Photo credit Ashley Osborn If Paramore’s latest album – this year’s This Is Why – demonstrated what it sounds like when a beloved 2000s pop-punk matures tastefully nearly two decades after their debut, All Time Low’s newest offering Tell Me I’m Alive shows what happens when a band from the same time is still clinging… Read more
Photo Credit: Zachary Gray The best, most beloved Paramore songs managed to meet listeners where they were and capture their collective feelings like lightning in a bottle. The snarling “Misery Business” captured desire in its most intense, brattiest, most unreasonable, most teenage form, while the lilting “The Only Exception” captured the ecstasy and anxiety of… Read more
Photo Credit: Nathan James Musicians have been writing love songs dedicated to the object of their romantic affection for millennia, but we honestly can’t remember the last time we heard anyone as out-of-their-mind in love as expressed in a song on a particular track from God Save the Teen, the latest album from rock drummer… Read more
Photo Credit: Ashley Osborn When future music history books cover the current revival of pop-punk and pop-rock, the lion’s share of credit will likely go to artists like Machine Gun Kelly, Olivia Rodrigo, and Willow – all of whom have found surprising chart success with their respective forays into the genre this decade. But perhaps… Read more
Photo Credit: Kelly Mason Reading Dan Campbell’s lyrics is often like reading a first-person novel. Opening his songs with lines like, “Justin and I have got the windows down // the AC is busted, it’s hotter than hell,” “It’s newly summer, and Tony Bourdain died,” “It’s already June // the light paints you pink,” and… Read more
Photo Credit: Emily Carter One of the worst phenomena in recent musical history is the wave of young artists reviving the sound of 2000s pop-punk, without any of the genre’s original charm, authenticity, or impressive musicality. Matthew Musto – professionally known as Blackbear – has been derided as one of the worst culprits of this;… Read more
Photo Credit: Demi Lovato via Instagram At first glance, Demi Lovato’s new rock era could seem like a gimmick – the blasphemous album title, the all-caps typeface, and of course the album cover itself; which sees Lovato sporting a pixie cut while posing in bondage on a crucifix-shaped mattress. But to those familiar with Lovato’s history,… Read more
Photo Credit: Pip Upon hearing the song “Lies,” some listeners might at first think that their ears are lying to them, and that they’re not in fact listening to the opening cut from Pale Waves’ third album Unwanted, but rather to veteran pop punk princess Avril Lavigne. Indeed the similarity – of both the musical… Read more
Photo Credit: Vulture Culture Photography Sometimes a band’s sound gets inextricably linked to where they hail from, whether they wish it to or not. X made the soundtrack for any down-and-outer in Los Angeles county. Outkast is Atlanta to the core, and despite the fake English accent, the Ramones always sounded like you just crossed… Read more
Photo Credit: Matty Vogel Girlfriends is a musical group composed of Nick Gross, co-owner of Big Noise Records, and solo artist Travis Mills, both of whom are veterans of the MySpace musical period. Upon the death of a good friend and collaborator Lil Peep, Travis Mills made the decision to channel the grief he felt… Read more