I recently had the chance to talk with AWOLNATION. You can check out the video interview below.
Interview: AWOLNATION (Video Interview)
Interview: Picturesque (Video Interview)
I recently had the chance to sit down with Picturesque and talk about what they’ve been up to lately.
Interview: Silverstein (Video Interview)
I recently had the chance to talk with Silverstein about everything they’re currently up to and their plans for the future.
Interview: Shannon Taylor of Awakebutstillinbed
In January, Awakebutstillinbed released their debut album, What People Call Low Self-Esteem Is Really Just Seeing Yourself the Way That Other People See You – an early contender for album of the year – and signed to Tiny Engines Records. I was lucky enough to speak to vocalist Shannon Taylor about the record, the history of the band, and what makes an emo band.
Interview: Mason Maggio of The Republic of Wolves
I had the pleasure of sitting down with The Republic of Wolves’ vocalist Mason Maggio to talk about about the writing process for their long-awaited new album Shrine, which is due out March 27th, and what fans should expect from the record.
Interview: Kyle Durfey of Pianos Become the Teeth
Next week, Pianos Become the Teeth will release their fourth full-length, Wait for Love. It takes the band even further down the path their 2014 effort, Keep You, blazed and expands upon it, taking the band’s sound in totally new directions. I recently spoke with vocalist Kyle Durfey about the process of writing the album and following up such a radical change in sound.
Most Anticipated of 2018
Following on the heels of our look at the best music released in 2017, we have compiled a list of the albums we are most looking forward to in 2018. We may not know what the year has in store for us, but at least we can be assured of some great music coming our way. A bunch of contributors have written up blurbs about the albums and artists we’re most excited about, and we’d love to hear what you’re looking forward to as well.
Best of 2017 (Encore Episode 157)
On this week’s episode of Encore I am joined once again by special guest Craig Manning. This episode is all about our favorite albums of 2017. We talk about our personal lists, the staff list, the albums we loved the most, why, and the albums that didn’t make our list and shocked us. There’s also some talk about movies, tv shows, and books toward the end.
The Best of 2017 Playlist
I asked everyone that contributed to our “best of 2017” list to pick a key track from the album they wrote about and then I compiled all of those tracks into a playlist on Apple Music and Spotify. Enjoy.
Chorus.fm’s Top 25 Albums of 2017
2017 was a frustrating, infuriating, and often heartbreaking year. From the politics to the abuses and scandals that trickled all the way down to our little music scene, it felt like every day had some scrap of bad news to serve up. It was a year where we really needed something to lean on and keep us resilient and resolute, and the artists featured on this list responded to that call of duty admirably.
The 25 records featured below are eclectic and far-reaching. Some are achingly personal reckonings with personal demons and mental illness. Others are scathing indictments of the political status quo. Some explore the cycle of getting older and losing your youth, while others revel in the excitement and confusion of being young. Some are pop records, while others are hip-hop or folk, country or post-hardcore, emo or classic-tinged rock ‘n’ roll. They are all distinctly different, but they all had at least one thing in common: for 30 or 40 or 50 minutes at a time, they all made 2017 feel a little more bearable.
So, without further ado, I give you Chorus.fm’s Top 25 Albums of 2017. In the words of one of the artists featured below, I hope you find something to love.
Niall in the Time of Styles
When “Sign of the Times” dropped last spring, the internet seemed to lose its collective mind. Was it because the highly anticipated previous solo offering from former One Directioner Zayn met with such a lukewarm critical reception last year? Was it because we were, in fact, living in the first days of our descent into an outdated political hellscape, not unlike the dystopian fiction that’s dominated the pop culture cycles for the past several years? Was it simply because Harry Styles is an undeniable force? Was it because it was just a great song? That answer to the “why” depends on whom one asks, but one thing is undeniable: the album that followed has peppered EOTY lists in a way other former Directioner offerings have not. Despite this, fellow former-Directioner Niall Horan quietly released an album in 2017, a largely acoustic, unexpected effort titled Flicker. And so followed the inevitable question – which was the better album?
It would be very easy to say the Styles record was superior and call it a day – after all, it’s flashy. It’s interesting. It was well written, well performed, and well produced – and it is inescapable. That makes it the easy answer. But as with so many things in life, I’m not convinced that the easy answer is necessarily the right one.
The Last Jedi (Encore Episode 156)
On this week’s episode of Encore I am joined by special guest Thomas Nassiff to talk about one of our favorite topics: Star Wars. This episode is full of spoilers all about Star Wars: The Last Jedi, so I would highly recommend you see the movie before listening. We give our thoughts on the film, break down favorite and least favorite scenes, and talk about catching up with favorite characters, both old and new. Also porgs.
I wanted to get this episode out before the holiday weekend so you’d have something to listen to while visiting family and friends. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and a Merry Christmas, thank you to everyone who reads and supports this website on a daily basis. I truly appreciate it.
Join the Dark Side: Bringing Dark Mode to the Main Website
It’s fitting that on release week for Star Wars: The Last Jedi I can bring the Dark Side to the main website. One of my favorite supporter perks in the forum has been Dark Mode — a dark slate colored theme — and I’m excited to be able to bring this color palette to the main website as well. I love our white, grey, and blue color scheme, but at night I almost always switch over to the dark theme while browsing the website on my phone. However, I’d often move over to the main site to read an article and the white contrast would be a rude awakening for my eyes. No more! Supporters can now activate Dark Mode on the main website via their supporter options page or in the forum preferences. If you’re not a supporter yet, join now to get Dark Mode.
I’ve included some screen shots below of what the website and forums look like in Dark Mode, for those curious. I think it maintains my main design goals: simple, clean, and focused on readability, while adding a new flavor to the overall feel of the website.
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Triple Crown Records 20th Anniversary Show
Triple Crown Records has been putting out some of the scene’s most essential records for twenty years now, so it makes sense that their anniversary show ended up being one of the best shows I’ve seen this year. The four-band show had a mix of styles that spoke to the variance in sound the label has always had; a fan of almost any kind of music could’ve found a set to like. I ran through some of my favorites below.
Interview: Sleep On It (Video Interview)
Sleep On It are making winter fun again with their debut full-length Overexposed, which came out last month on Equal Vision Records. I recently sat down with the band to talk about their new album and their plans for 2018.