I was away last week on vacation, and you’ll be hearing a lot more about that starting next week. But here’s my pop-culture roundup for the past couple weeks, plus some thoughts on the wily and elusive ‘pop boy’.
Roundup
Music
While the announcement of the new Taylor Swift album has understandably taken up a lot of the consciousness of music media the past couple weeks, the music landscape has really picked up in the second half of the year, and the Fall looks to be really exciting too, with highly anticipated albums from Sabrina Carpenter (September 29) and Florence + the Machine (October 31), and persisting rumours of a Lana Del Rey album before the end of the year. But for now, here’s what’s on rotation for me:
Songs
- “The Subway,” by Chappell Roan (still, for ever and always.)
- “ENEMY,” by TWICE
- “Rhetorical Questions,” by GRACEY
- “Turned Into Missing You” (ft. Avery Anna), by Max McNown
Albums
- No Rain, No Flowers, by Black Keys
- Wishbone, by Conan Gray
- I Barely Know Her, by sombr
Viewing
In the week since I’ve been back home, most of my viewing has been catching up on some of the international Drag Race seasons. In particular there are two all star seasons on right now and they’re both such a fun and fresh take on a concept that can easily be stale at this point. The all-stars season of Drag Race France is particularly noteworthy as it’s just a gorgeous expression of joy and community in a way the flagship American series have never been.
Reading
Since my last report here, I’ve crossed two more of the Booker long list titles off the list, Love Forms by Claire Adam and Flashlight by Susan Choi. Both offer some beautiful reflections on motherhood and loss and are worth reading (though for my money, Flashlight is the superior of the two). I also finally got around to reading the short story collection Coexistence by Cree author Billy-Ray Belcourt; I can say without a doubt that it is the best thing I’ve read in the past few weeks.
In Focus: Whither the ‘Pop Boy’?
When I was a kid, the pop music scene was pretty diverse (especially by ’80s standards). But it seems as the monoculture has disintegrated, it’s becoming increasingly white, and increasingly female. It’s the latter of these that’s been on my mind lately. As a kid, the New Wave bands were largely led by male singers, and men like Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, and George Michael were also at the top of the charts, to say nothing of the boy bands and popular R’n’B stars of the ’90s and early ’00s. But the self-sorting we’re seeing everywhere else seems to be impact music too, and lately the ‘pop boy’ seems to have disappeared. This was very noticeable last year, where ‘Pop Girl Spring’ turned into ‘Brat Summer’, with female artists completely dominating the pop zeitgeist, while male artists have been dominating the country music scene. It’s been three years now since Harry’s House, the last male pop album to really take off. What’s happening? Are we doomed to ‘bro country’ male artists and ‘pop girly’ women? Time will tell, but there are rumblings that a new generation of male pop artists is about to take off.
While not pop, there are some great male artists in the Indie / ‘non-bro’ country space, such as Sam Fender, Medium Build and Max McNown (who may take the crown right now as the most prolific, hardest-working artist in the business). But thinking specifically of pop, there’s signs of life in the ‘pop boy’ space. Here are my thoughts on some of my leading candidates:
- Knox: His album Going, Going, Gone was one of my most-listened to in the first half of 2025. I think he’s still very much in a place of exploring and figuring out his sound, so a lot of his music sounds like other things, but the songwriting was really fun and I’m excited to see what he does next
- Damiano David: I really enjoyed FUNNY little FEARS this past May; apparently it tanked a bit due to some drama in his personal life, but a lot of artists have come back from far worse, and the music itself was solid.
- Calum Hood: His June album ORDER chaos ORDER was a one of the bright spots for me in the first half of the year, but it didn’t seem to get much traction (he’s still at <150,000 monthly listeners on Spotify). Hopefully he’ll keep on making good music and it will get more attention.
- Fly by Midnight: A couple of albums in and I think they’ve found their lane in terms of a solid sound with infectious hooks (which is really what we all want from pop music); hopefully they can break out of the social media space and wider attention.
- Conan Gray: Of all of these artists, Conan Gray is the one who probably has the biggest chance of making it big: He has some decent song-writing chops and definitely understands his sound, his brand, and how to market himself. I was really hoping and even expecting his new album Wishbone to be a big leap and for him to truly be the pop boy we’ve been missing. Unfortunately, while it has a couple songs that really hit, it doesn’t quite get there as an album. So while I still think he has a great shot at being the Next Big Thing, at this point I think he’s more like an Addison Rae or Renee Rapp than a Sabrina Carpenter or Chappell Roan.
- sombr: This artist is already pretty big (50+ million listeners on Spotify), thanks to a couple viral TikTok videos this year, but his new album, I Barely Know Her, is his first full album and was just released yesterday, so he’s still very much a new artist. On first listen, I loved the album and want to spend a lot more time with. I’m hoping he’ll have some staying power, to say nothing of hit-making power.
Matthew Root 