10 Best Songs of the Week: Bartees Strange, Miki Berenyi Trio, The Weather Station, and More

Jan 17, 2025 Mark Redfern (with Andy Von Pip)

Welcome to the second Songs of the Week of 2025. This week Andy Von Pip, Caleb Campbell, and Scotty Dransfield helped me decide what should make the list. We considered over 30 songs and narrowed it down to a Top 10.

Sparks on the 50th Anniversary of “Kimono My House”

Dec 31, 2024 Issue #73 - Maya Hawke and Nilüfer Yanya

In 1974, the band Sparks saw a startling change of fortune when they transformed from an American band with somewhat dim prospects into a British band that became an overseas sensation. Kimono My House was their breakthrough third album, reaching #4 on the UK albums chart and including two UK Top 10 singles. If this sounds like the stuff of movies, it came close in 2021, thanks to The Sparks Brothers, the documentary directed by Edgar Wright that tells the story of brothers Ron Mael and Russell Mael, who are the band Sparks.

My Firsts: Nada Surf

Dec 24, 2024

My Firsts is our email interview series where we ask musicians to tell us about their first life experiences, be it early childhood ones (first word, first concert, etc.) or their first tastes of being a musician (first band, first tour, etc.). For this My Firsts we talk to Matthew Caws of Nada Surf.

English Teacher on “This Could Be Texas”

Dec 30, 2024 Issue #73 - Maya Hawke and Nilüfer Yanya

Searching their collective memory, the four members of the Leeds, England-based band English Teacher distinctly remember the time they once made a kid cry.

Seven Music Documentary Films and Series From the Second Half of 2024 to Watch (and Three To Skip)

Jan 08, 2025

Halfway through 2024, we published a list of “Seven Music Documentary Films and Series From 2024 to Watch (and Three to Skip).” Another glut of music documentaries and series have been released since then including the superstar projects Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Words (Prime Video), Luther: Never Too Much (CNN), Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken (Paramount+), Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band (Hulu), Olivia Rodrigo: Guts World Tour (Netflix), Elton John: Never Too Late (Disney+) and Yoshiki: Under the Sky (On Demand). If there is one takeaway from the overabundance of the biographical documentaries, it is that it’s best if the subject is not involved. The micromanaging of their story leaves viewers with a manicured and surface-level experience of the artist.

Although, the artist’s complete removal from the process can make a documentary spin into tabloid territory. There’s a lot of scandal on tap. Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter (Max) is the traumatic story of mental illness and sexual assault. While the latter is horrifying, the litigation is still underway. Why are the survivors on film talking about their experiences? Speaking of survivors, IMPACT x Nightline: Diddy’s Downfall (Hulu) is equally horrific and a far more disgusting explanation of the recent uncovering of Sean Combs’ abusive, and illegal actions during his entire time in the spotlight. Secret Life of Diddy: A Special Edition of 20/20 (Hulu) covers the exact same ground with many of the same talking heads journalists and individuals. On the positive side of hip hop, Tale of the Tape (Tubi) explores the world of mixtapes, the skill involved in making them, their impact on the culture and the legends of that scene. While the homemade quality of this short but deep unpacking is charming, it only speaks to people in that space and doesn’t go far in educating the uninitiated.

A brave director with a strong grasp on storytelling can create a compelling product that draws you in, whether or not you are interested in the artist or topic. But it feels like there is a positive correlation between the number of music documentaries released and how many of them aren’t worth pressing play on. Here are seven from the second half of 2024 that are worth watching and three not so much.—By Lily Moayeri

Rockaway Beach 2025 @ Butlin’s, Bognor Regis, UK, January 3-6, 2025

Jan 13, 2025 By Jimi Arundell

The 2025 festival season kicked off in style with Rockaway Beach, celebrating its 10th anniversary with a stellar line-up featuring the likes of Ride, Spiritualized, Leftfield, SPRINTS and Bloodworm.

The Trump Era and the Biden/Harris Tragedy: Viral Politics in the Age of Fuckery Part VII

Jan 17, 2025 By Steve King

Perhaps it’s appropriate to start 2025, the Year of the Snake, with inaugurating Donald Trump as president again. I officially started work on this piece on January 6, 2025, so… yeah… it seems to have gone exactly as I predicted. Damn… I was just being dour so y’all would vote the right way. Really misread the room, huh?