Pop Pantheon

Executive Editor of Dwell, Kate Dries, joins DJ Louie to talk the Queen of Country Pop, Shania Twain. First, Kate lays out some of the scant historical examples of country icons who have managed to crossover into mainstream pop stardom like Dolly Parton and explains a bit about why Nashville has been a hermetically-sealed ecosystem, resistant to change, outsiders and country artists who have ambitions beyond its traditional scope. Next, Louie and Kate discuss Shania's upbringing in Canada, surviving abject poverty, a household rife with domestic abuse, and the untimely death of both of her parents by writing, singing and performing in local bars beginning when she was just 8 years-old. They then move on to Shania's discovery performing at a resort in Canada which lead to her record deal Mercury Nashville, her flop first album, 1993's Shania Twain, her chance meeting with rock super-producer Robert "Mutt" Lange who quickly became her partner in both music and life through her massive run of success from the mid '90s-early '00s, and the genre-busting sound the pair developed on her blockbuster sophomore release, 1995's The Woman in Me. Louie and Kate also dive into Shania's third record, 1997's legendary Come On Over, which stands to this day as one of the biggest selling albums in history and provided the platform for Shania to make the leap from country legend to mainstream pop icon, parse apart how smashes like "You're Still the One", "That Don't Impress Me Much" and "Man! I Feel Like a Woman" displayed Shania's unique combo of girl-next-door approachability, '90s middle-finger-up feminist attitudes and an infectious sense of carefree joy and fun, how her flair for presenting herself visually and sartorially in music videos was both integral to her crossover and forever seared her into pop cultural memory, her globe-trotting fourth album, 2002's Up!, the dissolution of her marriage to Mutt and her subsequent loss of her ability to sing, her comeback Vegas residency and her 5th album, 2017's Now, and her legacy and impact on the pop landscape to this day. Finally, Louie and Kate rank Shania Twain in the official Pop Pantheon. Check Out Louie's Shania Twain Essentials PlaylistCheck out Louie's TRL Essentials PlaylistJoin the Pop Pantheon Discord!Follow DJ Louie XIV on InstagramFollow DJ Louie XIV on TwitterFollow Pop Pantheon on InstagramFollow Pop Pantheon on TwitterFollow Kate Dries on Twitter

In this week's B-Side episode, host of the podcasts Dunzo and Beyond The Blinds, Troy McEady, joins DJ Louie to discuss Millennial pop cultural touchstone, MTV's Total Request Live. Inspired by a Zoomer in the Pop Pantheon Discord who, following last month's Christina Aguilera episode, revealed they didn't know what TRL was, Louie and Troy attempt to explain the show's history and format, how its' interactive vibe served as the turn-of-the-century pop fan's precursor to social media, lay out the major players from host Carson Daly to signature stars like Britney, Good Charlotte and Eminem and attempt to illustrate the power MTV had over their generation. They also wax poetic on some of their favorite forgotten songs, videos and artists from the "TRL Era", reflect on the show's top ten videos of all time and share a bit about why TRL meant so much to each of them as burgeoning pop fanatics. Listen to Louie and Troy talking about Rihanna's Anti on Dunzo a few months ago  Check out Louie's TRL Essentials Playlist on SpotifyJoin the Pop Pantheon Discord!Follow DJ Louie XIV on InstagramFollow DJ Louie XIV on TwitterFollow Pop Pantheon on InstagramFollow Pop Pantheon on TwitterFollow Dunzo on Instagram

Writer and host of the new podcast Heidi World: The Heidi Fleiss Story, Molly Lambert, joins DJ Louie to break down the spectacular emergence of Gen Z's most paradigm-shifting star, Billie Eilish. First, Molly, who profiled Billie last year for the cover of Elle, shares insights into what it was like spending time with her, how she's relating to her newfound megastardom, as well as her fans on social media and out in the world, and why she doesn't consider herself a "pop star" at all. Louie and Molly then discuss how unlikely 2010s breakouts like Lorde, Halsey and Lana Del Rey softened the ground for idiosyncratic, insular-sounding bedroom artists to become mainstream pop stars. Next, they track Billie's career origins, along with her brother and collaborator Finneas, on Soundcloud, how their viral hit "Ocean Eyes" lead to a record deal with Interscope when Billie was just 15, and how her debut EP, 2017's Don't Smile At Me, presented a new kind of teen idol who leaned into, rather than glossed over, the alienation, depression and anxiety of being a young person in the internet era, thus endearing her to a new generation of pop fans who craved less-aspirational and more relatable pop figures. They also dive into she and Finneas' far-ranging aesthetic influences from horror movies to trip hop, Gorillaz, Lil Peep, Bjork, Garbage and even Frank Sinatra, before laying out her explosion into the mainstream with her debut album, 2019's Grammy-sweeping When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, how that record expanded the duo's musical palette but also perhaps garnered Billie an unwanted and unintentional level of fame, how she went about addressing all of that on her sophomore album, 2021's more low-key masterpiece Happier Than Ever, how she's uniquely positioned to bring large swaths of the pop-consuming public along with her singular, strange musical instincts, and where she might go next. Finally, Louie and Molly rank Billie Eilish in the official Pop Pantheon. Check Out Louie's Billie Eilish Essentials PlaylistJoin the Pop Pantheon Discord!Follow DJ Louie XIV on InstagramFollow DJ Louie XIV on TwitterFollow Pop Pantheon on InstagramFollow Pop Pantheon on TwitterFollow Molly Lambert on Twitter

In this week's B-Side episode, DJ Louie reflects on a year of Pop Pantheon, shares how the podcast got started and offers a refresher on all of the tiers, how they work and if they've changed or been refined as the show has progressed. He then goes through all of the 31 artists ranked so far, decides if he still agrees with his ranking or if any artist's standing in the Pop Pantheon has shifted since the episodes originally aired. Join the Pop Pantheon Discord!Follow DJ Louie XIV on InstagramFollow DJ Louie XIV on TwitterFollow Pop Pantheon on InstagramFollow Pop Pantheon on Twitter

ABBA Scholar and author of 8 (!!!!) books on ABBA, Carl Magnus Palm, joins DJ Louie for an epic deep dive into the Swedish pop legends. First, Louie and Carl discuss the history of pop and "schlager" in Sweden and how the country's musical traditions helped form ABBA's music before tracing the pre-ABBA careers of the four members, Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, through the 1960s and how the group came together in the early 1970s, both as bandmates and romantic couples. Louie and Carl then break down how the "ABBA Sound" developed from the group's early recordings and their obsession with Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" and The Beach Boys' vocal-layering, ABBA's unique international ambitions, how the glam-rock nodding, Eurovision-winning "Waterloo" changed their career, the ways they continued to refine and expand their singular aesthetic on subsequent hits like "Mamma Mia" and "SOS", the darker and more wistful lyrical themes that began to surface on mid-period hits like "Fernando", the majestic ebullience of "Dancing Queen", their canny techniques for incorporating numerous pop subgenres into their work without ever losing their essential ABBA-ness, the powerful interplay of light and dark in their work, how the dissolution of the group's two romantic couples informed their more emotionally-complex latter period hits like "The Name of the Game" and "The Winner Takes It All", how the band came apart in the early 1980s, and how their legacy has evolved and changed over the last 40 years thanks to their greatest hits album ABBA Gold and the jukebox musical and film, Mamma Mia!. Finally, Louie and Carl rank ABBA in the official Pop Pantheon. LA Pop Pantheon Girlies! Get Info for Louie's New Queer Pop Party, Gorgeous Gorgeous, on 4/22 at Resident in DTLA!Check Out Louie's ABBA Essentials PlaylistJoin the Pop Pantheon Discord!Follow DJ Louie XIV on InstagramFollow DJ Louie XIV on TwitterFollow Pop Pantheon on InstagramFollow Pop Pantheon on TwitterFollow Carl Magnus Palm on Twitter

Freelance Music Journalist for the New York Times, Pitchfork, The Guardian and more, Owen Myers, joins DJ Louie to tackle Charli XCX's recently released 5th studio album, Crash, which Owen recently reviewed for Pitchfork. Louie and Owen discuss Charli's assertion of this album cycle as her "main pop girlie era" and whether that's really come to fruition, how Charli shrewdly draws on '80s titans like Janet Jackson, Cameo, New Order and Eurythmics as well as novelty '90s dance songs like September's "Cry For You" to create the sonic palette for the album, wonder where her true career ambitions lie between her avant-garde instincts and her desire to play in the mainstream, her prickly relationship to writing personal songs, break down The Crash Tour, and rank Crash in the Charli canon. Read Owen's Review of Crash in Pitchfork LA Pop Pantheon Girlies! Get Tix to Louie's New Queer Pop Party, Gorgeous Gorgeous, on 4/22 at Resident in DTLA!Join the Pop Pantheon Discord!Follow DJ Louie XIV on InstagramFollow DJ Louie XIV on TwitterFollow Pop Pantheon on InstagramFollow Pop Pantheon on TwitterFollow Owen Myers on Twitter

Writer and podcaster Evan Ross Katz joins DJ Louie for a wide-ranging discussion about TRL-icon-turned-pop-iconoclast, Christina Aguilera. First, Louie and Evan discuss the teen pop boom of the late '90s and early '00s, how it presented young stars as both wholesome and over-sexualized, and the factory-style, scientifically-perfect-if-personality-less music that defined the era. They then cover Christina's emergence on The Mickey Mouse Club as the "little girl with the big voice", her breakthrough singing the Mulan theme song "Reflection", how Britney Spears' explosion helped shape her first album, 1999's Christina Aguilera, how the massive success of that record both launched Christina to superstardom and put her in an uncomfortable box that obscured her unique talents, how she re-wrote the script with her iconic sophomore album, 2002's Stripped, her penitent for massive sonic and visual reinventions on subsequent albums like 2006's Back to Basics and 2010's Bionic, the latter of which helped usher the word "flop" into common parlance and also recast Christina as a underdog and gay icon, and how her singular career choices and trajectory has influenced recent pop stars and is deserving of a modern reassessment. Finally, Louie and Evan rank Christina Aguilera in the Pop Pantheon. LA Pop Pantheon Girlies! Get Tix to Louie's New Queer Pop Party, Gorgeous Gorgeous, on 4/22 at Resident in DTLA! Check Out Louie's Christina Aguilera Essentials PlaylistJoin the Pop Pantheon Discord!Follow DJ Louie XIV on InstagramFollow DJ Louie XIV on TwitterFollow Pop Pantheon on InstagramFollow Pop Pantheon on TwitterFollow Evan Ross Katz on Instagram

