Whipping her long red hair as her hips shimmied under a pair of billowing harem pants, she sang about searching for pleasure in songs that moved fluidly from sparkly disco to plush R&B. (Jeff Kravitz / Getty Images for iHeartRadio)įor Doja Cat, whose album “Planet Her” and single “Kiss Me More” are among Lil Nas X’s Grammy competition, that meant a sense of female sexual agency that pop radio doesn’t always celebrate. Both brought an abundance of energy to the job at hand both seemed excited to refresh a down-the-middle setting with new ideas. What was gratifying about the performances by Doja Cat and Lil Nas X - the clear highlights of Friday’s show - was seeing how little they’ve streamlined their idiosyncrasies now that they’re inside the big tent. Charmingly dressed in a casual-Friday style, the seven members sang - what else? - “Butter” and “Dynamite” (the latter in a jingling holiday remix), accepted a birthday cake meant for the band’s Jin from one of KIIS’s DJs, then politely made their way offstage toward some less obligatory activity. Thus the band’s willingness to drop in and kiss the ring at Jingle Ball after an exhausting week of its own gigs. before the group received significant American radio play, it went supernova here only after songs including “Dynamite” and “Butter” began blanketing the airwaves.

Yet for all the self-determination that Instagram allows, terrestrial Top 40 radio still guards access to the final levels of pop ubiquity: Though BTS was huge in the U.S. (Kevin Winter / Getty Images for iHeartRadio)īeyond their intuitive blend of singing and rapping - perhaps the defining aesthetic indicator of Spotify-era pop - what unites these acts is their internet savvy each has used social media and streaming platforms to build an audience without having to rely entirely on the traditional gatekeepers whose assistance earlier artists needed to break through.

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