Pop
Bruno Mars Broke Down the Three Genres Behind ‘Risk It All’: Bolero Rhythm, Mariachi Strings, and R&B Soul
‘MacArthur Park’ on Ice: How Alysa Liu’s Olympic Gold Sent Donna Summer’s Disco Epic Back to No. 1
How Sienna Spiro Turned a ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Mistake Into Her First Billboard Hit
Lou Reed Would Be 84 Today, and ‘Perfect Day’ Still Holds His Greatest Contradiction
Why the Sax Line in George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ Feels Like a Vocal Line
Taylor Swift’s ‘Opalite’ Returns to No. 1 — and Its Classic Harmony Helps Explain Its Staying Power
Imagine Dragons’ ‘Believer’ Proves You Don’t Need Chord Changes to Build Intensity
Christina Aguilera Whispered ‘Don’t Look at Me’ While Recording ‘Beautiful’ — and Linda Perry Kept the Take
Smokey Robinson Wrote ‘My Girl’ for The Temptations, and It Became His ‘International Anthem’
Bad Bunny’s ‘DtMF’ Hits No. 1 After Super Bowl Performance, Driven by 43 Million Streams
‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ Started as an 18th-Century French Heartbreak Song
Alan Walker’s ‘Faded’: Why Four Chords and a Simple Melody Conquered the World
100 Weeks on the Adult Contemporary Chart: Why Benson Boone’s ‘Beautiful Things’ Still Connects
A New Song So Good She Opened Glastonbury With It: Why RAYE’s ‘Where Is My Husband!’ Works
From ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ to Today’s Charts: Why Jazz Still Shapes Pop Music
Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ as a Full-on Funk Piece: How Scary Pockets Reworked the Disco Classic
From Bieber to Bruno Mars: How No. 1 Pop Hits Changed in a Decade
Sabrina Carpenter, With 6 Nominations, Will Perform at the Grammys (Again): How to Learn ‘Manchild’ for the Big Night
Bruno Mars Has Kept Classic Funk in the Mainstream: The Groove-First Approach That Still Works
BTS Is Back: Revisiting ‘I Need U,’ the Song That Changed Everything
The ‘Stranger Things’ Finale Sparked a Music Rush: How Djo’s ‘End of Beginning’ Finally Reached No. 1
How Harmony and Rhythm Express Romantic Uncertainty: Lessons from Olivia Dean’s ‘Man I Need’
