Music Reviews Nobody Asked For: Six Pop Artists I Can’t Stop Listening To

I consider myself something of an armchair “popologist.” Pop music has fascinated me since junior high, when I discovered the Swedish pop duo Roxette and realized there was a real art to crafting catchy tunes. It was an art form I became obsessed with. I studied Max Martin religiously. I went to school for music and learned the power of chord progressions. I even became a songwriter myself, and my personal litmus test of whether a song was a success was if my friends confessed to me that they got it stuck in their head at some point. I love good old hard rock as well, and honestly, rock and pop are such close cousins that rock could technically fall under the “pop” umbrella (that’s a whole other conversation). But despite being more of a rock instrumentalist, much of my songwriting is rooted in pop tradition.

I have a lot of inspirations when it comes to the craft of songwriting, including the aforementioned Max Martin, a Swedish guy (what’s in the water over there?) who codified popular music for the 21st century by penning hits for Britney, the Backstreet Boys, and pretty much every A-list artist of the past 30 years. Taylor Swift, love her or hate her, is another one of my strongest influences, dating back to when I was a fellow towhead femme armed with an acoustic guitar and big dreams. Paul McCartney is another, and so is Per Gessle of Roxette, who I mentioned earlier as well.

Today, the music world has never been so oversaturated, and the market is flooded with new upcoming pop stars. The vast majority of them will never reach astronomical levels of fame in our post-monoculture world, but many of them have small but loyal fanbases and are carving out a path in this new era. Here are some of the pop artists I’ve been watching intently for a while.

1. Alessi Rose

I discovered Alessi in a 7-11 while buying snacks for a road trip. I heard a song with an infectious bassline and knew I had to Shazam that shit. The song, it turned out, was “Get Around,” an absolute banger of a track about eyeballing a promiscuous guy. I seldom do deep dives on artists because I will get hyperfocused and ignore all other music out there for some time, but Alessi seemed worth taking a chance on. And it paid off, because I instantly fell in love with Voyeur, her full-length debut. (It is hilariously classified as an EP on Spotify — I’m sorry Alessi but you can’t call an album with eleven three-minute tracks an EP!).

Alessi herself is British and had taught herself music production while bored during lockdown. She has an ear for catchy melodies, and her writing captures the Y2K girl-rock sound of artists like Hilary Duff and Ashlee Simpson, especially with songs like “That Could Be Me” and “Falling Forever.” She saved her funkiest songs for the second half of the album, like the Sabrina Carpenter-esque “First Original Thought” and the previously mentioned “Get Around,” but the entire release is a solid one. Her older material is worth looking into as well — I love the unusual chord progressions in “imsochillandcool.” Also worth mentioning is the fact that, like me, Alessi has OCD! Her recent song “Skin” is her take on mental illness, and it is a heartwrenching one. There is a lot of heart hidden behind her coquette aesthetic and catchy hooks.

Recommended tracks: “That Could Be Me,” “Skin”

2. MARIS

MARIS popped up randomly on a drive and I didn’t immediately change the song when I heard the opening notes of “MOSH⭐️PIT.” Yes, the star is part of the song title and also part of MARIS’s brand. She wants to be a “super fucking mega star,” in the words of her own song, and she believes everyone is a star in their own right as well. I went all in on supporting this girl when I found out her opening act for her tour was karaoke! If you know me, you know I’m a huge proponent of karaoke as a way to build community and express yourself. Everything I’ve seen from MARIS indicates that her and I would probably get along really well as human beings. She, like me, is violently bisexual and appreciates Freddie Mercury and Heart as much as I do.

Her collaboration with fellow queer artist Caroline Kingsbury on the very gay “Give Me a Sign” is full of yearning and layers of harmonies. Meanwhile, her ode to cannabis, “Mary + I,” has some of the strongest vocals I’ve heard in recent years, completely eschewing the “whisper singing” that many pop girls lean into these days. Another favorite, “Body Is On Fire,” is a bouncy, sexy tune you can dance to, and the euphoric “Salt Water Taffy” has been my song of the summer, with its multiple nods to the little things that make the season special.

