Disney Channel actor Olivia Rodrigo released her single 'Drivers License' to attract 82 million domestic streams across all platforms, the biggest US streaming week ever, and it had 15.17 million global Spotify streams on Jan. 11, a record for a non-holiday track. Stereogum argues the 17-year old's moody indie-pop ballad will have a big effect on pop music this year, and sees the song as a clear sign of a turn in pop-music: "Depressive guitar balladry might be a more reliable pathway to mainstream success than sparkling synth-pop. For years cultural critics have been noting that streaming, social media, and a lifestyle dominated by screen time were fostering a moodier, blearier mainstream".

"The attention economy is becoming a malign force for culture. Consumption is holding culture hostage" - Music Industry Blog writes in an interesting post about how the very nature is being changed due to ways we consume it - "artists and labels are locked in a race to increase the volume and velocity of music they put out... And because music attention spans are shortening, no sooner has the listener’s attention been grabbed, then it is lost again due to the next new track. In the attention economy’s volume and velocity game, the streaming platform is a hungry beast that is perpetually hungry. Each new song is just another bit of calorific input to sate its appetite".

Treblezine doesn't agree with The New York Times' pop music critic statement that the album is dead, here's why: "What too many 'album is dead' arguments seem to ignore is that the consumer has a choice in this—it’s easier to be a passive listener and let the machine feed you what it thinks you want, but we can choose to be better listeners and more actively engage with music on a deeper level. The song might be the primary unit of popular music, but an album can tell a larger story—perhaps not literally, but the best of them still serve to transport you away from the mundane and into a self-contained world that’s worth exploring repeatedly". Funny thing is, Caramanica made a list of best albums of the year - in 2020 as well 🙂

"Berman altered my perception, permanently. Because I’ve listened to and read him, I see city skylines as jagged rows of car keys, the ground sometimes seems to wobble in the moonlight, and I know that they build corduroy suits from gutters. When I drive by a yard filled with broken stuff I imagine the crumbled […]

PopMatters has an interesting article where they compare albums 'Blood on the Tracks' by Bob Dylan and 'IGOR' by Tyler the Creator, as the tipping points in each of artist's careers. As PM says: "Breakup albums have a rare power; they mark the moment when an image-conscious artist is suddenly compelled to let his guard […]