As 2024 comes to a close, critics, reporters and editors at The New York Times are reflecting on the year in arts and culture, including music.Today, The Times’s pop music critics Jon Pareles, Lindsay Zoladz and Jon Caramanica talk with Melissa Kirsch, the deputy editor of Culture and Lifestyle, about a new generation of women in pop, how the rapper Kendrick Lamar beat Drake in their feud, and why so many pop stars went country.Guest: Melissa Kirsch, the deputy editor of Culture and Lifestyle for The New York Times.Jon Pareles, the chief pop music critic for The New York Times.Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic and host of the “Popcast” podcast for The New York Times.Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic and writer of The Amplifier newsletter for The New York Times.Background reading: Best Albums of 2024Best Songs of 2024For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Full Episode
Hey, it's Michael. Today, our coverage of the year in arts and in culture continues with guest host Melissa Kirsch speaking to Times critics, reporters, and editors. Take a listen.
From the New York Times, this is The Daily. I'm Melissa Kirsch, Deputy Editor of Culture and Lifestyle. As we close out 2024, I'm talking with my colleagues around the newsroom about what they watched and listened to and read this year. about the things they loved and the things they didn't love. Today, pop music critics John Pirellis, John Karamonica, and Lindsay Zolatz on The Year in Music.
It's Friday, December 27th. John, Lindsay, John, thanks for being here. Hi.
Great to be here.
Thank you. Okay, so we're going to take a little trip through the music of 2024, and I thought it would be good to start off with this song. So this is 360 from Charli XCX's album, Brat. Charli XCX was one of a bunch of young women who had huge moments in pop this year. John Pirellas, Brat was your number one album of 2024. Tell us why. Because the music is...
wonderful, upbeat, electronic, crazy stuff going on in the background, and also an artistic journey through an identity crisis. She was struggling as a artist in her 30s who wanted to be bigger, but also wanted to have a life, but also should she have a baby, but also she really likes to party. So it was very rich in text, subtext, metatext, and internet interaction. I liked the music.
I liked the attitude. I liked the whole idea of shaking up the culture.
Lindsay, it wasn't just that people loved these songs. Brat became this, like, culture-wide phenomenon, right? How did that happen?
I think a lot of it had to do with... Charlie being really savvy about the sort of extra-musical aspects of pop stardom these days that had this really bold, eye-grabbing cover with this very distinct slime green that really jumped out at you in this low-res font that just said brat, and that was endlessly memed, you know, seemed like it was made to be memed, and just sort of set the tone for...
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