Music Journalistsin Canada

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 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.

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.

Allie Gregory maps how audiences encounter new music by tracking the practical pathways of releases, tours, festivals, platforms and projects. She is a managing editor and news writer at Exclaim!, where she is a primary editorial contact for forthcoming releases and news tips and helps shape the outlet’s daily agenda around new music and its broader entertainment context. Her reporting centres on timely album and tour announcements, live logistics and festival programming across indie, metal, country, pop and adjacent film and streaming news. She writes direct, information-heavy pieces that foreground calendars, support acts, set times and programming structures, while also producing longer-form interviews, cultural stories and staff-pick recommendations that connect artists’ work, controversy and creative campaigns to how audiences encounter music and entertainment on the road, at festivals and on screens.

Andrei Ionescu focuses on how science, technology and human perception intersect, using single studies to show how complex systems shape everyday experience. He is a staff writer for Earth, covering climate and biodiversity research, neuroscience, animal behavior and the cultural impact of technology. His music coverage treats songs as a window into memory, emotion and brain function. He reports on cognition, environment, AI and data, including biodiversity loss, Amazon forests, AI search tools, evolutionary AI, hidden climate extremes, air pollution, deep seafloor life, mass extinctions, toxic moths and animal culture. His work foregrounds mechanisms such as perception, memory and pattern recognition. He writes concise, tightly structured explainers that move from research question to method to findings, staying close to the data and using plain language with enough technical context to clarify how studies work.

Andy Greene is distinct for his long-view reporting on rock icons and the institutions that preserve their stories, treating music as something built, archived, and remembered over decades. He is a senior writer at Rolling Stone, where he focuses on music, movies, and television through deep, narrative features. His core beat is classic rock, covering major artists, their performances, and the vaults and archives that hold their legacies, as in his reporting on Bob Dylan’s secret archive and his career-spanning work on Carl Palmer and politically charged collectives like Prophets of Rage. Greene also documents music institutions, reconstructing how magazines and formal archives shape the historical record. He writes pop and rock culture features, ranking-driven pieces, and live performance coverage, and extends his historical, multi-voice approach to film and television, including The Office: An Oral History.

Baek Byung-yeul traces how Korea’s cultural content moves across music, performance, publishing, language and lifestyle, treating live events and media as parts of one content ecosystem. He is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events. His reporting follows K-pop acts, global dance festivals and musical theater, tracking dates, venues and programming to show how concerts, festivals and stage musicals shape contemporary culture. He also reviews books and comics, profiles literary figures and covers the creator economy and international publishing markets. His work includes analytical pieces on Korean language as soft power and on consumer trends such as imported lifestyle brands. Baek works across formats, contributing video coverage of film premieres and screen content, and moves between straight news, criticism and opinion in his reporting.

Blabbermouth is a continuous heavy metal and hard rock news feed that works like a specialised wire service for heavy music, with a narrow genre focus and persistent attention to legacy acts, scene insiders and industry commentary. It publishes short, fact-led, quote-driven updates on albums, singles, videos, tours, studio work and long-term projects, treating underground and mainstream punk and rock bands in the same concise way. Stories centre on concrete release information, formats and promotional milestones, and often break down detailed configurations for collectors. Blabbermouth also tracks veteran musicians’ memoirs, autobiographies, archival books and reputational debates, following editorial progress and narrative choices over time. Many pieces are built around transcribed broadcast and podcast interviews, foregrounding musicians’ own words on creativity, industry economics and streaming while maintaining a neutral, reported tone and a high-cadence stream of verifiable news.

Brad Wheeler is an arts reporter and entertainment writer whose music coverage centres on Canadian rock and indie communities and treats them as core to the wider culture. He works at The Globe and Mail, moving between concert reviews, album criticism, interviews, scene reports and reflective essays. He writes frankly about major pop releases, reports on live-performance dynamics and legacy, and champions emerging and mid-career Canadian artists when their records merit it. His artist conversations focus on resilience, identity, democracy and the long arc of a career, while his scene features document specific venues, neighbourhoods and night-to-night music culture. He also writes classical and science-informed pieces on figures such as Glenn Gould and on music psychology, and extends his beat to film and screen criticism, often linking soundtracks, memory and generational experience.

