LA and I was like “Fuck it, let me run this album back.” I might’ve been driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, and that song comes on. The sun was hitting just right and I was like *Oh my god, how the fuck did I miss out on this?* I love how they’re able to get that vintage 60s or 70s sound on their instruments and through the chord progressions. Everyone’s taste in that band is incredible. The runs their bassist goes on always stand out to me. The drummer’s holding it down. And that’s not to mention Charlotte Day Wilson’s performance. Her voice sounds like she’s singing from the past or the future at the same time, and it cuts through like butter. --- ## Westside Gunn: “[Gunnlib](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8BnmR27cF8&pp=ygUHZ3VubmxpYg%3D%3D&ref=hearingthings.co)” *Producer: Madlib* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/1500x1500bb-100-2.jpg) Another somewhat straight forward flip, but leave it to Madlib to pick this section of whatever sample he picked to use as the entire thing. No one would pick that shit. It sounds so wonky. There’s only four to eight chops total in the entire track and it scratches the right itch for me. The vocal in the sample sounds so odd; the bass in there sounds like a standing bass just doin’ its thing, and then the turnaround at the end. Then there’s classic Westside, rapping right inside the pocket and talking bullshit. I love it so much. So fucking good. Madlib is my personal GOAT. His taste really helped shape my taste. --- ## Kaytranada: “[Lite Spots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZnou4zthz4&pp=ygUKbGl0ZSBzcG90cw%3D%3D&ref=hearingthings.co)” *Producer: Kaytranada* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/4000x4000bb-100.jpg) This is probably the wildest pick on my list. Going back to *99.9%,* I think most of Kaytranada’s collaborative albums have inspired the way I went about structuring *Paella!* I don’t know whether it’s a house or a jazz song Kaytra flipped for “Lite Spots.” But the way he used the vocal sample in there and how he did the drums and arranged and layered the bass—everything is so bouncy and you can’t help but move when you hear it. It creates the perfect amount of build up between drops—I don’t think the first drop happens until about 40 seconds into the song. It also shows Kaytra’s versatility because we all know he has a house and R&B bag, but he also has a deep hip-hop bag. **I feel like people forget Kaytranada is a Madlib baby. He’s extremely hip-hop. He’s produced songs for rappers from Mick Jenkins and Wiki to Mobb Deep.** One of my other favorite Kaytra joints is one he and Mick made called “Front Street.” That and “Grey Area” are fucking incredible. --- ## Mike: “[Evil Eye](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqpOhnXVLVc&pp=ygUNZXZpbCBleWUgbWlrZQ%3D%3D&ref=hearingthings.co)” *Producer: dj blackpower* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/3000x3000bb-100-3.jpg) It took me so long to get into Mike because, like other people, I thought he was copying what Earl was doing on *Some Rap Songs.* It was only after hearing Earl say that Mike was inspiring him during that period that I dug into his discography. At this point, *Disco!* is a top 10 rap album for me. So many good ones on there, so it was hard to pick just one song for this list, but “Evil Eye” is great. It’s a textbook definition of an intro track. I love when an artist can bring you in in the first second; the way he used the sample and kept the vocals in there and just rapped over it! A lot of people wouldn’t do that because the vocals would clash with one another, but his voice commands so much attention. I don’t know if it’s the tone or his flows or how every word at the end of bars rhymes with the next, which is extremely hard to do. I think this beat is perfect. Most of my favorite beats aren’t happy or sad—they fall in the middle, that bittersweet melancholy. **“Evil Eye” is what I imagine the pearly gates opening sounds like. And this beat is also very simple, just a couple chops and vocal layering. It’s a chunky loop on some Madlib shit.** Especially for sample-heavy guys, having a good ear is so important, and I think he has one of the best ears of any producer I know. --- ## Baby Keem: “[STATS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjZjG2rITh8&pp=ygUQYmFieSBrZWVtIHN0c2F0cw%3D%3D&ref=hearingthings.co)” *Producers: Baby Keem, Kal Banx, Keanu Beats, Nick Mira* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/3000x3000bb-100-4.jpg) **A nice ratchet one to close it out.** This song isn’t ratchet, it’s beautiful. **But ratchet *is* beautiful!** \[laughs\] Thanks for the correction. This is one of the hardest beats I’ve ever heard. As I’m sure you can tell from all the other beats I picked, I love a beat where there’s not too much going on. You’ve got some scattered synths in the background, some drums and an 808\. It might be a mixing thing or Baby Keem’s performance, but it’s just another perfect rap song to me. The energy of it just carries everything else. And then you have the beat switch with the sample from Cortex, a band that Doom used to sample a lot: Keem took the sample, threw it in the middle to break up the two halves of the song, and then the second half goes even harder somehow. I remember where I was when I heard that shit and I remember being completely blown away. I really love experimental stuff because sometimes, on the first listen you hate it, and then a month or a year later, you realize the genius of it. ### Here's Your Song of the Spooky Season URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/heres-your-song-of-the-spooky-season/ Last updated: 2026-10-16T13:39:25.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/post-punk-with-a-touch-of-steely-dan/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention.* --- This week, we've got a soundtrack for demonic hoedowns, a lyric we're still not convinced we're actually mishearing, an instant classic from the Cameron Winter of 2027(???) and more. And we would be remiss not to mention that today, October 15, [is the two-year anniversary of Hearing Things](https://www.hearingthings.co/hearing-things-second-birthday/). If you're not a subscriber yet, think of signing up as a birthday gift for this toddler-aged, worker-owned, non-algorithmic, fully independent music site. Don't you want to see more of that kind of thing in the world? If so, then scratch what I said before—think of it as a gift for *yourself*. a special offer two years in the making [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/annisale.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/2nd-anniversary-sale) Two years ago, we started a worker-owned music journalism publication to escape corporate media and blaze a new path forward. And we’re still at it. To celebrate our continued existence and faithful readers like you, we’re offering annual subscriptions at 30% off—that’s just $49 for full access to all of our reviews, features, podcasts, and more. [30% DISCOUNT OFFER ](https://www.hearingthings.co/2nd-anniversary-sale) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Somehow, Someway, We’re Turning 2 URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/hearing-things-second-birthday/ Last updated: 2026-10-15T14:58:14.000Z On Thursday, October 15, 2026, Hearing Things officially turns 2\. We’ve published hundreds of reviews, along with countless artist interviews, blog posts, podcast episodes, and longform features in that time, as the greater media ecosystem continues to warp and crumble around us. Why? Because we believe subscriber-driven, worker-owned journalism is the future, and working towards the goal of self-sufficiency outside of the corporate world is worth the fight. While editing an upcoming profile with the punk-lifer head of staunchly independent Canadian collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor, I kept returning to this one quote: “Still doing this is a fucking miracle. Still operating collectively is a fucking miracle. Still working with the same people is a fucking miracle.” We are only two years in with Hearing Things as a public project, but already I sense its rarity: Five longtime music critics and journalists who could choose to work alone, or go back to corporate media, instead banding together to present their own idiosyncratic hub of music discovery and taste. Like constructing a cabin by hand, HT’s growth has been steady and meaningful. Over the last year, we’ve increased our total membership and monthly subscription revenue by more than 30 percent. To our day-one annual subscribers, a massive Thank You. We hope you’ll keep riding shotgun on this wild trip in reader-supported music journalism. To those who’ve been on the fence about subscribing or re-subscribing: We need you, and we have some exciting stories on the horizon that you won’t want to miss. a special offer two years in the making [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/annisale.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/2nd-anniversary-sale) Two years ago, we started a worker-owned music journalism publication to escape corporate media and blaze a new path forward. And we’re still at it. To celebrate our continued existence and faithful readers like you, we’re offering annual subscriptions at 30% off—that’s just $49 for full access to all of our reviews, features, podcasts, and more. [30% DISCOUNT OFFER ](https://www.hearingthings.co/2nd-anniversary-sale) “Dedicated” is how I’ve often described Hearing Things’ readership, and the same could be said of the crowd that gathered late last Wednesday at Night Club 101 in Manhattan’s East Village for our 2nd anniversary celebration. It was the ideal environment for intimate solo sets from Hannah Frances and Tasha, two of our favorite singer-songwriters of late. And our very own Andy Cush and Dylan Green kept things moving with DJ and beat sets, respectively. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/tasha.JPG) Tasha bringing the springtime energy. On her latest album, the Chicago-raised, NYC-based Tasha embraced the theme of spring renewal with arms wide open. But the warm acoustic dispatches on *You Are Spring!* and across Tasha’s discography sounded just as cozy on this slightly chilly fall evening. Her music has a way of making the seasons come to her. Then it was time for Hannah Frances to play a mix of songs off last year’s *Nested in Tangles* and 2024’s *Keeper of the Shepherd*, a power duo of prog-folk records about thorny familial dynamics. “These time signatures are fucking me up… in a good way,” a friend whispered in my ear mid-set. 0:00 /1:18 1× **Hannah Frances performing “Steady in the Hand.”* At the very end, Frances played two songs from her yet-to-be-announced upcoming album. Maybe it was the stripped-back instrumentation, but the new work felt looser and more soulful. She said she got really into the Bee Gees while making the record, and that would become more apparent in the studio recording of the first track she played, set for release soon. Her final song blew me away. Joined onstage by pianist Damon Smith, Frances premiered “Always, All Ways” and immediately went full jazz-siren mode. The satisfying ups and downs of shifting time signatures and key changes that we know and love about HF’s music were smoothed out but intact nonetheless. Exuding maximum catharsis, Hannah Frances’s voice has never sounded more powerful—[hear it for yourself](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeMwioAK4T9/?ref=hearingthings.co). Our own Dylan Green ended the night on the main stage with an original beat set. Much like Dylan’s writing for Hearing Things, his live sets are a hip-hop history lesson, rife with loving shoutouts to great rappers, producers, and thinkers. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/dylan--1-.JPG) HT’s own Dylan Green! Thank you to the folks who came out. Thank you to anyone reading this. Thank you for two years. Here’s to many more. ### The Dancefloor Belongs to Tinashe URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/the-dancefloor-belongs-to-tinashe/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T17:45:52.000Z This week's crop of Five Albums are all designed to quicken your pulse and, in some cases, move your feet. Dance music that's dark and brooding or postmodern collaged psychedelia? Pop conventions turned inside out to appeal to your inner backyard goth or the ever-shifting dancefloor? All that matters is whether or not any of it makes you sweat. a special offer two years in the making [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/10/annisale.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/2nd-anniversary-sale) Two years ago, we started a worker-owned music journalism publication to escape corporate media and blaze a new path forward. And we’re still at it. To celebrate our continued existence and faithful readers like you, we’re offering annual subscriptions at 30% off—that’s just $49 for full access to all of our reviews, features, podcasts, and more. [30% DISCOUNT OFFER ](https://www.hearingthings.co/2nd-anniversary-sale) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Genuine Question: Has “Nicole Kidman” Singer Adéla Ever Seen a Nicole Kidman Film? URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/genuine-question-has-nicole-kidman-singer-adela-ever-seen-a-nicole-kidman-film/ Last updated: 2026-10-14T17:48:02.000Z *The concept behind our podcast* [Waste or Taste](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/waste-or-taste/) *is simple: Every episode, a group of Hearing Things founders gets together, with each person bringing a new song to the table. Then we debate whether those songs are “waste” or “taste.” Sometimes we reach a critical consensus; other times there’s fisticuffs, absurdity, or both.* sponsored by [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/corus-1.gif)](https://corus.fm/?ref=hearingthings.co) Corus is a social app for sharing and discovering music. Post your favorite songs and match with people that share your taste. Follow @hearingthings on the app too! [GET CORUS ](https://corus.fm/?ref=hearingthings.co) On this episode, Jill, Andy, and Ryan tackle Adéla’s ubiquitous ode to well-positioned boobs, “[Nicole Kidman](https://youtu.be/3sB4Iv%5FtM7U?si=8jcgQuTH3L8usBrA&ref=hearingthings.co)”; the vaguely Lynchian new rocker from [U2](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/u2/), “[Silencio](https://youtu.be/1mCN-RDh0-0?si=b4cvSM1joe8Y6qvj&ref=hearingthings.co)”; and avant-garde nepo baby [Tyondai Braxton](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/tyondai-braxton/)’s “[Multiplay II](https://youtu.be/OC9i4JcpBt8?si=pYJKwV4CbS0XQdL0&ref=hearingthings.co).” Bonus topics include: Why Nicole Kidman should not be on TikTok, Bushwick people who dress like Bono, and a hot new genre we’re calling glitch-fart polka. **Waste or Taste* is available to paying subscribers only—so now’s the time to join our ever-growing community of music obsessives! In addition to the podcast, you’ll be able to read our weekly Five Albums roundups, drop in on our Discord listening sessions, and bask in the glory of supporting 100-percent worker-owned music journalism. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Self-Actualization for the Pop and Rock Girlies URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/self-actualization-for-the-pop-and-rock-girlies/ Last updated: 2026-10-08T11:12:47.000Z Whether you're gong through a breakup or embracing calm in the face of trauma, this week's Five Albums are all bravely facing their truth. Don't shy away from who you are or what made you–it feels better to groove to it sponsored by [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/corus-1.gif)](https://corus.fm/?ref=hearingthings.co) Corus is a social app for sharing and discovering music. Post your favorite songs and match with people that share your taste. Follow @hearingthings on the app too! [GET CORUS ](https://corus.fm/?ref=hearingthings.co) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### John Wilson’s Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/john-wilson-history-of-concrete-review-music/ Last updated: 2026-10-17T17:10:40.000Z The appeal of documentarian John Wilson’s work lies in the element of quiet surprise. You strap in for one thing—like tips on tracking packages, as seen in the finale of his HBO series *How To With John Wilson—*and you end up at a cryogenic freezing plant, meditating on the impermanence of life itself. Through Wilson’s bleak humor, existential eye, and genuine curiosity, he’s able to tackle topics that might otherwise seem boring, especially ones involving the countless infrastructure flaws within his native New York City. (His work, in turn, has inspired the city to consider various fixes, from [tackling the scaffolding problem](https://variety.com/2026/politics/news/zohran-mamdani-john-wilson-nyc-scaffolding-1236713279/?ref=hearingthings.co) to [adding more public bathrooms](https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/09/mayor-mamdani-brings-17-new-public-bathrooms-to-neighborhoods-ac?ref=hearingthings.co).) “I think it’s important to treat really mundane things as if they are these important pieces of work,” Wilson said last year in a [MoMA interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwGWoqyQqTE&ref=hearingthings.co). If history is defined by the victors, then Wilson’s filmmaking presents a version grounded in the regular-degulars. sponsored by [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/corus-1.gif)](https://corus.fm/?ref=hearingthings.co) Corus is a social app for sharing and discovering music. Post your favorite songs and match with people that share your taste. Follow @hearingthings on the app too! [GET CORUS ](https://corus.fm/?ref=hearingthings.co) The same cycle repeats in Wilson’s new feature-length documentary, *The History of Concrete*: I went in expecting urban-planning nerdery and gentrification talk, and many detours later, I walked away feeling weirdly inspired and connected to an aging dive-bar musician and liquor sales rep named Jack Macco. The older I get, the more I’m drawn to characters that, in my younger days, I might have mistaken for hopeless failures. I know now that pursuing art for art’s sake is never a waste of time, even if your band’s called [Nebulus](https://www.nebulusnyc.com/?ref=hearingthings.co) and you’ve been on the [local scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlZpXHxqWu4&ref=hearingthings.co) for years. You can’t be a failure if you never quit. Such is the beauty of Wilson’s work. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### One Night in a Haunted Mansion With Slow Pulp URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/one-night-in-a-haunted-mansion-with-slow-pulp/ Last updated: 2026-10-17T17:09:57.000Z Emily Massey’s voice floats through the spooky old mansion with a longing that could break a ghost’s heart. The [Slow Pulp](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/slow-pulp/) singer sounds both ragged and determined as she runs through “[Spill](https://slowpulp.bandcamp.com/track/spill-2?ref=hearingthings.co),” a bleary slow-burner from the Chicago-based band’s third album of aching indie rock, [*Melodie*](https://slowpulp.bandcamp.com/album/melodie-2?ref=hearingthings.co). “So could you tell me you love me/Say it out loud/Wanna find out,” she pleads to an empty billiards room during soundcheck. Disappointment is embedded in her delivery, as if she already knows she’ll never hear those three little words of affection from that one particular person ever again. sponsored by [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/corus-1.gif)](https://corus.fm/?ref=hearingthings.co) Corus is a social app for sharing and discovering music. Post your favorite songs and match with people that share your taste. Follow @hearingthings on the app too! [GET CORUS ](https://corus.fm/?ref=hearingthings.co) It’s late August in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, so humid the mosquitos are flopping sweat as they swarm. In a few months, Slow Pulp will play for nearly 3,000 people in a venue a couple of subway stops away; on this evening, only about 100 fans will perspire alongside each other in this poorly ventilated manse known as [The Hancock](https://www.curbed.com/article/the-hancock-bed-stuy-new-york-party-house.html?ref=hearingthings.co) for an acoustic performance. The 10-bedroom home was built in 1887, and its history seeps out through the mauve wallpaper. Rumor has it that President Grover Cleveland, who was friends with the original owner, loved staying here. Fast-forward more than a century, and the building was bought by a hotel magnate from the Eastern European country Georgia for more than $6 million in 2018\. Since then, it’s served as a haven for struggling artists, who were granted rent-free stays; a post-pandemic party destination, before it was shut down by the cops; a home for the current owner’s wife and kids; an impromptu mud-wrestling ring; and a concert venue with considerable character. From the outside, the mansion looks like the perfect location for a slime-spewing set piece in a *Ghostbusters* movie. Inside, it seems as if these rooms have still only ever been lit by long, dripping candles. There are chandeliers that look like they’re made from petrified snakes. A framed painting of 19th-century men berating a demure woman. A tiny hobby horse figurine on the mantle. Various drawings of ballerinas. A three-foot statue that vaguely resembles Chuck Norris. As Massey’s eternal lonesomeness continues to echo through the space—*Tell me how I’m supposed to feel/Is this part of the city life?*—I think about the lives that once played out here. Maybe this band’s plainspoken songs could have unlocked empathy in the gentry of yore. Maybe maids and minders of the Gilded Age would have found solace in Massey’s comforting rasp. When they’re composed with adequate grace, maybe expressions of desire, grief, and doubt don’t ever really age at all. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for a free 30-day trial. [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### AI Album Covers Have No Place in Hip-Hop URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/ai-album-covers-have-no-place-in-hip-hop/ Last updated: 2026-10-07T19:12:56.000Z Rap album covers are my life. For the past few years, I’ve been able to pay for every meal I ate, every tank of gas, and every rent check with money made from hand-drawing and painting visuals for underground rap records. My methods are thorough: I listen to the full album, take pages of notes, and look at every cover in the artist’s discography to see where they’ve been and where I’d like to see them go. Then I present multiple concepts, sketch, outline, color, shade, and detail. There are usually multiple rounds of editing before I digitally scan my work, clean it up in Photoshop, and format it for physical copies, merch, and posters. Often I meet with the artists in their studios or homes. Sometimes they sleep on my couch. It is a long and personal process that has pushed my pen a great distance, connected me to real community, and led me to create some of my proudest work. For the cover of [Lungs and Phiik](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/phiik-lungs/)’s [*Carrot Season*](https://powrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/carrot-season?ref=hearingthings.co), the New York duo threw me a stack of references ranging from Hieronymus Bosch, medieval manuscripts, and the documentary *Gods of Times Square*. I spent a month distilling all this imagery, along with visual references to bars from the album, and painting it at scale with a brush as thin as a nose hair. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/carrotsea.png) The cover of Lungs and Phiik’s 2024 album **Carrot Season* with artwork by Chop the Head The process for [*Let Me Out*](https://deathbombarc.bandcamp.com/album/let-me-out?ref=hearingthings.co), by the New Jersey rapper [Fatboi Sharif](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/fatboi-sharif/) and producer Driveby, was much more open ended, with Sharif asking me to riff on a hellish version of “American Gothic”: The [cover](https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4288898039%5F10.jpg?ref=hearingthings.co) depicts a demon police officer restrained by a Black dominatrix posing for a family photo with a child. This is the kind of unrestrained, creatively rewarding work I’ve pursued my entire career. But now, generative AI is here to offer an alternative to all of this sweat, beauty, and purpose. Rather than spending late nights at my desk figuring out how to best present music made by my incredibly talented friends to the world, our tech dystopia is pushing me to scowl at my phone and wonder, *Does the cover for this new record by indie-rap legends* [*the Alchemist*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/the-alchemist/) *and Oh No look like shit on purpose or by accident?* Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including the rest of this article, weekly album and song recommendations, and our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### One of the Most Audacious Debuts of the Year URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/one-of-the-most-audacious-debuts-of-the-year/ Last updated: 2026-10-05T18:51:23.