Jungle was hardcore rave remade by London's sound systems
Lennie De Ice, the Amen break and the Rage club all fed jungle in early-90s London. How it grew, where drum and bass took over, and eight records.
category archive
Music.
Records, rooms and the creative choices that turn sound into something we feel.
Dropped by Atlantic, Chappell Roan returned with a Grammy
Atlantic dropped Roan in 2020 after "Pink Pony Club" underperformed. In 2025 she won best new artist at the Grammys. The song later reached UK number one.
Dubstep, from a Croydon record shop to America's arenas
Big Apple Records, DMZ in Brixton and Burial's Untrue shaped dubstep before the wobble conquered the US. Its history, and nine records to hear first.
Trance grew out of German clubs and became a global genre
Sven Väth's labels, Robert Miles's "Children" and Gatecrasher's club nights shaped trance. Its history, its comeback, and eight records to hear first.
Shoegaze began as an insult and ended up on TikTok
British critics coined shoegaze to mock bands that stared at their pedals. Here is how it grew from indie roots to TikTok, and eight records to hear first.
Gothic rock: how post-punk learned to love the dark
Bauhaus, the Cure and Siouxsie Sioux turned post-punk towards the dark. Where gothic rock came from, where it went, and eight records to hear first.
British big beat ruled the late 90s, then crashed
Hip-hop breaks, acid house and punk met in a London pub basement in 1994. Norman Cook says why the sound burned out, plus 8 records to hear first.
In Chicago, Larry Heard slowed house down and made it deep
Larry Heard added jazz chords and a slower pulse to Chicago house in 1985. How deep house reached Paris, Detroit and Berlin, and nine records to hear first.
Keith Flint, the gentle man behind the Prodigy snarl
Keith Flint went from Essex roofer and rave dancer to the snarling voice of Firestarter. Friends remember a kind man. Nine records to start with.
Monster Mash hit number one in 1962, then the Top 10 in August
Bobby Pickett's 1962 hit cashed in on monster films and the Mashed Potato dance craze, then outlived both, says Billboard.
Hundreds of thousands of brass fans fill a small Serbian village
Guča, a Serbian village of a few thousand, hosts what the BBC called the world's biggest trumpet festival. It began as a contest under Tito.
Mary Austin opens the trunks that held Freddie Mercury's lyrics
Mary Austin packed Freddie Mercury's handwritten lyrics into four trunks in the 1980s. In the week he'd have turned 80, she is publishing them.
Spotify pays rights holders by their share of a stream pool
Spotify pools its monthly subscription and ad revenue, keeps close to a third, and splits the rest by streaming share, so no play has a fixed price.
Afghanistan's instrument bonfires: how the Taliban hushed music
Since 2021 the Taliban have burned instruments, shut music stations and driven Afghanistan's singers into hiding or exile. This is how they did it.
Dolly Parton was a songwriter first
Dolly Parton, who died aged 80, came to Nashville to write songs. Jolene, I Will Always Love You and 9 to 5 turned that trade into a career.
A Florence harpsichord maker is credited with the piano
Bartolomeo Cristofori is credited with swapping the harpsichord's plucked strings for hammers. A harder press played louder, so he named it col piano e forte.
A 360 record deal lets a label take more than record sales
A 360 deal gives a label a share of merchandise, touring and publishing income. Universal's contract for The Voice claimed 20% of the gross.
Kendrick Lamar started GNX long before the Drake feud
Producer Sounwave says the earliest GNX songs were recorded in late 2022 and early 2023, long before the Drake feud began.
Bulgaria's women's choirs sing from an open throat
Bulgaria's state women's choir built its sound on open-throat singing, a drone and clashing close intervals. The choral form dates to the Soviet era.
Every Time I Die guitarist and wrestler Andy Williams dies at 48
Andy Williams, founding guitarist of Every Time I Die and the AEW wrestler known as The Butcher, collapsed after a match in Pennsylvania and died aged 48.