{"id":13159,"date":"2025-10-20T15:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T19:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wecb.live\/?p=13159"},"modified":"2026-03-19T12:05:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:05:49","slug":"for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"For the Love of the Game: Mano Sundaresan Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Design by Mo Kreuger<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Christian Jones<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mano Sundaresan is currently the head of editorial content at Pitchfork and the founder of music blog No Bells. I talked to him about the state of music journalism in our current world, including but not limited to: physical vs. digital media, AI, genre labels, Sp*tify, starting No Bells, and what he sees for the future of Pitchfork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where did you end up going to school? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams College in Western Mass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what did you study there?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I studied philosophy and I almost double majored in math.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you had any, what would be your earliest memory of music journalism?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel like my earliest memories of criticism weren\u2019t so much reviews as they were lists. When I was like 10 or 11, I would type \u2018best albums of the 2000s\u2019 or something on Google and find a bunch of lists from various publications, including Pitchfork. I would end up writing for Passion of the Weiss<\/a>, who had really thorough lists. It started there for me. Lists are still a really big love of mine, and not in a SEO, clickbait way, but in a real way\u2014as a form of criticism that\u2019s very generative and can put you on to a lot of cool stuff. I started to really pay attention to Pitchfork and other blogs during high school, which for me was 2011 or so to 2015. And I think that was because I felt as though my immediate friend group wasn\u2019t very tapped in, and I had a curiosity about stuff that was happening, like many kids, beyond the surface. I was the kid that put everyone else on to Future and stuff. And five, four years later, they\u2019re all obviously on it. But I was that type of kid for sure, like playing MF Doom when we\u2019re all hanging out and stuff. A really visceral memory of music criticism was, I just remember looking at the very, early Anthony Fantano videos, when he had a black screen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wow. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was just giving shit that I really liked bad scores and I was disagreeing with him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the fun of it\u2014when you read something where your like what the fuck? How could you say that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember when he gave Dark Twisted Fantasy<\/em> a 6. I was like, no way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So would you say this was the time that you were consciously starting to listen to and discover music? More of a \u2018I get to choose what I’m going to listen to\u2019? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I would say so. I think before I even started reading, I was doing that. I did just say I didn\u2019t have many tapped-in friends, but I did have some very tapped-in cousins and relatives. I had this one cousin who\u2014I grew up in Mass, and he\u2019s got probably five, six years on me\u2014put me onto like Lil B and A$AP Rocky\u2014some of the early cloud rap stuff that was subversive at the time and people were hating on it. He was wholly embracing it, and I kind of sided with him. I think I was on the path to figuring out my own taste from a young age and it certainly helped that my parents were very supportive, even if they were like \u2018what the hell are you doing?\u2019 They set me up. They got me an iPod and when I wanted to buy CDs, they were like, \u2018why are you buying CDs?\u2019 I had a weird audiophile phase in high school, so I was ripping CDs and stuff. They supported that even though they were like, \u2018this guy\u2019s kind of weird.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s awesome. Have you put them on to anything that they unsuspectedly liked, like your parents really like A$AP Rocky or something like that?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know about your parents, but my parents are never going to just sit down and listen to music. I feel like they\u2019re not like those types of people. I feel like for my parents, music was never an active activity. An active thing, or passion. But I put my dad, especially, on to a lot of the stuff that he likes. He really likes Kendrick. I feel like I sort of reignited his interest in Steely Dan\u2014he used to like Steely Dan and then I got into them irrespective of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, was a lot of your early music discovery on streaming platforms or SoundCloud or was it also on non-digital channels?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think Spotify only started to take over after I was, and I\u2019m aging myself a lot, about to graduate from high school. Honestly, I feel very grateful for this. I lived in the last of the pre-streaming era, it was like The Last of the Mohicans. My brother, who\u2019s five years younger than me, doesn\u2019t remember life before streaming. And I fully do. Not only do I remember it, it\u2019s still kind of wired into me a little. I have a very obsessive personality about organizing my music library, for instance. And I think that\u2019s one of those things that, if you ask a kid, they\u2019re like, \u2018why would you waste your time doing that? You can just go on Spotify and it’s all organized for you. The metadata is all right.