With another NFL season coming to a close, Pop Evil frontman Leigh Kakaty couldn’t help but compare his band’s current state to that of the long-beleaguered Detroit Lions. “We know we’re not going to win a Super Bowl every year,” Kakaty said just days before the Lions failed to make the NFL playoffs.

Ani DiFranco is no stranger to politics. A leader in the feminist movement, the singer-songwriter and poet isn’t afraid to dive deep, meeting social issues head-on not only through her music, but in activism.

There was a time when she even considered taking a more active role, flirting with the idea of serving in public office.

In the summer of 1980, Cheap Trick guitar virtuoso Rick Nielsen walked into a New York City recording studio to record I’m Losing You with John Lennon. A few months later, the Beatle was assassinated. 

Working alongside Lennon is just one of the many astonishing plaudits Nielsen has received in his long career that started in 1965 but took off in 1977 with the mainstream success of Cheap Trick’s self-titled debut. 

Politically charged and vinyl-inspired, Grand Rapids punk group 78 Revolutions Per-Minute might have been a long time coming, but the band is now quickly accelerating the local music scene, despite these divisive times.