{"id":910551,"date":"2026-09-30T03:38:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T03:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/910551\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T03:38:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T03:38:20","slug":"tinashe-adela-mnek-pop-stars-are-putting-stardom-goals-into-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/910551\/","title":{"rendered":"Tinashe, Adela, MNEK: Pop Stars Are Putting Stardom Goals Into Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter the release of his debut album Language, MNEK<\/a> felt as transparent as glass. At least, that\u2019s how the memory stands eight years later. \u201cI felt like everybody was laughing at me,\u201d the British singer, songwriter, and producer wrote on Substack<\/a> early last week. \u201cLike \u2018aw Uzo wanted to be a popstar.\u2019 It reiterated all these doubts I had of myself anyway.\u201d It took him nearly a decade to brush off the criticism around the record to confidently step into the spotlight again.<\/p>\n

\n\tMNEK\u2019s second album, Bulldozer, arrived just a few days before the stream of consciousness essay<\/a> he published. When we meet at Soho House in New York, the 31-year-old is a week removed from the release and finally feeling a bit more settled. His relationship with pop stardom has changed drastically over the years. Any hurt feelings he might have been carrying have dissolved, along with the barrier of shame that suggested he should be self-conscious in his pursuit of success. \u201cEveryone needs to know what they get into it for,\u201d he tells Rolling Stone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCareers in pop aren\u2019t built on thin skin and hypersensitivity. They require a level of pushback, confidence that borders on delusion, and an almost grandiose sense of self. You have to want it \u2014 and figuring out what it even means has become a primary conversation within pop. Not only are hungry artists not shying away from their starry-eyed dreams, they\u2019re breaking the fourth wall by writing manifestations and commentaries about pop stardom into their music.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMNEK\u2019s thesis statement on Bulldozer is \u201cThe Wall,\u201d an oscillating, choir-backed dance track about being unafraid to take up space. \u201cAin\u2019t asking for permission, make some room,\u201d he sings, later poking fun at the gatekeepers who used to be in his way: \u201cI know my shit is hot\/I got these industry white man on my waiting list\/Gotta be my own hype man like I rate my shit.\u201d He fortifies his stance on \u201cReverse,\u201d a killer club track about getting even the most uptight, stiff men on the dance floor to make something shake to the sound of his songs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a bit of voyeurism and being provocative in that way, right? You want to shake the table. There\u2019s a level of confidence that I want other people to have via the music, but also it\u2019s so much for me,\u201d MNEK says. \u201cIt\u2019s for me to feel like, OK, I can step into these rooms where they\u2019re super heteronormative and very straight down the line, and be exactly as I am \u2014 and be able to not only belong in there, but to actually conquer and be something of note in those types of worlds.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are plenty of barricades built with the explicit goal of keeping certain types of artists from access ing those rooms. Those who don\u2019t meet the traditional criteria of a \u201cpop star\u201d are often pushed to the sidelines while budgets and opportunities are streamlined to acts who are considered safer, or more predictable, and thus easier to market. The more complex an artist\u2019s creative identity, the less anyone really knows what to do with them. Tinashe<\/a> is also among the artists pushing back and clearing a lane for herself. She even made it easy for anyone unsure about how to classify her \u2014 her eighth studio album is aptly titled Popstar<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTinashe has been in pursuit of pop stardom for more than a decade, catching fleeting glimpses of it over the years. Her hit singles \u201c2 On\u201d and \u201cNasty\u201d were released 10 years apart. That\u2019s a long time to be working towards getting everyone else to see what you know to be true of yourself. \u201cI felt like I started in this very pure place when I thought of where I was going to go in my life as this beautiful thing,\u201d Tinashe told Rolling Stone earlier this month. \u201cAs the industry side and the business side of it creeps in, it gets a bit less glamorous. It gets a bit less like rose-colored glasses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDon\u2019t fall in love with a pop star\/Didn\u2019t know we\u2019d get so far,\u201d Tinashe sings on \u201cPopstar,\u201d the title and standout track from the album. \u201cTell me, is it everything you thought it\u2019d be?\u201d This question creates persistent tension across the album. It shows up on \u201cToo Easy,\u201d where she pushes back on skeptics who don\u2019t view her as a pop star. \u201cI know that I\u2019m a superstar,\u201d she sings. \u201cThey hate to see I\u2019ve come so far.\u201d It\u2019s also present on \u201cEmpty Stadiums,\u201d a recollection of a nightmare about waiting and wanting. \u201cI\u2019ve been singing so long and nobody hears it,\u201d she sings. \u201cAnd I\u2019m standing on the stage just waiting for applause that\u2019ll never exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cTinashe, with her calling her album Popstar, it\u2019s genius because you know there\u2019s all that lore about her inspiring all these K-pop stars and her being the template for all this shit,\u201d MNEK says, referencing recurring discourse<\/a> about other artists drawing inspiration from her both musically and visually. \u201cIf that\u2019s not what pop music is, I don\u2019t know what else she\u2019s gonna call it. She is a pop star. She\u2019s a Black woman who\u2019s making pop music from all different diaspora \u2014 dance, R&B, electronica. But there\u2019ll be someone who looks at her and says, \u2018She ain\u2019t a pop star.