All posts tagged: Pop

AI doomerism is misplaced. Here’s what it will take to pop the bubble

AI doomerism is misplaced. Here’s what it will take to pop the bubble

Published by Sam Flores

Nostalgia is supposed to take at least a decade or more to kick in, but nowadays people are already pining for just a few years ago, before the president was drenching us in crappy AI memes and reply guys were asking Grok what they should believe. For better or worse — and we all know it’s for worse — artificial intelligence has become a part of everyday life. Kids are using AI for much more than just school, whether parents know it or not, and nearly every company on the S&P 500 is experimenting with the tech in some way, riding a tsunami of layoffs as bosses replace their workers with chatbots. Even the pope is dropping hot takes on the topic, decrying the “new forms of slavery” that AI threatens us with. The negativity is overwhelming. Only 16% of Americans predict AI will be positive for society, according to recent polling from Pew Research — the rest voted negative (40%) or equally good and bad (31%), while 13% were unsure. But have we forgotten …

Janis: An alternative pop transition – arts24

Janis: An alternative pop transition – arts24

Published by Sam Flores

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. Accept Manage my choices One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Try again Issued on: 15/06/2026 – 16:14Modified: 15/06/2026 – 16:14 11:54 min From the show Reading time 1 min Janis is an alternative pop and soul artist who will this week be releasing a stunning new album, “Cry With Us”, through which she draws from her experience as a trans woman. She popped by the FRANCE 24 studios to chat to Marjorie Hache and share more about her story and evolution from teenage pop sensation Sliimy in the late 2000s to alternative pop artist. We also take a look at new releases by French star Mylène Farmer and British band Muse.  By: Source link

Taiwanese Pop Star Is the Buyer of M. Matisse Painting at Sotheby’s

Taiwanese Pop Star Is the Buyer of $20 M. Matisse Painting at Sotheby’s

Published by Jenni Sidey

While we wait for the buyer of S. I. Newhouse’s $181.2 million Jackson Pollock painting to reveal him- or herself, at least one buyer at the May marquee evening sales has stepped forward: Jay Chou. The Taiwanese pop star posted on Instagram last week that he was winning bidder for the 1924 Henri Matisse painting, La Séance du Matin, offered at Sotheby’s modern art evening sale last Tuesday. The Matisse sold for exactly $20 million before fees, ultimately reaching $21.2 million with fees. It carried a $20 million to $30 million estimate. Source link

Tiffany’s “Pop Life” blends Beatles fandom with comfort food nostalgia

Tiffany’s “Pop Life” blends Beatles fandom with comfort food nostalgia

Published by Sam Flores

Pop singing sensation Tiffany joined host Kenneth Womack to talk about combining her passions for music and cooking to enrich her career and much more on “Everything Fab Four,” a podcast co-produced by me and Womack (a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon) and distributed by Salon. Born Tiffany Renee Darwish (and known professionally as Tiffany), the singer is most recognized for her ‘80s covers of two ‘60s hits: Tommy James and the Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now” (which was recently introduced to a new generation of fans thanks to “Stranger Things”) and of course, The Beatles’ “I Saw [Him] Standing There.” As Tiffany told Womack, “I’m a Beatles fan. They were played in my house as a kid.” Her parents had a huge record collection, and her “dad loved The Beatles and Buddy Holly; mom loved Elvis.” She said she was “a dancer from the age of two” and was “constantly singing” – so much so that family members would often send her off to get cookies to be …

Pop & Pleasure & Freedom | Jarrett Earnest

Pop & Pleasure & Freedom | Jarrett Earnest

Published by Jenni Sidey

In the prologue to his first collection of essays, The Dyer’s Hand (1962), W.H. Auden explains why criticism is inescapably personal: Though the pleasure which works of art give us must not be confused with other pleasures that we enjoy, it is related to all of them simply by being our pleasure and not someone else’s. All the judgments, aesthetic or moral, that we pass, however objective we try to make them, are in part a rationalization and in part a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes. Therefore, Auden insists, as a matter of professional honesty critics should detail their “dream of Eden”—their notion, say, of a perfect day—up front so that readers will be able to judge their judgments. To that end he proposes a short questionnaire that would provide “the kind of information I should like to have myself when reading other critics,” including their preferred “Sources of Public Information” and “Public Entertainments”—in his case, respectively, “Gossip. Technical and learned periodicals but no newspapers” and “Religious Processions, Brass Bands, Opera, Classical Ballet. No …

