Only Noise

Every Thursday, ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack.

ONLY NOISEAdele Threads Together Regret and Growing Older from 25 to 30

ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. In this installment, Jason Scott soothes their growing pains with the balm of everyone's favorite siren singer, who released her fourth studio album last week. I can’t listen...

Bee Scott

ONLY NOISEHow Miley Cyrus Became The Soundtrack Of My Life

Vice Versa was a safe haven in my college years. Nestled among the rolling hills of West Virginia, and situated snuggly in downtown Morgantown, interwoven with the WVU campus, the gay club offered safety, glitter, and endless midnight thrills. My friends and I would head out on the town almost...

Bee Scott

"Party Girl" at 25How Music Plays into Parker Posey's First Leading Role

I can't remember exactly when and where I first saw Party Girl, the 1995 indie flick starring Parker Posey as Mary, a New York party promoter-turned-library clerk. Over the course of the late '90s and into the early '00s, I watched it a lot and, every time, there was one scene that stuck out for...

Liz Ohanesian

ONLY NOISEHow I Turned COVID Blues Into The First Virtual Emo Nite Hosted By Non-Male DJs

The author in her childhood bedroom. Celebrating the arrival of 2020 immediately took me to 2010. I rang in the new year at Barclays Center with a friend, seeing The Strokes for the first time. It felt appropriate, given how at the end of 2019, I had mentally regressed to feeling like my teenage...

Tatiana Tenreyro

ONLY NOISEThe Women of Country Music Offer Wisdom in Times of Crisis

Loretta Lynn's alcohol-soaked pity party for herself in "Somebody, Somewhere" echoes quite a lot of our newly solo Saturday nights. Dolly Parton reminds us all that wealth is a state of being, rather than the (declining) value of our bank accounts. Lucinda Williams asks the simple, but potentially...

Cat Woods

ONLY NOISEWhat I Learned From Bad Covers of “Hallelujah”

ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. This week, Erin Lyndal Martin takes comfort in unexpected covers. “Hallelujah” is pretty much a perfect song. Appearing on his 1984 LP Various Positions, it took Leonard Cohen...

Erin Lyndal Martin

What Alanis Morissette Taught Me About Anger - Now That I'm Sober

Alanis Morissette plays Jagged Little Pill at the Apollo (YouTube screenshot). ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. This week, Tawny Lara details how a landmark '90s album allowed her to feel a brewing childhood...

Tawny Lara

ONLY NOISEAging Towards Strange with Aphex Twin

In my experience, listening to Aphex Twin is a willful crawl towards chaos. Richard D. James has managed to manifest an auditory minefield that calls forth visions of an underground orgy of electrical wiring, a realm beyond the strictures of the Logos. Passively listening to a track like...

Lydia Sviatoslavsky

How I Fell in Love With 7-inch Singles and Why They Still Matter

ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we're shaped by our chosen soundtrack. This week, Beth Winegarner flips through an old collection and finds it relevant even today. When I was a teenager, I had a ritual every Saturday afternoon. My mom and I would...

Beth Winegarner

ONLY NOISEThe Long Way Around

ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. This week, Katie Wojciechowski finds footing in unfamiliar territory thanks to the late discovery of an infamous hometown favorite. On March 10, 2003, Dixie Chicks’ front...

Katie Wojciechowski

ONLY NOISEI Can't Remember All the Shows I've Seen. Does It Matter?

A collection of ticket stubs are often more reliable than memories. Photo courtesty of Liz Ohanesian. ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. This week, Liz Ohanesian wonders what it means when her musical memories...

Liz Ohanesian

ONLY NOISEPlaylist for a Schoolgirl Crush

ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. This week, Erin Lyndal Martin shares a selection of songs that bring back the rush of a schoolgirl crush. No matter how old you get, there’s something that stays dreamy about...

Erin Lyndal Martin