Must Hear dreamy DMV rap about kicking the habit and world-weary R&B from a modern great; plus sensory-overload electro-pop, new heat from everybody's favorite Andean electro-folk futurists, and more

Something that lives rent-free in my head since reading the Hole bassist's memoir: Courtney Love once called Melissa Auf der Maur "Billy Corgan's purse."

Dijon live from Coachella! Jazzy guitar-synths that go haywire in unexpected ways! Songwriters on the outer limits of art-rock! Two rapper/producers—one extremely storied, one still just starting out— challenging convention! Five Albums has it all!

On their latest albums, Earl Sweatshirt, Mike, and Sideshow acknowledge that hip-hop doesn't have a chosen one, but they all rap like they are anyway

Ticket prices remain out of control, but most of the tours we're looking forward to are actually... affordable?

“Man Like U” is even more relevant now, deep into the manosphere era, than when it came out seven years ago—a sentimental hymn steeped in ’80s pop balladry that rolls its eyes at “phallic repetition” and implores males everywhere to, simply, “improve.”

Who are all these people hanging out in the shop, shouting at each other? And why do I find myself yearning to shout along with them? www.hearingthings.co/revival-of-t...

New Waste or Taste: on horsegiirL, Gelli Haha, and Flea's jazz fusion take on Frank Ocean

We're getting a strong duality from this week's Five Albums picks, with two dance artists primed for self-actualizing in the streets, a rapper and an indie-rock musician both contemplating various manifestations of their worst nightmares, and more.

Is the era of 3 a.m. booty call R&B giving way to another epoch of MAKING LOVE—even, perhaps, one with the devotion and ferocity of Johnny Gill or Babyface?

If so many people hate American boys right now, why do so many of those same people love this song about crushing over American boys?

We had New York rapper-producer, and one-half of Armand Hammer, Elucid explain why he'd want songs by Funkadelic, Rakim, Maze, & more played at his funeral (he prefers the title "homegoing service").

This week, we've got an important message for the frauds

"We spent $255 at Johnny Rockets in four days somehow. That’s amazing."

Our Five Album picks this week all seem to be wrestling with themselves, whether a would-be computer-scientist seeking a path with a guitar strapped to her back, or a composer searching for humanity in an orchestra

Here we have a European woman who catalyzed a worldwide hit that’s mostly about lusting after American boys saying she thinks American boys are broken

“A visiting writer told me my work was like background music in a restaurant,” recalled fiction writer/songwriter Jana Horn. “Like something you don’t really listen to, it’s just there. It was extremely traumatizing, but it also changed my whole writing.”

Yes, “Stateside” is a fun little pop song about wanting to date a guy who might have grown up next to a cornfield. But it can also be a wishful plea for American boys—and America, at large—to be better.

The fan thought he'd uncovered a hidden alternate-reality game buried deep in Lip Critic's lyrics and Discord posts. Instead, he’d stolen the frontman's identity and went on a shopping spree.

"This is one of those lyrics that I can show to someone as a test as to whether I’m going to vibe with them or not—because if you listen to this line and you don’t gel with it, then we can’t be friends."

The viral popularity of Hudson Freeman's country-folk tune "If You Know Me" seems like a glitch in cyberspace—or maybe a collective SOS signal from those who are scrolling their way toward oblivion

“There’s all this slacker rock where people pretend they don’t care. We care a lot. Our veins are popping out of our necks trying to make this music.”

Now on our podcast Waste or Taste: J Balvin, Amber Mark, and Steve Vai's methed-out World Cup song, horny country music, Earl Sweatshirt, and more

You don’t just show up to breakfast with a stranger and stick your finger directly in the mother wound over pancakes and eggs. That kind of talk is for the cigarette afterwards.

Dancefloor evangelist Joshua Idehen goes deep on the indelible lyrics that led him to create the most life-affirming album of 2026 so far

It’s a beautiful thing that Gordon remains so committed to exploring music’s bleeding edge

“I didn’t want cringiness to stand in the way of telling myself that I deserve to be loved, and that is more important than any desire to be cool,” says Joshua Idehen of his album’s clubby self-help bent. “Plus, I’m 45—cool is no longer affordable to me.”

