The Weekly Issue
A Friday morning ritual for readers who still believe long-form music writing matters.
One email a week. Five pieces of criticism, history, and listening guidance from our 34 staff critics and 120 contributing writers — curated by humans, not by an algorithm that learned you once played a song twice.
Read the latest issue →What lands in your inbox
Every Friday, the weekly issue contains five things readers won't find anywhere else.
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01
The Lead Essay
A 2,500-word argument from one of our staff critics — the piece you'd want to read with a coffee and an hour to yourself, on an artist, scene, or record that deserves more than a take.
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02
Three Album Reviews
Each averaging 1,800 words — the kind that put the record in its lineage, quote the liner notes, talk to the engineer, and tell you whether it's worth the 47 minutes.
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03
An Oral History or Interview
Original reporting with a working musician, producer, or scene witness — sourced over months, not assembled from a press-release quote and a Zoom transcript.
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04
The Listening Guide
A curated, annotated playlist of twelve to twenty tracks built around a single idea — the Detroit basement tapes of '82, the second half of Coltrane's career, the women who shaped Miami bass.
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05
Editor's Note & What We're Reading
A short letter from the editor on what the desk is arguing about this week, plus four or five links from outside the magazine — books, archives, peer criticism — worth your time.
By the numbers
Ten years of independent music criticism, measured in numbers that matter to readers.
Cited as a primary source by The Guardian, NPR Music, BBC 6 Music, Pitchfork's Year-End Lists, and the Library of Congress Recorded Sound Archives. Winner of the 2023 Music Journalism Award for Excellence in Criticism.
Recent issues
Recent issues — read a few before you decide.
Each issue is published on Friday at 7 a.m. Eastern and stays free to read online for two weeks. After that it moves to the subscriber archive. Below: the last four.
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Reviews · Electronic / Classical
Floating Points, Caroline Shaw, and the New Use of the String Ensemble in Electronic Production
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Listening Guide · Global
Sixteen Tracks From the Sahel: A Listener's Guide to the Tuareg Guitar Renaissance
Frequently asked
Questions subscribers ask before signing up.
- How often does the newsletter arrive, and how long is it?
- Once a week, every Friday at 7 a.m. Eastern. The email itself runs about 1,200 words with links; the linked pieces add up to roughly 30–45 minutes of reading if you want to go deep on everything.
- Is the newsletter free, or do I need a paid subscription?
- The Friday email is free, and anyone can read the two most recent issues online. A paid subscription ($8/month or $80/year) unlocks the full archive back to issue No. 1 in 2014, including OCR-scanned print-era features, plus our weekly translated editions.
- What happens to my email address after I sign up?
- It stays on our newsletter list and nothing else. We do not sell, rent, or share subscriber addresses with third parties, and we do not append any behavioral tracking to your record. You can unsubscribe in one click from the footer of any issue.
- Can I cancel anytime, and what do I lose?
- Yes — cancel from your account page or by replying to any issue. You keep access until the end of the billing period. You lose access to the subscriber archive, but the free Friday email keeps coming for as long as you'd like to receive it.
The Friday issue
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