So I normally don't write "music reviews" but I do write about insider chatter I hear from friends and insiders I worked with in the past in the music and broadcast business as well as chart information and more. At a time when current pop music has not been doing that well the ladies on top have been busy

The new Olivia Rodrigo album "You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love" dropped on June 12th and the first 3 official singles, Drop Dead, The Cure and Stupid Song are out and are doing as well as could be expected in the current climate. That being said getting a fast high chart peak in this day and age is not hard, keeping it on the chart is the challenge and that all depends on how well people like the songs. 

Everyone's talking about "shes showing more maturity in her writing and style" now but sometimes that's not always enough, we will have to see how this looks 6 weeks from now. Industry insiders are giving this one decent reviews and airplay is strong and its not bad for the 3rd album from a young artist.

Ariana Grande dropped a new single back on May 29th and the album drops June 28th and insiders say this may be a make or break moment for her and are drawing similarities between her and Madonna at this point in her career and there's good reasons for that. Having started as a TV star turned pop princess she's done well so far but has made a few mistakes with her teen fanbase. At the near peak of her career she took a turn as a coach/judge on "The Voice" back in 2021 which was enough to raise the eyebrow's of her teen base and then the next big adult move was her role in the musical "Wicked" which was enough to turn the heads of a lot of the teens that were still watching.

Madonna did the same thing at about the same point in her career with "Evita" which was a turning point for a lot of her fanbase she never fully recovered from so Ariana's new album "Petal" drops on the 28th and the new single "Hate that I made you love me" peaked at #1 in 2 weeks time but then fell right back off just as fast and currently sitting at #9 right now and that's not a good thing for a song that's only been out 4 weeks. We will have to see what happens when the "Petal" falls into stores next week.

Meanwhile Taylor Swift suddenly drops a new single from the "Toy Story 5" soundtrack which as the norm for Taylor is doing quite well. Conspicuous by her absence newlywed Dua Lipa beyond the honeymoon is currently one of the actors in the upcoming comedy movie "Peaked" From A24 and Topic Studios, but her record and promotion management typically releases her new albums near the end of summer and there's no studio rumors around yet but don't be surprised if we see a single drop sometime in August or September. More later, MJS

UPDATE 6-26-26: Ariana's Petal has now been re-scheduled to drop on July 31 and it's not being talked about much but the date has changed on both her website and some of the fan based pages and Wikipedia. Insiders are saying it was a "strategic" change between her management team and record company and some are saying the rumor is they expected the new single to perform better than it has so far but it did go from #9 to # 7 on the Hot 100 this week, from #3 to #2 on Global and from #15 to #11 on Pop Airplay but still frozen for 2 weeks at #6 on U.K. O.C.C. top 100. She's also already out on tour. We will see what happens next. Meanwhile Taylor's Toy drops to #2 and Ella's Texas is back at #1....again for the 4th time. More later. MJS