Coachella began as an 'anti-Woodstock,' a trial run for the idea that a festival could give concertgoers a smooth, curated experience. Now the symbiotic relationship between brands and influencers is part of the very structural makeup of Coachella.
Jessie Ware's Superbloom sounds like the sonic embodiment of a city street exploding with magnolia and cherry blooms as the air warms in spring. There's the love-drunk disco pop the singer perfected on her 2020 breakout album, the sumptuous proto-house recalling Paradise Garage, and the floral, cinematic soundscapes of '70s funk.
RZA stated, 'I'm doing one that's going to be super egotistical, but probably the only person that I'm a superfan of that I never met: Barack Obama.' He also mentioned, 'What if Rage fuckin' inducted us? If they would come back out and say, 'I want to welcome my brothers back into it.' Fuckin' one day, do one concert to close that book. One night only. That would be crazy.'
Zara Larsson could be called a veteran pop star... because there's an undertow of struggle to her glittering party-girl persona. The teen-age version of her... remains lodged in my memory—a closeted power vocalist dulling her instrument to fit catchy and anodyne tracks.
Karaoke is community, right? Everybody can sing along and it won't make people think, Is she going to try some vocal acrobatics?' All the leather mommies and leather daddies are going to be on their feet.
The only song here that really matters. Written just hours after the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and released a few days later, Springsteen names names (looking at you, Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem) and speaks bold, specific truth. With a title that recalls his own impactful Streets of Philadelphia, a melody reminiscent of Bob Dylan, and an urgency not felt since Neil Young's Ohio, it may not be groundbreaking musically, but Streets of Minneapolis is exactly what we need right now.
The song reflects on two contrasting visions. In the first verse, he looks back on his childhood growing up female and compares it to living in a dream. Then, after a stirring bridge, he revisits the same reflective structure and ponders his childhood growing up as a boy: "When I was a little boy I wanted to be real/ I wanted to feel all of the things my body wanted me to feel," he sings.
Musicboard, an app for music discovery and recommendations, has been struggling, according to its users. Over the past several months, users said the app experienced outages, the website went offline, and the Android app disappeared from the Play Store. This has concerned its devoted, if small, user base. (The app has been downloaded around 462,000 times to date, according to market intelligence provider Appfigures.) On Reddit, users have been recommending alternatives and offering each other support as they wait for any update.