Spencer Kornhaber
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The Atlantic The Atlantic Daily: A Playlist for Partying Alone
At first we were afraid, we were petrified—but this Memorial Day weekend might be the time to shake up quarantine solitude with a playlist of empowering pop.
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Atlantic Records Charli XCX Captures the Weird Intimacy of Quarantine
The pop star’s daring album How I’m Feeling Now tries to make online hedonism match the real thing.
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Ralph Morse / Life / Getty Little Richard Set the Mold by Breaking It
The “Tutti Frutti” singer and rock-and-roll pioneer, dead at age 87, embodied the word irrepressible.
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Republic Records Drake Responds to the Pandemic in a Predictably Drake Way
The rapper is back with Dark Lane Demo Tapes—a batch of songs taking comfort in an antisocial status quo.
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Lalitree Darnielle A Strangely Comforting Quarantine Album
The Mountain Goats’ latest release is authentically a product of this pandemic, but it’s also nicely indifferent to it.
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Samuel Corum / Anadolu Agency / Getty / ... Insane Clown Posse Is Modeling Ideal Pandemic Leadership
They might not know how magnets work, but the group’s members do know that cultural figureheads should simply tend to their communities during this time.
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Georg Hochmuth / Reuters The Pandemic Has Made a Mockery of Minimalism
Smaller, slower, fewer, isolated—the values of virus containment look eerily like modern luxury aesthetics.
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BEATRICE DE GEA / The New York Times Fiona Apple’s Survival Guide to Isolation
Fetch the Bolt Cutters, the singer’s first album in eight years, argues that confinement can intensify one’s connection to the greater human whole.
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Quibi / The Atlantic Quibi Is a Vast Wasteland
Hollywood’s short-form entertainment app slices and dices the traditional mediocrity that the internet has allowed viewers to escape from.
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Reuters / Lindsey Wasson People Are Remembering What Music Is Really For
Listening that revolves around headphones, singular geniuses, aesthetic subcultures, and record-industry behemoths is not what’s generating heat right now.
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Ed Caraeff / Getty Bill Withers’s Life Was as Rich as His Songs
The “Lean on Me” and “Lovely Day” singer, dead at 81, was too great a talent and too independent an individual to be eclipsed by his own influence.
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Kimberly Butler What Adam Schlesinger Knew About America
The Fountains of Wayne front man, who died of complications from the coronavirus, made big songs about small triumphs.
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CBS Broadcasting The Importance of Partying Alone
Is it any coincidence that the No. 1 song in the country is about loneliness and empty streets—or that it’s making people dance like Richard Simmons in their bedrooms?
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Victor Moriyama / The New York Times We’re Finding Out How Small Our Lives Really Are
No new friends. No new plans. Where is there to go in isolation but backwards and inward?
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Instagram @gal_gadot Celebrities Have Never Been Less Entertaining
Top singers and actors are live-streaming from quarantine, appearing equally bored and technologically inept.
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Reuters / Mario Anzuoni Pop Music’s Version of Life Doesn’t Exist Anymore
What good are songs about touch and sweat during a pandemic?
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Sharif Hamza The Rappers Who Are Breaking Up With Britain
Riz Ahmed’s The Long Goodbye is the latest hip-hop album to address the state of the U.K with deep sorrow and scorching anger.
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Mike Blake The Shame of Pete Buttigieg
Many LGBTQ voters think that the first openly gay Democratic presidential candidate seems too straight. But there’s a way of seeing his rise as a case study in queer performance.
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Interscope Lady Gaga’s ‘Stupid Love’ Is a Glorious Comeback
The irrepressible single is a return to form not only for the singer, but also for her genre.
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Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty The Message of Grimes’s Dark Masterpiece
The singer’s new album, Miss Anthropocene, combines angsty music styles with a supposedly environmental purpose—but mostly to indulge the thrill of submission.
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