You can never be too old for pop music

How to discover new music. [View this email in your browser]( [READER Logo]( Daily Reader | August 7, 2024 I realize I’m not the target audience for [Neil Steinberg’s recent Sun-Times column about pop music]( which is focused on the biggest pop phenomenon of the year: Chappell Roan. The headline clued me in pretty quickly: “Why haven't you started listening to Chappell Roan yet?” I realize my beat enables me to listen far and wide, and also enforces biases not held by people who have fleeting interactions with music. At this point, I assume the opposite of Steinberg’s perspective about your experience with Chappell Roan. Her debut album, last year’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, [is the most streamed album on Spotify]( the number of times it was streamed on that platform doubled in the past two months. Roan’s success can convince you a monoculture may not be completely extinct. If you’re invested in keeping tabs on legacy forms of mainstream cultural phenomena—i.e. blockbuster films that rake in tens of millions of dollars opening weekend and pop stars who play major festivals—Chappell Roan’s rise isn’t a surprise anymore, even as her popularity continues to reach new heights. I found myself struck by one interesting detail in Steinberg’s piece. He first learned of Roan through a news report about Lollapalooza on WBBM. I’ve rarely learned of an unfamiliar song or artist from a news radio station, but I can’t disagree with Steinberg’s opening statement: “New music enters your life in all sorts of ways.” This is part of the reason I write about music. I hope that in my work I can introduce anyone—be it a Chicagoan who goes to four shows a week, or a curmudgeon who believes new music is only made for 15-year-olds—to the next song that will make their heart flutter, or twist their guts in knots, or keep them up at night. I want to help build a robust music journalism ecosystem that does more than simply tell the public if a new artist or album is good or bad or popular or obscure, but illuminates the ways in which the art seeps into, and maybe changes, the world outside of it. I think music journalism has the capacity to change how people think about art as much as how they learn about new songs, or even change their basic attitudes towards music. I can’t say I read much worthwhile local music journalism about this weekend’s Lollapalooza. I skimmed a lot of uncritical boosterism of the festival and shallow Q&As with musicians that never bothered to tell me what made them worthy of my attention. Covering a festival is arduous; you can see 20 bands during a single day at a festival and still feel like you’re missing key details about the character of the event, or what made a specific set feel particularly magical. Lollapalooza is too large for any one person to capture entirely on their own, though lord knows I’ve tried. I don’t think the festival is [particularly good or interesting](. But I understand its size and position as a moneymaker mean a great deal to people who otherwise disregard music most of the year. And if that means more people have the chance to learn about new music from unexpected news sources, well, I’ll take that silver lining for now. ◈ [“]( Happened to Ice Cube?,”]( by Joel Anderson (Slate) ◈ [“Hit Em, The Microgenre That Came To Drew Daniel In A Dream,”]( by Daniel Bromfield (Stereogum) ◈ [“Emily White was dragged for predicting the future of music streaming 12 years ago. Where is she now?,”]( by Nate Rogers (Los Angeles Times) ◈ Rapt in Plastic, [Rosehill Summoning]( ◈ girly pants, [Nurture]( ◈ Vic Spencer, [the Apes that was left behind]( ◈ Sam Wilkes, Craig Weinrib, and Dylan Day, [Sam Wilkes, Craig Weinrib, and Dylan Day]( [Humboldt Park art space Leisure opens its doors with a one-day exhibit of time-based work]( Plus: Local arts and culture magazine Gush throws a party for issue two, and Cafe Mustache’s karaoke captains host a record-setting Salt Shed shindig. by [Leor Galil]( | [Read more]( → [man in a polka dot short button up and pageboy cap playing the guitar]( [Phil Yates & the Affiliates can make feel-good music out of heartbreak]( Thu 8/8 at Cobra Lounge by [Jamie Ludwig]( | [Read more]( → [two pictures of a man playing music on a keyboard and another picture of a musician]( [Knumears bring screamo fury to Beat Kitchen]( Fri 8/9 at Beat Kitchen by [Leor Galil]( | [Read more]( → [Chicago’s Holy Joke make wistful alt-country on a new EP]( Fri 8/9 at the Hideout by [Monica Kendrick]( | [Read more]( → Why wait to get your tickets to the Chicago Reader’s 3rd Annual UnGala? Join our headliner—Grammy-nominated DJ Terry Hunter—for an open bar package, after hour access to MCA exhibitions, and a curated night of entertainment from across Chicago’s art and music scene. [GET 20% OFF WITH CODE “EARLYBIRD”]( Get the latest issue of the Chicago Reader Thursday, August 1, 2024 [READ ONLINE: VOL. 53, NO. 26]( [VIEW/DOWNLOAD ISSUE (PDF)]( [Facebook icon]( [Instagram icon]( [Twitter icon]( [LinkedIn icon]( [YouTube icon]( [Website icon]( [Logo] You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from the Chicago Reader. Want fewer emails from us? [Click here to choose what you want us to send you](. Or, [unsubscribe from all Reader emails](. We’ll miss you! [Sign up for emails from the Chicago Reader]( | [Forward this e-mail to a friend]( © 2024 Chicago Reader. All rights reserved. Chicago Reader, 2930 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 102, Chicago, IL 60616