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apply. Welcome

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to the New York Times

0:30

Popcast, your

0:32

hockey shin guard question

0:35

mark of music news

0:37

and criticism. I'm

0:46

your host, John Keir, Monica. That

0:50

was Tate McCray,

0:52

greedy Tate McCray, the

0:57

popular, somewhat popular Canadian pop star who's

0:59

been having a bit of a run

1:01

in the last six to 12 months,

1:04

but has been trying to have a bit of a run for a little bit

1:06

longer. Tate McCray has been on

1:08

my mind recently for a few reasons,

1:11

not solely the aesthetics of her

1:14

music videos, which are unique, but

1:17

also because Tate McCray has felt

1:19

very much to me like

1:22

a performer who is very

1:25

mindful of what

1:27

the expectations of a

1:29

female pop star are right now and have

1:31

been for the last couple of years. A

1:34

phrase that kicks around Twitter and

1:36

TikTok and other fan spaces

1:39

is main pop girl. It's

1:42

an idea. It's a

1:44

category. I don't know if there

1:46

can only be just one, but

1:48

it's a goal, especially for a

1:51

lot of younger female pop singers

1:53

to be main pop girl. And

1:56

I wondered over time, where

1:58

did that idea come? from who

2:01

started it. Can you choose

2:03

to be a part of it or is it

2:05

imposed upon you or are you

2:07

deemed it are you knighted as it were

2:10

main pop girl and I want to

2:12

give it to the hood of that whole thing to

2:14

have that conversation. Lourish Apoll and Jason B Frank

2:16

are going to call in to talk to us

2:18

about the history of main pop girl. Do

2:21

a Tate Ari

2:23

Billy Taylor question

2:25

mark and many more. So

2:28

here we are joining us. It's

2:30

two pop cast veterans. First

2:32

Lourish Apoll is here. Lourish,

2:35

hello, welcome. Hello thank

2:37

you for having me. Lourish is a staff writer

2:39

at Rolling Stone and we

2:41

go back many years. Was it the NYU

2:44

concert thing? The Pop Smoke 100

2:46

Gex pair up. You wasn't

2:49

there. You weren't

2:51

there. You weren't there. Jason

2:53

B Frank is here. Jason. Hi.

2:56

Staff writer at Vulture, editor

2:58

in chief of main pop

3:00

girl concerns at Vulture. I've

3:02

been thinking a lot about

3:04

this phrase

3:07

because I'm of

3:09

the mindset that the phrase has become a

3:12

bit of a burden for

3:14

younger singers and we

3:16

open with Tate McCray greedy and

3:18

I feel like a lot of the Tate

3:20

McCray discourse isn't so

3:22

much about is Tate McCray good

3:25

or bad or the songs or

3:27

any specific musical connotation as much

3:29

as is Tate McCray in this

3:31

conversation, this main pop girl conversation.

3:34

Could she be at some point

3:37

and I wonder for someone who

3:39

is still getting on their feet, still figuring

3:41

out exactly what their sound is, still probably

3:44

having a record label pushing

3:46

ideas on her to say

3:49

you should do something that's more like this or

3:51

you should evolve your sound. Is

3:53

that a fair like appellation to

3:55

thrust upon someone who may not be ready for

3:57

it? And so that has been on my mind.

4:00

recently and it got me

4:02

thinking that I'd love to do a

4:04

little bit of broad theorizing about the

4:06

idea of main pop girl and also

4:08

we are recording this on the day of

4:11

Ariana Grande's new album release

4:14

and we were just chatting a bit before we started

4:16

recording and I feel like we may have

4:18

a little bit of disagreement about does

4:21

Ari belong in this conversation or how Ari

4:23

fits into this conversation. So maybe

4:25

let's start with that and Larissa do

4:27

you want to maybe pick up a

4:29

little bit with what we

4:31

were just chatting about where Ariana Grande

4:33

sits in relationship to the main pop

4:36

girl discourse? When we think

4:38

about someone like Ariana, she is someone

4:40

who has always functioned in eras, right?

4:42

She's always been an album driven artist.

4:44

She's never been a big I'm

4:47

going to throw out all these singles and hope

4:49

for the best kind of person. And so I

4:51

think when we get to an album like A

4:53

Tonal Sunshine, it is not just the

4:56

music around it, but it's also the

4:58

cultural conversation around it. It is the

5:00

commentary on Spongebob and whatever

5:02

else is going on with her personal life.

5:04

And I think there's an element to

5:07

that of main pop girlism of

5:10

how invested we are in the

5:13

narrative that are informing the music that we're hearing.

5:15

And I think pop is not something that people

5:18

tend to attach narrative to. I think for

5:20

a long time, obviously, there was this idea

5:23

that it was separated in general. And

5:25

I think Ariana is someone who, especially

5:27

around Sweetener and especially around Thank You Next,

5:29

looked out on that on its head and

5:32

made it a very personal endeavor, specifically Thank

5:34

You Next. And I think the

5:36

pairing of Sweetener and Thank You Next and what

5:38

that era looked like for her in

5:41

the media and in the music really

5:43

cemented her in that place in a way that Dangerous

5:47

Woman laid the groundwork for. But

5:49

I think she's someone who every

5:52

time she's released an album, there's been

5:54

larger conversation about it. There's been debates

5:56

about how it fits into

5:59

the larger narrative. of whatever year it

6:01

came out in conversation with the other pop artists

6:04

who released albums that year. I

6:06

totally agree with Larisha that one of

6:08

the main points of conversation around whether

6:10

or not someone is a main pop

6:12

girl is if they're at the center

6:14

of the conversation in pop. Are they

6:17

dominating the era? Are they defining

6:19

what pop is at the moment?

6:22

I also think it's important that they are

6:24

bigger than their own music a lot of

6:26

the time, right? Because Ariana Grande is, as

6:29

a cultural figure, a lot of

6:31

the times bigger than the songs that she

6:33

writes. I think that was true,

6:35

starting with Thank You Next when

6:38

the song Thank You Next really

6:40

propelled her image to the

6:42

heights that she was at as opposed

6:44

to the song simply propelling her image.

6:47

And I also think that was true

6:49

throughout 2020 when she was releasing number

6:51

one hit records seemingly every week. That

6:53

would then fall down the charts immediately

6:55

after because people would just check in

6:58

on whatever she did. Since then, I would

7:00

say that she is still a

7:03

main pop girl because she hasn't

7:05

released, to use Stan terms again,

7:07

she hasn't had a flop era yet. So

7:10

that means that she just through sheer

7:13

momentum stays in the main pop girl conversation. I

7:15

think if you're a main pop girl, you're a

7:17

main pop girl until you flop, which

7:19

is how Katy Perry left the conversation, which

7:21

is how I think Lady Gaga isn't in

7:23

the center of the conversation any longer, not

7:26

just feels like the way that you

7:28

go downhill. Finally. So in

7:31

the interest of clarity, there can be multiple

7:33

main pop girls at any given time. Is

7:35

that fair? Totally. Yeah, it's like a tier.

7:38

It's a tier. Okay, right. So there's multiple

7:40

main pop girls. And one

7:42

thing that both of you mentioned

7:44

is essentially the importance of

7:47

metanarrative, not simply music

7:49

or narrative. It's metanarrative.

7:53

To what degree do you think

7:55

that metanarrative is generated from the

7:57

artist outward and or vice versa?

