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    Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Vampire’ Takes a Note From Taylor Swift

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    The pop singer’s new single dismantles a former paramour who was entranced by fame, borrowing a tactic from Swift’s career-shifting “Dear John.”On “Drivers License,” one of the great singles of the 2020s, Olivia Rodrigo has been played for a fool by an ex, but the song — pulsing, parched, destitute — remains centered in her pathos. She may have been abandoned, but the person who did the damage is still an object of, if not exactly affection, then obsession: “I still hear your voice in the traffic/We’re laughing/Over all the noise.” At the song’s conclusion, she is alone, and lonely.That was the Rodrigo from two and a half years ago, when she was reintroducing herself to the world as a human after a stretch as a Disney actress automaton. The Olivia Rodrigo who appears on “Vampire,” the first single from her forthcoming second album, has now lived through some things. Her sweetness has curdled.“Vampire” is nervy and anxious, a tripartite study in defiance that begins with Elton John-esque piano balladry à la “Drivers License” — a head fake in the direction of naïveté.But Rodrigo knows better now, or at least knows more: Rapid stardom has both bolstered and cloistered her. “I loved you truly,” she sings, deadpan, then almost cackles the next line, “You gotta laugh at the stupidity.” The song continues in this vein, through a boisterous up-tempo midsection and a rowdy, theatrical conclusion. Her subject matter — romantic disappointment, being left in the lurch — is the same, but the stakes are much greater now.“I used to think I was smart/But you made me look so naïve,” she sings. It is the sort of insider-outsider awareness that can only come from being both the object and the subject at once — powerful enough to author your own story, vulnerable enough to fall prey to someone else’s wiles.It is, in short, Rodrigo’s “Dear John.”Over a decade after its release, “Dear John” remains one of the most powerful songs in Taylor Swift’s catalog, and also among the most idiosyncratic. Purportedly about a dismal romantic engagement with John Mayer, it is produced in the style of Mayer, dressed liberally with blues guitar noodling.Lyrically, it’s not only astute, it’s vicious. Swift begins with a similar unjaundiced shrug — “Well, maybe it’s me/And my blind optimism to blame” — then goes on to surgically, savagely disassemble her foe: “You are an expert at sorry and keeping lines blurry/Never impressed by me acing your tests.”“Dear John” appeared on “Speak Now,” Swift’s third album, released when she was 20. It wasn’t a single, but it was one of a pair of songs on the album — the other was “Mean,” about a fierce critic of her artistry — in which Swift began creatively and publicly reckoning with the public version of herself. Her earlier songwriting felt winningly insular, almost provocatively emotionally intimate. But “Dear John” announced Swift as a bolder and riskier performer and songwriter, one unafraid of using stardom as her ink, and who understood that the celebrity most people knew provided as much fodder as her inner life.Rodrigo is 20 now, and “Guts,” due in September, will be her second album. And while “Drivers License” and its fallout became tabloid fodder, the public narrative wasn’t encoded into the song itself.“Vampire” changes that. Rodrigo’s target here is someone attempting to be glamorous, or perhaps glamour itself: “Look at you, cool guy, you got it/I see the parties and the diamonds sometimes when I close my eyes/Six months of torture you sold as some forbidden paradise.”Perhaps the song is about the Los Angeles nightlife fixture Zack Bia, one of Rodrigo’s rumored partners — if so, the structural shift from the first to second part might be pointed — that’s when the music becomes coffeehouse EDM, possibly a veiled allusion to Bia’s emergent career as a producer and D.J., and an echo of the Mayer-ian blues-pop Swift channeled on “Dear John.”The relationship itself, Rodrigo learns, is a transaction, too. “The way you sold me for parts/As you sunk your teeth into me,” she yowls, before anointing her ex with the coldest moniker imaginable: “fame [expletive].” That insult usually begins with “star” rather than “fame,” but Rodrigo knows that the condition of fame is far more toxic than any one person, and that someone who craves it is perhaps uninterested in personhood at all.On “Drivers License,” Rodrigo still saw the other woman as an enemy, or source of tension, but now on “Vampire,” she understands what the lines of allegiance truly are, marking an emergent feminist streak. Here, she finds kinship with her ex’s other partners, and lambastes herself for thinking she ever was the exception: “Every girl I ever talked to told me you were bad, bad news/You called them crazy, God, I hate the way I called ’em crazy too.”There’s an echo here of Swift’s realization on “Dear John” that she, too, is closer kin to the other aggrieved women than to her ex: “You’ll add my name to your long list of traitors who don’t understand/And I look back in regret how I ignored when they said/‘Run as fast as you can.’”After sweeping past it for most of her career, Swift has just begun revisiting this moment — last month, she played “Dear John” live for the first time in over 11 years, at one of the Minneapolis stops of her Eras Tour. That’s likely because Swift’s rerecording of “Speak Now,” part of her ongoing early album reclamation project, is being released this week.But she also used the moment to both reflect on her maturation, and to urge her devoted, sometimes ferocious fans not to live in, or dwell on, her past.“I’m 33 years old. I don’t care about anything that happened to me when I was 19 except the songs I wrote and the memories we made together,” she said from the stage. “So what I’m trying to tell you is, I’m not putting this album out so you should feel the need to defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 billion years ago.”When Swift began reporting on her own fame on “Dear John,” it had the secondary effect of activating phalanxes of fans who went to war on her behalf, too. But over the course of the past decade, something interesting happened: The battle became theirs more than hers. They hold on to her wrongs with pitbull-like grip, ensuring, in a way, that Swift can’t fully grow up.So if “Dear John” is a creative guidepost for “Vampire,” this cautionary note offers a suggestion of what might come from it: a call to arms, a hardening of your outer shell, a conflagration that burns long after you light the match and walk away. More

