Lana Del Rey’s new album has received praise, but her negative reaction to a mixed review on NPR recently made news. We discuss the tightrope of criticizing popular artists, the role of persona in artistic production, and the finer details of criticizing celebrities’ work.
In addition to in-house expert Gabriel Rossman (UCLA), author of the acclaimed Climbing the Charts: What Radio Airplay Tells Us about the Diffusion of Innovation (Princeton University Press), this episode also features Rachel Skaggs, who has recently published research on country music songwriting.
Rachel Skaggs is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Ohio State University. She recently published “Socializing Rejection and Failure in Artistic Occupational Communities” in Work and Occupations, and will soon publish “Harmonizing Small Group Cohesion and Status in Creative Collaborations: How Songwriters Facilitate and Manipulate the Co-Writing Process.” in Social Psychology Quarterly.
