FEATURES
Christian Bale on How The Pale Blue Eye Crafts an Origin Story for Edgar Allan Poe
In recent times, films and TV shows have found rich territory in exploring how iconic figures arrived at their iconic status, from countless superheroes to Whitney Houston to Saul Goodman. Add Edgar Allan Poe to those ranks, thanks to The Pale Blue Eye, as the new Netflix thriller reveals what the famed author might have been like before becoming “that whiskey bent and hell bound godfather of the macabre,” as star Christian Bale (with an assist from Hank Williams) tells Consequence. Written and directed by Scott Cooper, this adaptation of Louis Bayard’s novel stars Bale as Augustus Landor, a detective summoned to the military academy at West Point, New York to investigate a mysterious death that spirals into additional instances of murder. Landor’s primary ally in the investigation is a yo...
Fan Chant: NewJeans on Starting 2023 Strong with OMG
Welcome to Fan Chant, a weekly column for K-pop fans, stans, and newbies alike. Each week, I’ll be rolling out interviews, lists, and all kinds of content to keep you in the loop on the latest and greatest from our friends in Seoul and beyond. Also, make sure to subscribe to my companion newsletter! This past fall in Seoul, the song “Hype Boy” by NewJeans was nothing short of ubiquitous. The song was playing in the market in Insadong, shopping malls in Myeondeong, restaurants and convenience stores along the Han River, and even pulsing from the brightly colored bars in Hongdae at night, hoping to attract customers like me. It seemed like people across demographics were listening to NewJeans, the freshly debuted group out of ADOR, subsidiary of HYBE, but the hype didn’t stay contained to So...
R.E.M.’s 20 Best Songs
This article was originally published in 2017, but we’re dusting it off for Michael Stipe’s birthday on January 4th. If you’re at all like me, you probably associate certain bands with specific moods. In other words, you turn to these bands when they fit your state of mind, match how your day went, or just seem to sound how you feel. R.E.M. has never been one of those bands for me, though. No matter my mood, mindset, or emotion, there’s an R.E.M. album or sound that suits me. “I have lived a full life,” Michael Stipe once sang, and I think that’s how we felt about the band when they parted ways in 2011. To look back at their catalog then or now is to see a band that have lived a full life — and life to the fullest — leaving few stones of the band experience unflipped or unskipped. Advertis...
Every R.E.M. Album Ranked From Worst to Best
This definitive ranking of R.E.M.’s discography first appeared in 2017, several years after the band called it quits. It will remain not only to commemorate all the great music R.E.M. has given us over the years but also to burn like a candle — and keep vigil — just in case we one day get to add to it. Either way, we’ll keep going back to Rockville until it truly is the end of the world. It’s been over 40 years since R.E.M. played their first show, a friend’s birthday party in an abandoned church in Athens, Georgia, on April 5th, 1980. It’s hard to believe that a band with a catalog we kept holstered, cocked, and ready throughout our adolescences have turned such an advanced age. (We also must acknowledge that we’ve been drifting through a slightly emptier world for some time now without A...
How Iranians Influence EDM: Meet Rezz and Other Transformative Artists of Iranian Descent
Stereotypes often box Iranians into the fields of doctor, engineer or realtor, but they sure know how to have a good time. It isn’t unusual for family gatherings—ones that often welcome dozens of guests—to transform from dinner to dance party in the blink of an eye. Guests wield various instruments seemingly pulled from the ether, a circle forms in the center of the room and a party ensues. So it should come as no surprise that vivacious spirit has found its way to electronic dance music. Iranian ingenuity courses through every level of the genre. There are artists approaching the EDM apex, rising DJs blossoming on the festival circuit and enduring veterans, all of whom share Iranian heritage. For months, Iranians have protested the alleged killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the h...
10 Rock Albums IDLES Thinks Every Fan Should Own
Crate Digging is a recurring feature in which we take a deep dive into a genre and turn up several albums all music fans should know about. In this edition, IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen shares his exclusive picks. 2022 was as good of a year for IDLES as it could have been. After their stunning 2021 album Crawler found them touring the world with a loaded schedule, they played Coachella, Glastonbury, toured the US twice, and, most recently, nabbed a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album. Since their breakthrough in 2018 with Joy as an Act of Resistance, IDLES have been a leader among their post-punk contemporaries, and their dominance both in their native England and beyond is a testament to their position as one of the biggest rock bands of the last decade. Guitarist Mark Bowen is ...