APRIL FOOLS!!!Keep It! host Ira Madison III returns to Pop Pantheon for a very special (and silly) episode on the glacially unfurling career of former Fifth Harmony member and aspiring pop starlet, Normani. Louie and Ira talk about why people fell in love with Normani as the clearest talent in 5H before debating the conditions that have allowed Normani to release only seven songs in the last five years before diving into her multiple attempts at getting her solo career off the ground. They begin with her two hit Spotify-core duets, 2018's "Love Lies" and 2019's "Dancing with a Stranger" with Khalid and Sam Smith respectively, before moving through her erstwhile Calvin Harris collabs, her apparent lift-off with 2019's banger Beyonce-referencing "Motivation" and its' break-the-internet music video showcasing her formidable dancing talents followed by her perplexing disappearance from music for two years, and finally her two recent underperforming "comeback" singles, the Aaliyah-sampling slinky R&B groover "Wild Side" and her latest non-event, "Fair". Finally, Louie and Ira place Normani in the official Pop Pantheon (SPOILER ALERT: she's Tier 5....). Join the Pop Pantheon Discord!Follow DJ Louie XIV on InstagramFollow DJ Louie XIV on TwitterFollow Pop Pantheon on InstagramFollow Pop Pantheon on TwitterFollow Ira Madison III on Instagram

The Grammy Awards are this Sunday April 3 and to get you ready for the big show, Senior Writer for Rolling Stone Brittany Spanos is back with DJ Louie to talk all things Grammys! Louie and Brittany break down what the problems have been for the Grammys over the last few years before dissecting each of the four major categories, how the Grammys did this year, who's nominated and why, who they each think should and will win each award, who got snubbed and debate whether or not Olivia Rodrigo will just sweep the whole damn thing.Join the Pop Pantheon Discord!  Follow DJ Louie XIV on InstagramFollow DJ Louie XIV on TwitterFollow Pop Pantheon on InstagramFollow Pop Pantheon on TwitterFollow Brittany Spanos on Twitter

Assistant Editor at Pitchfork Cat Zhang joins DJ Louie for a deep dive into the career and music of misunderstood, resilient 2010s trash pop queen, Kesha. First, Louie and Cat break down the hip-hop-dance-pop party music of the mid-late aughts- a hedonistic period fueled in part by a desire for escapism during The Great Recession- and discuss artists like Fergie, Gwen Stefani and others who set the stage for the uptempo rap/EDM hybrid that would become Kesha's calling card. Next, they lay out Kesha's biography, growing up poor with a single mom who wrote country songs for artists like Dolly Parton, her initial connection to superstar producer/songwriter Dr. Luke, what made Luke such a prolific hitmaker in the 2000s, and finally how a chance appearance on the hook of Flo-Rida's "Right Round" provided the launching pad for Kesha's breakthrough debut album, Animal. Louie and Cat go long on Animal, breaking down it's unique, gaudy sonic landscape and Kesha's singular perspective as an anti-materialistic, dumpster-diving party animal who proudly flew in the face of respectability on hits like "Tik Tok", "Blah Blah Blah" and "Take It Off", the way the album inverted pop gender politics and drew on far-ranging influences from Daft Punk to the Beastie Boys to Bloghaus, the fine lines Kesha's rapping walked in terms of cultural appropriation, and the borderline-experimental ways Kesha and Luke found true heart and personality in the maximalist machinery of modern pop. They then chronicle the contentious creation of Kesha's follow-up album, 2012's Warrior, and how she and Luke's diverging artistic visions presaged greater rifts in their relationship, how the album's sole hit "Die Young" was pulled from radio following the school shooting at Sandy Hook, the moment Kesha filed lawsuits against Luke for sexual assault, battery, sexual harassment, and emotional abuse, how those lawsuits derailed her career for five years, her comeback with her radically different third album, 2017's critical-darling Rainbow, and how we see Kesha's influence on modern pop. Finally, Louie and Cat rank Kesha in the official Pop Pantheon. Read Cat's retrospective review of Animal in Pitchfork Check Out Louie's Kesha Essentials PlaylistJoin the Pop Pantheon Discord!Follow DJ Louie XIV on InstagramFollow DJ Louie XIV on TwitterFollow Pop Pantheon on InstagramFollow Pop Pantheon on TwitterFollow Cat Zhang on Instagram