A Beguiling Film About the Downsides of Pop Stardom

A Beguiling Film About the Downsides of Pop Stardom

Published by Sam Flores

Mother Mary begins with a straightforward problem: The titular character, a pop star played by Anne Hathaway, is looking for a showstopper of a dress. But the complications quickly stack up. Mary needs it made over the weekend; she needs it to serve as the centerpiece of her career relaunch after a long and mysterious absence from the public eye; most crucially, she needs it designed by her former collaborator Sam Anselm (played by Michaela Coel), from whom she’s been estranged for years. When Mary storms into Sam’s office with her demand, Sam calmly replies that it’s impossible, unless the singer is somehow able to stop time. Mary raises her hand, snaps her fingers in the air, and pronounces it done. If only it were so simple—but Mary, the viewer understands, is someone who has spent most of her adulthood defying the laws of reality. How else to define the life of a superstar, someone who bends everyone else’s needs around her own in order to satisfy the millions of fans awaiting her next move? …

‘Nobody looks like me and sounds like me’: flowerovlove redefines what pop stardom means

‘Nobody looks like me and sounds like me’: flowerovlove redefines what pop stardom means

Published by Sam Flores

“Everybody says [redacted] is saving pop. No, Joyce is saving pop,” a fan declares on a voice note at the outset of flowerovlove’s single “muse.” Joyce Cissé, known by her artist moniker flowerovlove, is a breezy, deeply thoughtful and remarkably confident singer-songwriter from South London. Her discography leans into bubblegum pop, igniting the giddy teen emotions of a newfound crush. On other tracks, she stands on business, solidifying her status as a major catch and refusing to compromise for a subpar man. Cissé doesn’t wait around for things to happen. Since her first high-fashion campaign for Gucci at 15, the now 21 -year-old music artist and model demands attention and has the talent to back it up. Her résumé is already significantly more stacked than most people who recently exited their teens. The singer previously opened for Olivia Rodrigo, Halsey, Khalid and Haim and performed at Glastonbury, Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza. Now, she is preparing for her Coachella debut on April 12 and 19. Many fans discovered her via the track “new friends,” an …

“Sounds like run-on sentences”: Manilow wonders what happened to pop hooks

“Sounds like run-on sentences”: Manilow wonders what happened to pop hooks

Published by Sam Flores

Barry Manilow is still obsessed with craft. Ahead of his 55th album, the “Mandy” singer took a deep dive into modern pop. He wanted to take a crack at writing like artists like Billie Eilish, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Speaking to The Times of London, he said that radio pop in 2026 is one long ramble. “I really studied what’s going on out there — artists like Billie Eilish. I tried to write like her but I just couldn’t because I’m used to verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, ending — but pop music now just sounds like run-on sentences,” he said. “Where is the chorus? Hook? Song after song is like that.” It is perhaps unsurprising that Manilow reached for Eilish as his guide to modern pop. Beyond her megahits, Eilish’s sexuality fueled tabloid gossip for years. Manilow has been a relationship with his now husband since the late ’70s, but he only publicly came out as gay in 2018. He told the Times that coming out at the time would …

Diagonale des Yeux: Madeleine review – wacky multilingual outsider pop with winning quieter moments

Diagonale des Yeux: Madeleine review – wacky multilingual outsider pop with winning quieter moments

Published by Sam Flores

The lyrics for Diagonale des Yeux’s debut album were written in the style of an exquisite corpse game, with members Laurène Exposito and Théo Delaunay taking it in turns to patch together ephemeral thoughts and themes in a mix of French, German, English and Spanish. The bizarre, multilingual stories that emerged match the French duo’s ramshackle, home-recorded sound, which features everything from toybox percussion to farmyard sound effects. The artwork for Madeleine Their whimsical approach is anchored in the outsider pop and post-punk of 1980s Europe, which embraced discordant instrumentation and disaffected vocals. These 12 tracks are charmingly lo-fi, built around rudimentary synth and guitar melodies that often careen into strange directions. Acolytes jumps from frenetic punk jam into swooning breakdown and back again within just 90 seconds; Le Rayon Orchidée stumbles groggily to a halt like a malfunctioning music box. Both sing, adding to the theatrics: playing around with effects, they range from pitch-shifted, kitten-like miaows to macho groans. At times, the wackiness feels a little cloying, as in the rickety opening track Tie …

A Brief History of Wuthering Heights in Pop Culture

A Brief History of Wuthering Heights in Pop Culture

Published by Jenni Sidey

Wuthering Heights is back in the cultural forefront with the new adaptation out in February. With that, it brings a new wave of references and takes on the classic novel out in spades. Whether you liked the new adaptation or found it too far from the source material to stomach, you’ve got an opinion! And so does everyone else! Like with a lot of classic novels, this isn’t the first time pop culture has made reference to the gothic tragedy first published by Emily Brontë in 1847. The tortured story of Heathcliff and Cathy is poked at quite frequently in modern-day media, and many, many Pinterest pins and Tumblr blogs love to share one of the novel’s most enduring quotes about souls and whatever they’re made of. It’s an enduring, if polarizing, novel that has wormed its way into the vernacular of today, especially with the main characters. Many a TV character or modern novel has made reference to the dour, angry leading man or the emotionally volatile leading woman. What better time to take …