Louie and Russ gather to answer YOUR questions! We're talking all our fantasy Brat remixes and a VH1 Divas Live revival, playing out thought experiments about Beyoncé and Rihanna and Louie gets personal about his career and vocab tics. Buy Tickets to Pop Pantheon Live! Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and the Millennial Diva Conundrum on 9/30 at Dynasty Typew…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, NME's Kyann-Sian Williams joins Russ to discuss Tinashe's brand new seventh studio album Quantum Baby – the second in a trilogy of albums she's rolling out. Can she capitalize on the virality of "Nasty"? Or is that even on her mind? And is Tinashe expanding her artistry or letting us in …

Ahead of the release of Tinashe’s seventh studio album, Quantum Baby, The Cut’s Cat Zhang joins Pop Pantheon to discuss Tinashe’s rollercoaster career. Cat and DJ Louie dig into Tinashe’s upbringing in Lexington, Kentucky, her work as a child actor on Two and a Half Men and the girl group she was briefly in with fellow pop star Hayley Kiyoko, The S…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, When Paris Hilton released her debut album, 2006's Paris, the world largely saw it as a joke. Despite it's lead single "Stars Are Blind" becoming a top 20 hit, the album tanked, was savaged by critics and Paris never released another one. Now, on the eve her long-awaited sophomore effort…

We thought 2024 was going to be dominated by a waterfall of new releases from Old Guard Superstars like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa. But while they've each had success, the main story of the last 12 months has been the auspicious establishment of a new generation of pop divas led by Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, but als…

BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE The rollout for Katy Perry’s seventh studio album, 143, has been a disaster. Sixteen years into her pop career, Katy’s facing a textbook struggle for a pop star more than a decade into her career: irrelevance. By contrast, Katy’s pop peer Lady Gaga has charted a very different second act, swerving into acting and rebranding he…

Professor of Ethnomusicology at Julliard Dr. Fredara Hadley joins Pop Pantheon for the culmination of our four-part series on the King of Pop. In the final installment, DJ Louie and Dr. Hadley tackle Michael Jackson’s music post-Thriller, starting with the signature ‘80s blockbuster Bad (1987) and 1991’s successful pivot toward New Jack Swing, Dang…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Ice Spice just dropped her debut record Y2K, an under 25 minute tour through drill beats, Jersey club and Ice's signature puerile humor and nonchalant flow. How does it work as her first official album statement? Who is this music playing to? And does it sound like 2000 at all? Writer Na…

There are albums. And then there’s Thriller. For the third installment of our four-part series on the King of Pop, Stereogum’s Tom Breihan returns for Pop Pantheon’s first ever A-Side devoted to a single album: Michael Jackson’s definitive 1982 pop blockbuster, Thriller. DJ Louie and Tom dig into every aspect of the best-selling album of all time, …

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Olivia Horn reviewed Chappell Roan's debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, in Pitchfork when it dropped last September. Back then, she was a fringy pop upstart with some nice critical notices and a small cult audience. Now, she's one of the biggest new pop superstars of t…

Joe Vogel, author of Man in the Music: The Creative Life of Michael Jackson, joins Pop Pantheon for the second in our four-part series on the King of Pop. DJ Louie and Joe dig into MJ’s early solo work, from his 1972 debut Got to Be There to his first solo number one, “Ben,” his changing voice as grew older and his final Motown album, 1975’s Foreve…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Katy Perry's much anticipated new single, the Dr. Luke-produced "Woman's World", finally dropped on Friday along with it's music video and the response has been.... not so great. Louie and Russ talk all things Katy before pivoting to new songs from Kesha, Lana and Tinashe and a Taylor Sw…

For the first of our four-part series on the King of Pop, writer, professor and critic Emily Lordi joins Pop Pantheon to help us begin to untangle one of the most knotty legacies in pop history: the story of Michael Jackson. Emily and DJ Louie discuss Michael’s extremely strict upbringing, sadistic abuse at the hands of his father Joe, and the crea…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Megan Thee Stallion's third studio album, Megan, her first as an independent artist and since her infamous beef with Nicki Minaj, dropped last week. Taylor Crumpton is here to help Louie and Russ break down the record's inherent regionality, Megan's new and old poses and themes and what …

After the pandemic, fans wanted to see their favs (and even their less favs) so much that the concert touring industry boomed, breaking records and culminating in astronomically expensive blockbuster stadium treks from Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. But more recently, the live show gambit has gone bust for superstars like Jennifer Lopez, The Black Keys,…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Is Camila Cabello's fourth studio album, C, XOXO, a cold-hearted Single White Female-ing of other, cooler pop stars? Or is it an earnest— if chaotic— attempt by the former girl group star to find her authentic voice as a grown up pop diva? Louie, Russ and Friend of the Pod Omri Rolan are…

Mic The Snare joins Pop Pantheon to unpack the wild, unbridled genius of pop’s ultimate enigma, Kate Bush. Louie & Mic The Snare dig into Kate’s teenage record deal and her debut single, 1978’s “Wuthering Heights.” From there they discuss her debut album The Kick Inside, her legendary first – and only – full live tour and her early, pre-MTV adoptio…

