Chasing Sundays

Melaina Kol (center) by Rory Bolinger It's been a big week for Chasing Sundays, so let's start with a quick recap. 1) On Monday I announced that my first book, "When the Sun Hits: The High-Volume History of Shoegaze", will be released March 30, 2027. Pre-orders are live right now, and I'd really appreciate if you supported me by picking it up! Pre-order sales are crucial for emerging authors to get their books in stores worldwide.

This article was written by Stereogum staff writer, and now the first-ever Chasing Sundays contributor, Danielle Chelosky, who I interviewed on the site last year about her book "Female Loneliness Epidemic." Danielle said she wanted to write a giant deep dive into 2hollis's trove of unofficially released singles, and although I'm not nearly as big a fan of 2hollis as she is, I knew she'd do a killer job.

The day has finally come. I'm incredibly excited to announce that my debut book, "When the Sun Hits: The High-Volume History of Shoegaze", will be released on March 30, 2027 via St. Martin's Press. It's now available for pre-order through most major retailers, and I'd be very grateful if you bought it. The book is exactly what the title suggests: a detailed chronicling of shoegaze's entire history, from its proto years in the 1980s to its present-day renaissance in the 2020s.

This week's newsletter is relatively brief because you'll be getting a more substantial dump of Chasing Sundays material next week. And also because sometimes, believe it or not, I don't actually have an overbearing amount of thoughts on new music. Sometimes it's just a normal amount. More on that in a second, but first: I have a very special announcement that I'll be revealing on Monday, so stay tuned for that. I think it will be worth the extra email in your inbox.

Worldpeace DMT (center) photo by Thomas Connelly First, in case you're wondering why I'm not dissecting the new Charli XCX album in this week's newsletter, that's because I already did in a lengthy review of Music, Fashion, Film for the good folks at Pigeons and Planes. As always, Charli is a fascinating popstar to think and write about, and I'm pretty pleased with what I cooked up about her strangest album yet.

I've got announcements! The first is that I reviewed the highly disappointing new Menzingers album for Pitchfork. I think the piece speaks for itself, so go read that if you're so inclined. The second, much more exciting, announcement is that Chasing Sundays has received a facelift! I hired the immensely talented graphic artist Molly Soda to redesign a few elements of my site: a new homepage banner, a new orb logo, and some snazzy new templates for my posts on the Chasing Sundays Instagram.

Greg Mendez (center) by Anthony Pezzotti Whattup! I was out last week vacationing with my family at Keuka Lake in Upstate, NY, so I decided to take a rare absence from the weekly newsletter grind. That doesn't mean I wasn't busy writing. In that time, I reviewed the new Ken Carson and Show Me the Body albums for Pitchfork, and an interview I did with the newsletter How I Make Money Writing was published.

Allow me to begin with a couple programming notes: 1) I'm going on vacation with my family next week and will be taking a rare week off from publishing an edition of Chasing Fridays. I only miss one or two weeks a year, and this is one of those weeks. I'll be back with a new issue on July 17th. 2) In case you missed it, earlier this week I published my list of the 25 best albums of 2026 (so far). The first 15 albums in the list are organized alphabetically, while my top 10 are ranked from 10 to 1.

Music writers live for an excuse to make a list, and I'm no exception to that stereotype. The year is halfway over, so I rounded up my 25 favorite albums of 2026 thus far – including EPs and mixtapes, because I don't see a point in distinguishing between those formats in the streaming age. The first 15 albums in this list are arranged alphabetically, but my top 10 are ranked numerically from 10 to 1. That portion of the list is for paid subscribers only.

In case you missed it, I published my latest 100-song playlist, "Shit I Like 35.0," on the site earlier this week. I've been making these playlists for 10 years now as a means to organize my favorite discoveries on streaming, and I've been publishing them for subscribers on Chasing Sundays for the last couple years.