#pop-vs-rap-nominations

#pop-vs-rap-nominations

Jessie Ware's Superbloom sounds like the sonic embodiment of a city street exploding with magnolia and cherry blooms as the air warms in spring. There's the love-drunk disco pop the singer perfected on her 2020 breakout album, the sumptuous proto-house recalling Paradise Garage, and the floral, cinematic soundscapes of '70s funk.

Odeal's music sits loosely within R&B, also drawing on Afrobeats, neo-soul and contemporary pop. Across his catalogue, love is rarely conclusive. Instead, songs live in emotional grey areas.

RZA stated, 'I'm doing one that's going to be super egotistical, but probably the only person that I'm a superfan of that I never met: Barack Obama.' He also mentioned, 'What if Rage fuckin' inducted us? If they would come back out and say, 'I want to welcome my brothers back into it.' Fuckin' one day, do one concert to close that book. One night only. That would be crazy.'

Zara Larsson could be called a veteran pop star... because there's an undertow of struggle to her glittering party-girl persona. The teen-age version of her... remains lodged in my memory—a closeted power vocalist dulling her instrument to fit catchy and anodyne tracks.

Grande appears to be teasing a new album ahead of her Eternal Sunshine tour this summer. Recent posts show her in the studio, suggesting new music is on the way.

R&B in the 21st century has been in a constant state of flux, tugged between safe traditionalism and blurry attempts at progression. For the last decade-plus that "progression" has seen R&B music become more indebted to trap records and the moody atmospherics of alternative bands like Radiohead, Coldplay, or My Bloody Valentine.

I do not turn to celebrities for trenchant political takes or honestly really expect them to know what's actually going on in the news. However, I also think that most good art engages with the world in which it's being created, and now that we're in good-art-naming season (aka awards season), ignoring that world is privileged at best and evil at worst.

The only song here that really matters. Written just hours after the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and released a few days later, Springsteen names names (looking at you, Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem) and speaks bold, specific truth. With a title that recalls his own impactful Streets of Philadelphia, a melody reminiscent of Bob Dylan, and an urgency not felt since Neil Young's Ohio, it may not be groundbreaking musically, but Streets of Minneapolis is exactly what we need right now.

The song reflects on two contrasting visions. In the first verse, he looks back on his childhood growing up female and compares it to living in a dream. Then, after a stirring bridge, he revisits the same reflective structure and ponders his childhood growing up as a boy: "When I was a little boy I wanted to be real/ I wanted to feel all of the things my body wanted me to feel," he sings.

"I don't know," the group's leader, RM, says, "because time has passed. There are a lot of K-pop-related nominees you see in the general field and, really, I want to send big applause for them."