Whenever we start planning our annual Summer Music Issue, the criteria for the cover stories is mostly just based on what music we know deep in our heart of hearts (and ear of ears) is going to be the thing that people listen to on their way to the beach, when they are trying to cool down after work, when they sign up for a Zipcar account so they can get a car for like four hours to take their dogs to an actual park. Some years, there aren’t any obvious choices, other years it feels like we’d be stupid to avoid the songs that we know we’ll all be jamming for the next couple months and beyond. This was one of those years. For FADER #80 we put 2 Chainz, the underdog rapper with a crystal-clear voice and a penchant for bizarre punchlines on one cover. If you think you haven’t heard him, well, you definitely have. He’s on 90% of the songs on the radio and 100% of the songs coming from any car window anywhere. The dude is unavoidable right now. On the other side we’ve got Beach House, who just recently released their fourth album, Bloom. It’s an incredibly lush record, and considering that each Beach House record seems to have gotten progressively more gorgeous, it’s no surprise that this one looks to be their most beautifully constructed, ambitious album yet. In addition, we’ve got an interview with Usher, a lengthy dissection of the great but often uncredited work of mastermind producer Philippe Zdar, a fashion story in the hot Arizona desert, Gen Fs on future heavyweights like Chief Keef, Laurel Halo, DIIV, and a whole lot more. If that’s not enough, we’ve got a stellar style section and all sorts of other ultra-interesting content from every unexplored niche you can think of.

FADER #80 will be on newsstands next week or sooner, but you can read both cover features right now. Links to those stories and more are below.

* 2 Chainz: Second Life
* Beach House: Tidal Pull
* Usher: High Note