Pop Pantheon

Journalist and editor Crystal Bell joins Russ from Seoul, South Korea to break down BTS' big comeback. Last week, the K-pop boy band released their first studio album in six years, Arirang, following each member of the group completing South Korea's mandatory military service. Crystal and Russ break down the album, BTS' live performance comeback and their new Netflix documentary BTS: The Return. Then they discuss BLACKPINK's recent EP, Deadline, and discuss how K-Pop has changed since both groups rose to prominence and helped to popularize K-Pop around the world.

Read Crystal's cover story profile of Jung Kook in Rolling Stone
Read Crystal's review of BTS: The Return in Mashable
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Friend of the Pod Sam Murphy recently posted a TikTok positing an interesting question about whether Hot 100 #1s have the same salience as they used to have. To parse this question out further, Louie is joined by Sam and Chris to talk about the state of the #1 single, the Billboard charts, and what it all says about the music listen functions in 2026.
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In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Happy Oscars! To celebrate the big day and our fav prolific Oscars also-ran, we're dropping All Access early and drafting the 20 best Diane Warren songs of all time with our pals Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber of Who? Weekly. Tell us your Diane favs in the comments and enjoy this wild ride through one of the best songwriting discographies in pop history.

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Note for iOS users: Subscribe using your desktop or mobile browser, not the iOS Patreon app, for cheaper rates on Pop Pantheon: All Access.
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For the conclusion of our Whitney Houston Series, Louie and Russ play clips from all three guests— Emily Lordi, Jason King, & Gerrick Kennedy— plus take listener calls to finally determine if Whitney Houston is in Tier 1 of the Pop Pantheon.

Whitney Houston Essentials Playlist

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In a preview of this week's Pop Pantheon: All Access episode, Two of the biggest male pop stars of the day, Harry Styles and Bruno Mars, just returned with new albums after relatively long absences. What's new with these two and what do they have to say after years out of the spotlight? On this episode, Louie and Russ unpack Bruno Mars' The Romantic and Harry Styles' Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.

To hear the rest of the this episode plus receive weekly bonus episodes of Pop Pantheon, gain access to our Discord channel and so much more, subscribe to Pop Pantheon: All Access at the Icon Tier. You can also subscribe for the audio only directly in the Apple Podcasts app.

Note for iOS users: Subscribe using your desktop or mobile browser, not the iOS Patreon app, for cheaper rates on Pop Pantheon: All Access.
Join Pop Pantheon: All Access, Our Patreon Channel, for Exclusive Content and More

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