TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Rock critic Ken Tucker has been listening back to the pop music made in 2024 and sees a pattern of women hitmakers who prize both aggression and vulnerability in various proportions. In songs by Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and others, Ken has found the soundtrack to the past year's tumultuous times.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "APPLE")
CHARLI XCX: (Singing) I guess the apple don't fall far from the tree 'cause I've been looking at you so long now I only see me. I want to throw the apple into the sky - feels like you never understand me, so I just want to drive to the airport, the airport, the airport, the airport. I guess the apple...
KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: Here in pop music 2024 pivoted around a trio of women, hitmakers whose various successes hinged upon assertions of creative ambition and admissions of romantic weakness. Foremost among them is the British songwriter Charli XCX. Her album "Brat" sought to redefine brattiness less as irritating behavior than as an insistence that petulance can be justified frustration and anger, that you don't get to define her feelings. Charli's collaborations with other women on the remix version of the album, including Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande, suggested a growing army of artists ready to take up her cause.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "360")
CHARLI XCX: (Singing) I went my own way, and I made it. I'm your favorite reference, baby. Call me Gabbriette. You're so inspired. (Vocalizing). I'm tectonic. Moves - I make them, shock you like defibrillators. No style - I can't relate. I'll always be the one. (Vocalizing). Drop down. Yeah. Put the camera flash on. So stylish - baby tees all gone. Drop down. Yeah. Looking like an icon - work angles. Yeah. Yeah, 360. When you're in the mirror...
TUCKER: Keeping things light while also serving as an example of ferocious willfulness was Sabrina Carpenter, whose album title "Short N' Sweet" referred both to Carpenter herself and the concise, clever hits she makes. Listening to her cooing vocals and seeing her wiggly videos, I had to reach way back to Mae West to come up with a comparable example of a woman who wraps her steely command in such a deceptively saucy tone.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE")
SABRINA CARPENTER: (Singing) I have a fun idea, babe. Maybe just stay inside. I know you're craving some fresh air, but the ceiling fan is so nice. And we could live so happily if no one knows that you're with me. I'm just kidding. But really, really, really, please, please, please don't prove I'm right. Please, please, please don't bring me to tears when I just did my makeup so nice. Heartbreak is one thing, My ego's another. I beg you, don't embarrass me, little sucker. Oh, please, please, please.
TUCKER: That's "Please Please Please," Carpenter's pleading-not pleading warning to a boyfriend that he's got to treat her right. The third member of my 2024 power grouping is Chappell Roan. Her mixture of singer-songwriter details, dance pop grooves and lovely ballads really caught on as the admiration of her peers increased. She was an opening act on Olivia Rodrigo's tour and as a guest on Sabrina Carpenter's Netflix Christmas special. No wonder, she proclaimed, I'm your favorite artist's favorite artist. One of her catchiest songs is the emotionally complex, "Good Luck, Babe!," in which Roan encourages a straight woman who seems to have a crush on her to feel free to express her desires more openly.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOOD LUCK, BABE!")
CHAPPELL ROAN: (Singing) It's fine. It's cool. You can say that we are nothing, but you know the truth. And guess I'm the fool with her arms out like an angel through the car sunroof. I don't want to call it off, but you don't want to call it love. You want to be the one that I call baby. You can kiss a hundred boys in bars, shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling. You can say it's just the way you are. Make a new excuse, another stupid reason. Good luck, babe. Well, good luck. Well, good luck, babe. Well, good luck. You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.
TUCKER: If you're thinking I've forgotten a certain woman, one around whom so much of not just the music industry but the culture industry revolves, well, I did enjoy a lot of Taylor Swift's album "The Tortured Poets Department." But I'd be lying if I didn't say I enjoyed a book about her even more - Rob Sheffield's "Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music." It's the year's best critical appraisal of pop stardom disguised as a fan's ecstatic notes.
Finally, I want to remind you of a woman who is not a hitmaker whose 2024 work was among the year's finest. Arriving in an election year, Carsie Blanton's glowingly political collection "After The Revolution" tried to imagine a better world after a period of upheaval and chaos.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AFTER THE REVOLUTION")
CARSIE BLANTON: (Singing) You and me by the warming sea, buying something in a bag, walking through the war to the corner store. Everyone looks poor and sad. So I picked a fight later on that night. I was sick of feeling shame. And I know it all couldn't be your fault, but I need someone to blame. After the revolution, we'll have a better life. You'll be a better husband. I'll be a better wife. We'll have a jubilation. We'll take a holiday. It won't always be this way.
TUCKER: Where the other artists I played locate their feminism in dance pop, Carsie Blanton mixes folk and rock distinctively. And her version of sexual politics is broad enough to encompass a class critique as well. While Blanton is singing from the sidelines of superstardom, some stars might do well to listen to her for an example of how to make good music that also refers to subjects other than self-care - nothing wrong with expanding your already-huge base by being even more ambitious in the new year.
GROSS: Ken Tucker is FRESH AIR's rock critic. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, my guests will be Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell, the internationally famous brother and sister songwriting and music-making duo. We'll talk about what it was like to be homeschooled, become famous in their teens and how their lives and music have changed as adults. They have a new album. I hope you'll join us.
(SOUNDBITE OF CARSIE BLANTON SONG, "AIN'T WE GO FUN")
GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF CARSIE BLANTON SONG, "AIN'T WE GO FUN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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