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      Nicki Minaj Reunites With Lil Wayne and Drake, and 13 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Olivia Rodrigo, Tony Allen, L’Rain and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Nicki Minaj with Drake and Lil Wayne, ‘Seeing Green’In honor of Nicki Minaj’s still-incendiary 2009 debut mixtape “Beam Me Up Scotty” finally arriving on streaming services, she’s organized a little YMCMB family reunion. “Seeing Green” is more of a status update than a club banger à la the trio’s classic “Truffle Butter,” but everyone is still in fine form. Wayne, as usual, plays the gonzo court jester, and he seizes the opportunity to unload all of those pandemic-related rhymes he’s been holding onto for the last year (“I put you six feet deep, I’m being socially distant”). Nicki locks back into her standard eviscerate-the-haters flow, and Drake continues to rap with a precision and bite that suggests, as did the recent “Scary Hours 2,” that whenever his promised “Certified Lover Boy” arrives, it might actually be worth the wait. “I played 48 minutes on a torn meniscus,” he boasts, “who’s subbing?” (But maybe see a doctor about that, Drake — it’s serious!) LINDSAY ZOLADZOlivia Rodrigo, ‘Good 4 U’The third single from Olivia Rodrigo’s forthcoming debut album, “Sour,” tells a story that will be familiar to anyone who’s heard her first single, “Driver’s License”: A former flame moves on too quickly after a breakup, leaving Rodrigo alone with all her feelings. But this time the 18-year-old Disney actress refracts it through a different lens and a whole new sonic palette. Though it starts off quiet, by the chorus “Good 4 U” explodes into a kind of “You Oughta Know” for the TikTok era, all righteous anger and pop-punky, primal-scream rage: “Good for you, you’re doing great out there without me — like a damn sociopath!” ZOLADZTorres, ‘Don’t Go Puttin Wishes in My Head’The new song from Mackenzie Scott — who makes brooding, searching indie-rock under the name Torres — might be the most accessible thing she’s ever released. And she knows it: She’s wryly described “Don’t Go Putting Wishes in My Head,” the first single from her forthcoming album “Thirstier,” as “my relentless arena country star moment.” More than anything, though, with its buzzing synths and soaring chorus, “Wishes” recalls the Killers at their most fist-clenchingly anthemic. “Just when I thought that it was over, it was only just beginning,” Scott sings, her voice trembling with intensity. She seems to understand that accepting joy can sometimes be an even more vulnerable act than confessing pain, but by the end of the song she sounds fearless, and ready to move toward the light. ZOLADZTony Allen, ‘Mau Mau’The drummer Tony Allen supplied the rhythmic foundation for Fela Kuti’s Nigerian Afrobeat in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on West African traditions, jazz and funk, he built an architecture of unpredictable offbeats, unhurried but kinetic. Before his death in 2020, he had started a hip-hop project, creating beats and synthesizer bass lines and lining up vocalists. Allen’s new album, “There Is No End,” was completed posthumously by the producers Vincent Taeger and Vincent Taurelle. “Mau Mau” features Nah Eeto, a rapper from Kenya, with multitracked vocals that calmly bounce around the syllables of her lyrics — some in English, some not — to highlight all the ways Allen could dodge the downbeat while constantly flicking the music onward. JON PARELESMaría Grand, ‘Now, Take, Your, Day’The rising tenor saxophonist María Grand wrote the tunes that appear on “Reciprocity,” her new LP, in the middle of a pregnancy, while reading spiritual texts and paying close attention to the bond she was building with her not-yet-born child. (The album’s liner notes include her written reflections on becoming a mother, and how this found its way into the music.) The album, featuring Kanoa Mendenhall on bass and Savannah Harris on drums, is also a testament to the constant regeneration that becomes possible within a close musical partnership; on track after track, Grand dances nimbly over Harris’s subtly shifting patterns, and Mendenhall stubbornly insists on never repeating herself. “Now, Take, Your, Day” begins with all three members singing the song’s title in harmony, before the rhythm section lays down a loosely funky beat and Grand introduces the song’s downward-slanting melody on saxophone. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOBella Poarch, ‘Build a Bitch’Like many TikTok stars, Bella Poarch is making a move into her own music. “Build a Bitch” comes across cute and furious. Tinkly toy-piano sounds and perky la-las accompany her as she points out that women aren’t consumer products. “You don’t get to pick and choose/Different ass and bigger boobs,” she coos. “If you need perfect, I’m not built for you.” A post-“Westworld” video set in an android factory ends, inevitably, in mayhem. PARELESSleater-Kinney, ‘Worry With You’The forthcoming, self-produced Sleater-Kinney album “Path of Wellness” will be the first the Portland band releases as a duo, since its longtime power-drummer Janet Weiss departed in 2019, and her absence certainly makes the song feel a bit muted and minor. But there’s still a familiar pleasure in hearing Carrie Brownstein’s snaking guitar riffs and staccato vocals intertwine with Corin Tucker’s, as they sing of a long-term togetherness that’s provided comfort in good times and bad: “If I’m gonna mess up,” they avow, “I’m gonna mess up with you.” ZOLADZMartin Garrix featuring Bono & The Edge, ‘We Are the People’The official 2020 UEFA European Football Championship song is exactly what you’d expect from a soccer anthem by a big-room EDM D.J. collaborating with half of U2: a grand, thumping march with pinging guitars, vast synthesizer swells and determinedly inspirational lyrics. “You’ve faith and no fear for the fight,” Bono sings, “You pull hope from defeat in the night.” The song uses familiar tools for stadium-scale uplift, but they can still work. PARELESHolly Macve, ‘You Can Do Better’Regrets and reverb both loom large on Holly Macve’s second album, “Not the Girl,” a set of country-rooted ballads that place her reedy voice — determinedly sustained through countless breaks and quavers — in wide-screen, retro arrangements. “You Can Do Better” is a stately, swaying waltz, a breakup-and-makeup scenario that builds up to dramatic questions, swirling across voices and strings: “Is it so wrong to love you?/Is it so wrong to care?” PARELESL’Rain, ‘Blame Me’L’Rain — the songwriter, musician and producer Taja Cheek — opens an ever-widening, ever more disorienting sonic vortex in “Blame Me,” from her second album, “Fatigue,” due June 25. Sparse guitars pick fragments of chords that fall, then rise, as L’Rain muses cryptically on mortality and remorse. Soon, they’re enveloped by a ghostly orchestra and distant voices intoning, “Waste away now, make my way down”; as the track ends, she’s still in a lush harmonic and emotional limbo. PARELESElaine, ‘Right Now’Elaine is from South Africa, where she already has a large audience. But her sound bespeaks international R&B ambitions, with programmed trap drum sounds and an American accent. In “Right Now,” she tries to juggle a damaged relationship against a burgeoning career. “I cannot continue carrying all your insecurities/I got more priorities,” she sings, quietly but adamantly. Her alto is low, intimate and flexible; with her priorities, she’s not about to indulge a cheating ex, even if she’s tempted. PARELESAlan Jackson, ‘Where Have You Gone’“Where Have You Gone,” the title song of Alan Jackson’s new, 21-song album, starts off like a lonely lament for someone who’s left him: “It’s been way too long since you slipped away.” But it turns out he’s lamenting the way “sweet country music” used to sound: steel guitar, fiddle, “words from the heart.” It’s the style Jackson has upheld through his career, looking back to Merle Haggard and George Jones, only to see it supplanted lately by arena-country and infiltrations of hip-hop. “The airwaves are waiting,” he insists; current country radio says otherwise. PARELESSons of Kemet featuring Moor Mother and Angel Bat Dawid, ‘Pick Up Your Burning Cross’Over the rough rhythmic onrush of this United Kingdom-based quartet — featuring Theon Cross’s pulsing tuba, Shabaka Hutchings’s roof-raising saxophone and the interlocked drumming of Edward Wakili-Hick and Tom Skinner — a voice hovers, singing and speaking and laughing. It belongs to Angel Bat Dawid, and it’s soon joined by that of Moor Mother, another revolutionary poet and musician from this side of the Atlantic. “I don’t think you remember me/I was in last place,” Moor Mother begins, serving notice as the band presses ahead. The piece is on “Black to the Future,” Sons of Kemet’s fourth album. RUSSONELLOErika Dohi, ‘Particle Of …’Erika Dohi, a Japanese keyboardist and composer now based in New York City, is one of the musicians affiliated with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver’s label 37d03d (“people” upside-down). “Particle Of …” comes from her new album “I, Castorpollux,” and while it was composed by Andy Akiho (who also directed her music video), it fits the album’s aesthetic of Minimalistic repetitions and startling fractures. It uses percussive, single-note patterns on piano and prepared piano, played live and then computer manipulated, equally virtuosic and digitally skewed. Chords arrive at the end, like a surprise visit from 20th-century modernism. PARELES More

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      Olivia Rodrigo’s Emotional Road Trip, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Westside Gunn, Rosanne Cash, Dry Cleaning and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Deja Vu’OK, now that she’s got her license, here comes the road trip. Olivia Rodrigo’s “Deja Vu” opens in the car, with the singer recalling fonder times with an ex. As on “Drivers License,” there are three parties — Rodrigo, that former beau and the specter of that person’s new love, and it’s unclear which of the other two causes Rodrigo more anguish. The lyrics are plain and pinpoint pained: “That was our place, I found it first/I made the jokes you tell to her.” About halfway through, “Deja Vu” turns severely Swiftian, with lyrical asides about listening to music, a yelping section almost directly cribbed from Swift’s “Cruel Summer’” and a familiar power struggle over who taught who about cool music. Rodrigo would like to make it clear, though, that she is no mere student: “Play her piano but she doesn’t know/That I was the one who taught you Billy Joel.” JON CARAMANICAWestside Gunn, ‘Julia Lang’Hazy, pugnacious and glowering, the latest from Westside Gunn is ragged in the best early ’90s way, so convincing in its fuzz and stagger that it’s almost like a recovered memory. CARAMANICARosanne Cash featuring John Leventhal, ‘The Killing Fields’Rosanne Cash considers her own past, her family’s Southern roots, and the South’s history of lynchings and injustice in “The Killing Fields.” She sings, “The blood that runs on cypress trees cannot be washed away/by mothers’ tears and gasoline.” The melody is mournful and minor-key; a lone, lightly strummed guitar supplies most of the accompaniment. And at the end, Cash resolves, “All that came before us/is not who we are now.” JON PARELESHalf Waif, ‘Take Away the Ache’Half Waif — the songwriter Nandi Rose — lets herself be buffeted by the paradoxes of love in “Take Away the Ache.” She sings, “I know that I’m asking for more than you can give/but isn’t love just living like that?” It’s a dizzying three-and-a-half minutes, veering amid minimal electronic abstractions, piano ballad and dance-floor thumper, all held together by passionate yearning. PARELESNaomi Cowan, ‘Energy’The Jamaican singer Naomi Cowan sets her usual reggae aside in “Energy,” an ingenious, multi-leveled mesh of syncopations and silences produced by Izy Beats. Plucked strings, sporadic bass tones, finger snaps, flickering electronic hi-hats and teasing, elusive backup vocals poke in and out of the mix as Cowan chides an ex who ghosted her before declaring, “Love and war, baby, I’m no casualty.” PARELESDry Cleaning, ‘Unsmart Lady’“If you like a girl, be nice — it’s not rocket science,” Florence Shaw deadpans on “Unsmart Lady,” a new single from the London four-piece Dry Cleaning that plays out almost like a psych-rock update of Nada Surf’s “Popular.” On Dry Cleaning’s excellent debut album “New Long Leg,” out on Friday, Shaw is equal parts frontwoman and spoken-word poet, weaving the random linguistic detritus of modern life into loose, surreal narratives. (She used to collect snippets of overheard conversations and intriguing phrases in her phone’s Notes app; when her friends asked her to join their band, she mined that found material for lyrics.) “Unsmart Lady” begins as a kind of curt, one-sided conversation, but by the end it has transformed into an imagistic meditation on the absurdities of femininity, like a “foot squeezed hopefully into a short boot.” Around her, the band unleashes its fury, but Shaw’s delivery stays steady — the gimlet eye of a storm. LINDSAY ZOLADZMdou Moctar, ‘Afrique Victime’Mdou Moctar, a guitarist, singer and bandleader from Niger, deploys everything he has drawn from Saharan traditions and Western rock in the calm-to-storm buildup of “Afrique Victime,” the title song of an album due May 21. He warns, “Africa is a victim of so many crimes/If we stay silent it will be the end of us,” while the beat gallops ahead. Soon, his electric guitar leaps up from the band’s rhythmic core to trill, twirl, swoop and scream. PARELESAG Club featuring Icecoldbishop, ‘Noho’The excellent “Noho,” from the new album by the consistently refreshing AG Club, features a frictionless collision of Bay Area hip-hop traditions: the slow-and-low and the loopily exuberant. CARAMANICADopolarians, ‘The Bond’Dopolarians began in 2018 as a project uniting free-jazz musicians based in Arkansas with elder luminaries from the free-jazz world: the bassist William Parker, the drummer Alvin Fielder Jr. and the saxophonist Kidd Jordan. Their debut album, “Garden Party,” seesawed between singsong lyricism and reckless entanglement. The group has just released a new LP, “The Bond,” and while the lineup has changed — Brian Blade now fills the drum chair after Fielder died in 2019 at 83; Jordan, now 85, is no longer in the group — the loose but intense feel remains the same. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO 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