8:00

Is it generated from the fan

8:02

communities towards the artist? I

8:05

would say that generally it depends

8:08

on the person, but I feel like to have. I

8:12

feel like a main pop girl generally is

8:14

in control of pop. And so you want

8:17

to feel like they're in control of their

8:19

own narrative somehow. And so I

8:22

think one of the reasons that going

8:24

back to Ari and thank you next, felt

8:27

like a defining moment for her was

8:29

that it felt like the narrative was

8:31

potentially out of control. And then she

8:33

took it back and that taking control

8:35

of her own public image is what

8:38

propelled her from. Maybe

8:41

a tier two level

8:43

pop star into the level

8:45

of a main pop girl, because

8:48

it felt like she controlled her

8:50

own image for the first time. Larissa,

8:53

to what degree do you think that there's

8:56

a tug of war in a way

8:58

between what artists are trying to say

9:00

about themselves in this broader way and

9:03

what fans believe is

9:06

the bigger narrative? I think

9:08

that's really interesting because I think it depends

9:10

on who you're looking at in a

9:12

lot of ways. And I think this

9:14

particular point about narrative and how that

9:16

shapes how we view women

9:18

in pop and particularly who we view as like a

9:20

main pop girl. I think about someone like Dua Lipa,

9:22

who I think is a

9:25

perfect example of a main pop girl right now.

9:29

But do you listen to Dua Lipa's

9:31

music and learn really anything about her?

9:33

There's not personality. This is

9:35

Dua Lipa. And the personality

9:37

is her Instagram is really sick. You know

9:39

what I mean? She's on vacation all the time.

9:42

But that makes me wonder, because Dua is certainly someone I want

9:44

to talk about in this conversation. It

9:47

makes me wonder if there

9:49

is that fundamental blankness. The

9:52

songs are good. Like I like 80% of Dua

9:54

Lipa songs, right? I think they're

9:56

well produced. She delivers them

9:58

adequately to very well. well, but there

10:00

isn't to my eye, a larger narrative.

10:06

And you can see, and this came up on Deluxe, Joe

10:08

and I were talking about this a couple weeks ago, you

10:11

can see they're almost

10:13

like forcing the meta narrative onto these

10:15

songs and forcing it onto the rollout,

10:17

but is there actually that degree of

10:19

curiosity about the duo leap of meta

10:22

narrative? I feel like there's not. And

10:24

so that makes me wonder, no

10:26

matter how good the songs are, should

10:28

we really be talking about her with this phrase

10:31

of main pop girl? Because I feel like you

10:33

can have the biggest songs in the

10:35

world, but if there's no extra layer, it

10:38

feels like it's not actually in conversation with all these

10:40

other people we're trying to talk about. I'll

10:43

come out and say, I don't think Lou Dua Lipa is the

10:45

main pop girl. Yeah. Insert

10:49

sound of a wall collapsing or like

10:51

a building. Right. Just

10:55

crumbling underneath Dua Lipa. I do

10:57

think that there is an element

11:00

of an era conversation to it,

11:02

right? I think that Dua Lipa

11:04

was undeniably in

11:06

the main pop girl conversation in

11:08

2020 during

11:11

the whole stretch of Yushin nostalgia. I

11:13

don't think that. And because it's like

11:15

I'm saying, when you look back

11:17

and look at what the

11:19

state of pop was in 2020, you can't

11:21

have that conversation without talking about Dua Lipa.

11:24

And so I don't think that when you

11:26

become a main pop girl, you are there

11:28

permanently forever. I think there is, like Jason's

11:30

saying, you can have a flop era and

11:32

be evicted from the main pop girl house.

11:35

But I also think that you can pack your bags

11:37

and decide that you're gonna go move to a smaller

11:40

residence and be fine there. Can

11:42

you go back and forth? Can you be kicked

11:44

out and then come back? Is that an option?

11:47

I think so. I think Miley Cyrus does

11:49

that. Wow. I was gonna say, yeah. I

11:51

think Miley is the perfect example of that.

11:53

I think Banger's perfect

11:56

main pop girl era.

11:58

Chaos, narrative, drama. Bangerous.

12:01

It hits. It hits, yeah. But

12:03

everything after that, up until last

12:05

year, up until Flowers, up until

12:07

Endless Summer Vacation, which on its

12:09

own was not even that grand

12:12

of an era beyond Flowers, she

12:15

was back in the conversation around her

12:18

Grammy's streak last month.

12:21

She's back in the mix. Now

12:23

is this new Pharrell song going to keep

12:26

her in the mix for a bit? I

12:29

think so. I think she's someone who weaves

12:31

in and out of that space in an

12:33

interesting way. But I think even like you're

12:35

saying about how sometimes the

12:37

narrative is being projected onto these artists,

12:40

I think sometimes the artists project the

12:42

narratives onto themselves. I think that's what

12:44

someone like Charli XCX does where her

12:46

last album Crash was her leading

12:48

was This Is My Main Pop Girl. That

12:51

was a declaration that she made. Now she makes a

12:53

lot of these kind of blanket statement declarations and then

12:55

the music doesn't always add up. But

12:57

it was a good pop album. It was a great

12:59

pop album, I'd say. And now she's on

13:02

the cycle for the next album. And she's, I don't know

13:04

why I made those songs. I hate those songs. That's not

13:06

me. And yes, there were conversations

13:08

about whether she packed her bags and decided to leave

13:10

the main pop girl house. She didn't want to be

13:13

there anymore. But she was also never in, it was

13:16

musically aligned with what we would

13:18

expect from massive mainstream female pop

13:20

artists. But it wasn't there charts

13:22

wise. It wasn't there numbers wise.

13:24

And I think the

13:27

main pop girl conversation as a whole

13:29

really is rooted in sand culture in

13:31

a lot of ways and how they

13:33

can use that positioning to defend or

13:35

to tear down other artists.

