In some sort of dystopian social media twilight zone, sea shanties exploded in popularity in early 2021. Toe-tapping hymns in the style of 19th century drunken sailors and rum-swilling pirates found new life in—you guessed it—TikTok, a platform ironically dominated by prepubescent teens. After a Scottish musician named Nathan Evans shared his renditions of “The Scotsman” and “The Wellerman” on TikTok, the sea shanties went viral. Why? Who knows. This is TikTok, a Wild West of beautiful stupidity where people challenge each other to remove moles and insert pennies into live electrical sockets. When Evans’ sea shanties erupted on the platform, they inspired a new trend, which eventually mutated into its own native culture called ShantyTok. EDM ultimate...
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, two longtime friends form a new band and find a new sound. The past year of our lives has taught us that loneliness comes in several shades of blue. It can feel like total isolation, separation from dear friends, or even the tedium of seeing the same faces every single day. Those among us who have fared best have either found ways to beat the loneliness (a little Zoom went a long way there for a while, didn’t it?) or embrace it as a chance to remain in the moment and accomplish something. Jay Som (Melina Duterte) and Palehound voc...
In the past month, the steadily growing #FreeBritney movement became a mainstream phenomenon following the release of The New York Times Presents documentary Framing Britney Spears. The documentary dissects the pop star’s controversial conservatorship, which placed her under the strict supervision, financially and personally, of conservators like her father, James “Jamie” Spears, among others since 2008. Acting as a thorough introduction for newcomers, Framing Britney Spears provides a heartbreaking portrait of both the rise of the wide-eyed teen singer from Louisiana and her fall from grace, including that infamous head-shaving, umbrella-wielding night anyone who lived through 2007 saw footage of at least a million times over. Framing Britney Spears casts a much kinder, more sympathetic l...
In honor of Black History Month, poet Vievee Francis remembered Marvin Gaye with two poems. MARVIN GAYE: MERCY Take Marvin Gaye. His father had no mercy. Paranoia does that. Mercy is spat like spinach between the teeth. It slips out in a pee stream. Those without, never had it or lost it by adulthood. A flatline. Mercy replaced by a thin-lipped smile of rage. But Marvin wanted mercy so badly from a man who didn’t have it to give, as if all he once had now rested in Marvin. Who wouldn’t be jealous? To see your better self. To hear all that beauty wafting out of every car window sweet as cigarette smoke. I don’t trust those who don’t like the smell. Orthodoxy. That was the gun in his daddy’s hand. It said, don’t this and don’t that and the only goodness is to wither on your own vine. But how...
In modern bass music, listeners and tastemakers consistently find themselves chasing the next big track to blow audiences away. EDM.com’s The Heat Check is a series that highlights the hottest tracks and brightest artists to emerge from the bass, dubstep and freeform scenes. “Out of My Hands” – Buku Bass veteran Buku often rattles the scene with each offering, and his latest EP on WAKAAN is no different. “Out Of My Hands” builds with a grungy vocal and drum line, before dropping into otherworldly, hypnotic bass. “Fight Club” – Chee & Mr Carmack THC Exclusive: “After Lightning in a Bottle 2019, I visited Tsuruda in LA before I left for my flight home. He asked me if I wanted to visit Carmack in his studio and I was stoked,” Chee told EDM.com. “The coll...
As such, the concept car cribbed its underpinnings from the Buick Park Avenue full-size sedan. The use of the flagship Buick model’s unibody architecture afforded the Signia a low step-in height while also offering a raised, SUV-like seating position. See all 10 photos Although the Signia was no beauty pageant contender, its design certainly included a number of attractive styling elements. Look past the concept’s dowdy mug and details such as the concept’s prominent rear fender line (gracefully mirrored by the rear window, too), steeply raked C-pillar, and single-piece rear hatch glass—that covers the entirety of the cargo hold— come together to give the illusion of a rear-drive powertrain. In reality, the concept’s transverse-mounted supercharged 3.8-l...
There’s a reason why EDM is so popular in Brazil—the country is currently pumping out electronic music producers like a broken printer. Those artists have ignited the country’s music scene in recent years by cultivating Brazilian bass, a musical sub-genre that started out as a mere classification but has since mutated into a full-fledged culture. The ascension of this type of music is no fluke. Led by its unquestioned pacemaker, Alok, the Brazilian bass sound has exploded in its namesake nation and continues to gain steam in the states. And, like a smokestack, it’s only a matter of time until the genre truly explodes and billows out through the contemporary music scene at large. It’s already happening. A closely related electronic sub-genre called “slap ...
While it’s been a challenge for bands to collaborate in person over the last year, archival releases have been booming. And over the course of this first quarter, lots of goodies have dropped. Here are some of the most worthy entries in the reissue world. Black SabbathVol. 4 Deluxe Edition (Rhino)Heaven and Hell Deluxe Edition (Rhino)Mob Rules Deluxe Edition (Rhino) What we have here are three essential Black Sabbath albums from two distinctly different periods in the band’s timeline. 1972’s Vol. 4 is renowned mostly for the hedonism and drug use that went down during the album’s creation in Los Angeles. But nearly 50 years later, it stands as the creative pinnacle of the Ozzy era. By bringing the production duties in-house, the original lineup of Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bi...
When Daft Punk split up, music fans from all walks of life mourned the loss of the beloved robots. It’s almost as if they plunged into the five stages of grief, starting with denial. Just ask this guy: We all deal with grief in our own ways, one of which is to buy a bunch of crap. Don’t act like you’ve never been dumped and immediately bought $100 worth of Ben & Jerry’s, holding back tears as you approach the cash register in a hoodie and flip-flops. It’s simple—we buy things to make us happy during times of sadness, even if its for a fleeting moment. Here are 10 awesome collectibles to revive the robots in your home after their shocking and tragic split. Daft Punk Homework LP Record Bowl Put your fruit in this custom, handmade Homework vinyl record b...
This film will do much to educate those unaware of the immense talent that bubbled out of Nashville, and then Texas, in the ‘70s. The documentary, Without Getting Killed or Caught, tells the story of three immensely talented and interconnected artists: Guy Clark, his best friend Townes Van Zandt and Susanna Clark, who loved them both. Culled from both Susanna’s diary and the biography of Guy, Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark, by Tamara Saviano, the film’s co-director along with Paul Whitfield, the story is anchored by Sissy Spacek’s voiceover as Susanna. Live clips, clever animations and home movies are interspersed with more recent interview clips. As the story unfolds, Susanna paints while Guy and Townes struggle to hone their songwriting skill...
I told them it was in New Jersey. “Just a train ride away,” I said, which was a lie but, after spending an hour hitting “refresh” to get tickets, I couldn’t risk telling my friends where the concert really was. To be fair, Atlantic City is much farther from Manhattan than I thought. It wasn’t until I was buying bus tickets from the 15th stop, on the second train line, that I fully understood the journey we were embarking on. Or rather, the pilgrimage. It was the first night of her Revel Casino residency, May 2012. Our seats were ridiculous—the payoff of my hour-long wait on the Beyhive—we were close enough to see sweat. And then, we were put under a spell. Hypnotized by an artistic masterpiece, an athletic feat, and the aptest definition of a show there is. Before us, was our hero, who was...