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Daily stories about music and vinyl: albums, artists, labels. Read on the web or in the CrateCore app.
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September 10, 2026
STORY · Electronic
Armin van Buuren: 10,300 Copies and a Platinum Dream
Ten thousand three hundred copies. That’s what Armin van Buuren’s fourth studio album had sold in Russia by the end of 2010 — a slim figure that nevertheless ea…
4 min read
Cover of “Mirage” by Armin van Buuren. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
4 min read
STORY · Classical
Alfredo Kraus: The Tenor Who Let Silence Sing
A man who spent his childhood on a Spanish island, raised by an Austrian father and a Spanish mother, would become the definitive French Werther. The paradox si…
4 min read
Zarateman, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
4 min read
September 9, 2026
STORY · Pop
Dara: The Folk Voice That Took Bulgaria to the Top
The word sounds like a spell. Bangaranga. In May 2026, a stadium audience and millions of television viewers watched a Bulgarian singer deliver a performance th…
4 min read
Granada, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
4 min read
STORY · Pop
Bastille: 19 Songs Hidden Worldwide in a Day
In August 2016, Bastille leaked their second album's tracklist through Snapchat geofilters at specific coordinates worldwide. It turned a routine announcement into a global scavenger hunt.
5 min read
Cover of “Wild World” by Bastille. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
5 min read
STORY · Folk
The Iguana Squeak in Lila Downs' Sonic Tapestry
A cabaret singer's daughter and a Minnesota film professor's kid walk into a Oaxacan folk scene — and out comes an artist who can pivot from a Grammy-winning ra…
4 min read
Secretaría de Cultura Ciudad de México from México, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
4 min read
STORY · Rock
The Beatles Hit No. 1 Twice in One Day — With a B-Side
On September 9, 1963, The Beatles' "She Loves You" hit No.1 on the UK singles chart the same day "Please Please Me" sat at No.1 on the album chart—a dual coronation that had never happened before.
4 min read
AI-generated illustration
4 min read
STORY · Metal
How Deep Purple Lost a Founder and Made Their Most Eccentric Album
An album called Bananas, with a cover photo shot by the band's own manager, opens with a hard rock riff and closes with a wordless requiem for seven fallen astr…
5 min read
Cover of “Bananas” by Deep Purple. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
5 min read
STORY · Metal
How Ozzy Osbourne Turned His Own Demons Into a Grammy
Four days after Ordinary Man dropped, Ozzy Osbourne was back in the studio with Andrew Watt. Patient Number 9 became his longest solo album and a Grammy winner.
4 min read
Cover of “Patient Number 9” by Ozzy Osbourne. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
4 min read
STORY · Alternative
44 Years of Francesco Gabbani
From a childhood in his father's instrument shop to winning Sanremo twice, Francesco Gabbani built a career that rejected every convention of Italian pop.
5 min read
Iván Trejo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
5 min read
STORY · Rock
The Sky Blue Album That Took Lennon Beyond the Beatles
John Lennon's second solo album Imagine arrived on September 9, 1971. With a sky-blue Andy Warhol portrait on the cover, it took him beyond the Beatles.
3 min read
Cover of “Imagine” by John Lennon. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
3 min read
STORY · Rock
Why Did Jethro Tull Hide a New Song on a Best-Of?
Repeat – The Best of Jethro Tull – Vol II arrived in 1977 as a retrospective that quietly smuggled one previously unreleased track past its own title. That song, Glory Row, had spent years as a ghost.
5 min read
Cover of “Repeat – The Best of Jethro Tull – Vol II” by Jethro Tull. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
5 min read
STORY · Rock
The Beatles in Mono: 17 Years of One Speaker
In September 2009, Apple Records and EMI released The Beatles in Mono — a CD box set dedicated entirely to monophonic sound. It arrived at the height of the surround-sound era.
5 min read
Cover of “The Beatles in Mono” by The Beatles. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
5 min read
STORY · Alternative
How a Brighton Tragedy Turned Skeleton Tree Inside Out
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released Skeleton Tree on September 9, 2016. The album was split in half by the death of Cave's fifteen-year-old son Arthur.
4 min read
Cover of “Skeleton Tree” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
4 min read
STORY · Rock
The 3 AM Riff That Redefined The Rolling Stones
One of the most recognizable guitar riffs in history was almost thrown away as an unfinished demo. Keith Richards captured the fuzz-drenched skeleton of '(I Can…
5 min read
Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
5 min read
STORY · Pop
How Michael Bublé Learned From Grandpa's Vinyl
Three independent albums before anyone was listening. The first wasn't cut for radio programmers or label executives — it was a gift wrapped for his grandfather…
4 min read
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
4 min read
STORY · Soul
How 15 Church Minutes Made Otis Redding the King of Soul
Otis Redding's musical vocabulary was forged in a Baptist preacher's household. He carried the church's fire into every secular bar and club that would have him.
