25 STORIES · TAGGED
TAYLOR SWIFT · 2022
The biggest pop song of 2022 is not a love song, a revenge song, or a victory lap — it is a woman with the largest audience on earth calmly …
HARRY STYLES · 2022
Behind the bright, bouncing synths of the biggest song of 2022 sits a portrait of someone mid-transformation, lonely and a little lost, admi…
ED SHEERAN · 2021
"Bad Habits" is a song about relapse dressed up as the best night of your life — a euphoric dance track in which the euphoria is the problem…
BTS · 2021
"Butter" sounds like a frothy summer flirt song, but underneath it is a victory lap: seven men from a small Seoul agency, written off for ye…
TAYLOR SWIFT · 2020
"Cardigan" is not a cosy love song about a sweater at all. It is a grown woman looking back on the teenage boy who broke her heart, and admi…
OLIVIA RODRIGO · 2021
On the surface it is a teenage breakup ballad, but "drivers license" is really about a milestone turning sour: the freedom of finally being …
BTS · 2020
"Dynamite" sounds like a carefree disco party, but it was built as an emergency dose of joy for a world stuck indoors in 2020. It was co-wri…
SABRINA CARPENTER · 2024
"Espresso" is not really a love song at all. It is a playful, deliberately silly anthem about knowing your own appeal so well that you becom…
BABY KEEM · 2021
"family ties" sounds like a brag-off between two rappers, but at heart it is a family handoff: Kendrick Lamar stepping out of a long silence…
MILEY CYRUS · 2023
"Flowers" sounds like a breakup song, but it is really a reply. Miley Cyrus answered a famous ballad about a man's regret with a declaration…
OLIVIA RODRIGO · 2021
On the surface "good 4 u" is a sarcastic kiss-off to an ex who moved on too quickly, but at its core it is a song about the ugly, unglamorou…
MAC MILLER · 2020
"Good News" sounds like a gentle, sleepy shrug, but it is really a song about how tiring it is to keep acting fine for everyone else. Releas…
BILLIE EILISH · 2021
"Happier Than Ever" is a breakup song disguised as a lullaby. For two minutes it sounds like a sweet, forgiving farewell, and then it tears …
GLASS ANIMALS · 2020
Under its woozy, sun-dazed groove, "Heat Waves" is a song about grief and the slow realisation that you cannot save someone you love. It is …
BLACKPINK · 2020
It sounds like a swaggering taunt aimed at an ex, but "How You Like That" is really a song about getting up off the floor: a comeback anthem…
LIL NAS X & JACK HARLOW · 2021
"Industry Baby" takes the nastiest insult thrown at Lil Nas X, that he was a manufactured, label-made fluke who would vanish after "Old Town…
DUA LIPA · 2020
LONDON, UK
— When Dua Lipa released "Levitating" in the spring of 2020, the world was locked inside. The song's funk-pop pulse and disco-revival sparkl…
LIL NAS X · 2021
On the surface it is a cheeky, flamenco-flavoured song about lusting after a man who will not commit, but its real subject is a gay kid from…
MITSKI · 2023
It sounds like a tender moonlit love song, but it is really a song about dying — a woman taking inventory of everything she owns, finding th…
MEGAN THEE STALLION · 2020
"Savage" sounds like a pure brag track, but at its heart it is a song about refusing to be reduced to one adjective, written by a young woma…
THE WEEKND · 2020
Behind the bright, roller-disco synths, "Save Your Tears" is a confession from the person who did the leaving: a man who broke someone's hea…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 2026
TL;DR: From "I Want You Back" to "Stranger in Moscow," here is every major song in the Michael Jackson biopic — and the real story behind ea…
THE KID LAROI & JUSTIN BIEBER · 2021
Beneath its sprinting synths and stadium-sized hook, "Stay" is a confession of failure: a narrator who keeps breaking the same promises, kno…
BEYONCÉ · 2024
HOUSTON, TEXAS, USA
"Texas Hold 'Em" sounds like a carefree barn-dance invitation, but it is really a dare built on eight years of grievance: a Houston woman wa…
OLIVIA RODRIGO · 2023
"Vampire" sounds like a heartbreak song, but it is really about the moment you realise you were not loved so much as used, and that the pers…