Allegedly taking place in the year 2025, Spike Jonze's 2013 film HER is a fascinating depiction of not-so-future Los Angeles, capturing the feeling of what it is to live in the city while flouting its mechanical limitations. On AI, LA optimism, male loneliness, and more.

“The Mr. Potters of our world have only gotten richer and bolder as life has gotten harder for the rest of us. It will take deeper solidarity to push them back.” Time for my annual share of the best thing I wrote for @mgrmagazine.bsky.social

For the sixth year we’re pleased to present the Top 50 Covers of the Year! 2025 featured some heaters, including @ducksltd.bsky.social taking on Camera Obscura, @superchunk.bsky.social doing a Magnetic Fields classic, a song from @father-daughter.bsky.social's 15th anniversary compilation, and more!

The culture’s biggest popularity contest showed that skateboarding is more of a fractured, multi-party system than ever—and vert skaters might be the emerging party. @brendanmenapace.bsky.social dives into the thorny voting process of Thrasher's Skater of the Year.

For @mgrmagazine.bsky.social : I wrote about skateboarding’s multiparty system during its annual sham election, and its new opposition party leader. merrygoroundmagazine.com/thrashers-sk...

It's our final Bandcamp Picks of 2025, featuring Syrosis' madcap hip-hop record #ASIAM and Steve Morse Band's visceral instrumental prog rocker TRIANGULATION! Read about both and give them a listen over on @bandcamp.com!

Happy Bandcamp Friday! Check out our Picks of the Week, including the latest @hitthenorthrecs.bsky.social holiday charity compilation, HIT THE NORTH POLE VOL. 2, and Elmo Aoyama's dark, crystalizing synthpop album DEMONS, out now via Dinosaur City! Scope them both out on @bandcamp.com!

It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the devastating, grungy existentialism of Lily Seabird’s TRASH MOUNTAIN, out now via @lameorecords.bsky.social, and the springy Midwest anti-folk of Case Oats’ LAST MISSOURI EXIT, out now via @mergerecords.bsky.social!

Portland, OR recording artist Amulet offers a bit of everything on their latest, TONGUE OUT SELFIE, a hyperpop-laced clubby carnival ride. We chat with them about Portland, the albums many sonic textures, and how that production will translate live!

"It really wasn’t a question of would I die, it was when. I’m really grateful I didn’t, and that now I don’t think I’m gonna die—I hope I make it past 30, I think I will. I don’t think it’ll be my own doing, I know that much."

I Prevail's VIOLENT NATURE comes across as too self-conscious, as though they're too embarrassed to commit to a sound they’ve been barreling toward for years now. It's full of strange, exhausting, and often bad creative decisions that weigh the album down.

I Prevail's VIOLENT NATURE comes across as too self-conscious, as though they're too embarrassed to commit to a sound they’ve been barreling toward for years now. It's full of strange, exhausting, and often bad creative decisions that weigh the album down.

Wrote some stuff about an artist that’s never taken a break from being an artist. Danny Brown consistently shows us what it means to create without fear and embrace humanity, and his newest is no exception. Give it a read if so inclined!

Five years ago, we claimed Danny Brown was the best artist of the 2010s. Half a decade later he might be in the conversation for the greatest of all time. On the difference five years makes, QUARANTA, his podcast, and the brilliantly colorful STARDUST.

Author Maggie O’Farrell's book Hamnet has been adapted for the silver screen and is set to release on November 26th. We chatted with her about the nature of film adaptations, working with Chloé Zhao, the development status of Audrey Diwan's adaptation of The Marriage Portrait, and more!

It's our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring @zayallcaps.bsky.social's modern madcap pop spectacle ART POP * POP ART and bloodsports' thrillingly aggressive ANYTHING CAN BE A HAMMER! Read about both and then check them out over on @bandcamp.com!

Lifeless in execution with a confounding script, Scott Cooper's vision of Bruce Springsteen is disheartening. SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE is one of the biggest whiffs for an artist biopic of this size and scale ever, and a disservice to the Boss.

Big thanks to CJ at Merry-Go-Round for this fantastic write up on the Sweet Nobody album. Click through for a premier of the whole thing!

Sweet Nobody's latest, DRIVING OFF TO NOWHERE, is their fullest sounding yet, a wonderful mix of summer bummer tunes that act as a meeting point between angsty '60s surf rock and cloudy 2010s internet indie pop. It's out tomorrow via @repeatingcloud.com but get an early listen below!

Our relationship with our own art, especially older works, is complicated. None know this better than Nussy Andrews. We chat with her about the complicated emotions that come with writing and recording music, the most recent album VENUS BABY, and more!

It's our Bandcamp Picks of the Week featuring the latest stadium sized self-titled album from Plight, out now via à La Carte Records, and Tuskers' cheeky country colored record START CALLING MORGUES, out now via Just For Now. Read about both and listen today over on @bandcamp.com!

Two weeks ago, my buddy Jon and I attend a 24-hour horror movie marathon at the @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social. I wrote about my love for horror movies, lifelong friendships, and the experience of watching films in a theatre full of like-minded folks for @mgrmagazine.bsky.social.

Repertory theaters across the country come alive during October with horror programming, the crown jewel being the all night marathon. But what is it like to survive one? @jackprobst.com walks us through 24 hours of scares attending @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social's 2025 Music Box of Horrors!

From the frontlines of AFI Fest 2025, writer Michael Fairbanks breaks down the cognitive dissonance required to tackle a modern film fest, where going from a doc like THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB to a drama like BAD APPLES forces you to do mental gymnastics.

Great. Phenomenal. Two words that fit feeo's debut record and her exploration of the enormous cityscape, and Jules Reidy's transformative new album, evoking their voice into otherwordly territory. Certainly AOTY contenders! My write-up on feeo and Jules Reidy's albums is up on MGR Mag!

