Hot Take

A Spotify chart decided you didn't want this show. It doesn't know you'd drive two hours for the tour.

Article Contributed by Rebecca McDevitt Let’s say the quiet part out loud. The reason so many artists are living off nostalgia instead of putting out new music isn’t just an industry problem. Fans play a role too. Across the industry, nostalgia has become the safest option. Anniversary tours sell out instantly. Full album playthroughs move merch. Entire festivals are built around who we listened to in high school. It works because nostalgia is powerful and comforting, especia

There used to be a time when buying merch felt simple. You grabbed a tour tee, wore it like a badge of honor, and let it mean exactly what it was supposed to mean: I was there. It was about fandom and a souvenir rolled into one, no second thoughts required. Now, merch comes with baggage. Hot Take: Merch has become the backbone of an artist’s paycheck, and as that pressure has grown, so have the prices. Artists make slivers of what they once did through streaming platfor

Loving something for twenty years gives you perspective you can’t rush. When fandom spans decades, it stops being about moments and becomes about seasons. There are years when music is everything. Years where it’s background noise. Years where it disappears entirely, only to return when you least expect it. That kind of longevity teaches you something important early on: intensity and depth are not the same thing. That distinction is the hot take.

There was a time when missing a show meant missing it. You heard about it later through your friends, the blurry photos and videos, and their voices still hoarse from singing along. But the thing is, you didn’t scroll through it in real time. You felt the absence. And that feeling made being there matter. Live music used to live in the room. Between bodies, lights, sweat, and sound. It was fleeting by design. One night. One crowd. One version of the song that would never

If you’ve ever been a fangirl or fanboy, you know this feeling all too well. Somehow, seeing your favorite band or musician has become a competition. People are fighting at the barricade, on the internet, and what was once an uplifting community and a safe space has turned into a place where adults in their 30s and 40s bully each other until someone is crying to the algorithm for help. And alas, the cycle continues. But when does it end?

There is no music industry without songwriters. They are the emotional engineers behind the biggest hits, the people who take tangled feelings and turn them into midnight anthems shouted from car windows. Songwriters shape artists. They influence genres. They deserve every ounce of recognition and compensation they get.

There was a time when genres held real power. They were the industry’s filing system, the listener’s compass, the cultural shorthand for who you were and what you stood for. If you said you were into rock, people made assumptions about your personality. If you said you loved pop, people assumed something entirely different. Genres carried weight, identity, and meaning.

Article Contributed by Monica Soriano If something feels like it’s missing from the music industry, it would definitely be music video shows. Those shows that you could tune into just to catch the latest music videos from a variety of artists. There were countdown shows that would air the most popular videos at the time and although it could've felt like a competition for the musicians, for the audience it was a fun time to guess what would be number 1. A lot of music fanatic

Contributed by Rebecca McDevitt The music industry runs on hustle. It runs on nonstop promo cycles, back to back tours, brand partnerships, soundtrack placements, movie cameos, clothing lines, skincare lines, energy drinks, and whatever the next big viral thing is. Fans watch their favorite artists jump from one opportunity to another and it starts to blur into this giant machine where the artist feels more like a product than a person. We see it happen every year. Someone b

The music industry is constantly adapting to technological changes. Social media has become the biggest marketing tool for artists. Cellphones are being held up to record every second of a performance. With the rise of viral sensations becoming stars, not all artists can decide whether they can start in small venues or go straight into being an opening act for the biggest superstar in the world.

It’s no shocker that, to us, Charlie Puth is one of the greatest artists of our generation. One scroll through TikTok and you’ll find him teaching millions of people about chord progressions, bass voicings, and why certain hooks feel addictive. But those clips barely scratch the surface of what makes him extraordinary. Charlie operates in an entirely different class of musical intelligence.

There was a time when encores felt like actual miracles. The lights went down, the crowd begged for just one more song, and the air buzzed with the kind of hope usually reserved for lottery tickets and marriage proposals. For a few glorious minutes, we had no idea if the band would return. It was a negotiation between us and them. A shared secret. A spark of live music magic.

Contributed by Rebecca McDevitt There is something magical about stepping into a venue early, grabbing a drink, and discovering an artist you have never heard of. That is the point of an opener. It is the spark before the headliner. It is where so many lifelong fans realize they just stumbled into their next obsession. Crowd at All Time Low in Detroit, MI - Photography by Laura Jean Portnoy (IG: @ljportnoy ) But somewhere along the way, major artists started treating openers

Paul Bergen / Redferns / Getty The same fans who stream songs into existence can also tear an artist down in 280 characters. Stan culture is the reason many artists still have careers in 2025, but it’s also why some can’t sleep at night. Passion is powerful, and online communities have turned that passion into entire ecosystems. But when love turns into possession, the same force that fuels a career can start to quietly destroy it. No label marketing plan can compete with an