It seems like every single Main Pop Girl has dropped an album this year: Ariana, Kacey, Beyoncé, Taylor, Dua, Billie and Charli. And we're only six months in! It's been a whole lot of new music to process but now that we've had a minute to sit with these records, Keep It's Ira Madison III joins DJ Louie to reflect on all of these records, what they…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Normani's debut solo album has been over five years in the making. Now that Dopamine is finally here, was it worth the wait? And with the heat having died down on her career, does it matter? Rolling Stone's Larisha Paul joins the show to help break it all down. To hear the rest of the th…

Tre Johnson returns to Pop Pantheon for a special Pride episode about one of pop's greatest disruptors, Frank Ocean. Louie and Tre discuss Frank’s first foray into the industry, writing for artists like Brandy and Justin Bieber and his rapturous breakthrough mixtape, 2011’s Nostalgia Ultra, which instantly turned Frank into a critical darling and r…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Charli XCX's sixth studio album Brat, which dropped Friday, was posited as a dance album. What we actually got was something quite a bit more complicated. On this week's episode, Louie and Russ break the whole thing down. To hear the rest of the this episode plus receive weekly bonus epi…

To kick off Pride Month, Freelance Music Writer Trish Bendix and Senior Editor at Xtra Magazine Mel Woods join Louie to track the conspicuous rise of sapphic-ness in mainstream pop. From BoyGenius to Chappell Roan to Billie Eilish, girls who like girls and make that a huge feature in the music are crossing over onto the top of the Billboard charts.…

Molly Mary O’Brien returns to Pop Pantheon to unpack the unlikely longevity of Pink. Louie and Molly chart Pink’s emergence in Philadelphia clubs as a teenager through to her brief girl group career and her pop debut as a blue-eyed R&B product at the turn of the millennium with 2000’s Can’t Take Me Home. From there they discuss “Lady Marmalade,” Pi…

The most recent in a long lineage of music biopics, Back to Black, which purports to chronicle the life of the late great Amy Winehouse came out in the US last week. The film received mostly negative reviews and underperformed at the box office. So why are these movies, generally speaking, so unsuccessful and why do we keep making then? Movie Criti…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Billie Eilish released her third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, last Friday. The LA Times' Mikael Wood joins DJ Louie to chronicle the latest evolution in Billie and Finneas' ongoing collaboration and how it fits into the broader glut of Main Pop Girl releases in 2024. To hear the rest of …

Yale University’s Dr. Daphne Brooks returns to Pop Pantheon to unpack one of the foundational blueprints for pop stardom as we know it, Tina Turner. Dr. Brooks and Louie trace Tina’s roots in Tennessee, her debut as a nightclub act in St. Louis and her early work with Ike Turner, from their hit single “A Fool in Love” to their string of R&B hits, f…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Brazilian pop sensation Anitta's most recent recored, Funk Generation, dropped a few weeks ago. Julianne Escobedo Shepherd joins Louie and Russ to break down her rise to global stardom, this record's celebration of Brazilian Baile Funk and put us all on to a couple more rising Brazilian …

After recent episodes on Mariah and Nirvana, two artists who had massive career-defining moments on MTV's iconic live showcase Unplugged, Louie invited authors of the book I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum to chronicle the history of the series: how it started, why it was important, an…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Dua Lipa returned with her much anticipated third album Radical Optimism on Friday. Music writer Owen Myers joins Louie and Russ to parse out the messy rollout and framing, underperforming singles and, after so much hype, how this music actually sounds and who exactly Dua Lipa is on it. …

Legends Only co-host T. Kyle makes his Pop Pantheon debut to discuss Hilary Duff’s brief ascension from Disney starlet to massive pop diva. Louie and T. Kyle discuss Hilary’s origins via the Disney assembly line with the early 2000s juggernaut The Lizzie McGuire Show and how it helped launch her pop career, from her debut album of holiday songs to …

In the past few years, we've seen a serious decline in the centrality of and views for music videos across the board, even for the biggest pop stars. Journalist Michael Cragg recently chronicled this phenomenon in his piece for The Guardian, "'This is an Art Form— and We're Losing it': Is the Music Video Dying?" and today, he joins DJ Louie to disc…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, last night in front of a live audience at The Bell House in Brooklyn, Pop Pantheon gathered Rolling Stone's Brittany Spanos, Every Single Album's Nora Princiotti and Hung Up's Hunter Harris to discuss Taylor Swift's 11th studio album(s?) The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. Loui…

Bandsplain’s Yasi Salek joins DJ Louie to trace Nirvana's brief, iconoclastic trail through pop's mainstream in the early 1990s. Louie and Yasi unpack the group's origins in Aberdeen, Washington, their time on famed indie label Sub Pop, known for popularizing the "grunge" sound, and their bleak, sparse debut in 1989, Bleach, which garnered them a c…

