FEATURES
The Backseat Lovers Break Down New Album Waiting to Spill Track by Track: Exclusive
Track by Track is a recurring feature series in which artists share the story behind every song on their latest release. Today, Joshua Harmon and Jonas Swanson of The Backseat Lovers break down their new album, Waiting to Spill. The highs and lows during the three-year period The Backseat Lovers spent crafting their latest record, Waiting to Spill, are palpable from the jump. Out on Friday, October 28th, the album illustrates the impact of a meditative work between experimenting with DIY instruments and wrapping up tracks from earlier sessions. The indie rock ensemble embodies the idea of patience is a virtue, as their sophomore effort builds off 2019’s When We Were Friends at its own pace, leading to a rewarding album for both the collective and their listeners. Throughout Waiting to...
NCT’s Ten Is Willing to Try It All
To understand why Ten of NCT, WayV, and SuperM is in such high demand, all you have to do is watch him in motion. Contemporary dance is at the heart of his first solo single, “Dream In a Dream,” which was released four years after he joined Seoul-based company SM Entertainment and one year after he debuted in the ever-shifting NCT U. Empty verses and sparse choruses, as well as a barren set, left room for Ten’s dancing to take center stage. The effect was breathtaking — in 2017, it whet the appetite of those getting their first taste of NCT’s then-novel concept — but more importantly, it showed what Ten brings to the table when twenty-plus members, and multiplying, are seated by his side. Since then, his work in NCT’s Chinese subgroup WayV and SM’s internationally-focused SuperM has peeled...
Celebrate Lane 8’s Birthday With 5 of His Best Tracks
From his ID-filled seasonal mixtapes to his sensational, phone-free live shows, there are plenty of reasons why Lane 8 is one of the best house music artists around. Visceral songwriting, introspective lyrics and elegant melodies embody the Lane 8 sound. His record label, This Never Happened, is not only home to his three stellar albums, but has also become a breeding ground for rising melodic house talent like Massane, Avoure and Anderholm. To celebrate Lane 8’s birthday, dive into five of his best releases below. “Watermelon Wormhole” Lane 8’s latest album, Reviver, was born of a desire for the producer to reinvent himself. While he declared it’s his “most dancefloor focused album yet,” there’s an understated gem in there, “Watermelon Wormhole.” ...
Animation Legend Henry Selick on What He’s Learned From The Nightmare Before Christmas to Wendell & Wild
Director Henry Selick clearly has a soft spot for the spookiest time of year, having brought The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, and now the new Netflix animated adventure Wendell & Wild to the screen. But here’s his favorite part of Halloween these days: getting to see trick-or-treaters in familiar costumes while distributing candy at his home. “I was delighted when more and more kids start showing up as Nightmare Before Christmas characters and then some Coraline characters,” he tells Consequence. “That’s my favorite, is kids dressed up as characters from films that I’ve worked on.” The best part is that the kids don’t know whose house they’ve arrived at, and, says Selick, “I’ve got a lot of puppets and memorabilia from all the films. So if the kids are dressed up like Nightmar...
Mining Metal: Abduction, Daeva, Faceless Burial, Forlesen, God Alone, MAL, The Otolith, and SUMAC/Keiji Haino
Every month, I could write to you all about how the selection process for this column is hard. When you first sit down to do something like this, there’s a hunger to write about all the bands that really get your engines going, to finally get to make people outside of your circle hear the things you’ve rehearsed in your head to pitch all this music you love to others. But as the months (and now years) creep on, you start finding that, well, those bands keep putting out music and a lot of it has stayed pretty good, but now new bands have joined the pack, and oh that’s a new label, and I’ve never even heard of this scene before, and wow these classic bands came back and put out a really special release, and… So sometimes the choices are less based on pure quality as other paradigms. One of t...
Lainey Wilson Says She’s ‘Here to Take Care of Business & Share My Story’ on ‘Bell Bottom Country’ Album
Lainey Wilson’s career has been developing at breakneck speed. In three short years, she’s gone from releasing her debut major label EP to being the top nominee at Nov. 9’s CMA Awards. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In 2019, she released Redneck Hollywood on Broken Bow Records/BBR Music Group, followed by 2021’s full-length, Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin.’ On Friday, Bell Bottom Country — a nod not only to her freewheeling form of music, but also to what has become her signature ‘70s hippie style – comes out. “This record is still me sayin’ what I’m thinking, but in a different way,” the Baskin, Louisiana, native says in her distinct Southern drawl, while seated at Red Light Management’s Nashville office. “I feel like I’ve grown leaps a...