Caleb Catlin is VICE's dedicated hip-hop and R&B specialist who stands out for tying music releases to broader cultural narratives, especially around technology's impact on the industry and historical perspectives on influential albums. He covers how artists navigate industry shifts, from AI music training controversies and streaming service closures to platforms like GTA 6 incorporating contemporary music. Catlin reports on the intersection of music creation and distribution with artificial intelligence, showing how creative and business pressures shape artists in the digital age. He adds historical context through pieces on "no-skip" albums turning ten and their lasting influence, and uses work like his Cardi B commentary to connect music to wider educational and cultural themes. His artist-centric reporting examines creative decisions, business moves, and legal challenges, including T.I.'s retirement and OJ Da Juiceman's disputes, with VICE's blend of cultural criticism and music journalism.

Celeste Percy-Beauregard is distinct for centring local people and institutions to link everyday community life with wider cultural and civic themes, including music and entertainment. She is a reporter with The Hamilton Spectator, where her beat combines music and cultural coverage with deeply sourced local reporting in Brant County and neighbouring communities, supported by the Local Journalism Initiative. She covers how governance and accountability play out in school boards and other public bodies, offers service journalism such as guides to local warming spaces and supports, and reports on reality television and popular culture through emotional, relationship-focused stories about local participants. She also profiles local leaders, entrepreneurs, and community builders, using clear, direct language, strong voice, and lived experience to explain local economies, creative scenes, and civic life.

Chris Bound focuses on new and emerging music with a discovery-led approach, using vivid, concise language to frame indie and alternative releases. He is a freelance music journalist for Indie Is Not A Genre and an editor at Mystic Sons PR, where he also works on the editorial side, keeping close to artists and campaigns. His news pieces centre on the music itself, pairing dates, formats and tracklists with short, focused descriptions of key songs. As a reviewer he leans on mood and texture, using plain, image-rich phrases to signal sound and dynamics. His recurring “Getting To Know…” features introduce rising artists through one new track and a brief career snapshot. He also conducts interviews that explore artists’ careers and songwriting. Across formats he works at the intersection of journalism and music promotion, championing indie-rooted work in clear, direct prose.

Connie Thiessen covers how music lives inside broadcast strategy, following the intersection of radio, streaming and industry institutions rather than artist stories alone. She is editor of Broadcast Dialogue and hosts Broadcast Dialogue – The Podcast, drawing on a long career as a reporter, editor, anchor and host in radio newsrooms across major markets. She reports on radio’s business environment, including acquisitions, restructurings and ownership trends that shape music formats and talent. Her work tracks awards, conferences and industry gatherings where programmers, music directors and executives discuss formats, audience research and the future of music in radio and streaming. She also writes profiles, obituaries and career narratives of radio and music figures, and has been nominated for Music Journalist of the Year by the Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Awards.

Danielle Chelosky writes about the emotional charge of contemporary music, connecting new releases and archival material to the private intensity of listening. She is a music writer at Stereogum, contributing news posts, track write-ups, list entries, staff picks, and song roundups. Her beat is artists who blur genre lines and build strong personal aesthetics, from experimental R&B to alt-pop and indie rock. She focuses on emerging artists, intimate pop, and cult and alternative figures, often emphasizing emotionally direct lyrics, intimate production, and digital-age relationship dynamics. She ties live performances, radio sessions, and archival recordings to ongoing narratives of grief, memory, and fandom. Beyond Stereogum she publishes music journalism at NPR, Billboard, and The Fader, and writes fiction, prose, poetry, and essays about sex, relationships, and online life, in short, direct, listener-centric formats.

Dave McCarthy links precise game detail, milestones, and fan context to show how individual nights fit into a team’s longer arc. He is a Toronto correspondent for NHL.com, covering the National Hockey League with a focus on the Toronto Maple Leafs, their games, and the moments that define the modern NHL season. He reports on Maple Leafs special teams, uses straightforward statistics and key sequences, and writes previews that set matchups in clear performance context. He covers draft nights, prospects, franchise milestones, awards, and player development as connected threads in team-building. His work on contracts and front office decisions is cited for concrete numbers and terms. He hosts “Sunday Brunch” on NHL Network Radio and appears on other hockey shows, adding live analysis and league-wide conversation to his written coverage.

Emily Swingle is a freelance music writer who zeroes in on heavy and alternative scenes. She is a full-time freelancer and part-time music festival gremlin. She co-founded Bittersweet Press in 2019. She now writes across Louder and other music titles, with a core beat in modern heavy music, especially metal, hardcore, genre-mixing bands, progressive metal and shoegaze. Her work is reportorial and emotional, built from festival-ground coverage, live moments and candid interviews. She has also written for Metal Hammer and Clash, and her pieces often focus on how bands, records and scenes feel from the inside.

