Switched on Pop

The first half of 2024 has been for the “pop girlie.” It seems like every major artist who’s dominated the discourse this year has been a woman, ostensibly making music about what it means to be a wom...

There’s many things to love about Los Angeles: low-rider cars, roadside taco stands, and, come awards season, the omnipresent “For Your Consideration” billboard. Nobody knows this better than lifelong...

Bootsy Collins is, perhaps, the funkiest man of all time. Over the course of his nearly six decade career, Collins has given up the funk in the iconic Parliament Funkadelic, helmed Bootsy’s Rubber Ban...

There is no contemporary pop music without Nile Rodgers. Born in 1952, Rodgers grew up playing classical music on flute and clarinet before picking up jazz guitar. And at age 20, alongside bass player...

There's no music writer like the essayist and poet Hanif Abdurraqib: whether he's narrating the beautiful awkwardness of a Carly Rae Jepsen concert or talking jazz and eastern spirituality with Andre ...

On her latest album, Taylor Swift “declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.” No one was more surprised by this than Charlie Puth himself: the singer, pianist, and songwriter whose career has a...

On Billie Eilish’s third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, Eilish finally graduates from her signature anti-pop persona into full blown pop stardom. This record finds Eilish experimenting on the themes fro...

When you go out for a meal, it’s not just what's on your plate that matters, it's what's in your eardrums, too. From dining rooms so loud you have to shout to be heard, to playlists that sound like a ...

Where were you when you learned that the McDonald's jingle "I'm lovin' it" was originally part of a full-fledged pop song by Justin Timberlake and Pharrell that flopped on the charts but found staying...

Tongue twisters that mock techno-optimism and cite critical theory don’t usually make for catchy song lyrics. But indie rocker Rosie Tucker’s Utopia Now! finds beauty in the dross of late capitalism. ...