It's the Best New Artist Breakdown season finale, featuring a MASTAS greatest-hits line-up, the return of sprung rhythm, grand unifying complaints about breakthrough categories, Elt Zeppelin, and how to evolve past Wolfman Jack in pop-music discovery. Do we agree with the Grammys' most recent BNA choices? Have we decided how to tackle the 2025 nominees? Should jerks win awards? Come spook the Recording Academy herd with us!

Intro and outro by Laura Barger and Jack Baldelli; for more information/to become a patron of the show, visit patreon.com/mastas.

SHOW NOTES

• • Ms. Warwick "roasts" Chance The Rapper
  • Episode 68: "Stay" Title Bout
  • Episode 247: Julia Michaels, "All Your Exes"
  • MB's Top 10 Songs of 2024 at The Lost Songs Project
  • Episode 224: Dua Lipa, "Levitating"
  • Record Of The Year Showdown, Episode 4: 2007-2022
  • Do Call It A Comeback, Episode 3: The NEXT Next 15
  • Episode 189: Yola, "Faraway Look"
  • NPR's Stephen Thompson on Ingrid Andress's upsetting anthem
  • Phoebe Bridgers in The New Yorker

  • Single 19: Favorite Discoveries on NPR's Women+ Song List

Our penultimate Best New Artist Breakdown moves into the teens; we're talking about Amy Clonehouses, lost anthems of lady rage, gold-watch nominations, the Overton window of band-name ludicrosity, and much more. Grab those Kendrick Lamar seminar syllabi and have a listen!

Intro and outro by Andrew Byrne; for more information/to become a patron of the show, visit patreon.com/mastas.

SHOW NOTES

• • Episode 107: Bond-Movie Songs, Ranked
  • Duffy's return to social media after her ordeal
  • Episode 166: Taylor Swift ft. The Dixie Chicks, "Soon You'll Get Better"
  • Episode 182: The Stills, "Changes Are No Good"
  • Episode 74: Four By Pink
  • Pop Goes The Actor 4: '80s Movie Gents
  • Episode 68: "Stay" Title Bout
  • Episode 14: Bastille, "Pompeii"

As the Best New Artist Breakdown season rounds the millennium turn, we're talking about which band is playing when Jennifer Love Hewitt flees a serial killer, artists we should like on paper but fall asleep to in practice, the music of shampoo ads, and the basic room in each of our hearts. If Kanye West will make room, join us on the line between genius and madness for our latest episode!

Intro and outro by David Gregory Byrne; for more information/to become a patron of the show, visit patreon.com/mastas.

SHOW NOTES

• • The list of Best New Artist recipients, and nominees
  • The Best New Artist Breakdown season premiere
  • Episode 186: Nelly Furtado, "I'm Like A Bird"
  • Record Of The Year Showdown, Episode 3: 1991-2006
  • Episode 116: Maroon 5, "Moves Like Jagger"
  • Episode 71: Kanye West, "Jesus Walks"
  • Amy