So tonight Elsa played three Sabrina Carpenter songs on YouTube. Of course, I had heard 15 seconds of each in countless short videos on Instagram.

I was struck by how uninteresting the entire rest of the songs were (but how gorgeous the videos are). I don’t ever remember pop music, admittedly not my thing, being barely songs. Those small clips I have heard a thousand times are absolute bangers, but everything else is boring, bland, and straightforward. Maybe Rick Beato isn’t just cranky.

I guess pop music really has changed because of TikTok.