The best (and worst) stories from 3 years of Cointelegraph Magazine
On Oct. 1, 2019, Cointelegraph Magazine’s founding editor, Jon Rice, pressed publish on the first-ever feature story for the publication — a story by Swedish fintech writer Jinia Shawdagor about the country’s embrace of a cashless economy. The brainchild of former Cointelegraph CEO Jay Cassano — who was managing editor at the time — Magazine was designed to fill a major gap in crypto media with in-depth features exploring all angles of the issues in a thoughtful, considered way. While it’s easier to get traffic writing breathless stories about Bitcoin price predictions, Magazine is an attempt to give readers and the industry a more intelligent approach. I came on board after meeting the team at Cointelegraph’s conference in Singapore. Due to an amusing mix-up between “Austria” (where a sto...
What Is Kaleidoscope? Creator Eric Garcia Explains Netflix’s New Heist Series With a Twist
Netflix’s newest heist drama has a fun, technologically-assisted twist to it — one that leads to over 5,000 different possible experiences for the viewer watching. Kaleidoscope, starring Giancarlo Esposito, Rufus Sewell, Jai Courtney, Paz Vega, Tati Gabrielle, and more, tells the story of daring thieves attempting to steal billions from one of the world’s most advanced safes. But the story is not told chronologically — instead, the show’s eight episodes are designed to be watched in any order, capturing specific time periods in relation to the heist, from 24 years beforehand to six months afterward. It’s a complicated concept, but creator Eric Garcia tells Consequence that “I think there’s a lot of fun in mixing it up,” especially when married to a well-loved genre. “People love heist stuf...
Here Are All of the Performers and Presenters at the 2023 Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards are often called Music’s Biggest Night, and in 2023 that could be true for the performers and presenters as much as the nominees. The Recording Academy’s annual showcase isn’t just about padding out the trophy case, it’s also a chance for artists to elevate their profile with show-stopping musical numbers, eye-catching outfits, and perhaps the occasional joke — good or otherwise. This year’s nominees are led by Kendrick Lamar, Adele, Harry Styles, and Beyoncé, who has tied with husband JAY-Z for the record for most Grammy nominations of all time. Notably, The Recording Academy added five new categories this year, for Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical; Best Alternative Music Performance; Best Americana Music Performance; Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and O...
Every Neko Case Album Ranked From Worst to Best
This article was originally published in 2015 and has been updated. Welcome to Dissected, where we disassemble a band’s catalog, a director’s filmography, or some other critical pop-culture collection in the abstract. It’s exact science by way of a few beers. This time, we sort through the best and worst of the at-times New Pornographer. Of all the artists who began the new millennium straddling the alt-country world and indie-rock stardom, none have proved themselves more talented or hardworking than Neko Case. Born in Virginia, she grew up in Tacoma, Washington, where she began her musical career drumming in a handful of bands before moving to Vancouver in 1994. She furthered her musical career playing drums for Canadian twee pop group Cub and singing for the punk band Maow in the mid ‘9...
Every Album by The Replacements Ranked From Worst to Best
This feature originally ran in August 2013, but we’re dusting it off in celebration of Paul Westerberg’s birthday on December 31st. Welcome to Dissected, where we disassemble a band’s catalog, a director’s filmography, or some other critical pop-culture collection in the abstract. It’s exact science by way of a few beers. This time, we sort through the best and worst of everyone’s favorite Trouble Boys. “Whose side are you on?” That’s the age-old question Paul Westerberg asks on “Left of the Dial” off of Tim. While he wasn’t exactly talking to his fans, he just as well could have been. At the time, the Minneapolis bard was already one foot in the door of another new era for The Replacements, a polarizing chapter that would see the band wave goodbye to their blitzkrieg of boozy basement pun...
5 Absurd But True Stories That Captivated the EDM World In 2022
2022 was another banner year for electronic dance music history as festivals returned en masse, the scene’s biggest artists released albums and live music records were broken. But then there were times when things got… weird. From head-scratching revelations on social media to dance music veterans taking the genre where it hasn’t gone before, read on to discover just a handful of the stories that had us doing double-takes in 2022. Bizarre Reddit sex confession spikes Hudson Mohawke’s “Cbat” on the charts There’s no manual to achieving a chart topping hit—but having your music be the subject of an embarrassing sex confession may be one of the most absurd paths possible. On the “Today I Fucked Up” subreddit, a Redditor confessed to the wo...
