Spencer Kornhaber
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Jason Kempin / Getty The Biggest Country Musician in America Is a Disgrace
After saying a racial slur and being exiled from radio, Morgan Wallen has become only more popular. What’s going on?
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Paul Spella Noisy, Ugly, and Addictive
Hyperpop could become the countercultural sound of the 2020s.
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Getty / The Atlantic The Lady Gaga Anthem That Previewed a Decade of Culture Wars
Released 10 years ago, “Born This Way” made unity sound defiant.
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Mike Ehrmann / Getty The First Super Bowl Halftime Show About the Depravity of Halftime Shows
Ladies and gentlemen, The Weeknd.
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Frazer Harrison / Getty Pop Just Lost One of Its Most Exciting Architects
The Scottish producer Sophie, who died at age 34, created addictive sounds that seemed to live inside the listener’s head.
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Geffen Records / YouTube The Breakout Pop Song of the Year Is a Cinematic Universe
Olivia Rodrigo’s smash hit, “Drivers License,” implies a world of characters—and inspires listeners to role-play as them.
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Patrick Semansky / Pool via REUTERS The Surprising Thing About Biden’s Inauguration
The colorful and joyful ceremony didn’t feel like a crisis-era bureaucratic procedure.
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Shannon Stapleton / Reuters The Superhero Fantasies of Trump’s Mob
The insurrectionists have been sold a fiction, and their costumes warp the works that inspired them.
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Aaron Denton The Eeriness of the 2020 Disco Revival
As pop stars time-warped back to the ’70s and most nightclubs remained closed, dance music’s tensions felt oddly relevant.
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Charlie Maignan The 16 Best Albums of 2020
A selection of the most illuminating music to come out of a dark year, handpicked by our staffers
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Beth Garrabrant Taylor Swift Could Use an Editor
Evermore, the singer’s second surprise folkie album of the year, sees the cringes-to-chills ratio move in the wrong direction.
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Denise Truscello / Getty Miley Cyrus Is Perfect for the Rock-and-Roll Revival
The pop star’s career is a case study in courting public expectations by rebelling against them.
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Getty / Arsh Raziuddin / The Atlantic The Pandemic Clarified Who the Kardashians Really Are
As Keeping Up With the Kardashians nears its 20th and final season, its family of influencers has lost the capacity to balance relatability and spectacle.
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Mandelb Ngan / AFP / Getty Donald Trump’s Reelection Campaign Is Total Camp
As the president shimmies to The Village People, he crystallizes the way that even sincerity and irony have become politically polarized.
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NBC What Was Adele Doing on Saturday Night Live?
The vocalist flaunted her personality, not her pipes—in an assertion that her stardom is bigger than singing.
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Getty / The Atlantic De-stress With an Election-Anxiety Playlist
Twelve songs to help you express impatience, agitation, and hope
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Getty / The Atlantic For Celebrities, Apathy Can Be a Form of Political Credibility
Stars are focused less on candidates than on democracy itself this year, and using their own past indifference as a tool.
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Getty / Redux / Arsh Raziuddin / The ... There’s Never Been a Story Like Britney Spears’s
Fans are rallying to liberate the singer from her father’s control. But emancipation narratives from Mariah Carey and other pop stars show how complex independence can be.
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Evans Richardson Sufjan Stevens’s Problem With America
The acclaimed singer was once famous for mythologizing the U.S. Now his “bossy and bitchy” new album expresses discomfort with the country.
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Langston Amadi How Pop Music’s Teenage Dream Ended
A decade ago, Katy Perry’s sound was ubiquitous. Today, it’s niche. How did a genre defined by popularity become unpopular?
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