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      The Young Women Who Make TikTok Weep

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherWhen the Scottish singer-songwriter Katie Gregson-MacLeod recorded a verse of an unfinished song called “Complex” and posted it to TikTok in August, she was tapping into the app’s penchant for confessional storytelling, and demonstrating its ease of distribution and repurposing.Overnight, the snippet propelled her into viral success, leading to a recording contract and placing her in a lineage of young women who have found success on the app via emotional catharsis — sad, mad or both. That includes Olivia Rodrigo, whose “Drivers License” first gained traction there, and also Lauren Spencer-Smith, Sadie Jean, Gracie Abrams, Lizzy McAlpine, Gayle and many more.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the evolution of TikTok’s musical ambitions and the expansion of its emotional range, how the music business has tried to capitalize on the app’s intimacy, and the speed with which a bedroom-recording confessional can become a universal story line.Guest:Rachel Brodsky, who writes about pop music for StereogumConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      2022 Grammys: Jon Batiste and Silk Sonic Win Top Awards

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      The 64th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night featured major wins by Silk Sonic, Jon Batiste and Olivia Rodrigo, elaborate performances from a music industry struggling to emerge from the pandemic and an impassioned plea for help from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.The show, broadcast from Las Vegas, opened with Silk Sonic, the retro soul-funk project of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, playing “777,” about the high-rolling, Sin City side of Las Vegas. Moments later, the group won song of the year for “Leave the Door Open,” a throwback to smooth early ’70s soul.“Leave the Door Open” also won record of the year, as well as best R&B song. Silk Sonic also tied Jazmine Sullivan for best R&B performance.“We are really trying to remain humble at this point,” said Anderson .Paak, born Brandon Paak Anderson, while accepting record of the year. “But in the industry we call that a clean sweep.” (The record of the year prize is for a single recording, while song of the year recognizes songwriters.)Silk Sonic and Batiste’s wins kept Rodrigo — a 19-year-old Disney television star who burst on the music scene with smashing success and critical respect — from making her own sweep of the four top categories. But she did take best new artist.“This is my biggest dream come true,” Rodrigo said as she accepted that prize. She also took home best pop vocal album for “Sour” and pop solo performance for “Drivers License,” which she performed on a set like a suburban street, her voice swelling to emotional peaks and then breaking as it fell.Olivia Rodrigo performed “Drivers License,” which won best pop vocal performance. The 19-year-old also won best new artist.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersJon Batiste, the bandleader of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” took album of the year for “We Are,” which had virtually no commercial impact but was supported strongly by the membership of the Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammys. Batiste was up a total of 11 awards, more than any other artist, and won five.“I believe this to my core,” Batiste said, taking album of the year. “There is no best musician, best artist, best dancer, best actor. The creative arts are subjective and they reach people at a point in their lives when they need it most.”Read More on the 2022 Grammy AwardsThe Irresistible Jon Batiste: The jazz pianist is an inheritor more than an innovator, but he puts the past to use in service of fun.A Controversial Award: Some people questioned the decision to bestow the Grammy for best comedy album to Louis C.K., who has admitted to sexual misconduct.Old, but New: Despite nods to Gen Z, this year’s show favored history-minded performers like Silk Sonic, H.E.R. and Lady Gaga.The Fashion: An exuberant anything-goes attitude was a reminder of why red carpets are fun in the first place.Zelensky’s Speech: Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, addressed the audience in a prerecorded video. Here’s what he said.The Grammys ceremony, initially planned for Jan. 31 in Los Angeles, had been delayed nine weeks by the Omicron variant, and moved to Las Vegas for the first time. “Better late than never,” the host, Trevor Noah, said as the CBS telecast opened at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.“We’re in Vegas,” he said. “Look at this. You know, people are doing shots. I mean, last year, people were doing shots, but it was more Moderna and Pfizer.”In a prerecorded message, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine appealed for support amid Russia’s invasion of his country.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPresident Zelensky had pressed the producers of the Academy Awards to speak last week, but was turned down. Invited to speak at the Grammys, he made an impassioned plea for his country, saying in a hoarse voice that Ukrainian musicians “wear body armor instead of tuxedos” and urging American music fans to “tell the truth about the war” on social media and “support us in any way you can.”John Legend then led a somber performance of his song “Free,” featuring Ukrainian artists like the singer Mika Newton and the poet Lyuba Yakimchuk.The night was also a complementary balance of vital young stars — Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Lil Nas X — giving powerful, fizzy performances that showed them fully in command of their art, and older acts being lauded for decades of work. Tony Bennett, the 95-year-old lion of the American songbook, won best traditional pop vocal album for the 14th time for “Love for Sale,” his Cole Porter project with Lady Gaga, who sang solo from that album. (Bennett, who has Alzheimer’s disease and has retired from performing, did not attend the ceremony, but briefly introduced Lady Gaga by video.)Women delivered some of the most memorable messages. Sullivan, who won best R&B album for “Heaux Tales,” said her project “ended up being a safe space for Black women to tell our stories, for us to learn from each other, laugh with each other and not be exploited at the same time.”Doja Cat, a spitfire rapper and internet provocateur, won pop duo/group performance for her hit “Kiss Me More,” featuring SZA. Taking the stage, she joked about racing back from the restroom just in time. Then she teared up. “It’s a big deal,” she said.Lil Nas X, the rapper, singer and meme master, performed a high-concept medley of his songs “Dead Right Now,” “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” and “Industry Baby,” featuring Jack Harlow, interspersed with a montage of overheated media commentators. In other performances, the K-pop stars BTS began their song “Butter” looking like “Oceans 11” characters, and the Latin pop superstar J Balvin sang with Maria Becerra.There were several nods to the controversy that marred last week’s Academy Awards, when the actor Will Smith slapped the comedian Chris Rock onstage. During a nontelevised ceremony before the telecast, one presenter, Nate Bargatze, introduced the classical field while wearing a thick helmet. “This is what comedians at awards shows have to wear now,” Bargatze said.And early on in the telecast Noah promised that “we’re going to be dancing, we’re going to be singing, we’re going to be keeping people’s names out of our mouths,” alluding to Smith’s expletive-filled demand that Rock stop talking about his wife.Jon Batiste won five Grammys, including album of the year for “We Are.”Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty ImagesA series of complications in recent days had challenged Grammy producers as the show came together. Kanye West was barred from performing and Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters, which had been scheduled to play, died while on tour. Two members of BTS, the K-pop phenomenon, announced that they had tested positive for the coronavirus, leaving fans to guess whether their performance would go on.As the multibillion-dollar touring industry tries to return to full capacity, some of music’s biggest stars gathered for a celebration of the art — and business — of performance. In a series of segments, behind-the-scenes crew members introduced those stars, telling of the hard work and close bonds that develop on the road. Nicole Massey, the production manager for Billie Eilish, introduced the woman she called “the best 20-year-old boss in the world.”Foo Fighters won all three awards they were nominated for: rock performance (“Making a Fire”), rock song (“Waiting on a War”) and rock album (“Medicine at Midnight”). Voting by Recording Academy members ended in January, long before Hawkins’s death.Chris Stapleton won three country awards: solo performance (“You Should Probably Leave”), country album (“Starting Over”) and country song (“Cold,” with Dave Cobb, J.T. Cure and Derek Mixon). The jazz keyboardist Chick Corea, who died last year, won two.Joni Mitchell won best historical album for her “Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967),” sharing the award with Patrick Mulligan, her fellow compilation producer. In a rare televised appearance, Mitchell gave a brief introduction for a performance by Brandi Carlile, whom she called “my brilliant friend and ambassador.”The 64th Grammy ceremony honored music released during a 13-month period, from Sept. 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021. Winners were chosen by more than 11,000 voting members of the Recording Academy, who qualify by gaining recommendations from fellow music professionals.Speeches from early winners highlighted personal triumphs, social ills and the power of music to serve as a balm in troubled times.Accepting the award for best country duo/group performance, T.J. Osborne, of the group Brothers Osborne, said their song “Younger Me” was written about his coming out as gay — a risk given Nashville’s largely conservative music business.“I never thought that I’d be able to do this professionally because of my sexuality,” he said, “and I certainly never thought I would be here on this stage accepting a Grammy after having done something I felt like was going to be life-changing, potentially in a very negative way.”The comedian Louis C.K., who has admitted to sexual misconduct, won for best comedy album (“Sincerely Louis C.K.”).The first award of the day, for best musical theater album — a prize that in the past has gone to Broadway smashes like “Hamilton” and “The Book of Mormon” — went to “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical,” a D.I.Y. project by Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow, who created the music as fans, while spurred on by comments from viewers online who watched them work.“A year ago, when I asked the internet, what if ‘Bridgerton’ was a musical,” said Barlow, “I could not have imagined I would be holding a Grammy in my hands.” More

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      Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Sour’ Breakthrough

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      For the past few years, there’s been something of a pop star vacuum — or at least, a pop-music star vacuum. By and large, performers making centrist, big-tent pop music have been relegated to the sidelines as hip-hop — and other genres borrowing heavily from it — took center stage.But Olivia Rodrigo, a Disney child star wielding a bad breakup and a tart voice, has made pop primal, and primary, again. “Sour,” her first album, just debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with the biggest sales week of the year.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Rodrigo’s meteoric year so far, the long arc of the mainstreaming of emo and the quickening of the maturing of Disney idols.Guests:Olivia Horn, who writes about music for Pitchfork, The New York Times and othersLindsay Zoladz, who writes about music for The New York Times and others More

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      Review: Olivia Rodrigo's 'Sour' Album Is a Critic's Pick

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      On her excellent debut album, “Sour,” the 18-year-old singer and actress expresses just how challenging it is to arrive at who you are.For the last few months, Olivia Rodrigo has been chiseling out a story about young love turned sour. Between the undulating ballad “Drivers License” — her huge debut single, which opened at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for eight weeks — and the wistfully aggrieved (and perhaps even better) “Deja Vu,” she’s nailed the agony of collapse, and the anxiety of watching your old partner rebuild. It’s a phenomenon as awful as it is familiar.Like those songs, “Enough for You” — from her nuanced and often exceptional debut album, “Sour” — seems like it’s about the contest between the narrator and the woman who replaced her in her ex’s eyes and arms. But really it’s about a different sort of competition: the one between the versions of the self we cycle through, depending on who’s around.Rodrigo starts off with a rearview confession: “I wore makeup when we dated ’cause I thought you’d like me more/if I looked like the other prom queens I know that you loved before.” From there, the song plays like an elegy for a persona that no longer fits, Rodrigo singing with a quaver over a steady but reluctant acoustic guitar. “I don’t want your sympathy,” she concludes. “I just want myself back.”On “Sour,” which deploys sweet pop and tart punk equally well, Rodrigo’s real study is of the unsteady self, the way in which people — young people, especially, but by no means exclusively — contort themselves into the shapes laid out before them. It is about the wages of being clay, not the mold.For Rodrigo, 18, who’s been playing alternate versions of herself in public at least as far back as the first season of the Disney Channel’s “Bizaardvark,” in 2016, it is a natural subject. She is an optimal pop star for the era of personalities, subpersonalities and metapersonalities; of finstas and spams; of trying on new identities and discarding as you go. “Sour” is an album about accepting alternate endings, and embracing who you become when you have to hot swap one idea about yourself for another all while keeping up a smile, or a career, or several.Rodrigo has had to do all of this under an unusually sudden and intense spotlight. Even though she’s been a Disney mainstay for years, most recently as Nini Salazar-Roberts, the coming-into-herself female lead on “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” the success of “Drivers License” has occasioned exponential growth, and a juggling of Rodrigo’s many selves. In addition to the true and immutable inner personality, there is Rodrigo the musical performer, and Rodrigo the public spectacle, a subject of increasing tabloid interest. Then there is Rodrigo as Nini, and Rodrigo as Nini as Gabriella (the “High School Musical” character she plays in the musical within the show). Each of these has a distinct narrative. Each comprises a part of how Rodrigo navigates — and is seen by — the world.This is now the stuff of everyone, though — on social media, teenagers often have multiple accounts, playing different versions of themselves for different sets of people. To constantly modulate one’s identity is the norm; the idea of the fully-centered and fixed self might be done for good.On “Sour,” Rodrigo is working through this evolution in real time. On “Drivers License,” she’s still unsteady about who she might become. “Today I drove through the suburbs/and pictured I was driving home to you,” she sings, not quite able to let go. On “Deja Vu” — and especially in its video, which features Rodrigo spying on her doppelgänger replacement — Rodrigo is frantic with stress about how her ex’s new relationship parallels their own: “When you gonna tell her that we did that too?” And by the end of the song, she begins to succumb to the idea that perhaps her experience wasn’t so original to begin with: “I hate to think that I was just your type.”Her paramours are playing these sorts of games, too. “Which lover will I get today?/Will you walk me to the door or send me home crying?” she sighs over the dampened piano of “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.” And it’s on “Drivers License” where that realization fully crystallizes: “Guess you didn’t mean what you wrote in that song about me,” she gasps. There are few colder jolts than learning someone you loved was simply playing a role.Rodrigo’s juggle is also embedded in her musical choices on “Sour,” which is written almost wholly by Rodrigo and produced almost wholly by Dan Nigro, formerly of the band As Tall as Lions (who also contributed songwriting). She plants a flag for the divided self right at the top of the album, on the spectacular “Brutal,” which begins with a few seconds of sober strings before she declares, “I want it to be, like, messy,” which it then becomes. That tug of war persists throughout the album: more polished songs like the singles and the rousing, Paramore-esque “Good 4 U” jostling with rawer ones like “Enough for You” and “Jealousy, Jealousy.”“Traitor,” one of the album’s highlights, is a stark song masquerading as a bombastic one. “I kept quiet so I could keep you,” Rodrigo confesses, before arriving at an elegant way of understanding, if not quite accepting, how someone who loved you has moved on: “Guess you didn’t cheat/but you’re still a traitor.”That songwriting flourish is emblematic of what Rodrigo has learned from Taylor Swift on this album (which, in shorthand, is Swift’s debut refracted through “Red”): nailing the precise language for an imprecise, complex emotional situation; and working through private stories in public fashion. There is residue of Swift throughout “Sour” — whether the way that “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back” interpolates “New Year’s Day,” or the “Cruel Summer”-esque chants on “Deja Vu.”But really, Swift persists in the lens, which is relentlessly internal — Rodrigo only breaks out of it in a couple of places on the album, like on “Jealousy, Jealousy,” where she pulls back to assess the self-image damage that social media inflicts (“I wanna be you so bad, and I don’t even know you/All I see is what I should be”) and on the final track, “Hope Ur OK,” a melancholy turn that’s thoughtfully compassionate, but thematically out of step with the rest of the album.On the first season of “HSMTMTS,” Rodrigo had a safe platform to play out her creative development as Nini. (Nini’s lament “All I Want” could have been a trial balloon for a solo Rodrigo career.) At the end of those episodes, which aired in late 2019 and early 2020, Nini aced the role in the school musical and finally settled into a relationship with her longtime friend Ricky (Joshua Bassett). (Rodrigo’s early singles were dissected for signs pointing to her rumored real-life relationship with Bassett, another conflation of selves.)“HSMTMTS,” which is partly framed as a mockumentary, is a charmingly winking exploration of teenage metamorphosis. Like “Hannah Montana” before it, it is knowing about the ways in which teenagers are constantly improvising, both for better and worse. But during the prime Disney Channel era, the “Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus had far less direct access to her fan base, and therefore far less of a public self than Rodrigo, who has been able to commune directly on TikTok and Instagram.That’s meant that Rodrigo’s public and performing life are beginning to outpace her old television life. (Also, Rodrigo curses on her songs, speeding up the Disney molting process.) Last season, when Nini was struggling with confidence, her best friend Kourtney (Dara Renee) told her, “Ever since you discovered boys, you’ve spent way too much time trying to see yourself through their eyes.” But Rodrigo herself is balancing several lives at once now — new celebrity, new pop superstar, holdover child actress, and more. And “Sour” is the first step toward insisting that the gaze that matters most is the one in the mirror, no matter who else is looking.Olivia Rodrigo“Sour”(Geffen) More

