Listen, if you don’t know about @cmatbaby.bsky.social you need to get on board. This diva is headed to the top! Show tonight was phenomenal. that’s her keyboard player and queer foil Colm Conlan onstage with her.

Nashville in a nutshell

The Rapture I desire youtu.be/pHCdS7O248g?...

Nothing more painful than rereading your own published work. The self-doubt is consuming!

Just sayin good time to sign up for the NPR Music newsletter if you wanna read my praise song for the phenomenal new Wednesday album BLEEDS tomorrow www.npr.org/newsletter/m...

Thanks dear @carlzoilus.bsky.social for sharing this, it's a wow www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c-e...

Why music writers shouldn’t use AI for research. Thanks Matthew.

Very excited about this book!

RIP Robert Redford, a gorgeous man and subtle actor who did so much for film and also taught me personally that I prefer nerds like Dustin Hoffman

Great idea!!

Nope. This is such foolishness. Alan Sepinwall is not only the best, he is popular! People love reading him.

Good news from America’s greatest rock band pitchfork.com/news/drive-b...

Open and scroll to see a photo of me with gigantic grunge hair, alongside my great friend @evelynmcdonnell.bsky.social

recycling my joke bc it was funny: this looks like they're about to break into a Riverdance

Not to revive the poptimism discussion AGAIN but how can anyone see that T Swift review they published anonymously to “protect” the author as anything but a stunt? In light of real threats posed to journalists in other fields right now we need to tone down the rhetoric

We lost a titan and now I’ll never get to see him perform, heartache

logging off for the rest of the day and you can too

Nobody: What's it like in Music City? Me: hold my metaphor

Begging the New York Times to not do a profile with big well lit portrait on that A&M student

well that’s cool

timeline cleanse, adorable video from Algerian artist Chemsou Freeklane www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjZE...

Kind of amazing how quickly people who dedicated their lives to enabling human self-expression (i.e. media companies, publishers, producers) have thrown it completely under the bus. Aren’t there other ways to put money first?

Thanks Carl!

Might be my favorite on the new Anna Tivel album ANIMAL POEM. Her writing always stops me in my tracks. Lovely video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0sQ...

Was exposed to COVID in close quarters this weekend, have to cancel my Americana Fest appearances. I'm so disappointed. Hopefully I continue to test negative but since I ALSO got the vax yesterday I feel crappy enough to heed my body and stay home for now. I'll miss 'yall!

This! Also a great reported profile can provide real insight and pleasure but that takes time, even scarcer than money

I also need to echo @judyberman.bsky.social that cultural criticism has way more potential to be unique and engage readers than yet another canned celeb Q&A. Sorry, feeling cranky tonight

This is from that NY Mag piece on criticism or whatever it’s really about. WTF. Critics have been doing exactly this for a century, alongside making judgments and discoveries. YET AGAIN we are back to the most facile definition of arts writing. 🤯

I was happy to see an email in my inbox about the Palestinian-Jordanian artist Zeyne this morning. Arabic pop is so cool but gets nearly zero push in the U.S. Zeyne's music is very polished and has a chance to break through. And her videos are AMAZING. check it out www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZwM...

This song is very very lovely @emmaswiftsings.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=line...

analysis that goes a step farther than most, love it

Mon Rovia is quite stunning live. He is so quiet, and creates a calm vortex that draws in a listener.

From the newsletter, some thoughts on today’s heartthrobs www.npr.org/2025/09/02/n...

is there a punk band called Autistic Dogs

If you write about music, consider this

Thanks @nedraggett.bsky.social for pointing more toward this and thanks @tomewing.bsky.social for succinctly and brilliantly crystallizing the convo we had yesterday about poptimism here www.patreon.com/posts/deep-m...

That’s the thing too the jazz crowd did this whole ism debate before rock even existed. Duke Ellington was the first optimist

These are excellent

I realized that in this convo about poptimism I never acknowledged the masterpiece that is my friend @carlwilson.bsky.social 's book Let's Talk About Love: A Journey To the End of Taste. Still the gold standard. pitchfork.com/features/pap...

The best rigorous theorizing about poptimism is here, by @robinjames.bsky.social soundstudiesblog.com/2018/09/17/p...

I did this for NIN The Fragile and they supplied me with a big sushi platter

Here's a thing about the whole "poptimism made critics scared to be negative" thing that people seem to have forgotten. Pre-internet, access to big artists was controlled by publicists and managers. 🧵

Getting off the plane is the worst part.

I….. can’t

This thread

This

Was listening to the new Kathleen Edwards album Billionaire and thinking about what a great songwriter she is. Here's an example: 🧵

This is a truly great essay. As an adoptive mom, I couldn’t appreciate it more.

Eraserhead made me realize I had to live the art life.

Hard By a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili. Funny, heartbreaking, surreal, intense story of the aftermath of war in Georgia (the country). I learned a lot about a region of the world I don't know at all.