Mayer Nissim
Mayer Nissim is a long-serving music journalist who covers classic pop and rock for Gold, focusing on the ongoing stories of heritage artists and the unearthed material that keeps their catalogues alive. His coverage blends news about tours, biopics and restored performances with contextual features that explain why these developments matter in the larger history of the artists. Across his work he writes in a clear, accessible style that treats classic acts as active cultural forces rather than purely nostalgic figures.
Beatles, Lennon and McCartney coverage
A significant strand of Nissim’s work at Gold centres on The Beatles and their extended circle.
He writes pieces on Jane Asher’s reaction to upcoming Beatles films, using her comments as a way into the band’s evolving portrayal on screen. He revisits John Lennon through rediscovered interviews and archival audio, drawing out lines and anecdotes that illuminate Lennon’s attitude to fame, talent and the band’s internal friction.
Beyond the group itself, he tracks stories such as Paul McCartney’s long-running feud and eventual reconciliation with Phil Collins, treating these personal narratives as part of the broader Beatles legacy. In his feature on the rediscovered Top of the Pops performance he treats the footage as both a news event and a cultural artefact, explaining its place in the band’s television history and fan memory.
Elvis Presley, Bee Gees and other legacy artists
Nissim’s writing often zooms in on pivotal figures around major artists, as in his detailed profile of Colonel Tom Parker that traces the manager’s role in shaping Elvis Presley’s career and legend. He covers Bee Gees developments through interviews and updates with family members like Robin Gibb’s son RJ, following the fits and starts of a long-gestating biopic and its production status. Similar pieces explore the ongoing creative life of bands such as Simple Minds, where he draws out themes of longevity, collaboration and the realities of still making music and touring decades into a career.
Across these articles he adopts a historian’s stance, balancing fresh quotes and news hooks with accessible retellings of prior milestones so that readers understand how today’s announcement sits within decades of work.
Tours, rumours and future plans
Alongside retrospective and explanatory features, Nissim reports forward-looking stories about tours and future projects.
His coverage of Rolling Stones 2027 tour rumours through comments from Ronnie Wood illustrates his interest in how veteran acts manage anticipation and expectation among fans. He similarly connects biopic and album news to broader questions of what it means for heritage artists to remain active, from Simple Minds discussing new records to Bee Gees projects inching toward production.
The emphasis is on clearly situating each development within the longer narrative of an act’s career, rather than presenting isolated headlines.
Broader music criticism and deep dives
Beyond his work for Gold, Nissim has a substantial background in music criticism and editing, including senior roles at entertainment outlets and ongoing freelance work. He is the author of “Joy Division and New Order: Album by Album”, a volume that walks through each studio release to build a narrative of both groups’ evolution and influence. On his own site he publishes deep-dive essays that, for example, unpack every reference in Luke Haines’s 21st Century Man or provide exhaustive guides to lost albums and post-punk records, showing a taste for granular catalogue detail. Taken together, this wider body of work explains why his Gold pieces read less like one-off news items and more like entries in an ongoing archive of popular music history.
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.