lately
AI Music Isn't Going Away. Here Are 4 Big Questions About What's Next / Jewly Hight, 2024
Why Future Trusts Metro Boomin / Sheldon Pearce, 2024
At Ye’s Listening Events, True Believers Rally Around A Chaotic Idol / Mano Sundaresan, 2024
a few faves
How Björk’s Singular Voice Became An Army Of We / Sasha Geffen, 2022
When Making Music Breaks Your Body / Grayson Haver Currin, 2021
I Grew Up Afraid. Lil Nas X's 'Montero' Is The Lesson I Needed / Ashon Crawley, 2021
Sade Saves: Liner Notes From A Lifelong Soundtrack / Danyel Smith, 2020
Music For Plants Is Real (Even If The Science Isn't) / Eric Ducker, 2019
The Strange Magic Of YouTube's '80s Remix Culture / Annie Zaleski, 2018
series
All Rap Is Local
NPR Music's 20|20
Voices Of The Year
feature edits (the long list)
/2024/
Whither The West Coast Gangsta? / Sheldon Pearce, 2024
AI Music Isn't Going Away. Here Are 4 Big Questions About What's Next / Jewly Hight, 2024
Why Future Trusts Metro Boomin / Sheldon Pearce, 2024
How 'Come And Get Your Love' Put Native Culture On The Bandstand / Elizabeth Blair, 2024
J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar And Drake In A Conflict Without A Cause / Sheldon Pearce, 2024
Emo Rap At Its Limits / Sheldon Pearce, 2024
Jay-Z And Beyoncé’s Blank Space: The Endless Social Climb Of Pop’s Royal Couple / Sheldon Pearce, 2024
How Chief Keef And MIKE Escaped The Attention Economy / Sheldon Pearce, 2024
Michael Knott, Brash Pioneer Of Christian Rock, Dies At 61 / Lars Gotrich, 2024
At Ye’s Listening Events, True Believers Rally Around A Chaotic Idol / Mano Sundaresan, 2024
The Lonely Throne Of Usher, Modern R&B's Greatest Showman / Sheldon Pearce, 2024
/2023/
How Harry Belafonte’s Caribbean Roots Helped Him Change America / Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, 2023
Brittany Howard Is Going To Make Her Dreams Come True / Jewly Hight, 2023
PinkPantheress, IRL / Hazel Cills, 2023
Talking Heads On Making Sense, Together / Steve Inskeep, 2023
Blur’s Ballad To Bittersweet Midlife / Matthew Perpetua, 2023
PJ Harvey On Creating In A Place Between Worlds / Ann Powers, 2023
Here’s The Deal With King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard / Matthew Perpetua, 2023
Meshell Ndegeocello Opens The Lid On Her Self-Contained World / Nate Chinen, 2023
Aja Monet Fuses Art And Advocacy, Poet And Performer / Sheldon Pearce, 2023
'Louder Than A Riot’ Confronts Hip-Hop’s Scarcity Rule / Louder That A Riot team, 2023
JPEGMAFIA And Danny Brown Are Here To Blow Up Your Function / Sheldon Pearce, 2023
Latto On Rapping About Sex In The Long Shadow Of Trina / Sidney Madden, 2023
At Adele’s Vegas Residency, Intimacy Is The Ultimate Luxury / Bilal Qureshi, 2023
/2022/
The Niche Rap Stars Who Conquered 2022 / Sheldon Pearce, 2022
How Björk’s Singular Voice Became An Army Of We / Sasha Geffen, 2022
There’s Still No One Like Santigold / Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, 2022
When The Creek Does Rise, Can Music Survive? / Stephanie Wolf, 2022
What Is Viral Jazz? / Nate Chinen, 2022
Lambchop’s Long And Winding Road / Grayson Haver Currin, 2022
The Daily Crisis Facing Touring Musicians Right Now / Nastia Voynovskaya, 2022
'Cheat Codes' Is The Album Black Thought Couldn't Have Made Until Now / Sheldon Pearce, 2022
Olivia Newton-John, A Sexy Nerd For The Rest Of Us / Evie Nagy, 2022
Inside Soccer Mommy’s Widescreen World / Jewly Hight, 2022
S.G. Goodman Leaves 'Teeth Marks' In Southern Stereotypes / Jewly Hight, 2022
Kendrick Lamar Is Ready To Talk. Is He Ready To Listen? / Marcus J. Moore, 2022
Mingus Contained Multitudes, But His Native Language Was Protest / Nate Chinen, 2022
On ‘Warm Chris,’ Aldous Harding Is A Masked Singer / Sasha Geffen, 2022
‘Encanto’ Has Fun Songs And A Sweet Story, But Germaine Franco Made It Groove / Tim Greiving, 2022
Listening To Burial At The End Of The World / Miguel Otárola, 2022
/2021/
Opera Singers Flee The Gilded Cage / Anne Midgette, 2021
The Dread At The Heart Of ‘Kid A’ / Rund Abdelfatah & Ramtin Arablouei, 2021
When Making Music Breaks Your Body / Grayson Haver Currin, 2021
Joan As Police Woman Talks With Ghosts / Piotr Orlov, 2021
George Wein Sought Out The Music Where It Lives / Nate Chinen, 2021
In Labelle And Beyond, Sarah Dash Could Never Fade Into The Background / Maureen Mahon, 2021
The Magnetic Fields' '100,000 Fireflies' Sounds The Way Being Lonely Feels / Ryan H. Walsh, 2021
Hell Is A Teenage Girl: Olivia Rodrigo, 'Jennifer's Body' And The Joy Of Rage / Chasity Hale, 2021
I Played Jazz With Charlie Watts For 20 Years. Here's What I Learned / Tim Ries, 2021
In Chucky Thompson, Black Music Found A Borderless, Million-Selling Sound / Christopher A. Daniel, 2021
Caroline Shaw Is Not Here To Save Classical Music / Elena Saavedra Buckley, 2021
Julius Eastman, A Misunderstood Composer, Returns To The Light / Tom Huizenga, 2021
How Japanese Breakfast Builds An Album, Sound By Sound / Kira Grunenberg, 2021
'We Can Rock The World's Foundation': 1971 And Black Music In Revolt / Mark Anthony Neal, 2021
On 'Sour,' Olivia Rodrigo Is A Lowercase Girl With Caps-Lock Feelings / Lindsay Zoladz, 2021
St. Vincent, Builder Of Rock Futures, Takes Shelter In The Past / Sasha Geffen, 2021
The New Wave Of Post-Brexit Post-Punk / Matthew Perpetua, 2021
I Grew Up Afraid. Lil Nas X's 'Montero' Is The Lesson I Needed / Ashon Crawley, 2021
The Music Of ‘Justice League’ Is Its Own Epic Tale Of Death And Rebirth / Tim Greiving, 2021
Escapism, Not Escape, At A Grammy Night Defined By Exceptions / Maria Sherman, 2021
Music From The Mind’s Eye: The Swan Song Of Pauline Anna Strom / Lewis Gordon, 2021
/2020/
He Was An Architect: Little Richard And Blackqueer Grief / Ashon Crawley, 2020
The True Cost Of Bobby Shmurda’s Rise, Fall And Coming Return / Sidney Madden & Rodney Carmichael, 2020
Sade Saves: Liner Notes From A Lifelong Soundtrack / Danyel Smith, 2020
On Her Influential Debut, Peaches Seized Her Pain And Pleasure / Sasha Geffen, 2020
At A Time Like This: Twinkie Clark's Gospel Of Everyday Blackness / Ashon Crawley, 2020
Black Protest Is Music. Learning The Melody Isn't Enough / Terence Blanchard, 2020
20 Years Ago, The White Stripes Made An Album For No One / Lizzy Goodman, 2020
Clarinetist Anthony McGill Kneels, Pleads And Plays For Justice / Tom Huizenga, 2020
Thank God For Drugs And Drums: El-P Revisits His Solo Debut / Eric Ducker, 2020
Phoebe Bridgers On Learning From Elliott Smith / Lindsay Zoladz, 2020
That Teenage Feeling: Why 'The Virgin Suicides' Is My Quarantine Soundtrack / Paula Mejia, 2020
John Darnielle Goes Back To The Boombox / Grayson Haver Currin, 2020
The Future According To NSYNC / Maria Sherman, 2020
The Year Folk Broke: How Nickel Creek Made Americana The New Indie Rock / Brittney McKenna, 2020
Searching Just Like Everyone: Lessons From Dashboard Confessional / Hanif Abdurraqib, 2020
Stephen Malkmus Cracks A Sonic Code, Putting The '90s Behind Him / Matthew Perpetua, 2020
