It should go without saying that this year has been sorely lacking in joy, but the end of July is here and the NBA has flown an entire league down to Disney World to finish out the season. In what feels like a two-month-long Battle-of-the-Bands-version of sports the excitement is certainly there…but the weirdness is […]
Rock is obvs not dead but it’s not hard to see why people always say it is, almost wishfully. For decades, the most commercially viable (and even critically bolstered) rock was dominated by white dudes, which is troublesome considering how many of its pioneers, including the dearly departed, radically queer genius Little Richard, were not. […]
Today, there are two types of people walking around: Those willing to wear a mask to help prevent the spread of a deadly virus in COVID-19, and the unconscionable, who, either citing their natural-born freedoms or their political fealties, refuse to don any sort of a face covering, even during a pandemic that — let’s […]
In a time when concerts may feel like a distant memory, I find myself thinking of the ones I’ve seen — either in person or on film — that stands out as a reminder to keep me company during the waiting. With that, let’s look back at a career-defining, career-inspiring concert that was arguably undefeated among […]
Against all odds and the advice of many virologists, the 2020 MLB season is finally underway. Whether that’s a good idea in the midst of a pandemic is beside the point because it’s happening. Baseball is back, albeit in a much stranger fashion than anyone could have imagined when spring training began in February (which […]
This article originally appeared in the May 1991 issue of SPIN. Ice-T’s first acting experience came in front of security cameras—as a street hustler playing the part of a yuppie. He’d walk into a jewelry store and say to the salesman: “My father’s in the area buying land—he’s a real-estate developer—and I’m going to UCLA […]
As the 2000s became the 2010s, no artist looked more poised to transform the landscape wholesale than Mathangi Arulpragasam, whom most millennials know as M.I.A. A brilliant Sri Lankan musician, political disruptor, and cultural synthesizer from London, she made music almost entirely about being exiled by birthright, about her complicated relationship with societal upheaval having […]
Take it from Rob Halford: It is difficult pulling leather chaps over sweaty legs. The Judas Priest frontman would learn that lesson anew when his band arrived at the since-demolished John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia to perform as part of Live Aid, which unfolded on two continents 35 years ago today. “It was an […]
(Like all of Jonah’s articles, there is a corresponding Spotify playlist of all the bands he mentions. Feel free to immerse yourself and listen while reading. Imagine that, a feast for yer eyes and ears at the SAME TIME.) When I tell people I was born and raised on the Hawaiian island of O’ahu, they […]
Chloe and Halle Bailey say they believe in “divine timing,” and the release of their sophomore effort, Ungodly Hour, is the perfect example. Chloe x Halle, the soon-to-be R&B superstars with a collective DIY mentality that only the genre’s most admired sisters could share, recorded the album in October and soon realized the double meaning it would […]