Eric Williams is a news reporter for The Telegraph whose work links politics, social affairs and broadcasting, with a focus on how decisions by large institutions shape everyday life. He reports across news, features and investigations, covering defence and civil service stories alongside detailed coverage of BBC radio and television. His reporting on the quiet closure of the BBC’s Long Wave service and on live television errors during an alleged sex scandal shows his attention to broadcasting heritage, audience experience and crisis inside major public broadcasters. He also covers hard politics, including populist threats to defence treaties and civil service workplace changes, and social affairs stories about public intervention, crime and animal welfare. Across these subjects he uses specific incidents, timing and operational detail to show how policy, institutional behaviour and social norms are felt at street level.

Hugh McIntyre stands out for turning chart data into plain stories about how artists rise, fall, and endure. He is a music industry journalist at Forbes and writes regularly for Yahoo Entertainment’s music section, with past work for Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, MTV, and HuffPost. His beat is music business success: No. 1 debuts, record-breaking feats, comebacks, catalog gains, and the quiet milestones that show how songs and albums keep selling and streaming over time. He covers artists and bands by tracking Billboard and other chart moves, and he reports with close attention to rankings, first-week performance, streaming, sales, and comparative numbers. He also writes broader industry explainers on topics like forming a band as a company and release timing.

Hugh McIntyre is a freelance music journalist who specializes in turning global chart rankings and milestones into clear stories about how artists succeed over time. He primarily covers the music industry for Forbes and contributes regular chart‑driven music coverage to Yahoo’s music section. His work focuses on how singles, albums, and catalog releases move through the charts, using milestones, firsts, records, and career highs and lows as his main lens. He tracks pop superstars such as Olivia Rodrigo, Dua Lipa, Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and Drake through their chart trajectories, and he regularly highlights resurgent catalog and legacy acts like Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Radiohead, the Grateful Dead, and Michael Jackson. He also writes industry‑facing advice pieces for working musicians, including practical guidance on business structures and career strategy.

Ilana Kaplan stands out for turning music news into sharp stories about songs, careers, fan reaction, and the business and legal forces around artists. She is a writer and music editor at People and also reports for Yahoo News, where she covers major recording artists, songwriting, performance, and the public moments that shape how fans see them. Her work has appeared in Alternative Press, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, GQ, NPR, MTV, E! and the New York Daily News. She writes about artist interviews, podcast remarks, memoirs, legal filings, and social media chatter, with pieces on Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Benny Blanco, Oliver Tree, Riley Green, Phoebe Bridgers, Melissa Auf der Maur, Jermaine Jackson, Liam Payne, and Gene Simmons.

Janiece Campbell stands out for reporting that links Toronto’s music, nightlife, culture and civic life to the voices of unheard and underserved diaspora communities. She is a freelance writer for NOW Toronto. She covers live music, pop culture, community arts, news explainers, archives, and policy stories. Her work has appeared at the Toronto Caribbean Newspaper and the Toronto Star. She has reported on post-punk shows, Drake’s invite-only “apology party,” Union Station’s Black History Month showcase, the cancellation of Taste of Little Jamaica, Robert Munsch’s archive, trans activists’ teach-in after a library protest, federal nicotine pouch rules, Doug Ford’s summer break from Queen’s Park, and an 1849 annexation petition. She reports with a clear service style and often uses interviews, crowd detail, and institutional context to show what events and policy mean for readers.

Jazz Monroe is a staff writer who covers contemporary music by treating records, live shows and artist activity as parts of a larger career story. He writes for Pitchfork across news, reviews and features, focusing on albums, singles and artist updates in indie, alternative, pop and adjacent genres, with occasional coverage of legacy acts when they enter current discussion. He also files in-depth music and culture pieces for other publications, including broadsheet outlets, extending his beat into profiles, reported features and essays. His work centers on major releases, collaborators, visual worlds, roll-out strategies and live performances, documenting specifics, then connecting them to artistic identity, audience expectations and long-term trajectories. He writes in third person, in a neutral, measured, observational style, avoiding hype and prioritising clear structure and accessible prose.

Jessica Lynch is a music culture host and journalist who leads with live music, tours and fan culture. She writes for Billboard and has also published for Rolling Stone Australia, The Brag, Tone Deaf and Don’t Bore Us. Her beat covers pop, rock, entertainment and celebrity news, with stories on releases, tour announcements, artist interviews, chart history, festivals and fan behaviour. She has reported breaking headlines, viral moments and practical updates on major pop tours, plus heritage acts and nostalgia-driven music stories. Lynch also hosts and creates music projects such as THE POP CULT, and she reports across print, digital, social and on-camera formats. Her work treats artists, concerts and fan communities as part of the same culture.

