Illustration by Laura Lannes Welcome to New Retro Week, a celebration of the biggest artists, hits, and cultural moments that made 2012 a seminal year in pop. MTV News is looking back to see what lies ahead: These essays showcase how today’s blueprint was laid a decade ago. Step into our time machine. By Carson Mlnarik It doesn’t take an ex named Sean to feel catharsis from Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next” or a friend named Kiki to get in your feelings with Drake. Contemporary pop music is rife with hyper-specific details as the world’s biggest stars transform the minutiae of their lives into relatable chart-topping hits. But this level of candidness wasn’t always the norm. Though musicians have long written from a place of authenticity, pop radio’s stickiest earworms never felt quite so diaristic as when a jilted artist wrote a lover’s scarf into one of her most beloved songs. That artist, of course, is Taylor Swift, whose sprawling and frenetic 2012 album Red not only introduced Top 40 radio to her storytelling candor but also taught the world a lesson about the bond listeners seek to forge with their music of choice. “We actually do NOT want our pop music to be generic,” Swift wrote in a 2019 essay for Elle…. Click below to read the full story from MTV News
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