Jordan Blum

Jordan Blum is a rock and metal writer whose coverage blends catalog-level knowledge of progressive music with accessible, structured features on classic and contemporary artists. His work at Loudwire centers on using lists, rankings, and historical framing to make decades of heavy music feel current and readable. Across outlets and books, he returns to progressive rock and metal as a core subject, treating major bands as long-running stories rather than isolated releases.

Progressive rock and metal specialist

Blum’s defining focus is progressive rock and metal, and he has been writing about these genres for well over a decade. He has written books devoted to Jethro Tull, Opeth, and Dream Theater, using full-catalog coverage to examine how those bands evolve across albums and eras.

That long-form work underpins his journalism, giving his features a clear sense of band history, stylistic shifts, and where particular tours, songs, or lineups sit within a bigger narrative. Outside Loudwire, he contributes to music magazines including PROG, Kerrang!, Metal Injection, Consequence, WhatCulture, Record Collector, and others, keeping his beat grounded in heavy and progressive music rather than general entertainment.

He has also served as a features editor at PopMatters and runs the creative arts journal The Bookends Review, which adds literary and critical depth to how he approaches music stories.

List features and ranked retrospectives on rock and metal

At Loudwire, Blum frequently works in list and ranking formats, using them as a way to organize deep research and fan-facing detail. His piece on rock and metal tours from 1992 collects notable bills from that year and presents them as shows listeners wish they could see now, combining historical lineups with a clear nostalgic frame. In another Loudwire feature, he curates the best and most unusual covers of Dio’s “Holy Diver,” ranking performances to highlight how different artists reinterpret a canonical metal track. He also writes about identity and presentation in heavy music, such as a feature on rock and metal musicians who go by their middle names, turning a seemingly small naming detail into a structured exploration of artist personas. Even when a headline promises a simple count - ten tours, twelve rockers, eleven moments - the copy is built on specific references, dates, and discography context rather than broad generalizations.

Metal culture through a pop-culture lens

Blum often uses pop culture as an entry point into heavy music, showing how metal aesthetics and references surface beyond the scene itself. His Loudwire article on the most metal moments in “South Park” treats the show as a recurring stage for heavy music jokes, visual gags, and band cameos, cataloging those appearances as part of metal’s cultural footprint.

That approach mirrors his broader tendency to trace how rock and metal intersect with television, humor, and nostalgia, making the genre feel embedded in everyday media rather than siloed in specialist spaces. By focusing on specific episodes, scenes, and references, he keeps the tone straightforward and descriptive while still making clear why those moments matter to fans of the bands being cited.

Band news, lineups and continuity

Alongside features and rankings, Blum also covers band news, particularly where health issues, touring plans, or lineup changes affect how fans will experience a group. His reporting on Charlie Benante sitting out Anthrax shows due to injury, and the announcement of a replacement, follows that pattern: it centers on who will be onstage, why the change is happening, and what it means for upcoming dates. The same catalog-minded perspective that informs his long-form work comes through here, with personnel shifts treated as another chapter in a band’s ongoing story rather than isolated updates.

This makes his news pieces useful for readers who track lineups and live histories as closely as studio albums.

Books and cross-outlet long-form work

Blum’s books on Jethro Tull, Opeth, and Dream Theater extend his journalistic beat into detailed, song-by-song assessments of major progressive acts, reinforcing his reputation as a specialist rather than a general music writer. Those volumes, along with his regular features for PROG and other rock and metal publications, give him a consistent perspective on how bands develop over time and how particular eras resonate with audiences. The creative and critical work he does through The Bookends Review adds another layer, showing an interest in narrative, structure, and close reading that is visible in the way he builds arguments inside list features and essays.

Across formats, he keeps the focus on heavy and progressive music, catalog depth, and continuity, making his byline a fit for stories that benefit from both timeline awareness and clear, plainspoken framing.