Into The Music
What Record Store Day 2026 Actually Tells Us About Why We Still Buy Vinyl
Record Store Day 2026 is on April 18th, and the list of exclusive releases is already doing what it always does: inspiring equal parts genuine excitement and low-grade...
Deep Dives
Long-form essays on the albums, artists, and moments that shaped music history.
Featured Deep Dive
Still Here: What It Means When a Dead Artist Shows Up on a New Album
Mac Miller has been dead since September 2018. He was 26. This week, he appeared on a new Thundercat album, performing on a funk groove called “She Knows...
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Why Major Labels Keep Buying the Tools That Independent Artists Use to Avoid Them
The major label acquisition of independent music infrastructure is a pattern with a long history, and Warner Music Group’s deal to acquire Revelator is the latest iteration. Understanding...
What the Lollapalooza 2026 Lineup Actually Says About Music in 2026
The Lollapalooza 2026 lineup, with its all-female and mixed-gender headliner crop and a strong presence of critical-darling acts in the midcard, is being read as a statement about...
ZAYN’s KONNAKOL and the Long History of South Asian Influence in Western Pop
ZAYN’s decision to title his new album after a South Indian classical music technique isn’t a gimmick. It’s a statement about where he comes from and what he’s...
Disclosure Is Not a Solution: What the New Streaming AI Tools Actually Do and Don’t Do
Apple Music’s “Transparency Tags” and Spotify’s “Artist Profile Protection” announcements today are the most specific responses yet from major streaming platforms to the AI music crisis, and the...
Three Albums in a Year: Charley Crockett and the Return of the Ambitious Country Concept Record
Charley Crockett completing his Sagebrush Trilogy with Age of the Ram this week puts a spotlight on something that’s been happening at the edges of country and Americana...
Two Albums in One Year: What Converge’s 2026 Says About Music Right Now
Converge’s announcement today of Hum of Hurt, their second album of 2026, arriving less than four months after Love Is Not Enough, is part of a pattern worth...
How Grief Becomes Music: The Albums That Turn Loss Into Something You Can Live Inside
Two albums came out this week that share something beyond their release date. The Twilight Sad’s It’s the Long Goodbye, seven years in the making after James Graham...
Anti-Algorithm: How Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE Keep Making Music on Their Own Terms
The collaboration between Earl Sweatshirt, MIKE, and SURF GANG on POMPEII // UTILITY is interesting partly because of what it represents about how underground rap circulates in 2026....
Bruce Springsteen and the Question of What Music Owes to the Moment
Bruce Springsteen opened his 2026 U.S. tour with a political statement that was direct enough to leave no room for interpretation, and the conversation around it followed a...