Conjure Up a Halloween Playlist With These Horror-Themed Hip-Hop Tracks
While Christmas music seems to dominate the entire month of December, Halloween has yet to be given the same attention. For years, come Halloween, supermarkets and radio stations have played the same old stuff ad nauseum — cue “Monster Mash.” Hip-hop, however, has been engrossed with horror, going so far as to dedicate a subgenre to music that sounds like it was designed to be streamed during the spooky season. Branching out from gangsta rap, the oft-forgotten horrorcore uses the supernatural as a metaphor for real-life themes of violence, drug abuse and death. Though not all horrorcore songs are that bleak, they’re usually darkly transgressive, and their influence has permeated throughout rappers old and new. The 1980s old-school wave, for instance, often pulled from horrorcore when sampl...
Take a Closer Look at the ‘Magic: The Gathering’ 30th Anniversary Black Lotus Card
With just a little over a month until Wizards of the Coast drops its Magic: The Gathering 30th-Anniversary Collectors Edition, we now take a closer look at one of the iconic cards that pay homage to the original Black Lotus. This set truly does put an emphasis on the “collectible” in “collectible card game.” As Magic: The Gathering continues to expand and grow after 30 years of existence — entering that challenging stage of keeping its core audience and loyal community happy, all the while tapping into a new generation of players — there has been some controversy surrounding this big drop. Priced at $999 USD (or roughly $250 USD per pack of 15 cards), the price point has effectively set the celebratory pack exceptionally above normal product pricing and is aimed at more of the collectors a...
Inside Carl Cox’s Two-Decade Saga at Ultra Music Festival
Iconic, breathtaking, indelible—what can be said about Carl Cox‘s music that hasn’t already been said about Ultra‘s RESISTANCE Megastructure? The legendary DJ is embedded in the mythos of Ultra, a festival that is as vital to rave culture as Cox is to techno. He’s been throwing down in Miami for nearly two decades now, and the star of his legacy only grows brighter with each eye-popping RESISTANCE set. There’s no arguing the power of Ultra’s Main Stage, but the immersive Megastructure is the festival’s pièce de résistance. It’s here where Cox has enraptured the nation’s electronic music community since 2017. Carl Cox performs at Ultra’s RESISTANCE Megastructure. Rudgrcom But that wasn’t always the ca...
Top 5 Mötley Crüe Guitarist Candidates Following Mick Mars’ Retirement from Touring
With Mick Mars stepping away from touring, one of the highest profile guitar gigs in rock music is now on the job market. Mötley Crüe’s founding axeman will still remain a member of the band, but will no longer play live shows due to his ongoing battle with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a crippling degenerative disease that affects the spine. In addition to his health issues, Mars is the elder statesman of the Crüe, roughly a decade older than everyone else in the band. In the infamous Crüe biography The Dirt, Mars described how he often caught flak for his age, as he was already established as a journeyman guitarist in the years prior to Mötley Crüe’s formation. Given Mars’ experience, it’s only fitting that Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, and Vince Neil tap someone who not only fits the part but has al...
Building community resilience to crises through mutual aid and Web3
It seems that every time one turns on the TV, something, somewhere, is going catastrophically wrong. Whether it be Hurricane Ian tearing through Cuba and Florida, war raging in Eastern Europe, or floods devastating Pakistan, there has been no shortage of crises in 2022 — both natural and human-caused. And as the climate continues to warm, extreme weather events and other natural disasters are only expected to occur more frequently, which may also potentially lead to greater overall regional and global instability. In response, some groups working to build decentralized community resilience are now turning to blockchain and Web3 tools to help strengthen their initiatives. The United States experienced one of its worst natural disasters in modern history when the Category 5 Hurricane K...
Fan Chant: Can’t Talk, Busy Running Through a Garden in a Ballgown to This New Vitamin String Quartet BTS Album
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! As anyone who has even glanced at this column (or most of my writing) before can confirm, I absolutely love to love things. To that same end, I also adore people who love pop culture, film, fandom, and niche interests with all their heart. I’m obsessed with being part of the discussion around a cultural phenomenon, even if the product itself isn’t necessarily something I’m passionate about — I used to read Game of Thrones recaps regularly even though the show wasn’t my vibe, finding myself stan...
