afi

Nothing grabs listeners’ attention like a good diss track. After all, it’s pretty much human nature to tap into any source of drama one can find. Eminem‘s been on a roll with the tactic. The rapper made headlines after taking a jab at Machine Gun Kelly on his 2018 album, Kamikaze. Now, on his latest record, he’s […]

All die-hard music fans can remember the first time they discovered a new band or heard a song that made them smash the replay button. Sometimes tracks have this unique capability to take your breath away, creating a fresh relationship that can launch you into a new world of music discovery. This connection to new […]

Flashback to 2006. Boys Like Girls just dropped their debut album (feel old?). You’re copying and pasting lyrics from a shady website into every song in your iTunes catalog. Most of them are wrong. We’ve come a long way since the widespread use of smartphones took hold. Now, if we’re lucky, Spotify will do the dirty work for […]

The best thing about pop culture is how often its elements transcend their original scopes and mediums, offering an instant sense of connection to wherever they appear. Be it your favorite movie, show or even song, it’s always cool to see it appreciated.  This phenomenon is largely present in music, with bands referencing film, TV […]

The ’80s feel like a lifetime away, and for many in the scene, they actually are (yikes). The good news is the decade has left a longstanding musical legacy. The incorporation of 1980s sound elements into modern music is hardly new, but its frequency seems to be rising. It seems impossible to turn on the […]

The alternative music scene can be home to some serious differences of opinion. Case in point: Just look at the reactions to Machine Gun Kelly‘s chart-topping album, Tickets To My Downfall. These divisions aren’t unique to the modern era, though. Fall Out Boy’s 2008 record Folie à Deux, which is celebrating its 12th anniversary this […]

Chances are when you think of 2000s albums, a few distinct images spring to mind. Let us guess… Panic! At The Disco‘s A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out? Paramore‘s Riot!? My Chemical Romance‘s Life On The Murder Scene? All amazing… But we’re missing more than a few. In an iTunes-dominated world, album covers were often the first things […]

Lately, Machine Gun Kelly has been making waves in the pop-punk scene. His massive transition from hip-hop has brought the genre back to the mainstream spotlight, granting opportunities for other pop culture icons such as Halsey to try on a mid-2000s sound. While MGK‘s Tickets To My Downfall has become a divisive subject in the […]

Is there any better surprise than listening to a song and getting hit by a cameo from a familiar vocalist? Aside from adding to the dynamics of the track, these uncredited guest vocals are great Easter eggs for any fan.  While it’s not uncommon for these collaborations to go unnoted on streaming platforms, Google will […]

Any former emo kid remembers singing along to their favorite songs with eyeliner running in sheets down their cheeks. Honestly, were we really that sad, or did our iPods just suck us into a black hole of raw emotion? Regardless of what came first, the sad or the band, the lyrics of the 2000s hit […]

Touché Amoré aren’t a band known for delicacy. Despite the frequent counterpoint coupling of frontman Jeremy Bolm’s thumbtack-gargling vocals with lavish, delay-heavy guitar atmosphere, they’re a band on the attack. They cut their teeth on songs with ferocious bite and lyrics of sharp self-introspection that typically lean into pessimism. When Bolm initially began work on […]

R-Battz is finally here. We’ve waited a long time to visualize Robert Pattinson’s interpretation of the Dark Knight, and the first official trailer for next year’s The Batman gave us more emo vibes than we could handle. This is the first incarnation of the caped crusader to show the black eyeliner every Batman wears beneath […]

Is imitation a form of flattery? Or is it simply annoying? That’s what some bands and a lot of fans have to consider when faced with album artwork that looked a little too close for comfort. Call it homage, a tribute or straight-up theft, here are nine times when bands were accused of copying album […]

Side projects have the special ability to give artists the chance to express themselves in whatever manner they choose without snobby genre lords or the (sometimes self-imposed) shackles of their previous works confining their sonic decisions. Sometimes these new bands go in an intentionally more mainstream direction, while other times the word “commercial” is never […]

MTV launched Aug. 1, 1981, and eventually took over the planet as a youth authority and a music video jukebox that had the power to catapult an artist’s career to the stratosphere. As YouTube and other streaming platforms took flight in 2005, MTV slowly started becoming more obsolete and less meaningful as a video network, […]

Genre is a peculiar thing. We often recognize elements of our favorites when we hear them, drawing comparisons to notable artists of their respective scenes. And what’s better than when our ideal styles intersect to form something that’s unique, albeit beautifully reminiscent of its roots? In celebrating the art of “genre-bending,” we’ve gone ahead and […]