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* sponsored by [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/corus-1.gif)](https://corus.fm/?ref=hearingthings.co) Corus is a social app for sharing and discovering music. Post your favorite songs and match with people that share your taste. Follow @hearingthings on the app too! [GET CORUS ](https://corus.fm/?ref=hearingthings.co) The projects at the center of this week's Five Albums either retreat into their own little worlds or use (more than) a bit of themselves to color the world we all occupy. One of our two Must Hears of the week sprawls across genre, time, and space–when was the last time you heard an artist who could channel Kendrick Lamar, St. Vincent, drum’n’bass, and jock jams on one album? _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Rap Bomb-Thrower Brian Ennals on the Lyrics That Changed His Life URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/rap-bomb-thrower-brian-ennals-on-the-lyrics-that-changed-his-life/ Last updated: 2026-09-29T14:52:26.000Z [*Words Matter*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/words-matter/) *is an interview series where songwriters whose work means a lot to us talk about lyrics that mean a lot to them.* --- [Brian Ennals](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/brian-ennals/) doesn’t give you much time to contemplate his words before they start flying straight at your jaw. Many rappers use wordplay and metaphors to get their points across in clever ways; Ennals writes plainly, with an unfiltered directness mixed with stark honesty. The result is equal parts blistering and hilarious. He doesn’t just Go There—he drags you several miles away from There from the back of a motorcycle with a license plate that reads “ACAB.” Who needs punchlines when you’re willing to tell a Denny’s worker, as he does on he and producer Infinity Knives’s recent single “[*Amdia*](https://infinityknives666.bandcamp.com/album/amdia-ep?ref=hearingthings.co)*,”* to [ejaculate](https://www.hearingthings.co/an-ice-agents-least-favorite-rap-duo/) in an ICE agent’s breakfast? Or when you’re willing to write a song like “[Wet Noodle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h%5FoFJXWdzGg&pp=ygUXYnJpYW4gZW5uYWxzIHdldCBub29kbGU%3D&ref=hearingthings.co),” the first half of which is about how Ennals can’t get it up after doing too much cocaine while watching *Power?* This is a guy who can talk frankly about [suicidal ideation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsuHb2nOJ0Q&pp=ygUhYnJpYW4gZW5uYWxzIHNvbWV0aW1lcyBwYXBpIGNodWxv&ref=hearingthings.co), [bemoan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqI3wS8nPpI&pp=ygUSYnJpYW4gZW5uYWxzIGJhZ2d5&ref=hearingthings.co) Black Christians for taking “the same religion as their masters,” and say he would’ve been fine with the [January 6th riots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ommG1BHaQY&pp=ygUhYnJpYW4gZW5uYWxzIGRlYXRoIG9mIGEgY29uc3RhYmxl&ref=hearingthings.co) if MAGA rednecks weren’t behind it, all from the top of a burning cop car. His candidness on politics often grabs headlines—“The Iron Wall” from last year’s [*A City Drowned in God’s Black Tears*](https://infinityknives666.bandcamp.com/album/a-city-drowned-in-gods-black-tears?ref=hearingthings.co)went viral for its vicious condemnation of the sins of Israel and the United States—but he’s the first rapper I’ve heard in a long time who I can actually say “keeps it real” with a straight face. The last time I [interviewed](https://www.hearingthings.co/infinity-knives-brian-ennals-live-from-the-apocalypse/) Ennals, in 2025, things were hectic for him. He was on the cusp of releasing *God’s Black Tears,* his third collaborative album with Infinity Knives. And he was still living through the emotional turmoil of that project, which resulted in demons being unearthed, and he and Knives even coming to blows. At the time, he was also feeling stuck under the glass ceiling of indie music. A year and a half later, his head is clearer and his prospects are brighter. *God’s Black Tears* became something of a breakout for the duo, resulting in [rave reviews](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeJ3I-OAJaY&pp=ygUdYnJpYW4gZW5uYWxzIGFudGhvbnkgZmFudGFubyA%3D&ref=hearingthings.co), [sold-out](https://infinityknives666.bandcamp.com/album/a-city-drowned-in-gods-black-tears?ref=hearingthings.co) vinyl pressings, and a busier touring schedule. Ennals hasn’t become a star overnight, but through his work with Knives and this year’s *Boatshoes,* produced entirely by veteran beatmaker [Blockhead](https://www.hearingthings.co/blockhead-the-producers/), he appreciates the slow and steady ascent. “Incremental is good,” he tells me. “I don’t know if I’d know how to function if it sped up too quick, so this pace works for me.” The tracks Ennals chose for Words Matter all reflect the ambition and confrontational edge he brings to his raps. From heartbreaking torch songs to conceptual albums tackling issues of politics and race to radio-friendly pop, these are his choices for navigating a world on fire. --- ## The Four Tops: “[Baby I Need Your Loving](https://youtu.be/SLYX-KPv-ts?si=T6xY%5FTizReGVIZrV&ref=hearingthings.co)” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/fourtops.png) **Brian Ennals:** With these Motown hooks, man, it’s always build, build, build, and it explodes. You always get the orgasm. People often say we need to bring begging back to R&B, and I think they’re thinking of groups like Jodeci when they talk about that. But I think even deeper than that: When you go to Motown and the Philly sound, the songs sounded apocalyptic. Getting laid or loving this woman was comparable to the end of the world. If you need it so bad and you can’t have it, the meteorite’s gonna fucking hit. It’s more than begging—there’s stakes. When Levi Stubbs says he needs it, he means that shit. It’s the most animalistic need, but also the most humanistic one. **People have a tendency to sanitize the music of the Motown era and act like it wasn’t about that kind of love too.** That was boogie music, that *was* sex back then. If you were 13 years old in the ’60s, you wouldn’t play “Baby I Need Your Loving” in front of your grandmother who goes to church, just like I couldn’t play 2Pac’s “Hit ’Em Up” in front of my mom. --- ## The Isley Brothers: “[Voyage to Atlantis](https://3b2fcdfb.streak-link.com/DAXUsGGaWvJjl0sfyAmxusjc/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DLJ%5FsnOkHeVk?ref=hearingthings.co)” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/isleybros.png) This song sounds like resurrection, death, and coming back in another form to always be with the people you love. Atlantis being the afterlife, for lack of a better word—you’re going, but I’ll always be here in some form. Like I was saying with the Four Tops song, these are real stakes! They’re dealing with some metaphysical shit. Side note: There’s a song from Ja Rule’s first album, *Venni Vetti Vecci*,called “[Daddy’s Little Baby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsp4gQomUGw&ref=hearingthings.co)” that has Ronald Isley on it, and he reinterprets the hook for “Voyage to Atlantis.” I remember reading the credits in the CD booklet and seeing that in there in 1999, and the song’s stayed with me ever since. --- ## Stevie Wonder: “[They Won’t Go When I Go](https://3b2fcdfb.streak-link.com/DAXUsF9DQ%5FT8vCfiDA-X-nCZ/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DcdTKdm8hZZY?ref=hearingthings.co)” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/stevie.png) When I was in college in D.C., I used to drive around and listen to *Fulfillingness’ First Finale,* the album this song comes from. It’s probably my favorite Stevie album. On this song in particular, the lyrics, as I interpret them, are about these white liberals not having skin in the game of civil rights and revolution. These are people who ostensibly aren’t racist and support the advancement of people, but only within the realm of what they’re comfortable with. I remember when the uprisings were happening in 2015, and this white girl I went to high school with—cool people, nice girl—said, “We need change. I’m sick of the racism,” and yadda yadda yadda. Then a couple buildings got burned down and she said, “Well, this is not the way to go about it.” You don’t get to decide how the oppressed decide to take on their oppressor. You’re either fucking down or you’re not. That’s such a specific thing to write about, and writing about something so specific is hard. No shots at anybody, but it’s easy to write abstract. It’s not easy to have a very specific topic and expound upon that topic, and make it catchy and something to sing along to. “They Won’t Go When I Go” is a torch song, some campfire choir shit about something very granular. Expert songwriting. I don’t know if you can write better than that. Especially with what’s happened in the last 15 years and what’s going on now with ICE and whatever genocides are happening all over the world—obviously one is too many, but there’s plenty—this song will always be relevant. --- ## 2Pac: “[I Ain’t Mad at Cha](https://3b2fcdfb.streak-link.com/DAXUsGCamn5AFV8ALg0kLQkt/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dtn8N8JhgM0w?ref=hearingthings.co)” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/2pac.png) Pound for pound, this might be 2Pac’s best song. The best part about it is there’s the [album version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiCjD5qVV%5FU&pp=ygUkMnBhYyBJIGFpbid0IG1hZCBhdGNoYSBhbGJ1bSB2ZXJzaW9u&ref=hearingthings.co) and then a more contemplative [radio version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CSxdXvDJX8&pp=ygUcMnBhYyBJIGFpbid0IG1hZCBhdGNoYSByYWRpbw%3D%3D&ref=hearingthings.co); they each have different third verses and a completely different delivery. The radio version is three verses about having a friend who changes for whatever reason, but on the album version, he’s talking to his nigga, y’know? He’s talking to him without antagonism, but there’s friction. You’re not happy, but you’re playing it off, as we often do as Black men in particular. You’re hurt and you’re disappointed, but “I ain’t mad at cha.” He clearly is. That’s the gag of the song: He’s mad as shit. The contemplative version, with its change in delivery and the different third verse, becomes an inner monologue where he’s thinking about his friend instead of talking to him directly. “Oh, you a Muslim now, no more dope games” is, I think, the best line delivery in rap history, on both versions. When he says it on the album version, he nails it, and it’s funny. When he says it on the radio version, it feels like he’s regretting that he’s not making the same choice for himself. Again, songs like this aren’t easy to write. In the first verse, he describes an entire friendship he has with somebody since he was a kid up until the present day, what their issues are, and how they’re gonna go about it as it resolves or doesn’t resolve in 24 or 30 bars. That’s not easy, man! And not to compare myself in any way to fucking 2Pac, but “[The Badger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrPxu3gg51k&list=RDOrPxu3gg51k&start%5Fradio=1&ref=hearingthings.co)” from *King Cobra,* the song about the homeless guy, it took me six months to write! The fact that Pac probably wrote and recorded this song in a night makes it even more impressive. --- ## The Notorious B.I.G: “[Niggas Bleed](https://3b2fcdfb.streak-link.com/DAXUsGG8vPef28IEBgdBItPn/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DfWNMjU3UGnI?ref=hearingthings.co)” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/biggie.png) In the first verse of this song, a friend of Biggie’s named Arizona Ron is assigned by his boss to go do a drug deal. The boss tells him what to do, how much money to get, and tells him, “Promise you won’t rob ’em.” And Arizona Ron still leaves being like, *I’m absolutely gonna rob these niggas.* Then the second verse follows Arizona Ron, and you get this whirlwind of information about him: Why he acts like he does, where he’s been, bodies he’s caught. Not only does Biggie want to explain the characters in this narrative, he’s using Ron to explain his own motivations. Instead of Biggie saying, “This is why I do what I do,” he tells you what Arizona Ron does and draws the parallel to himself, which is songwriting on a level that’s unfathomable. What Biggie did on the second verse of “Niggas Bleed” is unprecedented shit. It takes so many listens, and you have to *listen* to the song. So there’s the setup in the first verse, the second verse where Ron explains his history and we learn about Biggie through that, and then the third verse is the actual robbery. That verse ends with three people dead, because Ron goes into the hotel to rob these dudes, and the girl at the front desk was in a house he robbed 10 years previously, so she knows they’re not playing and gives him the key. This is explained in three bars. It’s insane. It’s the best storytelling rap in hip-hop history from the best rapper of all time. --- ## The Rolling Stones: “[Sweet Black Angel](https://3b2fcdfb.streak-link.com/DAXUsGOvr-GnHENE-gDl%5F9YI/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DCwekn8dDxCo?ref=hearingthings.co)” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/stones.png) People always talk about white British guys rapping as Black people, and this song is the best example of that. They’re Black on that song in a very literal way—not in a minstrel way, but they’re rapping from the perspective of a Black person. They say the word “nigger” in the song, but in context, it makes sense. It really digs into how hard it is to be Black in the South. I’m a hip-hop and R&B dude, but there’s certain rock and country artists I respect. I respect the Stones, and that’s the song I go back to. It feels like an American standard you sing in elementary school, like “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” or “America the Beautiful,” which is pretty but describing something really ugly. They really put themselves in the shoes of other human beings. ### The Afterlives of Okayplayer URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/the-afterlives-of-okayplayer/ Last updated: 2026-09-28T13:18:14.000Z *Hearing Things is partnering with the grantmaking and learning initiative Critical Minded to publish the following adapted selection from* Liner Notes: A Critic’s Notebook*, a new collection exploring the changing landscape of music criticism through essays, conversations, and reporting from critics of color. The complete issue, accompanying the report* Beautiful Struggles: Critics of Color and the Pop Music Landscape*, and companion podcast are available at* [*Critical Minded*](https://criticalminded.org/?ref=hearingthings.co)*.* --- A few years ago, I started hearing from my communication and music students at NYU, Seton Hall, and Borough of Manhattan Community College about the excitement of discussing new albums on Twitch, in group chats, and in password-protected Discords. The heated public debates on message boards and Twitter have largely migrated toward these sorts of private online spaces—a shift with both benefits and downsides. You can forge tighter bonds, but groupthink can also create echo chambers. Back in the day, informed heads would check you for your bad taste, then *educate* you. I recognize that, for Gen Z, the internet is where hip-hop has always lived, and my students are just trying to carve out their space in hip-hop fandom. I relate to this desire. For decades, the music lived in the imagined “streets,” but that all began to change around 1999, when my fellow music obsessives and I helped to establish one of the first online homes for hip-hop: a message board and community known as [Okayplayer](https://www.okayplayer.com/?ref=hearingthings.co). Decades before social media and the phrase “online music community” were studied in [academia](https://www.proquest.com/docview/3193413764?fromopenview=true&pq-origsite=gscholar&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals&ref=hearingthings.co), Okayplayer was a pivotal early outpost where hip-hop fans from all over the world could commiserate, debate, build bonds, share music they liked and made, and interact with their favorite artists. Co-founded by writer Angela Nissel and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, it transformed from a standard fan site for the Roots into a tastemaking hub for left-of-center hip-hop and a [Black digital homeplace](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20563051221117570?ref=hearingthings.co)—a forebear of Tumblr, Black Twitter, Soundcloud, and Reddit. Okayplayer also functioned as a talent incubator, where a national pool of music nerds helped artists refine and elevate their games, ultimately leading to new waves of hip-hop music that endure to this day. And along the way, it changed hip-hop fandom as we know it. In 1999, I was a senior at a rural North Carolina high school who happened to own an Ecko T-shirt with “[okayplayer.com](http://okayplayer.com/?ref=hearingthings.co)” printed on it. In my computer tech class, I typed in the web address and found this black-and-white text world of people with cool aliases talking about Black Thought’s best verses and funny *Rap City* episodes, with Questlove actually responding to questions from regular users. Me and most of my friends were Wu and Roc-A-Fella fans at the time, but this was a space where I could nerd out and learn from strangers and real artists about the underground and music coming out of my own Southern region, not just the major-label East Coast hip-hop that was popular at school. Taste is a means of experiencing the world. The word is primarily sensory, but even in its origin, it confers critical evaluation: “tasten,” its Middle English root, means to touch, taste, or *test*—and in this space, we could test out some of everything. We joke about social media’s age range today, but OKP had teenagers like me, thirtysomethings like Questlove, fresh-out-of-college folk like Nissel and even older music heads of all genres communing in the same space. This diversity allowed for taste expansion beyond hip-hop: Users would post [BB King](https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show%5Ftopic&forum=17&topic%5Fid=170311&mesg%5Fid=170311&page=&ref=hearingthings.co) and [Lou Reed](https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show%5Ftopic&forum=17&topic%5Fid=162272&mesg%5Fid=162272&page=2&ref=hearingthings.co) memorial posts with a treasure trove of music and context, while denizens of a subforum called The Lesson would help popularize the term “[yacht rock](https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=printer%5Ffriendly&forum=5&topic%5Fid=2897962&ref=hearingthings.co)” (and correct you on its right usage if you were confused). Among other things, OKP was a place to learn about music from people who knew more about it than you. My degree may be in communication, but I was trained in musicology by OKP. On this message board where we traded album recommendations and life stories, for the first time, the hip-hop fan was no longer an invisible, imagined audience or the occasional radio call-in critic. The internet gave the fan a [voice](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00335630109384328?ref=hearingthings.co). Before it all metastasized into Stan armies and parasocial psychosis, we were unknowingly creating a grammar of online music fandom—not just fawning over our faves, but critiquing, interrogating, and challenging them. The barrier between artist and audience was coming down. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/okpboard2000.png) The Okayplayer boards circa 2000 via the Internet Archive On social media today, you can see people disparaging the “armchair A&Rs”: Fans who give unsolicited advice, acting as if they work in the industry. If you check my X bio, you will see “armchair A&R.” At OKP, we embraced this [persona](https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show%5Ftopic&forum=17&topic%5Fid=62160&mesg%5Fid=62160&page=&ref=hearingthings.co), recognizing our agency and letting artists know what we really wanted. As comedian, podcaster, and former OKP moderator Desus Nice [once noted fondly](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C95XUwoxOfS/?ref=hearingthings.co), we had artists like Jill Scott and Talib Kweli mad enough to address OKP’s armchair A&Rs in song. Old heads like myself can have rap-fan amnesia, claiming that the current disinhibition in rap fans online is a sign of their dysfunctionality. In actuality, it was passed down from us. But often, underneath the occasional vitriol on the OKP message boards lived solid constructive criticism that artists appreciated. A moderator named fire100 once told me many artists “[from Prince on down](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20563051221117570?ref=hearingthings.co)” would lurk with obscure names to get blunt and honest feedback in the same way musicians search their names on Twitter today. As OKP founding member Shawn Gee [told Complex](https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/damien-scott/the-oral-history-of-okayplayer?ref=hearingthings.co) in 2013, “Before that, there was always a third party between the fans and the artist. Sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad.” I co-sign user [mistak5](https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show%5Ftopic&forum=4&topic%5Fid=13329700&mesg%5Fid=13329700&page=&ref=hearingthings.co#13337214)’s sentiment, shared in 2019: “The snark was part of what made \[OKP\] so great but we definitely took it too far many times.” Indeed, OKP was a primordial space for music snark and clapbacks that live on in Black digital culture today. We often went too far, but we were figuring out our identity and voice, just like today’s youth. While there were internet trolls, most people didn’t critique music for clout, because fandom couldn’t generate sponsorship deals or anything tangible besides props back then. They were just sharing genuine opinions and beliefs in a democratic space where criticism could be a form of support. When I consider the afterlife of OKP, the sincerity is what I always return to. I see traces of the site’s snark everywhere, but the community aspect that helped contextualize that snark is often missing. Sharing knowledge and taste—and supporting each other—is what really made OKP special, and it’s also something I worry my students don’t have access to in today’s climate. OKP was a social network predicated on what fandom [expert](https://williamwolff.