\u2019 And I don\u2019t have a good answer for that, but because I really value ownership, I had a really big offline music library that accumulated up until college, and streaming has sort of withered it away a little bit. But the one invaluable thing about that more than anything is it really made me know the music. I can tell because after streaming, my memory is starting to fail me a little bit\u2014stuff like if this is the seventh track on this album. My memory for the core records of pre-streaming is just so strong, and I have a much closer relationship to music as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was your collection mostly like CDs or did you also like to collect vinyl or cassettes or anything like that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was mostly just MP3s. I mean just straight up files. I had a really good organization system for all my music on my hard drives and stuff and then I have a lot of CDs. That\u2019s my main thing. So to this day I have hundreds of CDs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a bunch of CDs at home and I don\u2019t bring them to school just because I don\u2019t usually have enough time to sit down and put them on because I really try to be engaged when I\u2019m listening to them. That\u2019s another thing pre-streaming vs. post-streaming, there\u2019s a tendency to just throw music on and not really pay as much attention. Whereas if you have the physical thing, it\u2019s more of a ritual.<\/strong> It\u2019s more of an act and that\u2019s really special.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Totally, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You started <\/strong>No Bells<\/strong><\/a> in 2021, was that during college at all? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I graduated at this point. I started it at my first job. I was working at NPR at the time, probably like a year into COVID. I was living in D.C. for my job at NPR. Then due to the pandemic, I thought it\u2019d be best if I just went home to Massachusetts. I stayed with my parents to save some money, and you know, not get COVID. The work I was doing with NPR was extremely hard news. Every day the new COVID death toll was the headline. And I was like this is horrible. Even though it was important and a humongous opportunity for somebody in their early twenties, I needed an outlet for the thing I really love to do, which is writing about music. I wasn\u2019t having the best luck getting my pitches accepted anywhere\u2014I don\u2019t think I really had the tools to properly pitch in hindsight. That\u2019s a big part of what I\u2019m trying to do at Pitchfork, bringing back mentorship in some way, at least as much as possible. But I didn\u2019t have that around then. So instead, I just started my own blog and initially it was sort of an arc, like a place to sort of throw up stuff that I wasn\u2019t getting accepted anywhere else, as well as some of my friends\u2019 stuff that was lying on their hard drives, things that were shelved. Magazines were shuttering around this time, so people just had pieces sitting around. And then within six to eight months, I started to take it more seriously. And my close friend from high school Srikar\u2014well, we sort of drifted apart, but he was still somebody I saw doing cool shit\u2014stepped up to be a designer for the site. Then this sort of taste of the site started to take shape over the next few years. In the pandemic era, hyperpop was cool to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And is the name a reference to the phrase \u2018no bells and whistles?\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One reference is that. I think I was trying to do a real galaxy brain thing with that. The actual inspo was the song \u201cNo Bells<\/a>\u201d by Cousin Stizz, who\u2019s a Boston rapper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then how did you guys come to the purple design? Is there any story behind that? It\u2019s just such a unique, cool choice.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, it\u2019s my favorite color. And I\u2019m doing a lot of galaxy brain here, but I had a radio show at Williams, which was called \u2018The Purple Tape,\u2019 which is a reference to Ray Quon\u2019s debut album, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…<\/em><\/a>, which was released in a cassette as a purple tape. It\u2019s a really sick cassette. And the color purple was just in my head. Western mass has like a big aura of purple\u2014I feel like there\u2019s multiple colleges that use purple, like my own. In the blog era that I was in, when I was looking at the Substack universe, I felt like things were sort of designed very one-note. I don\u2019t know, I just wanted to have a weird, random color that set us apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you had a radio show in college, what was the pivot between philosophy and math to journalism, NPR? Job prospects? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not going to lie. I\u2019m sure you felt this at times too, but I just didn’t really know what I was doing in college. I mean, I still love philosophy. I\u2019m literally reading a book right now that I read in one of my cognitive science classes because I just think it\u2019s so fascinating. I think I had aspirations at one point of being a lawyer. So philosophy, I argued in my brain, was a sort of precursor to that. As far as math, I don\u2019t have as good of an answer. I think I just did well in one or two math classes at Williams and I was like, let me just keep taking them. Did not do well in the later ones, and that was burning me out. The thing about a school like that is that you don\u2019t really get much career advice and\u2014I mean, they have a career center\u2014none of these courses shapes your actual life in a meaningful way. I think with philosophy, it always exists in the background of how I write about music, but it\u2019s not like a thing I\u2019m actively referencing all the time. So I\u2019m not going to sit here and be like, oh, \u2018I\u2019m so grateful that I studied philosophy.\u2019 I just did, and I\u2019m more grateful that I had things like radio and I was in the jazz band. I learned a lot from that. And I probably should have just majored in music, but I was stubborn. And I also wanted to please my parents a little bit. I think they were like \u2018what the hell are you doing through your life?\u2019 So I was like, at least this will get me a consulting job, maybe. Why did I pivot, though? I took the LSAT in my senior year, and I studied for it and everything. I think I did okay actually, but I was in the middle of that session in a mini auditorium and I just felt this pang of what the hell am I doing with my life<\/em>. From then on I was like I\u2019m going to figure this music shit out one way or another. I obviously am not talented enough to play an instrument professionally, but I am pretty good at writing about it. And I think I\u2019ve already started to carve out a niche there for myself. So I followed that instinct. I also was taking a course at Williams\u2014I know I was just talking shit about Williams\u2014but I was taking a one credit course called \u2018Making Radio\u2019 my senior year, which was really formative for me. It gave me the confidence to try and pursue radio out of college. I had a little portfolio from that. I had a lot of writing for this one blog, and then I just kind of used all that to get this internship at NPR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s cool, you were like the Leibniz of Williams who writes music on the side. I love philosophy, too. I was actually going to ask you about your sources of inspiration outside of the music itself. First of all, what instrument did you play for a jazz band? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I play piano. [Tilts camera down to reveal his laptop was seated atop his keyboard.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember in your <\/strong>Groovy Steppin\u2019 Shit<\/em><\/strong> review, you had this line about seventh chords that was just so specific. And I was like, okay, so this guy must play something.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, that’s a good catch. It pops out here and there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What kind of philosophy do you like to read?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I studied a lot of philosophy of mind throughout college. I almost was a cognitive science concentrator, actually, but I didn\u2019t do it. I think that stuff\u2019s interesting to me because at the time I was very curious about AI\u2014I know we\u2019re in the thick of AI shit right now, but in the late 2010s thinking about AI was considered pretty, you know, it wasn\u2019t like a real thing affecting us all the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right. It was kind of sci-fi.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. I think a lot of the shit I was reading about philosophy of the mind was loosely introducing frameworks to think about AI. You start with the mind body stuff, but then it gets really interesting with whether consciousness can emerge from complex biological systems or if it\u2019s something that\u2019s wholly separate in substance from the biological. And that also makes you ask more questions, like, if a dog had consciousness, would it be the same kind of thing as ours? Or is it even possible to understand? That\u2019s phenomenology stuff. But yeah, all this interests me because the early questions I was having were about AI. I was on that heavy in college. I think it just still fascinates me. The one I\u2019m reading right now is by this guy Dan Dennett, who\u2019s a really good philosopher of mind. I\u2019ve read like four or five books by Fanon. And just in general, black radicalism is a really interesting framework for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sick, Fanon\u2019s phenomenology is great. So to pivot back to No Bells\u2014I loved your <\/strong>interview<\/strong><\/a> with billy woods, you guys got really deep. There were a lot of really cool questions you asked that got a lot out of him. Do you have any advice for younger people who are interviewing musicians on how to make it good and deep?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. I don\u2019t have a specific line of questions that I sort of apply to every artist or subject. But I think with the woods interview, and with a couple of others where I feel like I achieved a similar level of depth, there was a through line. With woods, he\u2019s talked about his music so much, and I did my research and found out he comes from this worldly professorial background. His parents are intellectuals, and one of them, I\u2019m pretty sure, is a political refugee. There was a lot of shit going on there. I think people ask about that political refugee aspect and all that, but they didn\u2019t so much ask about all the good from that. All the literature he\u2019s probably absorbed and all this like content that has surely shaped his worldview and his music. So I guess that was my way into that interview, was to use all this stuff that billy woods is into as a way to paint a picture of who he is. And I think that\u2019s often how I approach a lot of interviews. I do a lot of research, I go Nardwaur. I try to find a nugget or something that kind of makes me go \u2018huh, where did that come from?