On one summer day in 1998, XXL magazine gathered 177 hip-hop artists for one of the greatest musical photographs of all time: A Great Day in Hip-Hop.
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Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Story
The Power of a Judith Krantz Sex Scene
A ‘90s romance novel offers a glimpse of queer possibility and illuminates the complications of writing about queer love.
Posted inArts & Culture, Commentary, Culture, Current Events, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Quotes
Lady Gaga, Celeb Profiles, and the Third Remake of “A Star is Born”
Rachel Syme profiles Lady Gaga and dives deep into the mystique and mythology of “A Star is Born.”
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Highlight, Story
In Absentia
A meditation on the nature of grief, at a time when the whole world seems to be grieving.
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Auto-Tune Revolutionized the Sound of Popular Music
Twenty years after this famous pitch-correction technology beautifully modulated Cher’s voice in her hit song “Believe,” Auto-Tune has proven itself not a fad but a fixture. Where did it come from, and what does it do exactly?
Posted inNonfiction
Infatuation
Deena ElGenaidi considers the ways in which adoring Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine from afar in her teens and early 20s provided a safe outlet for expressing desire.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Cowboy Image and the Growth of Western Music
How did cowboy hats and boots become the visual iconography of American rural music?
Posted inArts & Culture, Current Events, Essays & Criticism, Story, Technology
Performance Art: On Sharing Culture
With physical distancing the order of the day as COVID-19 spreads, cultural locales — sites for communal experiences, like museums and theaters — are emptying out. What are we sharing if we’re not sharing these spaces? And were we really sharing them to begin with?
Posted inNonfiction
On Vanishing
Dementia is a kind of erasure, a death before death, where the living discount the infirmed long before they’re gone.
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2020: Arts and Culture
Our top editors’ picks in arts and culture writing this year.