Recommended tracks: “Give Me a Sign,” “Salt Water Taffy”

3. little luna

little luna (the lowercase is intentional) is a modern pop singer with a hippie soul. Starting out as a Disney actress and moonlighting as a yoga instructor, little luna even inserts guided meditations into her albums, which I thought was incredibly cool. I’ve been trying to get more into mindfulness myself and I played her meditation “garden” while sitting out in my girlfriend’s backyard one morning. I will tell you, that shit made me tear up. little luna has a way of making you feel cared for with only her voice, and that’s something precious, something I haven’t really found with other artists. She has a warmth to her entire persona that I very much appreciate.

little luna’s trademark style and bright orange branding is intriguing to me, drawing influence from the art of the sixties and seventies. She feels very much like a spiritual successor to the likes of Stevie Nicks and Linda Ronstadt. The song that made me fall in love with her music was “upward spiral,” a jaunty pop-rock number with a seriously catchy chorus. There’s also “wildflower woman,” somewhat of a signature song of hers, where she breezily croons “I’ll be growing where I’m going.” It’s more than just a song — it’s a statement. Also worth mentioning are her meditations, which are very relaxing and encouraging if you’re into that kind of thing. If you’ve never tried a guided mediation, hers are a wonderful introduction.

Recommended tracks: “upward spiral,” “forest (guided meditation)”

4. Awkward Marina

If Ann Wilson wasn’t my all-time favorite flute-wielding belter in the world, that title would go to Awkward Marina (with Lizzo now at a distant third after the…banana incident). Awkward Marina is probably the least known name on this list, and it is a damn shame. She should absolutely be in the same league as Taylor, and I’d go as far as to say her songwriting is incredibly Swiftian. This is not an accident — Marina is a Swiftie herself, covering some of her songs and creating whatever this is. But there’s another fandom she’s very involved with as well. You see, she truly found her voice in the My Little Pony fandom, and as something of a Pegasister myself, I can get behind that. She’s also a Jewish lesbian, which is pretty neat.

I really value diversity in musicianship, and Awkward Marina is a fantastic example of this in action. She’s written 80s-inspired synthpop, baroque pop, a capella, ska, recession pop — and that is one fucking EP. Speaking of, the Doodle EPs are a god-tier set of EPs. The power ballad “Lonely” features a flute solo that’s been loaded with effects to make it sound nearly electric guitar-like in timbre, and an entire choir of Marinas accompany Marina in the triumphant “Doodle,” where she revels in the joy of being a creative. Another gem, “Princess,” is a charming baroque pop track about the expectations of femininity which features both flute and harpsichord prominently. She even has a cover of “867-5309/Jenny,” the 1981 Tommy Tutone hit, featuring a smattering of retro phone sounds. Her creativity is astounding when it comes to arranging songs.

Recommended tracks: “Matter of Time,” “Lonely”

5. Candi Carpenter

I was originally going to call this list “Pop GIRLIES I Can’t Stop Listening To,” but to do so would be to disregard a vital part of their identity. They, like me, are nonbinary! That’s not where our similarities end. We’re both autistic, we grew up in the same state, we have some country roots, and we’re both very much exvangelical. We differ in that I held onto my faith, while they let go of theirs, but I have mad respect for anyone who goes on the deconstruction journey. Just getting out of that cult is praiseworthy enough, and often, irreligious people are just as nice, if not nicer, than religious ones. Needless to say, religious trauma is an enormous part of their music and aesthetic.

The song that introduced me to Candi’s world doesn’t really contain any spiritual references at all. “Nervous System” is just a silly but heartfelt song about their struggles with anxiety and mental health issues. It’s very tongue-in-cheek, as are many of Candi’s songs. “Cult” also deals with the heavy topic of the dark side of American Christianity in a lighthearted manner. It references Left Behind-style end times theology and that creepy post-Columbine martyrdom obsession that inspired “Cassie” by Flyleaf (great band, though not-great theologically). There’s also the punky, sapphic “Strawberry Starburst.” The song that really got me, though, was “Everybody Goes to Hell,” in which Candi explains that “everybody goes to hell in somebody else’s religion.” We all want to be right, but in the end, toxic theology does much more harm than good, so maybe it’s worth abandoning those closed-minded beliefs. They end the song with a heartfelt apology to their parents and anyone they tried to convert while in the thick of it.

Recommended tracks: “Nervous System,” “Everybody Goes to Hell”

6. Tessa Violet

I saved Tessa Violet for last because of all of the artists I’ve been bingeing recently, her music has been the most influential for me emotionally and mentally. Originally starting off as a vlogger when YouTube was less shitty, she’s a “bad bitch” with a heart of gold. My girlfriend initially introduced me to her music years ago, but I just now started deep-diving into her discography. I’ve loved the song “Games” for years now, but I had no idea the kinds of music this woman was truly capable of making. I loaded up her most recent release, a six-song EP titled Something to Lose, and was not expecting to be emotionally devastated. Her strength as a songwriter is similar to Awkward Marina’s in that she can nail practically any style and emotion in her songs. The chasm between tracks like “BAD BITCH” and “I Love Being Wrong” is enormous, but somehow, they’re both intrinsically Tessa.

