Do you have an upcoming album or song you’d like to promote to our readers? Maybe a cool new app or merch item? Whatever it may be, we have a variety of advertising options available. Display banner ads and feed sponsorships are great ways to reach our audience. Please reach out if you have any questions.
Upgrade your account to become a supporting member and unlock Dark Mode, exclusive content, and help support independent publishing. There’s a few different tiers of support that work out to basically pennies a day. You can learn more here.
Thank you to all of our current supporters and all the readers that make this website possible.
This weekend sees the release of Black Panther. Did you love Black Panther? Did it leave you wanting more of Wakanda? Members of our comic book thread have put together another batch of accessible comic recommendations for new readers to check out.
Rafi Schwartz, writing at Splinter News:
On Wednesday, 17 people—the vast majority of them children—were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. The suspected gunman, Nikolas Cruz, was apprehended by police late Wednesday, leaving America to grapple with yet another horrific act of gun violence.
In the wake of this latest mass murder, lawmakers have once again resorted to the now-cliché gesture of offering “thoughts and prayers” for the victims of the Parkland shooting, while stopping conspicuously short of actually acting on their laughably hollow sentiment. And once again, those lawmakers are the very same people who have gladly pocketed dollar after blood-soaked dollar from the National Rifle Association.
This country has a sickness. We are very, very broken. And we need to make massive changes to even begin the process of healing what we’ve created.
As it turns out, Shazam has continued to be updated and support Spotify since Apple’s acquisition. In fact, there have been at least four updates to Shazam since the acquisition including one today that adds synchronized lyrics and a design refresh of the app’s results screen.
The new UI looks great. The results screen is dominated by a background image of the artist. In the foreground is a big play button, the name of the song the app recognized, and the name of the artist. If you tap on the artwork, you get an image of the artist and album in some cases, plus more details on the artist, album, song, and release date.
It looks pretty good.
Aja Romano, writing for Vox:
On social media, racist trolls are currently attempting to fake a battle that isn’t happening by stealing photos, many of assault victims, from various parts of the internet and claiming they’re evidence of attacks by black moviegoers during Thursday night showings of Black Panther.
What the fuck is wrong with people?
Cameron Boucher of Sorority Noise and Field Medic have just released a new charity split for Valentine’s Day.
Vulture have an excerpt from the upcoming book, All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire, about how the infamous “fuck” scene from the fourth episode came about:
He explained the whole scene to us. He said, “Now you guys are going to do that whole thing, but they’re going to be on me about the profanity and language that we use.” So, I said, “Let’s just come out the box with it.” He said, “You’re going to do that whole scene, but the only word you can say is ‘fuck.’” I said, “What?”
It’s an incredible scene from one of my favorite shows of all time. I’m looking forward to this book.
Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie is the latest guest on You Made It Weird podcast with Pete Holmes.
Brian Fallon recently sat down with the New York Daily News:
Everything has to line up for something to be successful, it’s not just simply whether it’s good or bad. You have to have a lot of favorable things happen in the process in order for it to actually reach a large number of people. Sometimes timing is one of those things that you can’t plan for. I’m glad we don’t have to do it again (laughs). If I had to put that out now would I be able to manage a career? I have no idea if that would work so I’m glad it did then.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, writing for The New York Times:
I was beginning to get frustrated by how much of our lives are spent arguing about music. So I decided to do something about it the only way I know how: I analyzed data.
I couldn’t think of a way to use data to prove how great “Born to Run” is. But I thought data might give me clarity on why my brother and I never seem to agree on music.
In particular, I wanted to see to what extent the year we were born influences the music we listen to, the extent to which different generations are bound to disagree on music.
I always find these kinds of studies fascinating. For the most part I’ve found this to be pretty true in my life (I’m sitting here spinning My Chemical Romance right now), but I also think my musical tastes have changed quite a bit in the past few years. I listen to more straight up pop music and hip-hop than I ever did as a teenager.
Mary J. Blige will co-star in Netflix’s Umbrella Academy:
Blige, nominated for supporting actress and original song, will segue to television with her first series regular role in the adaptation of Gerard Way’s comic series. After receiving offers from multiple streamers and networks, Blige will join the cast in what sources say is a one-year deal.
Scott Detrow, at NPR, looks at this year’s Last Man competition:
We’re going to tell you who won the Super Bowl. Yes, the game happened last week, but there’s an important warning for the eight people still in the running in a contest called Last Man. Competition’s pretty straightforward but a near impossible goal – go as long as you can without finding out who won the Super Bowl.
I first heard about this game in a New Yorker article a few years back:
The game runs on the honor system—pride is the only prize—and deaths are self-reported on Twitter. Those who play refer to themselves as “runners,” and the thing they are running from—the fact that New England beat Seattle—is known as “the Knowledge.” The only real rule is to stay in the country.
Alkaline Trio talked with Alternative Press about the ten biggest moments in their career:
There was a movement going on with the Vagrant America tour and the label signing new bands. “Saves The Day, the Get Up Kids and bands like that. We were all on the same label; we were doing it at the same time, from different parts of the country but exploring different sounds,” he says. “Something cool was definitely happening.”
The hotly anticipated feature-length follow-up to one of the biggest cult short film of recent years has lined up an Oscar-nominated star.
Michael Fassbender has been cast in David Sandberg’s action-comedy Kung Fury, which Sandberg will also star in and produce under his Laser Unicorns banner, alongside Fassbender.
If you’ve never seen the original, you should give it watch.