The 2024 DNC had Jason Isbell and Lil Jon, but not Beyoncé. Rare miss, TMZ.

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. Thank you to everyone who’s helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

Moon Unit Zappa is ready to share her story. The daughter of Frank Zappa, who appeared on his 1982 hit “Valley Girl,” has lived an eventful life from the very beginning. The weirdness is detailed in her new memoir, EARTH TO MOON, which is out Tuesday and follows her unconventional upbringing in 1970s Los Angeles all the way up to the death of her parents.

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

There was no new music this week. Here are politicians talking about Bob Seger.

This summer, the city of Paris put on a show for the world. The obvious highlight of last month’s Olympic opening ceremony was the ecstatic vision of beloved prog-metal titans Gojira, all perched on scattered castle ledges like gargoyles, duetting with Marie Antoinette’s severed head and with an opera soprano singing from a passing boat. Two weeks later, blog-rock overlords Phoenix headlined the closing ceremony in the center of the Stade De France, doing a 2009 Will Never Die Bonnaroo Superjam with Air and Ezra Koenig and that one song from Drive. Throughout the two ceremonies, other French and French-enough musicians made their presence felt: Aya Nakamura, Juliette Armanet, Céline Dion, the Minions, that guy with the angel wings and the accordion. It was a lovely spectacle, but at least one strain of vital French music was sorely absent.

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. Thank you to everyone who’s helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

Chappell Roan drew Lollapalooza’s largest daytime crowd ever and in the days following got covered by Blink-182 and Jonas Brothers and co-signed by SZA, Noah Kahan, Hayley Williams, Selena Gomez, and IKEA.

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. Thank you to everyone who’s helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

When asked how he would like to live his remaining years, Luis Buñuel once said: “Give me two hours a day of activity, and I’ll take the other 22 in dreams — provided I can remember them.” Who knows what the great Spanish filmmaker might’ve conceived had he been a raver rather than a Surrealist. A recent microgenre offers a clue: hit em, invented in a dream by Drew Daniel.

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

Happy birthday Charli!

Summer is the most pop of seasons, yet as far as pop albums in July go… there isn’t much! There are albums by pop-adjacent artists, like Porter Robinson or Clairo or Childish Gambino. There are albums that would have been big pop records a decade ago, like OneRepublic or Eminem (boy, has he tried). Culture-capturing event albums, though? Basically nil.

Like its namesake, Nile is never still. The Underworld Awaits Us All — the forthcoming 10th album from the South Carolina death metal institution, out August 23 via Napalm Records — is another new phase for the band. Like the preceding nine entries in the Nile discography, it’s a unique offering that sets itself apart from its siblings. Indeed, no album from the group led by Karl Sanders, Nile’s lone constant and driving force, sounds the same, and that trend of artistic renovation continues on this 11-track outing. With the proven regularity of the sun rising, the band has once again taken what it learned from previous releases and poured that hard-won experience into a sturdy foundation to help it renovate and rebuild. And yet, despite its freshness, The Underworld Awaits Us All is undeniably a Nile album, burnished with the band’s unmistakable characteristics that make it instantly recognizable. The Egyptology and ancient histories are there. The riffs are there. The blazing tempos and bone-crunching slowdowns are there. In a scene where most bands are content to continually limbo the baseline, that’s a feat of death metal ingenuity that has only gotten more impressive since Nile released its debut demo in 1994.

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. Thank you to everyone who’s helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

The Olympics Opening Ceremony went down in Paris today. IDGAF but my job as Stereogum team captain requires me to tell you that Gojira rocked out with Marie Antoinette and Céline Dion returned to the stage, but didn’t duet with Harley Quinn. Snoop Dogg, Pharrell Williams, and BTS’ Jin were among those carrying the torch earlier in the day. Birthday boy Mick Jagger was spotted cheering on Team GB. And Ariana Grande was there too, doing some Wicked promo. Somewhere Snoop is practicing his 200m while Flavor Flav is practicing his t-shot. Soon: breakdancing! Good luck, America.

“I was like, ‘Damn, we comin’ up on being old heads. It’s about to be our 10th anniversary. I should probably go ahead and tap in and make sure I set something up.'”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. Thank you to everyone who’s helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but alto saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin has been blasting through the jazz world like a comet the last couple of years. She’s been around for a while — her debut, Retox, was released in 2012, and her next album, Rise Up, in 2018 — but her third, Pursuance: The Coltranes, was her first truly great record. Its 13 tracks were all written by John and Alice Coltrane, including pieces from throughout both artists’ careers like “Syeeda’s Song Flute,” “Liberia,” “Central Park West,” “Going Home,” and “Turiya And Ramakrishna.” The music was performed by a stunning array of guests, from bassists Ron Carter and Reggie Workman (both of whom played with the Coltranes) to harpist Brandee Younger, vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater and Georgia Anne Muldrow, violinist Regina Carter, trumpeter Keyon Harrold, and more. But Benjamin was always the focus, her sharp and fluid lines cutting through in a way that bridges multiple genres and generations.

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

I don’t know what Ozzy‘s talking about. Britney’s Instagram is perfect.

Torture weren’t supposed to be there. They’re not a festival band. They’re barely a band at all. Torture are the project of one guy, a young Chicago multi-instrumentalist who calls himself K.K., and he just added a couple of touring musicians. They only played their first show a few months ago. Their chug-splat music is almost comically unfriendly. They make statements against warfare on a global scale while encouraging you to beat the motherfuck out of your friends while they beat the motherfuck out of you — a strange tension that shouldn’t work but does. And now, K.K. is up onstage in sunny Los Angeles, making chug-splat music for thousands of people, standing up behind his drums and yelling into his Janet Jackson-ass headset mic: “This is your last fucking chance! I don’t give a fuck! Side to side! Front to back! I don’t give a fuck! Kill someone! Hurt someone!”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. Thank you to everyone who’s helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

This week Faye Webster, Jessica Pratt, and Sublime made their late night TV debuts and Wand played a Chicago morning show. Do you watch TV? Lmk if I should start season three of The Bear or just stop now.

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. Thank you to everyone who’s helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

She went Houdini:

Nothing could have prepared me for f(x)’s “NU ABO” at 13. The cover showed a young woman blindfolded, the title melting off the right side. The music video cast five young women in a tiny stage, changing outfits and dancing less in the cutesy pointing of Girls’ Generation’s smash hit “Gee” and more like the coordinated locking of SHINee’s “Lucifer.” And the music: bold, bratty, delightfully aggressive. What “NU ABO” meant, I didn’t know at the time. f(x) were befuddled by the lyrics too, it turns out. (I suspect no Australian was involved in the naming.) But it didn’t matter when the girls (one of which, Sulli, was the cover model) were this beautiful, the music was this good, and the music video this cool. It was all so well-executed, in fact, that it is difficult to think of K-Pop today without their contributions.

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. Thank you to everyone who’s helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

Welcome to the first annual Heavy Metal Roundtable, a symposium of sickness inviting some of heavy metal’s brightest minds to help me, an idiot, dissect a metallic topic.

In The Alternative Number Ones, I’m reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it’s for members only. Thank you to everyone who’s helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.

Yesterday Dave Davies found his lost Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame trophy and today is Ray Davies’ 80th birthday. The Killers just covered “Come Dancing” in Dublin. It would be sick if the Kinks finally reunited/worked it out on the remix. Until then, check out your best comments of the week.