Her confident baddie persona shines through on “YES MOM,” “Play With Fire,” and the already mentioned “BAD BITCH,” but when she drops the armor, you get songs like the sweet “Kitchen Song,” describing domestic bliss with a loved one, or “My Body’s My Buddy,” a simple love song to the vessel that’s carried her through life. “I Love Being Wrong” hits a similar nerve for me as Candi’s “Everybody Goes to Hell,” although Tessa’s song is a bit more somber in nature and lacking the religious references. But it celebrates the fact that we don’t have all the answers as human beings, and it takes comfort in that. The final song I’ll mention is the one that makes me sob uncontrollably, and it’s not at all a sad-sounding song musically. It’s called “Knowing,” and the last few stanzas make me ugly cry every time.

Give yourself the grace to start again
If it hurts you, put it down
If it don’t serve you, look around
You’re doing great, my babe
I swear you’re gonna make it
You never can know what could come
It’s not done until it’s done
You’re doing great, my babe
I swear you’re gonna make it

I can do hard things
Parallel parking
Like it all, it just takes practicing
(Knowing this is not enough is enough)
I can walk a new path
I can get myself back
I can learn to be a better friend
And give myself the grace to try again

And that’s the true mark of a real artist — someone who can make you feel something with whatever they create. Those lines gave me a sense of hope when I needed it most, and for that, I’m thankful.

Song recommendations: “Knowing,” “I Love Being Wrong”

Which of these artists have you heard of before? Do you have any song recommendations? Feel free to share them in the comments!

I Wanna Be Queen!

When I moved to Fort Wayne, IN, AKA the City Where Dreams Go to Die, I began attending karaoke nights at the legendary gay bar After Dark with my wife, and I remember being captivated by the queens I saw at the shows we caught there. Their self-expression and whimsy gave me so much hope at a time when I wanted to drive my car into the motherfucking river after every awful day at my music therapy internship.

I wanted to be them, I thought to myself. I wished I could be. I knew logically that cis women could be drag queens, but something always kept me from trying my hand at it. I did do a brief stint as a king, since I’m technically genderfluid (surprise!), but it never really occurred to me that I could be queen. Something always stopped me.

Spoiler alert, it was fear the entire time. The thing that had kept me from doing damn near anything whimsical and self-expressive my whole life. I should have been a rock star. I should have been an author. I should have been SO MANY FUCKING THINGS.

But then, something recently happened. I lost everything, almost including my wife. But something bizarre happened after my big girl job let me go. I felt a chain was lifted. And it hit me.

I need to take a risk for once in my life. It’s time for me to take the crown for myself, one way or another.

There’s no stupid degree or entrance fee into the world of drag. All you gotta do is be queer or queer-adjacent (check!), be absolutely fabulous and extravagant at everything (check!), have a fun stage name (check!), lip synch to sassy songs and be funny and dance around like a silly goose (check!!), and dress like Gaga (monster since high school haha). Honestly, the only thing stopping me from being a queen is…just calling myself a queen.

I’ve always separated myself into Jess and Jessa Joyce when it comes to my music shit. Jess is what friends call me, but like how Stefani Germanotta became Lady Gaga when she slapped on a meat dress and stepped into the spotlight, Jessa Joyce became my “rock star”-sona, so to speak.

But after a sobering talk with a good friend who’s close to the music industry, pursuing steady work in music is a lost cause at this point in time. I love music. I love making people happy. I love bringing whimsy into this dumb dark fucked-up world. But it was clear I needed to pivot.

I drove my wife to Indiana to stay with a good friend for a month while we figure out our housing situation (mold poisoning is a bitch), and I went back to the gay bar that was the genesis of both my experiences with drag and karaoke, another field that’s close to my heart as a KJ by trade. And something about being back in that place again made me realize, the only thing stopping me is me. Like, I can do this stuff too!

