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Melissa Harris-Perry: As we start a new year, this moment felt like the perfect time to take a look back at pop culture in 2022 and what's ahead in 2023, so I sat down with two experts.

Larisha Paul: My name is Larisha Paul. I'm a staff writer at Rolling Stone.

Hunter Harris: My name is Hunter Harris, and I write a newsletter called Hung Up.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk about the past year for a moment. Any big takeaways from 2022 that you think will continue to influence 2023?

Larisha Paul: Yes, I think there are definitely a couple of big projects that are going to continue to carry over. I think particularly the Harry Styles album, Harry's House. I think he's still writing the high of a lot of singles from that album, and also this never ending tour that he's on. I think it's going to really carry that over into the new year. As well as Beyoncé obviously had a massive comeback with Renaissance, and I'm thinking about the fact that we haven't gotten any visuals for that album yet and she is the queen of visuals, and so I'm definitely expecting that takeover to continue into the new year.

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter: [music] Boy, I know you can't help but to be yourself around me, yourself around me, now.

And I know nobody's perfect, so I'll let you be, I'll let you be.

It's the way you wear your emotions on both of your sleeves, ah-ah-ah--

Melissa Harris-Perry: Hunter, how about you on this same question? What are some of the big takeaways from 2022 that you see still influencing this year ahead?

Hunter Harris: I think the biggest takeaway from 2022 is the continued obsession with nostalgia and looking back. At least in Hollywood, it's very hard to-- We can say produce or mint new movie stars, and so I think we're seeing a lot of older stars that we haven't seen in a while come back in a really big way. I'm thinking of Brendan Fraser in The Whale, Tom Cruise with Top Gun: Maverick, and then in this upcoming year with Mission Impossible.

A lot of people like that coming back I think is exciting for a lot of moviegoers. Also, selfishly, I have to shout out the new SZA album, SOS, because that is still my most played album from last month into this month.

SZA: [music] I'm still a fan, even though I was salty,

Hate to see you with some other broad, now you happy,

Hate to see you happy, if I'm not the one driving,

I'm so mature, I'm so mature,

I'm so mature, I got me a therapist to tell me there's other men,

I don't want none, I just want you--

Melissa Harris-Perry: I want to stick with you for one second on this, Hunter, about the nostalgia, or the look back. I can remember for my parents' generation thinking, "Oh gosh, those baby boomers." They were so big that they just continued to dominate pop culture. As I stand on the threshold of my 50s as an ex-gener, I'm like, "Oh, we seem to be doing the same thing." Is that healthy, or should we maybe move on off the stage?

Hunter Harris: I'm going to say it's not healthy because Gen Z is now loving lowrise, and I look terrible in lowrise anything.

Melissa Harris-Perry: [laughs]

Hunter Harris: I think that it's normal for people to want to look back and try to recreate or reinvent themselves. Gen Z is stylistically and also, in terms of what they consume and how they consume it, very interested in how to make what's old new again in their own way, which is a normal impulse. It is getting us stuck in this cycle of reboots and reimaginings and reinventions and all of these things that I think we're seeing some fatigue with, especially with Marvel and Star Wars and some big franchises that are still in the rebuilding phase.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Larisha, let's go back to music for a second and let's look forward. What are you most excited about for 2023? What's on your radar?

Larisha Paul: With me, and I think this goes off of what Hunter was just saying about nostalgia. I'm 24, so Gen Z is-- I'm within that. My most impactful year of my entire life was 2013, so coming onto the 10-year anniversary of all of those projects that really altered my brain as a 14 year old. I'm just really excited to see how those things come back. I think especially this year, we have a Paramore album coming out. Paramore's big comeback was in 2013. We have a Fall Out Boy album coming this year. Fall Out Boy's big comeback was in 2013.

I'm really excited to just relive that year but through new material from all of those people who were really prominent around that time. I think especially Miley Cyrus has a new single coming out soon. It's 10 years on from Bangerz and the VMAs Robin Thick tongue situation and all of that, and what that brought with it.

I think to see an artist like that who you can grow up with and then see her enter her 30s and have this level of maturity and artistry that you really didn't know whether or not that was going to be a possibility for her after that Bangerz era, and We Can't Stop, and Wrecking Ball, and all the things that came with everyone being outraged that she was naked on a film set.

I think especially going into this year, I'm really curious about how we're going to engage with projects from our really big players. I think this past year we saw a lot of artists come in with their comeback errors who didn't make a lot of noise in the way that we would expect them to. I think SZA is a really great exception. I'm so glad that that album ended up living up to all of the hype of her being away for so long in a way that the Kendrick Lamar album didn't, or the Post Malone album didn't, or neither of Drake's albums did.

I think 2023 is really going to be the year of a low stakes pop star, and I think we're going to be looking more at artists who we don't maybe expect as much for. I think you have people like Olivia Rodrigo or Dua Lipa, who are going to have to follow up really big projects. I think we're also looking at a lot of smaller pop artists who are bubbling up. Somebody like Ray, who is having a really huge moment on TikTok right now with a song called Escapism. It's bubbling up on the charts.

Raye: [music] Sleazing and teasing I'm sitting on him,

All of my diamonds are dripping on him,

I met him at the bar, it was 12 or something,

I ordered two more wines, because tonight I want him,

A little context, if you care to listen.

