The Pop Pod

It is my pleasure to welcome to the podcast Bebe Rexha - a pop music titan who is responsible for some of the biggest hits of the last decade. Freshly independent and with a new record 'Dirty Blonde' in the bag, we talked about her journey to this point and her most cohesive album to date. As always, we also talked pop classics touching on everything from dancefloor bangers to Miley Cyrus....

Olivia Rodrigo released her third album 'you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love' to AOTY allegations last week. I had to get Jono on the line to discuss. We went track-by-track through the songs and reviewed it along the way.

Madeon has long been one of the most exciting producers in the game. He broke through as a teenager with a pop music mash-up and turned that into a consistently evolving career. He’s collaborated with Porter Robinson, Lady Gaga and more recently Slayyyter and so he feels like the perfect person to join us to chat Pop Classics. This was such a pleasure for me personally. I’ve been a longtime fan of...

HorsegiirL is the first horse to ever appear on The Pop Pod but also one of the most fascinating. The German producer and DJ has transcended her meme-ish origins to become one of the most important figures in electronic music right now. In this episode, we talked about pop classics from Kylie to Usher but also what makes pop so fascinating. The ability to make the complex universally snackable. Ho...

In July, Ariana Grande will release her eighth album ‘Petal’ so we thought it was the opportune time to roll out the definitive ranking of Ariana albums. From ‘Yours Truly’ to ‘Eternal Sunshine’, Ariana has one of the most interesting and personal discographies in pop music tracking personal triumphs and tragedies.  We can update this ranking in July when ‘Petal’ finally arrives but for now, join...

It's time for another rankinig episode and this time we're turning our attention to Charli XCX who just returned with 'Rock Music'. For the past decade plus Charli has been a pop visionary, always operating ahead of the game and churning out some of the most thought-provoking pop music along the way. She's amassed an impressive discography that actually proved quite difficult t...

Swedish duo Icona Pop are behind one of the most monumental club-pop songs of the 2010s 'I Love It' but since then they have kept the dancefloor alive. Icona Pop are best friends on and off the dancefloor and have spent their career crafting high-energy songs for the club that also go for maximum emotional effect. With a new album, 'Ritual' on the way, Icona Pop joined The Pop Pod...

This week on The Pop Pod, Sam & Jono dig into exactly that question. We start with Confessions on a Dance Floor , the Madonna masterpiece that turns 21 this year and still sounds like the future, and we talk about what it means that she and producer Stuart Price are finally returning with a sequel, Confessions II , out this summer. From there we get into the records that have carried that torc...

Jessie Ware has spent the last six years quietly building one of the great runs in modern pop . From What's Your Pleasure? to That! Feels Good! and now her sixth album Superbloom , out this week, she's carved out a lane that's entirely her own: disco-inflected, deeply felt, and allergic to cheap shortcuts. Superbloom pushes deeper than its predecessors, trading pure escapism for someth...

Danny L Harle is one of pop music's most quietly essential figures. A founding member of the PC Music collective, the British producer and composer has spent over a decade reshaping what pop can sound like — from the euphoric maximalism of his early solo work to becoming the trusted hand behind some of the most acclaimed records of the last few years. He's the executive producer of both of...

Sam Duboff from Spotify joins The Pop Pod to break down this year's Loud & Clear report, Spotify's annual deep-dive into the economics of streaming. We get into what the numbers actually mean for artists in 2026 . We talk about the rise of the niche pop star: more than 1,500 artists crossed $1 million in Spotify royalties in 2025, and many of them aren't household names — and may n...

Robyn returned with Sexistential, her first album in eight years - nine hard-hitting tracks of pure melody and zero filler, picking up where Body Talk and Honey left off. No messing around. Just Robyn delivering straight-up emotion in the most direct way she knows how. Then there's RAYE, who exercised no such restraint. This Music May Contain Hope stretches over 70 minutes across 17 songs - or...

Sam and Jono go deep on one of music's most overlooked arts — the album opener. Does it need to be a banger? A ballad? The lead single? A two-minute intro that sounds like a church service colliding with a rave? Turns out, the answer is all of the above, and none of the above. This week they break down Jono's four-type framework for what makes a great opener (dramatic, undeniable banger, s...

Singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus joins us to talk about stepping back into her solo career after the phenomenon that was Boygenius - what changes, what stays the same, and why going it alone hits differently the second time around. We dig into the classic pop albums that wired her musical brain, delibarate on the perfect pop song, and talk about new music that may be coming soon. If you love The Pop P...

Britney Spears has one of the greatest pop discographies of all time. This week on The Pop Pod, we're ranking her top 10 singles and making the case for where each one belongs. We get into which singles genuinely hold up, which ones are more nostalgia than quality, and why Britney's run from 1998 through the mid-2000s was almost impossible to touch. We also dig into the underrated tracks t...

2026 has been a bit of a weird year for albums so far. Big artists like Harry Styles, Bruno Mars and Charli XCX have dropped records but they have all been divisive. Meanwhile, great albums by smaller artists have been few and far between. On this episode, we bop or flop the most recent album drops. Discord https://discord.gg/QEw9se7yAm Send voicenotes or questions thepoppod@popsamcam.com PopSamCa...

Rihanna might be the greatest singles artist of the 21st century...at least that's the hypothesis I went into this episode with. I work chronologically through her singles to make sense of one of the most varied careers in pop music. What is your fave Rihanna single? Come and chat with us in the Discord: https://discord.gg/QEw9se7yAm Send voicenotes or questions to: thepoppod@popsamcam.com Pop...

Harry Styles is gearing up for the release of a new album 'Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally' so we thought it was time to go through his past singles. Sam and Jono duke it out to come up with the best and worst Harry singles with a few major points of difference. Come and chat with us in the Discord: https://discord.gg/QEw9se7yAm Send voicenotes or questions to: thepoppod@popsamcam.co...

I have been a fan of Holly Humberstone for years. I had her debut album ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’ on repeat and am fired up for the release fo her second album ‘Cruel World’ in April. She sat down with me on The Pop Pod to talk about her own music as well as the pop classics that have influenced her from Madonna and Prince to Lorde and Lana Del Rey. Let me know who you want on the podcast next! Com...

It is the morning after the Grammys and we are collecting our thoughts in the midst of the Grammys hangover. Bad Bunny, Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish and Olivia Dean took home the main awards but who were the real winners? Come and chat with us in the Discord: https://discord.gg/QEw9se7yAm Send voicenotes or questions to: thepoppod@popsamcam.com PopSamCam’s New Music Friday Playlist: https://open....

It is Grammys week, which means it's finally time to place bets on who is going to take home the awards. On this episode, we go through the main categories as well as the pop ones. We also review the new Harry Styles single 'Aperture'. Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.poppod/ Come and chat with us in the Discord: https://discord.gg/QEw9se7yAm Send voicenotes or que...

The Pop Pod is back! And we're counting down the albums that we are most looking forward to in 2026 from the ones that have actual release dates like Harry Styles' 'Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally' to the ones that are simply rumors like Lana Del Rey's 'Stove'. Rumours or not, we got into why 2026 could be a great year for music. Discord: https://discord.gg/QEw9se...

We have bopped or flopped pop music for the whole year and now it's time to nail it down to the projects that impressed us the most. From Addison Rae to Lady Gaga, we break down the high highs of 2025. Come and chat with us in the Discord: https://discord.gg/QEw9se7yAmSend voicenotes or questions to: thepoppod@popsamcam.comListen to my Best Songs of 2025 playlist: https://lnk.bio/thepoppod

This week, we're diving into the 2025 albums that critics are putting at the top of their lists. We break down the “Best of 2025” lists from NME, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and more, and look at which artists are dominating across publications — including Bad Bunny, Rosalía, Oklou, and Addison Rae, who are all emerging as the year’s most critically adored releases. Jono and I also reveal our Spo...

Pop in 2025 has been… a ride . In this episode, we break down the year that gave us conservative pop trends, breakout niche-class stars, and some of the strangest chart behaviour we’ve seen in years. I dive into why Pop felt so safe this year, the rise of artists operating completely on their own wavelength — Zara Larsson, PinkPantheress, JADE, and the wider Niche Class — and how R&B quietly b...