13:38

And so I think, you know, it's one of those

13:40

things where it is something that you can try on

13:42

and take off because it's ultimately pretty arbitrary in a

13:44

lot of ways. Can

13:46

I bring it back to Ariana for a minute? Because

13:48

I think both of you are

13:51

committed to Ari in this conversation and

13:54

in this tier. And I think the

13:56

reason I've had hesitation about that is

13:58

there may be two. reasons. One,

14:02

early Ariana Grande, like before Thank

14:04

You Next, like 1.0 post- Nickelodeon

14:07

Ariana Grande, to me was trying to

14:09

do something very different, doing something very

14:12

Mariah Carey-ish, like in very

14:14

much a R&B

14:17

singer with pop leaning, but

14:19

with a huge voice who

14:21

was really emphasizing technical precision

14:24

and a certain kind of song craft

14:26

that would suit a scale, a voice with

14:29

a scale like she had. And

14:31

obviously by the time you get to the sort

14:33

of celebrity era and the tabloid era and then

14:35

the main pop girl era as it were from

14:37

three or four years ago, it's

14:40

clear that she's accepted

14:42

that to be as big as

14:45

she clearly wants to be, you

14:47

have to lean into all the sort of

14:49

messy stuff that happens around being very famous,

14:52

totally fine. But I do feel

14:54

like, and maybe I'm just reading

14:57

this wrong, I do feel like there's always

14:59

a touch of reluctance in

15:02

her. She's a very, she's

15:04

apart from licking the donut or

15:06

whatever, she's generally pretty controlled in

15:09

terms of her presentation. If there's

15:11

a mess, she may allude to

15:14

it in song and it may

15:16

get discussed in the tabloid ecosystem,

15:18

but it's not something that she

15:20

ever publicly talks about or displays

15:22

in any real way. And so

15:26

I've always felt like these

15:28

larger conversations about Ariana as

15:31

main pop girl or A-list star, there's almost

15:33

feels like a touch of remove between what

15:35

she's trying to do, which is be like,

15:38

I'm a serious singer, I bring

15:40

serious vocals into the pop space

15:43

and I'm willing to play the game that

15:45

everybody else is playing. Because I think the

15:47

way that she's handled this is so different

15:49

than almost anybody else we brought up in

15:51

this conversation. Absolutely, and

15:53

I think it's, well she just mentioned this

15:55

to Zane Lowe in her Eternal Sunshine interview

15:57

and she was basically saying that she didn't

15:59

realize Early on in her career when

16:01

she really just wanted to sing and make the

16:03

songs that she would have to play this game

16:06

that she Would have to have all of these

16:08

other moving parts involved and that it made her

16:10

resentful of what she loved to do It she

16:12

started to not enjoy making music as she mentioned

16:14

the same thing to Zach saying pretty much saying

16:16

that she had a problem reconciling

16:19

to dissonance between Ariana

16:21

the person and Ariana the pop star.

16:23

Yeah, Shout out Zach Zang and also

16:25

I think her choosing to go do

16:27

wicked in the wake of that last

16:29

era told me something

16:31

about The

16:33

game she wants to play and doesn't

16:35

want to play and it felt like

16:37

a very self-conscious Like I

16:40

don't wish to do this in this

16:42

way anymore And I'm

16:44

gonna take it off ramp. I don't

16:46

think it was a complete refusal It

16:48

seemed to me like she was always going

16:50

to come back to music She I

16:53

think that the dissonance that I see

16:55

within her is always that distance between

16:57

the theater kid energy That she really

17:00

does have that's why she's doing wicked

17:03

Because she is so committed to

17:05

the idea of wicked from her

17:07

childhood And then the persona that

17:09

she's taken on as a pop star, which I

17:11

would say is thought Ian mean Are

17:14

the descriptors there would that's gonna be the

17:16

name of the neck? That's the next album

17:18

title I would listen and I listen to

17:20

this one and I think that this that

17:22

would be her bangers. Honestly. Yeah Yeah, yeah

17:24

thought Ian mean and that's just her the

17:27

persona that she has naturally slotted into in

17:30

Pop stardom and I think it works well for

17:32

her. I think that she is

17:34

naturally equipped at

17:36

writing a Bitchy

17:39

lyric that makes her look good She

17:41

said in her Zane Lowe interview that

17:43

the boy is mine is like She

17:46

wanted to give her fans a little bit of a bad behavior

17:49

Anthem, I think and I think that's a natural

17:51

position for a pop star to be in and

17:53

I think it's really good for Her

17:56

it just feels so at

17:58

odds with theater kid I wouldn't

18:00

say that Rachel Berry is classically

18:02

thought of as a thoughty and

18:04

mean character. And that's

18:06

that other part of her persona. And I

18:09

think that when you pair those things up,

18:11

like when you see this pop star dating

18:13

Ethan Slater, it doesn't really make sense. And

18:15

that's something that she's had to try to

18:18

make into one public image.

18:21

So I understand that dissonance that you're

18:23

talking about, but I do think she's

18:25

always committed

18:27

to being some version of

18:30

a pop star in my mind. I never thought

18:32

she wasn't going to release another album. Yeah,

18:34

I never thought she wasn't going to release another

18:36

album so much as she would choose to make

18:39

an album or music that somehow

18:41

was not flop era, but almost like a

18:43

little bit of self self-destructive.

18:45

Take her down to a

18:47

slightly different tier. Not

18:49

that it can't be popular, but it's like

18:52

you can make popular music that

18:54

is not playing the exact same

18:56

game as this tier of competition.

18:59

And to me, Yes, And is like a really

19:01

good song, but it almost, it's dare I say,

19:03

it's like a little too smart. It's

19:05

like a little bit too, I'm

19:07

aware of early nineties club pop and like

19:09

me and Max got in the studio and

19:11

did this like very precise thing. It doesn't

19:14

have that kind of free song at all

19:16

that I think of when we're in this

19:18

conversation generally. One thing that

19:20

I've noticed about this Ariana era that has been

19:22

confusing to me is that when she was in

19:24

that thank you, next era, when she did positions,

19:27

a lot of what she talked about at the

19:29

time in terms of release strategy was that she

19:31

wanted to be like a rapper. She

19:33

just wanted to be able to quickly

19:35

respond and quickly drop music whenever she

19:37

wanted to because she had something to

19:39

say, which is not how pop

19:42

stardom works. And then so now she's post

19:44

that era and she's doing the same kind

19:46

of music, I would say generally on this

19:48

album. Yes, And excluded, but

19:51

it's with this huge album rollout. And

19:54

I feel like that's what's been confusing

19:56

to me. It doesn't feel like it

19:58

had the speed and the swiftness. that

20:00

caused that exciting friction with

20:02

Ariana before. It's almost

20:05

too big and that makes it feel less

20:07

exciting because that's what she used to be

20:09

good at. So speaking

20:11

of this Ariana breakout

20:13

era, main pop girl era, this

20:15

is Thank You Next. If

20:35

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20:37

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21:03

My name is Thomas Givensneff. I'm a journalist at The

21:05

New York Times. I served in

21:07

the Marine Corps as an infantryman. When it comes

21:09

to reporting on the front line, a lot of

21:11

the same basics are at play. You're looking at

21:14

the math of where you're going, if you're on

21:16

a paved road, a field road, is there a

21:18

hospital nearby? Is your body

21:20

armor affixed with a first aid kit? Does

21:22

everyone know where that first aid kit is?

21:24

We arrive in a military position. I get

21:27

out of the car. I look at my

21:29

watch. I set a timer, no more than

21:31

an hour. I'm listening for drones, jets, checking

21:34

with the team. Is everyone comfortable? And if they

21:36

are, then we proceed. Sunline reporting

21:38

is dangerous, but I think nothing is

21:40

more important than talking to the people

21:42

involved, hearing their stories and being able

21:44

to connect that with people thousands of

21:46

miles away. Anything that can make something

21:49

like this more personal, I think is

21:51

well worth the risk. New

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York Times subscribers make it possible for us

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to keep doing this vital coverage. If you'd

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like to subscribe, you can do that at