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      Olivia Rodrigo's Hit 'Drivers License' Has the Best Part of a Song

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      Listen and follow Still ProcessingApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherThis episode contains strong language.Wesley has made his pick for song of the year: “Drivers License” by Olivia Rodrigo. This record-breaking track makes him nostalgic for his favorite part of a song — the bridge.Bridges used to be a core feature of popular music, but they’ve become an endangered species, right next to the sitcom laugh track.With today’s pop songs increasingly devoid of bridges, how do we form emotional, heart-swelling connections to pop songs? For Jenna, the answer lies in the earthquake that hit the world in 2018: TikTok.Today, we listen back to iconic bridges and look ahead to the new ways TikTok allows us to experience the best part of the song.On today’s episodeA bridge at its bestWesley thinks that “Drivers License,” the debut single from an 18-year-old Disney actress, will be song of the year for one key reason: It’s got a bridge!“What I love about some bridges is you are dropped into the middle of a totally different song,” Wesley said. “And the bridge on ‘Drivers License’ basically does that.”The bridge begins around the two-and-a-half-minute mark, when Olivia Rodrigo starts belting, “Red lights / stop signs / I still see your face in the white cars.”Writing songs for TikTok-ificationIn an episode of “Diary of a Song,” Olivia Rodrigo told the culture reporter Joe Coscarelli that she wrote “Drivers License” with TikTok in mind. Her vision has held up, as swarms of TikTokers have captured the song’s transition into the bridge. “They’re really just playing into the cathartic release that the bridge offers,” Jenna said. “Like, here are the contents of my heart emptied out.”

      @spoiledmel can this be a trend? 😳 ##oliviarodrigo ##driverslicense ##fyp @livbedumb stream drivers license!!!! ♬ drivers license – Olivia Rodrigo Jenna discussed a few other song-based TikTok challenges that have gone viral, including “Buss It” by Erica Banks, “Mood” by 24kgoldn and “Savage” by Megan Thee Stallion.“I think what a lot of artists have done, and have really enjoyed doing, is seeing not just where these songs live in people’s bodies,” Jenna said, “but what their bodies do with them and what their minds do with them.” She added, “It is such a vehicle for creative expression, unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.”Jenna and Wesley’s favorite bridgesIn the episode, the co-hosts treat us to some of their most treasured bridges — like the breakdown in Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” and the well-earned apex of “I’m Your Baby Tonight” by Whitney Houston.Here’s a playlist of all the songs mentioned in this episode.Hosted by: Jenna Wortham and Wesley MorrisProduced by: Elyssa Dudley and Hans BuetowEdited by: Sara SarasohnEngineered by: Marion LozanoExecutive Editor, Newsroom Audio: Wendy DorrAssistant Managing Editor: Sam DolnickSpecial thanks: Nora Keller, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani and Desiree Ibekwe.Wesley Morris is a critic at large. He was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his criticism while at the Boston Globe. He has also worked at Grantland, The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner. @wesley_morrisJenna Wortham is a staff writer for The Times Magazine and co-editor of the book “Black Futures” with Kimberly Drew. @jennydeluxe More

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      Drake Shakes Up the Singles Chart, but Morgan Wallen’s Album Holds On

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe ChartsDrake Shakes Up the Singles Chart, but Morgan Wallen’s Album Holds OnThree of the rapper’s new tracks dislodged Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” on the Hot 100, while the country star notched a ninth week atop the Billboard 200.Drake’s “What’s Next,” “Wants and Needs” and “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” take the top three spots on the Hot 100.Credit…Chris Delmas/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMarch 15, 2021, 3:09 p.m. ETAfter two static months, the pop charts are finally beginning to change, at least a little.Olivia Rodrigo’s song “Drivers License” has dominated the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for eight weeks, and been a phenomenon on social media, but now it has finally given way. And not just to one song, but three: Drake takes the top three spots with “What’s Next,” “Wants and Needs” and “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” — the first artist in history to do so. (Perhaps not coincidentally, those songs are the first three tracks, in order, on Drake’s recently released EP, “Scary Hours 2.”) “Drivers License” falls to No. 4.The album chart, however, has not budged. “Dangerous: The Double Album,” by the country singer-songwriter Morgan Wallen, notches a ninth week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It had the equivalent of 78,000 sales in the United States, including 98 million steams and 6,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking unit.Despite a rebuke from the industry after Wallen was caught on video casually using a racial slur, “Dangerous” has had the most weeks at No. 1 for any album in five years (since “Views,” by Drake — who else?), and is one of only four country albums in the 65-year history of the chart to spent at least nine weeks at No. 1. The others? Garth Brooks’s “Ropin’ the Wind” (1991), Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Some Gave All” (1992) and Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” (2008).Also on this week’s album chart, Pop Smoke’s “Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon” is No. 2, Pooh Shiesty’s “Shiesty Season” is No. 3, the Weeknd’s year-old “After Hours” is No. 4 and Lil Durk’s “The Voice” is No. 5.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Olivia Rodrigo and Morgan Wallen Dominate the Charts After Eight Weeks

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe ChartsOlivia Rodrigo and Morgan Wallen Dominate the Charts After Eight WeeksThe 18-year-old singer and actress’s song “Drivers License” holds at the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, and the country star’s LP repeats at No. 1 on the Top 200.With few blockbuster releases at the top of the year, the Hot 100 and Top 200 charts haven’t changed much in several weeks. Olivia Rodrigo’s song “Drivers License” holds at No. 1.Credit…Erica HernandezMarch 8, 2021, 2:06 p.m. ETIn late 1966, Elektra Records signed a new band called the Doors, and the label had a feeling its debut was special. To prevent the album from getting lost in the crowded fourth-quarter market, Elektra released it at the start of the next year, when it faced scant competition. “The Doors” became a sensation, eventually reaching No. 2 on the Billboard chart.The strategy of rolling out a hot album in the January doldrums proved lucrative once again this year with “Dangerous: The Double Album” by Morgan Wallen, a country singer-songwriter who rode a lot of buzz to an instant No. 1.But the charts have rarely been as static as they have been this year, as big stars have largely held off releasing new material. That helped Wallen hold at No. 1 for eight weeks now — even as he came under fire last month for using a racial slur — and also given an advantage to Olivia Rodrigo, an 18-year-old singer and actress, who has now dominated the singles chart for eight weeks with her song “Drivers License.”“Dangerous,” which has held strong streaming numbers since it was released, had the equivalent of 82,000 sales in the United States last week, including 103 million streams and 6,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. With few major challengers, “Dangerous” may hold at No. 1 for a ninth week, although competition is coming from Justin Bieber and Drake.“Drivers License,” which had nearly 20 million streams last week, may not hold the top spot much longer, after the long-awaited release of three new Drake songs on “Scary Hours 2.”The rest of this week’s album chart is dominated by other recent hits, most of which have hovered in the Top 10 for weeks if not months: The Weeknd’s hits compilation “The Highlights” (No. 2), Pop Smoke’s “Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon” (No. 3), Pooh Shiesty’s “Shiesty Season” (No. 4) and Lil Durk’s “The Voice” (No. 5).The highest-charting new release was Julien Baker’s “Little Oblivions,” at No. 39.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      'Diary of a Song': Behind the Making of the Hit Series

