Recently I was able to connect with self-described “hyperpop” band, MOVIESTARZ, to discuss what went into their new single called “Invited.” The song comes from the duo of Alex Pombar and Tyler Nichols who channel their love for Blink-182-type pop-punk paired with club ready anthems similar to Charli XCX.
Read More “MOVIESTARZ”
I love the way it breaks the silence.
If you’ve never heard “Feeling a Moment” before, do yourself a favor and click play on that YouTube video down below, or go cue it up on your preferred streaming service. You’ll hear what I mean: a few seconds of something played backwards, and then a torrent of sound – an electric guitar strum and a wordless wail. For me, it is the sound of everything I was feeling at the start of my ninth-grade year: nerves, excitement, anticipation, self-belief and self-doubt in equal measure, and more than a little bit of fear.
Because what’s scarier than a totally new frontier? I’ve got the answer: being dropped into said new frontier in your early teens.
Read More “My Life In 35 Songs, Track 8: “Feeling a Moment” by Feeder”
About two weeks ago, I was able to sit down with Elliott Douglas, better known as M.A.G.S., during his recent tour stop in Washington D.C. to discuss his recently announced plans to take a hiatus from the project. I asked him about the factors that led to this decision, his recent collaboration with American Football, and what the future looks like for him.
Read More “M.A.G.S.” I don’t like endings or goodbyes, but I love songs about them. That’s something that will become abundantly clear as this series continues, if it’s not clear already. And there are very few songs about endings or goodbyes that matter more to me more than “Walk On,” an utterly splendid highlight from U2’s 2000 comeback album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind.
Up until 2004, almost all the music I loved had been made in my lifetime. I was drawn to the music of right now, often finding older songs or records to sound dated. I remember listening to Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. at some point and thinking it sounded positively ancient. (Sorry, Boss!) All those ‘80s synthesizers struck me as plasticky and passe, and I struggled to appreciate the songs underneath. It wasn’t just ‘80s synths that made my no-fly list either: I checked out The Beatles’ Rubber Soul around that same time, and found it to sound hopelessly old-fashioned.
In 2004, U2 became the first band to break through that barrier for me. It didn’t hurt, of course, that they were still a relevant band of the moment. They’d had massive hits in 2000 and 2001 with “Beautiful Day” and “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of”; in 2002, they’d played a Super Bowl halftime show – for my money, the greatest one of all time, with apologies to Prince; and they were currently enjoying a new level of omnipresence thanks to a stylish iPod commercial, featuring their new single “Vertigo,” that got played on every single ad break of every single prime time television program for approximately 3-6 months.
Read More “My Life In 35 Songs, Track 7: “Walk On” by U2″
The latest single and video from U.S. Girls (the experimental pop project from Meghan Remy), called “Bookends,” signals a new and exciting direction for the project. Today, U.S. Girls announces her latest LP called Scratch It that will be released on June 20th via 4AD. I was able to catch up with Remy for a brief interview below. If you’re enjoying the video for “Bookends”, please consider pre-ordering Scratch It here.
Read More “U.S. Girls – “Bookends” (Video)” I don’t have any scientific way of proving this, but I’d wager that Coldplay’s “Fix You” is the most iconic and impactful stadium rock anthem of the 21st century.
Before it ever got played in a single stadium, though, “Fix You” was something else: my first-ever heartbreak song. And to get to that particular milestone in my life, we have to talk about a hilarious subject: romantic adolescent angst.
Look, I’m sure there are some people who meet their soulmates as kids or preteens and have super cute love stories from their “awkward years.” For the rest of us, though, that stretch from whenever you discover your hormones to whenever you get mature enough to handle them is an absolute cringefest. I say all this as someone who definitely thought he was “in love” in eighth grade, and who definitely made an absolute mockery out of himself in pursuit of this supposed “love story.” Better yet, it was a “love triangle,” with the girl who I had a crush on and another classmate who also swore their “love” for her.