"I remember there’s a scene in the film where Sosé says, like, 'We fought the world’s most modern weapons with this,' and she’s holding an AK-47 from the 1970s, and I think that kind of tells you everything there is to say about this conflict."

It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the stirring electronic textures of feeo’s GOODNESS, out now via @ad93rec.bsky.social, and the left-field avant-pop compositions of Jules Reidy’s GHOST/SPIRIT, out now via @thrilljockey.bsky.social! Read about both and listen today!

Perry Eaton's spent the last 10 years writing dazzling rock hooks for his project Beeef. He's now back with Ivy Boy, an airy singer-songwriter project that's sonically somewhere between Bread and the Clean. His effervescent debut is out tomorrow, but you can give it an early listen now!

We're thrilled to have Jobber's Kate Meizner step back into the ring with Hard Time Blues to discuss the new album JOBBER TO THE STARS, out now via @eisrecords.bsky.social. We chat about noted wrestling fan Bob Mould, the state of the AEW and WWE's women's divisions, SOME KIND OF MONSTER, and more!

It's our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the post-hype folksy wonder of Molly Tuttle's SO LONG LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, out now via @nonesuch.com, and the dazed country of The Pink Stones' THANK THE LORD… IT’S THE PINK STONES, out now via Normaltown!

Ending a podcast series is seemingly like ending a TV show in some ways. Some do it well, some don’t. Much like how he pioneered the medium, Maron is the first of his kind to end it like this. So how did the finale of WTF WITH MARC MARON go?

"Think about how much you learn from interviewing people, right? I get to do little interviews while I’m just trying to make them comfortable. Photography is when you’re building trust. It’s opening up to them, relating with them, making them feel comfortable."

"displays the wonder of different artistic disciplines markedly coalescing into an inspiring work" lovely write up Dom Lepore & @mgrmagazine.bsky.social ❤️

We had the honor to chat with director Emily Mkrtichian to discuss her new documentary THERE WAS, THERE WAS NOT. She broke down the visceral immediacy of the conflicts facing production, the challenges and triumphs of connecting with and celebrating Armenian heritage, and more!

It's our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the imaginative and inspired ambience of Kirin McElwain's YOUTH, out now via @akprecordings.bsky.social, and the crushingly soulful lo-fi folk of Emily Hines' THESE DAYS, out now via @keeledscales.bsky.social! Read about both albums today!

On THE COUNT, songs are shaped from fragmentary phrases, glued together by gasps of yearning and bravado. It and Frog's previous '25 release, 1000 VARIATIONS ON THE SAME SONG, establish them as one of the most freewheelin' acts making music today.

Baltimore’s Micah E. Wood is a true multidisciplinary artist—a photographer, musician, and fabric within the local community. We chatted with him about his new album YOU, ME, THE REIGN, where he deftly jumps between political unrest and a search for love.

Working on a variety of humorous levels, from laugh out loud funny to passively amusing to, even in a certain sense, genuinely practical, Fred Armisen's 100 SOUND EFFECTS interestingly captures his charm and personality.

Happy Bandcamp Friday! Check out our Picks of the Week, including the timeless technicolored ambiance of Kevin McCormick & David Horridge’s LIGHT PATTERNS and one of the best under the radar shoegaze records of 2025 in Chatham Rise’s TRILLIUM! Read about both and then grab 'em over on @bandcamp.com!

Out now wherever you find podcasts, we’re joined by @mgrmagazine.bsky.social’s @cjsimonson.bsky.social on this season premiere of our new series, The 1950’s Number Ones. Find your platform of choice here: linktr.ee/indieheadspodcast

Listen to Editor-in-Chief @cjsimonson.bsky.social gab about the music of the early '50s over on the @indieheadspod.bsky.social!

Julian Glander’s BOYS GO TO JUPITER is 2025's best coming-of-age film, a thoughtful and beautifully animated exploration of tech, capitalism, and hustle culture that is as anxious as it is calming. We chatted with him about the cast, honing in the script, the movie's remarkable music, and much more!

On the premiere episode of the 1950's Number Ones, we're joined by @mgrmagazine.bsky.social’s @cjsimonson.bsky.social as we relay every #1 hit from Truman’s State of the Union to the End of the Battle of the Ch’ongch’on River. Support us now on Patreon to hear the full episode over 48 hours early!

It's our Bandcamp Pick of the Week, featuring @luxterminus.bsky.social’s vintage prog metal exploration CINDER, out now via MetalMedia Group! Read about it and then give it a listen over on @bandcamp.com!

The latest single from Ruby Sparks' debut album IRIS comes in the form of a darting garage rock tune with smoothed out edges and vintage psych pop wonder. Listen to our premiere of "Love's All We Have" today!

On this week's Bandcamp Picks of the Week segment, I go for two delightful finds. One blends death metal with chilling post-punk snarl, the other is a reflective plugg folktronica. Both are great and worth listening to. My write-ups of FLOATING and Zyber's albums are up on MGR Mag!

THE LONG WALK arrives at a moment where the 18-24 male demo is at a scary crossroads, one playing out in the news daily. It's a bleaker, more realistic take on the YA apocalyptic adaptations from a decade ago, asking in a whisper "Which Way, Western Man?"

It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring FLOATING’s post-punk infused metal exploration HESITATING LIGHTS, out now via @transcendingobs.bsky.social, and Zyber's experimental hip hop journey SMILE! YOU’RE ON CAMERA, out now via Killstreak Certified! Read about both today!

You think I just go on and on and on about comics? No, dude, my blow-hard-ed-ness also applies to music, like that of the awesome BRNDA. My latest for @mgrmagazine.bsky.social: