Netflix and Banger Films have announced THIS IS POP , a new eight-part docuseries that will examine untold stories from pop music history. Featuring interviews with artists such as Brandi Carlile, T-Pain, Boyz II Men, Steve Earle, Chuck D, and Shania Twain, the series will highlight significant moments in pop music that impacted culture at large. All eight episodes premiere on Netflix on June 22. Check out the trailer below.
All The Best New Pop Music From This Week: Olivia Rodrigo, Jorja Smith
This week in the best new pop music saw some exciting album previews. Olivia Rodrigo dropped a pop punk-inspired anthem, Tones And I shared her first new song of the year, and Jorja Smith released an anticipated project.
Olivia Rodrigo is just a few days away from releasing her highly-anticipated debut album Sour . Ahead of her appearance on SNL last Saturday, Rodrigo shared another look at her varied songwriting with the pop punk-inspired track “Good 4 U.” The song is somewhat of a departure from her previous releases, trading in tender ballads for an energetic kiss-off tune, and points to the singer’s multifaceted talent.
With her first new single of the year, Australian musician Tones And I leans into a dark pop sound with her eerie track “Won’t Sleep.” The song showcases the singer’s whimsical approach to songwriting, imagining a nightmarish soirée attended by monsters to draw inspiration for the hypnotizing track. But despite the spooky vibe, the song is really about her quarantine experience. “I loved writing this song and playing around with the production, the bass, and the drums,” she said. “It's a song about me and my friends staying home and partying through lockdown.”
Pop up-and-comer Alaina Castillo released part one of her debut album, Parallel Universe , after teasing the swooning effort with a handful of singles. Album opener “Pocket Locket” offers a preview of the album’s sound, showcasing the singer’s saccharine vocals and confident flow over a skittering beat.
Continuing to gear up for the release of his album Deadpan Love , Cautious Clay offers another genre-bending tune. “Wildfire” is a contrast to Clay’s previous groove-driven releases. It’s a stripped-down guitar ballad featuring sparse production that leaves room for Clay’s tender vocal delivery. "'Wildfire' explores the fact that people's intentions sometimes get lost in translation," he said of the single. "Good intention is not always enough to prevent people's emotions and insecurities from spiraling. Subtle signals or cues can unintentionally ignite emotions—like a brush fire."
Grammy Award-winning singer Daya returns to share The Difference EP, her first proper project since her debut album five years ago. It opens with thumping and club-ready track “The Difference,” which contrasts lovelorn lyrics with an addictive and up-tempo beat. About the EP, Daya says she wanted to capture all the “fleeting moments of regret, desire, loneliness, and sadness while spending more time with myself than I ever have before at home during quarantine.”
22-year-old musician Audrey Nuna has made a name for herself with music that switches between captivating raps and soaring refrains. Her new single “Blossom” is no different. Officially announcing her upcoming 10-track project Liquid Breakfast , “Blossom” opens with her quick-tempoed flow before showcasing her fluttering vocals. Under the surface, the song has a personal meaning and even features a snippet of her grandmother’s voice.
Singer-songwriter Renforshort teamed up with recent hyperpop breakout star Glaive for the fiery tune “Fall Apart.” Marking Renforshort’s first production credit, the pop punk-leaning tune features stormy synths, dissonant guitars, and tongue-in-cheek lyrics about picking yourself up after a broken heart.
After honing her sound and vampiric aesthetic for several years, alt pop singer Ellise shares her debut album Chaotic . The project’s title track offers a fitting preview of the effort. It’s both gloomy and vulnerable, melting together Y2K influences with a modern twist and contrasting her bubbly vocals with lyrics about a chaotic relationship.
Book chronicles legendary pop music artists
BTS, Other K-pop Stars Are Leaving American Music in the Dust – NBC Chicago
Get your popcorn ready. K-pop supergroup BTS will be one of the most anticipated acts at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards on May 23, where they will give the debut television performance of their upcoming English-language single "Butter."
The group, who will perform remotely from Korea, is a finalist in four categories at the show: top duo/group, top song sales artist, top social artist and top-selling song for their Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit "Dynamite." BTS could win their fifth consecutive award in the top social category.
According to Forbes the group's full-length 'Map of the Soul: 7' was named the bestselling album of 2020, selling 4.8 million copies all around the world in less than a year.
BLK is an R&B girl group hailing from Toronto, hoping to make it global. The members, Khatalia Korahjay, Bexk and LilacX are well aware of K-pop and its growing influence in the industry. "It's hard to take your eyes off of them!" says Korahjay. "I feel like North American groups/artist back in the day like TLC and Destiny's Child were a lot like how K-pop groups are now. I'm pretty sure it's what inspired a lot of K-pop."
The impact of K-pop is massive with the success of groups like BTS and BlackPink . American entertainment companies like Universal Music Group (UMG) , HBO Max , and MGM Television have teamed up with the biggest K-pop management agencies to create their own "American" K-pop groups in the near future.
But what's the 'secret sauce' in explaining the K-pop juggernaut? Many experts in the Korean music market agree that aside from the music itself, performance is K-pop's biggest selling point. According to Wooseok Ki, author of 'K-POP: The Odyssey', dance and choreography is built into the very DNA most companies use to promote their groups.
"For K-pop acts," Ki says, "the official dance choreography is an integral part of the performance in addition to the music, and is presented as such by the artists who are also talented dancers. This is evidenced by the plethora of official dance rehearsal videos, choreography videos, and dance challenges that the artists/companies release."
Dr. Areum Jeong of the Sichuan University-Pittsburgh Institute cites the reality competition program 'Kingdom: Legendary War' as an example of how integral performance and choreography is to a group's success. In Kingdom, select boy groups must compete with weekly performances to gain votes from viewers. According to Jeong, the show reveals "how much the idols' agonize in creating unique concepts and themes for their stages. In addition to the clean-cut choreography, the costume and hair, lighting, and stage design will all add up to the audiences' visual pleasure."
Not only are do performances attract audiences, but through the power of social media they entice fans to create online challenges and covers which further promotes the groups and their music releases.
How K-Pop Took Over The America: A Timeline
In 2021, K-pop is no longer niche, but its journey toward mainstream recognition has been a long, bumpy, and unpredictable one. Even as BTS became the first South Korean group to score a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single, the group was surprised to have become household names. They're not alone in changing the face and sound of pop music in America. Below, NYLON looks at the cultural milestones that brought K-pop to where it is today, and what may be next for the industry few believed could cross over.
In the mid-00s, it wasn't groups but soloists venturing west: Se7en, Rain, and BoA were three of K-pop's biggest stars, though their international fortunes differed wildly. Se7en retreated after one English-language single, 2009's " Girls (feat. Lil Kim) ." But BoA, who'd debuted at 13 and risen to A-list status in South Korea and Japan, took an organic route: by settling in L.A. to promote her English-language single "Eat You Up." Her eponymous 2009 album made her the first K-pop singer on the Billboard 200, and she starred in a U.S. movie ( Make Your Move , 2013), but without an upward trajectory in sight, BoA ended her American activities, returning home where she remains successful to this day.
Rain achieved the highest U.S. profile of this era. He sold out two nights at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in 2006, starred in 2008's Speed Racer and 2009's Ninja Assassin, was named by Time magazine in 2006 as one of 100 Most Influential People That Shape Our World, and topped its online readers poll in 2007 and 2011 . Yet Rain's U.S. career wasn't truly taking off and, cut short by his two-year mandatory military service in October 2011, his U.S. profile faded out.
In 2009, "Gee" put Girls' Generation on the map at home, and their agency, SM Entertainment, hadn't been put off U.S. advancement after BoA. SM founder Lee Soo-man has a long-held vision of globalizing idol music, but the label's acts, uniquely K-pop with large group numbers, appeared to be a tough sell for U.S. audiences.
Girls' Generation's third album, The Boys , had a U.S. release in October 2011 supported by TV performances on mainstream talk shows, but it failed to place on the Billboard 200. As quickly as it began, Girls' Generation's American endeavor was over. SM Entertainment was done with the U.S. for the time being, and its next generation of superstars, EXO and Red Velvet, stayed focused on Asia. It might've been a missed opportunity: As K-pop grew after 2012, Girls' Generation's Korean releases reached the top five on Billboard 's World Digital Song Sales chart, while each subsequent EXO album also climbed higher on the Billboard 200 without a shred of U.S. promotion or touring, with a peak of No. 23.
In 2012, Wonder Girls released " Like Money (ft. Akon) " in the United States, but the group's leader, Sunye, later announced she would be marrying. The English album was shelved and Wonder Girls went on hiatus until they rebooted in 2015, leading to two more critically acclaimed years in South Korea before disbanding.
Two main factors stacked the odds against K-pop breaking in the West. The pop charts were predominantly and stubbornly white, with significant diversity nearly a decade away, and although heavily influenced by the sound and look of U.S. pop, the complexity of K-pop's reconfiguration, compounded with racism, still baffled many.
Some may see it as a mere novelty song, but " Gangnam Style " is a significant paving stone in Korean pop's path. Prior to PSY, Westerners were mostly unfamiliar with the term "K-pop." By 2013, it had entered the West's cultural lexicon. "Gangnam Style" opened up South Korean music (as well as food, style, and K-drama) to people who hadn't even known the country had a lucrative entertainment industry. PSY's satire of the residents of Seoul's moneyed Gangnam neighborhood was a video monster, the first YouTube video to be viewed 1 billion, then 2 billion times. (It's currently the eighth-most-watched with more than 4 billion views.) It reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 in 2012, the highest ranking ever for a South Korean artist. Behind the scenes, it was also a game-changer, helping hasten the Billboard charts metrics to allow YouTube views to be counted for a modern reflection of how audiences were consuming music.
KCON — now a three-day, global K-pop conference with multi-group concerts — hosted its first event in L.A. in 2012, drawing 20,000 people. By 2014, it had grown to 42,000 attendees, less than 10% of whom were Korean.
Coldplay Higher Power Twitch debut - The bridge between music & games
More frequently than ever, video games are joining that music to visual media trend. Of course, video game music with lyrics dates back all the way to the '80s, growing further when the CD format rose to prominence. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Need for Speed: Underground come to mind there. But, pop artist tracks such as Imagine Dragons' “Warriors” being used as the official League of Legends 2014 World Championship theme or, more recently, Coldplay celebrating their latest track on Twitch alongside content creators, is a newer phenomenon.
On Thursday, May 20, Coldplay will join Luminosity Gaming's musician ZHU, and Twitch streamer Fresh, to celebrate their latest single "Higher Power." ZHU will debut his own remix of the song, but whatever else Coldplay has in store is still up in the air. The hour-long show will be hosted on the official Luminosity Gaming Twitch channel , starting at 7 p.m. ET.
But it wasn't until the rise of K-Pop that virtual performances started truly taking off. With virtual performers in physical locations, K-Pop brought a new phenomenon to the mainstream in 2013 with pseudo-holographic performers on a real stage.
Disclosure: Luminosity Gaming is a subsidiary of Enthusiast Gaming, which owns and operates Upcomer.
Pop singer Demi Lovato comes out as non-binary | Demi Lovato | The Guardian
The pop singer will use the pronouns they and them to describe themselves, to "best represent the fluidity I feel in my gender expression".
Lovato has also described themself as queer, and their sexuality as fluid, saying in 2020 that they were "still figuring it out" and had told their parents in 2017 "that I saw myself ending up possibly with a woman". They also said: "I think love is love. You can find it in any gender."
Dayglow's new album is what happens when bedroom pop leaves home
The Texas-based indie hero created viral magic in his bedroom, but his new Phoenix-inspired album sees him head into bolder musical territory
Rather than chasing popstar dreams he was going to college to study advertising, but a week into his first semester though, the warm bedroom pop of 'Fuzzybrain' had taken off and achingly hopeful tracks like 'Can I Call You Tonight?' had viral moment after viral moment: favourable playlisting, cosigns from YouTube stars and that royalty-free green screen music video lead to 210 million streams and counting.
It hasn't come at the expense of the heartfelt honesty that made 'Fuzzybrain' so relatable though: 'Close To You' is a disco-infused anthem of unsaid things while the big, acoustic jam of 'Woah Man' is an encouraging message of growth. "If this album does sound more radio friendly, that wasn't me trying to make pop hits," he explains. "I just learned how to mix better."
We spoke to the bedroom pop artist about moving on from the lo-fi set-up, the fictional sitcom that 'Harmony House' soundtracks and why the world needs optimistic music more than ever right now.
“'Fuzzybrain' was about wanting to grow up and feeling really anxious. Harmony House is about being forced to discover myself quickly as well as dealing with the sudden attention that I got. I wanted to be really honest about everything that's happened to me over the past couple of years and talk about some of the overwhelming things I went through. I always wanted Dayglow to be as personal as possible but now I know people are listening, I can speak to them through my music. It's like a conversation with friends.”
“I was listening to all the iconic giants of 80s pop; Michael McDonald , Paul Simon , James Taylor , Whitney Houston . I was really fascinated by the personality, the music and how much pop has changed since. I wanted to dive into what made songs like 'I Want To Dance With Somebody' so timeless. There's definitely an 80's revival happening right now but it feels like a lot of it is being compromised or watered down. I wanted to capture the weird, gritty elements of the 80s because I love how cool that whole decade was. There's more to the album than that though. I don't want to be an Elvis impersonator and I don't want to be The Eighties Guy.”
“There's so much pressure to know absolutely everything right now but I'm convinced that no one really knows what they're doing. And that's OK, but there's so much music that says the opposite. It's something that attracted me to ’70s and ’80s music in the first place, because it felt more communal. It acknowledged the people around you. A lot of pop these days makes it feel like you're the main character and that ego boost is fun, but I wanted to make music that encourages people to listen to their neighbours.”
“I've always respected artists who really evolve as time goes on and it would drive me crazy if I kept trying to be that version of myself. 'Fuzzybrain' was written when I was 17 so to do another song like 'Can I Call You Tonight', it'd feel like I wasn't able to grow up. I'm confident in what I'm doing now. It also feels like people are along for the ride.”
“I was going to school for advertising and I assumed I was going to do that as a career. Maybe in my spare time, I'd be producing for other people but I don’t think there would be a reality where I wouldn’t be making music. It's really therapeutic for me. Some people watch Netflix, I write and produce. I didn't tell people about Dayglow because I was scared of failure. I went to a college prep school and it felt really weird in that environment to say 'I don't really care about college, I want to make music'. I'm still figuring out how to take myself seriously as an artist. It feels so funny to me because I have it so deeply implanted in my mind that this isn't a real job.”
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