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nytimes.com. I think

22:06

it's also worth mentioning here

22:08

when we're talking about kind of the

22:10

different transformations that she's undergone and how we've

22:12

seen that develop and what she's chosen to

22:15

continue leaning into what she shows until leave

22:17

behind is really the playbook that

22:19

she's been able to write throughout her career

22:21

and how we see the kind of the

22:24

rising I guess generation of potential

22:26

main pop girls borrowing from that

22:28

same book. I think heavily about

22:30

Tate McRae who her most

22:33

recent album has at

22:36

least a handful of pretty much direct parallels

22:38

to songs on Thank You Next both sonically,

22:40

lyrically, narratively and Tate is someone who doesn't

22:42

really have a narrative. So maybe it's a

22:44

there's a page in the book where she's

22:46

like maybe I can just lean into someone

22:48

else's and if it's general enough maybe no

22:50

one will really know the difference to Mel

22:52

and then I think about someone like Sabrina

22:54

Carpenter. I think people have talked about how

22:57

nonsense and feather feel like they could be of the vein

22:59

of Ariana but I think if you go back to around

23:01

I believe it was 2019 she put it out

23:04

it's a song called Honeymoon fades it was

23:06

never on an album which is this one-off

23:08

single that is Ariana 280 the first time

23:10

I heard it I literally was like this

23:12

had to have been something Ariana

23:14

was just like absolutely

23:17

and she does it well she does it

23:19

really well but then that becomes a thing

23:21

of well then how does she develop her

23:23

identity as an artist I think is where

23:25

something we're still seeing her figure out how

23:27

to do now is she's on these big

23:29

stages with Taylor Swift and getting all of

23:32

this visibility and biggest songs of her career and the

23:35

identity still isn't really there now she doesn't

23:37

sound copy and paste like Ariana anymore and

23:39

so I do think of the thing especially

23:41

in this main pop girl conversation I think

23:43

someone like Dua fits into that as well

23:46

in the sense that Jua Lipa had been

23:48

releasing so much music for so long before

23:50

she had a hit and even with new

23:52

rules I did not insert her into

23:54

that conversation she was not insert into that

23:56

conversation until three years later was she

23:58

nostalgia and then that on its

24:00

own was likely a product of the pandemic and

24:02

it was a lot of moving factors and that

24:05

but I do think part of the the main

24:07

pop girl thing is Ariana

24:10

has a lot of daughters running around a

24:12

couple of sons too but a lot of daughters.

24:14

Well it's funny and you mentioned the sort of

24:17

almost the crucialness of the pandemic to the

24:19

Dua Lipa narrative and there's like a version

24:22

this is maybe a tiny bit of a

24:24

reach but I remember thinking this at the time with

24:26

the Dua Lipa song if those songs had

24:28

come out at a different time if they had come

24:30

out like six months before the pandemic when

24:33

people were not as focused or maybe

24:35

searching for something I

24:37

feel like they could have been almost

24:40

like niche genre hits

24:42

that people who like loved club like

24:44

loved house music would be like oh

24:46

there's this new girl she does like

24:48

really faithful stuff like it's not quite

24:50

hitting but it's like sort of like

24:52

references the right things it almost had

24:54

the tastemaker sheen to it but she

24:56

found like an opening in the in

24:58

the overall system and managed to break

25:00

through and become something like what we're

25:02

talking about but I don't I agree

25:04

with you Lourdes the essence of her

25:06

was not there like they were just

25:08

what there wasn't and frankly still isn't

25:10

I wonder though we're

25:13

talking about Tate McCray and if

25:16

there's a critique of Tate McCray it's that

25:19

sometimes I think it when

25:22

there's a critique of Tate McCray it's that there

25:24

it is a pastiche of

25:26

other people's meta narratives

25:28

forget the songs which

25:30

are also pastiche but

25:33

it is a pastiche of other

25:35

people's meta narratives and that's

25:37

why it feels disingenuous because I when

25:39

I watch or observe or absorb

25:42

Tate McCray content immediately

25:45

I feel like I'm feeling what the

25:47

references are to other people's lives forget

25:49

other people's songs but also other people's

25:52

lives and it feels

25:54

as a result disingenuous and

25:57

I wonder can you actually be in the

25:59

main pop girl? conversation or be trying

26:01

to if really what you're doing is

26:03

cobbling together a patchwork of

26:05

other main pop girl moves. No,

26:08

of course you can't. You

26:10

need to bring something to the table that

26:13

feels unique to you. I mean, Tame McCray

26:15

has always just been a patchwork back to

26:17

the You Broke Me First song when, which

26:19

sounded like the main pop girls at the

26:21

moment. And also the big narrative, I believe

26:23

at the time with that song was that

26:25

she had never been through a breakup, but

26:27

still wrote a breakup song. Which is, of

26:30

course that's not good. Of course that's

26:32

going to be terrible. You're not, it's

26:34

completely inauthentic. There is, I think, uniqueness

26:37

and authenticity are important

26:40

to being a tier one pop

26:43

girl. And I think

26:45

that what Dua Lipa has always lacked to

26:47

me is not necessarily uniqueness because I think

26:49

she is uniquely skilled, but authenticity. I would

26:51

say that the reason I don't think that

26:53

Dua Lipa is a main pop girl is

26:56

because her main pop girl era, Future Nostalgia,

26:58

the meta narrative that was on top of

27:00

her was that she was making us all

27:02

miss the clubs. There was a narrative there

27:05

for that album, which is what I think

27:07

propelled her into that level of success, but

27:09

it was not something she was ever in

27:11

control of. So I wouldn't ever say she

27:13

was really tier one. And it's

27:15

also not about her. It's about the world,

27:18

not about her. Her biggest thing right now

27:20

is her cosmopolitanness. That's why she has a

27:22

newsletter where she shares books

27:24

that she likes. Like that's fine. Tell me a book

27:27

you've learned about from the Dua Lipa newsletter. I have

27:29

not learned about any books from the Dua Lipa newsletter

27:31

and I tried it not. I'm

27:35

sorry. I'm sure it's

27:37

full of knowledge. I'm sure

27:39

there are, I think a certain kind of

27:41

person is learning about books from the Dua

27:43

Lipa newsletter. And I'm happy

27:46

for that type of person. People

27:48

should read books. People should read books. Absolutely.

27:50

People should read books. There are so

27:53

many books to choose from. I would

27:55

recommend going into a bookstore and asking

27:57

someone. But Dua Lipa is good too.

28:00

great dual leap of future album title so many

28:02

books so many books so many books I think

28:04

it's funny though there was a post a couple

28:07

once ago weeks ago where Olivia

28:09

Rodrigo was posting about reading hood feminism which

28:11

I have that on my shelf yes but

28:14

she was just post she doesn't have a

28:16

new that doesn't need I would say Olivia

28:18

Rodrigo right now main pop girl for sure

28:20

and she doesn't need books to

28:23

be her image she happens to

28:25

read she's like an engaged person in the

28:27

world right I think that

28:29

also connects with what Jason was just saying and I

28:31

think something that's really interesting about you

28:33

broke me first in the tape of great

28:35

conversation is that song preceded driver's license Olivia

28:37

was not someone that we were talking about

28:39

at all outside of high school musical the

28:41

musical the series if we were talking about

28:43

that at all and those

28:46

songs are not all that different from

28:48

each other in the sense of them

28:50

both being these kind of grandiose pop

28:52

balance and yet there was so

28:54

much more narrative so much more character around

28:56

Olivia and it's why she was able to

28:58

really snide the position in the main pop-girl

29:01

conversation almost immediately I don't think that there

29:03

was a point post driver's

29:05

license when Olivia was not

29:07

being considered in that scale because she did dominate

29:09

that year and then when she had her grand

29:12

comeback it was another thing of scarcity

29:14

and narrative and what is she gonna

29:16

do next and it was something to

29:18

actually latch on to versus you

29:21

broke me first and then pretty much everything that

29:23

followed which was a bunch of scattered singles some

29:25

of them were like pretty okay I think Robert

29:27

band is a hit but it's one

29:29

of those things where it was all

29:31

very loose and disjointed and then she made her

29:33

debut album she worked with Finneas on a couple

29:35

of songs on that album every time Finneas touches

29:37

any song that is not by Billy Eilish it

29:40

just sounds like someone else singing a Billy Eilish

29:42

song and so it just was not really

29:44

working in her favor in any way

29:46

shape or form and even Billy functions in

29:48

the main pop-girl conversation in an

29:50

interesting way because she doesn't

29:52

really make she doesn't really

29:54

make that the type of pot music that

29:57

you would consider that to

29:59

fit into that conversation because the way that she

30:01

sings is different. The way that she performs is different.

