I am sitting with Doja Cat in an Airbnb in Universal City, California, in mid-November, listening to a punk cover of “I Saw Her Standing There” and polishing off the toothsome lobster-caviar rolls she made. She’s talking about an ex-boyfriend and puffing on her omnipresent highlighter-colored tobacco vape (“I don’t …
Read More »Artists Hate Genres. Kelefa Sanneh Thinks That's All Wrong
Starting in the early 2000s, writer Kelefa Sanneh did more than any other critic to shake up the way people listen to and think about music. His New York Times pieces were frequently short but incisive and hilarious, humming with the infectious energy of a hooky pop song: Consider the …
Read More »Tyler, the Creator Bests Doja Cat on Artists 500 Chart
Tyler, the Creator beat Doja Cat to claim the Number One spot on the Rolling Stone Artists 500 chart. The rapper topped the chart for the first time after pulling in 163.6 million song streams for the week of June 25th through July 1st. The achievement followed the release of …
Read More »Six Months Later, No One Can Top 'The Box'
Nothing has come close to “The Box.” Roddy Ricch‘s squeaky, sticky surprise hit dominated the first half of 2020, topping the list of the biggest songs in the U.S. from January through June by a hefty margin. After it reached Number One on the Rolling Stone Top 100 Songs Chart …
Read More »Could Disco Pave Pop's Future?
Not far from where songwriter Emily Warren lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, there’s a dive bar with a weekly disco night. “It’s kind of a shit show,” she says. She had been attending regularly and invited collaborators Ian Kirkpatrick and Caroline Ailin to join her. It was early 2019, and …
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