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The Year Pop Became an Album Again

After fifteen years of singles-first streaming strategy, 2024 was the year pop music remembered how to be an album again. An essay on why it happened and what it means.

Jules Okonkwo·20 Dec·5 min

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Essays

On the Death of the Music Video

The music video as a form had a specific golden age. It is now largely dead, replaced by things that are not music videos. An essay on what we lost.

Jules Okonkwo·5 Nov·6 min

A pink-lit tour bus parked outside a venue at dusk

Music

Short n' Sweet: Sabrina Carpenter's Fully-Funded Year

A year on from Short n' Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter is the first pop star of her generation who has successfully metabolised the Disney-pipeline training into something that is not, finally, Disney.

Jules Okonkwo·19 Aug·5 min

A club exit doorway at 4am, fluorescent lit, with a fire extinguisher in the corner

Music

Brat Summer: What Actually Happened

Charli XCX's Brat was the pop event of 2024. A year on, the question is not whether the record was good. The question is what Brat Summer actually was, who it was for, and why almost everything it inspired was bad.

Jules Okonkwo·15 Jul·5 min

A neon pink stage curtain pulled half-open, empty seats in the foreground

Music

Chappell Roan: The Slow-Motion Pop Star

Chappell Roan's album came out in September 2023. Her stardom arrived in summer 2024. The eleven-month gap is the interesting thing.

Jules Okonkwo·18 Sep·5 min

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Music

Hit Me Hard and Soft: Billie Eilish Grown Up

Billie Eilish's third album is a quieter, longer, more patient record than the one she was commercially expected to make. It is also, easily, her best.

Jules Okonkwo·8 Jun·5 min

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Music

The Tortured Poets Department: Taylor Swift's Unedited Record

Taylor Swift's eleventh studio album, released as a double in April, is the longest piece of popular music she has ever put out, and the most urgently in need of an editor.

Jules Okonkwo·6 May·5 min