30:04

And I think she is

30:06

almost safe in that space because there's not

30:08

really anyone gunning for where she is in that

30:10

conversation. She's not truly replicable. She's not like...

30:14

Yeah, people have tried and it... tape

30:16

tried and it didn't work and so

30:18

she switched places. I will say something

30:20

that is... that I also think is important

30:22

about Tim McCrae is that ultimately... and

30:25

this is rude but I think

30:27

true, she's just not a star. She

30:30

doesn't... she... you feel the work with

30:32

everything she does. She's a very good

30:34

dancer. But compare her to someone else

30:36

who's making a play this year finally

30:39

like Normani. When you

30:41

watch Normani dance, it's

30:43

effortless. When you watch Tate McCrae

30:45

dance, you feel

30:47

every move that she's

30:49

making. You feel the effort that was put

30:52

into it and it just doesn't seem fun.

30:55

It's not fun. If I wanted to see... and

30:57

you know like and then to you know to

31:00

promote herself, she was going to all these gay

31:02

bars and dancing there and I could see the

31:04

effort there. And ultimately my opinion

31:06

on that at the time was like if

31:09

I wanted to see someone dance

31:11

well, who isn't a star

31:14

to a song that they wrote that isn't

31:16

that good but looks

31:18

hot, I would watch one of the eight

31:20

drag queens who's gonna... who's

31:22

gonna perform later that night, right? That's... where

31:25

she's at. I don't know. I just think that ultimately

31:27

there has to be an innate star quality and that's

31:29

not that interesting to talk about because it is innate

31:31

and I don't think you can change it and unfortunately

31:33

I don't think she has it. So

31:36

let's say there is a next

31:38

wave of Tate McCrae but

31:40

that wave is animated

31:42

by pushback,

31:45

failure, the sense that

31:47

I got it wrong and now I'm

31:50

aggrieved and I'm coming back and now

31:52

I'm serving. You know like I wasn't

31:54

serving before but now I'm serving, right?

31:57

Could that be the thing

31:59

that... becomes the

32:01

larger narrative that moves her into

32:03

the into main pop girl territory.

32:06

Is that something or does it have to

32:08

be positive? That kind of is what happened

32:10

with Dua Lipa and dancing. She's

32:12

not that good, but everyone talks about how she's

32:15

a better dancer than she was. Yeah,

32:17

well, that's like a three after being a two. Sorry.

32:22

But okay, so then what's the example of that? Someone

32:25

being aggrieved by their lack of

32:27

stardom and then... Taylor Swift! Oh,

32:29

God. I've

32:32

just been waiting to just say, is Taylor Swift

32:35

a main pop girl? Sorry. Oh,

32:37

of course. Okay, well, talk about it though. Does

32:39

Taylor Swift want to be a main pop girl?

32:42

I don't think she has a choice. She wants to

32:44

be the main pop girl. I think

32:46

her first main pop girl era really was 1989, right?

32:49

That's when she said, and I'm entering the space and

32:51

this needs to be the biggest album of my career

32:54

so far. And then it was. And so she was

32:56

the main pop girl. I understand

32:58

now that she's out of remove. She feels

33:00

so iconic. She feels like such a legend

33:02

that it's almost like she's not even

33:04

a main pop girl before. Like, she's like

33:06

a god of pop music. And I'd say I could...

33:09

You could say the same thing for Beyonce probably.

33:12

It does feel trivializing to say that Beyonce

33:14

is a main pop girl. That's

33:17

just funny. But I also think that

33:19

if we're defining it as tier one

33:21

pop stars, those people

33:23

are in there. It's just

33:25

that it's almost like it goes without

33:27

saying. So it's no longer interesting. But

33:29

to me, that's why I wonder if

33:32

it goes without saying, because to me,

33:34

main pop girl, there's like a tiny...

33:36

There's some percentage of main pop girl

33:38

of I'm aiming for

33:40

this particular... If I'm

33:43

trying to like landing the plane in a

33:45

very specific place. And it's not that's the

33:47

only place that pop stars live. It's just

33:49

a very specific subset of where pop stars

33:51

live. And I

33:53

wonder if Taylor, reputation

33:55

error Taylor was trying to land there.

33:58

Red error Taylor was trying to land there. But

34:00

no other era of Taylor was trying to

34:02

land there What

34:04

does main pop girl mean to you? What

34:06

is main pop? Like can you do fine? I think

34:09

we haven't defined main pop girl yet Well,

34:11

okay I will answer that question

34:13

But I want to pick up on something that Larisha said

34:16

before which I think is important and part of the answer

34:18

to that question Larisha you were

34:20

talking about the root of the phrase in

34:22

Stan communities And I wonder if

34:24

you can talk about the jet like when

34:26

did this phrase? When did

34:29

it emerge who started using it

34:31

and who were the people who were

34:33

determining who's in and who's out? Right

34:36

before this call I went on Google

34:39

Trends and search main pop girl. Yeah,

34:41

and it was popping up Real

34:44

journalism. That's right And

34:47

the earliest mention that came up was October 2010

34:51

Which The year

34:53

of Katy Perry that was Wow mainstream

34:55

era Katy Perry and I think that's

34:57

notable But then it didn't really spike

34:59

again until April of 2013 Not

35:04

entirely sure but I think well that

35:06

was Miley Cyrus that was bangers watching

35:09

around that time like again February

35:12

2019 that's Ariana. Thank

35:14

you. Next era spike again

35:17

April 2020. That's future nostalgia

35:19

That's do a leap era Huh?

35:21

And so I think yeah, it's very

35:24

and I think that does coincide with the

35:27

way that Stan culture has Transformed

35:29

over that time. I was

35:31

on a version of Stan Twitter in 2013

35:34

at a One Direction Stan account, but it

35:37

was not how we think about standing It

35:39

was not how we think about standing now.

35:41

It was not at least

35:43

not for me in my timeline. We were not looking

35:46

at Chart numbers to compare

35:48

and contrast with whoever else was doing whatever

35:50

I mean we were battling with the Justin

35:52

Bieber stands day in and day night

35:55

I felt like I was in the war trenches, but

35:57

it was not in the same way that we

35:59

see These fans really

36:01

going after each other in a

36:04

way where we're using numbers as weapons,

36:06

using stats as proof that one person

36:08

is better than another person. And I

36:11

think when you can say, well, my

36:13

fav is a main top girl and

36:15

yours is in her fifth consecutive flop

36:17

era, it becomes a thing of

36:20

how can I use this

36:23

to bolster my favorite artist while

36:25

tearing down someone else? And I think it's like

36:27

what we were saying earlier, there's not one

36:30

main pop girl at a time. I think

36:32

actually a really important thing to have a main pop era that

36:34

you have to have other main pop girls to be compared to.

36:37

I think when Katie was

36:39

in her prime, but then we also

36:41

had Rihanna in her prime, those were

36:43

two artists that were in conversation with

36:45

one another without really having anything to

36:47

do with each other. I think Brittany

36:49

and Christina are another example of that.

36:51

I think there's always has to be

36:54

more than one because also just having

36:57

one would be horribly boring

36:59

and no fun for anyone involved. But

37:01

yeah, I think it is something that

37:03

fans use to make

37:05

themselves feel like they have something ground to stand

37:07

on because that's meaningful to them. It is always,

37:10

and we see this was pretty much every release.