\u2019 It might have been briefly touched on in some interview, but never elaborated on further. I try to make that the center of my line of questioning. Also I think the music will always be there. We\u2019ll always get to it. These are the places I like to start because I think it throws the subject off a little bit, and it also opens them up in ways you wouldn\u2019t have expected. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fail-safe. I think there are some artists who genuinely can\u2019t talk about much else besides music, and that\u2019s fine. When I try to talk about things about myself besides writing I freeze up. So it\u2019s tough, and not always successful, but I would say find an angle into the interview, meaning you did the research, but also you could maybe relate to that and have more to say about it and create more of a dialogue with the artist. In my case, I was asking about stuff I was reading about at the time. I\u2019d read some James Baldwin, and I was like, it\u2019s just so billy woods coded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you pulled the quote and he pulled the quote.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, literally. That was cool. He was walking around his house and finding some shit to read out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For No Bells, it\u2019s mostly all digital, and it has been until there was a zine launch?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I mean I would just call it a magazine. It was kind of the thing that we\u2014me and Srikar, who had designed the whole thing, and a couple of my friends\u2014had always wanted to do. I feel like the whole vibe of the site is almost physical. We\u2019re trying to put you on to real scenes, and a lot of it was starting to get more into events and being outside. So we wanted to have a physical version of the blog. I love that magazine. I fully understand why nobody does it though. It\u2019s so much work and there\u2019s like no payoff. I mean, the payoff\u2019s holding it in your hand, I guess, and everybody thinking it\u2019s cool. But you don\u2019t really make much money on it. It\u2019s purely for the love of the game. You have to think of it like that, and that it\u2019s going to be a lot of work and a lot of hell. If you accept all of that, then maybe it\u2019ll be tolerable to work on it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll have a relic.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll have a relic. The worst thing, though, is it\u2019s straight up incompatible with the speed of our current moment. We were publishing things in that magazine that we\u2019d collected over the course of the year, so some of the pieces were already dated by the time we published it. One of the artists whose debut album we were talking about so much put out another album like three months later. I was like, oh my god.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you say it\u2019s for the love of the game, that\u2019s definitely true\u2014it comes through with every aspect of it. What was the team of No Bells like? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s still going, by the way. I just kind of hang out and give the final word on certain things, but I mostly let Kieran Press-Reynolds steer the ship there. But when we put out this magazine last year, I would say the team was me, this guy Millan Verma, who\u2019s from Atlanta, and he has his own blog now called Derange<\/a> that\u2019s really good. It\u2019s more about politics and stuff. And then, my friend Srikar from high school\u2014then another guy from my high school named Tyler. And we had Patty, who\u2019s an editor at our resident advisor. She was helping edit. <\/strong>Kieran\u2019s sort of like the editor-in-chief now, I would say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kieran also writes at Pitchfork. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Kieran\u2019s a columnist at Pitchfork. When I took the reins at Pitchfork, I had to let go of the blog a little bit for conflict of interest reasons, but also because I didn\u2019t have time. I still host a radio show every month and I help out here and there. But as far as the rest of the blog, there\u2019s a bunch of writers, obviously, there\u2019s a bunch of freelancers. They all skew like mad young. I thought it was going to slow down, but there\u2019s somebody who emailed Kieran and I, and Mill\u2014I think we published a few things by him. And I just found out two days ago that he\u2019s 17. I\u2019m like, what?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wow.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s really good too. He\u2019s from Ireland and he\u2019s just going crazy. It makes me happy that people are still really tapped in and wanting to blog, you know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was the chain like, because you\u2019re all in different places? I\u2019m just looking for the nitty gritty.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, so with No Bells, it\u2019s a tight operation. Everyone sort of checks the pieces at some point. But when I was really cooking there, when it was really my thing, I was editing most stuff that came through. I\u2019d be fielding pitches, looking at my inbox, handling invoices, figuring out how much to pay each person, taking the copy, shaping it with the writer. I was trying to make these writers shine. One of the things about No Bells is that a lot of the copy that came in was kind of rough. These are writers who oftentimes don\u2019t even have a byline. But they have, in whatever email or DM they sent, a real curiosity about music and a scene that nobody else is covering. That was a big signal for me when I wanted to green-light something was like, I\u2019ve never seen like anything published on, for instance, the new wave of Cumbia in New York and L.A. Somebody pushed me that, and I don\u2019t think the story was there at all, but I felt the breadth of knowledge there and the amount of art it covered\u2014we had to run it after some edits because nobody else was going to do it. It all ties back to the love of the game thing and the urgency of needing to platform these scenes that have nothing. And it inadvertently benefited us because, for instance, nobody was writing about that Cumbia scene, so when this piece<\/a> went live, it got so much love. All these communities of DJs and listeners and dancers who listen to Cumbia and go to Cumbia shows every weekend were sharing the piece and reading it. And pieces like this often get cited by major publications, which redirects traffic to us. This happened especially when Kieran was doing a lot of writing at No Bells. Kieran\u2019s really good at hitting on an internet trend or phenomenon before it really takes over. Kieran wrote this piece called \u201cThis is corecore (we\u2019re not kidding)<\/a>,\u201d and it was the first writing about that, whatever that was on TikTok. Three months later, every public news outlet, even NBC was covering it. And then Kieran was interviewed on NBC about his No Bells piece. So it\u2019s a bit of that\u2014culture before it happens, you know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, totally. And where was the money coming from? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had a Patreon, which was just purely \u2018please give us money,\u2019 and there were really no perks. We didn\u2019t really know what we were doing. It started out with just me, so I didn’t have a mechanism for making money besides the Patreon, which surprisingly got a lot of love, enough to pay a writer at least. We had a partnership with the streaming platform Nina Protocol<\/a> for a bit. They would pay us every month for writing a No Bells column. It was pretty good, but it was like $1,000. That went pretty far to pay our writers. If we were paying people around $100 and $200 per piece, we could run five, six, seven stories in a month. I was trying to get that number up, but I was also very transparent in everything we did, like \u2018hey, this is how much you\u2019re not going to make.\u2019 We got paid from events, too. Not a lot. This one event we partnered with a distribution agency, a label, essentially, to put it on. Because we were the marketers or the promoters, they paid us a flat rate instead of doing ticketed. We found these kind of weird, creative ways to make money, but it wasn\u2019t ever a lot. Certainly not enough to quit our jobs. But it kept the lights on, I guess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, most people who are coming to blogs like that are kind of doing it for the love of the game, aren’t they? Not necessarily for the money. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how did Pitchfork come into the picture? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, I was in Chicago visiting my girlfriend, who was living there at the time and I got an email from Will Welch one day. It was this vague email that was like, \u2018big fan of your work, we\u2019d love to talk about No Bells.\u2019 Turns out he was basically like, \u2018we need somebody to run Pitchfork, and if you\u2019re interested, would love for you to apply.\u2019 I didn\u2019t even know there was an opening there. I wasn\u2019t even thinking about my career at the time. It was crazy that people were even considering me for these types of roles. So I applied and went through the process and got it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things that you\u2019re doing is the cover story zines. They\u2019ve been both so timely and culturally spot on. How are you guys deciding what covers to do? How did that idea come to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I got into the role, Will was obviously from the GQ universe. A big part of their editorial output is cover stories and these extremely premium, high-access stories about some of your favorite artists and celebrities. We started chatting about what Pitchfork cover stories look like. The initial angle was digital cover stories. He was like \u2018that\u2019s kind of what you guys have budget for, this makes sense for you guys.