A general theory of pop smashes

My latest MusicRadar column advances the theory that to be a truly generation-spanning pop colossus, a song has to be at least a little bit weird and annoying.

This was a tricky thing to write, because I wasn’t looking for “popular songs that I personally find annoying.” That would be easy, I find most popular songs to be annoying. But there’s a difference between a song being annoying because it’s boring, lazy and predictable, and a song being annoying because it’s weird and counterintuitive. That’s the good kind of annoying! 

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