“Now 56, Matthews has been singing about mortality for a long time, and he’s confronting its specter in new and surprising ways.”
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Joni Mitchell’s Best Album Is Turning Fifty. It’s Not Blue
“She was done playing the starry-eyed hippie. She was tired of singing dirges.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Notable stories on chasing manhood, naming Gaza’s dead, searching the stacks for a rare book, leaving music behind, and opting out.
The Final Dead Shows: Part One
“Everyone is dancing a little bit, bobbing, but really they are having an extended, possibly endless, interior experience.”
Beyond the Machine
“I want to frame the technology more like an instrument, and get away from GenAI as an intelligence, an ideology, a tool, a crutch, or a weapon.”
Imperial Eras: A Taylor Swift Studies Reading List
How Taylor Swift reflects every possible version of ourselves.
Michael Stipe Is Writing His Next Act. Slowly.
“How do you reinvent yourself after being a global superstar? The former R.E.M. frontman is still figuring that out.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
In this edition: Lost soul, copy that, missing beats, muzzled watchdogs, and a ramblin’ man.
All You Touch and All You See: “Dark Side of the Moon” at 50
“A half-century ago, Pink Floyd unleashed a classic that still lingers on the Billboard charts and in college dorms to this day. But what’s the legacy of the blockbuster album?”
“Blurred Lines,” Harbinger of Doom
“How Robin Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I.’s cursed megahit predicted everything bad about the past decade in pop culture”

