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  • The Briefing

Popjustice's latest Now playlist addition: Billie Eilish's bad guy

  • July 10, 2019
  • Peter Robinson

The back­ground: Last summer, to celebrate the 100th edition of Now That's What I Call Music, I put together a special Popjustice Edit — the best song from each edition, in order. 100 songs that told the story of pop music from the 80s to today. Click here for the playlist, it's incred­ible.

The updates: With each sub­sequent Now That's What I Call Music album, I've been adding the best song. Last November I selected The 1975's TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME, and in April I added Mark Ronson and Miley Cyrus' Nothing Breaks Like A Heart. Which brings us to…

The latest addition: Now 103 is out next week and the track­list­ing (which, sidenote, is a mess) throws up several worthy additions to the Popjustice Edit playlist. Among them are Ariana's break up with your girl­friend, i'm bored and Camila and Shawn's Senorita, but the two songs that best showcase what pop can do in the summer of 2019 are Lil Nas X's Old Town Road and Billie Eilish's bad guy. Both those songs are by artists who've subtly rewritten what popstars can/should be like, and neither song sounds like anything else in the chart. In the end bad guy makes it onto the list: it sounds like pop music from a different time (maybe only 7–9 months in the future, but that's enough) and a different planet and like bury a friend it still, after all this time and all these listens, somehow takes you by surprise when it tumbles out of the radio.

  • Billie Eilish
  • Now That's What I Call Music
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Pic: SHE IS APHRODITE
  • The Briefing

New Music Friday: Kult Kyss are tripping on past lives

  • June 28, 2019
  • Peter Robinson
Have a read
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  • The Briefing

A concept album based on a Netflix show? Stranger things have hap(You're fired — Ed)

  • July 11, 2019
  • Peter Robinson
Have a read
Further listening
Greatest hits
  • A lengthy Neil Tennant interview
  • Lou Pearlman interview: "Once in a while we get it wrong"
  • Troye Sivan interview: "I feel more fully-realised as a person"
Further reading
  • 1
    2021 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize: Laura Mvula wins
  • 2
    Sarah Harding
  • 3
    "You asked me not to leave, well here I am again"
  • 4
    The 2021 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize: shortlist announced
  • 5
    New Music Friday: Georgia Twinn's done a song about a moth
  • 6
    New Music Friday: Julia Michaels has purchased, or hired, a chainsaw
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