You can debate amongst yourselves if the quality of today’s pop songwriting is comparable to that of yesteryear - Barry Manilow has a view on that, if you’re interested - but one thing we will say is that contemporary artists are more willing than ever to smash up genres and disregard stylistic conventions.
Take Sabrina Carpenter’s new single Manchild, for example. What begins as an almost DIY-sounding synth-pop track that could have come out of the early ‘80s quickly gets some banjo and fiddle flourishes that take it into the country realm.