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat Goes Into ‘Diary of a Song’Nearly 20 episodes in, the making-of video series is popular with viewers and artists alike, thanks to a collaborative team’s approach to breaking down a hit.See how the singer-songwriter and actress wrote her chart-topping first single — after a good cry and with TikTok in mind.CreditCredit…The New York TimesFeb. 26, 2021, 9:07 a.m. ETNearly three years ago, Joe Coscarelli, a pop music reporter for The New York Times, created the video series “Diary of a Song” with a team of video and graphics journalists as a way to find out what shapes an artist’s work. So it was revealing recently when Mr. Coscarelli interviewed Olivia Rodrigo to talk about her No. 1 single “Drivers License,” and she said she was a fan of the series herself.“I watch these religiously,” she told him in a FaceTime call in January, when they discussed the single.Such is the impact of “Diary of a Song.” Now 19 episodes in, the collection of making-of stories featuring artists including Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift has been viewed more than 12 million times on YouTube. The latest installment, with Ms. Rodrigo, debuts Friday.“I’m gratified that whatever we do, people seem to be into it,” Mr. Coscarelli, the host, said.The series offers viewers a behind-the-scenes look at how some of the year’s top hits go from shower thoughts to chart toppers, with emoji-filled episodes that feel more like conversations among friends than interviews. Which was the intention from the beginning.“Not every artist’s story can be told perfectly in a profile,” Caryn Ganz, The Times’s pop music editor, said. “But a ‘Diary’ may be the way to bring them to our audience and break down what they’re doing.”Before “Diary of a Song” became an actual series in 2018, Alicia DeSantis, a deputy editor for visuals and multimedia, worked with the Culture and video teams to produce two videos that elaborately analyzed a track’s creation: “Where Are Ü Now,” by Diplo, Skrillex and Justin Bieber, and Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You.” Together, they drew millions of views, but the production requirements in time, cameras and lighting were not sustainable.As team members sought to find a way to make more regular episodes, they came up with a novel idea: What if they conducted the interviews via FaceTime? The low-tech, familiar platform would be relatable for viewers — and low-stakes enough for artists that it would encourage them to open up in a way they would not normally.“Because these were ‘simple’ FaceTime calls, most artists let their guard down,” Antonio De Luca, the art director and a senior producer for the series, said. Today, artists dial in from backstage, their bed, even the beach.Using FaceTime also eliminated travel costs, opening up new possibilities for interviews. “We could expand beyond the marquee stars and showcase the fuller constellation of creative talent that helps shape these songs — the vocal coaches, producers and other figures who provided crucial elements to the track, and thus our story,” said Alexandra Eaton, who has been the series showrunner and was instrumental in its development.The core team of Mr. Coscarelli, Ms. Eaton, Ms. DeSantis and Mr. De Luca also includes Mike Schmidt, an executive producer who directs video features at The Times, with assists from Ms. Ganz.The heaviest lifting, Mr. De Luca said, is editing the interview footage and supplementary material, which includes everything from voice memos with melodies or guitar riffs to text messages with bits of lyrics, and then creating the graphics. “Only after all the interviews are conducted does the real work begin,” he said.But that is not to discount Mr. Coscarelli’s skill. Ms. DeSantis said he’s a “fabulous” interviewer. “When you’re watching, it just seems like anyone can ask these questions and get these answers,” she said. “But Joe gets people to say things in this that you don’t hear in regular radio interviews, and that comes out of a space of deep knowledge and experience.”One of the inspirations for the series, Mr. Coscarelli said, was Ms. Swift’s meticulous documentation of her songwriting process — she has included demos, voice memos and studio videos as extras with her albums. That spirit of sharing was on display when the artist herself was eventually featured in 2019, in an episode devoted to “Lover.” “When an artist realizes you just want to talk about the details of what they’re best at — like, why they chose this chord and not that one — they’re into it,” Mr. Coscarelli said. “It’s not hard to get them to open up.”Still, he said, over the years he has honed his interviews to spur more revelations. Some of his favorite questions: What was the first part of the song that came to you? What were the crucial moments and decisions? How did you know the song was done?“The things they consider inconsequential to the narrative are gold for us,” he said.Ms. DeSantis said the series aimed to persuade viewers that chart-topping pop songs are masterpieces of craft as worthy of being dissected and analyzed as a symphonic composition. “We take what seem to be throwaway pieces of culture that you hear at the bodega,” she said. “And we show you the accomplishment it takes to create them.”Mr. Coscarelli said that, now that FaceTime “is everyone’s thing,” the team is eager to continue experimenting with the format. But fans can expect one constant: Mr. Coscarelli’s familiar black crew neck sweater — the exact same one every episode — which he wears in front of a roll of red background paper. “It’s been demanded of me by the video team to never switch outfits, so we maintain a consistent character,” he said.Static wardrobe aside, the show’s identity will remain all about trial and error, not unlike songwriting. “One reason I think the series has been successful is that we don’t do the same thing over and over again,” Mr. Coscarelli said. “People get antsy, and it’s so easy to click away, so we always try to be ambitious and make it a little more difficult.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More