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1 week ago | 
pitchfork.com | Jeremy D. Larson
I love that first stretch of disbelief when you first hear a really good song. Like, come on, how can each line be arranged so perfectly? How can music feel so effortless when it is clearly borne of such great effort? This is the magic of many great songwriters past and present, including David Berman, who famously labored over sentence structure and stressed syllables until the lyrics fell simply and miraculously out of his mouth.
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1 month ago | 
pitchfork.com | Jeremy D. Larson
In a matter of a few months, I have gone from someone who’s never watched a medical procedural drama to someone who would sooner eat glass than see any harm come to the staff, nurses, and doctors on Max’s The Pitt.
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1 month ago | 
pitchfork.com | Anna Gaca |Jeremy D. Larson |Marissa Lorusso |Philip Sherburne
Pitchfork’s editors are already sorting, compiling, and straining to remember all the music that’s been released this year. So we’re spotlighting some of 2025’s most outstanding records to date by rounding up albums that have earned high scores and Best New Music designations with a quick list of RIYLs (that’s Recommended If You Like) and links to our coverage. Unlike our year-end lists, this one is organized in reverse chronological order.
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1 month ago | 
pitchfork.com | Jeremy D. Larson
There are four interesting things about rototoms, a specific type of drum that plays an outsized role on YHWH Nailgun’s debut album. They were invented out of necessity in the early 1960s by Al Payson, a concert percussionist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra who needed a quick way to change the pitch of a drum for a new piece he was performing.
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1 month ago | 
pitchfork.com | Jeremy D. Larson
Growing up in Santa Cruz, California, in the 1980s—where the surfers were the jocks of the school and the Grateful Dead were newly resurgent—a young Adam Scott was doing what most of us were doing at a young age: figuring out his identity through music. His older brother revealed to him the myriad secrets of Led Zeppelin and R.E.M., while pop radio and MTV were shaping his nascent taste in obvious but important ways.
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1 month ago | 
yahoo.com | Jeremy D. Larson
Illustration by Chris Panicker, photo by Carlo Paloni/BAFTA via Getty ImagesGrowing up in Santa Cruz, California, in the 1980s—where the surfers were the jocks of the school and the Grateful Dead were newly resurgent—a young Adam Scott was doing what most of us were doing at a young age: figuring out his identity through music. His older brother revealed to him the myriad secrets of Led Zeppelin and R.E.M., while pop radio and MTV were shaping his nascent taste in obvious but important ways.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
yahoo.com | Jeremy D. Larson |Matthew Strauss
All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by Pitchfork editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, Condé Nast may earn an affiliate commission. The best music in any given year doesn’t have to be new. There is plenty of room to reconnect with old favorites or discover something you had no idea ever existed.
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
pitchfork.com | Jeremy D. Larson
As Charli XCX began her verse in “Girl, so confusing” at Madison Square Garden, you could see the frizzy mane of Lorde in the prop cage below the stage. I fumbled for my phone as I noticed her getting into position maybe all of six seconds before the entire sold-out crowd clocked her presence and erupted into a colossal roar. In all the shows I’ve seen, in all the arenas around the country, this could well have been the loudest audience explosion I’ve ever heard.
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
yahoo.com | Jeremy D. Larson
Charli XCX, photo courtesy of HuxleyAs Charli XCX began her verse in “Girl, so confusing” at Madison Square Garden, you could see the frizzy mane of Lorde in the prop cage below the stage. I fumbled for my phone as I noticed her getting into position maybe all of six seconds before the entire sold-out crowd clocked her presence and erupted into a colossal roar.
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Sep 6, 2024 | 
pitchfork.com | Jeremy D. Larson
In an MJ Lenderman song, the extraordinary is always elbowing its way into the mundane. His 2022 breakthrough album, Boat Songs, thrived on these situations. One minute someone was clinically depressed on the Six Flags log flume, the next they were locked in a spat about a “dumb hat” outside a butcher shop.
