Jillian Mapes

New York

Co-Founder, Writer and Editor at Hearing Things

co-founder/editor/writer/everything @hearingthingsco

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Articles

Soccer Mommy’s Guide to ‘Stardew Valley,’ the Coziest Video Game Ever

2 weeks ago | hearingthings.co | Jill Mapes |Jillian Mapes

Back in October, the Nashville-based musician Sophie Allison—who makes beautiful and brooding indie rock as Soccer Mommy—became the envy of every Stardew Valley fan when she got her own avatar in the video game’s signature SNES style. It was a must if she was going to release “Abigail,” a writing-exercise-turned-single inspired by her preferred love interest—a purple-haired weeb hottie—in the wildly popular farm sim.
Lorde’s Hit and Run

3 weeks ago | hearingthings.co | Jill Mapes |Jillian Mapes

A writer is a powerful thing for a woman to be. Like elephants, we are cursed with memories; no matter how much emotional progress is made, or how many drugs we may do, the details surrounding certain nights never leave us.
I Learned to Listen From My Dad

1 month ago | hearingthings.co | Jill Mapes |Jillian Mapes

If I tell you my earliest memory, you’ll understand the sort of man my dad is. I was 5 years old, in the living room of the ranch-style house my parents rented at the time, and Peter Gabriel’s 1992 song “Kiss That Frog” was playing loudly on the stereo.
Perfume Genius Explains His Credit Card Statement

1 month ago | hearingthings.co | Jill Mapes |Jillian Mapes

Credit History is an interview series where we ask our favorite artists to comb through their credit card statements and tell us about what they bought, from the necessary to the frivolous to the outlandish. Mike Hadreas has been working through something in therapy, and maybe—just maybe—he’s made a breakthrough.
Lady Gaga’s Millennial Nostalgia Campaign

2 months ago | hearingthings.co | Jill Mapes |Jillian Mapes

On the evening of Mayhem’s release last week, I walked into my local gay bar and prematurely ruined the bartender’s night. My friend and I, both millennial queers, were sharing our initial reactions to the album as we waited for drinks, when the nosey Gen Z butch tending bar interjected with an overblown “oh no.” A new Lady Gaga record, they explained, meant chaos for the night.
A Very Special Live Episode of Waste or Taste!

2 months ago | hearingthings.co | Jill Mapes |Julianne Escobedo Shepherd |Dylan Green |Jillian Mapes

Talking about music with your friends, trying to make them laugh, and playfully arguing about albums and songs—these are some of the best parts of working at a music website. With our podcast Waste or Taste, we capture that kind of unfiltered banter between longtime critics and friends, and invite you to listen along. The concept is simple: Every episode, three Hearing Things founders each bring a new song to the table and debate whether it’s Waste or Taste.
Becoming Led Zeppelin, Surviving Sly and the Family Stone

2 months ago | hearingthings.co | Jill Mapes |Jillian Mapes

Near the end of Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius), the new Questlove-directed, Hulu-distributed documentary about Sly Stone, the R&B hermit D’Angelo muses on the difference between Black legacy artists and their white counterparts. “I hate to say it but these white rock’n’rollers, these motherfuckers go out in style, they go out paid, they go out with their kids around them, like the fucking Godfather movie.
Deep in the Cat Cafe With Kassie Krut

Feb 14, 2025 | hearingthings.co | Jill Mapes |Jillian Mapes

It’s raining cats and dogs on the day I meet up with the members of Kassie Krut at a kitty cafe, and the animals are hiding. As we sip coffee and hit our vapes around a dinky table on the covered outdoor patio of the Cute Cat Cafe in Ridgewood, Queens, I start to wonder if there are, in fact, any cute cats roaming the premises. Eventually a calico emerges from the soggy backyard and saunters around the patio, catching the attention of a little girl through the window of the back door.
How Drunk Do You Need to Be to Enjoy Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra”?

Feb 11, 2025 | hearingthings.co | Jill Mapes |Julianne Escobedo Shepherd |Andy Cush |Jillian Mapes

Talking about music with your friends, trying to make them laugh, and playfully arguing about albums and songs—these are some of the best parts of working at a music website. With our podcast Waste or Taste, we capture that kind of unfiltered banter between longtime critics and friends, and invite you to listen along. The concept is simple: Every episode, three Hearing Things founders each bring a new song to the table and debate whether it’s Waste or Taste.
Inching Back from the Edge on “The Milky Sea”

Feb 10, 2025 | hearingthings.co | Jill Mapes |Jillian Mapes

A week ago, I snorted 300 mg of Wellbutrin with a rolled-up dollar bill. My body had gone countless weeks without absorbing my anti-depressant before I realized the undigested pill was not a stray kernel of corn in the toilet. I’d felt noticeably unmoored but attributed the wave of depression to the bitter cold in New York and the Trump administration’s barrage of inhumane and illegal executive orders.