"The best punk movies are stories that tap into the spirit of the time through imagined characters and invented situations. A biopic can’t help treating its protagonists as exceptional figures—stars commanding the stage of History—in a way that undercuts the iconoclastic, 'no more heroes' spirit of punk" - the Simon Reynolds writes introducing his best punk movies list, which goes from "the first punk movie" 'Jubilee' to 'We Are the Best!' by Lukas Moodysson.

YouTube music critic The Needle Drop also comes out with his selection of best albums of 2021. A really very versatile selection, covering genres such as death metal, classical music, rock, conceptual pop... The top 5 albums chosen by The Needle Drop: St. Vincent, Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra, Arca, Lingua Ignota, and Spelling.

Pitchfork is celebrating its 25th birthday with a selection of 200 most important artists who have made the biggest impact across Pitchfork’s lifetime so far. The list features "The Icons" as well as "The Essentials", listed alphabetically, from Aaliyah to Wilco.

Rolling Stone has reviewed its 2004 list of 500 greatest songs of all time. Nearly 4,000 songs received votes. Where the 2004 version of the list was dominated by early rock and soul, the new edition contains more hip-hop, modern country, indie rock, Latin pop, reggae, and R&B. More than half the songs here — 254 in all — weren’t present on the old list, including a third of the Top 100. The result is a more expansive, inclusive vision of pop, music that keeps rewriting its history with every beat - RS points out. The list starts at the number 500 with Kanye West's 'Stronger', and reaches the highpoint with Aretha Franklin's 'Respect'.

An interesting selection by the Stereogum of 50 best albums of the five months of 2021 that are behind us. The top 10 (not so expectedly) are:

10. The Armed - 'ULTRAPOP'

9. Matt Sweeney & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - 'Superwolves'

8. Home Is Where - 'i became birds'

7. Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - 'Haram'

6. Spirit Of The Beehive - 'ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH'

5. Cassandra Jenkins - 'An Overview On Phenomenal Nature'

4. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, & The London Symphony Orchestra - 'Promises'

3. serpentwithfeet - 'Deacon'

2. The Weather Station - 'Ignorance'

1. Fiddlehead - 'Between The Richness'

Author Oli Freke released his news book 'Synthesizer Evolution: From Analogue to Digital (and Back)', a written celebration of the impact of synths on music and culture. Freke offers a comprehensive and meticulously researched directory of every major synthesizer, drum machine and sampler made between 1963 and 1995. For Mix Mag, he chose the 10 most influential synthesizers.

Cinephiles Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Matt Sweeney, who recently released a collaborative album 'Superwolves', made a selection of the best music films for Vice. The boys chose 'Gene Vincent: The Rock And Roll Singer' (1970) - "a tough watch, but a revealing study of a rare talent", 'Cisco Pike' (1972) - "music-infused crime film has earned a sizeable cult following", 'Oulaya’s Wedding' (2017)  - "astonishingly familiar feelings and ripping tunes", 'Payday' (1973) - "down and dirty character study of a country star indulging every vice under the sun as he hurtles towards annihilation", 'The Decline Of Western Civilization' (1981) - "a documentary about energy that's so loaded with power that it will never die", and other films.

Iranian metalcore band Out of Nowhere made a selection of 10 best Middle Eastern metal bands (or, we can call it Near East, depending, probably, on where we are). So, the best in metal from the vast region are:

Calibre - melodic metal core, Iran

Chopstick Suicide - mathcore, Turkey

Coast of Arms - metalcore, UAE/Qatar

Creative Waste - grindcore, Saudi Arabia

Kimaera - doom/death, Lebanon

Mortem Atra - melodic doom / death metal, Cyprus

New Carnis - death metal, Iran

Phenomy - thrash metal, Lebanon

Scarab - death metal, Egypt

Smouldering in Forgotten - death/black, Bahrain

InsideHook offers a brief rundown of some of the best musician archives on the web, from indie superstars like Radiohead, Courtney Barnett, and Fugazi to icons like Neil Young, Johnny Cash, and the Dead, with some Def Leppard in between.

The staff of The Verge recommend their favorite music straming services:

Radio Dismuke, a little-known streaming service with a constant diet of pop and jazz from the early part of the last century

Soma FM - has tons of different genre stations

YouTube Music - incomparable catalog

8tracks - lets users upload playlists of at least eight songs, possible to get three skips per playlist per hour

KEXP - consistently excellent music selection by the public radio station based in Seattle

Aux Live - a music-focused service with a range of live concerts and documentaries

Qobuz - a place with higher-resolution music

Spotify - a nice user interface and compatibility with almost every piece of streaming hardware on the market

Apple Music - does a great job of syncing all of the music across devices

Live Music Archive - over 200,000 concerts in lossless audio quality for free