Who is popular today?

(Dirty Hit)The British indie star and Taylor Swift support act’s hotly anticipated third album is a nuanced 21st-century take on 90s guitar, super-produced by Rick RubinBack in 2017, a grungy, lo-fi singer-songwriter called Beabadoobee emerged from west London, in thrall to 90s indie rock. Beatrice Laus’s breakout tune, Coffee, was an indie-folk bagatelle full of sad, hopeful charm.Laus, in common with many gen Z creatives, didn’t differentiate too much between shoegaze, stripped-back balladeering or grunge. She channelled it all on her debut, 2020’s Fake It Flowers, wearing her influences like a charm bracelet – her 2019 song I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus hymned the singer of Pavement. Coffee, meanwhile, became the basis of a 2019 viral hit by the Canadian rapper Powfu (to date: 701m views on YouTube). Continue reading...