music

By Max Freedman Michelle Zauner is a low-key professional. When I reach her via video call on an April morning, she’s sporting a black tee emblazoned with Chester Cheetah (yes, the Cheetos mascot), but her Brooklyn apartment’s Zoom setup resembles a DJ booth at a well-funded radio station. She apologizes for the blanket jumbled across the plush-looking couch behind her, but the lemon-yellow walls and neatly arranged framed prints above it (both are visible in her Daily Show appearance) showcase a love of, if not a need for, order. It makes sense: Zauner must crave some sort of balance to live her double life as a musician and New York Times best-selling author. In late April, Zauner released Crying in H Mart, a heart-wrenching memoir about learning to cook Korean food staples as she lost h...

Billie Eilish is back, blonde, and bringing fresh new tunes. On Wednesday (June 2), the 19-year-old pop star released the latest single off her forthcoming album Happier Than Ever, “Lost Cause.” The track is a low-key empowerment anthem in the vein of TLC’s “No Scrubs” or Dua Lipa’s “New Rules,” in which Eilish tells off a would-be partner who “ain’t nothing but a lost cause,” as the refrain asserts. “I know you think you’re such an outlaw / But you got no job,” she repeats in her signature whisper-like vocals over a slow-moving, jazz-tinged beat. “Lost Cause” dropped with a corresponding music video, where Eilish is joined in a Los Angeles mansion by a group of beige or blue sleepwear-clad backup dancers. The crew twerks on nightstands, eats Lay’s potato chips, and straddles a game of Twi...