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      How a Gen-Z Disney Star Wrote a Runaway Hit

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      Watch how your favorite pop hits get made. Meet the artists, songwriters and producers as Joe Coscarelli investigates the modern music industry.Watch how your favorite pop hits get made. Meet the artists, songwriters and producers as Joe Coscarelli investigates the modern music industry. More

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      Olivia Rodrigo and ‘Drivers License’ Aren’t Going Anywhere

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyPopcastSubscribe:Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsOlivia Rodrigo and ‘Drivers License’ Aren’t Going AnywhereA conversation about the year’s first genuine pop phenomenon, and the long arc of the Disney machine.Hosted by Jon Caramanica. Produced by Pedro Rosado.More episodes ofPopcastJanuary 31, 2021Olivia Rodrigo and ‘Drivers License’ Aren’t Going AnywhereJanuary 19, 2021Inside the Bull Market for Songwriting RightsJanuary 7, 2021How Zev Love X Became MF DoomDecember 23, 20202020 Popcast Listener Mailbag: Taylor, Dua, MGK and MoreDecember 15, 2020Taylor Swift’s ‘Evermore’: Let’s DiscussDecember 9, 2020The Best Albums of 2020? Let’s DiscussNovember 29, 2020Saweetie, City Girls and the Female Rapper RenaissanceNovember 18, 2020Who Will Control Britney Spears’s Future?November 10, 2020Ariana Grande, a Pop Star for the Post-Pop Star AgeOctober 22, 2020  •  More