Diving Into Pop Music’s Hidden Depths
A new book, from the hosts of the <em>Switched on Pop</em> podcast, approaches the genre with laserlike focus and palpable enthusiasm.
Like many other chaotic phenomena, one of the wildest nights in pop-music history can be traced back to the consumption of too much Hennessy. As an army of producers, journalists, and artists prepared for the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, many of them noticed something about Kanye West: The rapper, , had arrived with a rapidly dwindling bottle of the oaky cognac. And then, of course, during the show’s first act, as Taylor Swift accepted the trophy for Best Female Video, West stormed the stage and uttered the now-infamous lines: “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you; I’mma let you finish. But Beyoncé had one of the best videos of