Jocelyn Martin is a journalist at CTV News’ Barrie bureau who stands out for coverage that links local music and arts to community causes and everyday life. She reports on concerts, festivals and venue lineups across country, rock, classical and pop, supplying practical details on performers, schedules, venues and tickets while tracking how events support charity, disability awareness and public art projects. Her beat also includes lifestyle and local service stories on winter home safety, holiday weather, blood donation, animal welfare, public safety incidents and recreation and tourism infrastructure. Martin works across shooting and editing stories, writing for digital platforms and managing the website, drawing on more than a decade of radio and television experience and a strong background in audio and video production, writing and story development.

Jordan Owen is a professional music and arts journalist who stands out for track-by-track analysis and contextual detail that make clear, argument-driven cases about why specific moments in classic rock still matter. He writes for Grunge in its classic rock and music history lane, focusing on how specific songs and eras define an artist’s legacy. His pieces use individual recordings as evidence to argue broader points about an artist’s trajectory and lean on list-driven features where each song advances a facet of the thesis. He often writes through riffs, hooks, grooves, and textures to show what makes classic rock feel timeless. Owen has worked as a journalist since his teens, starting with newspapers in Oxford, Mississippi, and his portfolio includes work at ArtsATL, where he has reviewed Philip Auslander’s book “Women Rock!: Portraits in Popular Music.”

Josh Azevedo stands out for tracing how queer art, music, media platforms, and marquee events shape LGBTQ visibility and whether queer work endures or disappears. He covers music and wider queer culture for Gayety, reporting from red carpets such as the Out100 Awards and The Queerties. His beat includes queer art hubs and visual culture, LGBTQ history, books and storytelling platforms, and pop culture across music, television, drag, and Pride commerce. He writes about archives, marketplaces, social platforms, nightlife, and literary spaces as cultural infrastructure for queer creators and audiences. His history work centers erased Black LGBTQ trailblazers and treats queer history as a living archive. In pieces on Wattpad, reading lists, major albums, drag competitions, and shifts within LGBTQ media, he connects creative labor, business structures, and lived queer experience through clear, grounded reporting.

Joshua Chong is the Toronto Star’s arts critic and reporter, and his beat is the performing arts. He focuses on theatre, opera and classical music, with close attention to the cultural institutions and individuals behind them. He moves between criticism and reporting, writing reviews, awards coverage, news stories and features. His work covers productions, companies, artists, programming choices and sector shifts, and he often connects single shows to wider industry context. He writes in a clear, measured style, with evidence and concrete detail, and he was recognized with the Nathan Cohen Award for critical excellence.

Julia Teti is a music journalist at Women’s Wear Daily whose beat centers on awards galas and formal music honors covered in a clear, photo-led format. She reports on events like the Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala 2026, structuring stories as visual recaps that document key moments of the ceremony. Her coverage highlights songwriting achievements, the artists and writers being recognized, and the categories in which they are honored. She uses concise captions and gallery-style layouts to turn one-night events into records that can be revisited after they conclude. Working within a fashion-industry trade journal, she situates music milestones in the wider context of culture and commerce, supplying music-facing coverage that complements fashion, retail and trend reporting.

Kate Otterbein focuses on everyday stories that show how policy, policing, borders and local culture shape life in her community, often adding a human or pop culture angle to hard news and public service coverage. She is a multimedia journalist with the CTV News local newsroom, where she covers music and arts alongside general assignment news. Much of her recent work follows how law enforcement and border agencies affect daily life, from cross-border traffic delays and cash and cocaine seizures to standoffs, hate‑motivated crimes and workplace incidents. She explains city services, infrastructure changes and environmental action with clear, practical detail. She also reports on community institutions, youth programs, lotteries and reality‑TV adjacent stories. She files text pieces and video for television and social platforms, drawing on experience as a morning radio news anchor to distill complex local issues into concise, nuts‑and‑bolts updates.

Digital music culture specialist Kieran Press-Reynolds writes the Rabbit Holed column for Pitchfork, focusing on how internet culture reshapes music consumption and creation. He identifies emerging digital-native music subcultures before they enter mainstream discourse and analyzes the intersection of social media platforms with musical trends and fandoms. He produced early coverage of corecore, mapped the brainrot continuum, and broke down music discovery into five increasingly fried tiers. He investigates how TikTok transforms pop music structures, how AI encroaches on Japanese city pop, and how streaming services reshape artist development and audience relationships. He explores Wikipedia’s evolving role in music historiography through profiles of young editors and shows how crowd-sourced knowledge platforms function as the front page of music history for digital natives.

Kinsey Crowley is a Trump Connect reporter for USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network. Her work stands out for tying Donald Trump, his family and inner circle to culture, music, fashion and trending political news. She covers how political figures use celebrity moments, live performance, visual spectacle and soundtracks to shape their image, from Barack Obama’s playlist and the Obama Presidential Center opening to Melania Trump’s fashion choices and Trump-branded products. She also reports on breaking topics like Project 2025, Jeffrey Epstein, and diplomatic moments at the United Nations. Her style is direct and accessible, with clear timelines, straightforward explanations and quick-turn reporting.

Kristin Robinson is a senior music business correspondent at Billboard who digs into how publishing, deals and artificial intelligence reshape the way songs are made and paid for. She covers music publishing, copyrights and creator compensation systems, following catalog sales, PRO and licensing disputes, and publishing restructurings as core business stories. Her reporting explains new revenue models and payout structures around streaming, synchronization and neighboring rights, as well as fraud and enforcement actions in digital ecosystems. She has broken down major catalog and rights transactions and exposed royalty and YouTube-related fraud schemes from the perspective of writers and publishers. Robinson has a distinct specialty in AI and emerging music technologies, writes deep-dive industry analyses and narrative features, runs the Machine Learnings newsletter, and hosts Billboard’s On The Record podcast, where she moderates conversations on complex music business topics.

Laura Molloy writes about musicians as characters in motion, looking at how scenes, fan communities and personal histories shape the sound as much as the songs. At the music desk of the New Musical Express, she covers current releases, legacy acts and live culture, paying close attention to how artists build mythologies around their work and how those stories land with listeners. Her core work is in-depth artist interviews that situate musicians in the communities that sustain them, including narrative-led cover features on emerging acts like Ratbag. She also files news and features on releases, legacies and industry flashpoints, and writes cultural criticism on fandom, fame and public perception. Alongside this, she works across culture and lifestyle, bringing visual aesthetics, subcultural style and social context into her music journalism.

Lexi Lane links music, screen culture and everyday life by focusing on how artists and entertainers talk about their work. She is a weekend banking writer at PEOPLE and has covered culture and entertainment for several years, bringing a music-focused lens to celebrity craft, influence and career. Her work includes interviews with Grammy winners, Hollywood icons and reality personalities, plus pieces on fashion figures and performance culture. She writes service stories on work, money and paid time off that connect financial decisions to how audiences live around pop culture. Her portfolio spans PEOPLE, uDiscover Music, The People’s Movies, Men’s Health, NBC News and Variety. Across music, awards shows and lifestyle coverage, she grounds features in direct quotes and specific examples, showing how influences, memorabilia, franchise roles and everyday choices shape the way people experience culture.

Lynn Saxberg is an arts reporter at the Ottawa Citizen who treats music festivals and local venues as parts of one connected scene. She focuses on live performance, major concerts and the city’s festival and grassroots music worlds, linking global acts to working musicians, promoters and community programs. Her reporting mixes day-of festival dispatches, recurring coverage of events like Bluesfest and the jazz festival, and longer narrative features about people whose careers or fandom shape the music landscape. She writes about atmosphere, logistics and audience dynamics as much as set lists, and often traces how venues, youth orchestras and industry coalitions build the city’s music ecosystem. Her beat also includes broader arts coverage, from author interviews to profiles of storytellers and educators, always grounded in clear, accessible reporting that connects performance, place and community over time.

Maria Sherman is a global popular music writer who treats music as both business and social text, connecting artist stories to the systems and communities that shape them. She covers the forces reshaping the music industry for The Globe and Mail via the Associated Press wire, with a beat that includes breaking news, features, and interviews. Her reporting focuses on structural shifts in music media, the consolidation of specialist outlets, and rule changes at institutions like the Grammy Awards. She writes closely about awards shows, televised performances, and artist health and career milestones, using high-profile events to explore questions of representation, visibility, and power. Beyond the Associated Press, her music and culture journalism appears across major outlets, covering pop, rock, and alternative scenes with attention to fandoms, media structures, and institutional decisions.

Matt Mills covers heavy and extreme metal as a reporter who treats heavy music as a continuum, giving equal space to its past, present and future. He is online editor at Metal Hammer under the Louder masthead and a regular presence in Metal Hammer and Prog, known as a resident Gojira obsessive since joining the team in 2017. His beat centres on heavy and extreme metal, from legacy acts like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne and Mastodon to newer, experimental bands such as Babymetal and Heilung. He mixes narrative, humour and close reporting, using features, interviews, news stories and track roundups to humanise heavy music, unpack landmark songs, follow week-to-week scene developments and show how artists, audiences and non-fans experience extreme sounds. He also writes reflective pieces on alternative and canonical albums for a range of music and culture outlets.