It's listener mailbag time! Louie and Russ are answering all your questions about their expectations for Taylor's The Tortured Poets Department, their personal pop pet peeves, the formula for following up a blockbuster album, why there are no more male pop stars and so much more. Plus, stay tuned until the end of the episode for a very special surp…

Critic and writer Naomi Zeichner joins Pop Pantheon to explore the career of the “vocal bible,” Brandy. Louie and Naomi unpacked Brandy’s self-titled 1994 debut, released when she was just 15, her landmark acting roles as Moesha and Cinderella, and 1998’s Darkchild-assisted Never Say Never, which reimagined her at the vanguard of R&B futurism and b…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Beyoncé eighth studio album, Cowboy Carter, dropped last Friday. Once perceived as a foray into country music, this sprawling 80 (!!) minute epic turned out to be so much more than that and, as with any Bey project, begs for some serious unpacking. DJ Louie, Russ and Oxford American's Da…

Tonight, Beyoncé will drop her eighth studio album, Cowboy Carter, her first explicit full-length foray into country music. As with every Bey project, there's a ton of meaning and history to unpack. DePaul University professor and author of Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions, Dr. Francesca Royster, and writer and editor Taylor Crumpton,…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, music critic Jewly Hight joins DJ Louie for a wide-ranging discussion about Kacey Musgraves' fifth studio album, Deeper Well, which dropped last week. Louie and Jewly discuss how this record fits in the broader narrative arc of Kacey's music and career trajectory, her influences from acr…

Culture writer and author Lina Abascal returns to Pop Pantheon to revisit the fleeting early 2010s moment when EDM DJs utterly consumed American popular music via two of the genre’s most emblematic figures, David Guetta and Calvin Harris. Louie and Lina trace David’s roots in the Paris club scene through to his breakthrough in the U.S. with hits li…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Justin Timberlake put out his sixth studio album, Everything I Thought It Was, last Friday. But is it possible to hear this music— or appreciate Justin's talents— outside of the narrative nosedive his career has taken in the last decade? Vox's Kyndall Cunningham joins Louie and Russ to d…

Host and culture writer for Dazed, Vogue and more, Kemi Olivia Alemoru, and writer on race, culture and politics and author of the upcoming book Black Genius, Tre Johnson, join the show to discuss how we as critics and the public interface with the work of famous pop stars who have done awful things. Kemi, Tre and Louie dig into the complex legacie…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode and as a capstone to our latest series on Ariana Grande, Bustle's Nolan Feeney joins DJ Louie to discuss Ari's seventh studio album, Eternal Sunshine, which dropped on Friday. Louie and Nolan dig into all the record's themes, aesthetics, how it toys with her public narrative, the impact o…

For part two of our Ariana Grande series, Pitchfork senior editor Anna Gaca is here to discuss the aesthetic pivot of 2018’s Sweetener, the superstar's first album following the horrific bombing of her Manchester concert and which found her reaching for light amidst unthinkable darkness. From there, Louie and Anna tackle the tabloid frenzy of Ari's…

Pop music critic at the LA Times, Mikael Wood, joins Pop Pantheon for our first ever full re-examination of the first ever artist we ever ranked in the official Pop Pantheon: Ariana Grande. In Part 1, Louie and Mikael trace Ariana’s roots as a performer, from her start on Broadway as a teenager to her Nickelodeon years and her bubblegum debut singl…

When was the last time a single pop star dominated culture like Taylor Swift? From her blockbuster re-recordings, which brought a new generation of fans into the Swiftie fold, to her world-conquering Eras Tour, record-breaking 4th Album of the Year Grammy for 2022’s Midnights and the endless fascination with her personal life and new relationship w…

Jennifer Lopez might not have stopped the world when she released her new self-financed visual album, This is Me... Now: A Love Story, last week. But she certainly drummed up a lot of conversation, much of which most certainly would not have been happening had she simply dropped a new record. After watching the film, DJ Louie got together with writ…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, as we gear up for Justin Timberlake's sixth studio album Everything I Thought I Was, due in March, DJ Louie and writer Rachel Brodsky gather to reflect on his debut, 2002's Justified. The two parse out how Justin's public profile nosedive has impacted the public's experience of this musi…

Writer Natalie Weiner joins Pop Pantheon to unpack Sheryl Crow’s “winding road” to pop superstardom. Natalie and Louie trace back Sheryl’s early days in the music business, from her gig singing backup on Michael Jackson's blockbuster Bad Tour to writing songs for Celine Dion and Tina Turner, then discuss the roots rock infused pop of 1993's Tuesday…

In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Beyoncé dropped two singles plus announced her new album! Usher performed at the Super Bowl Halftime Show! Variety's Steven J. Horowitz joins Louie and Russ to discuss it all, plus a new music speed round featuring Justin Timberlake, Kacey Musgraves & Ice Spice. To hear the rest of the t…

In anticipation of Usher's Super Bowl Halftime performance on Sunday, we're re-sharing our episode on him from September 2022. Music writer and Assistant Professor at Syracuse University, Rawiya Kameir, is back on the show to discuss the career and confessions of the great Usher. DJ Louie and Rawiya break down Usher’s musical origins singing in the…