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/baym-ch1-2015.pdf?ref=hearingthings.co) Nancy Baym denotes as “the five hallmarks of social music communities”: a sense of space, shared practice, shared resources and support, shared identities, and interpersonal relationships. It felt like a home—not just a public forum, but a productive dwelling space for identity and taste. And for Black folk in particular, this [digital hush harbor](https://www.drmelvasampson.com/womanist-works/digital-hush-harbors-black-preaching-women-and-black-digital-religious-networks?ref=hearingthings.co) allowed us to freely express ourselves, share our identities, and commiserate with others—without any interference from outside sources—before a digital identity could be attached to you. OKP embodied what we call in social network studies “[structural equivalence,](https://sk.sagepub.com/ency/edvol/socialnetworks/chpt/structural-equivalence?ref=hearingthings.co#%5F)” where there’s no hierarchy, and no demarcated preference. Any type of fan could be heard. Nissel, the creator of the message boards, told me once that as young Black people, “We built this community because we [needed it!](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20563051221117570?ref=hearingthings.co)” And as DJ, artist, and podcaster Donwill [argued](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSo%5FSxxX0hU&t=1034s&ref=hearingthings.co), “The Roots found fans, but we found each other, and having the space to be honest and seeing other people have honest conversations inspired you to feel you could be real.” You could discuss your college life or your breakups alongside the music. This is why I don’t fully embrace the argument that [OKP was the original Black Twitter](https://twitter.com/Melanism/status/1099512307514834944?s=20&ref=hearingthings.co)—because it was more than that. It was a social network functioning as a homeplace. But its influence is undeniable: The rhetorical [innovation](https://twitter.com/anildash/status/1099418172338384897?s=27&ref=hearingthings.co) of Black signifying through memes and jokes was present in OKP’s early days, [long before social media](https://x.com/djrtistic/status/697566769238532096?s=27&ref=hearingthings.co). In music-fandom studies, there’s much discussion about [relational labor](http://pinguet.free.fr/scholz13.pdf?ref=hearingthings.co), which is often how users make fan pages, merch, and beyond for clout and to garner attention from the artists. We had a solid dose of that on OKP, but the real relational labor was stuff we made for ourselves. Fans were making OKP TV and filming vlogs about [artists](http://youtube.com/watch?v=pLj0ZLFrfso&pp=ygUWb2theXBsYXllciBkb2N1bWVudGFyeQ%3D%3D&ref=hearingthings.co) that we championed on the site like [JDavey](https://youtu.be/ba00uwHX7Dw?si=ii5qzlT0d3Nkcd3q&ref=hearingthings.co) or Janelle Monáe. They were shooting rare performances of [the Roots and Jimmy Fallon in 2009.](https://youtu.be/fz2UO4g48EE?si=faa-sRP6KXLwt5vU&ref=hearingthings.co) Fans even made [WTF: An Okaymentuary,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyZB44O43v8&ref=hearingthings.co) a 30-minute doc on the history of the OKP message boards. Similar to the Discord servers my students frequent, we created OKP Music Club to share music directly and talk offline. Users Deephunk and DJ Tara took their love for J Dilla and made [Donuts Are Forever](https://buildingbeats.org/donuts-are-forever?ref=hearingthings.co), currently in its 20th year, as a global event celebrating the life of Dilla, a patron [saint of the site.](https://www.okayplayer.com/okayplayer-celebrates-25-years-with-25-essential-artists-from-the-okp-boards/403188?ref=hearingthings.co) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/okpdilla.png) The OKP homepage following J Dilla’s death in 2006 via the Internet Archive North Carolina trio Little Brother was one of the first hip-hop groups whose fans lived online. They framed themselves as students of hip-hop’s golden age, retaining its lessons as they pushed the culture forward. They rapped about the things we talked about on the boards: [dating](https://youtu.be/hitkfTo5Tfk?si=ItuSsR23kmeq4hK5&ref=hearingthings.co), [jobs](https://youtu.be/PJOp993H1%5Fo?si=7ISrIQxc7ghyLW13&ref=hearingthings.co), and wanting to do something creative. It’s no wonder they spoke the language of Okayplayer: They themselves were active members. For them, OKP functioned as a musical sounding board and an [online street team](https://www.okayplayer.com/little-brother-has-come-a-long-way-from-the-okayplayer-boards/323078?ref=hearingthings.co), spreading the word from the internet to the industry. As a North Carolina native, I was just 45 minutes away from Little Brother and their Justus League crew. I knew firsthand that there was no street buzz for the group back then, outside of their support at the beloved (and tiny) Carrboro venue Cat’s Cradle. But online—anticipating the later tactics of Stan armies and clipping teams—we were Little Brother missionaries, spreading the gospel about online friends becoming underground hip-hop icons. We [shared grainy tour videos](https://youtu.be/lO70H2jvEIo?si=OezBejhiFF6kP%5FJG&ref=hearingthings.co), bought merch, and posted magazine-interview scans. Hip-hop icons like Pete Rock and De La Soul were soon up on Little Brother; it was only a matter of time before major labels came calling. They were featured in *XXL* and *The Source* and gave Red Bull [lectures.](https://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/phonte-bro-where-art-though?ref=hearingthings.co) The group’s producer, 9th Wonder, started working with Jigga and Beyoncé. According to Little Brother’s Phonte, the boards were also important in terms of creative feedback. “I remember those early days of making records and putting them online, and it was like, ‘Yo, if this ain’t right, we’re gonna hear about it. The Player gon’ tell us,’” the MC once [said in an interview](https://www.okayplayer.com/little-brother-has-come-a-long-way-from-the-okayplayer-boards/323078?ref=hearingthings.co). “The message boards didn’t care about nothing. If your shit was wack, motherfuckers would let you know immediately.” With the OKP boards, Phonte and Little Brother had a built-in focus group with an ethos of keeping it honest—and many did, especially regarding their disdain 9th Wonder’s drums. As Little Brother rose through the industry, I watched a Southern rap sound from my home state—that wasn’t bounce or trap—carve out a space in hip-hop *and* signal the power of online audiences. Phonte and Big Pooh disrupted the paradigm: You didn’t need a label, access to a big studio, or to be from a hip-hop heavy region. There’s no blog era, and no interrogation of your amount of followers by lazy A&Rs, until OKP showed the power of the online hip-hop fan. Unfortunately, the labels had little idea what to do with an online audience in 2005, and Little Brother remained a cult phenomenon. “The problem that we had was that we had an audience that the label [couldn't really see](https://www.papermag.com/little-brother-the-listening?ref=hearingthings.co#rebelltitem4),” Phone once pointed out. “This was even before social media so they couldn’t even see followers and likes on a post. There was no way to quantify the audience that we had… Someone had to be that bridge from A Tribe Called Quest to Kendrick.” But thanks in part to a generation of OKP fans, Little Brother became something like the Velvet Underground for the next generation of hip-hop, helping to set the stage for later North Carolina artists like J. Cole and Mavi, and even playing a hand in Drake’s rise to cultural domination. The first Drake [song](https://youtu.be/yBm-Fe6jL1M?si=ZE6ZWoXTbxi6H5K6&ref=hearingthings.co) I heard (in 2007, well before he took over the radio) was on Okayplayer, and it featured Little Brother. In 2011, a fresh-faced Drake [was interviewed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vy06Ucwu1U&ref=hearingthings.co) alongside 9th Wonder and said his goal at the time was to get a No. 1 hit with a song produced by the Little Brother beatsmith; the same year, he [called Phonte](https://web.archive.org/web/20120115044425/http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2011/11/drake%5Finterview%5Fasap%5Frocky%5Fnelly%5Fbattle%5Frap.php?page=2) “one of the biggest influences on my career.” The Foreign Exchange, Phonte’s Grammy-winning downtempo duo with Dutch producer Nicolay, also[ launched on OKP](https://www.okayplayer.com/okayplayer-celebrates-25-years-with-25-essential-artists-from-the-okp-boards/403188?ref=hearingthings.co); *Connected*, their debut, is a clear precursor to the moody ambience of Drake’s production on *So Far Gone* and to his low-key, conversational cadences. It wasn’t just Drake. I remember Kendrick [opening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%5FXvs2o6uEXw&ref=hearingthings.co) for Little Brother via an OKP post right before the release of his breakout mixtape *Section.80*. In the same way my students feel connected to blog-era rappers they discovered early and watched blow up, we felt connected to Little Brother’s success and failures; the breakups and the reconciliations. The boards were there to support them [through it all. ](https://www.okayplayer.com/little-brother-has-come-a-long-way-from-the-okayplayer-boards/323078?ref=hearingthings.co) Our labor lives on in the digital cultural memory of hip-hop. The California rapper/singer [Zayallcaps](https://x.com/zayallcaps/status/2050656679172387324?s=20&ref=hearingthings.co), 27, recently posted that his father was a former OKP member and put him on to Little Brother. In a recent conversation, Zay waxed poetic about their influence: They “made you feel like you was in the dorms kickin’ it… as an adult I appreciated how relatable and regular they were, like these are regular dudes with incredible rap skills... they’re the epitome of hip-hop to me. I absolutely try to embody that shit in my music.” In similar reverence, Brooklyn-based singer and rapper [Kelly Moonstone](https://www.hearingthings.co/kelly-moonstone-is-waxing-and-loving-it/), 31, explains that Little Brother had a seismic impact on her. “I really think that without Phonte, and the impact of him and Little Brother as a unit,I wouldn’t exist exactly the same as I am now.” I can only beam with pride at the knowledge that both OKP and North Carolina love has actually been passed down to the new generation of rap fans and artists. Other artists—Oddisee, Kev Brown—were on the boards, too. One of the funniest corners of OKP, The Lesson, was moderated by rappers and producers Rob Cave, Von Pea, and Donwill. Joined by Elucide, who was also a frequent poster, they formed a rap collective called Lessondary, after the forum itself. They became fixtures of New York’s independent hip-hop renaissance in the late 2000s, embodying the same wit, irreverence, and community-minded ethos that made OKP feel like more than a website. Years later, I found myself on the other side of that lineage: My NYU students kept insisting I listen to [Elucid](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/elucid/), and it took me a minute to realize they were talking about the same rapper whose posts I’d spent years reading online. Today, as one half of [Armand Hammer](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/armand-hammer/) and a cornerstone of Backwoodz Studioz, Elucid carries forward something unmistakably OKP: the sly humor, the productive snark, the direct dialogue with fans, and an insistence on building an alternative cultural infrastructure outside the industry’s center of gravity. Okayplayer’s legacy lives on in other ways. The writer and fan communities of blogs like No Bells are heirs to OKP. The NYC-based collective expanded beyond a magazine and started hosting live events, readings, pop-ups and Discord channels to share new indie and alternative hip-hop. No Bells founder Mano Sundaresan has since become the editor-in-chief of Pitchfork. You can also see the lingering OKP ethos in [That Good Shit](https://www.instagram.com/thatgoodsht/?hl=en&ref=hearingthings.co), a creative hub co-run by my former NYU student Quincy Davis. A DJ/MC/producer who endured my “make your own space” speech way too many times for his own good, he has since started holding shows at [after-hours barbershops.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/style/nyu-students-party-at-beloved-barbershop.html?ref=hearingthings.co) TGS has created an online space, launched [live events](https://ma.to/event/bric-house-party-good-shit-9-may-2026?ref=hearingthings.co) and pop-ups, and cultivated community support based around shared taste in “the good shit.” I am biased, but I hope it flourishes. And Okayplayer OGs still influence the culture, too. It can feel like being a member of a fraternity or sorority, watching people from the boards grow and flourish in their creative pursuits. On the *Questlove Supreme* podcast, Desus explained how the site was a proving ground for his and the Kid Mero’s comedic attitude and style, and where they found early followers. Nissel was in a screenwriters club with people like me and @ikemoses, and would later write for *Scrubs* and *The Boondocks*. OKP member @jazzbeezy, aka Joseph Patel, would talk music on the boards and share some of his early journalistic work advocating for Roots-adjacent artists. Years later, he became a film producer. We [celebrated on Twitter](https://x.com/flyasimis/status/1099546664618975233?s=27&ref=hearingthings.co) when he and Quest won an Oscar for *Summer of Soul*, with art direction from fellow OKP alumni @fwmj, aka Frank William Miller Jr. A few Saturdays ago, I went to my old job at BRIC in Downtown Brooklyn and witnessed something that felt like the message boards coming to life. A cosmopolitan audience was gathered at the 20th Donuts Are Forever event to honor Dilla and raise money for the music-education nonprofit Building Beats. I walked into the venue and dapped up @deephunk and some OKP veterans. I bobbed my head as I watched a slideshow of past Donuts visitors, which could have doubled as a showcase of many members of the OKP fam. I saw Phonte, my neighbor Donwill, people who helped me get jobs, people I dated, and people who have supported me since I was in my 20s. Time has a way of turning loops into songs: Looking around the room, I realized that all those years on OKP had functioned like a sample, a fragment that felt small in isolation but became transformative once it worked its way into the melody. As the Dilla was cranked up and Questlove took over DJ duties, I looked over to see Joseph Patel and felt transported back to my teen years for a moment. The message boards, the inside jokes, the mixtape threads, the heated debates over albums—all of it was chopped, replayed, and stretched across decades until it became friendships, careers, marriages, collaborations, memorials, and eventually a fundraiser for the community. As I gazed on all the faces I had first encountered as usernames, I realized with joy that the forum my community lamented had simply been pressed into a different format. The platforms have changed, but their central ethos has lived on—artists and listeners creating a space for one another, on their own terms. --- *Hearing Things is a proud* [*Critical Minded*](https://criticalminded.org/?ref=hearingthings.co) *grant recipient.* ### Miley's Religious Conversion URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/mileys-religious-conversion/ Last updated: 2026-09-25T14:27:06.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/post-punk-with-a-touch-of-steely-dan/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention.* --- This week, we've got industrial desert blues from one of the world's best new bands, goosebump-raising R&B about going country, the coolest possible new direction for Miley Cyrus, and more. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A History of Hip-Hop’s Obsession With Lean URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/a-history-of-hip-hops-obsession-with-lean/ Last updated: 2026-09-30T12:38:24.000Z In June, the estate of legendary Houston producer and turntablist [DJ Screw](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/dj-screw/) announced that his full catalog—previously available exclusively through physical tapes and unofficial YouTube uploads—would be released on streaming services. A press release touted the rollout as “a celebration of DJ Screw’s enduring legacy and the culture he built.” That legacy is deeply complicated: Screw’s innovative approach to producing and remixing not only formed part of the bedrock of Southern hip-hop, but also pop culture’s deep fascination with codeine and promethazine, the two primary components of the syrupy narcotic drink best known as lean. More than 25 years after Screw’s death, lean might be the central ingredient in hip-hop’s opioid crisis, which is part of the broader opioid crisis currently gripping America. The aesthetics of lean are still seemingly everywhere these days: the rage rap revival of [Lil Uzi Vert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trUbRz0RwYU&ref=hearingthings.co)’s latest EP *Maverick “Almost Forever,”* the sharp introspection of [Nino Paid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcc1fS8JIz8&ref=hearingthings.co), and the wide-eyed street raps of indie experimentalists like [Sideshow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGxI99-CPDE&ref=hearingthings.co). Even after it took the lives of icons like Pimp C and Screw himself, lean is still a drug of choice for so many rappers. It’s worth asking how lean has maintained its hold on hip-hop’s imagination, and how it’s transformed from its first references on wax in the early and mid 1990s. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Rebuilding Your Home Through the Power of Music URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/rebuilding-your-home-through-the-power-of-music/ Last updated: 2026-09-23T13:09:17.000Z What does it take to redefine, rebuild, and reconstruct a sound? This week's picks for Five Albums all attempt to answer that question—and two of them are Must Hears! no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for a free 30-day trial. [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Halima’s Hero’s Journey to the Club and Back URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/halimas-heros-journey-to-the-club-and-back/ Last updated: 2026-09-28T18:30:13.000Z The music industry can be dictated by the churn of the release schedule—an album drops after a roll-out and then it’s on to the next. It’s something we’ve talked a lot about here at Hearing Things, as music critics who have in the past felt obligated (or even forced) to listen to, process, and review albums as quickly as they drop. But release cycles are simply not how music exists in peoples’ lives; art doesn’t glean meaning from its drop date, our relationship to it evolves as we grow, classics tend to be classics forever, and all of us are certainly still listening to and discovering new music from one, two, 20, 50 years ago. As true as this is for listeners, it can be that way for artists, too—a fact I discuss with Halima Edozie-Akinlade, the Nigerian British Brooklynite known mononymously as Halima, around the one-year anniversary of her 2025 debut album, [*Sweet Tooth*](https://shop.drinksumwtr.com/products/sweet-tooth?ref=hearingthings.co). Though the 29-year-old singer, songwriter, and producer has been making music since she was a kid, releasing a whole album was an accomplishment she’d long wanted to achieve—a sort of odyssey she had to take. “It feels like no time has passed and also like a lifetime has passed,” she says over video chat, her speaking voice carrying the same warm lilt of her singing voice. “I feel like I actually got to live the project, and now I can look at it and see, in a strange way, its function in my life. You have your whole life to write your debut album, and realizing that’s the function of it—the end of the beginning.” *Sweet Tooth* is a slow-burner for me, too—one that just gets better the more I’ve listened to it over the past year. It’s a foray through Halima’s most-loved genres, and a bit of a flex that she can nail them so frothily: UK garage with shiny cascading scales, midtempo heaters tinged with Afropop-inspired synths, alt-pop ballads thick with atmospheric chords and plugged-in folk guitar, humid 2 a.m. wining music, hyperpoppy R&B romance, sweltering hip-hop percussion, and more. They’re united by her gymnastic, velvety alto and detailed tales of love, sensuality, and yearning: “Am I your one baby?/Coz you’re my eau de vie/And I your one ìfé mi?/Tonight your one ìfé mi,” she mewls trilingually over the sweeping synths of “[Eau de Vie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBO7dIvy5yc&ref=hearingthings.co).” And on the woozy album closer “Callum,” Halima paints a detailed portrait of her homie rolling joints pristine while she writes love songs: “If I fall off," she sings gingerly, both tentative and sure. “Could you find me, babe?” Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### When a Rapper Aims a Diss Track at His Own Wife URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/when-a-rapper-aims-a-diss-track-at-his-own-wife/ Last updated: 2026-09-19T13:19:44.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/post-punk-with-a-touch-of-steely-dan/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention.* --- This week, we've got the Balkan-folk equivalent of "No Scrubs," the return of a grime king, a murderously chill diss track about the rapper's wife, a cover of Red Hot Chili Peppers that's way better than you're imagining, and more. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Come Celebrate Our 2nd Anniversary! URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/come-celebrate-our-2nd-anniversary/ Last updated: 2026-09-17T15:08:11.000Z With our 2nd anniversary coming up next month, we’re commemorating our continued existence with a very special show. On October 7 at [Night Club 101](https://www.nightclub101.com/?ref=hearingthings.co) in Manhattan, we’re hosting a night of fall-friendly music starring two exceptional singer-songwriters: [Hannah Frances](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/hannah-frances/) and [Tasha](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/tasha/). Alongside those performances, Hearing Things’ very own [Andy Cush](https://www.hearingthings.co/author/andy-cush/) will be spinning vinyl, and [Dylan Green](https://www.hearingthings.co/author/dylan-green/) will be showing off some of the [brand new beats he’s been working on](https://www.hearingthings.co/how-i-became-a-beatmaker-by-watching-other-people-make-beats/). Also: In an era of spiraling costs, these tickets are extremely affordable! We really just want to celebrate with the readers who make Hearing Things possible. [Tickets](https://www.ticketweb.com/event/music-with-hearing-things-night-club-101-tickets/14321824?ref=hearingthings.co) We’re extremely psyched about this lineup. Hannah Frances’s 2025 album [*Nestled in the Tangles*](https://hannahfrances.bandcamp.com/album/nested-in-tangles?ref=hearingthings.co) scored a place on [Jill’s year-end list](https://www.hearingthings.co/jill-mapes-favorite-music-of-2025/), where she wrote, “This roving singer-songwriter makes music that feels like being swaddled, until suddenly the blanket is wrapped so tightly you’re suffocating. This is a compliment, a feat really.” Let’s get swaddled and suffocated, people! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/09/Hannahtasha.png) Hannah Frances photo by Grant Hindsley; Tasha photo by Eleanor Petry Meanwhile, in his review of Tasha’s gorgeous recent LP [*You Are Spring!*](https://tashamusic.bandcamp.com/album/you-are-spring?ref=hearingthings.co), [Andy raved](https://www.hearingthings.co/a-future-classic-for-alt-black-queer-folks/), “It’s a record of everyday details, easy melodic turns, sighs of gratitude. The effect is effortless, but in fact it takes careful craft to sound so unbothered without sounding smug. Put it on, soak it in, walk away happier.” It’s 2026, we all deserve some elegant solace. See you there! [Tickets](https://www.ticketweb.com/event/music-with-hearing-things-night-club-101-tickets/14321824?ref=hearingthings.co) ### An ICE Agent’s Least Favorite Rap Duo URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/an-ice-agents-least-favorite-rap-duo/ Last updated: 2026-09-18T13:56:50.000Z In some sense, all of this week’s picks for Five Albums are rallying against something. Some are ready to bring down ICE and erase gentrification (who says hip-hop's lost its political edge?), while others bend their artistic tastes into sterling revolutionary shapes. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for a free 30-day trial. [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Most Consequential Southern Rap Verse Ever Recorded URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/the-most-consequential-southern-rap-verse-ever-recorded/ Last updated: 2026-09-15T15:31:06.000Z The one opportunity I had to speak with Bun B was far too brief, and the occasion far too solemn, to ask him the question I really wanted to ask. It was August 9, 2015, the one-year anniversary of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the flashpoint for the Black Lives Matter movement. Bun B was in neighboring St. Louis for a concert organized to show support for the community that had endured not only the tragic loss of Brown’s life to police violence and the militarized repression of their protest, but also the indignity of the grand jury decision to not indict the officer who killed the 18-year-old. Officially, I was there in the capacity of a journalist documenting the varied ways Brown’s life was being remembered and celebrated. Backstage at the venue, though, I was a hip-hop head standing in awe of the fact I was only a few feet away from a certified legend. I was close enough that it would have been easy to introduce myself to Bun, and I’d seen him be more than willing to have conversations with others, so I probably could have gotten away with a few questions. But given the circumstances that had brought us both there, it didn’t feel wholly appropriate to ask him what was actually on my mind, a question I ask myself on a near weekly basis: *How the fuck did you rap like that on “*[*Murder*](https://youtu.be/aulDS37WXuQ?si=5K1Lar6jJ6Mrs2Kn&ref=hearingthings.co)*”????* no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Sweeping Promises On the Songs They Want to Soundtrack Their Funerals URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/sweeping-promises-interview-funeral-playlist/ Last updated: 2026-09-21T15:24:46.000Z [*Existential Playlist*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/existential-playlist/) *is an interview series where artists tell us about the music they want played at their own memorial service, delving into some of life’s biggest questions along the way.* --- Lira Mondal remembers the moment she fell in love with Yo La Tengo in such specific detail, there’s no doubting it was a formative music memory for the Sweeping Things vocalist-guitarist. At Hendrix, the small Arkansas college where she met her partner in life and music, Caufield Schnug, there was a cafe in the student center with “vestigial global cafe decor, a little bit rundown like your cool aunt’s living room, a little bit like Panera in the ’90s, with a small stage,” she describes. There, at a slam poetry night thrown by English majors, is where she first encountered YLT’s music, thanks to an upperclassman who resembled Henry Rollins. “He was so imposing physically, but he had such a gooey center. He recited this poem set to ‘[Green Arrow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=CjyEU6gStSU&ref=hearingthings.co),’ that instrumental piece with the crickets off *I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One*. It opened up something inside me that I didn’t even know had been locked away.” This was long before Mondal found herself in a husband-wife indie rock duo (sometimes rounded out with a third, drummer Spenser Gralla), much like Yo La Tengo. Over the last two decades, she and Mondal have made community wherever they’ve settled, from Conway, Arkansas, to Boston, Massachusetts, to Lawrence, Kansas (which they liken to Berkeley, California). Their home there serves as a recording studio, show house, and crash pad for like-minded Midwest punks. “Our running joke is that we want a friend compound, which—the way that things are going in the world—is probably going to be a necessity,” says Mondal. “We’re both kind of busybodies who love to be in the mix. We would be bed and breakfast hosts if not for this. When Caufield’s recording a band in the house, there’s a positive energy that’s carrying forth, and we want to be a part of that. It’s basically a prolonged social call, but it’s also mission-driven: we’re here to make art.” Before deciding on Lawrence, the pair went on research trips trying to find the right city to affordably build their weirdo music compound. Turns out they seriously considered Youngstown, Ohio, aka my own rust-belt hometown near the Pennsylvania border. “We almost bought a church in Lowellville,” says Schnug. “It was 100 grand for like 3,000 square feet.” Asked what was wrong with it, Schnug replied: “Everything. Plus I think we would have bitten off more than we could chew in terms of luring people there. Lawrence is the center of the country, a hub with lots of spokes leading to it.” Sometimes Mondal and Schnug are so busy facilitating and recording others’ music, it takes Sweeping Promises a year and a half to finish recording a new album. Such was the case with *You Say I Romanticize*, their recent third LP, where their incisive social critiques and even spikier guitars reach the peak of their powers. Mondal’s opera-singer training allows her to tap into a rarified space vocally; she is easily one of the best and most impactful singers in rock’n’roll right now. Her choral-focused picks below underscore her traditional training, while Schnug’s funeral picks lean more towards forced discomfort. Just like in song, their oppositional qualities fit together like imperfect harmony. