Chris Black on culture in 2026: guitar music is back, late night TV is dying, and podcasts are the new medium
Feb 2, 2026 with Chris Black
Key Points
- Podcasts have displaced late-night television as the primary platform for celebrity promotion, with guest appearances on shows like How Long Gone moving more tickets and sales than broadcast slots.
- Guitar music is genuinely returning to the charts as hip-hop's dominance fades, with New York band Geese's SNL appearance signaling cultural relevance in an algorithm-fragmented streaming landscape.
- Musicians view AI as a workflow accelerator that has sped up editing and production by 10x rather than an existential threat, with the debate centered on where to draw ethical lines.
Summary
Chris Black, co-host of the How Long Gone podcast and founder of the apparel brand Handover, argues that the media landscape has shifted decisively toward podcasts and away from traditional broadcast television.
Late-night television is effectively finished as a cultural force. Celebrities still need places to promote projects, but a guest slot on Dax Shepard's podcast now moves more tickets, albums, and books than an appearance on Stephen Colbert. The format survived as long as it did because monoculture required it. Fragmented audiences made it structurally unworkable.
Podcasts vs. broadcast
How Long Gone runs on a three-episodes-per-week schedule—Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday—recorded on Zoom with no studio, no hair and makeup, no car service. Co-host Jason edits each episode immediately after recording and it goes up the next day. Guests can record from a hotel room with Wi-Fi and headphones, which loosens the conversation in ways a broadcast set doesn't allow. Black defines a podcast by its audio-only, RSS-distributed model. Netflix paying Pete Davidson to host a talk show is just a talk show.
Guitar music
Guitar music is genuinely returning. Hip-hop has been absent from the top 10 charts in a way that would have seemed implausible five years ago. New York band Geese, fronted by Cameron Winter, recently played SNL to a polarized reaction. Black reads that as a sign of cultural relevance rather than failure. He calls Winter a generational talent in the Neil Young and Thom Yorke mold. The fragmentation of streaming means people largely see what the algorithm surfaces, so the chart shift is real data rather than perception.
AI in music
Among musicians at the Grammys, AI anxiety exists but sits behind more immediate concerns: ticket pricing, streaming royalties, and basic industry economics. The actual conversation Black is hearing isn't about replacement. It's about workflow. Artists say AI has sped up editing and production by 10x. The ethical debate is about where to draw the line rather than whether to engage at all.
Concert pricing
On Harry Styles pricing 30 nights at Madison Square Garden at $100–$200 face value while secondary market prices surge far above that, Black argues the resellers and Ticketmaster bear the blame, not the artist. If demand instantly absorbs supply at two or three times face value regardless of where Styles prices the ticket, the artist is arguably leaving money on the table rather than extracting it. He compares this to Audemars Piguet raising Royal Oak retail prices in response to secondary market pressure, which partially normalized the gap without solving it.
Handover
Black launched the menswear brand Handover at the end of 2024 after roughly 15 years working adjacent to the fashion industry. Everything is made in Los Angeles. The full line includes t-shirts, denim, and sweats, all priced under $300. Denim sold well in the first drop and a second fit is coming. His broader read on menswear is that logomania has peaked. Suiting and tailoring are returning. The market is settling into something more flattering and versatile.