The entire silly affair ultimately came to a conclusion on our eighth-grade class field trip, when she chose…well, not me. At the time, it felt like a massive blow: like my first real heartbreak. But as someone who’d spent that entire school year listening to songs about heartbreak, it also felt like I was joining some exclusive club. I now had the honor of knowing what all my favorite songs were talking about, and that felt important.
Read More “My Life In 35 Songs, Track 6: “Fix You” by Coldplay”
Thoughts on Mark Hoppus’s book, new Ataris, and a pop-punk rec. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.
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Read More “Liner Notes (April 27th, 2025)”
The second single from Clara Joy and her upcoming new album, What We Have Now, is called “Find Things Beautiful” and is a song about the difference between our emotions and tangible items. Clara Joy shared, “The song was written from the perspective of someone who is confessing to a psychotic break due to the separation they feel between their emotional world and the material world. The ‘material world’ in this song was inspired by downtown Manhattan culture over the last several years, addressing the city’s need to constantly posture itself as entertaining rather than truly culturally engaging.” With a great vision for her music, Clara Joy is a key artist to watch. If you’re enjoying the music video, please consider pre-ordering What We Have Now, that will be released on May 23rd via Shimmy-Disc here.
Read More “Clara Joy – “Find Things Beautiful” (Video Premiere)” You can’t make me leave. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t.
In October of 2004, for two weeks that felt like a lifetime, my parents briefly entertained the notion of uprooting our family and moving us somewhere new. I know that’s something that a lot of kids have to deal with growing up, but it had never even been on my radar before that fall. I’d lived in the same town since I was three years old, and I’d been with the same group of classmates since first grade. I’d also watched my older siblings go through the local high school, and I already had a lot of ideas for how I wanted to follow (or diverge from) their footsteps when I got there. It never occurred to me that my immediate future might be spent anywhere other than this town.
There was also a girl – the first girl from school I’d ever developed a real, yearning, aching kind of crush for. I probably thought I was in love with her, because what else do you do with those kinds of feelings when you’re 13 years old and you’ve never experienced anything like them before? What’s love if not those fluttering butterflies you feel in your stomach every time you see that other person? I definitely wondered whether there could be some big, grand future in store for me and her, somewhere down the road.
Read More “My Life In 35 Songs, Track 5: “Kill” by Jimmy Eat World”
Recently I was able to connect with the Michigan-based metalcore band, Wounded Touch, to discuss what went into the process of their Smartpunk Records sophomore LP, A Vivid Depiction of Collapse. The band’s publicist had a cool idea of having two of the band members interview each other to get some rich insight on what make’s the band tick, so I was all for it! Kyle Maddock interviews Wounded Touch drummer Jeremy Schultz below. If you’re enjoying the band member vs. band member banter, please consider pre-ordering A Vivid Depiction of Collapse before it releases on May 16th here.
Read More “Wounded Touch” I was a man on a mission. I had about 20 minutes to myself in the local mall while my mom and sister went off to shop for something, and I knew I was going to need every one of them to accomplish my task.
Walking briskly, I dodged around families with young children and groups of lackadaisical teenagers, making my way across this crowded retail mecca to find my destination: FYE, with its rows and rows of pristinely shrink-wrapped CD and DVD cases. The album I was looking for had just dropped that week, so it was right there at the front of the shop, just waiting for me to pick it up off the shelf. Then, I made my way to one of the listening stations, where you could scan the barcode of the CD you were thinking about buying, put on a pair of communal over-the-ear headphones (in retrospect, eww!), and sample the tracks. A quick listen through various clips from the album confirmed that it had more to offer than the lead single I’d had stuck in my head for weeks. And so, convinced, I marched up to the checkout counter and handed the cashier $15 or so of my hard-earned cash. It was the first CD I’d ever bought with my own money.
