Music
Honest gear reviews, artist interviews, and sound stories from inside the music world. Audio Chronicle is your trusted guide to music gear and culture.
Before You Cheer a Music Bill, Check Its Status
Billboard’s congressional tracker offers a timely cue to check what a proposal would change and how far it has actually moved.
Follow Jeff Tweedy’s ‘Wild Connection’ Cover Back to Twisted Teens
The Substack post is a starting point for comparing two versions and hearing what Twisted Teens do beyond the covered song.
Johnny Marr’s Guitar Auction: Keep the History in the Case
With 80 guitars reportedly headed to auction, there is a practical case for preserving the musical memories and maintenance details that should travel with an instrument.
Let Pop Be Ridiculous on Television
Sabrina Carpenter’s first Primetime Emmy, for The Muppet Show, is a fine excuse to appreciate the musical craft inside a very silly format.
Yeat’s Missing Verse Makes the Case for Album Change Logs
The reported edit to Slime Language 3 raises a practical listening question: how should an album tell us that its contents have changed?
Rubber Band Gun’s ‘Bloodwork’ Maps a Home-Studio Music Scene
The surprise release offers a practical lesson in how repeat collaborators and one dependable room can build collective momentum.
“Rhythm is music’s life.”
— Antonio Buonomo
The Club’s Most Fragile Signal Chain Is Its Staff Rota
A Scottish call for stronger zero-hours protections shows how unstable scheduling can reach the booth, the floor, and the sound system.
Lowtide’s Launch Puts Independent Booking on the Clock
The Australian agency arrives with a varied roster, and the dates that follow will show artists what its independence means in practice.
Seen Live Wants You to Rate the DJ. The Room Gets a Vote Too.
The new clubbing diary can preserve fugitive sets and widen discovery, provided users remember that every verdict also contains a room, a crowd and a morning after.
More Music articles
Ariana Grande’s TikTok Objection Is About Who Gets to Frame a Song
After a second reported clash over her music in a Trump administration post, TikTok’s reusable-audio machine meets a stubborn fact: artists can still contest the frame.
Music Theory Needs Better Stage Manners
Khn’s blunt defense of terminology points to a useful rehearsal habit, with the gatekeeping left outside the practice-room door.
Dave Marsh and the Case for Criticism That Takes Sides
The critic, activist, broadcaster, and biographer leaves behind a model of music writing with arguments, obligations, and a pulse.
Role Model’s ‘Botched’ Cover Is a Lesson in Useful Mistakes
The reaction to his Olivia Rodrigo cover shows how self-critique primes an audience, while offering producers a sharper way to judge flawed takes.
Thomas Bangalter’s ‘Tron: Legacy’ Comments Are a Studio Warning
His description of the 2010 scoring process as “depressing” and “limiting” opens a useful conversation about briefs, revisions, and the music a frame will permit.
The Musi Legal Fight Exposes Streaming’s Hidden Dependency Stack
The Canadian action against Musi turns one app dispute into a practical lesson about source platforms, playlist custody, and the layers hidden beneath play.
Halloween Merch Has Learned the Album-Drop Trick
Disney and Old Navy’s latest seasonal collection turns a July retail reveal into a useful lesson about fandom, timing, and the merch objects people invite into their lives.
Vinyl Has Become the Album Chart’s Rewind Button
A fresh pressing can give an album another opening day, and this week’s Billboard 200 lets us watch the gears engage.
PRS for Music Has a New CEO Coming. Watch the Royalty Plumbing.
Ben McOwen Wilson’s appointment puts the quiet machinery of songwriter royalties, metadata and member trust back under the light.
CD Growth Is Outpacing Vinyl. The Jewel Case Makes Sense Again.
First-half US sales figures show fresh momentum for the compact disc, along with a peculiar playback gap among younger collectors.
The Full Album Has a Setup Problem
A new UK poll shows how easily album listening can slip away, while a few practical changes can put the running order back in the room.
Madonna’s New No. 1 Proves Legacy Pop Never Learned to Behave
A fresh chart crown for CONFESSIONS II says less about nostalgia than about how veteran stars now work the same fractured attention economy as everyone else.
Hannah Cole’s Debut Announcement Has Great News for Anyone Recording at Home
A self-played album tracked in a home studio still feels like one of the healthiest ways to make a record in 2026.
Dub Taught Modern Music How to Think in Versions
A new book on dub lands at a useful moment: everyone lives inside remix culture now, even when they no longer call it that.
When a Song Becomes a Bet, Streaming Starts to Look Different
Spotify’s removal of streams tied to Malcolm Todd’s “Earrings” points to a stranger future, where chart movement can attract the logic of gambling as much as fandom.