Hudson Freeman's “If You Know Me” clip has around 7 million views across the big video platforms—which is ironic considering that it's a song about how online life is nothing but an illusion that tricks us into thinking we know each other, and ourselves

For the first official installment of a new column called In Theory, Andy looks at the way a single chord can turn the entire meaning of a song on its head www.hearingthings.co/townes-van-z...

This week, we've got a raucous homage to the power of good goss, a Brooklyn duo finding elegantly finding their way beyond virality, an electro-rock cut that's oddly reminiscent of 'Blackout'-era Britney, and more www.hearingthings.co/aldous-hardi...

One recent Underscores song is like if “SexyBack”-era JT and Britney circa 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘰𝘶𝘵 morphed into a single pop entity whose music was as gloriously deconstructed as their matching denim outfits

One minute, he’s serenading a love interest over 808s, bass, and finger snaps while sounding like rap game Snagglepuss; the next, he’s crooning about missed connections over New Edition-style R&B or hitting double-time flows over minimal sexy drill

“A writer told me my work was like background music in a restaurant. Like something you don’t really listen to, it’s just there. It was extremely traumatizing, but it also changed my whole writing. I’m actually really grateful for that awful moment.”

In which we consider the pluses and minuses of relocating to Jessie Ware's rich-bitch disco nirvana

"The zaps are so alien and weird, but absolutely necessary. It’s one of those songs that I blast on my Bluetooth speaker while biking, which makes me go dangerously fast."

Lila Downs and Snow Tha Product's “Cambias mi mundo” is a powerful cumbia devotional, but there’s a deeper message—about womanhood, about protecting self and community, about maintaining your dignity and values in the face of adversity

What can I say: Lana Del Rey's creep-out ode to her gator-loving husband goes directly onto my personal playlist of the singer's greatest hits

“Maybe I’m getting the majority of my money through Spotify, but I’m finally in a position to be able to live and to pay my bandmates and the people that record my music and make my videos. Is it really selling out for me to be able to pay my friends?”

While you can and should dance to Muna's "Dancing on the Wall," which sounds like it could have played on the radio alongside Lionel Richie in the ’80s, it’s more of a crying-in-the-club anthem than a wedding staple

The newly formed duo GENA, composed of Texas-born singer-songwriter Liv.e and Detroit producer Karriem Riggins, speak on love, comfort, the relationship between jazz, rap, and soul, and their debut album 'The Pleasure Is Yours'

Discussed on the new episode of our subscribers-only podcast Waste or Taste: Lana Del Rey's gator-loving husband, Jessie Ware's Ennio Morricone samples, Angine de Poitrine's polarizing costumed math-rock

I’ve often wondered if the constant creation of new Mitskis is in part a reaction to fans’ demand for more information; instead she gives them a whole new world to explore each time

“A visiting writer told me my work was like background music in a restaurant,” says Horn. “Like something you don’t really listen to, it’s just there. It was extremely traumatizing, but it also changed my whole writing.”

We're here for the underscores pop takeover in 2026

Brooklyn indie rocker Hudson Freeman went viral with a mesmerizingly despondent song about how online life is nothing but an illusion that tricks us into thinking we know each other, and ourselves. The irony is not lost on him.

For me, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘝𝘦𝘪𝘯 meant that there was another world out there, one where pain and frustration with your surroundings could be mythologized and thus conquered, where supervillains might be felled by the stroke of a spraypaint can

Hip-hop is constantly mired in discussions about importance, significance, and, yes, substance. But if you come up for air, you’ll feel it all around you. Read Dylan's thoughts on the latest version of this age-old convo

There are protest songs for now and protest songs for forever. With its themes of anguish and intractability, this one feels like it could resonate at almost any point in human history

The guitarist looks ready to lead a shadowy cult ceremony, the bassist like an elaborately vandalized Easter Island head. "Oh god," you might think to yourself, "this looks like some real Burning Man shit."

The best you could say for 'Wuthering Heights' is that it serves as a successful pivot point for Charli—into film scoring, but perhaps more importantly, a post-Brat reality