\u2019 And you have to answer why you\u2019re saying that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen MNEK conjures the image of a pop star in his mind, anyone from Rihanna to Beyonc\u00e9 to Drake fits the mold. \u201cThe meaning of the word has changed because the monolith culture has changed,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd so pop star has to be however you interpret it.\u201d He rattles off a general checklist that defines it by desire \u2014 desire to play to big crowds, to be a household name, to perform. \u201cIt sounds weird because you\u2019re so used to hearing them associated with different genres,\u201d MNEK says. \u201cBut pop star is beyond genre.\u201d Throughout our conversation, he often deploys \u201cpop star\u201d as a verb \u2014 like it\u2019s a clear and intentional action that can be taken, rather than a label bestowed by some cultural consortium.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat is how you pop star,\u201d MNEK says while talking about Ad\u00e9la<\/a>, another breakout star who is unafraid to lead with her deepest desires. \u201cYou say, \u2018This is my thing that no one else can take away from me.\u2019\u201d The 22-year-old released her debut album Prima<\/a> earlier this month. Ad\u00e9la has already found sticky hits with \u201cNicole Kidman,\u201d on which she boasts, \u201cThat\u2019s why I put pop princess on my license plate,\u201d and \u201cAin\u2019t In LA,\u201d a wistful singalong that made her the first Slovak artist to appear on the Billboard Hot 100. \u201cI like what Ad\u00e9la\u2019s coming out with as far as the shamelessness and wanting to be a pop star,\u201d MNEK says. It\u2019s a recurring theme across Prima, lest you forget just how badly she wants it. In this instance, it is both status and armor.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wanna pop off so these big mouths can\u2019t say shit,\u201d Ad\u00e9la spits on \u201cKGB.\u201d But her best summation of the pop star experience comes when she drops the glam entirely on \u201cTherapy.\u201d It\u2019s where she gets candid about having to sit through meetings with people who \u201chold the keys to my future\u201d despite not even really grasping what she wants that future to look like. \u201cThey are old white men,\u201d she drawls through syrupy autotune on the track. \u201cAnd they\u2019re so annoying.\u201d The removal of the rose-colored glasses that Tinashe mentioned seems to be a rite of passage. The actual performance of pop, whether on stage or in a studio, makes up such a small percentage of job requirements. The rest of the time is spent advocating for their place and perfecting their visual identity.<\/p>\n

\n\tMNEK has sat in his fair share of those meetings, both as a leading artist and a close collaborator to acts like FLO and . He\u2019d bite his tongue, but think to himself, \u201cYou\u2019re just talking. You don\u2019t know a thing about music.\u201d He\u2019s had the same thoughts while reading comments from pop fans. When Bulldozer came out, he scrolled through the forums, particularly drawn in by a thread that asked why he doesn\u2019t receive the same support as someone like Troye Sivan. \u201cI read the answers. They had all types of things to say. They\u2019re like, \u2018Troye makes better music,\u2019 or \u2018MNEK is ugly,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cBut that\u2019s real, that\u2019s how they measure this shit. A pop star is supposed to be attractive. A pop star is supposed to fit all these quotes. But no one\u2019s gonna tell me I\u2019m not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s that sense of certainty and self-assurance that is making pop stardom a reality for these artists. It\u2019s the transparent act of pop star-ing, as MNEK would say. He witnessed it firsthand with Larsson, whose fifth album Midnight Sun secured her a long-awaited true breakthrough<\/a>. Just before that point, it was becoming harder to keep up the pop star pretense without seeing fruitful results beyond a few viral surges for songs that were released a decade ago. \u201cThis was the album where they were like, OK, we really need to see a jolt, we need to see like a shift in a certain direction from everyone,\u201d says MNEK, who worked as a songwriter and producer on the album. \u201cEveryone felt like this album had to move a dial in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tThere\u2019s one song in particular MNEK mentions from the record titled \u201cThe Ambition,\u201d on which Larsson sings, \u201cI\u2019m never satisfied \u2019cause I want number one, doesn\u2019t everyone? \u2026 My dreams so big, they\u2019re supersized, I chase them like I chase the light.\u201d \u201cIt was very much a commentary on her standing as a pop star,\u201d MNEK says. \u201cShe was in a make or break position.\u201d She leaned further into the conversation on PinkPantheress\u2019 \u201cStateside\u201d remix, nodding to her opening slot on Tate McRae\u2019s tour and her changing perception of the American dream. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat could only happen off of all the pop star-ing she was doing,\u201d MNEK says. Pop stars putting their starry-eyed dreams under the spotlight might be the best way for them to land there themselves. The pop star-ing is paying off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the release of his debut album Language, MNEK felt as transparent as glass. At least, that\u2019s how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":910552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[455262,64,63,134,478539,136,478540,199080],"class_list":["post-910551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-adu00e9la","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-mnek","tag-music","tag-tinashe","tag-zara-larsson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}