Can Spotify Save Album Art?

Unpublished piece for BBC Music pegged to something Spotify started doing around album art. Got to speak with some great album artists, including Aubrey Powell !! Truly great album art is rapidly disappearing. Just ask the people who spent their lives making it. “In this disposable digital world, what is the place for visuals with […]

Belle and Sebastian: ‘It’s not exactly a ballsy record’ (BBC)

At various points over a short conversation, Murdoch calls the album “close to the bone”, “frail”, and “not exactly a ballsy record”. When I ask him how it came together so quickly – it was written, recorded and released in less than six months – I can practically hear him waving his hands. “They’re all […]

Charli XCX: ‘I make sober sex pop’ (BBC)

In her music videos, in her lyrics, in her choice of collaborators, and especially on social media, Charli has a frantic energy and a deep reverence for having as much fun as possible as a pop star. One moment, she’s wearing a skin-tight catsuit in the music video for Boom Clap, and the next she’s […]

What “baby bust”? New and soon-to-be parents on choosing to have kids in dark times (Vox)

One of the hardest parts is that [my husband] is not allowed at any of my regular doctor’s appointments because of Covid restrictions. [At one appointment], they found an abnormality, and it was horrible because I was by myself. I had to hear that. That has been difficult, but he just comes and waits outside, […]

Fights, naps, chaos, and cuddles: 4 dads on how the pandemic transformed their notion of fatherhood (Vox)

[Before quarantine,] we saw each other for half an hour a day, which is basically how families are. Two parents that work and two kids that stay at school as long as they can doing stuff, you get home from all of the shit, you’re racing to make dinner, and then it’s time to go […]

Gender-neutral baby clothes: a quietly radical movement (Vox)

For most of the history of the Western world, Paoletti says, infants were considered almost a different class of human being, sexless and dressed more or less the same regardless of gender. In Europe — and, later, the United States — all babies typically wore swaddles, then dresses until they were as old as 7 […]

Featured

Why Star Trek: Discovery’s New Showrunner Made Big Changes in Season Two (Vulture)

To paraphrase the theme song of Star Trek: Enterprise, it’s been a long road getting from Discovery season one to Discovery season two. Read More

15 NEW YORKERS ON THE DANK NEW DAWN OF LEGAL WEED IN THE BIG APPLE (Interview Magazine)

DAVE, Weed delivery guy “I don’t think legalization would change my life much. I’ve worked here for 15 years, and I’m the oldest delivery guy around. I have friends in Washington and Portland who, despite it being legal for several years now, are still under the radar doing their own thing. It’s a covenant. It’s a conspiracy […]

Why Weed Companies Are Embracing Blockchain (Rolling Stone)

Many uses of blockchain in the cannabis industry are like this, once you peel away the layers of hype and technobabble: very simple things done all the time in other industries, but applied to weed, a capitalist wild west with no functional infrastructure. Many companies are hoping to build that infrastructure by making simple, necessary […]

CBD Poised for Boom After Farm Bill (Rolling Stone)

The addition of this amendment to the bill is largely due to the work of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is keen to stress that being pro-hemp is different from being pro-marijuana. “I do not have any plans to endorse the legalization of marijuana,” he said in a May press conference, adding that […]