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for a free 30-day trial. [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Drake Musical Theater, But Somehow Good URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/drake-musical-theater-but-somehow-good/ Last updated: 2026-09-14T22:58:30.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/post-punk-with-a-touch-of-steely-dan/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention.* --- This week, we've got the most mind-boggling grooves ever laid down by a septuagenarian, a Mexican club heater that might make you want to flip a table, and—yeah, what it says in the headline. Let's get to it. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Tubs’ Owen Williams on the Lyrics That Changed His Life URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/the-tubs-owen-williams-on-the-lyrics-that-changed-his-life/ Last updated: 2026-09-21T15:23:56.000Z [*Words Matter*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/words-matter/) *is an interview series where songwriters whose work means a lot to us talk about lyrics that mean a lot to them.* --- *Hard Life*, the beery and sharp-witted third album by London quartet the Tubs, is one of those fall-in-love-with-rock-n-roll-all-over-again records for me, as I told songwriter Owen Williams a few weeks ago. He was in a sunny cafe backyard in England and I was in my kitchen in Brooklyn. The service wasn’t great and his devices kept dying, but a friend of his was working that day and supplied him with a backup charger. From 3,500 miles away, that struck me as poignant. One of *Hard Life*’s many winning qualities is the window it gives on a certain tumbledown millennial bohemian existence that’s quite familiar to me. Perhaps you’re working the sort of service job you thought you’d outgrown after your career in some “creative industry” hit the skids; the money’s no good, but with loneliness at an all-time high, at least you’ve got plenty of fellow burnouts to hang with. Perhaps you even play in a band. Some misguided part of me may have thought I’d outgrown the kind of music the Tubs play, too: fast and rowdy, but tuneful; not above sentimental turns of melody and teenage sorts of pain; meant, above all, for singing along. The guitars are clean and jangly, the drum fills relentless. Just when you think a song is winding down, the band crashes in again. Imagine a Welshman fronting the Replacements, or the punk album Richard Thompson never made. The possibility that there’s something just a little embarrassing about all this racket *at your age* is part of what the music is about. Williams is always poking fun at himself, at least a little, but not because the feelings he writes about aren’t real. As he said about Stephin Merritt, one of the songwriters he chose to discuss in our interview: “He’s allowing the emotion of the cliché to become even more felt because he’s parodying it.” Williams is also an accomplished prose writer. Early this year, he published a book of essays called [*Atrocity Exhibitions: Grieving in the TikTok Underworld*](https://roughtradebooks.com/products/atrocity-exhibitions-grieving-in-the-tiktok-underworld-owen-williams?ref=hearingthings.co). His Substack is filled with [self-deprecating tour diaries](https://thetubstack.substack.com/p/tubs-on-tour), [cheeky meditations on the aesthetics of contemporary political writing](https://thetubstack.substack.com/p/sympathy-for-the-discourse-writer), and [more audacious and historically informed rock criticism than most pros can muster](https://thetubstack.substack.com/p/tubstack-10-bourgeois-neoprog), even if you disagree with his conclusions about prog. He writes excellent lyrics, too, but not in the verbosely intellectual way that his bona fides might lead you to expect. He favors everyday vocabulary and syntax, and focuses his literary energies on manipulating the ironic distance between what his narrators say and what we as listeners take them to mean. There’s a line from the fiddlin’ pub-rock breakup song “[Stoop to Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqyxUkQ-H6M&ref=hearingthings.co)” that cracks me up every time I hear it: “You *basically* promised that you would stay.” The sniveling adverb conveys everything we need to know about the guy delivering the harangue. Williams’ men are often pathetic, but that doesn’t stop us from sympathizing with them. He’s a master of what Walter Becker called the “a sneer and a tear” approach to Steely Dan’s songwriting, though one suspects the Dan’s arsenal of jazz chords is probably a touch too fussy for him. Laugh all you want at the blowhards, browbeaters, and no-good boyfriends that populate his songs. You can’t help but feel their pain, too. *Hard Life* is out via Merge Records this Friday, September 11\. Our interview—which touches on Hank Williams, Jr., the Smiths, Tracy Chapman, and more—is below. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Love Letter for The End of the World URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/a-love-letter-for-the-end-of-the-world/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T13:13:06.000Z The world is constantly burning, but that just means we have more inspiration to create. All five of this week's albums approach their work with zeal and a deconstructionist's eye for detail. Plus, two completely unrelated David Lynch references in the blurbs! no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What Does It Even Mean to Be a Music Critic Now? URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/what-does-it-even-mean-to-be-a-music-critic-now/ Last updated: 2026-09-08T16:36:35.000Z *Hearing Things is partnering with the grantmaking and learning initiative Critical Minded to publish the following adapted selection from* Liner Notes: A Critic’s Notebook*, a new collection exploring the changing landscape of music criticism through essays, conversations, and reporting from critics of color. The complete issue, accompanying the report* Beautiful Struggles: Critics of Color and the Pop Music Landscape*, and companion podcast are available at* [*Critical Minded*](https://criticalminded.org/?ref=hearingthings.co)*.* --- Every summer since 2019, I’ve taught a six-week undergraduate culture writing elective at New York University, helping students translate their opinions into criticism that braids analysis, context, argument, sensory awareness, and the confidence to state a clear point of view. Occasionally, a student shows up who seems instinctively attuned to the craft of writing about music. But with music critic gigs in dismal supply, few could comfortably imagine themselves doing it full-time. In 2025, the course was canceled due to low enrollment. I also teach feature writing at NYU and, in the spring of 2025, I had that class read dream hampton’s 1998 *Vibe* profile, “[Jay-Z: The Life](https://www.dreamhampton.com/articles/jay-z-the-life?ref=hearingthings.co).” The piece is a masterclass in empathy and accountability, an early portrait of Jay-Z as a complex figure, emotionally detached from the community impacted by his street hustling. The nine graduate students in the course—mostly women of color in their 20s—appreciated not only hampton’s prose but her critique of the Brooklyn rapper’s nonchalance. Some students were surprised, noting that today’s writers couldn’t get away with such a candid analysis of a high-profile celebrity. Which outlets would even allow it? Criticism hasn’t disappeared, of course, but the concept of “the critic” has never felt more nebulous. A generation ago, pop music critics built their careers reviewing albums, interviewing musicians and covering local scenes for national magazines and alt-weeklies. Black critics throughout the 1980s and the ’90s regularly analyzed and contextualized hip-hop stars as they came of age. But the infrastructure that once supported work like hampton’s no longer exists. While mainstream outlets like *Rolling Stone* led broader discussions about pop music, publications like *The Source*, *XXL,* and *Vibe* emerged to bridge the gap, serving as testing grounds where writers could legitimately challenge artists about their art.Decades later, some of those same publications that showcased high-level criticism have become artist-friendly aggregators with diminished resources and authority. Many of us who still practice traditional music criticism now see it as just one element of a broader writing portfolio. We’ll write an album review, moderate a panel, or produce sponsored content for artists. But where “the critic” once felt essential to preserving music as an art form, it’s clear the role has become more perishable. A oncestable, esteemed title has steadily collapsed into a side hustle for many (including myself), with a select few critics working at music-forward publications (*Rolling Stone*, NPR, Pitchfork, The Ringer) or holding staff and contributor positions at legacy outlets (*The New York Times*, *The New Yorker*, *New York Magazine*, *The Atlantic*). I casually surveyed two of my former NYU students and a mentee, and they shared a similar concern about whether there’s still value in calling yourself a music critic these days. One student hesitates to claim the title outright: “The fact that I don’t spend most of my time covering music puts me on the fence,” he wrote to me. Before graduating, the student applied for fellowships and staff writing positions at magazines and newspapers, hoping to land a job that would allow him to write about music full-time, to no avail. “For most people I know, music coverage is something they do outside their 9-to-5.” The sad truth is that, at present, most readers do not read, let alone engage with, legitimate music critiques. Meanwhile, amateur reviews are everywhere, sprawled throughout a vast, decentralized space. Part of the problem is that criticism involves, well, being *critical*. Inevitably, we find ourselves in a tug-of-war between the artists creating the work and listeners who think their favorite artist deserves more recognition or praise. That tension is historically productive, pushing all sides to evaluate what they value in music—and allowing traditional critics to influence audience taste, place albums in a cultural context, and combat fan bias. After all, many of the best critics developed their voice not through formal journalistic channels but through obsessive listening, reading, and the slow accumulation of knowledge. Those habits are harder to cultivate, however, in a system where the economic incentives point elsewhere. What does it mean to now call yourself a critic if the ecosystem has radically shifted? I came up in the mid-2000s, during the blog era, when digital media began to drastically increase in popularity but print was still king.I worked alongside editors and writers who treated criticism as a serious craft, and wrote plenty of clumsy reviews before I learned how to write competent ones. The experience forced me to take the work of criticism seriously, and I learned how to articulate an argument about music rather than simply react to it, eventually writing for *The Village Voice*. Even when I wasn’t writing straight-up album reviews, I was doing the work of a critic because the publications and editors I wrote for made space for honest critiques about music, regardless of the article format. Sharing my taste felt intimidating, but it showed me how vital critics are to synthesizing the world around us. Unfortunately, publications that served as training grounds in the ’90s and 2000s have either shut down (*The Village Voice*, MTV News) or undergone significant changes. The old system provided aspiring critics a place to develop their voice, learn from mistakes, and be guided by experienced editors; now, those opportunities are limited. Universities and arts programs that nurtured criticism are facing their own financial setbacks, as schools prioritize fields deemed more sustainable. A crucial part of learning criticism is reading and deconstructing older reviews for knowledge and context. But some aspiring critics see subscription-based models as a barrier to entry. One of the students I surveyed said the pay-to-play model “makes reviews less accessible and undermines their impact as conversation starters.” Writers now work in a landscape where independent creators and publications alike fret endlessly about advertisers, fan armies, and access: Critics in 2026 must now meet the demands of a media world that prioritizes marketable on-camera personalities. Conversations that used to mainly appear in mainstream print now happen on podcasts, YouTube videos, Substack newsletters, and as fragmented micro-analyses on social media threads. In turn, anyone interested in writing about music for pay, including seasoned journalists, is expected to move across multiple media formats—but the pay-to-play model introduces new complications. As much as it pains many of us to admit, while these digital creators often lack the methodology and ethics needed to be deemed true “critics”—they tend to thrive in the same environment where written criticism is increasingly disregarded. Perhaps the most popular and polarizing of them all, Anthony Fantano, transformed his public radio show *The Needle Drop* into a YouTube channel that’s gained over 3 million subscribers since 2009\. (For context, NYT’s “Popcast,” an audio and video podcast hosted by the paper’s veteran writers Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, has just over 100,000 YouTube subscribers.) *Rolling Stone* named Fantano one of 2024’s most influential creators. That same year, *Spin* profiled him, arguing that “there is a strong case for him as modern music’s most successful individual critic, with a reputation tied to no entity but his own.” That type of viewership suggests that fans and audiences want *some* form of discussion and engagement around music. Many critics have adapted, and a small number have successfully built independent audiences. The aforementioned “Popcast” examines pop music releases and industry trends. Other podcasts like “Pop Pantheon” and “60 Songs That Explain the ’90s”revisit older music while discussing contemporary artists. YouTube and TikTok have welcomed a new wave of independent commentators who deconstruct songs and albums in short-form videos and interview artists. Their reach often surpasses that of traditional publications, but the cultural authority once held by critics has dwindled, along with the media institutions that supported them. This democratization of criticism, while helping to reduce widespread elitism, has created new tensions. On the one hand, this openness has made music discussions less exclusive and less intimidating, removing the long-held stigma of the critic as the grizzled malcontent opining from their lofty perch. Butthe apparent mainstreaming of expertise has lessened the role critics once played in shaping public discourse. This shift naturally changes how younger writers view and adopt the “critic” label— a fear affirmed and echoed by music writers who’ve been forced to abandon the kind of criticism they *want* to pursue because of editorial restrictions, widespread layoffs, industry politics, and a dearth of paid gigs for which criticism is valued and well compensated. “Critic” often sounds too narrow and, in some cases, too negative. For others, the title feels unearned or too sacred to claim. For Gen Z’s aspiring critics, there’s no real standardized pipeline—and not much of an informal one, either. But the idea of the Renaissance critic isn’t entirely new. Black critics have always had to carve out space in an industry dominated by white men. In their case, “music critic” was an expansive label, not limited to solely writing about music. Black critics of the past were versatile journalists and thinkers covering the arts, community, and politics, often working as documentarians and artists themselves, treating their work as extensions of their daily lives and identities. The late Greg Tate not only critiqued rap and rock but also composed original music with his collective, the Black Rock Coalition. Nelson George authored screenplays and liner notes. Black criticism was a collective effort, affording writers both cultural and tangible currency—they could make a living doing it. “Critic,” in that social climate, became a badge of honor in an exclusionary media landscape. Tate discussed this on a *NYT* panel titled “The Vitality of Black Critics,” recalling how Amiri Baraka’s writings shaped his own understanding of music criticism: “\[T\]he opportunity to talk about the music is of course the opportunity to bring our whole lives to who we are,” Tate explained, “and it’s also the reason that most of us who were writing in the ’80s and \[the\] ’90s really became, or were, multidisciplinary artists. We never thought that criticism was the be all and end all of what we had to offer.” Indeed, many of our luminaries wore a thousand hats. Today’s critics—many of whom came up in stable digital media environments—may have stumbled into an echo of this reality in the media’s new gig economy. The critic-as-creator paradigm, in turn, reaffirms the eternal romantic bond between art and criticism. So is the music critic truly dead, or simply experiencing a crisis of ingenuity? The truth likely exists somewhere between a fatalist view and the exceptionalist Renaissance model. Despite the bleak prospects, none of this means criticism is obsolete. Criticism is ultimately a product of sustained curiosity and care; music criticism persists because it offers the type of context and friction that fandom alone cannot. It complicates the neat narratives that dominate social media, distinguishing itself from “conversations about music,” which can and do happen anywhere. Written criticism is, in fact, a specialized skill that not everyone can do, though they can learn. While the job will likely continue to become more niche under the new media structure, contemporary critics are arguably still multidisciplinary artists, as Tate defined, practicing some form of criticism, even if it is largely a labor of love. --- *Hearing Things is a proud* [*Critical Minded*](https://criticalminded.org/?ref=hearingthings.co) *grant recipient.* ### Gen-Z Rock Philosophy and Psychedelic Onomatopoeia URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/gen-z-rock-philosophy-and-psychedelic-onomatopoeia/ Last updated: 2026-09-07T22:01:23.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/post-punk-with-a-touch-of-steely-dan/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention.* --- We've got an especially hot lineup this week. Searing raps about reparations for swagger-jacking, a dizzying satirical trip through the worst of the peak indie era, viral snap music that scales psychedelic heights of onomatopoeic dirty talk, and two different songs that had our writers wondering independently: was the whole thing a dream? no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Did Someone Say "Supergroups"? URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/did-someone-say-supergroups/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T15:40:12.000Z What happens when titans of respective music scenes come together? Sometimes, you get a conglomerate of hip-hop antiheroes (and one very special guest); other times, you get ambient jazz music about the solar system. Two of this week's Five Albums came from supergroups, another is the result of a trio returning to the fore after an 11-year hiatus, and the rest bring the polish of a collective with them. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### That Time Dolly Came to My Little Wyoming Hometown URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/dolly-parton-cheyenne-frontier-days/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T16:27:26.000Z Though I’d never met Dolly Parton, growing up in the late 1970s and 1980s, I felt certain that she was one of my tías. There were reasons for this “relationship,” which long predated the parasocial nature of today’s famous people seeming constantly available to their fans via screens. For one: Dolly had notoriously big tetas, just like all the women in my family. So my 3-year-old brain connected Dolly’s chiffon-clad bosom with my mom’s, where I lay my head when she held me in her lap. And Dolly had big-ass, curly hair; hers was white-blonde, and my mom and tías’ was black, but slotting the country idol as an honored member of the Escobedo family coifs was not much of a stretch for a toddler. Most importantly, in 1978, my dad had taken photographs of Dolly. So we had candid, casual pics of her around the house, in which she seemed more like a regular person than an untouchable superstar. Some important context: I grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming, which holds a massive outdoor rodeo called Cheyenne Frontier Days every July. In 1972, the planning committee began organizing concerts at night in the 19,000-person rodeo arena. They would set up a stage in the middle of a flat expanse of dirt meant for bull-riding and calf-roping, before carting it out on trucks in time for the next day’s rodeo competitions. But they still needed a way for the musical acts to get from the parking lot to the stage in some dignified way, without being seen. That’s where my dad, an amateur photographer who came from a working-class family of truckers and loggers and loved road-tripping, came in. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Fiddlin’ Funk Fantasy Called “Froggy” URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/a-fiddlin-funk-fantasy-called-froggy/ Last updated: 2026-08-31T13:49:34.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/post-punk-with-a-touch-of-steely-dan/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention.* --- This week, we've got a surfeit of whimsical-woodland-creature vibes, a club banger about firing your therapist, and more. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Real Rockers Fostering Real Community (Seriously) URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/real-rockers-fostering-real-community/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T13:52:45.000Z What does it mean to "keep it real?" Tell the truth? Or be true to yourself? All the artists in this week's Five Albums are digging at what makes them them—for better and for worse. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Blockhead Breaks Down Seven Perfectly Produced Records URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/blockhead-the-producers/ Last updated: 2026-09-07T22:01:13.000Z [*The Producers*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/the-producers/) *is an interview series where our favorite artists discuss their favorite music production.* --- Alternative hip-hop remains in a state of [flux and mutation](https://www.hearingthings.co/earl-sweatshirt-mike-and-sideshow-are-proving-that-rap-doesnt-need-to-have-a-chosen-one/), but you can always count on Blockhead to be a constant. A veteran with nearly 30 years of experience, the New York-born producer and DJ has steadfastly kept to hip-hop fundamentals while sounding fresh in every era. He’s made beats for all of your favorites—he’s made full-length albums with Aesop Rock and Billy Woods and has collaborated with artists from Illogic and Hangar 18 to Vordul Mega and Open Mike Eagle—while keeping a steady drip of instrumental tapes. Blockhead, whose real name is Tony Simon, first embarked on his path from the time he was 14, when he was first digging through his mother’s cassette collection for samples. He recalls finding the drums from Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Miss Lover” and giving it “to an older rapper friend at the time.” Coincidentally, those drums would end up being picked and used by A Tribe Called Quest on the beat for “Scenario” years later, further solidifying Blockhead's penchant for good percussion. “When I was 18,” he remembers, “I got an ASR-10 for Christmas, and the rest is history.” Blockhead’s found-sound approach lends itself well to a style primed on the best hip-hop of the 1990s and 2000s. His exhaustive curiosity led him to reach out to the Baltimore rapper Brian Ennals, with whom he released the zonkily psychedelic [*Boatshoes*](https://blockheadnyc.bandcamp.com/album/boatshoes?ref=hearingthings.co)earlier this year. They’d collaborated before—Ennals contributed the song “[Sad Vampire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kV8sWaibSU&pp=ygUYYnJpYW4gZW5uYWxzIHNhZCB2YW1waXJl&ref=hearingthings.co)” to *The Aux*, Blockhead’s 2023 compilation for Backwoodz Studioz—and *Boatshoes* came from Ennals’s ear as much as Blockhead’s. “The beats on there are things I’ve been working on for years,” Blockhead says, “and he just picked the ones no rapper I work with would ever use.” *Boatshoes* is all clanging drums and psychedelic loops with just a touch of mania to match Ennals’s sardonic bouts of socioeconomic (looting your local imperialist supermarket) and personal truth-telling. That madcap energy defines *Boatshoes*, since both Brian and Blockhead are straightforward and raw in ways familiar and patently insane. Blockhead even had to stop Ennals from releasing “[Wet Noodle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h%5FoFJXWdzGg&ref=hearingthings.co),” a song partly about erectile dysfunction,, as a single. As a hip-hop connoisseur, Blockhead’s choices for The Producers skew toward dreamy loops and pounding drums. He also threw in a few curveballs—a remix of a Björk deep cut; a full-length Fiona Apple album—but otherwise, this is a master of layered loops paying homage to the beats that raised him. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Twink Robin to Charli's Batman URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/the-twink-robin-to-charlis-batman/ Last updated: 2026-08-21T13:21:18.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/post-punk-with-a-touch-of-steely-dan/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention.* --- This week, we've got a hard-won comeback from a rapper who fell on hard times; a singer who splits the difference between Patrice Rushen and Tevin Campbell; a monumental pop song about the power of womanhood, minus the corny empowerment slogans; and more. free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Pummeling Art Punk Straight From Detroit URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/pummeling-art-punk-straight-from-detroit/ Last updated: 2026-08-20T15:45:31.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* Whether established artists or newer talents to watch, this week's crop of Five Albums are driven by ambition and a knack for brushing up against their respective genre's edges. Some are fun, others are somber or simmering with rage, but all demand your attention. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Hana Stretton Makes Ambient Folk Music for an Overstimulated Era URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/hana-stretton-makes-ambient-folk-music-for-an-overstimulated-era/ Last updated: 2026-08-24T15:14:15.000Z When [Hana Stretton](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/hana-stretton/) was small, she traveled up a snowy mountain on the back of a donkey. As the donkey trudged along, their front legs buckled, and Stretton tumbled over their head. She landed with the animal’s sad little face looking down at her and began to cry. She sobbed for hours, but not because she was hurt. She was desperately sad to ruin the donkey’s peaceful day. “*I’m sorry, I’m sorry*,” she pleaded as the tears flowed down. After that, her family jokingly called her a “donkey whisperer,” because wherever they went, a donkey always seemed to find their way right to her. “Even as a kid, being on a donkey felt so wrong,” Stretton recalls. The 32-year-old peppers this story with laughs and winces as she sits in a sunlit room near Bordeaux, France, where she’s preparing to rehearse with her band for an [upcoming tour](https://www.hanastretton.com/tour?ref=hearingthings.co) behind her second album, [*Tiarn*](https://brierfieldfloodpress.bandcamp.com/album/tiarn?ref=hearingthings.co). A playful painting of a horse sits over her right shoulder. Her own animals, including chickens and a couple of dogs named Maggie and Roo, are back home in rural Australia. She already misses them desperately. “At some point I’ll stop touring and have a bunch of animals, one of everything,” she daydreams. “I want a whole ark.” Stretton’s bespoke style of ambient folk is of, and about, the natural world, which is also her world. Our world. “We are animals, we are nature, we’re part of it, and that’s something we’ve lost or forgotten,” she says. “If I can remind myself and other people of that through the music, then I’m really happy.” In her productions, birdsong, churning waves, and the sound of panting pups are as important as guitar plucks and her own lilting vocals. In her lyrics, she pays tribute to migrating whales and solemnly expresses her frustrations about those who ignore the ravages of climate change. It’s all of a piece, together, whole. The effect of her work is often elegiac, as if Stretton is honoring a world that no longer exists. The descriptor “timeless” is tempting, though it may suggest the fantasy of an unchanging eternity. That’s not the point. This music is more than pastoral ambiance, more than a cheap headphone vacation to the countryside as you scroll past doomsaying headlines from inside an office building. It’s an invitation to reacquaint yourself with the spaces beyond screens. To dive headfirst into the depths of your own empathy at a molecular level. To understand what is lost in the fires and the floods all around us, all the time. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Hot New Rock Band That Actually Deserves the Hype URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/a-hot-new-rock-band-that-actually-deserves-the-hype/ Last updated: 2026-08-15T15:32:41.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/post-punk-with-a-touch-of-steely-dan/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention.* --- This week, we've got scuzzed-out rock'n'roll poetry from New Orleans, a well-earned note of triumph from one of the most exciting rappers of the last few years, a grime stepper that looks back and forward at once, and more. free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Latest Elegy for Music Journalism and Middle-Class Musicianhood URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/the-latest-elegy-for-music-journalism-and-middle-class-musicianhood/ Last updated: 2026-08-24T15:13:16.000Z A couple of weekends ago, at a party in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, I found myself in a semi-circle of smokers towards the back of the yard. We were all “music people,” talking about the recent past and grim future of our professional and social worlds. There were freelance critics with day jobs, musicians with harrowing tales of scraping by on tour, an indie-label publicist who’d been laid off, a middle-school teacher who’d rather be making music full time, and a few publication staffers who wouldn’t be shocked if they were kicked off the carousel at any moment. After some commiseration and stories of “the good old days” (which ended sometime around 2018, I think), I for some reason thought it necessary to state the obvious: None of this is our fault. We could all cheers to that. I thought of this moment last week when I heard [the news](https://pitchfork.com/story/brooklynvegan-alt-press-hit-with-mass-layoffs/?ref=hearingthings.co) about Brooklyn Vegan’s layoffs, along with big cuts to rock-focused outlets like Alternative Press, Revolver, and Goldmine. I’m [not the first](https://last-donut-of-the-night.ghost.io/12-thoughts-on-the-latest-round-of-music-writing-layoffs/?ref=hearingthings.co) to note the loss of Brooklyn Vegan’s aggregation and curation of new songs as a hit to my own music discovery process. What these publications provided was more like service journalism (and fan-service journalism) than pure criticism; this—combined with the fact that they covered heavier genres where fans are particularly loyal—made it seem like these outlets were positioned to survive by serving their respective niches. But in the end, it so often comes down to some rich guys who no longer find it novel or culturally advantageous to own such publications. In this case, those rich guys are, insanely, the Madden brothers of Good Charlotte, whose empire includes the livestream platform Veeps—which at some point got bought out by Live Nation, the conglomerate forever plaguing the music biz. So really the takeaway is: Live Nation and a second-tier 2000s pop-punk band casually murdered one of the last-standing blogs of the indie-rock era. It makes me so angry I’m out here half-seriously quoting [“Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-jC3H%5F8Dk4&ref=hearingthings.co): “If money is such a problem/Well, they got mansions, think we should rob them.” Anyone who funds music publications—or indie labels, or any endeavor in the arts space that’s unlikely to scale massively—must be doing it for the love and the belief that it needs to exist. Maybe that’s an old-world way of thinking about arts patronage, but the ultimate goal should not be never-ending growth. The point is to sustain creativity. Long before there were record labels, or even recording technology, wealthy elites and noblemen [commissioned new works](https://www.npr.org/2007/12/25/17272855/financing-the-classics-beethovens-benefactor?ref=hearingthings.co) from classical composers in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Before that, baroque composers like Bach and Handel were employed by European monarchs and city councils to perform at official events and cook up new works constantly. For a second, I thought: *How is pleasing a finicky viceroy all that different from coddling a tech-bro investor?* At least the viceroy didn’t fall back on traffic numbers. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Juicy J's Spoken Word Jazz Album (Yes, You Read That Right) URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/juicy-j-spoken-word-jazz-album/ Last updated: 2026-08-12T20:04:05.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* From Three 6 Mafia to sedate lounge jazz, you never know where Juicy J will end up next. This week's crop of Five Albums is equally ambitious, taking their respective genres—California hip-hop, UK R&B, experimental pop and world music—to funny, strange, and relatable places. Peace to you if you find love in the club in these dog days of summer. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Rico Nasty Explains Her Credit Card Statement URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/rico-nasty-explains-her-credit-card-statement/ Last updated: 2026-08-14T19:29:09.000Z [*Credit History*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/credit-history/) *is an interview series where we ask our favorite artists to comb through their credit card statements and tell us about what they bought, from the necessary to the frivolous to the outlandish.* --- From the time she was ready to “Smack a Bitch” on her breakthrough 2018 single of the same name, Rico Nasty has reserved the right to be angry on her records. Earlier projects like *Nasty, Anger Management,* and *Nightmare Vacation* built out her vision of a candy-colored wonderland fueled by rap, rock, and Jolly Rancher-hard punches for any opposition who would dare try to tamp her down. But as she became bigger and her genre-blending style grew more ambitious—particularly on 2025’s *Lethal* she noticed fan expectations were skewing in a direction she wasn’t comfortable with. “I do the rock stuff and screaming stuff so well, people think *Oh, she’s screaming,* and they’re not really listening to what I’m saying,” she says. Anyone who suggests Rico has forgotten her roots, though, has another think coming. “They say my last two albums were very rock-forward and alt, but I’m still rapping. That’s the bottom line. I see rappers like NoCap and Ralo and their wordplay is so fun and cool. To think I’m not tapped in at that level? I’m a fucking rapper, even though they don’t wanna bring me up in those conversations. When they bring up female rap, it’s like a bitch that’s inspired by me, and then everybody else *but* me.” *Rx,* Rico’s second project produced entirely by Kenneth Blume (f.k.a. Kenny Beats) after 2019’s *Anger Management*, is the inverse of the “I’m not a rapper, I’m an *artist*” argument many tout once they hit a certain level of fame. Though she’s happy to reach across the genre aisle, on *Rx,* she’s bringing mixtape energy to an album scope. Her punchlines tear through Blume’s production with catharsis and clarity—who else could cuss out ICE for coming after her friends one minute and rhyme about opps riding the coattails of her Burberry peacoat the next? Rico says *Rx* is a sequel of sorts to *Anger*,because “both projects are me figuring out what the fuck is wrong with me. *Anger Management* was me figuring out why I was yelling so much? Why was I so angry? *Rx* is me prescribing myself the confidence to embrace that and say whatever the fuck I want again.” As cathartic as *Rx* is, Rico’s been about calm and stillness since the album’s release. She’s preparing for a fall tour—half solo, half as an opener for Paramore’s Hayley Williams—and has logged off the internet in favor of learning ceramics and enjoying time outside. The last ceramic item she made was a garlic grater, though the divots she made aren’t deep enough to actually cut the vegetable. “Ceramics is one of the only things where I need both of my hands to do it, so I can’t be holding my phone. I can’t smoke, I don’t make money from it, it’s not connected to fans. Nobody has a say in what I make. I feel like a fucking architect,” Rico explains. Her recent purchases represent both her time out in public as Rico Nasty and her downtime as Maria-Cecilia Simone Kelly, a single mother who enjoys tending to her hair, her cat, and her toy collection. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Tom Waits Just Released the Most Withering Diss Track of the Year URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/tom-waits-just-released-the-most-withering-diss-track-of-the-year/ Last updated: 2026-08-09T15:40:30.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/post-punk-with-a-touch-of-steely-dan/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention.* --- This week we've got a worthy heir to Aaliyah, a perfect power-pop song for mid-summer doldrums, a spoken-word assault on household pests from the master of junkyard weirdness, and more. free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Legend's Technicolor Dub Extravaganza URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/a-legends-technicolor-dub-extravaganza/ Last updated: 2026-08-06T15:11:12.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* Our slate of projects for this week's Five Albums push distinctive sounds—Instrumental boom-bap! Groovy digicore! Dembow-Afropop-baile funk fusion!–to their respective edges. Plus, two of them are Must Hears, so that means you gotta tap in! no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### New Hearing Things Merch Alert URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/new-hearing-things-merch-alert/ Last updated: 2026-08-12T20:05:09.000Z Did you know Hearing Things members who sign up for annual subscriptions to our Audiophile tier receive an exclusive piece of merch every year? It’s true! For our 2026 merch drop, we wanted to go with something diehard music lovers would really appreciate, so we made a bunch of turntable slipmats! Of course, these aren’t just *any* slipmats. They feature a bubbly Hearing Things logo by our friend/genius designer Justin Thomas Kay and were produced locally, in Long Island, New York. They are made out of 16-ounce felt material, which is probably more robust than the flimsy slipmat that came with your record player. They were created using a cool-sounding technology called dye sublimation printing, so they won’t fade over time. And that’s not all! The undersides are glazed, which helps reduce friction with your precious vinyl. That’s right: This slipmat will keep your records safe from damage and make them sound as great as they can be. The only way you can get your hands on one of these slipmats is by becoming a yearly Audiophile subscriber—which, for a limited time, we are offering at a discounted rate. Yes, this the Slipmat Sale you’ve been waiting for. (Note: Due to increased shipping costs, we are currently only able to send merch to U.S. addresses.) Upgrade your membership by clicking the extremely tantalizing button below! [Audiophile Sale](https://hearingthingsghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/66uUj3eHrq?ref=hearingthings.co) Still unsure about becoming a loyal HT Audiophile? Well, we’ve also got a brand new perk that might change your mind. Moving forward, we will reward the most dedicated subscribers to our scrappy, worker-owned publication by making each of them a personalized, hour-long streaming playlist once a year. We thought this would be a fun way for us to get to know the biggest HT heads a bit better, and for these members to directly benefit from our collective wealth of arcane music knowledge! Here is that discount button one more time: [Audiophile Sale](https://hearingthingsghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/66uUj3eHrq?ref=hearingthings.co) No matter which kind of member you are, we appreciate your continued support. People like you allow us to keep doing what we love to do at a time when music journalism feels especially precarious and endangered, and for that we are truly grateful. As ever, thanks for listening. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/08/slipnew2.jpeg) Newton promises each slipmat will be lint rolled prior to shipment **All yearly Audiophile and Super Deluxe members should have received an email explaining how you can claim this year’s merch. If you fit that criteria but did not get an email, please* [**reach out to me*](mailto:ryan@hearingthings.co) *and I’ll get you sorted.* ### Stop Listening to Music URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/stop-listening-to-music/ Last updated: 2026-08-03T16:55:55.000Z Thomas Bernhard’s 1985 novel *Old Masters* consists primarily of a long monologue by an elderly Austrian man named Reger, a classical-music critic and world-class hater. His condemnations—of composers, politicians, Austrian standards of bathroom cleanliness, of music and art in general—have the searing, invigorating quality of religious sermons. Reger, like many of Bernhard’s characters, hates because he believes the world can and should be better than it is. His stream of invective is so torrential that at first it’s difficult to see past the surface and understand *why* he’s so worked up, beyond this baseline spiritual dissatisfaction. But as the book progresses, Bernhard reveals more concrete reasons for his protagonist's perpetual grumpiness. Most importantly, there is the recent death of Reger's wife. This seems sufficient to explain his bad attitude about most things, including the music that provides his ostensible purpose in life; grief, as everyone knows, can make a mockery even—especially—of the things we hold dearest. Then, as *Old Masters* draws to a close, Reger lets slip another reason for his disillusionment with music. The book seems to take place in the mid-’80s present-day of its publication—a time when, in Reger’s view, it may no longer be possible to maintain the sort of deep relationship with music he cherished in his youth. In a passage that could have been written 40 years later, the critic gives his explanation of why: > The reason is that listening to music has become *a trivial everyday affair as a result of technical progress.* Listening to music is nothing out of the ordinary any more, you can hear music wherever you go, you are practically forced to hear music, in every department store, in every doctor’s surgery, on every street, indeed you cannot *avoid* music nowadays, you wish to escape from it but you cannot escape, *this age is totally accompanied by background music*, that is the catastrophe. \[...\] People have been stuffed full of music every day for so long that they have lost all feeling for music. Needless to say, it has gotten no less ubiquitous since then. For the contemporary listener, music can seem like an inexhaustible natural resource. Throw on a playlist for morning wakefulness and another for sleepy relaxation; listen to your favorite album on the way to the grocery store; wear noise-cancelling headphones to replace your lived environment with yet more music; if the perfect song for your situation doesn’t yet exist, use Suno to generate a depraved hallucination of a new one. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Sci-Fi Prog-Pop for Alien Dance Clubs URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/sci-fi-prog-pop-for-alien-dance-clubs/ Last updated: 2026-07-31T13:03:58.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/post-punk-with-a-touch-of-steely-dan/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention.* --- This week we've got an ambient auteur hitting the dancefloor, a ghostly spin on a traditional folk ballad, a rapper who assimilates influences with giddy panache, and more. free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Last Immortal Rock Star URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/vampire-lestat-music-review/ Last updated: 2026-07-30T15:21:05.000Z *The Vampire Lestat*, the AMC television series based on Anne Rice’s eponymous 1985 novel, opens with an extremely exclusive art auction. A series of master recordings belonging to its title character, a vampire and rock star, are being sold off to a small group of well-appointed bidders. The lot includes Lestat’s 2025 self-titled album, session recordings, and handwritten scores—the kind of one-of-one ephemera that wealthy acolytes *would* buy, evoking the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who express their desire to own lucrative IP by telling everyone what huge fans of music they are. Also included in the auction lot: “A song cycle in the classical vein set to the poetry of Baudelaire.” No one ends up getting the lot—before bidding begins, the auctioneer clicks a switch and the tapes are lit aflame, a fuck-you reminiscent of the real-life 2018 auction in which a Banksy print was purchased for $1.8 million, but [went through a shredder](https://www.npr.org/2021/09/07/1034962331/banksy-shredder-girl-with-balloon-love-is-in-the-bin-auction-sothebys?ref=hearingthings.co) the moment it was sold. This action, plus the Baudelaire song cycle, is meant to tell us something about the Vampire Lestat: That he’s self-important, self-destructive, and more than a little sadistic. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Charli XCX Wants to Run With the Big Dogs URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/charli-xcx-wants-to-run-with-the-big-dogs/ Last updated: 2026-07-31T14:19:19.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* Come to this week's Five Albums for Jill's thoughts on Charli's rock-soundtracked struggles between music, fashion, and film stardom; stay for albums powered by cello compositions, hi-fi field recordings, deconstructed footwork, and new-age Memphis hip-hop. Our range is staggering, if I do say so myself. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### How I Became A Beatmaker (By Watching Other People Make Beats) URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/how-i-became-a-beatmaker-by-watching-other-people-make-beats/ Last updated: 2026-08-03T15:18:11.000Z I’ve been in love with rap production since I was a pre-teen. Outside of generally scratching the musical itches in my brain, I grew to admire the ingenuity and skill required to take something old, through sampling or interpolation, and truly make it your own. Plenty of songs coast by on iconic melodies and drum patterns with the barest possible embellishment, and a good amount of those songs aren’t worth the potential cease-and-desist, but even those only come from having the taste to recognize an earworm when you hear one. My favorite producers, people like Q-Tip, Madlib, and Fat Jon, are all capable of scrambling samples into shapes that move and breathe differently than their source material while also knowing when it’s time to loop it and leave it. I grew up around music, playing instruments (piano, bass, djembe), singing in choirs and school musicals, and noodling with production software like GarageBand and FruityLoops like many bored teenagers in the early aughts. In late 2025, ideas started floating through my head in ways they hadn’t since I first taught myself to play N.E.R.D.’s “Happy” on the piano, and I felt the itch to create for the first time in ages. I started a payment plan for an SP-404 MKII and began studying old and new favorites more closely than I ever had while I waited for the sampler to show up at my door. I could’ve just started cutting shit up in GarageBand, but you can’t hear stories of how *Madvillainy* came together with nothing more than an SP-303 and a dinky record player, or Dilla chopping up the beats for *Donuts* on an SP-1200 from his deathbed, and not want to try that for yourself. Similarly to how listening to music on a device made solely for it like an iPod or CD player is a different experience than doing it on your phone, I wanted to feel the pads and buttons at my fingertips and not think of anything else. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Debating Our Most Controversial Faves of 2026 So Far URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/debating-our-most-controversial-faves-of-2026-so-far/ Last updated: 2026-07-24T13:10:46.000Z *The concept behind our podcast* [Waste or Taste](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/waste-or-taste/) *is simple: Every episode, a group of Hearing Things founders gets together, with each person bringing a new song to the table. Then we debate whether those songs are “waste” or “taste.” Sometimes we reach a critical consensus; other times there’s fisticuffs, absurdity, or both.