Matthew Almeida focuses on music-led television events and performance-driven formats for CTV’s English-language services. He works in entertainment communications, shaping detailed launch and lineup announcements that tie televised music, awards shows, and artist showcases to specific broadcast windows and platforms. His portfolio includes communications for CTV broadcasts of the Billboard Music Awards, a Shania Twain project, and a six-part series spotlighting aspiring artists. He also handles unscripted reality and competition franchises such as THE AMAZING RACE CANADA, and event broadcasts like the Oscars telecast. Beyond music and reality, he supports daytime talk and scripted series including THE MARILYN DENIS SHOW, BETHENNY, JANN, ZOO, THE FIX, and THE ENEMY WITHIN. His releases foreground airtimes, multi-platform access, ratings performance, and network positioning, and he has also written an edition of CTV’s entertainment newsletter The Guide.

Megan LaPierre maps the full lifecycle of music and culture stories, following artists from first project teases through releases, tours and industry impact. She covers music and culture for Exclaim!, focusing on how musicians build and sustain careers across albums, tours and side projects. Her core beat is release news and artist projects, including major announcements, artistic pivots and long-gap album returns, with attention to what each project signals about an artist’s next phase. She reports on tours, live circuits and festivals, showing how records translate to stages and how different tiers of artists share venues. She also files film and comedy news tied to adaptations, awards and cross-medium careers, and writes staff picks, guides and opinion features that bring a critical voice and industry analysis, including sensitive, reputationally charged stories handled in a neutral news tone.

Merlin Alderslade is the executive editor of Louder, known for treating heavy music as a living culture rather than just a set of records. He oversees coverage of rock and metal while continuing to write opinionated features, festival reports and scene-wide thinkpieces. His beat is the heavy music ecosystem of bands, festivals, subcultures and industry currents, across Louder’s network of rock and alternative brands. A former Metal Hammer editor with more than a decade of experience there, he brings strong scene fluency and editorial framing to every piece. He reports from major festivals, uses lineups and live bills to track how the scene is changing, and writes cultural commentary on trends such as theatrical “gimmick” acts. His style is direct, conversational and decisive, blending reporting, commentary and curation to show what events and trends mean for rock and metal’s identity and future.

Molly Mary O’Brien is a music writer and critic who treats pop criticism as close listening and a way to map the broader pop ecosystem across reviews, blogging, interviews, and audio discussion. She writes album reviews for Pitchfork that move between mainstream pop and experimental work, giving equal attention to major figures and boundary-pushing artists while tracking emotional dissonance, narrative, and craft. She runs the wide-ranging music blog I Enjoy Music, a callback to old-school music blogging where interviews and long posts follow artists and scenes outside the usual release cycle. She also appears regularly on the podcast Pop Pantheon, unpacking the careers and legacies of major pop acts in long-form conversation. Her beat is contemporary pop and adventurous, genre-blending artists, with a steady focus on how records tell life stories over time.

Neil Crossley is a freelance writer and editor who brings a musician’s eye to deep narrative features on landmark songs and albums, with a particular focus on classic rock and pop artists. He writes artist-focused pieces that unpack how well-known tracks are conceived, written, arranged, recorded and remembered, treating each song as a story about creative decisions, collaboration and credit. His work traces the making of classics by Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Simon & Garfunkel, Glen Campbell, Joni Mitchell, U2, Dolly Parton and the Beach Boys, showing the mechanics behind melody, chords, rhythm and production, and examining authorship, recognition and legacy. His journalism has appeared in national newspapers including The Guardian, The Times, The Independent and the Financial Times, and his experience as a singer-songwriter and band frontman shapes how he reports on songwriting craft and studio practice.

Niamh Browne is a journalist with The Irish Times whose work joins live music, youth culture and everyday lifestyle coverage in a conversational, on-the-ground style. She writes across music, pop culture, Irish language and youth culture, often mixing reported features with practical service information and field reporting. Her beat treats gigs, festivals, travel and everyday spending as parts of one cultural landscape, focusing on how people actually experience them. She covers live music and festivals through guides and reviews, youth culture through pieces on gym etiquette, post-Leaving Cert trips and street-level vox pops, and everyday value through tests of €5 lunches, luxury Easter eggs and kitchen appliances. She works across formats, fronting video and podcast pieces, and brings a background in music-focused reporting and student magazine editing to her current coverage.

