Music Features

In many ways, Spotify enjoyed a spectacular end to 2018. The company finished the year with its first ever quarterly operating profit – €94m ($107 million) — something that challenged many of the long-term naysayers about its business model. In addition, amid its year-end financial-results announcement, Spotify confirmed that it …

When Dua Lipa accepted the trophy for Best New Artist at the Grammys Sunday night, she included a not-so-thinly-veiled jab at outgoing Recording Academy President Neil Portnow when she said it was an honor to be nominated along a number of female artists. “I guess this year we really stepped …

As Chief Creative Officer for Rodgers & Hammerstein, Ted Chapin tends to the catalog of two of the most revered writers in the world of musical theater. Since the pair’s Fifties heyday, a chasm has opened between Broadway and the Top 40, but Chapin isn’t one of those musical-theater-heads who …

Last year, Stephen Malkmus and his band the Jicks released a great indie-rock album called Sparkle Hard, drawing some of his best reviews in years. Turns out that was only a warm-up for Groove Denied, the trippy electronic solo excursion he’s releasing in March. For longtime fans, the new LP …

The music business is finishing 2018 with a spring in its step. Thanks to the growth of streaming services such as Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music, the record industry has witnessed another 12 months of prosperity — suggesting that its post-Napster-era recovery is sustainable (for the time being, at …

When Marcus King was 15, he talked his way into the Asheville, North Carolina, club the Orange Peel to slip a demo to Allman Brothers guitarist Warren Haynes — and nearly got himself arrested. “I snuck in with the caterers,” says King. “Now the owner and I are good friends, …

In May, the Colombian singer Karol G released “Mi Cama,” a pinging, propulsive single that offers one potential path for getting over a two-timing ex-boyfriend. “My bed sounds,” Karol G announces (in Spanish), “and your memory fades.” The hook is made up entirely of a sample that evokes squeaking mattress-springs …

In a summer spent making public statements seemingly designed to provoke controversy, Kanye West has said precisely one thing that shouldn’t garner any arguments: “Valee’s style is the most popular in rap, period.” Valee — the Chicago rapper who became a star this year after signing with West’s G.O.O.D. Music …

“Turn the Light On,” the first song on Julia Holter’s fifth album, begins in tumult. It crashes in: bows skidding across the strings of violins, drums tumbling as if down a craggy mountain, horns searing the scene like an irradiated sunset. Above all that, Holter sings, her voice high and …

Each of Trixie Mattel‘s album releases to date, 2017’s Two Birds and 2018’s One Stone, hinted at a bygone era of popular music. The colorful winner of RuPaul‘s Drag Race All Stars season 3, who’s also a talented folk singer-songwriter, evoked the simplicity of the Fifties with the pastoral scene …