Author: kirklandc008@gmail.com

I recently dug out my CDs and started reripping them all. I’ve found a few forgotten gems in there, but few hit harder for me than the beautifully concise Professor Murder Rides the Subway EP. There was a period of time in the mid-aughts in NYC where it seemed like every indie band wanted you to let loose, dance like no one was watching, and just have some damn fun. Few embodied that as much as New York dance punk band Professor Murder.LCD Soundsystem and The Rapture were the biggest names of the dance punk revival. But there were also…

CarPlay is great for listening to music on the go, but a few tweaks will help it sound even better in your car. A. Aleksandravicius/Shutterstock Apple CarPlay gives you an easy solution for playing your favorite music from Spotify or Apple Music in your vehicle. However, it isn’t guaranteed to give you the best sound your car can produce. Your iPhone might feed the stereo a lower-quality stream than you expect, with settings that sound great through your headphones but awful through your car speakers. There’s no magic solution for this, given how much variance there…

A profound shift is currently redefining the automotive market around the $40,000 threshold. Mainstream mass-market compact SUVs and crossovers are aggressively advancing into traditional luxury territory, creating a direct value conflict with entry-level European offerings. By packaging top-tier interior materials into fully optioned upper trims, non-luxury manufacturers present a compelling proposition. Meanwhile, entry-level luxury vehicles at identical price points strip out basic features to protect baseline margins. This intentional dynamic narrowing of the value gap creates a functional substitute scenario, forcing pragmatic buyers to weigh the functional superiority of loaded mainstream offerings against the diminishing value of a basic badge.…

Lucid Air Midnight Dream Edition (Source: Lucid) A number of headlines have made a big deal out of Lucid’s recall of 27k vehicles for an apparent fire risk. But the problem had to do with an electronic fuse controlling LED lights, and a software update distributed last month already fixed the overheating issue. A long as Electrek has existed, media has loved to make a big deal out of any time the word “fire” is mentioned anywhere near an electric car. Despite that gas cars catch fire at a drastically higher rate than EVs, media pays inordinate attention to single…

Pictures of a used Audi Quattro being driven on UK roads

In conclusion, to make the best car-buying decision, it is best to have a full understanding of the cost of a car and how it will fit into your current financial situation. If you have a set amount of money in mind for your car-buying experience, you will be able to avoid getting into a car that costs too much. Also, by having a full understanding of the cost of a car, you can make the car-buying experience much more enjoyable for yourself. The monthly payment is not the only thing to consider when purchasing a car. There…

Car development is a more complicated matter than most people realize, and often choked by things like R&D budget cuts or corporate oversight. But, every now and again, automakers will throw caution to the proverbial wind and come up with something truly phenomenal. No cost-cutting nonsense, just pure automotive excellence to have us pick our jaws up off the floor. And, apparently, that’s precisely what Mercedes-AMG is up to with the highly anticipated GT Black Series right now. The model is being developed as a road-legal version of the brand’s GT3 race car, with an official reveal planned next year…

Volvo struck gold with the original S60 and V60 Polestar, which launched midway through the last decade. But as brilliant as that race-bred duo was, the performance clashed with the safety image Volvo had been cultivating over decades. As a result, they didn’t last long. Volvo spun off Polestar as a standalone brand for high-performance EVs in 2017, and the original Polestars exited shortly after. But Volvo wasn’t quite ready to give up on speedy sedans and wagons just yet. What followed was the even more potent S60 and V60 Polestar Engineered models, which today make great choices for buyers…

Remember when hot hatchbacks used to be cheap underpowered fun? An early Mk2 GTI 16V was a joy to wring out and three-wheel around corners, giving the driver every bit of its 127-horsepower Volkswagen four-pot at max-attack. And there was still room for a small drum kit in the boot, at least with the seats folded down. The hatchback in these photos definitely qualifies as hot. In fact, if the CarBuzz spies are accurate, it has more horsepower than a Hennessey Venom F5. Based on the aero we see, it should have gobs of downforce. Denza Z9GT Extreme Spy PhotoCarBuzz…

This isn’t the first time music publishers have sued a big AI company, but the scale makes it worth your attention. Sony Music and Warner Chappell have filed sweeping new lawsuits against Anthropic.  The publishers claim that Anthropic pirated tens of thousands of copyrighted songs to train Claude (via Business Insider). This chatbot has become quite popular for its accuracy and ability to handle complex tasks. Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends So what exactly do Sony and Warner claim? The companies filed their 48-page lawsuit late Friday in federal court in Northern California, claiming this is one of the largest…