Can You Turn It Down Please?How Music May Make People Less Cautious While Driving, Working “[T]he presence of music — vs. silence — affected performance... It led participants to make faster and also less accurate decisions.” By Devrupa Rakshit
Run With The TimesMusic May Be as Beneficial for Mental Health as Exercise, Research Suggests Medical interventions like weight loss and exercise may not work for everyone. Music is then 'reliably ranked as one of life’s greatest pleasures.'" By Rohitha Naraharisetty
What Makes Them BeautifulOverrated, Not: Boy Bands Boy bands offer an alternative masculinity in a toxically heteronormative culture, celebrating love, attraction, and feelings rather than suppressing them. By Rohitha Naraharisetty
Mozart EffectScientists Now Know Why a Mozart Melody Reduces Epileptic Seizures New research around the piano sonata D Major K448 shows how the "Mozart Effect" discourages occurrence of seizures in people with epilepsy. By Saumya Kalia
Silence Please?Is This Normal? “I Hate Music” While some people can't derive pleasure from music, others with hypersensitive hearing even find musical beats painful. By Devrupa Rakshit
Cut!Pakistan’s Entertainment Industry Is Finally Confronting Its Sexual Harassment Problem Cases like Meesha Shafi's and others' highlight how patriarchal norms worsen an exploitative system. By Neha Maqsood
portraits of digital intimacyHow a Rap Duo Found New Ways to Engage With Their Audience Under Lockdown Rap duo Cartel Madras rethought ways of engaging with their audience during lockdown, through music and activism. By The Swaddle Team
Pandemic PlaylistMusic From Happier Times Is Dominating Playlists Under Lockdown One study suggests that nostalgia was tied to the drastic lifestyle change caused by the lockdown. By Devrupa Rakshit
Clubbed TogetherGermany Asks 4,000 People to Attend Concert as a Coronavirus Experiment German scientists hope to learn more about how to safely host large-scale events amid the coronavirus pandemic. By Rajvi Desai
Music As ActivismMadame Gandhi on Fourth Wave Feminism, Queer Commodification, and Tenderness in Music "I don’t care if I lose half my followers, it better be the truth I’m speaking." By Rajvi Desai
LamberghiniHow Mainstream Punjabi Music Strips Women of Consumer Power, Agency Women in popular Punjabi music videos are always one of two tropes: gold diggers, or damsels in need of care. By Anahita Sachdev
Male MediocrityTaylor Swift’s ‘The Man’ Is Somehow Both Revolutionary and Banal The music video regurgitates well-established, feminist talking points, but shines when put in context with Swift's real-life struggles with male music executives. By Liesl Goecker
B.A.S.I.CIt’s Okay: to Like Mainstream Movies, Music, Books, and Culture Life is short and lording your superior taste over other people doesn't sound half as good as a "Modern Family" re-run. By Aditi Murti
The Kids Are All RightLizzo Twerked in a Thong at a Basketball Game. Why Are People Freaking Out? There's a teachable moment in her unabashed confidence. By Rajvi Desai
Age Of Consent‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ Gets an (Unnecessary) #MeToo Rewrite John Legend, Natasha Rothwell and Kelly Clarkson could have used the song to explore the gray areas of consent, instead of peddling a black-and-white scenario as progress. By Rajvi Desai & Liesl Goecker
Broken-Hearted FanControversial Crush: Beyoncé, Her Feminism and Her Influence Despite the sweatshop debacle and the watered-down feminism, Beyoncé remains one of the most powerful feminist icons today. By Rajvi Desai
We Don't Want ItPharrell Williams Took 6 Years to Denounce ‘Blurred Lines’ as Rapey Better late than never, right? By Rajvi Desai
Drake’s Softboi Image Masks His Subtle Sexism For Drake, a 'good' girl waits for him by the phone; a 'bad' girl wears short clothes and parties without him. By Rajvi Desai