With SOUR and GUTS, Olivia Rodrigo established herself as one of the defining songwriters of her generation, pairing brutally honest lyrics with explosive pop-rock…
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Following the breakthrough success of Emails I Can’t Send and the global pop phenomenon Short n’ Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter entered one of the most…
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Few artists have spent the past decade pushing pop music forward as relentlessly as Charli XCX. While many know her from massive hits like…
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By the time Midnights arrived in October 2022, Taylor Swift had already accomplished something few artists ever achieve. She had successfully reinvented herself multiple…
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Timing has a way of reshaping how albums are remembered. When Dua Lipa released Future Nostalgia on March 27, 2020, much of the world…
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Few pop albums arrive under more extraordinary circumstances than Ariana Grande’s thank u, next. Released on February 8, 2019, less than six months after…
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When Lorde released her debut album, Pure Heroine, in 2013, she seemed almost impossibly self-assured. At just 16 years old, she dismantled pop clichés…
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Released on January 8, 2016—David Bowie’s 69th birthday—Blackstar initially seemed like another bold reinvention from an artist who had spent five decades staying one…
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By 2014, Taylor Swift had already become one of the biggest names in country-pop, earning critical acclaim and commercial success through deeply personal songwriting…
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Pop music has always produced breakout stars, but very few debut albums redefine an entire generation. Released in 1999, …Baby One More Time didn’t…
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Breakthrough albums often arrive after years of struggle, and few debut successes were as hard-earned as Sheryl Crow’s Tuesday Night Music Club. Before becoming…
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By 1989, Madonna had already conquered pop music. She had become one of the biggest stars in the world through a string of blockbuster…
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Following the biggest-selling album in history is an impossible task. After Thriller rewrote the record books and transformed Michael Jackson into the world’s biggest…
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Few albums have reinvented an artist’s career as dramatically as Graceland. By the mid-1980s, Paul Simon was already recognized as one of America’s greatest…
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When Beauty and the Beat was released in 1981, few expected an all-female band that had emerged from Los Angeles’ punk scene to dominate…
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The late 1970s and early 1980s were overflowing with musical movements. Punk was evolving into post-punk, new wave was finding its commercial footing, and…
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Long before Thriller became the biggest-selling album of all time, Michael Jackson made the record that truly announced his arrival as an adult artist.…
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Punk rock was never meant to be polished, and disco certainly wasn’t supposed to coexist with it. Yet in 1978, Blondie managed to bridge…
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The Monkees spent much of their early career fighting a reputation they didn’t entirely deserve. Created for television and initially relying heavily on session…
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Dusty Springfield’s arrival as a solo artist could hardly have been more impressive. After finding success as a member of the Springfields, she stepped…
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