Katy Perry: From Sheltered Pastor's Kid to Pop Avatar
Raised by Pentecostal pastors so strict that Lucky Charms and the word luck were banned, Katy Perry discovered secular music through smuggled CDs and Alanis Morissette. After a failed Christian album ...
2 Jul 21min
Tove Lo: Sweden's Darkest Pop Export and the Ghostwriter
Raised in an affluent, self-described posh Swedish suburb, Ebba Nilsson became the artist Rolling Stone dubbed Sweden's darkest pop export. Named after a lynx she bonded with as a toddler, she battled...
2 Jul 22min
SZA's Ctrl: The Anxious Masterpiece and the Stolen Hard Drive
SZA recorded between 150 and 200 songs for her debut album, but crippling anxiety left her unable to finalize a track list, so her label TDE confiscated her hard drive to force its release. Born from ...
2 Jul 17min
Self Esteem: Shedding Compromise for Unapologetic Pop
After eleven years shrinking her artistic vision inside the indie-folk duo Slow Club, Rebecca Lucy Taylor blew it all up and became Self Esteem, one of Britain's most acclaimed pop stars. A former cho...
2 Jul 21min
Normani: Surviving the Pop Machine and Family Tragedy
Positioned by Forbes as an heir apparent to Beyonce after Motivation revived athletic pop choreography, Normani seemed unstoppable, then largely stepped back for years. Trained in dance, gymnastics, a...
2 Jul 20min
Tinashe: Leaving the Label to Build Her Own Empire
Trained from age four in ballet, tap, and taekwondo, Tinashe grew up inside the entertainment machine as a child actor and member of the group The Stunners who opened for Justin Bieber. When the group...
2 Jul 18min
TWICE: The Girl Group That Rewrote K-Pop's Rules
Formed on the cutthroat survival show Sixteen, TWICE debuted in 2015 to a flop, with their single plummeting to number 57 before clawing back through a rare reverse run driven by live performances. Fo...
2 Jul 20min
Seven Rings: The 90% Royalty Deal Behind a Pop Juggernaut
Ariana Grande's 2019 smash Seven Rings tied a Billboard chart record held only by the Beatles, yet 90 percent of its songwriting royalties went to the publisher of a 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein melod...
2 Jul 17min
