The writing of “Hallelujah” is one of the most documented creative processes in modern music. Cohen has talked about it across decades of interviews with the specific combination of wonder and frustration of someone describing an experience that exceeded the ordinary boundaries of what writing feels like. He spent five years on it. The number … Read more
The mythology of Kurt Cobain is almost entirely constructed around what was lost. The music he might have made. The artist he might have become. The career that was extinguished at twenty-seven leaving behind three studio albums and a cultural impact that has only grown in the three decades since his death. The loss is … Read more
Charlie Watts died in August 2021 and the music world spent the weeks that followed trying to find language adequate to what had been lost. The tributes were extraordinary in their consistency — musicians from every genre and every generation saying versions of the same thing. That the Rolling Stones without Charlie Watts were not … Read more
There is a category of song that you can perform without fully inhabiting. That you can learn technically — master the chords, master the vocal, master the performance — without yet having lived the specific experience that makes the song’s meaning fully available to you. The song waits. You perform it night after night, year … Read more
The geography of the last meeting matters. Los Angeles, 1974. The specific period known as Lennon’s Lost Weekend — the eighteen months he spent separated from Yoko Ono, living with May Pang, the personal assistant who had been, by various accounts, encouraged by Ono to be with him during the separation. A period of considerable … Read more
The reputation of Ringo Starr in the drumming community has undergone one of the most significant rehabilitations in the history of musical assessment. The casual dismissal — “Ringo wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles” is the joke that has been made so many times it has become its own reference — has given … Read more
A new controversy has placed Taylor Swift and Donald Trump at the center of a heated public discussion. The issue began when Taylor Swift’s song The Fate of Ophelia was used in a social media video connected to the Trump administration. The video, which appeared on an official White House TikTok account, featured images of … Read more
Elvis Presley at the height of his fame was one of the most isolated human beings in America. This seems paradoxical — a man who could not walk down a street without being mobbed, who had never once in his adult life experienced genuine anonymity, who was surrounded constantly by the entourage that had grown … Read more
For many fans, attending the Eras Tour was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But for one devoted fan from New Zealand, the journey became even more unforgettable when a dream trip turned into a moment they could never have imagined. The fan traveled thousands of miles from New Zealand to see Taylor Swift perform at the final … Read more
Fans know P!nk for her powerful voice, energetic performances, and fearless personality. But one of the sweetest details about her wedding to Carey Hart reveals a softer and more romantic side of the singer. When P!nk walked down the aisle, she chose the classic song She’s Always a Woman by Billy Joel to accompany one … Read more