Listen if you like...
... Olivia Rodrigo, then you like this
While it is hard for music to fly under the radar at glamglare, we easily overlook successful and popular artists. This is built into our system: the sources that send us new music rarely deal with superstars, so they are off our map.
However, while the most popular music is certainly not the best, an artist must not necessarily be "indie" to be good. In music, like in all art forms, the correlation between popularity and quality is loose at best.
Last Friday, the second album, "GUTS" by Olivia Rodrigo, came out. I only know this because the record was the subject of The Amplifier, Lindsay Zoladz's New York Times subscriber-only newsletter. I listened and liked it – in particular, because she goes for rock instead of the dominant R&B pop aesthetics. If I had received one or the other song in our usual feed, I might have chosen it for a Song Pick.
So why does Olivia Rodrigo have 59 million monthly listeners and Eden Rain only 12 thousand (as per Spotify)? For once, Olivia is not an indie musician who worked her way up from playing small stages; her career instead followed a familiar trajectory for pop stars: she starred in Disney TV shows, which, of course, gave her an enormous head start when she released "Driver's License" in 2020.
When artists cross the threshold of mass popularity, they receive the spotlight for whatever they do. They are treated with the benefit of the doubt: critics will make an extra effort to dig out nuggets of greatness in a superstar's work. For example, Lindsay's newsletter – which rarely does full album reviews – swoons about every song and juxtaposes it with timeless music from other artists.
That has less to do with the quality of the music than the attention economy. Newspapers and big blogs need to go where they assume a large audience. That effect has become only stronger over the last decades: as news outlets struggle, they feel a pull to write what most people want to read. And so NPR and Pitchfork – great places to discover new artists in the past – now cover the week's biggest releases and lost their edge.
We want to show that Olivia Rodrigo is in good company with her style of music and put together a playlist with glamglare-featured artists we believe many of her 59 million listeners would enjoy, too.
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Songs:
- Olivia Rodrigo - get him back!
- Eden Rain - Oh God
- Eaves Wilder - Are You Diagnosed?
- Morgan Harper-Jones - Swimming Upstream
- Olivia Rodrigo - teenage dream
- Savannah Conley - Don’t Make Me Reach
- Florence Arman - Naked
- Olivia Rodrigo - pretty isn’t pretty
- Dizzy - Open Up Wide
- Penelope Isles - Sailing Still
Song Pick of the Day
Listen to/watch all seven songs on YouTube. Follow our daily updated playlists on YouTube and Spotify for the 50 latest Song Picks of the Day. Thank you for following us and sharing the excitement.
It is hard to see a song named “Downtown” and not immediately hear Petula Clark in your mind. Fortunately, this melody quickly evaporates when hearing the first bars of the new song by NYC singer/songwriter Tansu. She tells an episode from earlier in her current relationship about how tough moments lead to more clarity. Read the entire story here.
The Montreal artist Laurence-Anne has just released her third album, Oniromancie, which is all about dreams. The album ends with a banger, “Vitesse,” but by all means, listen to the entire thing.
“Midnight Horses” is the last single from Under Glass, the upcoming new record by singer, producer, and songwriter KANGA. While new here on glamglare, the Los Angeles artist has not only released a series of albums since 2016 but also composed for movies and video games.
The fellow Angelenos Bittersweethearts make unapologetic indie rock with only the slightest nod to the dominant pop aesthetics of their hometown. In the song “Empty,” singer Zoe Infante goes all out over breaking out of a bad relationship.
Irish singer/songwriter Holly Munro wants you to start the day right with her new track “Glow Up.” She says: “This song is a reminder that we all have our struggles and moments of self-doubt, but there’s so much beauty and meaning in each of us.”
Glasser’s new album crux grows more on me with every new single. Close your eyes and imagine flying over a sun-drenched lush landscape in the early morning. While “Easy” is about the loss of an old friend, it also “felt like finally some kind of return to some of the good feelings around knowing someone despite their end.”
Lime Garden is a four-piece from Brighton, England. Inspired by Brooklyn bands Yeah Yeah Yeahs and LCD Soundsystem, “Love Song” is written by drummer Annabelle Whittle about “jumping into joy and love even when you feel you are not worthy of it.”
Also Happening
Tomorrow, Montreal band Le Couleur releases their concept album Comme dans un penthouse with a “narrative arc that plays out like a Greek tragedy.” You don’t need to speak French to get the thrill, the music alone does the job.
Nine Photos of Warpaint
Warpaint had been around for a few years already when we finally caught them live for the first time in 2010. Since then, we traveled to Eugene, Oregon, and even went on a once-in-a-lifetime music cruise, the SS Coachella, in 2012. On Tuesday this week, we saw the four West Coast icons for the 20th time at the Brooklyn Bowl and had a wonderful time, as always.
From top left to bottom right:
1 - SS Coachella, at Sea, December 22, 2012.
2 - Webster Hall Studio, NYC, December 10, 2010.
3 - Irving Plaza, NYC, June 4, 2017.
4 - Brooklyn Bowl, NYC, September 12, 2023.
5 - Webster Hall, NYC, March 21, 2014.
6 - Spotify House at SXSW, Austin, TX, March 13, 2014.
7 - Prospect Park, NYC, June 26, 2016.
8 - Eugene, Oregon Country Fair, July 10, 2011.
9 - Brooklyn Made, NYC, July 24, 2022.