HALUHALO: MUSIC
Shared Beats, New Spaces: Bubblegum Pop is Back
The local music scene is known for ballads, R&B, hip-hop, and alternative rock. But it has another side that often gets overlooked; brighter, more playful and irresistible—bubblegum pop. The genre quietly shaped a generation, threading itself through childhood, first crushes, and long afternoons with speakers turned up just a little too loud. In a country where music is so deeply embedded in life and culture, bubblegum pop brought color and lightness, turning ordinary moments into something a little more joyful, a little more alive.
'Michelangelo Dying' by Cate Le Bon REVIEW: Terribilità Personified
Michelangelo embodied terribilità, an effect of profoundly powerful and terrible awe. Cate Le Bon’s Michelangelo Dying channels that same terribilità on her own terms — with sublime ambition, but also a vulnerability more humbling and distant from him.
Spotify and the Invisible Tyranny of Convenience
Spotify doesn’t just fail artists and workers; it actively sustains an increasingly hostile future, one that is detached from the values music is meant to uphold and funded by fans of the art form who often have no idea what they’re supporting beyond convenient access to new albums, buzzed-about debuts, and algorithm-sweetened trends.
Chappell Roan’s ‘The Subway’ Is a Definitive Statement of Lesbian Grief and Moving On
In ‘The Subway,’ Chappell Roan transforms New York’s subways into a queer, lesbian-coded space of grief and longing, cycling through vivid symbols and choreography to stage the ache of love that won’t let go.