Folk Pop
Marcus Mumford Opens Up: “I Was Sexually Abused as a Child”
Marcus Mumford’s solo career has been deeply personal in way that Mumford and Sons rarely approached, starting from the very first lines of his debut single, “Cannibal”: ““I can still taste you and I hate it/ That wasn’t a choice in the mind of a child and you knew it.” Now, the folk pop powerhouse has opened up in a new interview with GQ, sharing some details about his path to mental wellness after childhood sexual abuse. “Like lots of people — and I’m learning more and more about this as we go and as I play it to people — I was sexually abused as a child,” Mumford said. “Not by family and not in the church, which might be some people’s assumption. But I hadn’t told anyone about it for 30 years.” Mumford first began dealing with that trauma in 2019, after the release of Mumford and Sons’&...
Erin Rae Breaks Down Her New Album Lighten Up Track by Track: Exclusive Stream
For our Track by Track feature, artists open up about the stories behind each song on their latest album. Today, Erin Rae takes us track by track through her new album, Lighten Up. After releasing her debut effort, Putting on Airs, in 2018, Erin Rae was living as the troubadours do. She spent the years between that release and the start of the pandemic on the road and, like any other artist, found that life come to a screeching halt. On Friday, February 4th, she’ll return with her new album, Lighten Up, an appropriate title both for our times and for the album. This latest collection is an amalgam of dreamy, psychedelic country, indie-rock, and believably vintage folk. Thematically, too, the album is a bit like an old kaleidoscope — social commentary and musings on gender equality mor...
Anand Wilder Shares Origins of New Single “I Don’t Want Our Love to Become Routine”: Exclusive
With our recurring new music feature Origins, artists connect with listeners by revealing the inspirations behind their latest songs. Today, former Yeasayer member Anand Wilder shares his new solo track “I Don’t Want Our Love to Become Routine.” Two years after the breakup of Yeasayer, former member Anand Wilder is readying his debut solo album. I Don’t Know My Words is set to arrive on March 25th, 2022, and Wilder has today shared a new single off the LP, “I Don’t Want Our Love to Become Routine.” The track is a more delicate representation of the folk pop Wilder displayed on previous single “Delirium Passes.” With piano tip-toeing in the background, he sings of the realistic hardships of longterm relationships. “I see a couple that mate together/ Because they hate themselves,” he si...
How mxmtoon Copes with Anxiety and Depression
Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | Stitcher | Google | Pocket Casts | Radio Public | RSS Maia, the artist known as mxmtoon, joins Dr. Mike Friedman on the Going There podcast to share her struggle with anxiety and depression. Advertisement Related Video The Dawn and Dusk musician describes feeling anxious her whole life, and particularly experiencing panic attacks in situations such as flying on a plane. She also explains how she suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder, in which she would regularly experience depressive symptoms as winter approached and until spring came. Along the way, mxmtoon talks about the various coping strategies she utilizes, including medication, exercise, meditation and therapy. And one of the things that she particularly talks about is ho...
Taylor Swift Debunks woodvale Album Rumor on Jimmy Kimmel
Taylor Swift joined Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday night for her first television interview since releasing her second surprise album of the year, evermore, and sister album to this summer’s folklore. During the interview, Swift debunked a fan rumor that she is planning to release a third surprise album called woodvale. “This takes a bit of explanation,” Swift began. “I tend to be sort of annoyingly secret-agenty about dropping clues and hints and Easter eggs and it’s very annoying but it’s fun for fans and it’s fun for me because they like to pick up on things. And they’ll notice lots of things in music videos or photos or whatever, and then sometimes, I take it too far, and I make a mistake.” As Swift explained, woodvale was merely the working title for folklore and her team “forg...
Taylor Swift Supports Indie Record Stores with Free Signed Copies of folklore
Taylor Swift has surprised independent record stores around the country with signed copies of her new album folklore. Many shops reported unexpectedly receiving a package of 30 autographed CDs, and have been posting pictures with the hashtag #recordstorefolklore. folklore is a self-consciously “indie” effort, created with The National’s Aaron Dessner and featuring Bon Iver. It’s also the top-selling record of the year, released by one of the most famous people on the planet. With this gesture — hand-signing hundreds of CDs and shipping them all around the states — Swift may have given herself arthritis, but she’s also given these record stores her time and the power of her colossal celebrity. It worked — several stores reported selling out the whole stock of CDs in less than an h...
Andy Shauf Shares Two New Songs “Judy” and “Jeremy’s Wedding”: Stream
Back in January, Andy Shauf released his wonderful new concept album The Neon Skyline. The rich narrative introduced a number of characters all coming together at a bar in a single night as it explored the relationship between the narrator and his ex-lover. Today, that story gets fleshed out even further with a pair of B-sides, “Judy” and “Jeremy’s Wedding”. Both songs are dreamy teetering on psychedelic, softly strumming folk numbers that carry the dramatic simplicity of Shauf’s storytelling. “Judy” is of particular interest to the Neon Skyline arc, as it finds Shauf’s narrator recounting a routine he and Judy had while still together of buying lottery tickets every Wednesday night. “What would you buy?” he asks himself on the refrain, dreaming of a big win. “I’d buy a ticket fo...
Ashe Is So Over It On New Single “Save Myself”: Stream
If you’ve been on Spotify, Netflix, or TikTok at any point within the last year, chances are you heard and bobbed your head to Ashe. The San Jose indie pop artist’s breakout single, 2019’s “Moral of the Story”, was featured in the film To All the Boys: P.S. I Love You, as well as in over 900,000 TikTok videos. Today, Ashe is back with a follow-up song titled “Save Myself”. “Save Myself” was technically recorded after “Moral of the Story”, but their backstories are closely linked — both are tied to a failed relationship and its messy aftermath. “I look at ‘Save Myself’ as the precursor to ‘Moral of the Story’ instead of the follow up,” Ashe explained in a statement. “People say there are five stages of grief; I wrote ‘Moral of the Story’ in the fifth stage of grieving my relationship: accep...
