Featuring stories from Keri Blakinger, Zhengyang Wang, Marian Bull, Mark Synnott, and Clover Hope.
Pitchfork
The Evolution of the Hip-Hop Hunk
“One fan’s journey through rap’s pursuit of the female gaze, from LL Cool J to Tupac to Drake.”
“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”
Untangling the Knotty Politics Behind Reggaeton’s Rise in Spain
“Once stigmatized as the music of immigrants, reggaeton now leads Spanish charts, spawning local artists and global stars. But not everyone is a fan.”
Trance Is Back—and It’s No Joke
“With Y2K aesthetics back in vogue, and post-pandemic clubbers jonesing for a hit of euphoria, the much-maligned genre is making a comeback.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week’s list features stories from Shara Johnson. Paul Fischer, John Woodrow Cox, Marc Hogan, and Angelica Jade Bastién.
“The Anti-Woodstock ’99”: An Oral History of the Tibetan Freedom Concert
“The 1996 San Francisco concert set the template for combining music and activism in the 1990s.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend notable features and essays by Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Justin Heckert, Gloria Liu, Sharon Levy, and Mychal Denzel Smith.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Jeremy Redmon, Alex Perry, Jeremy D. Larson, Kevin Nguyen, and Egill Bjarnason.
The Woes of Being Addicted to Streaming
The reviews editor at Pitchfork writes about the effects of streaming music on listeners and artists, the differences between passive and intentional music consumption, and the overall loss of our individual connection to music. The more time I spend on Spotify, the more it pushes me away from the outer edges of the platform and […]