So before I was called up to sing the song I put in (Bon Jovi, natch), I ran to the bathroom (where I do my best thinking, and also because ya girl got the poopoo parasite and also Hot Girls Have IBS ™), and typed up this manifesto. This…drag-ifesto, if you will. It’s funny, back when I was with my old band, Wake Up Jamie, I wrote a song called “Queen.” My wife had bullied me into writing something fierce, so I wrote this bad bitch anthem where the entire chorus is just “I wanna be Queen!” It’s poetic in a way, I guess

So, there you have it. The woman who was “supposed” to be Jess J. Salisbury, MT-BC, is long gone. Meet Jessa Joyce, Queen of Whimsy.

The fierce-ass pic I took in the mirror after having the revelation that spurred this drag-ifesto.

Living Out Loud: The Power of Being Yourself

As a burgeoning bisexual, I didn’t really have any bicons to look up to.

Like, I loved Freddie Mercury, but growing up, his story was so sanitized, I really didn’t have a clear idea of his queerness. The most any of the adults would tell me was that he was “a little fruity.”

“Yeah, I can totally see him rocking that hat. What’s the issue?”

Needless to say, having roots in the evangelical church, I didn’t embrace my own identity for a long time. I realized I was bi when I got weird feelings from both the covers of Heart’s Dreamboat Annie and Peter Frampton’s I’m in You (yes, I’m probably the only Millennial who can credit classic rock with her sexual awakening). And I’d publicly come out after the conversion therapy controversy at my old church. Still, it was only after watching the biographical film Bohemian Rhapsody did I get the full picture, and it changed everything.

Freddie loved men. He very much enjoyed the company of men. He really liked banging men. He even fell for a man. Hard.

But he was also madly in love with a woman.

At the time, bisexuality was not really understood, so his female lover was essentially like “Dude, you’re gay, what are you doing?”

But he absolutely, one hundred percent, without a doubt loved her too.

Watching the way Freddie owned his sexuality even in a time when it was widely frowned upon lit something up inside me.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can be is yourself.

It’s a scary time to be queer. Politicians are making laws at breakneck speed trying to outlaw our very existence. I’d link to all the recent developments, but it’s honestly too depressing to even search right now. I’ll just let this terrifying map speak for itself. Everything the blue touches is our kingdom. But that shadowy red place? Don’t fucking go there, Simba.

Maybe ten years ago, it was fun and trendy and “yay rainbows!” to be queer, but the time for merriment has passed. We have more battles to fight. And if they’re going to try to silence us, that just means we have to be louder. Silence is letting them win.

Now is the time to live out loud.

When you live authentically, it gives the people around you a pass to be themselves, and from there, it just envelopes more and more folks. Once that first match is lit, everything around it catches fire. And that fire has the power to make real, tangible change in our world. What if Marsha P. Johnson hadn’t had the courage to be herself or stand up to her oppressors? We owe it to our queer forefathers (and mothers, and nonbinary parents) to stand in the freedom they bought for us with their bravery, and in some cases, their lives. Never forget the tragedy that was Alan Turing’s story. A celebrated scientist who set the foundations for modern computing and helped the good guys win WWII, he took his own life after the humiliating and inhumane way he was treated by the British government. All for the terrible sin of loving another man. Like, we fought like hell so that shit never happens again, and in the year 2026, I feel like we often take for granted how far we’ve come as a community.

And we better not lose sight of that, because now more than ever, we risk losing all of the progress we’ve made as a society.

I’ll end this with a story from about a week ago. I was in South Bend with my beautiful girlfriend, Olivia, and we were itching to do some karaoke. My schedule is wonky, so I had to come down on a weird night, and the only bar offering karaoke was a sketchy little dive bar on the decidedly less-gay side of town. My girlfriend is a trans woman, although you wouldn’t automatically assume this when meeting her. I hate the whole “passing” thing and I know a lot of my trans friends understandably do too — you don’t “owe” it to anyone to look “girly” enough to pass as cis, and there’s no right or wrong way to be a woman anyways.

Well, I can think of a *few* wrong ways to be a woman.

But still, I get why passing is a concern, especially in a red state like Indiana. It comes down to safety, and if some bigoted fucker deems her just a little too tall to be a cis girl, it becomes a very real threat. She didn’t want to bring too much attention to herself, lest the wrong transphobic fuckwad be there.

In short, she was not performing.

So, content to settle into her seat for the night and just watch me sing, we went to this little bar together. We get there, dude starts singing Kid Rock, all around not good vibes. I have it in my mind to sing one song, finish my nonalcoholic beer I’d already committed to, then get the Chicken McFuck outta there before anybody noticed the awkward lesbos in the corner.

