Adela "Nicole Kidman"

What happens when a pop song named after a movie star sends you down a rabbit hole about fame, creativity, culture, and who actually controls the art we consume?

This week, Joe and Toby dive into Adela’s breakout hit “Nicole Kidman,” tracing the young Slovakian artist’s journey from being cut from Dream Academy to finding her own lane and landing on the charts. They unpack the song’s all-star writing team, Adela’s fascination with American pop culture, the inspiration behind the Nicole Kidman reference, and the intriguing tension between the polished pop machine and the much more vulnerable artist underneath it all.

But, naturally, the riff doesn’t stop there. The conversation expands into the supersaturation of modern pop culture, the disappearance of musical tastemakers, Spotify’s genre bubbles, the value of being pushed outside your musical comfort zone, and why curiosity about unfamiliar music might teach us something about curiosity toward unfamiliar people and cultures, too.

Along the way: Eyes Wide Shut, Tom Cruise fatigue, a Mount Rushmore of actresses, Lorna Shore, libraries, jelly beans, the return of the episode playlist, and an important question for every young artist navigating the industry: when you finally get the success you’ve been chasing, how much control do you have over what comes next?

Joe and Toby also build a musical “flight” inspired by the episode, connecting Adela to the artists, writers, samples, influences, and wonderfully strange detours that make the Riffs on Riffs rabbit hole what it is.

Give it a listen. Let it breathe. And maybe try something you normally wouldn’t.

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