\u2019 But I felt a little bit unsatisfied by that. I was looking at the way GQ does it and there\u2019s such an interest in physical media right now. I thought even though we\u2019re part of GQ, there\u2019s very little similarity between the two brands. They\u2019re about access and being in the face of celebrities and the important people in culture. Pitchfork is at more of an arm\u2019s length, if not a whole yardstick\u2019s length, seeing it all play out and offering our takes on it, being more critical. We can make enemies as much as we can make friends. So cover stories are inherently a little bit against the grain of Pitchfork. I envisioned our cover stories to be about showing you what the future of music\u2019s going to be. If you\u2019ve noticed, none of the cover stories this year have been with a pop star, like Sabrina Carpenter or Tame Impala. They don\u2019t really need Pitchfork. We don\u2019t really need them\u2014we do actually for traffic, but we don\u2019t need to show you that they\u2019re good artists. Instead, I think the cover stories are somewhere between \u2018let me put you onto this\u2019 and the traditional cover story. I would like for someone to one day look at like the slate of cover stories\u2014the physical zines\u2014and see the next 10 years of music. I also think rarity is really important. I\u2019d much rather go for artists who have that kind of rare aura to them versus artists who are doing a lot of press promoting an album. That\u2019s why the first cover<\/a> is with Bladee. He didn\u2019t even have anything coming out. We were just like, \u2018let\u2019s pull up on Bladee and see what he\u2019s doing.\u2019 Nobody even knows what he\u2019s up to in Sweden. Nobody knows where he lives. We\u2019ve never seen the inside of his house before. I\u2019m sure Bladee will do more covers\u2014in fact, I\u2019m pretty sure he has a real publicist now who\u2019s trying to get him set up for that stuff, but we got him at this moment when he\u2019s just so cult. He doesn\u2019t really like to do interviews and he\u2019s off in Sweden doing whatever, reading books and shit. We wanted to catch him at that moment. It\u2019s also a good way to give the readers something that they really are craving. We do a lot of reviews, but a lot of artists don\u2019t want to do interviews these days. They\u2019d rather do a really big splashy story than 10 small interviews. So I think it\u2019s a balancing act between all these different vectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I think Oklou is even more perfectly in the middle because she\u2019s mysterious and there\u2019s new music coming out, whereas Bladee is this mythical figure in culture. You wrote a piece in 2021 on No Bells<\/strong> <\/em><\/strong>about how Pitchfork critics were getting heat for being critical.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still feel that. Now that I\u2019m at Pitchfork, obviously I\u2019m thinking about that every day. One thing I\u2019ve been trying to press is making sure that our freelancers are aware that they have to be super honest and rigorous. When we are scoring albums, really honoring the scoring guidelines, and if we don\u2019t like something, we should not be giving it a seven. A seven means you liked it. If you don\u2019t like something you give it a four. It makes for better journalism and people engage with the site more because we have more range and clearer opinions about things. It isn\u2019t just a \u2018let people enjoy things site.\u2019 Though when you have a lot of freelancers, because everybody has their own taste and everybody\u2019s pitching albums to us that they presumably like, you\u2019re going to end up getting a lot of people just enjoying things on the site. So that\u2019s something that I\u2019ve been really careful about since I got here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was there a shift from \u2018doing it for the love of the game\u2019 and working in this more money-oriented mindset?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest shift is that you can\u2019t just publish a piece because you feel like it. Everything has to have a weird justification. There\u2019s a pressure to bow-tie everything. And it\u2019s something that frankly is kind of dumb. At times I\u2019m just like, \u2018let\u2019s just publish this.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You mentioned this little snippet in a video for the Pitchfork staff September picks, and you were talking about Joanne Robertson\u2019s Blurrr<\/em>, which I actually just published a <\/strong>review<\/strong><\/a> of today. You threw out the term \u2018cloud rock,\u2019 which I had read on Nina Protocol. I\u2019m not the biggest fan of the label because I don\u2019t think it accurately describes this emerging web of \u2018genres\u2019 that is kind of nebulous. You have someone like Joanne Robertson who\u2019s more on the folk side, but still has this tinny-sounding production, and is in the same realm as some of these other artists like Mk.gee, who is maybe closer to the term \u2018cloud rock,\u2019 but I wanted to see if you had anything to say on that term specifically or on the way of categorizing the music. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, I kind of stood through that. I made that video and like such a whim. But it\u2019s just the latest iteration of people seeing a thing happening and then trying to put a label on it. I think this one\u2019s especially nebulous because A: not all these things are rock. And B: these artists won\u2019t even know each other. There\u2019s no through line in between\u2014I mean, some of the artists do. Going back to hyperpop, when I was in the weeds of that whole scene, I remember the biggest complaint was that the newer artists in the scene coming from SoundCloud and making rap, were being called \u2018hyperpop.\u2019 They hadn\u2019t even heard that term before, and Spotify put them on the same hyperpop playlist. I\u2019m always wary of this. I probably should have said something else in the video, but I think it is a useful signifier for now. For example people who are into ML Buch and whatever else, Nourished by Time and shit\u2014maybe this will be cool too. There is a connective tissue that\u2019s maybe about the way it sounds, the malaise of it all maybe. But maybe the need to classify it is dictated by the weird era of capitalism we\u2019re in. That\u2019s my non-answer answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much freedom do you give your columnists? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The columnists more or less have free reign. It\u2019s sick, honestly. There are weeks where we\u2019ll indulge them in a certain direction, case in point last week with Kieran. I don\u2019t know if you read it<\/a>, but it\u2019s about Taylor Swift. Most of the time, I let Kieran cook. And Kieran comes from a Business Insider <\/em>background, so he knows how to get people to read. He has a populism to his writing, I think, even though it\u2019s so niche. He wants to reach people, and I trust that he will. I think with Alphonse\u2019s column, it\u2019s much more of whatever is on Alphonse\u2019s mind, but dictated by the release cycle a little bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have any websites, blogs, writers, anyone you want to platform right now for us to go to stay tapped in?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. I really like this dude, my friend Tyler, has a blog called billdifferen.blogspot.com<\/a>. It\u2019s a great blog if you want to go back to lists. He\u2019s super tapped into Jersey Club and Baile Funk and SoundCloud rap. I think criticism is like very much an autobiography\u2014it\u2019s almost more autobiography than it is about external subject matter. I get that a lot from his writing. I also really like Samuel Hyland, who\u2019s a young writer. He writes for Pitchfork a little bit, but he has a really cool website called Sammy\u2019s World<\/a>. The design is crazy, and it\u2019s really good writing. Insanely long reads. I feel like every day I find out about a new blog or a new website through my email. I\u2019m honestly super off the whole Instagram music page thing. I am friends with some of those people, but I\u2019m just so sick of Instagram creators asking people what their favorite album is and like it\u2019s the same video on eight different pages. And the payola of all those sites\u2014you\u2019ll never catch me recommending any of those. I wish there was more of a means of getting good edits and having your writing shaped a little bit by someone older than you with a little bit more experience in the game. Right now everyone\u2019s self-publishing and that\u2019s great, but you can also clearly see what we\u2019re losing in that when these writers try to pitch at Pitchfork or something. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you guys get a lot of that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I do, actually. And we do publish some of them. Samuel Hyland\u2019s a good example. I don\u2019t think he was writing for anybody else by himself until he started to push for us. Generally, you need to have written something for sure, it doesn\u2019t even matter where.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Design by Mo Kreuger By Christian Jones Mano Sundaresan is currently the head of editorial content at Pitchfork and the founder of music blog No Bells. I talked to him about the state of music journalism in our current world, including but not limited to: physical vs. digital media, AI, genre labels, Sp*tify, starting No…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3669,"featured_media":13161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27,28],"class_list":["post-13159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-industry","tag-interview"],"yoast_head":"\nFor the Love of the Game: Mano Sundaresan Interview - wecb<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"For the Love of the Game: Mano Sundaresan Interview - wecb\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Design by Mo Kreuger By Christian Jones Mano Sundaresan is currently the head of editorial content at Pitchfork and the founder of music blog No Bells. I talked to him about the state of music journalism in our current world, including but not limited to: physical vs. digital media, AI, genre labels, Sp*tify, starting No...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"wecb\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-20T19:22:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-19T16:05:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/insta-scaled-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ellieabbey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"ellieabbey\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"27 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"ellieabbey\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#\/schema\/person\/736f3c02ed5a6f8b874489bf47cae5ce\"},\"headline\":\"For the Love of the Game: Mano Sundaresan Interview\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-20T19:22:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-19T16:05:49+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/\"},\"wordCount\":6253,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/insta-scaled-1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Industry\",\"Interview\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/\",\"name\":\"For the Love of the Game: Mano Sundaresan Interview - wecb\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/insta-scaled-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-20T19:22:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-19T16:05:49+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/insta-scaled-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/insta-scaled-1.