After She Unplugged For MTV, Shakira Taught Me To See Myself / Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, 2020
Primal Scream's 'XTRMNTR' Saw Our Future 20 Years Ago / Matthew Perpetua, 2020
D'Angelo's 'Voodoo': 20 Years Later, How Does It Feel? / Sam Sanders, 2020
/2019/
Beck’s ‘Hyperspace’ Is A Technicolor Breakup Album / Matthew Perpetua, 2019
Forgotten: The Things We Lost In Kanye’s Gospel Year / Ashon Crawley, 2019
On 'Pang,' Chairlift's Caroline Polachek Is A Cyborg With A Human Heart / Sasha Geffen, 2019
Wilco, Forever In Competition With Its Own Best Work, Tries Shifting The Stakes / Matthew Perpetua, 2019
Jay-Z Can’t Roc With The NFL Unless Kaepernick Gets A Seat At The Table / Rodney Carmichael, 2019
What It Means To Listen To Sleater-Kinney Now / Hanif Abdurraqib, 2019
Fascination, Friendship And Desire: Kathleen Hanna On The Reign Of 'Rebel Girl' / Ann Powers, 2019
Music For Plants Is Real (Even If The Science Isn't) / Eric Ducker, 2019
Alone Together: 'Dancing On My Own' Opens The Corners Of Community / Sam Sanders, 2019
As Summer Jam Turns 25, Hot 97 Stakes Its Claim To Hip-Hop Pedigree / Rodney Carmichael, 2019
Make Room For Raveena / Sidney Madden, 2019
Still Tippin’: Solange At Home In Houston / Sidney Madden, 2019
Oh Yes Son, They're Talking To You: 20 Years Of 'No Scrubs' / Sidney Madden, 2019
The Allegations Against R. Kelly: An Abridged History / Anastastia Tsioulcas and Colin Dwyer, 2019
In Praise Of 'Good As Hell,' The Song That Believes In You Even When You Don't / Hanif Abdurraqib, 2019
/2018/
Thom Yorke On Scoring The New ‘Suspiria’ / Tim Greiving, 2018
The Five Lives Of ‘Tha Carter V’ / Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael, 2018
Since U Been Gone': The Crossover Pop Needed, The Anthem Rock Deserved / Maura Johnston, 2018
Sound Made Flesh: The Inventive Force Of Aretha's Gospel / Ashon Crawley, 2018
‘Black People Will Be Free': How Aretha Lived The Promise Of Detroit / Dream Hampton, 2018
The Strange Magic Of YouTube's '80s Remix Culture / Annie Zaleski, 2018
Drake Is Too Big To Fail. He Should Risk It All On 'Scorpion' Anyway / Rodney Carmichael, 2018
Cuco Is The Cariño Of Young Latinos Who Keep Dreaming / Stefanie Fernandez, 2018
Mary Halvorson Re-Engineered Jazz Guitar. Now, She's Hacking Her Own Code / Nate Chinen, 2018
/2017/
Wear My Headphones: Damon Krukowski On How Digital Culture Changes Us / Ann Powers, 2017
Define Your Line: Rapsody On Coexisting In Rap's Power Gap / Rodney Carmichael, 2017
Power In Everything: Priests' Katie Alice Greer On Making Space For Art / Marissa Lorusso, 2017
Naming The Beast: Jason Isbell And Amanda Shires On Speaking Up / Jewly Hight, 2017
To Be Rare, True And Free: Artistic Sovereignty In Saba's Chicago / Jenny Gathright, 2017
As Jazz Fest Looks At 50, What Keeps It Alive? / Alison Fensterstock, 2017
With A Fresh Spin On The 808, DJs Become Rhythm Composers / Tamara Palmer, 2017
A Band Apart: The Fractured Fury Of Algiers / Ned Raggett, 2017
Listening To At The Drive In, A Band Defined By Its Breaking Points / Hanif Abdurraqib, 2017
Gorillaz Are Human After All / Barry Walters, 2017
Prince Without Permission / Hasit Shah, 2017
Kendrick Lamar, From On High, Has The Whole World Watching / Rodney Carmichael, 2017
The Ones Who Dream: A Guide To 2017's Bold, Inventive Oscars Music / Tim Greiving, 2017
/2016/
A Tribe Called Quest Stands United, One Last Time / Miles Marshall Lewis, 2016
Isaiah Rashad Dusts Himself Off And Tries Again / Kiana Fitzgerald, 2016