I am thinking about the State of US Pop again based on some chart chatter. I should immediately qualify this with (1) being skeptical that there really is such a thing as “the” state of US (or any) pop, (2) not generally having a ton of personal interest in the charts to guide my own listening, and (3) not thinking that the charts actually give you a very good barometer of the health of a region or a scene.
So maybe I should start with what does give me a decent (but subjective) barometer. I’m in the position of not having a particular beat or hobbyhorse, so I can sort of float around the world cherry-picking good stuff that I hear. That means that any country, region, or genre can sound strong to me if I find enough good stuff there, even if that stuff is an exception, is locally unpopular, or is otherwise unrepresentative of its genre or scene.
That said, there are some areas where the glut of good music is overwhelming and undeniable. This is related to the term I use a lot to describe developing or thriving scenes: ferment—a sense of rapid development and promise. I use the term very loosely, since there is enough music being produced on a daily basis that you could theoretically find ferment anywhere at some level.1 But in a simpler sense, the scenes in ferment are the ones where there seems like a miraculous supply of good music, sometimes so much of it that I have to actively keep some of it off of my mixes each week because I could make a full mix worth of just that type of music.
Right now the scenes that have earned separate folders for an overflow of good music include Brazilian funk and South African house music, along with Latin American and Spanish-language pop.2 Caribbean dancehall and related pop (mostly Francophone) is becoming another area that might soon have enough songs each week to qualify for their own list.
This is totally impressionistic, and I’m sure if I looked intently for music in other scenes I’d find more of it. But the point is that for the scenes I’m describing, I don’t have to look very carefully; the music jumps out at me constantly.
When the music isn’t jumping out, you need to dig for it. This is more or less what I’m used to doing anyway, and it’s exactly how a few pieces I’ve come across in the past week have framed listening to US chart pop right now. Here is how a recent article in Nylon describes exciting music at the “bottom of the charts”:
Recently, three of the most exciting up-and-comers of the moment earned their first-ever Billboard Hot 100 chart entries: on Aug. 4, Audrey Hobert’s “Sue Me” came in just under the wire at no. 98, over a year after its release in May 2025. The next week, Hobert climbed to no. 92, leaving room for Slayyyter to take over her position at 98 with her new hit “Brand New Chanel$.” Pop protégé Adéla also secured a spot that week at no. 85 with her latest single “Ain’t In LA,” making her the first Slovak artist to appear on the chart.
In the Atlantic, Spencer Kornhaber singles out some of the same artists (and also Kim Petras—could she make a CAPDY comeback?) to make a series of broader points about the State of Things:
After a long pop-cultural swing away from Millennial do-goodery toward a redux of 1980s “greed is good” aesthetics, burnout with chasing the bag is finally setting in. Many influencers are starting to see their reach wane; luxury brands are facing flatlining sales. At the same time, anti-institutionalist sentiment—whether directed at political parties, Big Tech, or the entertainment business—is at a high. “Party in the U.S.A.” landed at a time when people still regarded Hollywood as a land of magic, not as a playground for sex traffickers.
The most popular songs of late reflects these trends as well. Ella Langley’s record-setting charts run with “Choosin’ Texas” speaks to a demand for music that’s indifferent to the cosmopolitan hustle. The stateside appeal of non-English-language stars also represents shifting ideals of what success looks and sounds like. Just as Adéla advises that the baddest bitches ain’t in L.A., Bad Bunny scoffs at the idea that Puerto Ricans need to head to the mainland United States to make their dreams come true.
In these conditions, it’s no wonder that pop, once the sound of the center, is finding glamour in marginality. Stars who might otherwise aspire to godhood are meeting listeners where they’ve always been: partying in their own backyard, with their own friends, and on their own terms—even while dreaming of something bigger.
Some of this feels like special pleading for a struggling pop scene. I suspect there’s something bigger happening with the US charts that intersects with my writing about regional pop, though. At the top of the charts, you see the continued relevance of major 2010s stars, the ones who I describe when I trace a prehistory of today’s regionalization. And you also see more music on the US charts that is distinctively regional and doesn’t translate abroad. It seems hard for new pop-as-genre artists to gain a foothold.
I use the Billboard Global 200 Excluding US (GXU) chart as a level-setter. There will always be songs that do better in the US than elsewhere, but the question is how wide the gap is between performance in the US and performance in all charts except the US.
For instance, nearly all current Hot 100-charting country music has little to no impact on the GXU charts, and it hasn’t in the chart’s 6-year history, spanning the whole period in which artists like Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, and Zach Bryan have done very well in the US. (Morgan Wallen has never appeared above #82 on the GXU charts as a solo artist; he once hit #3 on a Post Malone collaboration.)
I wondered what it would look like if you pared this week’s US Top 40 down to exclude all songs by major 2010s stars (Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Bruno Mars, Drake) and also exclude all songs that do not cross over to the GXU (i.e. they peak much lower on the GXU chart than the US Hot 100). The latter criteria eliminates pretty much all country music, including Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” which is set to break an all-time record for most weeks at #1 in the US but only cracked the Top 40 (at #38) on the GXU this past Tuesday.
Here are the 13 songs left from the Top 40 for this week—relatively new artists with songs popular in the US and abroad:
Olivia Dean (“Man I Need” and “So Easy to Fall in Love”)
Tame Impala & JENNIE (“Dracula”)
Olivia Rodrigo (“Stupid Song,” “The Cure,” and “Drop Dead”)
Zara Larsson (“Midnight Sun”)
Malcolm Todd (“Earrings”)
Dominic Fike (“Babydoll”)
Shakira & Burna Boy (“Dai Dai”)
KATSEYE (“Animal”)
Temper City (“Self Aware”)
Stray Kids (“This and That”)
There are US artists here, but they’re not the subjects of the above chart analysis, with the possible exception of Olivia Rodrigo. Two US artists (Dominic Fike and Temper City) are more popular abroad than in the US, while several of these songs are much more popular on the GXU than they are in the US (World Cup song “Dai Dai,” KATSEYE, and Stray Kids).3
Maybe this is all just a fluke of the last two years—lots of people think 2024 was a banner year for US chart-pop. But I also wonder if there are more structural things happening: as US pop stops signifying as something to aspire to abroad, the Hot 100 chart becomes more of a regional chart, and the US either adapts to more global music or recedes further into an insular scene with old incumbents or its own regional hits.
1. MAYLIE: Connais pas
France
Another week, another French pop upstart riding Caribbean dancehall to a banging crossover. (MAYLIE is under-the-radar enough that I had to physically type out her Instagram handle from her artist bio, underscores inclusive.) Will see how she’s doing this time next year among the current crop—for those of you keeping up at home, that’s, in roughly descending heatseeker order: Theodora, LinLin, Fallon, (D)Juno, and maybe sometimes MAYLIE.
2. Naomi, SLM: Hershey Kiss
Canada
Don’t count out Montreal, though, where Fyore also caught my attention among Francophone ferment and will make her third appearance on a mix next week. This week it’s Naomi with guest rapper SLM.
3. Shanae: Beep Beep
Brazil-US
Took me a while to figure out whether this Shanae is the same one who created a wonderful light baile funk song filmed guerrilla style across different NYC locations, “Acquicemento da Xanaina,” that Isabel (via Nick) shared with me. I looked up Shanae on streaming and found this song, and was convinced it was a different artist until I finally found a social media account that included both songs. Rob Sheffield’s theory that there are no bad songs about waiting for phone calls remains undefeated. I also particularly like the hook “in one ear, in the other,” like she’s talking on two phones simultaneously.
4. XYVRL: SBAPN
Philippines
This Filipina rapper’s song is the most casually backgrounded use of budots I think I’ve heard to date? A budots beat sets the tempo but occasionally switches over to house organ. This is to my knowledge the second budots crossover I’ve had on a mix— that is, one where the style is being used in the service of something less DJ-oriented—after girl group VVINK’s single produced by DJ Love. So far these integrated songs putting the budots in the background don’t really hit as hard as the DJ stuff. The lane for pop crossover is still wide open: maybe Chappell Roan will figure out she was doing budots the whole time.
5. pikika: Hoje Tem
Portugal
Incredible how quickly the bouyon rhythm has spread globally in subtle ways, too—it sort of functions like PinkPantheress did a few years ago, as a tempo defibrillator across the entire pop landscape. Not sure if this song is directly inspired by bouyon per se, but it feels swept up in the same zeitgeist.
6. Nia Barbia: Чіґа-Біґа-Барбія! [Chiga-Biga-Barbia!]
Ukraine
The Jersey club beat is another one that has wound up spreading globally in a similar fashion in the past few years—here it is in Ukraine. It wasn’t until recently that I noticed that the Jersey club beat is a little like an inverted clave rhythm—two straight beats and then a triplet (sort of), a 2-3 pattern instead of 3-2. But the bigger idea is just that certain rhythms travel well and quickly, and this is one of them.
7. Myaap: Hunnids
US
Bounce rhythm has maybe not traveled as widely outside of the US, though I hear it now and again in odd places. Myaap has found a way to make bounce simultaneously more pop and more arty—in this one, her first single since putting out an incredible album, the production by Prodi-G practically sounds like it’s hiding DJ Shadow behind the beat.
8. Audrey Nuna, Valorant: SuperHuman
US
I did a bit of due diligence during the KPop Demon Hunters craze last year checking out the solo careers of each HUNTR/X member, and Audrey Nuna (who provides the performing voice of Mira in the film) was the most interesting. I had selected a 2024 track last year to share that I wavered on (the “Boy Is Mine”-sample-with-Jersey-club-beat “Mine”), but waited until she had a new single out to finally include something.
9. Jasmin407: Ale Maroc
Morocco-Italy
More indirect bouyon ferment with those faster tempos I mentioned in that pikika track from Portugal, this time from a Moroccan artist based in Italy.
10. DJ EXE, CACAU CHUU, Luísa Sonza, Ryan Castro: Que Loucura (Remix)
Brazil
11. Jhow, CACAU CHUU, LeoZera: Ela ké pancadão
Brazil
CACAU CHUU, a Brazilian funk singer I know nothing about, has become a serious utility player in São Paulo, rivaling Mc Gw for the most appearances on the funk tracks I set aside each week. She’s so ubiquitous that I didn’t even realize I’d put two tracks featuring her in a row—both have brega funk’s reggaeton-like rhythms, but the first employs the swooning snyths of sexy drill while the second sounds like it was cobbled together from Mortal Kombat sound effects.
12. Las Culisueltas: Murmullo Descuidado
Argentina
Argentine reggaeton has at least one “Careless Whisper” sax usage to rival the two Brazilian funk variations of that song’s sax hook that I’ve included on mixes to date.
13. Team Paiya, Gaz Mawete: Au chaud
Côte D’Ivoire
14. Bigyne wiz f. Jolina Verdigo, Le Grand Homme: Eusseu toi tu me connais
Côte D’Ivoire
Last week I promised but did not really deliver any Ivorian biama (or fast coupé decalé, still can’t tell the difference?) so here are two good ones from a few new playlist sources.
15. Sexbomb Girls: Mama Mama
Philippines
As someone who recently got very into “Sex Bomba,” the 1982 singe by Bosnian artist Alma Ekmecic featured in the Pop World Cup, I was primed to like something else Sexbomb related. But I was surprised that the reason I liked this was because it sounds like the America’s Funniest Home Videos theme song.
16. Leona: Stay or Go
Philippines
Someone named Leona doing passé R&B in a way that I like even though I recognize it’s kind of stale? What are the odds that would happen twice?
17. EMJAY: Moreno Fantasy
Mexico
EMJAY is still leaning into confessional darkness and moody snyths—the turn that I called Down on the Dancefloor back in 2007, though I’ve lost the track list for that mix (Hook Me Up era Veronicas, downer Rihanna, the weird second Katy Rose album, and a few others).
18. Murex: Flock of Swans Fly in V’s
Sweden
19. @: Punish My Mind
US
Two art-rock-y songs, one an animal song without animal noises and the other a non-animal song with animal noises.
20. Joyce Moreno, Tutty Moreno, Adrian Younge: Sorria de Novo
Brazil/US
Dog bites man: another impeccable collab from Adrian Younge for the Jazz Is Dead series.
21. Jnr SA, Dlala Thukzin, Kabza De Small: Rider
South Africa
Amapiano—still good! First Dlala Thukzin appearance of the year I think! Jnr SA’s album is good!
22. Tropical Soldiers in Paradise: 700
Poland
Thorny fusion odyssey from Poland to close things out if you have eight minutes to spare.
That’s it! Until next time, stay fermenting.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Shanae: Beep Beep
You could think of ferment literally to visualize a process that speeds up with heat and slows down with cold. So any field that has ever experienced ferment always “has it” to some level, but at some point it’s chucked itself into the freezer. In some cases, a fermentation process is “done” and you just have the final product—you don’t really want to change it too much anymore. But in music that usually signals the end of a style; the more generative form of fermentation is more like a live culture than perfecting a bottle of wine.
I’d categorize Latin America as more of a regional powerhouse than a “scene,” but I don’t casually find as much good music in other regional powerhouses each week, including in K-pop or J-pop, where I’m certain someone could make a weekly mix of songs, and in fact know people who do just that.
Of the big names I excluded from my list, Ariana Grande and Bruno Mars are doing about as well on the GXU as on the Hot 100, while Taylor Swift and Drake are doing worse.
The Myaap project is so impressive, I can't believe that I'm drawn into something that on one level is very minimal and finding it as rich and soundly structured as, say, some famous popular piano concerto. And that something so modern can include so much African-American musical history without it being obvious or about that on any surface level. Bravo to Myaap and her producers for hitting this mark.