“Happen to Me,” the first song on Benee’s debut album, Hey u x, kicks off with a line about her fear of dying in a freak accident. It’s a song about anxiety and dread, inspired by her reoccurring thoughts of airplanes crashing, raging fires, getting kidnapped, and just being alone. …
Read More »
So, How Was Your 2020is a series in which our favorite entertainers answer our questionnaire about the music, culture and memorable moments that shaped their year. We’ll be rolling these pieces out throughout December. Trevor Daniel‘s “Falling” is one of the catchiest songs of 2020, with an insistent hook that …
Read More »
If you spend a lot of time on TikTok, then you’ve probably come across ItsImperial on your For You page. An 18-year-old with high cheekbones, a septum piercing, and intense, dark eyebrows, Imperial has racked up an impressive 1.9 million followers in less than a year, typically posting at least …
Read More »
In the Year of Our Lord 2020, the news cycle has been something like a game of demented Mad Libs, with each day bringing with it an absurdist new twist: if a well-respected CNN legal analyst isn’t getting fired for exposing himself on a Zoom call, then the Trump team …
Read More »
This summer, Shalfi Edu went viral without singing a note. The 25-year-old guitarist posted a video of his playing — full of flitting fingers, though the mood remains insistently tranquil — on the app TikTok, which now functions as music’s primary discovery engine. Edu added a caption out of a …
Read More »
Curtis Waters finds himself unexpectedly content on “Freckles,” a new track filled with curt guitar and booming drums. “If love’s a game, then I’m winning,” he sings. “Unfamiliar feeling,” he adds — “usually I don’t feel alright.” Waters started “Freckles” following a run-in with an old friend. “After I left …
Read More »
In every cultural figure or moment’s lifespan, there comes a point where they are subject to what can be summarized as the “You’re Wrong About” treatment, or the concept that even our most deeply held beliefs and cherished orthodoxies are ripe for reappraisal. (There’s even an eponymous podcast devoted to …
Read More »
The young woman in the ad is attractive in the way that most young women on TikTok are: She’s slim yet curvy, with ombre hair that gently waterfalls down her back, and a yard-wide grin. She points to the text that pops onscreen: “People always ask me how do you …
Read More »
TikTok is the first buzzy app to make me feel really, truly old, which sucks for more reasons than the growing realizations that come with aging: TikTok is simply unavoidable now. If you’re on Twitter, you probably see the app’s Vine-like videos retweeted on your timeline at least once a …
Read More »