Ali Shutler
Ali Shutler is a culture journalist whose work for NME links music, gaming and online fandom, focusing on how artists and brands build stories across these worlds. He specialises in music but writes across pop, alt-rock, metal and digital culture, treating both records and game-related collaborations as part of the same creative landscape. His coverage combines news, reviews and long-form features, with a consistent emphasis on narrative, emotion and the communities around artists.
Music and gaming crossovers
Shutler’s most distinctive strand of work is at the intersection of music and gaming, where he tracks how pop acts, composers and franchises blur the lines between song, soundtrack and play. His coverage of BTS’ first gaming collaboration with the Nex Playground console shows an interest in how major music groups use interactive platforms and family-focused hardware to expand their reach and reframe fandom as “active play”.
He follows similar territory in news pieces on Madison Beer’s partnership with Fortnite and other pop stars entering game worlds, treating these moves as part of a wider shift in how artists appear inside interactive media.
Shutler reports on the business and culture of game-linked music, including collector’s editions and soundtrack releases that sit between fan merchandise and serious audio curation. Headlines about a Grand Theft Auto 6 collector’s edition that omits the game, Final Fantasy soundtracks arriving on vinyl, and genre-hopping music for titles like Control: Resonant show him paying close attention to how studios package music for dedicated audiences.
He also covers how tentpole releases ripple outward, such as pieces on pro athletes anticipating Grand Theft Auto 6 and the ongoing roadmap for Diablo 4, framing game eras as cultural seasons rather than purely software updates.
Beyond news, he writes about game composers and sound designers as artists in their own right.
His interview with Saros composer Sam Slater, highlighted externally as a study in “how to make a game sound horrible (without actually being horrible)”, digs into the aesthetics of discomfort and heaviness in game audio. In features on projects like Noctule’s extreme metal album inspired by Elden Ring, Shutler follows how players channel their experiences of sprawling fantasy games into dense, emotionally charged music.
Across these pieces, he treats gaming not as a side hobby but as a core creative engine for both musicians and their audiences.
Album and single reviews for pop and alt‑rock
Shutler’s reviewing work spans mainstream and alternative artists, with a noticeable focus on vulnerability, resilience and the thematic arcs of a career. In his review of Blondshell’s ‘Violins’, he describes the record as a “beautifully tender and profoundly honest” alt-rock album, attentive to its balance of savage beauty and jagged home truths.
He revisits the artist’s previous work to show continuity in themes like generational anguish, body image and coming-of-age uncertainty, suggesting an interest in how songwriters develop recurring ideas over multiple releases.
His writing on long-established acts often emphasises comebacks and turning points.
In a review of Lily Allen’s ‘West End Girl’, Shutler frames the album as a “vicious, vulnerable and victorious” return, focusing on its emotional force rather than nostalgia alone. A piece on Hayley Williams’ surprise 17-song collection portrays the project as a bold “choose-your-own-adventure” through hope and heartache, highlighting curiosity and community as the driving forces behind its independent release.
When he covers Twenty One Pilots’ ‘Scaled and Icy’, he positions the record within the band’s broader story, contrasting earlier eras of struggle and control with a new phase defined by peace, pop confidence and continued risk-taking.
Shutler also writes on pop-punk and rock albums that stretch genre boundaries.
His take on Avril Lavigne’s ‘Love Sux’ presents it as a progressive pop-punk record that discards older rules without sacrificing big, joyful guitar anthems. In live coverage of a Red Hot Chili Peppers show in Barcelona, he describes a “viciously playful” set that both celebrates the band’s legacy and underlines their ongoing daring as a rock group. Across these pieces, he pays close attention to energy, risk and emotional tone, making his reviews useful for understanding not just what a record sounds like but where it sits in an artist’s evolving story.
Artist interviews at the edges of genre
Alongside reviews and news, Shutler conducts interviews with artists who operate in hybrid spaces between music, gaming and internet culture. His profile of Charlie Green, the YouTuber known as CG5, presents the musician’s new album as “Brat meets Animal Crossing”, tying internet aesthetics, colourful game worlds and teenage fandom together into a coherent pop narrative.
