Miki Hellerbach

West Hollywood

Journalist, Writer and Reporter at Freelance

Me on the 🖊 & 🎤 many places, Substack: INSIDE THE CREDITS, Email: [email protected], IG: @mikihellerbach

Articles

Inside The Credits 056: Ian Kirkpatrick

3 days ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

Sometimes numbers align, and since this is ITC 56, it’s pretty cool that 6 is such an important number for this piece. As the subheading indicates, I made a pretty cool six song discovery. Ian Kirkpatrick, a pop music wizard I’ve come to find out, achieved a whopping feat of producing the best song on an impactful six albums—at least to my ears. The impetus for this discovery is, to me, the most interesting part. I’ve been running the new Jessie Reyez album PAID IN MEMORIES a lot since it dropped.
Inside The Credits 055: 2hollis

1 week ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

“What’s coolest about 2hollis is the way it feels like he’s Trojan-horsing nerdy effects and anarchic hardstyle energy into songs that would otherwise appeal to your millennial coworker who loves big-tent vocal EDM.”- Kieran Press Reynolds via Pigeons & Planes 2024Sometimes, another writer puts it better than I ever could. Especially, when the person they are throwing some shade at via their critique, at least in some part, aligns with who you are.
10 TikTok Instrumentalists & Producers You Should Follow Right Now

2 weeks ago | okayplayer.com | Miki Hellerbach

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. TikTok is the perfect platform for producers. No app gives as much curated space for them to add visual elements to their process. Though the platform made it possible for videos to go up to ten minutes in length, the short form (as it was originally intended for the algorithm) makes it so producers can present their craft as a compelling, quick performance.
Coachella 2025: The Performances We're Most Excited to S...

2 weeks ago | complex.com | Miki Hellerbach

Coachella—aka the unofficial start of festival season—is finally here. The first weekend of the festival kicks off this weekend (April 11-13) at the hallowed Empire Polo Club site in Indio, California. (Weekend two will happen the following weekend, from April 18 to 20.) And, once again for the third year in a row, you can still snag last-minute tickets for both weekends, with GA tickets available for the second weekend.
Inside The Credits 054 (Birthday Edition): Sade

2 weeks ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

Firstly, in case you didn’t know, Sade is a band. The singer is the one and only Sade Adu, Paul Denman is on bass, Martin Ditcham is on drums, Stuart Matthewman is on guitar and sax, Andrew Hale is on keys, and Mike Pela engineers and co-produces. Their masterpiece to my ears is Love Deluxe, my favorite album released during the same year I came into this world.
Inside Music Monthly 015: March 2025

3 weeks ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

What’s happening for the fifteenth time paid subscribers?! After a little over a year of INSIDE THE CREDITS you committed your money to my writing. Your investment makes me feel deep gratitude. So, I’m gifting you a breakdown of my favorite songs that have dropped this month and each month of the year with some words to accompany my reverence for the tracks.
Inside The Credits 053: Ron Gilmore

3 weeks ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | J. E. Cole |Ari Lennox |Miki Hellerbach

Ron Gilmore is a sensei of the keyboard. He made his start there with the Dreamville boss J. Cole for his 2013 album Born Sinner. Gilmore is credited solely as a keyboardist on six tracks. He wouldn’t get official producer crediting until the very end of Cole’s 2014 opus 2014 Forest Hills Drive, on the final song “Note To Self.” Gilmore’s keys glide into the soundscape like a monk stepping barefoot through a shallow creek.
Inside The Credits 052: MUSIC Producers

1 month ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

There are 53 total producers credited on the latest 30 track Playboi Carti album extravaganza, MUSIC. That many instrumental voices definitely makes the album feel discombobulated. Yet, it feels like a pure representation of the now, love it or hate it. It’s as regressive as it is progressive and as stylistic as it is reckless chaos. It’s a disorienting walking contradiction.
Inside The Credits 051: Jillian Banks

1 month ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

I don’t know about y’all, but I've got a clear album of the year so far. The electro pop/r&b femme fatale queen herself, Banks, has made an arguable opus in Off With Her Head. It’s full of great songs that check all the classic Banks boxes: heartbreak, toxicity, swirling alternative soundscapes, introspective turmoil, piercing vocal flourishes, etc. Yet, the thing that solidifies it as maybe her best work, is the arc. Sonically, it feels like a well written short story.
Inside The Credits 050: The Neptunes

1 month ago | insidethecredits.substack.com | Miki Hellerbach

Truth: I wasn’t raised on hip hop, by my family at least. In this newsletter, I’ve chronicled the production history of majority hip hop producers because, even though it wasn’t in my immediate household, hip hop was the music that my environment thrust upon me. With any type of art that you end up loving, there has to be something familiar that initially hooks you in, even if the love feels shocking, and fresh. I don’t fall in love with hip hop without The Neptunes.