2020 Portfolio
A collection of reviews and interviews for Pitchfork, Billboard, The Singles Jukebox, and more.
Contact me at joshuacopperman1@gmail.com.
Pitchfork:
Brooke Bentham — Everyday Nothing: When she does get sentimental, she’s restrained, as on the unexpected late-album love song “Without,” which recalls the Jo March monologue from Greta Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation: Like Jo, Bentham asserts her love and independence while simultaneously admitting that she’s unhappy.
Margaret Glaspy — Devotion: Glaspy’s wordplay sometimes leaned on “fish in the sea”-style clichés in the past, but here the folksy turns of phrase become overwhelming. The preciousness muddles her ideas, like the non-dichotomy posed by “Stay With Me”: “When it all shakes down/Who’s the clown and who’s the savior?”
Everything Everything — Re-Animator: The motorik beat of “Violent Sun” veers too close to alternative radio stalwarts like Blue October and the Killers for comfort, and there’s something intrinsically underwhelming about the way the pre-chorus and the chorus hinge on the same chord, like magnets repelling one another. (As Hannah Jocelyn)
Gordi — Our Two Skins: Sophie Payten finds beauty anyway, never ignoring her fears, but remembering why the fear is worth braving at all. (As Hannah Jocelyn)
GRAMMY.com:
Bartees Strange On ‘Live Forever’ & Why “It Shouldn’t Be Weird To See Black Rock Bands”: “Mossblerd” directly address his status as a Black man operating in a space dominated by white men — that title is a combination of “Mossberg” and “blerd,” itself a portmanteau of “black” and “nerd,” over a heavily compressed noise collage. It’s fitting, because Live Forever is essentially a series of musical portmanteaus. (As Hannah Jocelyn)
Billboard:
Todd in the Shadows Brings Pop Criticism and Top 40 History to the YouTube Era: Without the budget and team other successful YouTubers have to pull off elaborate sketches or complicated effects, the focus is on the content itself… For those that find outlets like Pitchfork too uptight or contemporaries like The Needle Drop too detached, Todd in the Shadows’ lack of pretension makes the prospect of pop music analysis more approachable.
The Singles Jukebox:
Twenty One Pilots — “Level of Concern”: The namedrops on Trench were vestiges of the band’s concept-obsessed older self, but the names of crew members and tour managers emphasize the real-world stakes, making “panic on the brain/world has gone insane” play like deliberate understatement instead of clunky writing.
Benee ft. Gus Dapperton — “Supalonely”: “La-la-la-la-lonely” is the purest distillation of Gen-Z pop yet, right up there with singing “there’s a dead girl in the pool!!” to the tune of “Last Friday Night.”
Taylor Swift — “Folklore”: This could be just a lovely, if slight, ballad, but nothing is ever “just” anything with Swift; the songs don’t matter so much as their success. You play stupid games and you lose stupid prizes, then you place a hex on the teen working the carnival. That’s how the line goes, right?
The Only Times I’ve Ever Known:
Me and My 75,000 Darling Friends: Lubman is similar to her TikTok persona over FaceTime — just like she’ll put on different guises in those videos, she’ll often dramatically drop or raise her voice to represent what people say to her and just as often when she’s imitating herself.
