POPinions, a new podcast created by Abbey Solomon and Nicole Weinstein, breaks down pop music news and drama. This podcast is their senior project that has finally come to life after months of planning and devising. During these roughly hour long podcasts, Abbey and Nicole essentially have a recorded conversation that’s broadcasted every Wednesday morning!
So far, they have recorded four podcasts about the latest trends in the pop industry. Since the name “POPinions” is a portmanteau of “pop” and “opinions”, it does feature both Abbey and Nicole’s perspective but is usually backed by reason and facts. Currently, POPinions is streaming on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Instagram and Anchor.fm.
Abbey and Nicole decided to start this podcast because of their shared love for all things pop music. As seniors in the music industry program at Drexel, they started to learn about the intersection of music and podcasting which then led them to their senior project.
Not only did they learn about the technicalities of producing a podcast but also the history and the research that supports the medium. Next, they got into the legalities and monetization of an episode. After a ton of research and brainstorming later, they ended up with a research paper that also served as a plan to record and publish their own podcast. And so POPinions was born!
Their second episode, “Putting the TEA in Taylor Swift,” follows the drama surrounding the pop artist and Scooter Braun, Ariana Grande’s manager. Aside from opinions about Swift, the episode explains some of the intricacies of signing with a company. There are different types of rights an artist have, such as writing the actual content of their music, and some power that the record company holds for “taking a chance” on the artist.
Nicole and Abbey explain these concepts in a way that’s engaging for music and non-music folks alike for the whole hour. POPinions helps provide functional music education for people of all backgrounds.
In the most recent episode, Nicole and Abbey pick out their Grammy favorites from the nominees. The casual tone of this episode helps a listener who doesn’t know the details of every category and artist feel comfortable. Nicole and Abbey casually look up facts they don’t know while still being informative. To learn more about their Grammy picks, find POPinions on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Instagram or Anchor.fm to give the episode a listen!