The Pop Corporation

WORDS ABOUT MUSIC + POP CULTURE

  • A CRIMINALLY HOOLIGAN TREND: THE STORY OF RUSSIAN BOOTLEG X-RAY ALBUMS

    If you’re fortunate enough to live in a country that pretty much lets you listen to whatever music you want, then the idea of clandestine record pressing may sound strange. However, the human need to listen to cool music is insatiable, and one of the most fascinating stories comes from Soviet Russia, where the government…

    Read more

  • ABBA SAY ‘NO’ [OR ‘NEJ’]

    Thanks to a slightly suss panel vote at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, Sweden once again won the show, equalling Ireland’s record for most times won, and also, giving Eurovision legend Loreen another crown. Why suss? Well, the public clearly wanted a different winner, and the 2024 show just so happens to coincide with a…

    Read more

  • J HUS BACK WITH AN ABSOLUTE BANGER

    J Hus is brilliant and he’s had a run of tracks that are up there with the absolute cream. Whether you’re calling it hip hop, Afroswing, Afrobeats, or whatever, he’s returned with a track called ‘It’s Crazy’, and it’s great to have him back. Now, he’s had a number of issues with violence and whatnot,…

    Read more

  • BLK ODYSSY HAS A COOL SONG OUT

    Hip hop and R&B has fallen into a small rut lately and a lot of the huge innovation we’ve seen in recent years is mildly lacking at the top end. Well, good news – there’s something new out and it doesn’t sound like it’s been dialled in! BLK ODYSSY has announced an album called ‘Diamonds…

    Read more

  • TINA TURNER, THE REALEST OF THE REAL

    “Without Tina Turner we have no Beyonce. We have no Rihanna. We have no generation of Black women performers who transgressed all sorts of musical genres and without Tina Turner, we have no reclamation of Black woman’s sexuality in the context of rock and roll.” “Without Tina Turner, we have a new bereft in terms…

    Read more

  • JULIANA HATFIELD COVERS ELO

    You may know Juliana Hatfield as a solo artist making fun records, you may know her from her stints in The Lemonheads or Blake Babies or Some Girls. You may know her from her tributes to Olivia Newton John and The Police. Well, she’s pay homage again with a really fun cover of ‘Don’t Bring…

    Read more

  • PLUNDERPHONICS // IT BELONGS TO EVERYONE

    Sampling changed the way people listened to music, where familiar (and often unfamiliar) works could be re-imagined, recycled, spliced, interpolated and chewed up and turned into something all by itself. For years, the musical brain demanded that modernity meant entirely new, but post post-modernism, swathes of people were giddy at the thought of grabbing things…

    Read more

  • DJ SABRINA THE TEENAGE DJ // LIP BALM, BANGERS, VINYL

    Listen, getting way to obsessive about a new act is the best thing about music, right? You excitedly yell about them to just about anyone who’ll listen and the more disinterested they are, the more fervent you become. That’s what we’re like about DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ. Why? It’s the music mainly – dreamy,…

    Read more

  • BONNIE PRINCE BILLY IS BANANAS

    You can try and be a clever so-and-so when writing about music, but sometimes you’ve just got to give a musician what they want. We reckon Will Oldham would want that headline we just wrote. Why? Well, in his Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy guise, he’s back with a new song called ‘Bananas’, and it heralds a…

    Read more

  • ARTISTS SAYING ‘NO’ TO TOURING // IS TOURING ALL THAT?

    Miley Cyrus has spoken about her new LP to Vogue, and said something rather interesting about it. Basically, that she doesn’t want to tour. She said that “singing for hundreds of thousands of people isn’t really the thing that I love.” She added: “It’s been a minute. After the last [headline arena] show I did,…

    Read more




STOP HOARDING TUNES


  • IT’S ALL GOING OFF AT TIKTOK

    Time to work out a sad dance routine for duets with strangers while a sped-up version of a song plays, because it’s all going off at TikTok. Now, seeing as social media has been equal parts brilliant and awful over the years, it’s difficult to know what to actually think about all this. Let’s work…

  • IS 2024 A CRITICAL MOMENT FOR TAYLOR SWIFT?

    Look, Taylor Swift is breathing such rarified air these days that any suggestion that she’s not going to be a commercial success is pretty much laughable. Any idea that she won’t have a hit is really not what we’re talking about here, so if you are a person who only works on the metric of…

  • NISA IS DANCING ALONE

    If we’re weary of two things in music currently, it’s post-punk shouty bollix, and whispery, breathy doe-eyed vocals. You might think this song falls in the latter bracket, but it has a bit more about it, so you should give it a whirl. Nisa’s ‘Dance Alone’ is out now, from the album out on Friday…

  • ALT VERSION OF KISS FROM A ROSE

     It’s a baroque pop gem of a song is ‘Kiss From A Rose’ by Seal. What’s remarkable is that he wrote the song in 1987 and hung onto it until everything was just right to release it on… well… the Neverending Story III soundtrack. And then the Batman Forever soundtrack. Initially, Seal wasn’t too keen…

Search for a Topic
Categories
Posted Recently
Submissions

THERE’S NO MONEY IN THIS GAME ANYMORE, BUT IF YOU WANT TO WRITE SOMETHING FOR THE POP CORPS, YOU ARE WELCOME TO GET IN TOUCH. HAPPY HUNTING.