5 min read
Volt Records, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
5 min read
September 8, 2026
STORY · Pop
Slim Thug: The Boss Hogg Voice That Outgrew Houston
Stayve Thomas traded a basketball scholarship for a microphone and became Slim Thug. His verse on 'Still Tippin'' in 2004 pulled him far beyond Houston.
4 min read
AI-generated illustration
4 min read
STORY · Alternative
Aimee Mann: The Grammy She Won Was Called 'Mental Illness'
A major label once shelved an entire album, and the artist simply bought it back. That quiet act of defiance reshaped Aimee Mann’s career and, in a way, predict…
4 min read
AI-generated illustration
4 min read
September 7, 2026
STORY · Pop
Fedde Le Grand: A Detroit Salute That Toppled the UK
A disembodied voice commands a crowd to put their hands up for one American city, and a Dutch producer who hadn’t yet released an album suddenly rules the Briti…
4 min read
AI-generated illustration
4 min read
STORY · Alternative
Gracie Abrams at 27: Two Grammys, One Director Father
The daughter of a blockbuster filmmaker writes songs so intimate they sound like voice memos never meant to leave her bedroom. That collision of Hollywood pedig…
4 min read
Justin Higuchi, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
4 min read
STORY · Pop
The Night Chic Got Kicked Out of Studio 54
Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards turned a 1977 snub at Studio 54 into 'Le Freak.' The single made Chic one of the defining acts of the late 1970s disco era.
4 min read
Alex Marshall, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
4 min read
STORY · Pop
The Milkman, the Soul Song, and the Ban That Made It Big
Craig Douglas, a former milkman from the Isle of Wight, took Sam Cooke's "Only Sixteen" to number one in the UK for four weeks in 1959. Radio bans for its frank lyrics only boosted its popularity.
3 min read
AI-generated illustration
3 min read
September 5, 2026
STORY · Metal
Jethro Tull's Minstrel in the Gallery: A Studio on Wheels
A band with a decade of road-worn muscle retreated not to some pastoral English manor, but to a Mediterranean tax haven, hauling a custom-built recording truck …
4 min read
Cover of “Minstrel in the Gallery” by Jethro Tull. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
4 min read
STORY · Alternative
Avril Lavigne: The Best Damn Tour Live in Toronto
Avril Lavigne's The Best Damn Tour: Live in Toronto captured a sold-out Air Canada Centre show on April 7, 2008, and arrived on DVD in September 2008.
4 min read
Cover of “The Best Damn Tour: Live in Toronto” by Avril Lavigne. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
4 min read
STORY · World
Bonga: The 400-Meter Record and Exile
Angola’s José Adelino Barceló de Carvalho — known to millions as Bonga — once held the Portuguese 400‑meter record. The Estado Novo regime later exiled him for singing about independence.
3 min read
Thesupermat, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
3 min read
STORY · Metal
When Motörhead Became a Quartet and Lost a Label
Six songs for a film soundtrack, a drummer who walked out three years earlier suddenly back behind the kit, and a bandleader moonlighting as a character called …
4 min read
Cover of “Rock 'n' Roll” by Motörhead. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
4 min read
STORY · Alternative
Sondre Lerche: Bossa Nova Before Breakfast
The kid who would grow up to make a living writing film scores spent his childhood trying to slip out from under A-ha’s shadow. Sondre Lerche was born in Bergen…
3 min read
AI-generated illustration
3 min read
STORY · Pop
Caroline Sunshine: Disney Channel to White House
Caroline Mohr Sunshine went from Disney Channel's Shake It Up to the White House briefing room in three years. Her IMDb page now reads like a prologue to an entirely different biography.
4 min read
MingleMediaTVNetwork, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
4 min read
STORY · Folk
Joe South: The Guitarist Who Wrote Everyone Else's Hits
Joe South died fourteen years ago today, leaving a Grammy for Song of the Year and a catalog of hits made famous by other voices. His own name stayed in the background.
4 min read
Capitol Records, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
4 min read
STORY · Pop
Pet Shop Boys: Elysium's Los Angeles Gamble
In 2012, inside a Los Angeles studio, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe were chasing a sound they'd never captured before. The Pet Shop Boys had spent decades definin…
4 min read
Cover of “Elysium” by Pet Shop Boys. Source: Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org)
4 min read