The date was Sunday, September 14, 2003, and the album was Heavier Things, John Mayer’s sophomore follow-up to the 2001 smash Room for Squares. At most, I’ll say I’d been a casual fan of Squares: I liked most of the songs, but none of them had become obsessions in the year or two since my sister had gotten a copy of the CD for one of her birthdays. But “Bigger Than My Body,” the lead single from Heavier Things, had absolutely become an obsession since it had dropped on August 25. That song had a dynamite earworm chorus and some of the coolest guitarwork my 12-year-old ears had ever heard on a pop single, and I was tired of holding my breath and hoping I’d hear the on the radio or catch the video while flipping channels after school. I needed to be able to hear “Bigger Than My Body” whenever I wanted, and it led me to do something I’d never done before, but would do many, many, many times in the decades to follow; it led me to buy the album.
For the next two months, I listened to Heavier Things every single day when I got home from school. It was just part of the routine: get home, fire up my portable CD player, hear those opening piano strains of “Clarity,” and do my homework while the album played. I loved Heavier Things right away, but I came to develop an extremely meaningful bond with it over the course of that fall, as I listened over and over again. I was particularly taken with a pair of songs in the second half: “Split Screen Sadness” and “Wheel.” Both are ballads and both are songs about goodbyes – albeit, different kinds of goodbyes.
Read More “My Life In 35 Songs, Track 4: “Wheel” by John Mayer” The first CD I ever owned was Creed’s Human Clay. I got it for my 12th birthday. The second and third CDs I ever owned were Creed’s other two albums, My Own Prison and Weathered, which I got a month later for Christmas. I was not at all aware at the time that Creed were one of the most derided bands of their era, and I’m glad for that. One of the great things about loving music when you’re young is that you do so without pretense or insecurity. Those things come later. What comes first, at least from my experience, is a fierce connection to the words and the melodies and the way the songs make you feel. Such was the case, for me, with Creed, especially in the winter of 2002-03 when those three albums – Weathered in particular – became the soundtrack to a particularly fraught period in my young life.
Read More “My Life In 35 Songs, Track 3: “Hide” by Creed”
This year’s Record Store Day occurs this Saturday, April 12th, 2025. Get your lists ready and prepare to dive into the key vinyl releases for this celebration of indie record stores. The Record Store Day “Ambassador” for ’25 is Post Malone, and he shared in a press release:
What an honor, I can’t believe I was chosen to be Record Store Day’s Ambassador for 2025. Record Store Day is so important and I really hope to do my part to keep it alive. We love hitting local shops when we’re on the road, seeing all the crazy artwork, the whole energy in a record store is just super inspiring. I feel at home. It’s really an unexplainable feeling to hit up a shop and dig through crates, just see what grabs your eye. You can be looking for something super specific and end up finding something totally different. It’s the best. Keep supporting y’all and let’s keep records and these local shops going strong. Happy Record Store Day everybody!”
In this article, I’ll be providing some tips & tricks for navigating this year’s Record Store Day observance, plus some early previews of some of the key titles. You can also check out my initial RSD ’25 preview here.
Read More “Record Store Day 2025 Countdown”
Myriads, the project name of songwriter Maria DeHart, is gearing up to release her new EP called Find Ourselves Again, that will officially release on April 11th. Today, Myriads are sharing an exclusive early listen to the EP and the project is great for fans of similar artists like Wednesday, Snail Mail, and Slow Pulp. When asked about the new EP, DeHart shared, “This EP is straight from my heart and the minds/incredible talents of my bandmates, who helped me string together this big and sometimes loud, sometimes delicate group of songs from bits and pieces of tunes I’d written in my bedroom over the years. I am so excited to share it and I hope it makes you feel something when you listen.” Overall, the EP is a study of love, happiness, depression, and the search for meaning in these universal human experiences. It’s Myriads’ most honest and thoughtful endeavor yet, and the new band is excited for what is to come. If you’re enjoying the early listen, please consider pre-ordering the EP here.
Read More “Myriads – “Find Ourselves Again” (Album Stream)”
It’s a relatively short one this week. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.
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Read More “Liner Notes (April 5th, 2025)”
