English is no longer the lingua franca of pop music, and its alpha stars – Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga – are an endangered species
In a recent episode of the New York Times Popcast, the paper’s critic, Jon Caramanica, recalled the week in August where K-pop seven-piece BTS and Puerto Rican star Ozuna’s respective albums debuted inside the US Top 10. “I remember looking at that and being, like, oh, this is it – this is the new pop order. This is not seven sub-genres ascending: this is pop.”
Here were two acts who had vaulted western pop’s language barrier: BTS are currently the world’s biggest boyband; Ozuna sings and raps, tackles reggaeton, bachata, Latin trap and plain old pop with equal ease, and was YouTube’s most streamed artist in the world in 2018. Numbers two and three in YouTube’s list were J Balvin and Bad Bunny, two more singer-rappers who primarily perform in Spanish. And, incidentally, eight of the 10 most viewed songs of 2018 were by Spanish-speaking acts.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Tz61V9
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