Writing about popular music is lousy with obnoxious words. Indeed, there are so many—jangly, crunchy, seminal—that there is a whole book of them (and shamefully, I have used my share). Making things more complicated, much of this language is also subject to a generational divide—words coined by the young are understood to be off-limits to [...] Read more

A pop singer, living out the old maxim to “write what you know,” records a song about heartbreak and the spiteful feelings it engenders. Rumors abound that the raw lyric is directed at a high-profile former paramour. (The singer denies it, not entirely believably.) The singer has been around a while and even topped the [...] Read more

Why “Sicko Mode” sits atop the Hot 100. In early 1984—as Michael Jackson’s Thriller was nearing the end of its epic run at No. 1, about 15 months after its release—a non-album single appeared on the radio that sounded like a Jackson bonus track. It was clearly Michael’s voice, singing the chorus, sounding paranoid about [...] Read more

The single’s chart-topping success is the culmination of years of resilience in the face of tragedy and heartbreak. As if Saturday Night Live hadn’t already been sucking up enough oxygen since President Donald Trump took office, 2018 may go down as the year the NBC institution set the agenda for the pop charts, too. For [...] Read more