Stylistic chameleons from different generations, Lenny Kravitz and Bruno Mars emulated their heroes to generate hits. What do Lenny Kravitz, a hitmaker primarily in the ’90s and ’00s, and Bruno Mars, a 2010s–20s hitmaker, have in common? It turns out, a lot: Each man has a wide-ranging ethnic and musical background, with early exposure to [...] Read more

Interviewer and Pointer Sisters expert Christian John Wikane says all the Pointers were vocal titans, which gave them an edge. View Transcript Listen & Subscribe Choose your preferred player: Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Stitcher Amazon Music Overcast TuneIn RSS Feed For questions about subscriptions or your Slate Plus feed, check our FAQ. Please enable [...] Read more

The Pointer Sisters sang it all—pop, funk, rock, jazz, country, even kids’ music—with gusto. What got them so excited? Today, the Pointer Sisters are mostly remembered for their flurry of ’80s hits, especially the “Excited” one about losing control and liking it. But their musical history is far more varied: jazz standards? Civil rights–era funk? [...] Read more

Our producer tells us about his Britpop cover, and Allmusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine traces the music’s roots.   Listen & Subscribe Choose your preferred player: Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Stitcher Amazon Music Overcast TuneIn RSS Feed For questions about subscriptions or your Slate Plus feed, check our FAQ. Please enable javascript to get [...] Read more

What was Britpop—a scene, a sound, a movement? What were Oasis and Blur scrapping over? And why was America (mostly) immune? In the ’90s, U.K. rock was by Britons, for Britons. The music of the U.K. indie, Madchester and shoegaze scenes fused together into a new wave of guitar bands with punk energy, laddish lyrics [...] Read more

DJ and editor Lori Majewski says she was “Poltergeisted” when MTV brought British New Wave to U.S. Gen-X teens Listen & Subscribe Choose your preferred player: Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Stitcher Amazon Music Overcast TuneIn RSS Feed For questions about subscriptions or your Slate Plus feed, check our FAQ. Please enable javascript to get [...] Read more

What did the British Invasion of the ’60s and the Second British Invasion of the ’80s have in common? View Transcript View Transcript Before 1964, British bands couldn’t get anywhere on the U.S. charts. Then suddenly, after a certain Fab Four broke, they were everywhere. By 1965, they had locked down our Top 10. In [...] Read more

Critic and author Annie Zaleski says Pink tries everything because her voice can do anything. In this mini-episode of Hit Parade, host Chris Molanphy is joined by widely published critic Annie Zaleski, the author of several books including a forthcoming biography of Pink. Zaleski says Pink contains multitudes, with a voice capable of many genres [...] Read more