The new Taylor Swift album came when none of us were expecting it, and for the first time since Beyoncé pioneered the stealth drop seven years ago, it feels like that means something. Swift’s catalogue is animated by twitchy legacy anxiety: the fear that lovers will misremember key moments from…

Laura Marling released her last album while I was wandering through London with my heart breaking at half-speed. I was trying to preserve everything around me in amber, but at some point the days turned against me and I had to (at least privately) admit that I was treating zombified…

LONDON—Nina Raine’s new play is called Consent, and with a title like that, you probably think you know what it’s about. You’re not wrong, but to Raine’s immense credit, you’re not exactly right. On its surface, Consent is about a London rape case, but it ultimately uses that morally rigid…

On the importance of not being who you think you are. I’ve spent the last 45 minutes figuring out what I’m going to wear today. “Going to” is a key phrase, because it’s already 3:15 pm, which in the murky-gray winter of the Pacific Northwest counts as dusk, and the…

What our complicated relationship with the formerly-adored pop star says about us. I remember tearing a close friend apart in 9th grade for listening to Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now.” It was the fall of 2010, the record had just dropped, and without hearing a note, I decided that it was awful. The album art features a waxen Swift glancing at the observer, her purple dress dissipating into…

The promotional cycle surrounding The Life of Pablo, Kanye West’s seventh studio album, has become a spectator sport every bit as infuriating and invigorating as anything on ESPN. Listening to the final product, it’s difficult to confirm or deny whether the ceaseless fanfare was worth it: The Life of Pablo is a bundle of contradictions. It is by turns assured and petulant, self-aware and tone-deaf. In other words, it’s a lot like Kanye West.

A short story inspired, perhaps distastefully, by a news headline. The beginning is always the same. Having dulled the razor’s edge of adolescence with nothing but a few nicks to show for it, young men of all creeds and backgrounds freeze wherever they happen to be and drop their expressions…