The piece treats Green’s colourful, game-inspired songs as serious creative work shaped by online communities, rather than novelty content.
In his feature on Noctule, the solo project of Serena Cherry, Shutler documents how Elden Ring “saved” the musician’s life during a period of depression and how that experience fed into an extreme metal album built around the game’s nightmarish universe.
He details the way Cherry fuses black metal and melodic death metal with fantasy imagery, showing an ear for both sonic detail and emotional context. Taken together with his conversations with composers like Sam Slater, these interviews show a clear interest in how artists push genre boundaries under the influence of games, online platforms and intense fan cultures.
Beyond this hybrid space, his broader body of work across various outlets confirms him as a freelance culture journalist specialising in music, with experience on a games-focused news desk and a portfolio that spans multiple music and culture publications. The through-line is consistent: Shutler writes about how people connect to music - through records, concerts, games or social media - by foregrounding emotion, narrative and the creative risks artists take to stay ahead of their audiences.
4 more music journalists.
Aisling Murphy
Aisling Murphy is the theatre reporter and critic at The Globe and Mail. She stands out for writing about theatre as both art and infrastructure, with coverage that links new Canadian stage work, awards culture, and pop-inflected criticism. She covers theatre, music, and pop culture in a detailed, conversational style, moving between reviews, reported features, and analysis of the systems that shape what gets produced. Her beat includes the Dora Awards, Toronto stages, new writing, intimate productions, and smaller venues, as well as controversy where artistic decisions meet politics and community response. Before The Globe, she was senior editor of Intermission Magazine, and her bylines include The New York Times, Toronto Star, CBC Arts, and the Baltimore Sun.
Alex Hudson
Alex Hudson is Editor-in-Chief of Exclaim! and leads coverage of music’s links to sports, literature, and technology, with a strong focus on Canadian artists. Hudson reports on how music intersects with other fields, not as a separate industry. Recent coverage has included Blue Jays pitcher Max Scherzer on how playing piano saved his career, Ottawa Bluesfest’s Canada-wide soccer watch party, Lakes of Canada’s Margaret Atwood-inspired album Transgressions, Hannah Mary McKinnon on The Beaches influencing her rock-themed novel, and Alexander Nilsson’s 1001 Albums Generator as a tool for broadening music discovery beyond algorithmic recommendations.
Alex Robert Ross
Alex Robert Ross is a journalist and editor who treats albums as narratives, linking sound, backstory, emotional stakes, and an artist’s wider catalogue. He currently writes long-form criticism for Pitchfork, covering heavy metal, hardcore, indie, and legacy rock. His recent reviews include Converge’s Hum of Hurt and Bon Iver’s SABLE, fABLE. His other Pitchfork work includes The Tragically Hip’s Fully Completely and William Ackerman’s In Search of the Turtle’s Navel. He has also written features for Slate, The Quietus, Huck, and The Portland Mercury. Ross reports closely on structure, urgency, vocal performance, arrangement, and the stories behind records. He uses detailed reporting and conceptual framing to place new releases within an artist’s past work and surrounding scenes. His work also includes editing, podcast hosting and production, newsletter writing, consulting, and copywriting.
Alexis Mikulski Ruiz
Alexis Mikulski Ruiz is a commerce writer whose distinct focus is the buying and streaming side of music, entertainment and lifestyle, helping readers decide how to watch major events and what to purchase around them. She is an e-commerce specialist at Rolling Stone, covering products, platforms and deals tied to award shows, festivals, sports and everyday culture. Her beat blends music streaming guides with shopping and product recommendations across fashion, beauty, tech, food, wellness and drinks. She reports through experience-focused service journalism, using lists, comparison roundups and step-by-step guides to answer concrete questions about how to stream major cultural moments, where to shop and which products to choose. Her background includes commerce and lifestyle writing for consumer publications such as Esquire, Men’s Health, Good Housekeeping, Oprah Daily, Women’s Wear Daily and Billboard.