Hey y'all, DJ Louis here just dropping a snippet of the latest Pop Pantheon all access episode in which myself, friend of the pod, Omri, and Russ, are getting into all things Camilla Cabello and her fourth studio album, CXOXO, which dropped last week. If you enjoy this snippet and you want to hear the rest of this episode plus weekly bonus episodes of this show, you can subscribe at patreon.com slash pop pantheon.

You can click the link in the show notes of this episode,

or you can subscribe for the audio only directly in the Apple Podcasts app.

Can I posit something?

Yes.

So I've been thinking just like broader contextually about like who Camilla Cabello is within the pop hierarchy and like who she's been.

And I think her trajectory is really interesting and like speaks to a larger idea that I've

been like sort of pulling apart for myself thinking about pop music this year, which is Camilla

emerges and she has this monocultural debut single, Havana, or not debut single,

first hit, let's say that because there was obviously who's going to erase crying into club

or whatever the other singles were before that. Not me. But she has this kind of like unexpectedly

sort of like down the middle successful debut single and album and never be the same.

And like she was kind of playing like the very, I felt, blandest version of pop superstardom of that period.

And like kind of made herself into something not particularly vital seeming to me.

Like that was always kind of like how I viewed her originally was like,

she's just a vessel like for songwriters and producers.

I've never really enjoyed her singing voice.

And I never found her like point of view in that early music like particularly compelling

in any notable way.

Like as Russ was kind of saying like she was kind of a vessel for this very broad idea

of global pop star in the sort of package of this Havana song that, like, ultimately

sounded pretty bland.

...