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":2560},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"For the Love of the Game: Mano Sundaresan Interview\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/\",\"name\":\"wecb\",\"description\":\"The Underground Sound of Emerson College\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#organization\",\"name\":\"wecb\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/05\/BlIvEz0B_400x400.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/05\/BlIvEz0B_400x400.jpg\",\"width\":400,\"height\":400,\"caption\":\"wecb\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#\/schema\/person\/736f3c02ed5a6f8b874489bf47cae5ce\",\"name\":\"ellieabbey\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8c3ac22e505b64097aed91c57921f753e05de9d9101557ae2fc3036f67c3772a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8c3ac22e505b64097aed91c57921f753e05de9d9101557ae2fc3036f67c3772a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"ellieabbey\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/author\/ellieabbey\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"For the Love of the Game: Mano Sundaresan Interview - wecb","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"For the Love of the Game: Mano Sundaresan Interview - wecb","og_description":"Design by Mo Kreuger By Christian Jones Mano Sundaresan is currently the head of editorial content at Pitchfork and the founder of music blog No Bells. I talked to him about the state of music journalism in our current world, including but not limited to: physical vs. digital media, AI, genre labels, Sp*tify, starting No...","og_url":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/","og_site_name":"wecb","article_published_time":"2025-10-20T19:22:08+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-03-19T16:05:49+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":2560,"url":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/insta-scaled-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"ellieabbey","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"ellieabbey","Est. reading time":"27 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/"},"author":{"name":"ellieabbey","@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#\/schema\/person\/736f3c02ed5a6f8b874489bf47cae5ce"},"headline":"For the Love of the Game: Mano Sundaresan Interview","datePublished":"2025-10-20T19:22:08+00:00","dateModified":"2026-03-19T16:05:49+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/"},"wordCount":6253,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/insta-scaled-1.jpg","keywords":["Industry","Interview"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/","url":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/","name":"For the Love of the Game: Mano Sundaresan Interview - wecb","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/insta-scaled-1.jpg","datePublished":"2025-10-20T19:22:08+00:00","dateModified":"2026-03-19T16:05:49+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/insta-scaled-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/insta-scaled-1.jpg","width":2560,"height":2560},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/for-the-love-of-the-game-mano-sundaresan-interview\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"For the Love of the Game: Mano Sundaresan Interview"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#website","url":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/","name":"wecb","description":"The Underground Sound of Emerson College","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#organization","name":"wecb","url":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/05\/BlIvEz0B_400x400.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/05\/BlIvEz0B_400x400.jpg","width":400,"height":400,"caption":"wecb"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#\/schema\/person\/736f3c02ed5a6f8b874489bf47cae5ce","name":"ellieabbey","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8c3ac22e505b64097aed91c57921f753e05de9d9101557ae2fc3036f67c3772a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8c3ac22e505b64097aed91c57921f753e05de9d9101557ae2fc3036f67c3772a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"ellieabbey"},"url":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/author\/ellieabbey\/"}]}},"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":1,"label":"Uncategorized"}],"post_tag":[{"value":27,"label":"Industry"},{"value":28,"label":"Interview"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/87\/2025\/10\/insta-scaled-1-1024x1024.jpg",1024,1024,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"ellieabbey","author_link":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/milkcrate\/author\/ellieabbey\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":1,"name":"Uncategorized","slug":"uncategorized","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":877,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":1,"category_count":877,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Uncategorized","category_nicename":"uncategorized","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":27,"name":"Industry","slug":"industry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":27,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":14,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":28,"name":"Interview","slug":"interview","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":28,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":66,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13159"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14677,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159\/revisions\/14677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/wecb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}