Pop

Im not sure if Duran Duran were a minor band disguised as a major one, or vice versa, but they did have a handful of really catchy songs, and playing a saxophone on a raft is a boss move. One thing is certain though: Metro UK is a pretty minor publication, and ranking "Ordinary World" over "Rio" is complete bullshit. Still, here are a few great tracks from this these 80s kings.

Within days of each other, CamRon and Kevin Gates released tracks with unlikely samples. CamRons romantic "10,000 Miles” has him singing "Lookin up out my Benz" over the familiar twinkling piano riff from Vanessa Carltons massive 2001 hit "A Thousand Miles," while Gates more reflective "What If" utilizes Joan Osbornes "One Of Us" to inquire if God is "Just a thug like one of us."Adult contemporary pop is no stranger to hip-hop and it often lends itself to a variety of mood-setting styles. Rappers utilize its piano ballads and campfire-ready acoustic guitar lines, either reworking the lyrics or topping off familiar strums with harsher beats. The final product can yield some surprising results that often are friendly to radio.Janet Jackson took advantage of the infectious guitar on Americas "Ventura Highway" to create the romantic pop jam "Someone To Call My Lover," and also brought on Carly Simon herself to rework her "Youre So Vain" into the sassy, slam poetry-filled "Son Of A Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You)." Didos "Thank You" turns ominous in Eminems iconic and gorgeously dark "Stan," and Rihanna turned the dark and moody "Im with You" by pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne into party anthem "Cheers (Drink To That)."In some light-hearted, ridiculous moments, Elephant Man reimagines Nelly Furtados "I’m Like A Bird" for his single "Gal Bruk," Project Pat toys with the haunting, atmospheric sound of Alanis Morissettes "Uninvited" for his track "Sucks on Dick" featuring Juicy J, and Ice Cube reimagines the lyrics of No Doubts "Dont Speak" for his bleak "War And Peace."Some samples are more subtle: Adeles "Hometown Glory" just barely creeps up at the beginning of Childish Gambinos "Heartbeat," overshadowed by a rough, aggressive beat, and Nicki Minaj and Cassies reference to Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister” may go unnoticed because of how briefly they slip it into “The Boys.” No matter how small the contribution, the unlikely juxtaposition of adult contemporary pop and hip-hop can be enough to spark an unexpected musical idea.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

New Jersey singer and musician Jack Antonoff fronted the band Steel Train for a decade with only a small cult following before pivoting into an unlikely career as a producer and songwriter behind Hot 100 hits by platinum pop stars like Taylor Swift and Lorde. It all began when he joined The Format’s Nate Ruess in a new project, fun. The band’s second album, Some Nights, launched “We Are Young,” an anthemic track that became one of the biggest pop hits of 2012. Ruess followed up the album with a solo project while Antonoff fronted a new band, Bleachers. But Antonoff went on to gain most of his success behind the scenes.Antonoff’s early outside credits include co-writing with Canadian indie pop heroes Tegan and Sara, including a track on their 2013 breakthrough album Heartthrob, and a bonus track for Carly Rae Jepsen’s Kiss. He also landed a big hit for Sara Bareilles, helping her write the Grammy-nominated, triple-platinum single “Brave.”By then, Antonoff and girlfriend Lena Dunham were rubbing elbows with a number of Top 40 stars, including Taylor Swift and Lorde, who both began seeking out his ear for nostalgic ‘80s pop sounds and confessional lyrics. Antonoff co-wrote several tracks on Swift’s 1989 and also her recent hit duet with ZAYN, “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever.” He’s frequently collaborated with Lorde, both on her recent hit “Green Light” and on the second Bleachers album, Gone Now, due out June 2nd. He also collaborated with Grimes on “Entropy,” from the soundtrack for Dunham’s HBO series Girls.Though he sings in Steel Train and Bleachers, Antonoff’s Terrible Thrills series defers to stars like Tinashe and Charli XCX for their own spin. His affinity for female voices and perspectives has served him well as a songwriter, and ultimately, he might be happiest when handing the mic to a woman, even on his own records.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

Butch Walker scored his first hit as the frontman of Marvelous 3, who recorded the alt-rock smash “Freak of the Week” in 1998, before he launched a lengthy solo career as a singer-songwriter with a cult fanbase. But over the last two decades, Walker’s most widely heard work has been as a producer or songwriter. With his lyrical wit, his bottomless well of guitar licks, and his ear for big catchy choruses, he’s a pop punk power player who’s helped with Fall Out Boy’s comeback as well as singles for Bowling For Soup and American Hi-Fi. But his versatility and work ethic have also made him a crucial collaborator for pop stars like Katy Perry and Pink, hard rock bands like Sevendust, and even country singer Keith Urban.

Creating a playlist that attempts to rank the best Rihanna songs ever is a double-edged sword. On one hand, everyone loves Rihanna. She’s been one of pop’s most compelling singers and personalities for nearly a decade, and her ability to incorporate outre sounds with extremely addictive pop hooks is nearly unmatched. Her aggressive, sexually positive persona has both captured and anticipated a fundamental shift in how gender is performed and represented in pop culture. But you don’t need us to tell you this——thousands and thousands of words have been spilled about Barbados’ finest. And you certainly don’t need Complex to rank her greatest songs, because you (should) already know a good two-thirds of these by heart. Still, it’s a well curated list, and it’s always great to have the pretext for revisiting Rihanna.

Beyonce is a national treasure. She’s not someone who requires a critical or commercial reappraisal. She’s had her missteps here and there, but we’ve all known since near the beginning that she possesses a gift that’s nearly unparalleled in modern R&B. So it makes sense that her b-sides and deep album cuts are going to be great. Al Shipley, from the blog Narrowcast, provides a really great overview of the highpoints. It’s a fun playlist that takes a reveals special moments from a very known commodity.

Whats This Playlist All About? The "Havana” singer and former Fifth Harmony star reveals the tracks that leave her swooning.What Do You Get? A fun (though somewhat predictable) mix of mushy modern pop hits and timeless romantic classics. The playlist leans mostly on recent stuff (well give her a pass since shes only 20 years old), including Taylor Swift at her sweetest ("Love Story"), Ed Sheeran at his schmaltziest ("Perfect"), and Selena Gomez at her sultriest ("Hands to Myself")—oh, and Camila herself at her slinkiest ("Never Be the Same"). A little Stevie Wonder and Prince are thrown in for good measure, while The Weeknd slips in not once, but twice.Most Romantic: No one can top Etta James. No one.Will Playing This Win Over Your Crush? Only if youre 15 to 25 years old.

Fresh off the release of their third album, I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone, the Seattle-based indie band Chastity Belt have compiled an annotated playlist that outlines the three phases of a “Coffee Comedown”: Ecstasy, Anxiety, and Hope. In the same way the four-piece band have built their songs around turning everyday observations into weighty revelations, bassist Annie Truscott’s emotional, caffeine-fueled expedition doubles as the soundtrack to an existential crisis.Process is paramount and Truscott takes her time untangling the complexities of each phase. Her description of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Higher” is both jubilant and feral: “When the coffee starts crankin’ through my system, I feel invincible. I feel ready to take on the day.” However, Truscott differentiates between contemplating big thoughts and actually putting them into action. These flashes of clarity show up in moments of transition on the playlist. Merchandise’s “Become What You Are” caps the the Ecstasy phase and its lulling repetition offers a reprieve before the track’s quiet chaos morphs into Anxiety.But like most seemingly catastrophic situations, Truscott knows that this will not last forever. One of the best (and worst) things about coffee is that it will inevitably wear off. It mirrors an ongoing tension in Chastity Belt’s own music; a self-aware brand of self-indulgence derived from knowing that the tribulations of youth are also temporary. Of course, Stevie Nicks gets in the last word with “After the Glitter Fades,” which Truscott explains as a cleanser of sorts: “I remember how it feels, and I can look on all the phases of my comedown thru nostalgia-colored glasses.”

When Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter—two denizens of Germany’s musical underground—founded Kraftwerk in 1970, nobody could have imagined the impact they would have. But all these decades later, few corners of popular music are untouched by their influence. The sounds they crafted in the ’70s and ’80s with Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür resonated worldwide, influencing post-punk, synth-pop, New Wave, hip-hop, techno, and more.

Kraftwerk were among the first to use electronics as a tool for fashioning pop music. Even though their first few albums employed electronics in a more experimental way, they broke through internationally in 1974 with “Autobahn,” their mechanically paced hooks and android image positioning them as the Beach Boys of the robot revolution, pointing toward an entirely fresh musical future.

Before the ’70s were over, disciple David Bowie had released the Florian homage “V-2 Schneider” and incorporated Kraftwerk’s influence in his legendary “Berlin trilogy” of albums, and Gary Numan had channeled the band’s inspiration into the first flowering of synth-pop, which would continue to bear Kraftwerk’s mark in the ’80s.

From there, Kraftwerk’s electronic innovations went on to profoundly affect hip-hop and electro, starting with Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force’s “Planet Rock” and continuing through countless samples. This fed into the band’s influence on Detroit techno (and subsequently the international IDM scene). By the 2000s, the band’s influence was doubling back on itself via the ’80s-retro electroclash movement.

Today the majority of pop and hip-hop is created with electronics, and even artists who have never heard a note of Kraftwerk in their lives owe some of their existence to them, whether they realize it or not. Schneider left the band in 2008 and Hütter continued to lead a new lineup in occasional tours, but when Schneider passed away on April 30, 2020, at the age of 73, even though he was no longer working with the band, it marked an epoch’s end. Gathered in the accompanying playlist is a tiny percentage of the countless artists indebted to Kraftwerk’s fearless vision.

A charmer, also a dick. Critics love the idea of Justin Timberlake: white boy leaves best-selling boy band, “matures,” gets better haircuts, etc. I bet he even smells good! The boy band’s singles were solid to excellent, though, and for a while I didn’t hear a difference between end times N Sync jams like “Girlfriend” and “Gone” and the first couple Justifiedsingles. I can’t deny he’s recorded more than a dozen bangers, and now that pot smoking has sanded down his unbearable falsetto he’s become a decent ballad singer — I have a fondness for his Inside Lleweyn Davis number. His singles have a way of sneaking up on me too. Corporate retreats and elementary school talent shows have shown the sinister nature of “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” but its rictus grin of joy got hypnotic with each play. I haven’t quite forgotten the deviousness with which he slinked away from Janet Jackson after 2004’s so-called wardrobe malfunction during the Superbowl, nor the general ignorance of a promotional circle that didn’t understand why naming a pussyhound anthem “Take Back the Night” was a dreadful mistake.We’ll be dealing with this guy for the rest of our lives.Visit our affiliate/partner site Humanizing the Vacuum for great lists, commentary and more.