Sombr was my second favorite musician of 2025. Olivia Dean was my first. I recently snuck into her play a Super Bowl party at Pier 48 with Shaboozey opening. So I had to see Sombr next. Sombr played just before The Backstreet Boys on the main stage at BottleRock 2026. His set was a lot better than expected.

I have many issues with Sombr’s social media strategy–listen to Billboard’s On The Record with Chaotic “Good” to get a hint–other than that, seeing clips of him perform live, he didn’t sound that good. His voice sounded better behind a great producer in a studio. I didn’t even think his Coachella performances on YouTube were all that good. However, hearing him actually live at BottleRock changed that.

First off, focus on the audience. When the entire crowd is singing his song, any song will sound amazing. It’s always remarkable to hear, especially when the people get loud. Second, every track he played, Sombr surprised me with what he did with his voice, and how well the live production crew worked it. Sombr’s got a lot of smart & talented people behind him, besides the already extreme talent himself. He’s still no Olivia Dean ;)

Sombr’s going to be rocking far beyond The Backstreet Boys in decades to come, and not just because of his age.

View Full Article »

It’s perplexing that a 52-card deck has more combinations than atoms in the known universe, meaning every shuffle is likely the first time that specific order has ever existed. If you apply that conundrum to a music playlist, even a “Top 10” would result in a distinct playlist from everyone on Earth (if we all made one).

My top 10‘s top 1 was Olivia Dean, and I’m sure many others (it’s been her year), but my favorite track of the year is actually “Drink the Ocean” by Gabi Hartmann (feat. Oracle Sisters). It’s gotten me through a few hard times. Beautiful in all dimensions, especially one I don’t give credit to enough, the lyrics.

Back to Olivia. She wins not only through quality, but quantity. That’s what truly makes great music something more. When an artist surrounds herself with it. I liked her song “Dive” back in 2023, but it took me this year to get on the Deano bandwagon. As much as the soul that starts with Olivia goes in other vast directions on this list, it wasn’t my genre of the year.

That goes to HiTech, PinkPantheress, and horsegiirL. It’s a style of house music with an upbeat, leading tempo. And it’s all over this playlist.

Along with 228 other songs. I probably poured in at least an hour every day on this thing for the entire year. So I hope you enjoy at least the top 10.

View Full Article »

Yuga Labs’ Apefest is the future of festivals. It’s less about what happened at their 5th year in Las Vegas during ComplexCon and more about what happens before and after.

Composability is key to any festival or community’s longevity. After 15 years of covering live events, I see most people stay within their own friend groups that don’t mix often enough with others. Apefest brings together tens of thousands of apes who connect year-round on X, Discord, and Telegram, building relationships across communities that blend widely online and reflect deeper in person. People recognized each other not so much by their face, but by voice, pseudonym, and how they’ve shown up online and for the community. The mix of disparate connections was something I’d never seen before at a festival, but will much more in the future.

Yuga’s metaverse play, The Otherside, will only amplify that experience greatly online and off.

View Full Article »

Music from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and now the 90s carries a nostalgic warmth that feels perfect for summer. Like our Late Night Jazz series, I’ve been pulling together definitive lists from the 20th century, and Classic Summer is the latest for a hot summer day.

It was meant to drop the 4th of July, 2020, but like all good comprehensive playlists, it took way more time than any person should put themselves through. I originally made the playlist to support Black Lives Matter, and today I’d make it for a free Palestine. It’s how I can express at least some solidarity through the music blog, even though most of the music is white men. Music has come a long way in diversity of popular acts, highlighted always on this blog, compared to the simpler yet more insidious times these songs came from.

View Full Article »

My two favorite live performances of 2024 were Mon Laferte at Festival La Onda (BottleRock’s sister festival) and Jalen Ngonda at The Swedish American Music Hall. This year both played BottleRock 2025, but I didn’t get to see either.

I intended to once again see the Queen of latin musical dramas, Mon Laferte, at BottleRock on Friday, but she had to postpone her show until Saturday. I couldn’t stay because I had a flight out to Detroit the next day for Movement. Fortunately, Friday had six more musicians I’ve wanted to see or see again. Namely another Queen in a whole different realm, Remi Wolf.

Remi’s music hits at the heart of my partner Liz and I’s relationship. Both being at Remi’s live performance with Liz and in her song, also called “Liz”. I remember hearing it for the first time. The chorus was such a perfect anthem for my Liz. Soon after, I realized the rest of the lyrics told a much messier story. The entire song is a train wreck from the start. The chorus is the only positive part and not really even to “Liz”. We still love belting out the lyrics every time we hear it.

Remi’s live shows have been equally dramatic circumstances for Liz and I (in good times and great), but her music makes for a beautiful, complimentary backdrop. I saw her at Outside Lands, The Regency Ballroom, SXSW, and now BottleRock. Each has been distinct and memorable. Key to all IP.

Take a look at a few shots I got of her at BottleRock for a glimpse into her fun. More importantly, listen to her music with our playlist below.

View Full Article »

Mill Valley Music Festival has been a go-to for its intimate charm and consistent selection of soul. 2025 marked its fifth year running and my fourth time going. My top three shows have been Thee Sacred Souls in 2024, La Doña in 2022, and Durand Jones in 2023, but they had some hefty competition this year.

Sunday was packed with soul— Thee Sinseers & Monoponics with their retro style, Sister Nancy with her dancehall reggae, and Nile Rodgers hit melody after hit melody with Chic and beyond. Still, the weekend’s best performance came the day before.

It took 13 years to hear Gary Clark Jr from when I first posted about him. It was well worth the wait. His voice topped the weekend, and his guitar playing rivaled Nile’s. Watch my favorite song from his set below, particularly starting @ 3:44!

View Full Article »

10 years at SXSW. Technically 2020 shut down and 2021 was online, but 10 years I’ve been enjoying a city filled with live music more dense, diverse, and good than anywhere in the world.

This was the first time I went to weekend one, which is the main attraction for the conference. It was informative. I got to see Ben Stiller talk Severance – the best show in the past 10 years – and something dear to my professional heart, Paramount CTO Phil Wiser talk LLMs for movie recommendations.

2025 was still all about the music showcase. For six years I’ve gone through every musician playing SXSW (usually around 1,000) and filtered it down to a manageable amount (usually around 5-10%) for a playlist to guide my schedule.

View Full Article »

The debate over whether a musician’s legacy lies in an album or a single is more contentious than ever as music shortens and singles dominate the internet. While both clearly play a role (like all good things), I lean toward the single. The album is too rare for me. I’ll take it a step further, it’s not just the single, but more specifically a moment within the song that defines the musician. Ideally more than one moment. It’s what makes a good beat a great song. The highs and lows.

This year we started a playlist of Daily Goodies to highlight that moment and match it to a video for Instagram and TikTok. Our 2024 Music of the Year playlist features over 200 defining moments. Yes, that’s too much, but we tried too hard this year and distillation is harder.

View Full Article »

Daily Goodies is like no other playlist we’ve made before. Every other playlist has been static with very little updates, but this list updates at least a few times a week. Ideally daily. We also clip the best moment of each song, cut a video to match, and upload to Instagram and TikTok. Follow along.

View Full Article »