on the pulse of pop culture

NEW DELHI—One of the most lavish weddings in recent years wraps up in India this weekend, after giving the world an eye-popping look at the spending power of a fabulously wealthy billionaire family—the Ambanis.Anant Ambani, 29, the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, head of industrial conglomerate Reliance Industries and India’s richest man, is marryin... See more

Yes, this is 2024, where life increasingly feels like a huge in-joke that started on the internet. Once upon a time we had subcultures: punks and goths, hippies and emos. Now we have Gen Z’s perceptive trendspotters pinpointing a style or a mood that is sweeping the zeitgeist, coining a label for it — often with the suffix “-core” — and sharing it ... See more

In an admirable show of honesty, Mike Schur, a producer and writer who created the NBC series The Good Place and co-created Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine , says on camera “I pretended I didn’t know” about the rumors when he cast Louis C.K. on Parks and Recreation well before the New York Times expose. Later, Schur admits, “The fact th... See more

With Barbie , The Super Mario Bros. Movie , and Oppenheimer leading the way, 2023 was the first time in over two decades that the top three box office earners didn’t include a sequel or a remake. (The last time it happened was 2001, courtesy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone , Shrek , and Monsters, Inc .) Granted, adapting an iconic toy bran... See more

Then T-Pain changed everything. By the time the Tallahassee star performed a Tiny Desk concert, in 2014, his use of Autotune as a musical signature had led plenty of casual listeners to assume the pitch-correcting tool was hiding a weak voice. Even fellow artists complained that he was polluting the industry. (He was depressed for years, he has sai... See more

Glover was a far more promising prospect in Hollywood, and so Childish Gambino was a much riskier and much more interesting pivot. Glover didn’t turn to hip-hop to become cool. He turned to hip-hop to reveal how deeply uncool he was. He was enigmatic. He was provocative. He was a righteous loser who modeled youthful suburban rebellion on hypermoder... See more

Donald Glover does not dabble. He has maxed his stats in every category. Naturally, Bando Stone isn’t only an album but also a feature-length movie with a postapocalyptic sci-fi setup. (The first and only trailer to date didn’t reveal a release date, and the promotional website for Bando Stone only says it’s “coming soon to IMAX.”)

There’s still hip-hop, country, and pop radio, of course, but these are waning formats, as streaming has outgrown radio in terms of listenership, and streaming, rather unlike radio, has a way of collapsing all artists, fan bases, and subcultures into singular platforms. Modern artists furthermore take an expansive view of their own musical forms. P... See more

It turns out that both of the smash-hit tracks are performed by Chappell Roan, a pop singer who’s suddenly everywhere — and earning comparison to early-years Madonna.