Since its debut in 2010, the iPad has been a divisive entrant in the music gear space. The 2011 iPadOS port of GarageBand, Apple’s popular entry-level digital audio workstation (DAW), triggered an avalanche of iPad apps marketed to musicians on the move, and an endless stream of digital gadgets like …
Read More »7 Spring Albums That You Don’t Need to Fight About Online
One assurance of navigating the vast expanse of social media is that The Discourse never stops. It's: death, taxes, and never-ending discourse. Mass consensus is all but extinct. More than anything, fandoms dictate so much of conversation today. Even so, spring has been a particularly fertile time for music drops: …
Read More »1994 Was the Last Good Year—and It's Still Going
In 1994, everything was cool. Music, movies, TV—the cultural output felt alive. People were also very cool, or they were achieving cool by trying not to be. Anyway, 30 years ago I was not cool and didn’t have much to do on Friday nights. That’s why, on April 8, 1994, …
Read More »An Iconic CD Changer Is Back to Challenge Streaming Fatigue
Today, Bang & Olufsen—the audio company that has made what we called “the prettiest gadgets in the world”—is rereleasing its iconic CD player, the Beosound 9000. If you were alive in the 1990s, you definitely saw this CD player standing in a place of honor, six discs and glass lid …
Read More »Nas’ 'Illmatic' Was the Beginning of the End of the Album
Music consumption and discussion in 2024 bears little resemblance to fandom from one decade ago, let alone three or four. Old songs gain new life on TikTok; AI creates original music trained on data from the world’s most popular artists; drill rappers post a song on YouTube on Tuesday, and …
Read More »The Taylor Swift Album Leak’s Big AI Problem
On Thursday, Taylor Swift did a very Taylor Swift thing: She posted an Instagram story with a link to buy “Fortnight,” the first single off of her new album, The Tortured Poets Department. It was cute, maybe even unnecessary. Taylor Swift is one of the biggest recording artists in the …
Read More »Taylor Swift’s Music Is Back on TikTok—Right Before Her New Album Drops
In the drawn-out contract battle between TikTok and Universal Music Group, a high-profile exemption has been made for Taylor Swift. A few of her songs became available again as TikTok sounds on Thursday, just a week before the release of Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. It remains unclear …
Read More »Did Social Media Kill the Pop Song?
Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” landed with the force of an atomic bomb. Released last month, the thumping diss track hit the Billboard Hot 100 in a flash but went dynamite across X, Instagram, and TikTok thanks to a surprise verse from Kendrick Lamar, the Compton rapper who won …
Read More »Welcome (Back) to Beyoncé’s Internet
There’s a nasty not-so-secret secret no one likes to talk about, so it’s best to start there: Black women are among the most hated demographic worldwide. In America especially, anti-Blackness is the air. It’s everywhere even when you can’t see it. From the ivory halls of Washington to C-suites at …
Read More »Why You Hear Voices in Your White Noise Machine
Every night, I—like millions of others—put on a noise machine to help me sleep. Mine offers several types of noise: white, pink, green, and brown. I’ve noticed something strange, though. After about 30 minutes of the noise pumping into my head, I start to hear things. Sometimes it’s music, like …
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