This is a great piece by my colleague spencer on the bad bunny helftimeshow but of course there’s never been a more divisive idea in American history than all of us being American, we fought a civil war over it and Trump is nothing if not manifest opposition to it www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

You can call Bad Bunny's halftime show many things—fun, meaningful, staggeringly detailed, wholesomely hot, surprisingly Gagatastic—but not divisive. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show was a blast, writes @skornhaber.bsky.social—“a precisely detailed, relentlessly stimulating medley rooted in the good-old-fashioned pleasure principle”:

At the Grammys, Bad Bunny asserted an obvious truth that somehow has become controversial: People like him are American, @skornhaber.bsky.social writes:

The Boss has pierced my shell with this time warp of a protest song for a time-warp kind of crisis. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

@skornhaber.bsky.social: “The president’s aesthetics are wackily fascist—but American culture, for now, remains peskily democratic.”

Nicki Minaj's MAGAfication made me write about Trump's fake golden age of cringe fascism vs. our actual cultural age of anarchy and debate and exhaustion. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

What kind of music geek doesn't have a snobby side? I profiled Zane Lowe, the relentlessly positive pop-star interviewer—and learned a lot about the new music promotional economy, where the lessons of "Almost Famous" have been totally inverted. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

How did a Gen X DJ and former rapper from New Zealand become the record industry’s favorite influencer? @skornhaber.bsky.social explores:

In “West End Girl,” Lily Allen’s “deadpan delivery and gliding melodies land the plot twists crisply; the beats melt dancehall and soul elements into a drooping, numbed dreamscape,” @skornhaber.bsky.social writes. See his top 10 albums of 2025: theatln.tc/SunxPyd7

My favorite albums of this headphones-on year— 10. Model/Actriz 9. Clipse 8. Ryan Davis + the RH Band 7. Anna von Hausswolff 6. .... Lily... Allen... 5. Dijon 4. Geese 3. Rosalía 2. Oklou! 1. Ninajirachi - I LOVE MY COMPUTER!!! ✨✨💖💻💽🎧🛜🖱️💖✨✨ www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

Wrote about the theology, the awe, and the compromises of Rosalía's Lux in the context of this Christiancore cultural moment— www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

I had to make a foray into fashion writing because I could not stop thinking about the fashion diapers all the celebs are wearing!!! www.theatlantic.com/family/2025/...

Chatted about criticism with Kai Ryssdal! Is the next Roger Ebert on TikTok? www.marketplace.org/story/2025/1...

Don't let anyone tell you cultural criticism is dead. But someone does have to pay for it. I toured through the commentary circuit on TikTok, Letterboxd, and other places where the rules of criticism are changing in inspiring ... and depressing ... ways— www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

"Traditional" cultural criticism feels like a dying art, Will Gottsegen writes in The Atlantic Daily. He talks with Spencer Kornhaber about where the medium goes from here:

Like everything else, professional arts criticism has been under attack this year, and Spencer Kornhaber reported a really great piece on what might be taking its place: www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

Taylor Swift’s new chart topper is an achievement of e-commerce, not music, argues @skornhaber.bsky.social:

I am just baffled. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

Reminder: People still do cool shit! (I wrote about getting my skull smashed by this Geese album.) www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

“Swift has pulled off something that’s never quite been done before. The closest comparison might be to show tunes—but for a one-woman play that’s gone 19 years without a curtain call.” @skornhaber.bsky.social

"We all see where this is going, correct?" www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

@skornhaber.bsky.social: “If we are, as is frequently said, living in an era of extraordinary political violence, it cannot be understood as separate from the rising cultural hunger to reach out and touch—or do much worse to—the people on our screens.”

For the magazine, here's my grand theory of Taylor Swift—why her music works, how she's made pop new, and where she might go next. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Long live indie rock!!! Loved taking a tour back through the twee 2000s with @chrisdeville's new book— www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

The summer of headphones-on, lala it's not happening, it's-all-I-can-take easy listening (thank you Bieber) — www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

Wrote about Ozzy Osbourne's antipathy for the devil— www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

Even as Diddy and his supporters celebrate his partial acquittal, the disturbing implications of his case grow, writes @skornhaber.bsky.social: https://theatln.tc/Ntp6gKsJ

@skornhaber.bsky.social: “The conversation about the case isn’t likely to focus on technical matters for very long. Popular culture loves martyrs; it loves comeback stories; frankly, it loves men.”

Has the internet sucked all the fun out of the physical world, or has it merely concentrated it in Washington Square Park? @skornhaber.bsky.social on Lorde: www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

Yes to the yuck, yes the noise, hell yes to "Shapeshifter," but I fear we need to start moving on from memoir pop. Lorde 'Virgin' review— www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

"Down to Be Wrong"—feels so right! (I think the Haim album's pretty good) www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

I spoke with the great Kim Gordon about turning Trump's banned words into experimental rap metal www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

The case for Addison Rae: Producers rock! (This piece also includes a Miley review.) www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

Have you ever really listened to “Surfer Girl”? Jeeeeeeez. My Brian Wilson obit— www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

Hey, SEE FRIENDSHIP has been out for three months, during which it has been purchased in many airport bookstores and spotted on many "new and noteworthy American fiction" displays — thank you for the support, and PLEASE tap in if you haven't already bookshop.org/p/books/see-...

@skornhaber.bsky.social: “Demonic Hollywood cabals offer a simple, clear-cut narrative that doesn’t ask us to reflect on how domestic violence and sexual coercion really get perpetuated.”

The sheer giddiness with which conspiracist thinking has eclipsed the details of Diddy’s case confirms some bleak realities about America’s psyche, writes @skornhaber.bsky.social:

"There’s a lot of fists in the air in our culture, and I’m a little fatigued in the arm area." I spoke with Ezra Furman about protest music, defeat music, and life as a trans person right now: www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

Today on Studio 2: Does pop culture kinda suck now? Or has our nostalgic pessimism just been sent into overdrive? We discuss with Spencer Kornhaber from the Atlantic (@skornhaber.bsky.social). Tune in at noon on WHYY or You Tube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvPN...

An emerging critical consensus argues that we’ve entered a cultural dark age—but @skornhaber.bsky.social isn’t so sure. Kornhaber surveyed a number of prominent critics who believe popular culture is at an all-time low point. He thinks there’s another story to be told: https://theatln.tc/m7lOysa0

Last year, @skornhaber.bsky.social visited the music historian Ted Gioia to talk about civilization’s death. “Music is turning into a rights-management business,” he told Kornhaber—and it’s destroying true artistry. Has America’s creative energy really been sapped?

I’ve never believed in cultural decline! But throughout the 2020s, the arts have been in a strange state that does look a lot like malaise. I spent the last year learning the causes for pessimism, trying to see if another story could be told. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Benson Boone, the latest of pop music’s anointed It Boys, seems to be learning the limits of his charm in real time, writes @skornhaber.bsky.social: https://theatln.tc/yhYLkr9i

Trump’s second term has made it even clearer how video-game culture is bleeding into everyday politics, writes @skornhaber.bsky.social:

Playboi Carti, the most influential rapper of his generation, sounds like he isn’t saying much. But there’s a story to his music, @skornhaber.bsky.social writes:

I went inside Jubilee Media, whose empire of hot-topic debate videos explain the cultural realignment we're living through: www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

I did *not* describe Lady Gaga's Mayhem as a 'Proustian pop opus'—but I could have! www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

The artist formerly known as Kanye West thinks this is a great time for a comeback—and he may be right, Spencer Kornhaber writes. Ye is testing how numb America has become to shock tactics: