“How Robin Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I.’s cursed megahit predicted everything bad about the past decade in pop culture”
cultural criticism
Posted inEditor's Pick
Kate Bush, “Running Up That Hill,” and the End of Music Charts As We Knew Them
Thanks to season four of Stranger Things, Kate Bush’s song, “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” has topped the charts, 37 years after its release. Nate Rogers takes a look at how this happened, and what it means for the music industry, and especially older, legacy acts. Drenched in gated reverb and woozy […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Reading List: Who’s Your Susan Sontag?
Five longreads about the iconoclastic American writer, director, and activist.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Say It Loud
“My two-steps-from-sexagenarian ass is old enough to know all the avant funk-jazz sources of [Kamasi] Washington and company’s aesthetic (Horace Tapscott, Sanders, Tyner, The Crusaders, Stanley Cowell, Strata East, Black Jazz) so The Epic couldn’t reach my ears as a spiritual, political and musical revelation. But it has been fascinating nonetheless to witness young friends […]
Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
Quarantine Brain: How ‘the Internet Became More Internet’ in 2020
Nothing made sense in 2020 — unless you were on the internet.
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2020: Arts and Culture
Our top editors’ picks in arts and culture writing this year.
Posted inBooks, Culture, Story
Lindy West is Preaching to the Choir
Sara Fredman talks to author Lindy West on women and likability, the evolution of pop culture, and navigating conversations in a complex, messy world.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
Searching for The Sundays
When music writers are also music fans, they can walk a line between appreciative and intrusive.
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Story
Falling Stars: On Taking Down Our Celebrity Icons
Celebrities act as a symbol of capitalism. When we question it, we question them too.
Posted inArts & Culture, Science & Nature, Story
Critics: Endgame
If there’s no earth, there’s no art. How do you engage in cultural criticism at the end of the world?