Ken Tucker
Appearances
Fresh Air
Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
The year in pop music 2024 pivoted around a trio of women, hitmakers whose various successes hinged upon assertions of creative ambition and admissions of romantic weakness. Foremost among them is the British songwriter Charli XCX.
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Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
Her album, Brat, sought to redefine brattiness, less as irritating behavior than as an insistence that petulance can be justified frustration and anger, that you don't get to define her feelings. Charli's collaborations with other women on the remix version of the album, including Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande, suggested a growing army of artists ready to take up her cause.
Fresh Air
Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
Keeping things light while also serving as an example of ferocious willfulness was Sabrina Carpenter, whose album title, Short and Sweet, referred both to Carpenter herself and the concise, clever hits she makes.
Fresh Air
Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
Listening to her cooing vocals and seeing her wiggly videos, I had to reach way back to Mae West to come up with a comparable example of a woman who wraps her steely command in such a deceptively saucy tone.
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Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
That's Please, Please, Please, Carpenter's pleading, not pleading warning to a boyfriend that he's got to treat her right. The third member of my 2024 power grouping is Chapel Roan. Her mixture of singer-songwriter details, dance-pop grooves, and lovely ballads really caught on as the admiration of her peers increased.
Fresh Air
Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
She was an opening act on Olivia Rodrigo's tour and is a guest on Sabrina Carpenter's Netflix Christmas special. No wonder she proclaimed, I'm your favorite artist's favorite artist. One of her catchiest songs is the emotionally complex Good Luck Babe, in which Roan encourages a straight woman who seems to have a crush on her to feel free to express her desires more openly.
Fresh Air
Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
If you're thinking I've forgotten a certain woman, one around whom so much of not just the music industry but the culture industry revolves, well, I did enjoy a lot of Taylor Swift's album The Tortured Poets Department. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I enjoyed a book about her even more. Rob Sheffield's Heartbreak is the National Anthem, How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music.
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Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
It's the year's best critical appraisal of pop stardom disguised as a fan's ecstatic notes. Finally, I want to remind you of a woman who is not a hitmaker, whose 2024 work was among the year's finest. Arriving in an election year, Carsey Blanton's glowingly political collection, After the Revolution, tried to imagine a better world after a period of upheaval and chaos.
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Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
Where the other artists I played locate their feminism in dance pop, Carsey Blanton mixes folk and rock distinctively. And her version of sexual politics is broad enough to encompass a class critique as well.
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Comedian Ronny Chieng Didn't Tell His Parents He Got A 'Daily Show' Job
While Blanton is singing from the sidelines of superstardom, some stars might do well to listen to her for an example of how to make good music that also refers to subjects other than self-care. Nothing wrong with expanding your already huge base by being even more ambitious in the new year.
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Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Coming up, we hear some new Christmas songs. This is Fresh Air.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
There are two ways to go when recording Christmas music, devout or irreverent. By devout, I don't mean somberly religious as much as I mean sincere and respectful. Few pop performers do devout sincerity more assiduously than Ben Folds, whose earnest tone is ideal for holiday songs.
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Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
Folds has a new album called Slayer, as in Christmas Slay, though I'm sure, given his puckish sense of humor, he meant the title to echo the name of the thrash metal band Slayer, spelled differently, and authors of albums such as Rain in Blood. Ben Folds, by contrast, wants to reign in heaven, blessed to sing his new would-be Christmas standard called Christmastime Rhyme.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
The sentimentality that is inherent in much country music gives it an ideal base upon which to build holiday music, and the four-member country act Little Big Town has now created The Christmas Record, a straightforward title for a briskly sung collection that mixes standards with original material, such as their single, Glow.
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Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
One of Little Big Town's better choices of country covers is their version of a song I wish more people listened to at this time of year, Merle Haggard's lovely song, If We Make It Through December.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
My final selection of new Christmas music is a duet between a very famous pop star and a very famous football player. No, no, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey have not cut their version of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. I'm talking about Travis's brother Jason Kelsey and his duet with Stevie Nicks, doing Ron Sexsmith's beautiful holiday song, Maybe This Christmas.
Fresh Air
Cynthia Erivo Sings With 'A Bit Of A Smile'
That surprisingly effective Kelsey- Stevie duet is part of an album called A Philly Special Christmas Party, a Philadelphia Eagles charity fundraiser. Thinking back to the start of this review, all of my new examples are devout, not irreverent. Maybe next year someone will come up with a new novelty Christmas hit, but as it stands, this year is well served by some very soothing music.