The relationship that R.E.M. had with the producers they chose to work with is vital to understanding the major stages in the band’s development. Scott Litt guided their evolution from college rock he

Throughout much of 1978, things were ramping up behind the scenes in terms of bringing The Empire Strikes Back to the big screen. Ralph McQuarrie was working on a variety of illustrations that would u

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. . . . —John

F rom its figurehead Tony Wilson through to the male-dominated bands that found fame on the label, Factory Records is sometimes seen as the epitome of a muso lad fest. But a new exhibition at Manchest

Terre Thaemlitz Terre Thaemlitz is a Japan-based producer, DJ, and cultural critic whose multimedia projects have involved numerous aliases—including DJ Sprinkles, Terre’s Neu Wuss Fusion, G.R.R.L., a

Science denial goes back at least as far as the polio vaccine in the 1950s. Credit: Getty Images Once upon a time, in a land not far away, there was a horrible virus that instilled terror in every tow

T he elegantly attired, 4-foot-11-inch great grandmother might not have been easily identifiable as a music mogul to the industry insiders attending the American Association of Independent Music Award

The Loess plateau, in China, in 2007, left, and transformed into green valleys and productive farmland in 2019. Composite: Rex/Shutterstock/Xinhua/Alamy F lying into Egypt in early February to make th

getty Diversity is a matter of makeup and composition. Inclusion is a matter of belief and behavior. Diversity benefits no one unless we can unleash its power; simply putting diverse people together d

Howardena Pindell, a multidisciplinary artist whose works include video art and abstract pieces that incorporate figurative elements, photographed in her New York studio on Dec. 22, 2020. Credit... Ph

SFMOMA’s growth has failed to meaningfully improve wages for most of its workers while generating millions for a small group of money managers. One day in 1999, Charles Schwab and Donald Fisher walked

For half a century, synthesizer design has been dominated by the piano keyboard, but things could have gone another way. Author of a new book for Velocity Press called Synthesizer Evolution, Oli Freke

One of Chicago’s longest serving music organizations has continued to operate under the trying circumstances posed by a pandemic. While COVID-19 has affected the ways in which the Music Institute of C

LISTS A Guide to the Discography of Dance Music Innovator A Guy Called Gerald By Nathan Smith · March 18, 2021 His artistic name is unassuming, modest even. But A Guy Called Gerald , government name G

= Photographer: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images Photographer: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images CD Projekt SA Chief Executive Officer Marcin Iwiński made a public mea culpa this week abo

Ideas The Worst President in History Three particular failures secure Trump’s status as the worst chief executive ever to hold the office. January 19, 2021 Clinical associate professor of history at N

Forty years ago this winter, a strange new album arrived in U.S. record stores. It was a triple-vinyl set, by a London band still best known as punk rockers: the Clash ’s Sandinista! It was barely a y

F rom the womb – where the rushing of maternal blood is heard loud and clear at 88 decibels – through myriad historical, spiritual and subcultural pathways, our connection to the drone runs deep. Many

‘I remember going to parties,” says Anna Haigh, “and dancing on buses as we sped along the motorway – to Step On, Hallelujah, Loaded, Come Together, Fools Gold, The Only One I Know, Only Love Can Brea

Angus Finlayson takes London dubstep/grime institution's 10th birthday party as an opportunity to think about the pasts and potential futures of UK bass music. Photo by Will Bankhead UK dance music ha

In 2020, Disinformation Broke The US Lies about science, civil rights, and the vote itself have turned Americans against one another. BuzzFeed News; Getty Images In 2020, Disinformation Broke The US L

Louis (What’s AI) Bouchard Dec 20 · 15 min read Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash Even with everything that happened in the world this year, we still had the chance to see a lot of amazing research c

I first heard the rapper Daniel Dumile (pronounced DOOM -ee-lay) when I was fourteen and hip-hop was just beginning to bloom. The music was not so much “CNN for black people,” as Chuck D would later d

THE TIMELORDS T H E M A N U A L (HOW TO HAVE A NUMBER ONE THE EASY WAY) THE JUSTIFIED ANCIENTS OF MU MU REVEAL THEIR ZENARCHISTIC METHOD USED IN MAKING THE UNTHINKABLE HAPPEN. KLF 009B 1988 (YOU KNOW

A ghost in the machine? … Frank Sinatra.Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty Images ‘I t’s Christmas time! It’s hot tub time!” sings Frank Sinatra . At least, it sounds like him. With an easy swing, ch

Genius rarely follows a straight line. It certainly didn't in the case of Eddie Van Halen, the greatest guitarist of his generation and one of the handful of instrumentalists who shaped the sound of p

Notting Hill carnival sound system, 1989.Photograph: Adrian Boot/Urbanimage Music producer Mad Professor has been mixing dub reggae in his Croydon studio for 35 years. “When dub hits you in the chest

The 100 Sequences That Shaped Animation Brought to you by Illustration: Giacomo Gambineri This article was featured in One Great Story , New York ’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to

Credit: Floriana Getty Images It is not often that a comedian gives an astrophysicist goose bumps when discussing the laws of physics. But comic Chuck Nice managed to do just that in a recent episode

In Hell is Round the Corner , Adrian Thaws’ autobiography – published at the end of 2019 – the ‘hell’ that is around the corner is Knowle West, the large suburban council estate in the south of Bristo

Thomas Q. Kelley Jul 27, 2017 · 26 min read This feature Q&A with Underworld frontman Karl Hyde originally appeared in Magnetic on April 23, 2013, where we talked about his solo album Edgeland and his

The lensman behind Sign o’ the Times talks about some of his most iconic Prince shots. All photos by Jeff Katz In 1985, Prince was, as usual, exceptionally busy. Along with dreaming up new solo record

Reflecting on artists and collaborators who have passed away since the start of the Coronavirus crisis, David Toop explores how the transmission of music between disparate cultures can be a tool again

With storage spaces filled with works that may never be shown, some museums are rethinking the way they collect art, and at least one is ranking what it owns. Paintings line the basement storage space

If you really want to know what shaped John Boyega’s attitude to high-pressure situations – if you want the creation myth that perhaps explains why he reacts the way he does when he is cornered or cha

David Kilcullen is one of the world’s leading authorities on insurgencies. For decades he has studied them. As an infantry soldier in the Australian army and an adviser to the U.S. Army, he’s fought a

If you consult a large-scale map of the Essex coastline between the River Crouch and the River Thames, you will see a footpath – its route marked with a stitch-line of crosses and dashes – leaving the