Nick Krewen is an award-winning music journalist known for long-view coverage of popular music, especially the Canadian scene and how artists’ careers unfold over time. He writes music and culture features for the Toronto Star, producing reported stories that connect local venues, national milestones and global recognition. His beat is Canadian music history, artist careers, industry dynamics and performance formats, with subjects ranging from album cover recalls to fan–critic tensions and live shows that mix disciplines. He blends historical context, deep archival work and narrative profiles that track artists across genres and stages. His reporting uses past coverage, local circuits and detailed scene-setting to show how clubs, neighbourhoods and industry infrastructure shape careers, and how branding, songwriting, business choices and audience response fit into a broader story of music and culture.

Nick Ruskell treats heavy music as a single long story, linking frontline interviews and new releases to four decades of scenes, records and characters. He is a senior commissioning editor and writer at Kerrang!, focused on rock, metal, punk and alternative music, especially heavy guitar bands and the culture around them. His coverage of classic metal, including Iron Maiden, uses deep knowledge and long, conversational quotes to show how legacy acts remain active creative forces. He also covers newer and underground artists such as Sleep Token and Hellripper, using biography, mood and context to explain why new tracks and albums matter. Ruskell wrote Kerrang! Living Loud: Four Decades On The Frontline Of Rock, Metal, Punk, And Alternative Music. His remit spans reviews, playlists, new music and canon-style lists, and he also contributes on rock and heavy music topics to national newspapers and other media.

Paolo Ragusa stands out for connecting punk scenes, mosh pits, and post-grunge histories to today’s rock and pop, treating genre and fan behavior as parts of a longer story. He is an associate editor at Consequence, where he focuses on music coverage and oversees news, reviews, and long-form features. His core beat is alternative and pop rock, covering emerging indie bands, mainstream alternative and pop-adjacent artists, and entertainment news around established acts, including tours, releases, and milestones. He reports by pairing newsy coverage of new releases with context-rich essays, using announcements to explain what makes artists distinctive. He writes large-scale lists and rankings like “200 Best Songs of 2023,” and his criticism can be sharply unsparing on big-name acts. His scene essays and anniversary features examine how bands evolve, how live spaces shape culture, and where rock and pop are headed.

Paul Elliott follows the long arc of classic rock, using band histories, album rankings and deep interviews to show how legacy artists and records endure. He is a freelance writer for Classic Rock at Louder and has worked for leading music titles since the mid-1980s. His real beat is the rock canon, treating albums and songs as stories to be unpacked, often tackling full catalogues such as Bon Jovi, Van Halen and The Black Crowes and deciding what holds up. He specialises in origin stories for landmark songs and albums, including Rush’s Tom Sawyer, AC/DC’s Back In Black, Toto and David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. He conducts substantial retrospective interviews with performers like Jimmy Page, Dennis DeYoung and members of FM. His long-form features and books, including the first biography of Guns N’ Roses, favour structure, depth and precise detail.

Peter Knegt treats pop culture as queer culture, using music, film and performance to explore identity, legacy and representation. He works with the arts team at the CBC, where he hosts, produces and curates series foregrounding queer perspectives across music, cinema and performance, including the Canadian Screen Award‑winning talk series Here & Queer. His coverage centres on LGBTQ artists and icons, pairing personal essays with curated conversations that show how queer stories shape mainstream culture. Through Queeries, his long‑running column, and the essay series Emerging Queer Voices, he examines queer art, culture and identity as a canon worth documenting and debating. He also runs a queer cinema club and curates screenings, festivals and retrospectives, emphasizing queer cultural history and the preservation of LGBTQ artistic legacies.

Ryan MacDonald uses music stories as community stories, showing how songs, traditions and culture shape everyday life. He is a reporter and video journalist for CTV Atlantic at CTV News, focusing on features where music intersects with heritage, education and grassroots initiatives. He covers how choirs and performers carry place-based history and identity, and how music is used to promote regional pride and tourism. His work often highlights youth and music education, including school projects and cultural camps that build confidence and pass on traditions. He also reports on broader community and social issues, from political debate around celebrity performances to environmental cleanups, online bullying and inclusion for people living with autism. His reporting is feature-driven and human-centred, built around individuals, student groups and volunteers, with clear story arcs and accessible language.

