The first comment on YouTube for this video is "This song sounds like it's airbrushed onto the side of a van" and there has perhaps never been a more apt assessment of a song than this youtu.be/DyhYzRRMBSU

RIP WALTER STEDING as a weird underground nyc violinist steding was always second (in my mind, anyway) to boris policeband, but that ain't hay. no firewall www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/a...

Leonardo DiCaprio has stopped using Wikipedia.

At the launch I'll be in conversation with pop culture savant Travis Elborough. I'll be showing the short film my son Max made to promote the book, and giving away copies of the rare "Amor Fati" CD, of tracks by my band The Know, with every book sold.

For whoever tried to message me on the chat here, I can't read those because I'm not sending bluesky a scan of my passport for "age verification". Please send a general message or email me, or try my mastodon instead. Thanks!

modesty laws prevented showing even one lousy frame of John Waters' PINK FLAMINGOS (1972) in the trailer, so the only footage in it is of people reacting to a screening they just came out of. every single type of extant queer person is contained in the specific sequences I have selected here

This year I've noticed high fashion piggybacking on experimental cultures that are much more precarious and amorphous than it. Is this new? What effect does it have? Is it even a problem? Attempted to answer these questions in this short end-of-year essay for @thewiremagazine.bsky.social

Authoritarians used to burn books. Now their collaborators burn literacy.

Well this rules. If you’re not familiar, a chanson is a polyphonic composition typically of late medieval and Renaissance vintage. If you like this sound and want to go looking for more, I highly recommend listening to the work of Josquin de Prez.

Tonight on @resonancefm.bsky.social & Resonance Extra, Shane Woolman hosts The Wire's weekly show, playing a selection of tracks taken from the magazine's Top 50 Releases Of The Year. Tune in from 9pm GMT extra.resonance.fm/schedule

This is 100% infuriating.

sucks to see AI abstracts added to researchers' papers without consent, also appropriate that ✨is the official emoji of AI because:

At The Wire website, listen to a selection of tracks from our Top 50 Releases of the Year, as voted for by The Wire’s team of staff and contributors. www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks...

⏳THREE WEEKS TO GO!⌛ Thanks to everyone who has supported and shared our Rewired crowdfunder: we've reached 20% but we need your help to hit our goal! Visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/yswn-rewired to support new works by women and gender-diverse artists in Yorkshire and bag some exclusive rewards.

New show! With some holiday surprises 🎶

Before and after. Here's to 500 more issues. Thanks to all who have helped us along the way. (Cake made by Jill Tipping.)

After much research and development I have made an offline version of ChatGPT. Now you can save water and electricity while navel-gazing, and carry one of the world's most powerfully annoying AI chatbots in your pocket.

It's time to talk to you about my cat.

in the department of spectacularly missing the point, looks like a streetwear brand is now calling itself fugazi...its t-shirts use the band's typeface...what happened to all ages shows under $5 with no merch (b/c anticonsumerism)? shop.doverstreetmarket.com/collections/...

@kunstmuell.bsky.social have you seen this: www.juliensauctions.com/en/auctions/...

"it isn't just X—it's Y" is by far the most annoying ChatGPTism

oh hell yeah youtu.be/nGZOFyLrCwk?...

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it). But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

AND a whole lot of your favourite music journalism.

Don't forget: to read these milestone articles and supplements in full, you can take out a digital subscription for just £40 p/a. NB Next month we will be putting up our subscription rates: subscribe now to beat the price rise. thewire.co.uk/subscriptions/

7) The Wire 400 26 page supplement (Issue 400, June 2017)

6) The Wire 300 online essays series (Issue 300, Feb 2009)

4) 100 records that set the world on fire (while no one was listening) (Issue 175, September 1998)

3) 150 sonic essentials and aural obscurities (Issue 150, August 1996)

2) 100 most important records ever made (Issue 100, June 1992)

Next week, The Wire will publish its 5️⃣0️⃣0️⃣th issue, which feels like something worth celebrating. By way of reflection, we've taken a look back through the archive at our previous milestones. 1) 50 Undersung Musicians (Issue 50, April 1988)

FFS British Vogue, not again

Why articles explaining why Britpop nostalgia just won’t go away just won't go away.

The Wire's very own Joseph Stannard @jjstannard.bsky.social will be in conversation with Slomo and Stephen O'Malley on 1st Sept 👇

Ilia is also down at a tremendous looking @cafeotodalston.bsky.social evening tonight, with their new Mute Frequencies project exploring sewing machines, Specialist Machines. Who is not fascinated by sewing machines? www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/proje...

describing Labubu

Help @femalepressure.bsky.social keep doing their amazing work!

There are no AI bands with a large and engaged listenership. That black mirror nonsense is not happening, at all, anywhere. Each time one of these prompt-generated music projects is in the press because it's doing meaningful numbers, it's just a stream-fraud ring stealing income from the pool.

Some sonic soup for the soul

We're really thankful for all our readers and supporters, we couldn't keep doing this without you.

One way is to subscribe to @thewiremagazine.bsky.social thewire.co.uk/shop/subscri...

slacker and metropolitan, we watch them every new year's eve

And I suggest that the United States should seize and nationalize Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink. We can both make suggestions!

The Wire 494 is out now! Our brand new issue features Raven Chacon on the cover + Ingrid Laubrock, Bastard Assignments, Infinity Knives, Cleaners From Venus, Jeff Mills' Invisible Jukebox, Lukas De Clerck, Penelope Trappes, Ciaran Mackle & much, much more. www.thewire.co.uk/issues/494

Tonight on @resonancefm.bsky.social and Resonance Extra, join @jjstannard.bsky.social on The Wire’s weekly radio show for a superlative sonic selection featuring tracks from Klein (pictured), Knives, Dead Pioneers, Zoë Mc Pherson, and more Listen from 9pm GMT. extra.resonance.fm Photo: Joyce NG

HEY 👋 Sign this 👇 already at 7,000 signatures from 1000 earlier today x petition.parliament.uk/petitions/70...

mappa tonight at @cafeotodalston.bsky.social