Jorja Smith’s New Album Announcement Makes Quiet Feel Strategic Again
With What Are The Odds on the way, the singer’s latest move points to a release style that trusts mood, patience, and audience memory over constant spectacle.
Jay-Z on Google Maps Feels a Little Strange — and Completely Inevitable
As Reasonable Doubt turns 30, a map of Jay-Z’s New York shows how rap history now lives inside the same apps we use to find coffee and avoid traffic.
FKA twigs and Lil Yachty Make the Weird Pop Feature Feel Alive Again
A new single with an unlikely chemistry arrives at the right moment for pop stars who seem tired of perfectly optimized collaborations.
Two Shell’s New Album Arrives in an Era That Punishes Mystery
Infinite Now gives one of UK dance music’s slipperiest acts a bigger stage just as audiences have grown addicted to constant proof of authenticity.
Olivia Rodrigo and Robert Smith Turned Primavera Into a Shared Frequency
A surprise duet in Barcelona showed how a festival cameo can still feel thrilling, strange, and emotionally precise instead of prepackaged for the feed.
Ariana Grande’s Opening Night Setlist Treats the Arena Like an Arrangement
The first Eternal Sunshine Tour show suggests a pop star thinking like an editor: managing vocal load, memory, and momentum one sequencing choice at a time.
Primavera Sound and the Rise of the Split-Screen Festival
Barcelona’s giant weekend by the water now plays to two crowds at once — the people at the barricade and the people watching from bed.
Skrillex’s ‘SOMA’ Turns the Surprise Drop Back Into a Producer Sport
The new album landed without a runway, which makes every transition, guest choice, and low-end decision hit harder on first contact.
Primavera’s Surprise-Set Machine Still Knows How to Mess With Your Head
Olivia Rodrigo and Robert Smith turned a heavily networked festival into a briefly unstable place again.
Phoebe Bridgers Just Made Madison Square Garden Cost One Dollar — and Everyone Else Look Weird
A one-dollar arena show lands like a gift, a stunt, and a sharp little indictment of what live music has trained fans to accept.
Jay-Z’s Roots Picnic Set Felt Like Rap Remembering How to Be an Event
A rare headlining set in Philadelphia turned nostalgia, local pride, and strategic scarcity into the kind of live moment streaming still can’t flatten.
Drake Sets a New Record: 12 Albums Simultaneously on the Billboard 200
How the rap icon redefined chart history and what it means for music culture today
7 Musicians You’ve Probably Never Heard Of — But Who Changed the Sound of Everything
They never topped charts, but they bent genres, rewired minds, and whispered through the headphones of your favorite artists.
How One Album Can Change an Entire Production Scene
It only takes one record to flip a whole generation of producers.
If Hounds of Love Dropped Today, It Would Break the Internet
And Most People Wouldn’t Understand Why
K-Pop vs J-Pop: One Became a Global Machine. The Other Went Full Goblin Mode.
What idol factories, hologram girls, and the ghost of city pop say about the future of East Asian pop culture.
Microtones and Madmen
How Tunings Beyond the 12-Step Scale Are Shaking Up Modern Music
Music That Feels Like Weather
Songs that drift, sting, crackle, and condense — because some sounds don’t just hit your ears. They shift the air.
No Chorus, No Rules
How Rosalía’s “SAOKO” Rewired Pop Songwriting
Post-Punk Isn't Dead — It Just Moved to Ireland
Dublin’s scene is loud, literate, and more vital than anything coming out of London right now.
The Emotion Engine: Why Tempo Is More Psychological Than You Think
Your track is at 90 BPM. Why does it feel like 60… or 120? Because tempo isn’t just math — it’s mood.
The Fade-Out Is Dead — And That Says Everything
Once a staple of pop music, the fade-out has vanished. What does that tell us about how songs end now?
The Oasis Reunion and the End of History
If Liam and Noel are back on stage, we’ve officially run out of new gods.
Untrue Forever
Why Burial’s 2007 Album Still Haunts Music Today
Nina Protocol Is Shutting Down — and Taking a Certain Indie Internet Dream With It
The platform’s July shutdown is more than a product obituary — it’s a reminder that musicians keep building homes on rented servers, then acting surprised when the floor disappears.
DJ Screw Is Coming to Streaming. The Platforms Will Have to Learn How to Listen.
As DJ Screw’s mixtapes arrive online for the first time, a whole digital system built for frictionless consumption meets music that moves at the speed of memory, cars, and heat.