37:12

I was just tweeting about this, but it's this

37:14

thing where any pop artist comes out with anything

37:16

and someone's like, this is for the girls who,

37:18

and then it's like the most hyper specific description

37:20

of a person ever. And it's just like, no,

37:23

this is actually not have to be about you

37:25

at all. Sometimes

37:27

these things are just about the artist. And if

37:29

you relate to it in that way, that's good

37:31

for you. But they did not make that specifically

37:34

for you and that random subset of

37:36

people that you just came up with. But

37:39

yeah, I think it's a really, it's a weird thing. It's a weird

37:41

thing to watch for sure. Okay.

37:43

Can I now answer your question, Jason,

37:45

please? Okay. I talked

37:47

a lot about what it takes

37:49

to cross the floor, to

37:51

get over the floor of being a

37:53

main pop girl. You need Stan

37:56

attention. You need to have a little

37:58

bit of metanarrative. making music

38:00

of a certain quality. I

38:03

do also think that there is a ceiling to

38:05

the idea of the main pop girl. And the

38:07

reason I sort of was talking about Taylor before

38:09

is and her dipping in and out, because

38:11

I think at some point you can not

38:13

age out of it, but you

38:15

make a choice to leave. The

38:17

reason we can talk about Charlie XCX and

38:20

do a leap, an Ariana

38:22

Grande in the same conversation, even though

38:24

they are experiencing three different kinds of

38:26

success with three different kinds of meta

38:28

conversations is because in some way they

38:30

have all chosen to try to land

38:33

in that same circle or that same

38:35

space. I am really restraining the metaphors

38:37

here. Sorry. I am really straining the

38:39

metaphors here. I am no expert on

38:41

planes. They are up, they are down,

38:44

they are porous. I do not know.

38:46

But there is a top and

38:49

I wonder if some of the people

38:51

who we are talking about are the

38:53

main pop girls because they can never

38:56

be something that is more than a

38:58

main pop girl, something that is bigger

39:00

than a main pop girl. And therefore

39:02

the concept of main pop girl becomes

39:04

a landing zone that feels really big

39:07

and feels like success, but it is

39:09

actually bounded and there are boundaries and

39:11

there are limitations to it. And you

39:13

have to in essence keep yourself a

39:16

tiny bit smaller than maybe you would

39:18

otherwise be inclined to be in order

39:20

to keep playing in that territory. I

39:23

feel like with B and

39:25

with Taylor, I think you have to put

39:27

in your time as a main pop girl,

39:30

maybe. If you are talking about them in

39:32

a separate category, they did their main pop

39:34

girl time. I would say Beyonce's From Dangerously

39:36

in Love through I Am Sasha Fierce, that

39:38

was I am a main

39:41

pop girl. I am going to prove it to you

39:43

over and over again. Cement my status in that way

39:45

and then I can go off and I can do

39:47

experiments and I know people will follow me and that's

39:49

when I become bigger than the idea of main pop

39:52

girl, maybe. And then Taylor at

39:54

this point I think is

39:56

interesting because she still plays main

39:58

pop girl games. Which

40:01

is so ridiculous to me. Like she's

40:03

still cheating the chart record. Like she's

40:05

still playing the charts game in a

40:07

way. It's like you're Taylor Swift. You

40:09

made billions of dollars. What

40:11

are we doing here? Why are you still

40:13

playing this game? But that's main pop girl

40:15

behavior, right? To be playing these games and

40:17

trying to come out on top all the

40:19

time. Larissa, can you ever be

40:21

too big to be a main pop girl? I

40:24

do think Beyonce and Taylor are both in a

40:26

different tier. And I think it is

40:28

because, as Jason's saying, they did put the

40:30

time in. The records are there. And

40:33

it's the reason that Beyonce can go

40:35

and make an album like Lemonade. To

40:37

make an album like Beyonce. Because she

40:40

doesn't need to put any more hours

40:42

into making pop music. It's why she

40:44

can be working on a country

40:46

album, or maybe a rock album, or whatever

40:49

the case may be. Because she is not

40:51

within the constraints of pop

40:53

stardom. I think you can be a main

40:56

pop girl. But I think Beyonce, especially, is

40:58

really just a main girl in general. I

41:00

don't think that the genre classification applies to

41:02

her much. But then I think about someone

41:05

like Rihanna, who for a long

41:07

time was a reigning main pop

41:09

girl. And now she is the Avon

41:11

lady. And that's OK. And that's fine.

41:13

You can want to just do

41:16

anything else. But then I think we

41:18

see someone like Tyler, who I think

41:20

is interesting. And what we were talking about

41:22

before with Kate McRae and the dancing, I

41:24

think, a yearning for showmanship that has been

41:26

missing from a lot of the main pop

41:28

girls for a long time. Nobody wants to

41:30

work anymore. Nobody wants to dance anymore. And

41:33

Tyler is very naturally a great

41:36

dancer and has music that feels

41:38

like when Rihanna was really emerging

41:40

in the early 2000s. And

41:42

that type of nostalgia is

41:44

working in her favor. Because everyone's like,

41:47

oh, this is like when Rihanna was

41:49

doing that. And Rihanna is not doing

41:51

anything of the sort anymore. Rihanna made

41:53

an album that she feels is the

41:55

best that she might make, I would assume.

41:58

If I made an album like Anne's, I would assume that's OK. I would also

42:00

just stop making music after that because you've done

42:03

what you needed to do. And now

42:05

you could be like, okay, that's it, I'm done, I did it. And

42:07

I think some artists do

42:09

operate under this idea

42:11

of that they're working their entire careers

42:14

towards certain types of albums, certain career defining legacy

42:16

defining albums. And sometimes when you get that, it's

42:18

like, well, what else do I need to be

42:20

doing? I can really go do whatever I want.

42:22

And I think Beyonce got quite a few of

42:24

those under her belt and was just like, okay,

42:26

I can go do whatever I want. And Taylor

42:28

is someone who has a number

42:30

of those, but I don't think she's reached the mental

42:32

point of being like, okay, now I can go do

42:35

whatever I want because she operates in the same mental

42:38

headspace of our other massive

42:40

pop girl, Drake, where he

42:42

and her both have

42:45

the records, but feel like they are

42:47

so beholden to this underdog narrative that

42:49

they constantly have to be proving their

42:51

positioning despite being two of the biggest

42:53

artists on the planet. And I

42:55

think when you are constantly trying to prove to

42:58

someone that you deserve to be somewhere, instead of

43:00

just letting your work speak for itself, you

43:03

are keeping yourself in a ring that you

43:05

don't necessarily have to be in. I'm

43:07

glad you mentioned Drake, because there's obviously we

43:09

haven't talked about the gender component of this

43:12

conversation. Drake, is Drake a main pop

43:15

girl? You say yes, Larissa. I

43:18

think absolutely he is for despite what

43:20

I may want in my life. Okay,

43:23

but throw out some other names. Justin

43:26

Bieber, Justin Timberlake, Lil Nas,

43:28

Bruno Mars, any of those

43:30

folks falling in this category?

