Jillian Mapes

New York

Co-Founder, Writer and Editor at Hearing Things

co-founder/editor/writer/everything @hearingthingsco

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Articles

Lost Club Classics

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

Hello and welcome to the latest installment of Five Albums, the weekly feature for paid Hearing Things subscribers in which we recommend you the new records that you need to hear. As music journalists, the question we get most often from friends is how to stay on top of what’s new and cool. This is our attempt to provide a practical answer. Welcome back to reality from what we hope was a chill and restorative holiday weekend, or a crazy hard-partying one—whatever vibe suits you.
The Arcade Fire Problem

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

It’s hard to imagine Arcade Fire winning over any new fans with their seventh album, Pink Elephant. The hope and fervor that once powered their anthems curdled somewhere around the mid-2010s, when the music grew poppier but the attitude felt more cynical. The ranking of their albums is pretty straightforward, following chronological order: 2004’s Funeral, 2007’s Neon Bible, 2010’s The Suburbs, 2013’s Reflektor, followed by a steep drop-off in quality.
Soccer Mommy’s Guide to ‘Stardew Valley,’ the Coziest Video Game Ever

1 month 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

1 month 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

2 months 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!

Mar 5, 2025 | 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

Feb 27, 2025 | 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.