The Best Releases from Rising Artists: January & February 2026 Click the record to listen on Spotify! Quicksand Heart by Jenny on Holiday For fans of… Hemlocke Springs, Sarah Kinsley, Kate Bush    Genre… #pop #80s-revival #synth-pop Jenny on Holiday’s debut solo album, Quicksand Heart, captures the anxiety-inducing experience of walking the border between letting someone in and shutting them […]

With it having been two years since their debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, The Last Dinner Party unleashed onto the stage of baroque-pop their new album From the Pyre. The band released three singles this past year (2025), each helping build momentum for the full project’s release.  From the Pyre abandoned the ethereal aesthetic of its predecessors and explored the darker and more grimy […]

Nepotism has already squashed some of our 2026 excitement for talented, new bands. It’s time to talk about Villanelle, the grunge world’s latest nepo babies.   Villanelle has been making music since 2023. As they have begun to gain traction following the release of their first three singles, we need to take a closer look at their background and inspiration. Villanelle is comprised of Ben […]

Panchiko’s Origins, Band Reunions and the Power of the Internet  On October 2nd, Panchiko made a pit stop at Cannery Hall on their Fall 2025 Tour. From an external perspective: a seemingly normal concert, a well-established indie rock band. But, for chronically online music fans like me, this was a homecoming decades in the making—all thanks to the power of the Internet.  For fifteen years, Panchiko stuck to the archetypal path […]

How Young Miko is Rewriting Urbano’s DNA  The rise of Puerto Rican reggaetonera, Young Miko, has triggered a cultural mania so strong and universal that her fans have coined it mikosexual. Effectively, mikosexual was never just about attraction; it is a social media-rooted manifestation of representation.   Miko represents a new frontier in urbano and, in part, is a result of the women who cracked […]

Before coming to Nashville, my only exposure to bluegrass had been the musical Bright Star and Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel”—neither of which are, in my opinion, especially groundbreaking. However, Tennessee has exposed me to more folk and bluegrass genres in the past months than I’ve heard in my lifetime: from the Fletcher Brothers in Dollywood to my new current obsession: Latingrass.  The “Latingrass” fusion genre was coined by duo, Larry & Joe. Their subgenre blends the high energy vocals and instrumentation of […]

Following The Recording Academy’s 2026 televisedGrammys, The Amp staff elected a series of worthy musicians for our very own (very original) award series: the GrAMPys. Nominated are several musicians, bands, and multi-hyphenate artists and their latest works.* We give you, the eight award categories of our careful devising. Some are serious, some are… something. Now, […]

The Sword Reunion Tour After hours of in-game competition with friends, I started mindlessly clicking keys, barely focused on winning. Between rounds, I would turn to Spotify. When The Sword’s “Freya” queued from a suggested tracks playlist, the album cover immediately caught my eye: Ornamental gold swirls framing a warrior woman with a sick-ass sword.  The opening riff hit me like a mace to my metaphorical helmet. I replayed it for the rest of the night; it checked all the boxes. The next morning, on a family trip to Dollywood, the new obsession set […]

Kneecap VS. The U.K. Government In a world where U.K. rap is on the rise, we listeners must not leave Northern Ireland in the dust, specifically Kneecap. Kneecap is an energetic and unapologetic rap trio from Belfast, Northern Ireland comprised of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí. Together, they have been releasing music since 2017, but only in the past couple years have they exponentially blown up.  […]

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere Director Scott Cooper’s 2025 film, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, is like a sudden, beautiful punch in the face; a pensive, somber portrait of a short yet pivotal chapter of Bruce Springsteen’s life from 1981 to 1982.   Set against the tail end of the wildly successful The River Tour, and finishing with the release of the […]

The Best Releases from Rising Artists: September 2025 Click the record to listen on Spotify! Forest for the Trees by The Low Blow For fans of… Movements, The Hotelier, (early) MCR   Genre… #indie-rock #emo #alternative-rock LOCAL! Forest For the Trees heralds a promising emo era for The Low Blow. Songs like “This isn’t a Seance, […]

A Guest Opinion Piece With the release of Taylor Swift’s new album this past month, The Life of a Showgirl, Swift seeks to dissociate herself from the lyrical prose of 2020’s folklore and evermore and even her 2024 double album The Tortured Poets Department. While I myself have been a fan of Swift’s since my youth […]

In the two decades (and some change) since Alan Jackson and George Strait cut the now-classic “Murder Down on Music Row”, the world of music discourse has descended into something like the world’s worst game of Clue. That is to say, everyone seems to be in the business of murdering: redditors accuse Soundcloud mumble rappers […]

 We bring you… the hottest takes on last week’s Release Friday singles and albums. Fom the good, the mid, to the bad, we rank and review top tracks, giving trophies to the best of the best and tossing the worst of the worst into the bin. Singles  Good  🏆 5 SoS – “Telephone Busy” is […]

We bring you… the hottest takes on last week’s Release Friday singles and albums. Fom the good, the mid, to the bad, we rank and review top tracks, giving trophies to the best of the best and tossing the worst of the worst into the bin. Singles  Good  🏆 it’s murph, Nat Slater –– “Chemicals” […]

We bring you… the hottest takes on last week’s Release Friday singles and albums. Fom the good, the mid, to the bad, we rank and review top tracks, giving trophies to the best of the best and tossing the worst of the worst into the bin. Let’s ROSTER. Singles  Good  🏆 Tame Impala –– “Dracula”… […]