* no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) On this very special episode, all of the Hearing Things founders get together to defend personal faves that everyone else might not like so much because they’re overplayed, kind of dumb, or arguably annoying. Think [Drake](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/drake/)’s “[Shabang](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoR47PedfaU&list=RDMoR47PedfaU&start%5Fradio=1&ref=hearingthings.co).” Or [a campy ballad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnnwShcDqZc&list=RDEnnwShcDqZc&start%5Fradio=1&ref=hearingthings.co) from the TV show *The Vampire Lestat*. Or [a wildly explicit club-rap romp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezWgTD7JbVA&list=RDezWgTD7JbVA&start%5Fradio=1&ref=hearingthings.co) from internet personality Thickney. Or that [Tame Impala](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/tame-impala/) and Jennie [duet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UPDBODtxzw&list=RD0UPDBODtxzw&start%5Fradio=1&ref=hearingthings.co) clogging up your feed. Or what very well may be [the most popular song of the year](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLOheGDwD%5F0&list=RDhLOheGDwD%5F0&start%5Fradio=1&ref=hearingthings.co). Bonus topics include: being sad because you ate all your friends, the inevitable Benson Boone jukebox musical, and the peanut emoji. **Waste or Taste* is available to paying subscribers only—so now’s the time to join our ever-growing community of music obsessives! In addition to the podcast, you’ll be able to read our weekly Five Albums roundups, drop in on our Discord listening sessions, and bask in the glory of supporting 100-percent worker-owned music journalism. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Nia Archives Has the Range URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/nia-archives-has-the-range-2/ Last updated: 2026-07-24T14:03:16.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* Two Must Hears and delightful lines like this (see below) await you in this week’s Five Albums. “Who but Kieran Hebden could take the swampy low-end and antisocial swagger of early dubstep and marry it so convincingly to *Pure Moods* bells and mallets?” I don’t have an answer for that, but I’m still mulling it. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Alt-Pop Trickster 1010Benja Is Not Scared to Admit He’s Using Generative AI URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/alt-pop-trickster-1010benja-is-not-scared-to-admit-hes-using-generative-ai/ Last updated: 2026-07-27T02:41:03.000Z When I reach [1010Benja](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/1010benja/) on the phone, he’s just blocked someone who blew up at him online because of his use of generative AI. “He was going crazy,” Benja says of the irate listener. “He said I was destroying art.” Benja sighs. “I just wish he could understand it from the perspective of an artist: I was born into a world where art was destroyed, and yet it persists.” The Kansas City, Missouri musician has received several disgruntled messages since he released his latest EP, [*Time Has Nothing to Do With What You Choose*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwKDmTxAqck&list=OLAK5uy%5FlYaoXcrvI8Tbc2saAjhHQQgQLebT-KVUw&ref=hearingthings.co), last month. To make the EP, Benja and a few of his longtime friends wrote and recorded original, organic vocals, beats, and instrumentation, and then used gen-AI tools like Suno to augment, subvert, and generally fuck with those recordings. The results are often too odd—and, to be honest, too genuinely mesmerizing—to simply be dismissed as “slop.” Instead, this music comes from a liminal creative space that artists are just beginning to explore, and that listeners are only starting to wrap their heads around. “[Semiramis’ Dream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwKDmTxAqck&ref=hearingthings.co),” a highlight from the EP, is a cloudburst of drum’n’bass, hyperpop, and shapeshifting vocals. Some of the singing comes courtesy of an uncanny children’s choir; then there’s Benja’s all-too-human voice at the center of the song, pleading lines like, “Kissing you makes me feel clean!” It’s the first song created with gen AI to capture my imagination, and I’m afraid it’s not the last. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Post-Punk With a Touch of Steely Dan URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/post-punk-with-a-touch-of-steely-dan/ Last updated: 2026-07-18T14:25:22.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-songs/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention*. --- This week we've got a "Drunk in Love"-era throwback from the queen, the newest signee to one of the world's coolest labels, "a list of problems longer than *The Irishman,*" and more. Let's get into it. free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Future Classic for Alt Black Queer Folks URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/a-future-classic-for-alt-black-queer-folks/ Last updated: 2026-09-16T14:21:51.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* Maybe it’s because we were [big haters](https://www.hearingthings.co/overrated-albums-of-2026-so-far/) last week, but this week’s Five Albums is heavy on the love. We’re stacked with Must Hears, from generational artists like Kelela making bold moves outside their usual sounds, to a French duo crafting dystopian trip-hop descended from the genre’s darkest classics. And let’s not forget Tasha’s sunlit fourth record filled with smallish pleasures, and a chaotic micro mixtape from Speedy Ortiz’s Sadie Dupuis. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Horse Lords’ Perpetual Motion Machine URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/horse-lords-perpetual-motion-machine/ Last updated: 2026-07-27T02:39:47.000Z [*In Theory*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/in-theory/) *is a semi-regular column in which Andy Cush takes a close look at the compositional underpinnings of songs new and old in search of a deeper understanding of how and why they move us.* --- Horse Lords were natural guests for the first installment of In Theory to feature an interview with an artist. First, because the Baltimore-bred instrumental avant-rock quartet, now based in Germany, is one of my favorite bands. Second, because their music involves a particular set of theoretical parameters. These parameters, as saxophonist Andrew Bernstein put it to me, are “integral to how we think about the music, but not integral to how the music is received.” You don’t have to understand them—don’t have to think about them at all—to have your mind bent and your body propelled into motion by the band’s fractal sense of groove. But understanding them might deepen your appreciation, or at least illuminate something about where the music is coming from. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Where Does Phoebe Bridgers Go From Here? URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/where-does-phoebe-bridgers-go-from-here/ Last updated: 2026-07-14T19:40:15.000Z *The concept behind our podcast* [Waste or Taste](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/waste-or-taste/) *is simple: Every episode, a group of Hearing Things founders gets together, with each person bringing a new song to the table. Then we debate whether those songs are “waste” or “taste.” Sometimes we reach a critical consensus; other times there’s fisticuffs, absurdity, or both.* no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) On this episode, Jill, Dylan, and Julianne take on Tierra Whack’s bar-a-thon “[Siren](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02hhFkbG6aU&ref=hearingthings.co),” [Phoebe Bridgers](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/phoebe-bridgers/)’s *Game of Thrones*\-coded comeback single “[Lost Boys](https://youtu.be/4KXnboPN1p4?si=HX9j4sgsA16U9Ifs&ref=hearingthings.co),” and controversial *Love Island* bombshell Huda Mustafa’s possibly-AI-enabled TikTok hit “[Rotation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O688YoT21GM&list=RDO688YoT21GM&start%5Fradio=1&ref=hearingthings.co).” Bonus topics include: being at the Webbys with the Philly rapper Freeway, 2000s-ass indie-rock horns, and why Conor Oberst might be the ultimate lost boy. **Waste or Taste* is available to paying subscribers only—so now’s the time to join our ever-growing community of music obsessives! In addition to the podcast, you’ll be able to read our weekly Five Albums roundups, drop in on our Discord listening sessions, and bask in the glory of supporting 100-percent worker-owned music journalism. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Navy Blue on The Lyrics that Changed His Life URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/navy-blue-on-the-lyrics-that-changed-his-life/ Last updated: 2026-07-18T15:02:35.000Z [*Words Matter*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/words-matter/) *is an interview series where songwriters whose work means a lot to us talk about the lyrics that mean a lot to them.* --- The [*Sir Render*](https://navybluethetruest.bandcamp.com/album/sir-render?ref=hearingthings.co)in the title of Sage Elsesser’s tenth studio album as Navy Blue is an amalgamation of himself and a real person. John was a man Elsesser met some years ago, whose spiritual forwardness disarmed him during one of the lowest points of his life. “I definitely see him as an angel,” he says. “I think we all have those experiences where somebody just shows up and God makes themselves known through the presence of this person. These people are put here to teach us something, and I don’t necessarily mean through a lens of divination. I just mean those kinds of people who make you feel seen when you don’t feel seen.” Lessons gleaned from John and Elsesser’s own maturation over the last six yearsare the silk interior that lines his searingly reflective music. His most recent trilogy of albums—2024’s *Memoirs in Armour,* 2025’s *The Sword and The Soaring,* and *Sir Render—*has its share of bloodletting, but a deeper understanding of self from years of mental cleaning girds a budding peace of mind. That comes through in a knight motif inspired by the Robert Fisher novella *The Knight in Rusty Armor,* which follows the story of a soldier who becomes so attached to his identity as a warrior, he loses himself as a person. “The identity of a knight is someone who serves. It’s through the lens of the medieval, of course, but I’m attracted to the idea of Black knighthood. As Black men, it feels like we have this duty to ourselves and our community: *Who am I supposed to be?* versus *Do I have the agency to be who I want to be? Who is that person?”* For Sage, those questions began with nothing more than a suit of armor (*Memoirs*) and a sword (*Soaring*) before getting to the person behind both (*Render*). To complement the tone, Elsesser tapped the late actor James Earl Jones, who happens to be his older cousin, for narration before he passed away in 2024\. He’d initially written a script for Jones to read, but a conversation with Jones’s son Flynn revealed that while the elder Jones was willing to support his younger cousin, his fading eyesight and loss of confidence in his iconic voice made it difficult. So instead Elsesser bookended songs with sampled audiobook recordings to flesh out the narrative. Jones’s booming voice can be heard echoing over production from Alchemist, Mike Shabb, and QThree, among others, across the album. Though it’s last on the docket, *Render* is made up of the oldest songs in the trilogy, having come together over five years and a dozen different sequences. Several songs were recorded in Elsesser’s Brooklyn apartment with nothing more than a mic attached to his laptop. Others, like the Earl Sweatshirt collab “[Belladonna](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il0jrEWgXk8&pp=ygUUbmF2eSBibHVlIGJlbGxhZG9ubmE%3D&ref=hearingthings.co)” and “Circa,” featuring the late Brooklyn rapper Ka, were recorded at Alchemist’s studio in California. Having it out in the world is a relief, though he’s content to let its depths reveal themselves to listeners with time instead of breaking it down to the atoms. “In \[the Yoruba religion\] Ifa, there’s the concept of awo that’s doesn’t directly translate to ‘secret’, but it’s just the essence you’re supposed to hold of something you’re not supposed to speak about,” he explains. “It’s the magic, for lack of a better term. Once you speak about it too much, you lose the magic.” In lieu of digging too deep into his own work, Sage came to our series Words Matter with a lot to say about three very different artists. The seven songs he chose live deep in his bones, and are the bedrock to who he is as a songwriter. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Five Most Overrated Albums of 2026 (So Far) URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/overrated-albums-of-2026-so-far/ Last updated: 2026-07-08T16:04:54.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. This week, we*’*re deviating from our normal format to check in on five albums we consider some of the year*’*s most overhyped so far.* Because life is finite, we at Hearing Things prefer to spend most of our time listening to music we like or love, and recommending that music to you. But that also means we’re poring through every release we can, sifting through the albums we consider duds and, sometimes, watching incredulously as said albums become touted as unfettered brilliance. Do we hate all these albums, or any of them? Not necessarily. Do we think they are not all they’ve been cracked up to be? Absolutely! Welcome to our biannual edition of Five Overrated Albums—in which we discuss some of the most celebrated albums of the year, and why everyone is wrong about them. free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM-1.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### How to Disappear Mostly URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/how-to-disappear-mostly-radiohead-motion-picture-house-review/ Last updated: 2026-08-20T15:48:41.000Z I wandered through the Brooklyn Navy Yard for 15 minutes searching for the Motion Picture House, feeling lost despite signs pointing the way. When I arrived at the nondescript factory space, the insides were draped in black fabric, with passageways leading to different rooms of an art exhibit. One room was filled with dozens of analog TV sets playing static-y animations set to Radiohead songs. Longtime fans might remember [the “blips”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iNjNr2HKSA&ref=hearingthings.co) that aired on MTV in the lead-up to 2000’s *Kid A* and 2001’s *Amnesiac*, cryptic bumpers featuring Radiohead’s [modified bear logo](http://archive.radiohead.com/2000/modbear.html?ref=hearingthings.co) or other imagery from the mind of artist Stanley Donwood. Seeing the blips essentially repurposed here emphasized the fact that, for most of their existence, Radiohead was ahead of their peers when it came to using art and technology to connect with listeners. As such, I came to this empty warehouse with medium-high expectations. Was it something akin to a museum exhibit, or an immersive “experience” inside the narrative world of an album, like Mitski’s [Tansy House installation at The Shed](https://www.theshed.org/program/486-mitski-presents-nothing-s-about-to-happen-to-me?ref=hearingthings.co)? Or was it more like the Sphere in Vegas, only without the performers? My gold standard for musician-focused exhibitions ranges from the relatively straightforward, sonically-driven [“David Bowie is,”](https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/davidbowieis?ref=hearingthings.co) to Annie Lennox’s evocative Mass MoCA showing [“Now I Let You Go…,”](https://www.vogue.com/article/annie-lennox-mass-moca-exhibit?ref=hearingthings.co) essentially a dirt mountain scattered with her personal keepsakes. What I did not expect was to lay around with strangers in a cavernous room and watch a panoramic playthrough of a video game featuring Donwood’s artwork with RH frontman Thom Yorke, set to new mixes of *Kid A* and *Amnesiac*. That’s not an exaggeration: Five years ago, Epic Games unveiled this same surreal universe as the first-person explorative game[*KID A MNESIA EXHIBITION*](https://store.epicgames.com/p/kid-a-mnesia-exhibition?lang=en-US&ref=hearingthings.co), coinciding with the albums’ “coming of age” and a [reissue campaign](https://shopusa.xlrecordings.com/products/xl1166-kid-a-mnesia?ref=hearingthings.co). The pandemic was pandemic’ing, which meant that original plans for a physical exhibition were put on hold. At this point, with the amount of HD [playthrough videos](https://youtu.be/Nk5ycQKE0-M?si=ldrxi5Hvfrv3hEYq&ref=hearingthings.co) on YouTube, you could put together a DIY version of the experience at home if you have excellent speakers and several projectors. For most people, though, the grand scale of the video screens and the booming spatial audio are what make Motion Picture House an Event in the first place. free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Is There a Difference Between "AI Music" and "Music Made With AI"? URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/is-there-a-difference-between-ai-music-and-music-made-with-ai/ Last updated: 2026-07-06T17:18:00.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-songs/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention*. --- This week, we've got the Spinal Tap of UK Garage, an ’80s pop throwback that still feels future-looking, a song made with (the help of) AI that's actually interesting, and more. free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Beth Orton Takes the First-Ever HT Questionnaire URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/beth-orton-takes-the-first-ever-ht-questionnaire/ Last updated: 2026-07-18T15:01:19.000Z *The* [*HT Questionnaire*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/ht-questionnaire/) *is where our favorite artists reveal their true selves by answering a series of searching, thoughtful, and sometimes random questions.* --- [Beth Orton](https://www.hearingthings.co/404/) taught me how to be heartbroken. I was 17, with a tendency to fall for girls who didn’t feel the same way. Like so many high school kids learning how to articulate their inner life, I turned to music. The Smashing Pumpkins helped me air out some angst, and U2 turned my little dramas into grand operas of emotion. But it was Orton who gave me some much-needed perspective with her wistful 1999 folk-pop album, [*Central Reservation*](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy%5Fk0EHZkg24DrZ82JMmrhZigTxLm60Wp3cU&ref=hearingthings.co). Her voice, craggy and creaky and tender, seemed well-acquainted with a melancholy I could barely fathom. And her lyrics entered my mind as Zen koans from someone who’d been there and cried about that—and came out on the other side better for it. When she lilted, “Everything and nothing is as sacred as we’d want it to be,” the idea rearranged my teenage psyche: *Disappointments are inevitable, but I can decide what to do with them.* Ever since then, I’ve looked to Orton’s music for guidance and solace. After some years in the music-industry wilderness, including a spell where she considered quitting music altogether, she made a mighty return with 2022’s [*Weather Alive*](https://bethorton.bandcamp.com/album/weather-alive?ref=hearingthings.co), her first self-produced album. A fog of art-rock, jazz, and soul, it felt like the record she had waited her entire life to make. The just-released follow-up, [*The Ground Above*](https://bethorton.bandcamp.com/album/the-ground-above-2?ref=hearingthings.co), flows with the same gauzy gorgeousness, as if the whole record were recorded on the edge of a pristine lake during the mistiest morning hours. At 55, she’s still doling out wisdom you can use. On “[Waiting](https://bethorton.bandcamp.com/track/waiting?ref=hearingthings.co),” alongside a quietly joyous ’70s soul groove, she sings a line that makes me smile knowingly every time I hear it: “I was going to write a gratitude list/Just got to work out my resentment to it.” Talking about the song via video from her garden shed-turned-home studio in London, she explains how it pokes fun at the way we’re always waiting for the right moment to really live as life keeps passing us by. “You can get stuck in resentment, but you might as well fucking work out what you’re grateful for and get on with it,” she says. I ask Orton what she’s grateful for at this point in her life. “My kids and my family, abso-fucking-lutely,” she starts. “I’m grateful for my music too. I did a lot of sabotaging when I was younger, and it was the right thing to do, because I got successful in a way that I was not comfortable with, and I didn’t have the support system in place to handle it. It all went a bit tits up, and I thought I’d messed up forever. But I’m very grateful to have had the desperation that I’ve had in the last 10 years of going through difficulties and using music as a way to make sense of it. It was a very personal... um… I don’t want to use the word ‘journey’ because I hate it—*endeavor*. I was like, *I’m just gonna keep making music, because I love making music*.” For all of the heady gravitas of her music, Orton is a lighthearted, sidewinding conversationalist. She uses silly voices to make fun of her own nerdiness. When circling a bigger point, she sometimes stammers, charmingly. She’s effortlessly wise, spilling out timeless observations like, “Songs are a way of gently holding memories in amber.” She’s also dryly funny. Talking about one happily nostalgic line from the new album—“We laughed so hard we nearly pissed ourselves”—she quips, “It’s quite a difficult lyric to sing when you’re getting on a bit, because it just sounds like you’ve got incontinence.” All of it is part of her ongoing poem of perseverance. Below, Orton gamely tackles a series of questions, some more irreverent than others, for our new HT Questionnaire feature. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Queer Reggaetón Mexa and Cerebral Dutch Twee URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/feardorian-sml-review/ Last updated: 2026-07-01T11:23:08.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* Most of this week’s artists rely on spontaneity as their north star—improvisation, experimentation, first-thought-best-thought brain explosions—but one Dutch duo here lives by the wise, dry philosophy: “I don’t feel any urge to innovate at all, but I also don’t feel the need to imitate anything.” Art requires multitudes, we’ll take it all. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Lapsed Catholic Goes to Rosalía’s Ecclesiastical Lux Tour URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/a-lapsed-catholic-goes-to-rosalias-ecclesiastical-lux-tour/ Last updated: 2026-06-30T12:07:17.000Z Last November, I stepped foot in a Catholic church for the first time in two decades. A cathedral by my apartment named after Saint Mary—just like the one I attended growing up—was hosting a sacred music concert by its in-house chamber group, the [Theotokos Ensemble](https://www.dougballiett.nyc/?ref=hearingthings.co). The theme was “Music and Monasticism in the 12th Century”; if there’s one thing Catholics know, it’s music and monasticism (for better or worse), and I was intrigued by the idea of hearing a full choir accompanied by strings and piano in the cavernous acoustics of a church to let my faith issues go, at least for one night. At the show, red candles flickered below paintings of La Virgen de Guadalupe, and a calming, sepia-toned light surrounded the performers, whose harmonies sounded like the color spectrum made manifest. Before the ensemble began its echoing swirl of cellos, violas, and voices in holy-sounding minor keys, my friend Caryn took a picture of me in the pews. I was wearing a puke-green sweater, with my hands in the prayer position, looking every bit the nice Catholic girl I was before I quit the church at age 17\. Back then, in the 1990s, I was a young [Chicana](https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/01/17/50-years-later-chicano-catholic-activists-recall-their-midnight-mass/?ref=hearingthings.co) who needed to [explore](https://contendingmodernities.nd.edu/decoloniality/critical-indigenous-approach/?ref=hearingthings.co) the world outside of my congregation, and I simply couldn’t countenance the church’s stance toward LGBTQ people and women. (The Vatican has become somewhat more liberal than it used to be thanks to a succession of “cool” popes, though I still keep it at arm’s length.) Importantly, unlike the Saint Mary’s of my youth, the church that hosted the concert is inclusive, and a number of the Theotokos Ensemble members are openly queer and trans. The group’s presence, and [transcendance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYEUP0PjXsE&ref=hearingthings.co), reminded me that the most important values I learned from my Catholic upbringing were charity, empathy, and doing everything you can to help those in need. Jesús-visiting-the-lepers type shit. I was reminded of these complicated feelings while watching [Rosalía](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/rosalia/) perform at Madison Square Garden earlier this month, during a *Lux* tour that is absolutely dripping with Catholic symbolism. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Day in the Park with Wiki URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/a-day-in-the-park-with-wiki/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T11:08:52.000Z Near the end of a day spent being swept up in classic New York City activities, Wiki tells me about a movie he recently watched that immediately became a personal favorite. [*I’m Not Rappaport*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POTXeDnGVxU&pp=ygURaSdtIG5vdCByYXBhcHBvcnTSBwkJQQsBhyohjO8%3D&ref=hearingthings.co)is a solemn buddy comedy from 1996 about two octogenarians who bond after meeting on a bench in Central Park. Midge Carter, played by the late Ossie Davis, is the jovial, half-blind superintendent of an apartment building who’s getting forced into retirement; Nat Moyer, played by the late Walter Matthau, is a lifelong communist, former labor organizer, and habitual liar. *Rappaport* is at its best when Davis and Mattheu are given room to lovingly argue with each other on some *Odd Couple* shit. And when the camera saunters through Central Park, lingering on eccentric regulars like a ballroom dancer and his blow-up mannequin and a vindictive cowboy drug dealer. It’s an honest and quaint rendering of perhaps the most ever-changing city on the planet at the end of the millennium. Wiki, a lifelong New Yorker and avowed cinephile, saw *Rappaport* for the first time a few months ago, around the time he turned in his sixth studio album, [*Ancient History*](https://wiksetnyc.bandcamp.com/album/ancient-history?ref=hearingthings.co)*.* The rapper born Patrick Morales is only 32, but he says the film is oddly reflective of his current life. These days, 15 years removed from his frenetic origins as a member of the raucous trio Ratking and a decade into his solo career, every morning starts out more low-key: get up, brush teeth, make coffee, head to Seward Park on the Lower East Side to smoke a spliff and people-watch. When we first link earlier in the day, which just so happens to be the afternoon before Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs, he affectionately refers to Seward as his “office.” He had just come from an [appearance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgiRKxaHV1M&t=855s&pp=ygULd2lraSBob3QgOTc%3D&ref=hearingthings.co) on Hot 97’s morning show—his first time ever being featured on the institutional rap radio station, a badge of honor for any native New Yorker—and he’s eager to walk through Seward’s winding paths, pointing out landmarks and greenery like an excited tour guide. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/_Wiki-at-Seward-Park-by-Edwina-Hay-7652.jpg) Seward also happens to be the first of 10 parks he shouts out on *History*’s aptly titled lead single “Park,” an ode to the oases where he’s found peace amid neverending concrete since he was a child. “I grew up right by Riverside Park, so I would always be out,” he explains. “It’s definitely just that escape from the city, but it still has that city energy. There’s always something going on, always a conversation to be had.” Wiki’s detail-rich writing rapidly flits between different locations*:* Watching potential future MVPs shoot hoops at Rucker Park, taking a quick dunk in the Angels of the Waters fountain at Central, spending days talking up dime-pieces and putting grooves in benches. [I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ochbgnqRr4o&ref=hearingthings.co)[ts video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ochbgnqRr4o&ref=hearingthings.co), an amorphous collage of park footage co-directed by Wiki and frequent collaborator Weird Dane, has allegedly been warmly received by City Parks officials. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### For the Baddies Just Trying Not to Lose It URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/for-the-baddies-just-trying-not-to-lose-it/ Last updated: 2026-06-26T15:17:56.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-songs/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention*. This week, we've got a weirdly banging song about grief from a rapper who's poised to take over, an power-pop anthem that mixes deep feeling with sly political protest, a colossal misstep from a once-great West Coast MC, and more. If you’re a paying Hearing Things subscriber: Thanks again, deeply, for supporting our ability to deliver algorithm-free music criticism, reporting, and recommendations. If you’re not, why not try a free trial? free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### An Instant Party-Starter Anywhere on Planet Earth URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/five-albums-kelsey-lu-harara-baile/ Last updated: 2026-06-25T16:12:00.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* To quote one of our reviews this week, “If you’re allergic to fretless bass, keep it moving.” Otherwise, come on in, the water’s warm. We’ve got grimy-ass grime and Brazilian-Arabic funk on deck. free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Just Be Grateful That Rivers Cuomo Isn’t Your Dad URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/just-be-grateful-that-rivers-cuomo-isnt-your-dad/ Last updated: 2026-06-23T19:47:58.000Z *The concept behind our podcast* [Waste or Taste](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/waste-or-taste/) *is simple: Every episode, a group of Hearing Things founders gets together, with each person bringing a new song to the table. Then we debate whether those songs are “waste” or “taste.” Sometimes we reach a critical consensus; other times there’s fisticuffs, absurdity, or both.* Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album reviews and our **Waste or Taste* podcast—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) On this episode, Jill, Andy, and Ryan discuss Weezer’s duet with [Wednesday](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/wednesday/)’s Karly Hartzman, “[We Might as Well Be Strangers](https://youtu.be/GyE8bkeSt8w?si=k8PLKV23jikNEn8W&ref=hearingthings.co)”; would-be child star Young Roddo’s heartbroken (and possibly toxic) “[Ms. Jackson](https://youtu.be/8fN%5Fiv3yK-k?si=AWn1f0XB8XtlPh7e&ref=hearingthings.co)”; and art-rock hero [L’Rain](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/lrain/)’s overwhelming shockwave, “[Soulless Cycle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmPlTst22dE&list=RDUmPlTst22dE&start%5Fradio=1&ref=hearingthings.co).” Bonus topics include: how Weezer scandalized a 13-year-old Jill Mapes, lightly parasocial musings about MJ Lenderman, and embarrassing memories of our earliest crushes. **Waste or Taste* is available to paying subscribers only—so now’s the time to join our ever-growing community of music obsessives! In addition to the podcast, you’ll be able to read our weekly Five Albums roundups, drop in on our Discord listening sessions, and bask in the glory of supporting 100-percent worker-owned music journalism. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Symphony for 100 Electric Guitars URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/a-symphony-for-100-electric-guitars/ Last updated: 2026-07-06T15:19:54.000Z I arrived on the first day of rehearsal for Glenn Branca’s Symphony No. 13, *Hallucination City*, carrying my bass guitar on my back and a heavy amplifier borrowed from a bandmate by its top-mounted handle. The dinky practice amp I keep in my apartment wouldn’t do. One might think that a piece like this one, scored for 80 electric guitars, 20 basses, and one drum kit, would call for each musician to play at about the volume of a violin or a clarinet, so that together they approximate the dynamic range of a more traditional orchestra. That may have been what the people who left were expecting as we performed at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall on Friday. A substantial lot picked up their things and made for the exits within the piece’s opening minutes, or so I’m told. I was too consumed with anticipation to notice, counting my way through the 78 and a half measures of silence that open my part as the other guitars buzzed like lightning-charged locusts, gathering in a swarm that was also a storm. The beginning is one of the quiet parts, relatively speaking. In soundcheck, Reg Bloor, our leader, listened to each of us 100 playing for a few seconds unaccompanied to dial in our volume, and often conveyed with a brusque upward gesture that the amp should be louder. I don’t think I once saw her tell someone to turn down. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Old Sounds Made New URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/five-albums-old-sounds-made-new/ Last updated: 2026-06-19T14:43:45.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### How Cain Culto Forged a Path in the Fire URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/cain-culto-interview-occulto-002/ Last updated: 2026-07-06T15:17:35.000Z [*Going Up*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/going-up/) *is a profile series featuring artists we love who are on the verge of breaking through.* --- [Cain Culto](https://www.hearingthings.co/a-musical-threesome-just-in-time-for-pride-month/) is a paragon of artistic confidence: a vamping, twerking powerhouse with a sly, silver-grilled smile. He's a shredder on the violin whose lyrics, in English and Spanish, meld his political consciousness with his penchant for shaking ass. On his 2025 breakout hit with fellow rapper-violinist [Sudan Archives](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/sudan-archives/), “KFC Santería (Remix),” Culto rapped about “American dollars fundin’ genocide” alongside “daddies in my DMs tryna pay for that,” and it did not sound incongruous at all. On his most recent single, “[Cucuru](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2qKiwq0VvY&ref=hearingthings.co),” he cranks up his suave voice to the pitch of a kewpie doll to sing lyrics like, “Let me be brash and abrasive/Speaking my truth with a brave tongue,” over a dollop of Afro-Colombian bullerengue, a philosophical statement from a fearless shapeshifter. He’s a musical omnivore who stands on business in every song, conjuring spells against malignant forces with the self-assuredness of an artist who knows exactly who he is. But for Andrew Estevan Padilla, it’s been a long path to develop his superheroic musical alter ego. Growing up in Kentucky and South Florida, he served as a youth pastor in an evangelical church, where he repressed his true self and devoted his music to God. Then his mind and body rebelled, and he embarked on a journey of embracing his queerness through his music. “In my [earlier songs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4XP0dct300&ref=hearingthings.co), I’m still very fragile and afraid and working through many things,” Padilla says on a video call from his home in Los Angeles. “And then you hear me build confidence, willing to stand alone and present more authentically. Maybe the mischievous aspect of me birthed from there, too—like, *Well, I’m so misunderstood, let me just troll a little bit. All these things everyone’s telling me I’m not supposed to become feel so liberating and true*.” no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to and everything we do at Hearing Things—including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Musical Threesome, Just in Time for Pride Month URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/a-musical-threesome-just-in-time-for-pride-month/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T19:50:33.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-songs/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention*. --- This week we’ve got not one but two uproarious anthems for Pride Month, a Must Hear song from a rapper at the intersection of plugg and cloud rap, house music to worry to, and a slice of contemplative synth-pop described as "Frankie Knuckles meets The Boss." If you’re a paying Hearing Things subscriber: Thanks again, deeply, for supporting our ability to deliver algorithm-free music criticism, reporting, and recommendations. If you’re not, why not try a free trial? free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-1.00.32---PM.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien on the Guitar That Defines His Haunting Sound URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/radioheads-ed-obrien-on-the-guitar-that-defines-his-haunting-sound/ Last updated: 2026-06-28T21:16:34.000Z [*Gear Crush*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/gear-crush/) *is a column in which we ask some of our favorite musicians about the racks, stacks, and instruments they love best.* --- Like fog enveloping an abandoned countryside, Ed O’Brien can be counted on to set a foreboding mood. In [Radiohead](https://www.hearingthings.co/404/), the guitarist’s contributions may not be the flashiest, but they’re essential to the band’s dystopian musings. On the 2000 classic “[The National Anthem](https://www.reddit.com/r/LiveFromNewYork/comments/z4f4de/radiohead%5Fperforming%5Fthe%5Fnational%5Fanthem%5Fon%5Fsnl/?ref=hearingthings.co),” from *Kid A*, a grimy bassline pops out early on, yet O’Brien’s drones make it clear that the song is far from your standard rock rallying cry. He provides similarly spooky ambience throughout Radiohead’s discography, on tracks like *OK Computer*’s “[Lucky](https://youtu.be/%5FHCqrA9rxeY?si=HlcdOGkY97CDAyEW&ref=hearingthings.co)” and *In Rainbows’* “[Jigsaw Falling Into Place](https://youtu.be/ukythkK4EPQ?si=1QQNeXoBx0k9Sr6W&t=641&ref=hearingthings.co).” This billowing style is far from O’Brien’s only mode on the guitar—and, by the way, he also happens to be one of the most effective backup vocalists in alt-rock history—but it is his most memorable. To create these eerie soundscapes, he’s returned to the same guitar over and over across the last 30 years: a black-on-black Fender Eric Clapton Signature Stratocaster, souped up with a sustainer pickup that extends its tones toward infinity. This bespoke model allows O’Brien to conjure entire universes of electronic-seeming textures that sublimely subvert the bluesy classic rock the guitar’s namesake is known for. “It’s just got the juju,” he tells me via video late last month, still sounding in awe of the instrument’s powers. He’s sitting in a Los Angeles hotel room with the lights off and the shades open, the impromptu lighting casting a noirish shadow on the right side of his face. He affectionately refers to the guitar as his “Mouse Strat” because of a sticker on its body of a Mickey Mouse-like figure giving the finger alongside the words, “FUCK ’EM IF THEY CAN’T TAKE A JOKE.” He stuck the decal on during the *OK Computer* tour in the late ’90s and never took it off. Now, after decades of wear, about all you can make out is Mickey’s buttoned trousers and floppy shoes. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/eobguitar.jpeg) O’Brien also made good use of the guitar, alongside several others, on his recent second solo album, [*Blue Morpho*](https://edobrien.bandcamp.com/album/blue-morpho?ref=hearingthings.co). The record, which was produced by Adele hitmaker Paul Epworth and features an enviable supporting cast including jazz guru [Shabaka Hutchings](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/shabaka/), eclectic go-to session guitarist Dave Okumu, and Radiohead drummer Phil Selway, is a shapeshifting affair. O’Brien and his collaborators meticulously move from pastoral psychedelia to melancholy folk in the lineage of Nick Drake to distorted funk that recalls U2’s *Achtung Baby*. You can hear the Mouse Strat in the middle of the brooding opener “[Incantations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUxPkPVDjZk&list=RDNUxPkPVDjZk&start%5Fradio=1&ref=hearingthings.co),” a heady spell of a song that unspools across nearly eight minutes. It’s there near the start of “[Teachers](https://edobrien.bandcamp.com/track/teachers?ref=hearingthings.co)” too, diffusing the track’s strutting bassline. On that song, the 58-year-old paraphrases Dante’s *Inferno* when he murmurs, “Midway through life I just lost my way.” *Blue Morpho* came out of a deep depression O’Brien found himself mired in during the pandemic, when the stillness of the world allowed past traumas to catch up with him. In order to work through the malaise, he turned to one of the most trusted constants in his life: his guitars. He would sit in a tiny spare bedroom in his family’s London house for hours each morning—“It was the only place I could play without disturbing anyone,” he says—staring at the wall and playing. He describes these solitary sessions as a kind of trance. “It was like a semi-meditative state. I didn’t engage my mind, it was much more from the subconscious. You cannot apply your critical mind when you’re in that flow state, because the music needs to just come out, it just needs to be.” It’s inspiring to hear O’Brien talk about music in such a passionate—and mysterious—way, after all he’s accomplished, after all the lives he’s changed in some way or another. I was 15 when *OK Computer* came out. At first, admittedly, I didn’t think it was as good as *The Bends*. But then I kept listening. Soon enough, the album cracked open my taste. It was one of the records that turned me from a music fan into a music obsessive; if it weren’t for *OK Computer*, there is a chance I never would have become a music journalist. As I talked with O’Brien about his most cherished guitar, there were moments when I had to restrain myself from turning into a version of Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney on *Saturday Night Live*: *Remember when you guys did* Amnesiac*? That was* awesome*!* All things considered, I think I held it together pretty well. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Put a Seashell to Your Ear URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/vince-staples-death-cab-reviews/ Last updated: 2026-06-10T12:03:20.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we review a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Tender Ferocity of Hip-Hop Upstart KJade URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/the-tender-ferocity-of-hip-hop-upstart-kjade/ Last updated: 2026-06-28T21:15:24.000Z [*Going Up*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/going-up/) *is a profile series featuring artists we love who are on the verge of breaking through.* --- [KJade](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/kjade/) has only been away from Arizona for a few days, but she’s already considering a move to New York. The white zip-up Rocawear sweater she’s wearing when we first link in Brooklyn on a sweltering afternoon in early May is indication enough of her future plans. But as we tear into our honey lemon pepper wings, she fleshes out the journey toward her NYC fantasy. “I’ve found my neighborhood,” she says, gesturing with a head nod to her Crown Heights surroundings. “At this point, I’m just looking for my literal home. This is where I feel like everything’s the most natural, not only in my social life, but in my career. Hip-hop is not hard to access here. If you can have some type of life musically here, it’s very easy to water yourself. I’m coming from Phoenix, where a lot of people don’t feel like they *need* hip-hop, but this is a place where people feel like they *need* that.” Her New York story thus far involves pulling up to [Generator](https://hellgatenyc.com/lya-finals-andrew-matson-laron-generator/?ref=hearingthings.co), a local producer and DJ showcase, where she was recognized by a handful of attendees. Few things hit like that out-of-town cosign. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to this post—and everything else we do at Hearing Things, including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [TRY HEARING THINGS FOR FREE ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Talking About How I’m Not Supposed to Talk About Phoebe Bridgers’ New Album URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/phoebe-bridgers-msg-show-new-album/ Last updated: 2026-06-09T19:34:39.000Z For the last month, Phoebe Bridgers has been moseying across the country, playing a string of pop-up shows in college towns and out-of-the-way cities with histories of UFO sightings. These intimate concerts marked the premiere of her first new solo material since 2020’s *Punisher* and her first real public appearance in two years, but attendance came with one particular condition. Fans were asked to lock their phones in magnetic Yondr pouches and submit to being in the moment, present with their own thoughts and surroundings instead of focused on capturing picture-perfect proof that they were there. Logistically, this sounds easy enough to achieve in venues holding several hundred fans, but I wondered how the no-phones plan would work with 20,000 people moving through Madison Square Garden for the micro-tour’s grand finale on Thursday night (June 4). Surprisingly well, it turns out. It’s a little strange to see security guards scouring the crowd like snipers, looking for fans with hidden cameras and recorders, occasionally questioning them while Phoebe Bridgers sings about death like 30 feet away. PB herself was on high alert: "If any of you figured out how to stick an Apple Watch up your ass or whatever to record, just please don’t put it on the internet,” she deadpanned from the stage. “I’m trusting you.” You’d think the banning of not just devices, but also pens and pencils at these shows would be the most extreme measure against spoilers, but nope. Moderators of the Phoebe Bridgers subreddit [were reportedly asked](https://www.wired.com/story/phoebe-bridgers-ditched-the-internet-to-hype-up-her-new-music-its-working/?ref=hearingthings.co) by Bridgers’ camp to delete or edit comments containing lyrics of her new songs, as remembered by tour attendees. There’s plenty of self-policing on the platform now, with disclaimers like “without being taboo” or “not trying to get deleted” preceding vague impressions of the material. No one wants to be *that fan* who crosses the line; it’s hard to imagine an actual leak being promoted within the community. At the same time, the industry plays into fan-detective levels of obsession by arranging album rollouts that ask to be “solved” like puzzles, through breadcrumbed clues dropped by the artist on social media and beyond. (“Play the game, but only by our rules,” essentially.) This is happening with Phoebe’s new album in a somewhat literal way: Every Yondr bag used on the tour contained a scrap of cardstock printed with a single piece of a larger painting, that when combined together form… a tour poster? Clues to the album title? Theories abound on Reddit, where you can see the [finished puzzle](https://www.reddit.com/r/phoebebridgers/comments/1tx9goa/potential%5Falbum%5Fname/?ref=hearingthings.co#lightbox). Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Flop Alert, Ariana Grande Edition URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/flop-alert-ariana-grande-edition/ Last updated: 2026-06-09T19:35:23.000Z *The concept behind our podcast* [Waste or Taste](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/waste-or-taste/) *is simple: Every episode, a group of Hearing Things founders gets together, with each person bringing a new song to the table. Then we debate whether those songs are “waste” or “taste.” Sometimes we reach a critical consensus; other times there’s fisticuffs, absurdity, or both.* Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album reviews and our **Waste or Taste* podcast—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) On this episode, Jill, Julianne, and Dylan discuss Ariana Grande’s gossipy confession “[Hate That I Made You Love Me](https://youtu.be/82-jTNka3uc?si=sA4OFDe97MtzsoC2&ref=hearingthings.co),” Kim Petras’s surprisingly deep architecture ode “[Brutalist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHF1CUuWoCY&ref=hearingthings.co),” and Harlem rapper Errol Holden’s Björk-sampling “[$2700 P.C.](https://youtu.be/CEhbFgcasLQ?si=%5FMDx9b38KoQJVHH9&ref=hearingthings.co)’’ Bonus topics include: the feminist bona fides of SpongeBob Munchkin, what it means to be a trans pop star in 2026, and the progressive masculinity of San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama. **Waste or Taste* is available to paying subscribers only—so now’s the time to join our ever-growing community of music obsessives! In addition to the podcast, you’ll be able to read our weekly Five Albums roundups, drop in on our Discord listening sessions, and bask in the glory of supporting 100-percent worker-owned music journalism. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### 3 Must Hears 4 Fresh Ears URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/3-must-hears-4-fresh-ears/ Last updated: 2026-06-09T17:04:59.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we discuss a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### You Can Hear the Ass Cheeks URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/you-can-hear-the-ass-cheeks/ Last updated: 2026-06-02T18:46:03.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-songs/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention*. --- This week, we've got a futuristic bounce teamup from two legends of modern music, gauzy jazz-rap, yacht rock that sneaks up on you, noise rock gone electro, and a Must Hear banger for Obama's next playlist. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Return of Vordul Mega, Underground Rap’s Missing Link URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/the-return-of-vordul-mega-underground-raps-missing-link/ Last updated: 2026-06-28T21:13:31.000Z It’s toasty inside the Brooklyn venue Elsewhere one night in February, when I see something I’d accepted as an impossibility for the past couple of decades: Vordul Mega of [Cannibal Ox](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/cannibal-ox/) [pacing across the stage](https://www.instagram.com/p/DU8%5Ft1AkTGR/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fweb%5Fcopy%5Flink&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==), with a mic and a wide smile. In a booming voice, the 47-year-old declares, “It’s real good energy tonight!” over the opening synth stabs of “[Iron Galaxy](https://ihiphopdistribution.bandcamp.com/album/the-cold-vein-deluxe-edition?ref=hearingthings.co),” the first song on his former group’s 2001 classic, [*The Cold Vein*](https://ihiphopdistribution.bandcamp.com/album/the-cold-vein-deluxe-edition?ref=hearingthings.co). “We got some real lyricists tonight—excluding myself. I’m an amateur, but I appreciate y’all.” I hear a few people suck their teeth in disbelief at such genuine humility. This is the man who helped spearhead an abstract style—part intergalactic poet, part street documentarian—that inspired many other rap experimentalists, including underground kingpin [Billy Woods](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/billy-woods/). Who shied away from the glare of notoriety, and then went silent. Who seemed to vanish, even though he was still with us. At the show, when Vordul gets to his indelible thesis on “Iron Galaxy,” he hollers it with full force: “Life’s ill/Sometimes, life might kill.” The diehards rap along, hands in the air, faces beaming, but no one seems happier than Vordul himself. This is the latest in a string of shows he’s been playing around New York over the past year, the first solo performances of his career. Twenty-five years ago, with *The Cold Vein*, Vordul and his Cannibal Ox partner Vast Aire changed the course of independent rap by envisioning New York as a cluster of arterial malformations cast in concrete and metal; corners littered with blunt guts, broken 40 bottles, and police-issue bullet casings; grey pavement under a greyer sky. Produced entirely by Def Jux founder El-P, it was chilly and dystopian, the apotheosis of the pioneering label’s clattering sound. Less than six months after its release, the Twin Towers crumbled into Lower Manhattan, but *The Cold Vein* already soundtracked a post-9/11 world. Then Vordul succumbed to that world. Drugs. Prison. Depression. Now he’s back to reclaim his own history. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to this post—and everything else we do at Hearing Things, including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [TRY HEARING THINGS FOR FREE ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Fine Dining But Make It Latin Trap URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/fine-dining-but-make-it-latin-trap/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T01:55:26.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we discuss a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* Continuing the food theme here, another one of our picks this week is described as having “gooey, shiny, bubbly, and altogether unpredictable surfaces.” Can you say yum? _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Field's New Groove URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/the-fields-new-groove/ Last updated: 2026-06-02T18:46:30.000Z [*In Theory*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/in-theory/) *is a semi-regular column in which Andy Cush takes a close look at the compositional underpinnings of songs new and old in search of a deeper understanding of how and why they move us.* --- [*From Here We Go Sublime*](https://thefield.bandcamp.com/album/from-here-we-go-sublime?ref=hearingthings.co), Swedish-German producer/DJ Axel Willner’s 2007 debut as the Field, was one of those paradigm-shifting albums for me. It was the end of my senior year of high school, and I bought it at Kim’s Video—technically Mondo Kim’s, the St. Mark’s location—while visiting my brother at college in New York. Coming from the sleepy suburbs to the big city, following around a group of older kids who knew better than me what was cool, buying from a shop whose legendary reputation preceded it even then: I was primed for something transformative, and I got it. *From Here We Go Sublime* is made mostly from pop-song samples and minimal drum machine, with each bit of singing or playing presented for just a fraction of a second at a time, looped and strung together with others like it into one long vapor trail, all set to a neverending four-on-the-floor kick drum pulse. As I rode up and down Manhattan on the 1 train with the CD in my Discman that weekend, it sounded like the world opening up. When I hear it in the right mood, it still does. Willner made five more albums as the Field after that, all of them released via the Cologne minimal dance-music institution Kompakt. Much like Kompakt founder Wolfgang Voigt’s ambient-techno project Gas, the Field turned out to be a study in minor variations on a basic premise. The album covers are nearly identical, with hand-lettered titles on plain off-white or black backgrounds. A particular record might skew a little more euphoric or a little more introspective. Some are all Willner and his bevy of electronics, and some feature accents from live instrumentalists, though you wouldn’t necessarily know which ones are which without checking the credits. It was clear right away that Willner was more interested in finding the expressive range within a strict set of parameters than he was in upending anyone’s ideas of what his music could be. Even as a fan, it was easy to feel like he had reached the end of what he had to say with the Field by the time of 2018’s [*Infinite Moment*](https://thefield.bandcamp.com/album/infinite-moment?ref=hearingthings.co), a sprawling album whose very title felt like a summing up of his ambitions for the project. No new music came for eight years until last week’s release of [*Now You Exist*](https://thefield.bandcamp.com/album/now-you-exist?ref=hearingthings.co)—for me, the most exciting Field record since the epiphany of the debut. It’s billed as an EP, but, at 41 minutes, it’s as long as plenty of other artists’ full albums. It comes on a new label, the Stockholm-based Studio Barnhus, whose aesthetic tends toward multicolored giddiness and a certain puckish DIY spirit, where Kompakt favors a more buttoned-up vibe. The cover art has changed accordingly, swapping the Field’s classic monochrome minimalism with a psychedelic blur of pinks and greens. Much of the writing about *Now You Exist* that’s been published since it dropped last Friday has used words like *loose*, *relaxed*, and *casual* to describe the music, all of which are true. It’s not that he’s abandoned the striving for transcendence that affected me so deeply as a teenager, but it’s like he’s now pursuing it via a rambling walk in the woods, stopping to check out a bug over here and a waterfall over there, rather than the rigorous meditation routines of his previous albums. His tracks, once marvels of streamlined linearity, are now full of detours and unexpected openings. Most of all, his approach to rhythm has changed. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The One New Drake Song You Need to Hear URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/the-one-new-drake-song-you-need-to-hear/ Last updated: 2026-05-26T18:10:37.000Z [*Five Songs*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-songs/) *is a weekly series for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we each choose a new song we like—or don't!—and write about why it has our attention*. --- This week we've got razor-edged cumbia, art-rock for picking fights with imaginary foes, weeded-out raps about America’s foremost parody artist, Devo for the Instagram era, and musings on the best track from *that guy’*s triple-album data dump from the critic who first put you on to *Thank Me Later*. If you’re a paying Hearing Things subscriber: Thanks again, deeply, for supporting our ability to deliver algorithm-free music criticism, reporting, and recommendations. If you’re not, why not try a free trial? Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Kiwi Lenderman and Copycat Extraordinaires URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/five-albums-kiwi-lenderman/ Last updated: 2026-05-21T15:27:02.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we discuss a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* For this week’s edition, we once again find ourselves globetrotting. We hear from the patron saint of Mexican alt-pop (who’s now exploring norteño), some young country-grunge storytellers from New Zealand, and an Orthodox priest in Greece making distorted religious music. Stateside, we check in with a duo of TikTok-famous song analyzers crafting their own referential originals, and a Michigan rapper with the grind to get paid, laid, and be soothed in the brain. Let’s freaking go. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### ‘Mighty Real’ Sets the Record Queer on the History of LGBTQ Music URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/barry-walters-mighty-real-review/ Last updated: 2026-05-26T18:11:10.000Z Throughout pop history, queer music has often been written about in ways that obscured, or even muted, its queerness. The crux of the problem is structural—since the invention of the rock critic in the 1960s, straight white men have dominated the cultural conversation, whether by having access to the most resources or simply by being louder than everyone else. Though voices who don’t fit into the Lester Bangs mold have always made space for ourselves, the broader landscape only really began opening up in the mid 2000s, with the advent of blogs and then social media. Still, the old dynamic tends to replicate itself even now—some of the best resourced and most popular music podcasts, for instance, are almost exclusively hosted by straight white men. (For the record, [ours is not](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/waste-or-taste/)!) All of this is to say: Music lovers have missed out on a lot of rich, dynamic history because of the homogeneity of rock criticism. It’s a fact I kept thinking about while reading [*Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611489/mighty-real-by-barry-walters/?ref=hearingthings.co) by the gay music critic Barry Walters, who began his storied career at the *Village Voice* in the early 1980s. “LGBTQ musicians have made an art out of saying what can’t be overtly said,” Walters writes in the book’s intro, “just as LGBTQ listeners have learned to hear what others can’t.” In his massively instructive, entertaining, and insightful tome, the veteran journalist offers a much-needed corrective on how the queer canon of artists has been framed—and, in certain cases, denigrated—by the industry, politicians, the public, and critics (whose dismissive and sometimes homophobic reviews are quoted liberally—tea). *Mighty Real* is not a polemic, but the book’s dedication to depicting LGBTQ and allied musicians through the lens of queer history is exhilarating, an underline on the new ways even the most-written-about pop icons can be thought about even now. (Full disclosure: Music journalism is a small cohort—practically everyone seems to run into one another, if you’ve been around long enough—and Walters recently edited a few blurbs of mine for a freelance assignment, though we do not know each other well.) *Mighty Real* begins with the Velvet Underground, just before 1969’s Stonewall rebellion, and immediately establishes itself as expansive and exciting. Though more has been written about Lou Reed over the last several decades than we know what to do with—or will ever need (sorry not sorry)—the breeziness, enthusiasm, and close reading with which Walters addresses Reed’s lyrical expressions of his queerness immediately woke me up. On “Sister Ray,” Walters writes: “Back then, detailing intravenous drug use with first-person pronouns in an oft-repeated refrain was one thing. But the similarly repeated line, ‘She’s busy sucking on my ding-dong’ is even now a humdinger, particularly since ‘she’ most likely has one herself. When the cops arrive, Reed can’t be bothered—he’s focused on his fix and fellatio.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Myaap Explains Her Credit Card Statement URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/myaap-explains-her-credit-card-statement/ Last updated: 2026-06-28T21:10:54.000Z [*Credit History*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/credit-history/) *is an interview series where we ask our favorite artists to comb through their credit card statements and tell us about what they bought, from the necessary to the frivolous to the outlandish.* --- Milwaukee raper Myaap didn’t always know music was her calling. While growing up in Wisconsin, she spent her days freestyling with her brother while aspiring to be either a backup dancer or a mortician. “My momma used to help a lot of people, so that inspired me at first,” she says over the phone while driving through her current home city of Atlanta. “But I also used to watch a lotta movies and I heard they be makin’ money, so that also pushed me.” But the ​​formaldehyde would ultimately have to wait. In 2023, two songs she recorded while attending trade school—”[HTS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYO5FpGbsqs&pp=ygUJbXlhYXAgaHRz&ref=hearingthings.co)” and “[Party Crackin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDUOZY990Rs&pp=ygUTbXlhYXAgcGFydHkgY3JhY2tpbg%3D%3D&ref=hearingthings.co)’”—both went viral on TikTok, and later that year, another single, “Getting To It,” impacted even harder. After putting out a handful of projects and opening for Detroit rapper Veeze on tour, Myaa’s biggest taste of success came from the release of her 2025 single “Fairy,” which set her hometown’s trademark low-end clap drums against a swelling string sample. It exploded to the tune of millions of streams and thousands of dance challenge posts across social media. I could barely step outside last summer without hearing that song blasting from a car stereo or from someone’s phone speakers. Her latest mixtape, *Pixie Dust,* aims to capitalize on that next-level ubiquity with a full serving of whimsical slappers. From classic Milwaukee-style cuts like “[Beep Beep](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLS8EralLDU&pp=ygUPbXlhYXAgYmVlcCBiZWVw&ref=hearingthings.co)” or “Reaper” to moodier tracks like “Mamacita” or (my personal favorite) “[Blicky Blicky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%5FqtmRRezxgo&pp=ygUUbXlhYXAgYmxpY2t5IGJsaXhja3nSBwkJBAsBhyohjO8%3D&ref=hearingthings.co),” there’s something for everyone looking to get their fairy on. Myaa’s profile has grown exponentially in such a short time, but she’s still moving at her own pace. Her recent purchases reflect her new adopted home of Atlanta, her love for cooking for her girlfriend, and embracing her still-budding stardom without being too consumed by the vortex. no pressure whatsoever [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2026/06/hearingthingsfreetrial.gif)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Gain access to this post—and everything else we do at Hearing Things, including podcasts, album reviews, and more—by signing up for our free 30-day trial. You will not regret it! [TRY HEARING THINGS FOR FREE ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Charli XCX and the Meaning of Rock Music URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/charli-xcx-and-the-meaning-of-rock-music/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T18:56:28.000Z *The concept behind our podcast* [Waste or Taste](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/waste-or-taste/) *is simple: Every episode, a group of Hearing Things founders gets together, with each person bringing a new song to the table. Then we debate whether those songs are “waste” or “taste.” Sometimes we reach a critical consensus; other times there’s fisticuffs, absurdity, or both.* Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album reviews and our **Waste or Taste* podcast—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) On this episode, Jill, Andy, and Ryan take on [Charli XCX](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/charli-xcx/)’s genre-defining “[Rock Music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox1Eemj8FDo&ref=hearingthings.co)”; comedian Meg Stalter’s Britney-style debut single, “[Prettiest Girl in America](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJuWYbH6%5FXQ&list=RDkJuWYbH6%5FXQ&start%5Fradio=1&ref=hearingthings.co)”; and the Rolling Stones’s latest attempt at 21st-century relevance, “[In the Stars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-F%5FoHOvBsM&list=RDF-F%5FoHOvBsM&start%5Fradio=1&ref=hearingthings.co).” Discussion topics include: the etymology of the word “boughten,” how designer neck braces are really hot right now, and whether reading Rolling Stones fun facts is more enjoyable than listening to their new song. **Waste or Taste* is available to paying subscribers only—so now’s the time to join our ever-growing community of music obsessives! In addition to the podcast, you’ll be able to read our weekly Five Albums roundups, drop in on our Discord listening sessions, and bask in the glory of supporting 100-percent worker-owned music journalism. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Muna’s Must Hear Album Makes the Dire World a Little More Manageable URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/munas-must-hear-album-makes-the-dire-world-a-little-more-manageable/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T11:04:22.000Z *Welcome to the latest installment of* [*Five Albums*](https://www.hearingthings.co/tag/five-albums/)*, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we discuss a handful of new records catching our attention. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s happening now. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer.* Some of our album picks this week seem cosmically in conversation with each other: a mutant wall of electronic noise imagining a radically queer future; a brain-breaking techno treatise that, too, imagines a radical queer future; and a heartbreakingly perfect, big-time pop album that situates its existential worries in a (you guessed it!) radically queer—twist—*present*. Sometimes the stars just align! We’ve also got an almost-but-not-quite there album from a new TDE upstart, and the new one from New Zealand's favorite folk songwriter, so go forth and get listening. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### C2C Is Now One of New York’s Most Necessary Festivals URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/c2c-is-now-one-of-new-yorks-most-necessary-festivals/ Last updated: 2026-05-12T15:59:09.000Z After becoming a European destination for adventurous music fans over the course of this century, C2C made its New York City debut last year. The one-day event held a lot of promise but was not without its flaws. As I wrote in [my review](https://www.hearingthings.co/c2c-festival-new-york-review-photos/) at the time, the lineup, which historically focuses on electronic music’s bleeding edge, was uneven. And the setup at Knockdown Center in Ridgewood, Queens was less than ideal, including a too-small stage area that was constantly overcrowded. “If C2C returns to Knockdown at some point,” I nudged, “perhaps they could set up the second stage outside, in the venue’s Ruins area, so that people could enjoy more of the night’s music and maybe even have some space to dance to it.” Apparently I was not alone in this critique, because that’s pretty much what C2C did when it came back to Knockdown Center last weekend. Now spread across three stages, including the spacious outdoor one, C2C NYC’s second iteration was a masterclass in troubleshooting. The lineup was much improved. The mood was more energetic. There was some space to breathe. Last year, C2C NYC was an intriguing experiment; this year, it became an unmissable event. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things—including weekly album and song recommendations along with our ever-growing archive of interviews and reports—with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Don’t Stop ’Til You Rewrite History URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/michael-jackson-biopic-essay/ Last updated: 2026-05-12T15:58:48.000Z As I write this, no less than 15 Michael Jackson songs populate Apple Music’s Top 100 Global chart—more than any other musician. MJ stands apart in this feat; there are virtually no other legacy acts on the chart. This stupendous bump is thanks to *Michael*, the new family-approved biopic in which Jaafar Jackson cosplays his uncle during MJ’s rise to solo superstardom. After seeing the film, it makes sense why Jackson’s catalog is surging again. Really the only appeal of *Michael* lies in its meticulous recreation of certain famous performances, like the *Motown 25* debut of the Moonwalk and the “Thriller” video. Everything about it is intended to make you believe you arewatching Michael Jackson himself, from the shooting locations and costumes to the choreography. And the songs are central to selling this dream, often running at length. Jafaar Jackson is adequate as Michael mainly through his musical performances (and ongoing facial changes). Watching him teach his dancers the routine at the end of the “Beat It” video, Jafaar’s hip movements are more fluid, a body roll rather than an MJ thrust, and my immediate thought was not “he’s doing wrong,” but “he’s doing it better.” With *Michael,* I got this uncanny sense that I was seeing something smoother, hollower, and more over-the-top than the real MJ. Free trial offer [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/72/f7/72f77b03-9993-4be5-b648-4115e28d0ad0/content/images/2025/08/Copy-of-General-43-Template--1000-x-500-px---900-x-450-px---900-x-300-px---900-x-195-px-.png)](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) Get access to everything we do at Hearing Things with a free 30-day trial! [FREE ALL-ACCESS TRIAL ](https://www.hearingthings.co/08-25-2025-14-50-20-30daytrial) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew on Making a Band of Friends Last Forever URL: https://www.hearingthings.co/broken-social-scenes-kevin-drew-on-making-a-band-of-friends-last-forever/ Last updated: 2026-06-28T21:07:21.000Z The first concert I went to after getting let go by Pitchfork two years ago was a Kevin Drew solo show. It was a coincidence, but it felt cosmically apropos. Like many others, I became a fan of Drew’s sprawling band Broken Social Scene after reading Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber’s [rave review](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/952-you-forgot-it-in-people/?ref=hearingthings.co) of their breakthrough 2002 album *You Forgot It in People*. It was a potent, early example of the website’s taste-making powers, elevating both the band and the publication in the name of triumphantly heartfelt indie rock. By the time of the group’s next record, 2005’s *Broken Social Scene*, I was the Pitchfork writer named Ryan tasked to [write about it](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/955-broken-social-scene/?ref=hearingthings.co). I still remember the shared studio apartment in Manhattan where I tapped out that review on a chunky Dell laptop. I loved the album’s careening ambition, and it became one of the first Best New Music write-ups I ever published. The review didn’t change the band’s life like the famous *You Forgot It in People* one, but it changed mine. It gave me confidence. From there, I was unofficially, happily put on the BSS beat, writing about projects by the group’s members, including Feist, Metric, and Stars. I interviewed Drew a handful of times over the years too. Amid a world of sheepish mumblers trying to project coolness, he was always gregarious and open. It was easy to see why this guy was the de facto leader of a band with what seemed like a hundred members. He was fun to be around. That longtime connection with the band’s music brought me to Drew’s show at Brooklyn’s Public Records on January 20, 2024, mere days after I lost my job alongside many of my colleagues and friends. News of the Pitchfork layoffs was fresh that night, and Drew lamented it in the middle of the show, in between songs. When he brought the topic up on stage, a few jerks cheered, and he wasn’t having it. He talked about how much the site altered his trajectory, how its losses would hurt everyone who cares deeply about music. He didn’t know I was there, but it felt like he was talking directly to me. In the dim of the crowd, I teared up and wobbled. My wife grabbed my arm. I’m not the guy who tries to talk to the band after the show, but after that show, I needed to thank Drew for what he said. He saw me and hugged me. He graciously introduced me to his friend, the actor Busy Philipps, who expressed her sympathies about my sudden lack of employment. He took my wife and I up to the afterparty, bought us drinks, and hung out with us for a while. When I needed it most, again, he gave me confidence. Since then, he’s checked in with me from time to time, and we’ve met up when he’s in New York. We’re friendly. Last year, at a showing of the Broken Social Scene documentary [*It’s All Gonna Break*](https://linktr.ee/itsallgonnabreak?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fprofile%5Fshare