Hearing Things’ Greatest Hits So Far

Over the course of this year, we dreamed up a new independent music website. Then we built it. Then we launched it. Then we filled it with the kinds of stories we wanted to read. At this point, we’ve been publishing for about six weeks, and have already produced a lot of work that we’re proud of. As we try to catch our breath a little bit over the long Thanksgiving weekend, we’re highlighting some of our favorite Hearing Things pieces thus far.

But before we get to that, we’d like to show our gratitude for you, dear reader, by offering a 20 percent holiday discount on all three of our annual paid subscription plans. CD Quality members get access to all of our articles as well as commenting privileges. Audiophile members also get exclusive merch and invites to our virtual listening sessions. In addition to all of that, Super Deluxe Remastered Hi-Fi members get a personalized mixtape compiled by a Hearing Things editor and their name listed on the site. We need your support to keep Hearing Things going, and we want to be around for a long time! So go ahead and press this magic button:

If you’re in a generous mood, you can buy a one-year CD Quality membership at the discounted price as a gift subscription too. Because there is no better gift for curious listeners than the gift of independent music journalism!

Speaking of, let’s get to this roundup.

Our most popular post to date is a list of the 100 Songs That Define Our Decade So Far. Putting this piece together was a pretty mammoth task for just five people, and we wanted to show that we could pull off ambitious projects while offering people a guide to our taste, collectively and individually. Expect to see many of the musicians on this list show up in the pages of Hearing Things even more as we move into 2025.

Music criticism matters. We love listening to songs and albums over and over again, thinking about why they work or not. We love putting this music in greater context amid an artist’s entire career or the culture at large. We love delving deep into the latest work by culture-shifting superstars and discovering new music that doesn’t quite sound like anything else. Our rap expert Dylan Green has already written about records by two of our era’s most hot-button icons, Tyler, the Creator and Kendrick Lamar. Julianne Escobedo Shepherd took on albums from Paris Hilton and the Cure (it’s called range, folks). Jill Mapes dealt with the legacy of Sophie and the ego death of Father John Misty with poise and grace. Ryan Dombal communed with a couple of modern-day hymns from Bon Iver and Ethel Cain. As far as lesser-known faves, we all lost our collective shit over songs by ghettotech legends-in-the-making HiTech, philosophical jazz poet Joshua Idehen, and the strutting electronic trio Kassie Krut. There’s nothing quite like the thrill of the new.

By the way, did we mention that we have our very own, very entertaining podcast where we discuss songs of the moment and decide whether they are Waste or Taste? It’s Hearing Things unfiltered, where we toss out some of our hottest takes, dumbest jokes, and most piercing cultural commentary. It’s a great time, perfect for a long holiday car trip or dissociating at the airport.

The business of music is always in flux, and usually, in some way or another, completely fucked. But it’s important to keep tabs on the powers that be in an effort to expose the industry’s pitfalls and keep striving for a more equitable environment for all of these artists who mean so much to us. In this spirit, contributor Larry Fitzmaurice spoke with many young artists for his story “How the Indie Rock Boom Went Bust,” which chronicles the dwindling fortunes of indie acts across the 2020s. It’s a sobering read, but there’s also hope to be found in a new sense of collective action that’s bubbling up amid the wreckage. Andy Cush also went deep into the current concert ticket crisis in America with his story about the hellish secondary market and why the government has taken so long to step in and try to fix things. Again, there is some promise on the horizon, but any progress won’t come without a fight.

Sometimes we get obsessed with the musicians whose work we admire (in a constructive, non-scary way, of course). This has led to in-depth interviews and profiles with fascinating folks like the emotional powerhouse that is indie rapper Mavi, the octogenarian folk hero Tucker Zimmerman, the proudly DIY leader of emo-punks Los Campesinos!, the crooning button-pusher Geordie Greep, the feminist pioneer Kathleen Hanna, and returning champs TV on the Radio, to name a few. One of our most poignant profiles thus far was Julianne’s piece about the Palestinian-Canadian singer-songwriter Nemahsis, who was left stranded by her label at the start of the Israel-Hamas war and was forced to use all of her resourcefulness to come back and release her debut album. It’s an incredible story of perseverance.

We take music seriously, but not all music is that serious. One of our main objectives when we started Hearing Things was to show that music criticism can be, you know, fun! To that end, Jill somehow came up with almost 30 new reasons why Charli XCX’s Brat is so fascinating (including one about the role of brats in BDSM). Dylan actually went to see Pharrell’s lego movie and lived to write about it. Julianne blogged about a remarkable music video in which a guy water skis behind a pair of cows. Ryan saw the stripper fairy tale Anora and walked away struck by one of the cheesiest EDM songs you’ve ever heard in your life. And Andy talked with a guy who goes by Catbreath whose whole thing is making songs with titles that trip up voice-command algorithms (e.g., “My Liked Songs”). We fuck with Catbreath?!

Whew. That’s a lot. And we didn’t even mention contributor Sadie Sartini Garner’s must-read personal essay “Modes of Transportation,” where she explains how music plays a part in how she understands her gender. Or Ryan’s piece breaking down the appeal of 2024’s most unlikely new rock star, Mk.gee. Or Dylan’s heartfelt tribute to the late rapper Ka. Or our exciting new franchises like Going Up, where we profile new artists we love; Credit History, where we politely ask artists to explain their credit card statements; and Words Matter, where some of our favorite songwriters talk about some of their favorite lyrics by other people.

If you enjoyed reading any of the above stories a fraction of the amount that we enjoyed writing and editing them, we are all on the right track. Thanks for reading and listening. We’re just getting started.