i-o

Inside the Social Media Bubble

Inside our heads where it's 72 degrees and sunny and it always plays music we already like.
Ron Hardy and Robert Williams

Dancing While Black, Young and Queer in the 1970s

Lessons from Robert Williams: How dealing with the police was an essential part of dancing while Black, queer and young in the 1970s.

2021: A Bass Idiocy

Harold Heath drags you through another tumultuous year in dance music. You're going to re-live it, and you're going to LIKE it

Chicago Is Becoming the Tiny Town from Footloose Where It’s Illegal To Dance

Another day, another closure. Who would want to open a nightclub in Chicago?
Nightclub, photo by Alexander Popov

Why Are All the Nightclubs Shutting Down?

It's gone global. From London to New York we're hearing the same thing: where the fuck are all the nightclubs going?

5Chicago.com is Now 5Mag.net

A bit of meta for our readers who may have followed us to this site from an old link or post: 5 Mag has moved from our historic domain at 5chicago.com to our new...
records-1068

Finding Your Fam

A survivor's guide to happiness in a world full of dancefloor acquaintances & strangers on the internet.

Your AirPods Are Tiny Bombs

Your AirPods will last longer on this planet than your bones, if they doesn't explode first.

Namaste Bros: superstar DJs and plague raves in paradise

The party never ended for the rich - or the superstar DJs capitalizing on slack lockdowns in Mexico.

My Life in Analog Hell

It started with a Roland Juno-106. Thousands of dollars later, I had all this beautiful analog gear and couldn't write a note on it. A year in analog hell by Ed Martinez.
Steve Albini

RIP Steve Albini, who probably hated everything we love

Steve Albini hated dance music, and "hated" was the word he used. We still admired him anyway.

RA Kills Off Its Top DJ Poll

This is fantastic news.
Bob Moog

After Moog: The most depressing story in the industry gets worse

A storied company continues to gut staff and reportedly shift product manufacturing overseas under new ownership.

The White House once again leaves nightclubs in limbo

America's music venues have been tossed a lifeline in the Save Our Stages Act, which is now part of the stimulus package being held hostage by the White House.

Purged: How a failed economic theory still rules the digital music marketplace

A discredited economic theory is still guiding the decisions of most digital music labels today - even if they don't know it. This is the dumb theory of the Long Tail and how a tsunami of shitmusic destroyed it.
Pioneer CDJ-3000

Why is Pioneer paying everyone to write about the CDJ-3000?

All discussion of the "industry standard" on the largest dance music media sites has been paid for by Pioneer itself.
soundcloud

Tears of a Cloud

Don't cry for the demise of SoundCloud. But it's sad what SoundCloud should have been.

Spotify has made millionaires. Almost none of them are musicians.

Spotify's Serfs: A new report breaks down the Black Box of Streaming and the brutal financial realities of the music industry's streamonomics.

The AI music company shitting up your streams

A single AI music company claims it has created 14% of the world's recorded music and are flooding streaming platforms. Who, or what, is Boomy?

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