43:33

Bieber is definitely. I think JT

43:36

was a main pop girl. He was doing main

43:38

pop girl tricks. And now

43:40

obviously post flop era, Justin

43:42

Bieber, I think I agree that he was

43:45

for a while, but it feels like his

43:47

inability to tour has

43:49

really tamped down that

43:51

situation. But I think he

43:53

had his era, he had purpose and

43:55

then was like, I'm good. Now I can go do

43:58

whatever. I thought Justice was a good album. until

44:00

the Martin Luther King stuff, but he's

44:02

really just not having

44:05

to be incredibly crazy. Big

44:07

get it, Harry. Because he left that out. That would

44:09

be great. But

44:12

yeah, I think someone like, as Harry,

44:14

I think Harry Styles is by default a

44:16

main pop boy, main pop girl era, but

44:18

he's not playing the games. He's just doing

44:21

music. And so it's, I think it

44:23

is allowed to function differently for men than

44:25

it is for women, which of course, but

44:28

I think when we look at the men in

44:30

the pop space, I think look at someone like

44:33

Charlie Puth, is Charlie Puth a main

44:35

pop boy? There's not a lot of

44:37

them that the competition is scarce. There's

44:39

not really a ton of them doing

44:42

anything interesting at that. And

44:44

so they just get to throw

44:46

stuff at the wall and hope for the best. And

44:48

I think I'd make a case for I would love

44:51

to see a Nile Horan main pop way era. I

44:53

think we deserve that as a people, but not

44:55

the one, the one D Stan, Stan Twitter.

44:59

Yeah. Yeah. But what about someone like

45:01

Jungkook or someone coming out of a

45:03

more what feels to now like a

45:05

classical pop tradition, frankly, which is what

45:08

K-pop's been doing the last five, five

45:10

or six years. I

45:12

think that's interesting because I get a lot

45:14

of that to me feels like callbacks

45:17

to Justin Timberlake when he was in that era.

45:19

And so it is again, a thing of if

45:21

you're replicating something that someone else has already done,

45:24

but not really adding anything to

45:26

the story and they're really moving the needle

45:28

any further ahead than where it was. And

45:30

we're just getting a new version of an

45:32

old thing when we have so

45:34

much access to the old thing and we

45:36

can just go listen to those things. I

45:39

think it works maybe in the moment and

45:41

is a bigger problem when we're discussing longevity.

45:45

Yeah, I don't think like when someone's

45:47

biggest asset is that their work is

45:49

pristine. I don't think

45:51

that is a good sign for longevity

45:55

or for being a ultimately

45:57

a main pop girl. And that's many.

46:00

Pop Girl in this case, non-gendered. I

46:02

don't care about Christine, I don't care about

46:04

it being clean, I care about there being

46:06

some kind of emotion that it brings up

46:08

in me. And that's where, again,

46:10

I keep going back to Ariana because I

46:12

think she has one of

46:14

the most defined pre and post

46:17

eras, main Pop Girl-ness. And

46:19

I think that Thank U, Next, getting in there

46:21

with that, and she was late, she laid the

46:23

groundwork with Sweetener, but really, Thank U, Next is

46:25

what did it for her. It's

46:27

when she allowed herself to be less

46:29

pristine, a little more messy, a little

46:32

more fluid, a little more personal,

46:34

and it made you more

46:36

emotionally invested in her as a figure.

46:39

Dua Lipa is always pristine, but ultimately, I'd

46:41

put Dua Lipa in the same boat as

46:43

Bruno Mars, who is really, he's in the

46:45

conversation maybe, but he's never been a main

46:47

Pop Girl because we don't know anything about

46:49

him. He's just a replicator. And that's what

46:52

Dua Lipa is too. She's a copy machine.

46:55

Let's play a Dua song, and in the

46:57

interest of just being gracious, we won't play

47:00

a current Dua song. This is

47:02

Don't Start Now. Is

47:28

there something specific

47:30

about the last five years,

47:32

whether it's streaming

47:35

or social media that has

47:37

created more

47:39

conversation around this idea? And

47:42

could the idea itself go

47:44

away if there are structural

47:46

evolutions in terms of how music is

47:48

consumed? Because part of what you

47:51

need, it sounds like, to achieve full main

47:53

Pop Girlness is this kind of all quadrants.

47:56

Music is hitting in a certain way. The convo is hitting

47:58

in a certain way. The self-reaction. revelations

48:00

are hitting in a certain way,

48:02

but a lot of that feels

48:04

connected to how pop stars must

48:08

deliver and brand themselves and sell themselves

48:10

these days. If

48:12

that changes, could the

48:14

idea of Maine pop girl end up

48:16

being itself something of a relic of

48:18

the last five years? Totally,

48:21

it could. I think that as, of

48:24

course, as we've been bifurcating as a

48:26

culture, it's harder to have monoculture, and

48:29

so it's harder to be a Maine pop girl in some

48:31

ways. That's true. That's always, we've

48:33

been talking about that with internet culture for

48:35

a long time. And yet I do, I

48:37

will say generally looking at trends, it feels

48:39

like the people yearn for monoculture. It

48:42

really feels like the people want, like when

48:44

you look at the past year, the level

48:46

of conversation that Barbie had, the level of

48:49

conversation that Taylor Swift had, these were four

48:51

quadrant things in ways that I feel like

48:53

we haven't added a long time, that stoke

48:56

conversation in ways that we haven't had in

48:58

a long time. I think there

49:00

is almost an instinct toward monoculture at the

49:03

moment. So I do feel like Maine pop

49:05

girl has a little bit of legs at

49:07

the moment. I also think we've been defined

49:09

by pop as a

49:12

genre, not being in the

49:15

mainstream as much. When

49:17

you mentioned 2019 as an inflection point

49:19

for Maine pop girl, Larisha, I totally

49:22

agreed with that. I feel like

49:24

that was an era when around

49:26

there is when Maine pop girl became so

49:28

omnipresent. It's also around when flop era as

49:30

a concept became really

49:32

omnipresent. Speaking of Katy Perry

49:34

really briefly, which is my preferred

49:37

way. Did you guys see the video? It was

49:39

on Twitter. I saw it yesterday. I don't know

49:41

if it's been around for a while. If Katy

49:43

Perry meeting Charlie XCX. Yes.

49:46

Yes. And I thought what

49:48

was really revealing about that is like Katy

49:50

Perry is not cool at all. She's so

49:52

famous that she can

49:54

even look at a person whose entire

49:56

career is predicated on sort of like

49:58

sending up Katy Perry. and

50:01

like almost tamer into submission. I

50:03

was really surprised by how firm

50:05

and solid Katie Perry's body language

50:07

was in that video, by how

50:09

kind of like broken and collapsed

50:11

and unsteady Charlie's body. Charlie was

50:14

like, ugh, ugh, like her body

50:16

was like, ah, I don't know,

50:18

I'm turning, I can't face you,

50:20

I'm back. And Katie was just

50:22

like, mm-hmm, yep, I

50:24

am her. Yep, that's, yeah, I did that.

50:27

I did that, you didn't, and I did. And I

50:29

know you think you did. I

50:31

do think main pop girl getting on the

50:33

Charlie train has been affected by pop not

50:35

being in center conversation, which was where I

50:37

was at before. Pop is no longer,

50:39

was no longer the center of the conversation around 2018, 2017,

50:43

when you maybe had palsy, but generally it was more,

50:46

I would say trap was in the center.

