Welcome back to Pop Loser! This week, people are mad about babydoll dresses (again), Jack Antonoff called AI music users “godless whores,” and Drake released three albums that nobody asked for. Convicted murderer and French pop singer Claudine Longet died at the age of 84. And, I’ll share the perfect ’90s indie rock song for making out during Pride Month.  Subscribe to Pop Loser here! This Week in Music Live Nation is teaming up with the owners of the Mariners for a new 5,500-capacity concert venue in Seattle, across the street from T-Mobile Park. “There’s more and more venues of this size and with this type of capabilities around the country,” Live Nation’s Pacific Northwest regional president, Jeff Trisler, told the Seattle Times. “We’re hoping by having one more like this in Seattle that we’ll see more shows…that maybe aren’t coming now.” It’s refreshing to hear about a new venue opening in this city as opposed to closing. However, a venue of this size may be in competition with nonprofit STG’s mid-size theatres like the Paramount and the Moore.  Herstory repeats itself. Olivia Rodrigo’s fashion choices have been the topic of internet discourse since performing in Barcelona earlier this month in a mini babydoll dress and bloomers, with some fans calling the look “infantilizing.” The whole thing is a deja vu to the public reaction of Britney Spears’ schoolgirl outfit in the “…Baby One More Time” video back in 1998. Rodrigo herself has even pointed to her current style as being a nod to the past, saying, “I just remember being younger and having pictures of Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland from all these riot grrrl punk bands in their babydoll dresses, just owning it.”  Someone had to say it! In a letter to his followers, the famed producer/Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff vowed to continue the “ancient ritual of writing, recording, and performing, as it comes to us from God.” Antonoff writes “[there is] nothing more embarrassing than considering there is a way to optimize a holy process,” calling AI music users “godless whores.”  This week in pathetic Drake news, the man dropped not one, not two, but three new albums on Friday: Iceman, Habibti, and Maid of Honour. As expected, the disses are aplenty with digs at Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z, J. Cole, A$AP Rocky, LeBron James, Dr. Dre, Pharrell, and DJ Khalid. It’s almost like Drake is leaning into these rap beefs as a way to stay relevant. Also, as expected, given the album’s name and the time we are living in, Trump has already started calling himself “Iceman” on social media and using tracks from the album to soundtrack his fascist AI slop.  RIP Claudine Longet. The whispery-voiced French pop singer Claudine Longet has been a longtime fixation of mine, ever since I learned that she killed her boyfriend, Olympic alpine ski racer Spider Sabich, in 1976, which landed her only 30 days in jail due to a botched investigation. Longet ended up marrying her defense attorney (classic), and they lived out of the public eye together in Aspen until she died at the age of 84 on Thursday.  Music Events Worth Your Hard-Earned Money This Week: Sleaford Mods May 21, Crocodile, 8 pm, 21+ The Return of Jackie and Judy May 21, Neumos, 7 pm, 21+ Marisa Anderson May 22, The Rabbit Box Theatre, 7:30 pm, all ages The Last Dinner Party: From the Pyre Tour May 22–23, Showbox SoDo, 8 pm, all ages Northwest Folklife Festival 2026 May 22–25, Seattle Center, 12 pm, all ages, free Melody’s Echo Chamber: Unclouded Tour May 23, Crocodile, 6 pm, 21+Bach Pancakes May 24, Kenyon Hall, 10 am, all ages The Songs That Keep Me Up at Night: “Two Girls Kissing” by Swirlies The fact that the Swirlies were born out of a Go-Go’s cover band was the only thing I needed to know as a teenager to become obsessed with them. The Boston-based band is the perfect combination of sweet and sour, with droney shoegaze instrumentals and dreamy twee-pop-inspired vocals from lead vocalist Seana Carmody. (I’d describe their sound as softer than My Bloody Valentine but grittier than Yo La Tengo.) I’ve been revisiting their 1996 album, They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days In The Slittering World Of The Salons, this week, especially loving the dreamily sapphic “Two Girls Kissing.”  “Song For Emahoy” by Eliana Glass (E at Home version) Last year, singer-songwriter Eliana Glass released her debut album, E, a beautifully haunting collection of experimental vocal jazz. And now, almost exactly a year later, Glass released the follow-up, E at Home, a reimagining of the debut, rerecorded in her home using a reel-to-reel and one single microphone. I especially love the rerecording of her instrumental piano track “Song For Emahoy,” dedicated to Ethiopian nun, pianist, and composer Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, which is given more silence and space in the DIY recording. The post Pop Loser #30: Babydoll Dresses, Godless Whores, and Sapphic Shoegaze appeared first on The Stranger. ...read more read less