Australia's Dark-Pop Princess CXLOE Has a "New Trick" Up Her Sleeves
"I got a new trick / Why'd it take all this time?" Australia is home to some of the finest, most globally cherished pop exports of our time: The Sisters Minogue™. Natalie Imbruglia. Holly Valance. Enter CXLOE into the discourse. The 26-year-old Sydney-born singer-songwriter has been making waves…
Hanne Mjøen's 'Emotional Fever' Is Norwegian Pop Excellence
"When I think you're the one that I can't live without, I just wanna leave you..." Meet Hanne Mjøen, your newest notable Norwegian singer-songwriter crush. (In Scandinavia, We Trust.) The rising Oppdal-born star, who has already penned tracks with the likes of Astrid S, as well as writing…
Sweden's Kadiatou Has a Summer Bop for Overthinkers
Meet Kadiatou Claudine Holm Keita, if you're not already formally acquainted. The 19-year-old Stockholm-born Swedish singer first rose to fame as one of the finalists on Idol - the Swedish version of the Idol franchise - coming in as the runner-up against Sebastian Walldén in 2018. Look at how…
Ylona Garcia Packs a Quarantine-Pop Punch With "All That"
"So I left all that shit back in 2020 / I'm in my feels and I'm feeling legendary..." Know what I don't need right now? Sad songs and somber reflections on the past year. I get it, fully. Trust! I am living this Hell, just like everyone else! Know what I could use instead? Any music that…
Meet Your New Favorite Virtual K-Pop Star, Apoki
She's got millions of followers, and dozens of YouTube covers and dance videos. She is also...a rabbit. (Specifically, she identifies as "🌐🐰👩.") Meet Apoki, your newest virtual long-eared K-pop obsession. From Gorillaz to Hatsune Miku to K/DA to Seraphine to aespa, there is no shortage of virtual…
Turkey's Aleyna Tilki Makes English Debut With a Dua Lipa Discard
Everything about this story is right up my street. Meet Aleyna Tilki: she's a 20-year-old Turkish singer-songwriter. Aleyna first rose to fame in 2014 as a semi-finalist on Season 6 of Yetenek Sizsiniz Türkiye - or Turkey's Got Talent (!), then got very famous for covering a song called "Gesi…
Bree Runway's "ATM" Deserves to Be Her Breakthrough
It's about time for the general public to invest in Bree Runway. Perhaps you've already heard of the genre-hopping 28-year-old Hackney-bred singer-songwriter-rapper after seeing her name appear on the highly coveted BBC Sound of... longlist for 2021. Or maybe you know her from her remix of Rina…
Who Is Olivia Rodrigo & Why Is 'Drivers License' No. 1 on the Charts?
"I got my driver's license last week, just like we always talked about..." Meet Olivia Rodrigo: she's currently got the No. 1 song on Spotify's Global Top 50 and iTunes, and Taylor Swift is proudly shouting her out on social media. Wait, what? Who? Is this what it feels like to age out of pop…
Claudia Valentina Is Your First Pop Act to Watch of 2021
Meet Claudia Valentina, the first new artist to get excited about in 2021. Granted, I'm just a few weeks late to the One to Watch™ party: the 20-year-old singer-songwriter actually dropped her self-titled 4-track debut EP back in November. In any case, it's time to play catch-up. The story behind…
Lucia & the Best Boys' 'Perfectly Untrue' Is Perfect, Truly
"Fridays used to be for you." Sometimes a song just hits right from the very first line. Lucia & the Best Boys' "Perfectly Untrue" is one of those songs. The Glasgow-based band is a relatively new discovery for me (as of this weekend, in fact), but a brief dive into their back catalog proves I'll…
Cookiee Kawaii's TikTok Hit 'Vibe (If I Back It Up)' Gets a Video
“If I back it up…is it fat enough?“ It’s a question that keeps me up at night, as well as the entirety of (the maybe-soon-to-be-banned) TikTok, all thanks to viral star Cookiee Kawaii‘s “Vibe (If I Back It Up),” resulting in a staggering 1.9 million videos…
GRIFF's Got the Good Stuff
It’s time to get into Sarah Faith Griffiths – or GRIFF, for short. The 18-year-old Chinese-Jamaican singer-songwriter-producer’s been making waves within the blogosphere, on the…