Aike 3000 creates raw, reduced pop music that blends indie, RnB, and electronic influences. The songs revolve around themes of failure, loss, and emotional fractures, all while maintaining a sense of beauty. From broken images, intimacy, and clear melodies, a unique form of Broken Pop emerges.
When you first press play on Álvaro Díaz's "Omakase," you are immediately transported into the kitchen. A stove flickers on. A knife hits the cutting board. Chants of "¡Sí, chef!" ring out like a dubbed episode of "The Bear." Then, before the listener can fully settle in, the Puerto Rican rapper and singer fires off bars claiming that Grammys were stolen from him and details his many nights spent sleeping on the floor to his new normal of earning $500,000 per show.
Spotify just announced a partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG) to create a tool that lets fans make covers and remixes. It'll be a paid add-on for Premium subscribers, with some of that money going to the original artists whose work is being repurposed. Spotify says that artists have to opt in to the program.
It took four years to write and record its seven songs, which were spurred by the Radiohead guitarist's experience of falling into a deep depression and navigating decades of emotional trauma exacerbated by the pandemic lockdowns. O'Brien learned that being immersed in nature is where he felt the strongest - the title Blue Morpho refers to a rare species of butterfly he encountered with his family. "Part of my healing journey was walking in the trees and in the river, feeling the light, and recalibrating there," he explains. "My cathedral is in the woods."
Runners try to hack their own pace by crafting playlists of songs with a specific number of beats per minute, hoping the tempo will coax their gait to a matching speed. High school marching bands employ crisp brass fanfares to help lock their steps into time with one another. People with Parkinson's disease, who suffer from a faltering, unsteady gait, can lock into a smoother, more regular gait when prompted with highly rhythmic music.
“I like to be silly,” she said. “I also wanted an artist name that felt lucky. I'm a Sagittarius rising, which means my chart is ruled by Jupiter, the planet of luck. When I started making music, I was anxious all the time. The name helped me feel confident enough to keep pursuing it. I also like the work of bell hooks, a feminist writer and social critic, who uses lowercase to decenter identity and challenge hierarchy.”
In recent weeks, Olivia Rodrigo and Charli xcx have been the targets of "open letters" from their respective fans, which go beyond expressing disappointment over their new singles. In Rodrigo's case, one fan complained that her song "drop dead" had too many "similarities to other artists" without providing evidence, and criticized her for blocking country artist Ella Langley from the top of the Billboard charts (despite her currently being number one). Meanwhile, another fan demanded a "proper rock album," as if she hadn't done rock-inspired fare for her entire career.
Wagner Ribeiro de Souza wasn't carrying much in his backpack. A local compilation of techno, house and jungle hits, a couple of news clippings and a VHS tape with footage from the club where he played weekly: small fragments of a music scene that he, under the moniker DJ Patife, and some friends were building in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It was 1998. He had travelled to London to talk his way into the office of Movement, one of Britain's most important drum'n'bass nights, with a single goal: pitching an edition of the party in Brazil.
It comes in the final 10 minutes. It's 2023: a euphoric high point in Kylie's career. Padam Padam, the first single from Kylie's 16th album, Tension, has just been released. Then the words One More Thing flash across a black screen. Cut to present-day Kylie arriving at the studio, singing songs from Tension with her longstanding team of British songwriters.
Turning 80 is probably not something Cher places much importance on after all, conventions and expectations have never mattered much to her. Her fearlessness has made her one of the greatest icons in pop music history. Alongside her unique contralto voice, instantly recognizable to generations of listeners, it is above all her versatility and willingness to try new things that have led artists like Lady Gaga and Beyonce to cite her as an inspiration.
UNTER STRØM debuts with “Orynth,” an exhilarating track released through the renegade label Breathing Records. The duo, comprised of seasoned artists Alex Gonzales (known for his work as Matte Blvck) and John Kunkel (of The New Division and John Grand fame), seeks to broaden the horizons of techno, melodic house, and industrial music.
Now serving window number three. Welcome to the United States Immigration Center. Can I see your passport? Green card? Birth certificate, please? And what is your occupation, sir? A rapper? A rapper? OK.
“Pushing the most Iranian elements right up against the most American ones brought me a certain kind of joy.” As the United States has escalated its attacks on Iran, there's something pleasingly transgressive about bringing Iranian elements into such overtly Western music-so much so that the songs without Yaghmai's playing seem a little subdued in comparison.
“I've been a music producer for well over 12 years, trying to crack the electronic music scene for a very long time,” says Pearce. But it wasn't until Pearce became a father that he cracked a market no one saw coming, toddler techno! “I was in my home studio trying to make bangers, but the only melodies in my head were nursery rhymes,” he says.
“Together” features Nikki Nair, Jessy Lanza, and Prentiss in a pastiche of samples and electronic melodies that play like the stuttering but pleasant memories of a floppy disk over a dance beat. The song strikes an emotional, dream-like tone midway through with the singer conjuring nostalgia through technology: “Staring at a picture on my phone/ Staring at a memory that's old.”
“Black,” the second single from Ray Noir's forthcoming EP Gothstar, is a vibrant blend of high-camp rave and metalcore that navigates themes of excess, identity, and queer empowerment. This audacious track is designed for both the dancefloor and the mosh pit, showcasing a sound that's both loud and unapologetically eccentric.
In 2023, she begged for time in Smith's shuttered archives, discovering hours of non-American music, before learning to perform and share it. Marisa Anderson: The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music Vol 1 Here, Anderson interprets nine of these tunes, pointedly taken from regions shaped by major US conflicts since her birth in 1970. While her fascinating liner notes track what is lost and found when trying to translate these compositions, their universal musicality still cuts through.