Ryan Soulliere is distinct for turning a morning radio show’s weekly spins into clear, three-song playlist recommendations built for everyday listening. He is a music curator and associate producer on CBC’s London Morning, where he listens to a high volume of new releases each week to find tracks that work on the program. His recurring “3 songs from London Morning to boost your playlist” series highlights local and Canadian artists and presents each track as a direct addition to listeners’ playlists, including themed editions such as an International Women’s Day playlist. He also selects music for the show more broadly, works behind the scenes as a technician, and appears on air with weather and traffic updates. His hands-on engagement includes bringing his own musicianship to the program.

Shawn Van Horn connects music history with screen culture, treating songs, albums, movies, and TV shows as one 1990s and horror centered canon. He is a senior features author at Collider, where he writes features, lists, recaps, and reviews focused on horror and 1990s film and television, along with broader movie and TV criticism. His music work centers on rock records and the 1990s, using ranked lists and long form features to explain why specific albums matter and how they fit into wider trends. He reports in a straightforward, explanatory style, tracing influence, atmosphere, pacing, and character dynamics to show how genre stories work. His portfolio also includes reviews on aggregate platforms and features and news for wrestling and sports outlets, keeping his focus on narrative entertainment across music, screen, and wrestling.

Sophie Caraan focuses on deep coverage of music-fashion intersections and the business evolution of Asian music industries, moving past standard artist profiles to examine cultural crossovers and industry mechanics. She is Managing Editor at Hypebeast, shaping coverage that connects musical movements with design innovation and commercial strategy. She reports on music-fashion collaborations, such as NIGO’s 30-year career and exhibitions like “From Japan with Love,” G-DRAGON’s PEACEMINONE x Nike collection, and BTS’s expansion into publishing. She investigates Asian music industry mechanics, including K-pop global publishing strategies, contractual frameworks, and major label re-recording limits. She analyzes cultural movements and label-artist relationships around artists like Tyler, the Creator and Kendrick Lamar. She integrates design perspectives, examining stage design, merchandise, album packaging, and visual language as extensions of musical identity and immersive fan experiences.

Spencer Kornhaber is a staff writer at The Atlantic who treats pop music and culture as a way to understand power, identity, and the stories people tell about contemporary life. He writes criticism that ties songs, stars, and media narratives to debates over cultural decline, gender, and public discourse. His pieces blend close listening with reporting and big-picture argument, using individual trends as entry points into larger claims about the health of popular culture. He has written major features on whether culture is in terminal decline, on the role of outlets such as Pitchfork, and on artists like Zach Bryan and Earl Sweatshirt. His work extends to dance music, club culture, pop divas, and platforms such as the Jubilee YouTube channel, and he covers how entertainment, politics, and internet media intersect through essays, reported pieces, podcast appearances, and a curated volume of criticism.

Sydney Brasil stands out for music and entertainment reporting that tracks how artists, fandoms and online culture collide. She is a social editor at Exclaim! and a music and culture journalist. Her work pairs fast news on releases, tours and live-music developments with clear, factual stories about how musicians handle audiences in public and online. She covers guitar-driven music, internet-era pop-punk, cult film franchises and offbeat entertainment with the same news-first style. Her reporting has appeared in the Toronto Star and Complex, and she wrote a Spring 2025 cover story on DJO. She writes with a social editor’s eye, using concrete details, key posts and practical impact rather than nostalgia or flourish.

Taylor Ardrey is a news reporter at USA TODAY whose coverage sits where music, screen culture and social media-driven fame meet, with a recurring focus on Black artists and the intersections of pop culture and public life. She centers contemporary music and the wider entertainment world, combining service journalism with practical guides to awards shows, live festivals and major releases, plus photo-driven stories that document red carpet fashion and cultural memory. Ardrey writes about events like the Grammys, MTV Video Music Awards and protest-themed festivals, and covers pop and hip-hop projects from artists such as Cardi B, Teyana Taylor and LL Cool J with attention to how fans can watch, attend or obtain them. Previously a news reporter for Atlanta Black Star, she also conducts entertainment video interviews with actors and digital creators tied to television series and podcasts.

Yonhap provides The Korea Times with fast, wide-ranging wire copy on K-pop and the broader Korean music industry, prioritizing speed and breadth over deep features on individual artists. It delivers short, fact-dense updates on new singles, albums and chart moves by major and emerging groups, focusing on clear news hooks and key commercial metrics such as domestic rankings and global chart positions. Yonhap also reports on tours, festivals and large live events, outlining itineraries, markets and venue scale and linking live activity to growth plans for agencies and artists. Its coverage tracks strategic maneuvers by major entertainment companies, joint ventures and policy-linked initiatives around Korean pop culture. The style is compact, neutral and data-driven, with minimal scene-setting and limited quotes, aimed at moving verified information quickly into circulation.