50:48

And I think the fact then that it was

50:50

harder to be for Fwadrin

50:53

as a pop star then, and we ended

50:55

up, what we ended up with was a

50:57

lot of interesting tier three and four girls

51:00

trying to get bigger and just constantly

51:02

hitting roadblock after roadblock to that level

51:04

of success. Dare I say lord as

51:06

the alpha of that particular idea? Totally,

51:09

lord as the alpha, although she, I

51:11

mean, it's also, she was of her

51:13

own design. She like ended the, like

51:16

ended pop kind of, along with the

51:18

Adels and whatever in 2013, as

51:21

the center and then went back to pop with

51:23

melodrama and suddenly found that pop wasn't popular anymore

51:25

and it's partially her fault. Which

51:29

is, whoops, the great irony. But I

51:31

think that the fact that there were

51:33

so many people who were rootable in

51:35

that era, but who couldn't make it,

51:37

really solidified main pop girl as an

51:39

idea that we like have to contend

51:41

with constantly. Just like talking about

51:43

2019 in general, I do think that

51:46

it's like what Jason's saying, but there was

51:48

a lot of newness it

51:50

felt like. And I think especially when we think

51:52

about Ariana, that whole 2019, thank

51:54

you, next era felt so big. And then

51:56

we get Billy around the same

51:58

time and Billy is. a

52:00

great disruptor of that space around that

52:02

time and that's more contending

52:05

more with tiktok and virality and we that's

52:07

the era of old town road and there's

52:10

so much happening and then billy comes

52:12

in and she doesn't necessarily feel traditional

52:14

but the talent is in a way

52:16

and i think that was something for people

52:18

to latch on to i think it was also she

52:21

was one of the youngest people that we had

52:23

seen enter this space in a long time she

52:25

was about 16 17 years old and

52:27

i think that the age element of

52:29

main pot realism which we didn't get into

52:31

a ton but that is also like a

52:34

major part of it for the longest time

52:36

it felt like once you pass a certain

52:38

age you could not be in

52:40

that conversation anymore and people tend to really want

52:42

to root for young female teenage

52:44

artists because it is something for them to

52:46

watch grow for them to root for a

52:49

long time for them to invest their time

52:51

and energy into because they know they can

52:53

run this out for the next decade

52:56

and a half probably versus when you

52:58

have people were really entering that space whether

53:00

they had been working for a couple years

53:02

in their career or are really just coming

53:04

into it in a new place as older

53:07

mid-20s late 20s or whatever the case

53:09

may be 30s it's

53:12

a whole different framework around how people are engaging

53:14

with their music who how people view your target

53:16

audience you think about someone like lizzo i've never

53:18

in my entire life felt like i was in

53:20

lizzo's target audience as a 20 something

53:23

year old but i'm sure

53:25

there are people who are in her i'm sure

53:27

the target audience exists but it's not something i've

53:29

ever seen and so then we don't really see

53:31

lizzo coming up in a

53:33

main pop girl conversation even if she has

53:36

hits or had hits around that time because

53:38

the focus was on someone like billie a

53:40

focus on someone like ariana hauzi had without

53:43

me i believe came out in 20 either

53:45

end of 2018 early 2019 and

53:48

those are the artists that people were just like this is

53:50

something that i can really write out for a long time

53:52

i think around that same time we think about miley

53:54

syrus and that's more of a what could have been because

53:56

that was the makings of her she

53:59

is coming around that never came to be.

54:01

Yeah, she offered that. Mother's daughter, what slide away.

54:03

She was just like, I actually never mind. I'm

54:05

not going to do this. Came back with a

54:07

rock album that also did not

54:09

push her back into that conversation and

54:12

then went away again and came back

54:14

with the pop stuff. And that brought her back to the

54:16

conversation. But I think when you're someone like Miley Cyrus, you

54:18

know what's going to do what. I think she was

54:21

someone who is probably at this point in her career,

54:23

deeply familiar with what's going to hit and what's

54:25

not. And feels like she has earned

54:27

the right to just kind of make whatever she wants. Yeah,

54:30

I think it's definitely an interesting thing of that

54:33

time felt very disruptive in a lot

54:35

of ways. We also get Btella that

54:37

year that is setting the stage for

54:39

what it looks like to be the

54:41

ultimate pop performer. And a lot

54:44

of a lot of the girls were just like, well, I

54:46

can't even try to do anything like that. And then you

54:48

see everyone who is making pop

54:50

music in some way, shape or form has probably

54:52

been influenced by Beyonce. I think about someone like

54:54

Zara Larson, someone who would be great in the

54:56

main pop girl conversation, but her car is broken

54:59

down on the side of the road on her

55:01

way to the main pop girl mansion. And

55:04

it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate because I think the

55:06

music is good, but it's like literally everything

55:08

else that we use to

55:11

define of what a main pop role is. If

55:13

you don't have it, you don't have it. And

55:15

I like your your question about is it unfair

55:17

to the other people in these spaces if they're

55:20

not involved in that? And I think sometimes you

55:22

just have to live your truth. Yeah, I agree.

55:24

And that's why I like my initial idea for

55:26

having this conversation was like, let's try to understand

55:30

how we arrived at the idea of the main

55:32

pop girl. But the more I was thinking about

55:34

it, the more I was just like, I think

55:36

the reason I'm so fascinated with the conversation is

55:38

all I see are pretenders right now. I see

55:41

people who like the phrase

55:43

has become such a well-trod

55:45

phrase that people now think that's what they're

55:48

supposed to be like. Dave McCree is I'm

55:50

supposed to be giving main pop girl. But

55:52

if you can't, if you not, if you're

55:54

not giving, you're not giving. It just it's

55:57

not there. And then maybe you

55:59

should go as you. just said, Larisha, go find your

56:01

truth elsewhere. And that would be okay. Nothing wrong with

56:03

that. I wanna close with one

56:05

idea. It's a free idea

56:07

for anybody. And Larisha, you were

56:09

saying that part of this energy is

56:12

about young fans wanting

56:14

to root for you as you're

56:16

going through your phases and growing

56:18

and developing and expanding and signing

56:20

up early to follow someone's arc. It

56:23

reminds me a lot of sports teams, as a lot of

56:25

Stan culture does. It reminds me a lot of sports teams.

56:28

If anybody wants to do an ongoing

56:31

main pop girl ranking and

56:34

it's change it monthly, people come in,

56:37

they come out. And if anybody

56:39

wants to do this recurring story out in

56:41

the world, I would be very happy to

56:44

be keeping an eye on that. There was a billboard

56:46

main pop girl chart. I'd be

56:48

very curious to see it. DJ Louie,

56:50

you've gotta start updating pop Pantheon monthly.

56:52

Yeah, I would love to see that

56:56

because I think this is the kind of

56:58

thing where the micro of

57:01

week to week, month to month really does

57:03

matter. And I'd love to see someone take

57:05

that on an expansive way. Anyway, free idea.

57:08

Larisha, Jason, so happy to have you all.

57:10

As always, I appreciate it. Thanks so much,

57:12

John. That is our show.

57:15

Jason and Larisha, thanks so much. Every

57:17

Popcast ever is at

57:20

nytimes.com/Popcast. youtube.com/Popcast, that's where

57:22

Popcast deluxe lives with

57:24

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57:26

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57:30

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57:41

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57:43

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57:46

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57:53

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57:55

convos are happening. Our

57:57

producer, as always, is Pedro Rosado from. We

58:00

will be back next week. We should

58:02

probably go out with, I guess, the

58:05

main pop girl of the last few years,

58:09

maybe even at the beginning of her

58:11

true main pop girl era. Not

58:14

that there wasn't main pop before this,

58:16

but if the narrative and

58:18

the music and the meta-narrative all

58:20

count, it's

58:22

a big reputation. Big

58:24

reputation. We want to

58:26

see that.