Mala Mortensa

After over a year spent speculating what it may bring for us, we're finally getting news on the 10th installment of American Horror Story. As confirmed by Ryan Murphy, the next season is titled Double Feature and will follow two storylines, "One by the sea, one by the sand..." If...

If there's one indisputable truth in this world, it's that alternative music has no shortage of iconic drummers. Quite literally setting the beat for the genre, these artists put the power behind some of our favorite tracks. And boy, do we love getting a taste for it right from the top with some badass drum intros...

We already established that not all women sound like Hayley Williams with our look into unique-sounding frontwomen within 2000s alternative music. So, given the generalized diversification of the genre throughout the 2010s, we shouldn't need to drive that point home again, right? ...

Between the likes of Snow Patrol, Biffy Clyro and beyond, Scotland set some solid roots in the '90s mainstream alternative explosion. Don't mistake its prominence in the music scene as a thing of the past, though. The country has been churnin...

It's well known that, historically, pop punk has been a bit of a boys' club. But that just makes the continued influences of prominent women all the more impressive. From setting genre foundations (Gwen Stefani) to pushing sonic boundaries (Lynn Gunn), women have catalyzed the growth of the scene for decades. Of course, we...

We're well aware that there's a bit of an '80s renaissance going on in pop culture. From soundtracking shows to influencing alternative artists with synth-pop and darkwave, the music of the decade is certainly a prominent force in the modern age. Of co...

Every guitarist knows the feeling of first picking up the instrument and being at a total loss for where to start. While everyone just wants to jam out to their favorite hits, there's often a learning curve involved. That said, there are plenty of beginner-level songs that you can learn how to play with just a few chords, and 1990s music boasts no shortage of them...

"Not all bands fronted by women sound like Paramore" is beginning to become a pretty popular adage in the alternative music scene. It's not that drawing a likeness to Hayley Williams isn't a compliment—it may be one of the highest. But consi...

It's hard to believe that we've now spent more time beyond the 2000s than within them. What's worse? That means we're now coming up on 20 years spent with some of our favorite alternative hits. This year, it's all the 2001 songs that are celebrating the milestone birthday...

There are a number of factors that might make a song immediately recognizable—a whisper, a cough, a G note... But nothing gets our little black hearts racing quite as rapidly as a guitar riff we know like the backs of our hands. You don't even have to be a guitarist to get the sentiment. As l...

It's been nearly five years since Adam Lazzara, John Nolan, Anthony Green and Ben Homola took to privately closing out their summer tour stops with improvised, instrument-less displays of their far-reaching creative talents. Now, the Taking Ba... Read More ...

It's a bit sad that feminism and music go so perfectly hand in hand. The movement shouldn't have to be twisted into a countercultural phenomenon driven by defiance. After all, in any reasonable world, the equality and representation of women and marginalized groups should be inherent...

If there's anything the alternative music community knows how to do, it's goofing off. Seriously, just try to name a realm of genres better aligned with Razor scooters, stage pranks and off-the-wall music videos. While every day might as well be National Goof Off Day in our zany counterculture, March 22 gives us an opportunity to reflect on all the hilarity that abounds. Of cours...

No lie, there's no greater experience than listening to an album that flows perfectly all the way through. But when the songs transition so seamlessly you barely even notice the track change... Well, that's just unparalleled bliss. Admittedly, we now live in an age of instant gratification in which we're conditioned to shuffle and skip between our favorite songs...

As some of our favorite pop-punk bands continue to show us, we have a lot to thank 1990s alternative music for. Not only did the mainstream explosion set the foundations for the genre collective as we know it, but it put quite a number of women on the forefront. While...

How many women and nonbinary-fronted bands can you remember from the mainstream emo wave? OK, now let's subtract Paramore, Hey Monday and Automatic Loveletter. How many do you have now? Unless you were deeply invested in the 2000s underground scene, you can probably count the remaining qualifiers on one hand. Fortunately f...

The scene era taught us just how important album covers are. Seriously, we can't even start to fathom the collective hours we spent uploading art for records we'd pulled from totally legal sources. Did you know, though, that many of the most iconic cover designs of the era came from the same creative mind? ...

We've already established that there are some surprises that come with RIAA certifications. That said, there's nothing more troubling than realizing that some of the most iconic alternative albums have never been certified gold. It's not particularly surprising that there are some discrepancies between an album's generalized reception and its certification standing. Aft...

What do both Schitt's Creek and emo music have in common? Far-reaching relatability that fluctuates wildly between being hilarious and heart-wrenchingly sentimental. It's a shame that the scene largely grew out of incorporating song and movie quotes into their ultra-long song titles. Sch... Read More ...

If the past year has proved anything, it's that Travis Barker is the king of collaborations. From providing instrumentation and production for Machine Gun Kelly's Tickets To My Downfall to featuring under FEVER 333, Atreyu, Tyler Posey and phem, the blink-182 drummer has been keeping busy. But that's hardly a change o...