Pop music is good again

Don't worry, we'll be okay

Something in the coming of Spring, I suppose, that has me reaching for pop. Last year I spent the hotter months with Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter. This year, as I spent a weekend in housework with headphones in my ears, I swear pop music is somehow better than it was a decade ago.

This goes against the natural way of things. As I age, I am supposed to like new music less. But I’ve never been a subscriber to that theory. The decision to stop engaging in culture with an open mind is a choice, not an inevitability.

I looked at the most popular albums of a decade ago to compare notes, so sure was I of my hypothesis. Adele’s 25 and Taylor Swift’s 1989 stand out. Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly was heralded as a masterpiece then and has only grown in acclaim now - it truly is outstanding. However, I would argue broadly that my hypothesis is true. Forgettable albums from Niki Minaj, Drake, Meghan Trainor are sprinkled through 2015 - and they haven’t really stood the test of time.

2005 - which is more my actual era, should be loaded with nostalgia for me. These should be my masterpieces: Mariah Carey’s The Emancipation of Mimi, 50 Cent’s The Massacre, Kanye West’s Late Registration and Demon Days by Gorillaz. Of course, the Gorillaz album is outstanding, but other tracks on that list sound downright old to me now. (Besides, in 2005 I wasn’t listening to mainstream. I was an arts student goddamit. I had so many feelings that the mainstream just didn’t understand, man.)

Anyway, here are three albums that are excellent and everybody is (apparently) listening to them.

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The Life of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift

Swift is experiencing a stratospheric level of adulation and fame reminiscent of a bygone era. In the streaming age, where listening habits are more fragmented and radio is on the decline, we were supposed to transcend the era of the mega-star that everyone listens to all the time. And after her over-inflated, confused 2024 outing The Tortured Poet’s Department, I did fear that Swift had peaked. Understandably, she’d had an approximate decade of bangers and managed to complete the most successful concert tour of all time. She’d done enough for us.

Then, little more than a week ago, The Life of a Showgirl showed up. It’s a different album from her last handful in several key ways. Firstly, it’s edited. It’s a pop album: a dozen tracks, with a total run time of little over forty minutes. That’s incredibly restrained for Swift, whose albums tend to runneth over with ideas and lengthy track liists.

The album also marks the return of Max Martin and Shellback, who helped define the ‘pop’ sounds of Swift a decade ago with 1989. The result is a pop record with maturity, lush arrangements, and several melodies that remain lodged in your head forevermore.

Best tracks are The Fate of Ophelia, Opalite, Wood.

Chances are you don’t need an introduction to Taylor Swift, but if - like me - you’ve held her at an arm’s distance for years and are ready to disappear down the rabbit hole, I would suggest you start with this article on why the Eras Tour was so remarkable. The Netflix documentary, ‘Miss Americana’, is also not a bad place to start.

Man’s Best Friend by Sabrina Carpenter

What to say about Sabrina Carpenter? After a decade of pop-dom just underneath mainstream consciousness, she was handed a megaphone by Swift and exploded with her album Short n Sweet. Her 2025 offering, Man’s Best Friend, features a controversial cover and title (is she intentionally degrading herself?) - but every track points at a larger joke.

To that end, I don’t think we’ve ever seen a pop star who is as excellent at satire as Carpenter. Almost every song on Man’s Best Friend is about the dim-wittedness of men and her frustration with dating losers who are either horny or celibate. Every song is legitimately funny. Manchild is about emotionally immature idiots. Nobody’s Son is a letter to the parents of the bozo men who ghost and gaslight their partners. Sugar Talking is about men who are good with words but chicken out on the action.

Carpenter is sexually explicit, and your mileage may vary on your feminist politics, for if she’s marching the movement forward or backward. But irrespective of what Carpenter represents as a political animal, she’s a viciously clever songwriter.

The album also sounds exquisite. It’s produced by John Ryan and Jack Antonoff, who did the most popular tracks on her previous album. They’ve somehow found a style that combines ABBA-disco, 80’s Dolly Parton, and Fleetwood Mac.

The Art of Loving by Olivia Dean

For something completely different: here comes Olivia Dean. Simultaneously nostalgic and new, Dean's laid-back record is reminiscent of Lauryn Hill and Sade. I love this album, but I’m also shocked that it’s doing so well. I had erroneously pegged Dean’s emergence in my algorithm as niche, only to find that many of the Gen Zs I teach adore her. The album is currently in the top five worldwide on Spotify.

Dean is British, and her approach to music and stardom feels more akin to that of Winehouse or Adele than the American pop princesses who have dominated the scene lately. The result is an album that feels mature and relaxed. The production is lush. This is perfect dinner party music, but it also somehow manages to have several pump-up-the-volume-and-sing numbers for windows-down car rides. It’s neo-soul pop at its finest.