Tom Breihan

This past Friday, Jack Harlow released a brief rappity-rap album that almost functioned as an apology for the weak-sauce pop-rap album that he released a year ago. Except it wasn’t an apology. Popular rappers never apologize. Harlow kicked off a round of weekend Twitter discourse when he called himself “the hardest white boy since the one who rapped about vomit and sweaters,”  » Read More

Back in the ’90s, when many of us first learned the word “emo,” there was a pervasive stereotype that people would cry at emo shows. If you ever admitted to liking a Promise Ring song or whatever, then there’s a good chance your friends would mock you relentlessly for being a crybaby.  » Read More

In September 2020, the darkest depths of lockdown, the Toronto band Mil-Spec released their full-length debut World House, and it absolutely fucking ruled. Mil-Spec’s style is both melodic and majestic, and it draws on touchstones like DC’s Revolution Summer and Turning Point’s short catalogue without being beholden to them.  » Read More

Earlier this year, we got a kind of unofficial reunion of the Knife. The game-changing Swedish duo broke up in 2014, and Karin Dreijer focused on their solo project Fever Ray. Earlier this year, Fever Ray released the Radical Romantics album, and Karin’s brother and Knife bandmate Olof Dreijer served as co-producer.  » Read More

The Blessed Madonna, the London-based dance producer formerly known as the Black Madonna, has been cranking out a string of collaborative singles lately, like “Serotonin Moonbeams” with Uffie and “We Still Believe” with Jamie Principle. Today, the Blessed Madonna has extended that streak by teaming up with Todd Edwards,  » Read More

The Gaslight Anthem, the New Jersey band who wrote a lot of beautifully bruised punk anthems, announced an indefinite hiatus way back in 2015. They’ve gotten back together a few times, but those reunions were temporary, like the 2018 tour to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their classic album The ’59 Sound.  » Read More

Breathe. You’re OK. It’s done. It’s over. Great Britain’s most insufferable musical-theater dork will no longer darken the American airwaves. We can all pretend the last eight years were a disturbing hallucination, like we all took tainted shrooms and then fell asleep watching Glee highlights on YouTube. There will be no more James Corden Late Late Show.  » Read More

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.  » Read More

Last year, thousands of people gathered in LA’s Exposition Park for Sound And Fury, a magical moment that was, by many accounts, the single biggest hardcore festival in North American history. That show had many of the best bands in the genre, and it was headlined by California heroes Gulch,  » Read More