Brandon Stosuy is the co-founder and editor in chief of The Creative Independent. He previously worked as director of Editorial Operations at the online music publication, Pitchfork. Brandon curates the annual Basilica SoundScape festival in Hudson, New York, and has been a music curator at MoMA PS1 in New York City and the Broad museum in Los Angeles. For over a decade, he and the visual artist Matthew Barney have collaborated on a series of live art and music events in Long Island City. Up Is Up, But So Is Down, his anthology of downtown New York literature, was a 2006 Village Voice book of the year. Brandon is also the author of three books on creativity, Make Time for Creativity, Stay Inspired, How to Fail Successfully (all published by Abrams) and two children’s books, Music Is... and We Are Music (both published by Simon & Schuster). In November of 2024 he published the anthology, Sad Happens: A Celebration Of Tears, also on Simon & Schuster. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two sons.
collect on:
Music Mentions
- 7 Seconds
- Minor Threat
- Bad Brains
- 3rd Street Jazz
- Philadelphia Record Exchange
- Zipperhead
- Tower Records
- Factsheet Five
- Maximum RocknRoll
- Slumberland Records
- Versus (band)
- Helium
- Grifters
- Sub Pop Records
- Pitchfork
- Trash Talk
- Animal Collective
- Moor Mother
- Pussy Riot
From small town perspective shifts (9:15):
- Mark Richardson
- The National
- The Jesus and Mary Chain
- Chromatics
- Rihanna
- Kelly Moran
- The Cure
- Fugazi
- Helado Negro
- Caroline Polachek
- Chelsea Wolfe
Curatorial evolution over the years (20:00):
- True Panther Sounds
- DFA Records
- Black Dice
- Grimes
- Gang Gang Dance
- Pig Destroyer
- Julianna Barwick
- Pharmakon
- Evian Christ
- Jonathan Bepler
- The Haxan Cloak
- Nick Zinner
- Hanif Abdurraqib
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor
- Explosions in the Sky
- Basilica Music Festival
- Justin Vernon
- Bon Iver
- The Village Voice
- Interpol
- Liturgy
- JD Samson
- Laughing Hyenas
Q&A
- Sacred Bones Records
- Treefort Music Festival
- SXSW
- Cassandra Jenkins
- MJ Lenderman
- Waxahatchee
- Youth of Today
- Depeche Mode
- Swirlies
- Black Tambourine
- Velocity Girl
- Majical Clouds
- Horsegirl
- Public Enemy
- “Edutainment” by Boogie Down Productions
- Chuck D
- Flava Flav
- Pallbearer
- Sumac
- Neutral Milk Hotel
- Jeff Mangum
- Swans
Discovering music today (31:00):
- Michael Miller
- Ed Park
- Ariel Gordon
- Greta Rainbow
- Jen Pelly
- Max Friedman
- Jeffrey Silverstein
- Evan Minsker
- Phillip Sherburne
- Anthony Fontana
- Ed Horrox
- 4AD
First album ever purchased (41:00):
- “Doolittle” by The Pixies
Most recent album purchased (42:28):
- “Come With Me If You Want To Live” by Devon Welsh
Artists discovered in the past year (45:17):
- Marina Allen
- Freak Slug
- Aoife Nessa Frances
- Hannah Stratton
- Lucky Break
Desert island discs (50:09):
- “Disintegration” by The Cure
- “Loveless” by My Bloody Valentine
- “69 Love Songs” by The Magnetic Fields