I get offstage after a half-assed Bonnie Raitt tune and this gray-haired man with kind eyes approaches me, hand extended, telling me I did wonderful. I smile, say thanks, and start heading back over to where Olivia was seated. Then, he says something else:

“My name’s Randy, and this is my husband.”

With that one simple sentence, the floodgates opened. I smiled and introduced myself and my girlfriend, no longer worried we’d get hate-crimed in this bar, because now, we had friends. We had folks we knew were on our side. They assured us they had a “rainbow family” — many of their close relatives were also members of the LGBTQ community, and they’d cultivated a loving and supportive environment. They also mentioned that it hadn’t always been that way, and that when they’d first come out, some of the older kinfolk weren’t as accepting. But through living and loving authentically, they were able to change the entire vibe of their family.

I signed up for a selection from Rent with Randy, and Olivia finally felt the courage to sign up for one of the like two Caroline Polachek songs Karafun actually has. What started as a night of uncertainty became a night of celebration. That’s the power of living your truth. That’s the power of living out loud.

Nonbinary Enough: The Awkward Realities of Being an AFAB Femmby

So, I’m technically nonbinary.

This isn’t a coming out post. In fact, I’ve been pretty open about it since I realized it a few years back. Yes, I know I’m a woman, and yes, I do use she/her pronouns for the most part, but it hit me that there’s more to the story. I’m not just a woman or just feminine. I’ve realized I have some definite masculine energy, and I’ve been going out of my way to honor that little man inside me.

Like, I did drag!

His name is Richie Styx and he’s a British rock star. Think a less-sucky Russell Brand.

I’ll be honest, though. Sometimes I feel like a massive imposter when I enter nonbinary spaces. Like I said, I am an AFAB femmby. In fact, I blend in perfectly with cis women until I mention the fact that I’m nonbinary. And until I open my mouth, to be fair. A lot of folks recognized me as queer even before I came to terms with it. I guess I just have that vibe.

Conservatives will tell you it’s because I had blue hair.

But I don’t really embrace or shout about being nonbinary to the same extent that I shout about being pansexual or even polyamorous. And I think to some extent, that’s due to the fact that I’ve gone all in on being pan/poly. I’m literally dating a woman, married to another nonbinary person, and casually seeing a couple of guys. I’m out here living as visibly pansexually and polyamorously as possible. But — like I mentioned earlier — most people would have no idea I’m nonbinary until I say something.

So when I enter spaces for nonbinary folks, I almost feel like I’m a fraud. And it sucks because I still feel some of the negative stuff that comes with the territory of being nonbinary and don’t really know how to address that. I definitely have some degree of dysphoria, but there’s really no feeling gender euphoria for me unless I could literally shapeshift between being Jessica Rabbit and a hot twink at a whim. There are things I wish I could change about my body to make me feel more androgynous, but I’m talking like, adding an extra head of height to myself. Testosterone wouldn’t do shit for me — I’d just get hairier, smellier, and hornier than I already am, and that sounds like a nightmare for everyone involved.

Real picture of what I’d look like on T.

There are times I straight up don’t feel nonbinary “enough” to call myself nonbinary, because I’m comparing myself to other folks who are transitioning medically to mold their bodies into what they want. I realize this is a very transmedicalist viewpoint to hold, and one I’m trying to unlearn. I know there’s no right or wrong way to be a woman, and no right or wrong way to be a man (okay, there are a few wrong ways.) Why is there a “wrong” way to be nonbinary, then? If anything, being nonbinary should be the most liberating of the three mainstream options, since there’s no predetermined social roles for us in Western civilization. It’s a relatively new concept in our culture (although it’s existed in other cultures for millennia).

I’m starting to realize, though, that there is a place for everyone at the gay table (gay-ble?), so long as all folks are treated with respect. There is no “Queer Olympics” and it’s not a competition to see who can be the most unambiguously, outwardly queer. Some folks can’t be openly queer for safety reasons, and we need to save them a seat at the table as well. The nonbinary people who don’t mind presenting as their birth gender, and the ones who present as their birth gender to keep from getting hate-crimed, and even the ones who present as their birth gender because they’re just tired of correcting people — they’re all valid. We’re all valid. I say “we” because yours truly has very much been in all of those situations I listed.

I’m glad I’m nonbinary. I feel a lot of freedom in the way I go about the world and represent myself. Although I present mostly as femme, I get a lot of joy out of letting my dudely side out too, to the point where both of my primary partners have questioned if I’m actually transmasc! For the record, I don’t think I am. I’ve just got a little man inside me, and I like to honor him every once in a while.