Marcel Winatschek

The Midnight Wave

Ryan Adams does a show on Apple Music called The Midnight Wave. Once a month he’s in his LA studio with some friends and a robot, getting stoned and making radio the way it used to be made before it became a brand and quarterly earnings reports. Just conversation, music, no agenda. Perfect for three in the morning when you’re awake and the world’s finally quiet.

Five episodes in and Adams isn’t trying to impress anyone. He covered Taylor Swift’s 1989 album a few years back, track by track, and turned it into something else entirely—not a statement, just his version of it. The Midnight Wave has that same looseness. No performance, no personality brand, just someone who knows how to listen talking about music.

I can’t remember the last time I found radio like this. The kind of thing you turn on at three AM when you can’t sleep and you don’t want company exactly, but you don’t want to be alone either. It’s the voice without the obligation.