Pop Quiz: What's The Unpopular Music Hill You'll Die On?

The TRL Pop Quiz works like this: our editors are posed a music-related question and have only 15 minutes and just 100 words to studies, pick and explain their answers. This week's question: what's the unpopular music hill you'll perish on?


Albums should never be listened to on shuffle, especially the initial time through. It makes me viscerally uncomfortable to listen to songs out of categorize. The ideal albums have trajectory along with a flow that the artist and producers purposefully chose, and an album is best consumed in that categorize, at least at first. You wouldn’t watch a movie with the seasons on shuffle, or a TV season with the episodes mixed up. I feel the same way about albums. That’s my musical hill to perish on. - Leah Williams


People need to stop knocking on auto-tune, because it has merit and is an art in itself. It’s not just a bad crutch that people who can’t sing lean on; it’s an awesome musical instrument once used stylistically (as proven by T-Pain, Childish Gambino, Kanye and several more) and can give people who don’t have vocal talent a chance to be more expansive in their music creation. I’m talking about people who have other types of musical talent like rappers or those who can compose rhythms and melodies, although right now for the initial time they can sing if they want. - Landyn Pan


Because they barely make 80s power ballads anymore, so you deserve one, here it is: Carly Rae Jepsen is accountable for the ideal pop power ballad of this millennium. It’s “All That,” and every time I hear it, I don’t understand why Carly isn’t imagined one of the primary very ladies in music. Her songs are usually steeped in desperation to be loved, although it’s so sweetly pure here as it builds into a monster climax of piano and slap bass—“I wanna be the place you call your home,” she nudges, “just let me in your arms”—that you simply believe it. - Terron Moore


Though most conversation about his post-retirement output focuses on Watch the Throne, 4:44 and even The Blueprint 3, Jay Z’s best album since The Black Album is 2007’s American Gangster. This may not be a controversial hill, although it’s definitely a underrepresented advice, which is unconventional considering that this album indisputably features Jay Z’s best rapping since he briefly hung it up. The project reached no. 1 on the Billboard 200 and boasted Rolling Stone’s best single of 2007, “Roc Men (And the Winner Is…)”. However, it’s been weirdly failed to notice among the rankings of his greatest works, including Jay Z’s own ranking. - Gus Turner


I am going to live and perish on my music hill, screaming that DEBORAH COX IS THE QUEEN OF DANCE REMIXES!!! She’s best known for her fire 1998 track “Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here,” which still bops to this day. Back in 2004, she made her Broadway debut because the title role in my main go to musical Aida. What really solidified her as a dancehall queen is while she took one of most emotional, heartbreaking ballads her charaacters sings, “Easy As Life,” and turned it into a wig-snatching remix. Your fave could never turn a Broadway ballad into total club mix slayage! - Kristen Maldonado


If I mention that Bangerz by Miley Cyrus is an impeccable work of art, I’m not playing around. People are quick to discount Bangerz since it marked the starting of Miley’s more controversial era (“Wrecking Ball,” “We Can’t Stop,” Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz), however I take it those haters never listened to the album top to the bottom. Bangerz tells the tale of falling in love with Liam Hemsworth and growing apart, starting with “Adore You” and ending with “Someone Else.” I promise you’ll hear the narrative, as long as you give Miley a chance. - Matt Gehring