Larisha Paul: She's a UK artist who had to wrangle back control from her label. This is her first independent release that she's having coming out soon, her debut album. Her being in full control of that while having this viral moment is going to give her a lot of leverage. I'm curious to see how she uses that. I'm curious to see how a lot of artists engage with TikTok hits at a time when they don't have as much power as they seem to have over the last two or three years.

They're simmering out in a way that makes it so that you really do have to still put in the work. You still have to be the pop star. You still have to play the role where you really can't just let the song do the work for you. I'm definitely curious to see how more artists engage with the changing of the times in that way.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Stick with us. We'll talk more about what to look for in 2023 pop culture after the break. It's The Takeaway.

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Melissa Harris-Perry: You're still with The Takeaway, and we're looking ahead to the most anticipated movies, music, and tv shows of 2023. Still with us is Hunter Harris, writer for the Hung Up newsletter, and Larisha Paul, Rolling Stones staff writer.

Larisha told us that in 2013 she had an awakening moment, and I wanted to know more about the artist from that year that she thinks are going to reappear a decade later.

Justin Timberlake: [music] Don't be so quick to walk away,

Dance with me,

I wanna rock your body,

Please stay,

Dance with me.

Larisha Paul: Well, I wonder definitely about Justin Timberlake. Obviously, his huge comeback was that year as well. I think Mirrors is the best song ever made, ever. That song really altered my brain chemistry from the first time that I heard it. I think he's somebody who, if he were to tap back in with a Pharrell, or a Timbaland, I think he could have a really dominating era once again. I think given the terms that he's made over the last few years, I'm curious to see whether or not he can still hold a prominent space in pop, whether people care about that.

I think especially male pop stars in a weird place right now where it's really women dominating, and then there's a lot of male rappers who are dominating a lot of female rappers who are dominating, but I think actual male pop stars in the pop genre are struggling a little bit more to capture people's attention. I think people like Charlie Puth and Justin Bieber, Sean Mendes even, aren't holding the same space in these areas as they once were expected to as hitmakers.

I would definitely be curious to see whether or not someone like Justin Timberlake could come back, but with the help of somebody like Pharrell, or with the help of somebody like Timbaland, and those types of producer artist relationships really taking centerpiece. Just because I think when you have so many pop artists working with so many different producers and trying to get the hits, trying to get the radio moments, you lose some of that collaborative magic that you get from putting two people together who work really well together.

I think people like that, and obviously Pharrell had a big 2013, he was involved with Blurred Lines, but then that didn't necessarily end too well for them with the lawsuit situation, which on its own has really altered the course of pop music over the past decade in terms of how we think about interpolations, how we think about sampling, how we think about inspiration, and collaboration in that sense. It's definitely a different field that they would be re-entering, and I'd definitely be curious to see how they play that field.

Melissa Harris-Perry: All right. Hunter, I want to move to these other aspects of pop culture, the movies, the TV, all the other pieces that mark a moment. What are you looking forward to in 2023?

Hunter Harris: I have to admit, Succession really does dominate my life.

Kendall Roy: He's a central player in a rotten cabal that has basically eaten the heart out of American democracy.

Roman Roy: Rotten cabal is a good name for a band.

Hunter Harris: I'm so excited for Succession to return with it's fourth season in the spring. There are some definite heavy hitters like Bridgerton and a Bridgerton spinoff coming. I think we're also expecting new seasons of the Apple TV show, Severance and Ted Lasso, but then I think it's going to be a good year for movies. We haven't had a good year for movies in a couple years, I can say.

Magic Mike 3, that will be a huge movie. The Christopher Nolan Oppenheimer movie will be pretty big. Greta Gerwig and Barbie, and then Zendaya returning in Dune for more than one scene, we can say. Also Hunger Games prequel, the new Martin Scorsese movie, Killers of the Flower Moon. I feel like a lot of-- not tent-pole dominated but big tour-driven studio movies will come back in a way that will be fun to see.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Say more about that. Is that in part about our ability, willingness, maybe even desire to return from our couches and into theaters?

Hunter Harris: I think so, but I also think that-- I think that there's an idea among moviegoers, especially in America, that when you go to see a movie, it should be a big Tom Cruise studio movie, and it doesn't always have to be a very moving and intimate indie. I think the pandemic definitely watching movies from home for two plus years had a big hand in that. I think that's why we're seeing Avatar doing so well right now, or why Black Panther performed so well, the Black Panther sequel, I should say.

Namor: My mother told stories about a place like this, a protected land with people that never have to leave, that never have to change who they were.

Hunter Harris: I think that people want to see a moment and not see what they can stream on TV in the same quality. I think that the bigger thing is that the last years studio movies have been comic book movies. I think adults are really looking for a reason to go to a movie to not just accompany IP that we are almost too familiar with at this point.

Larisha Paul: Can I just ask Hunter really quickly? I wanted to know what your thoughts were about The Idol. I'm surprised it didn't come up, but that's definitely something that I was like-- I feel like this is either going to be really great, or a mess. Obviously, The Weeknd, co-creator and starring, and then there's like Troye Sivan, and Dan Levy, and Rachel Sennott, who was really great, Shiva Baby and then did Bodies Bodies Bodies this year. I'm really curious to know whether or not you think that's something that is going to be a moment, or are we just going to let it pass?

Hunter Harris: Well, that's a good question. From what I have heard about The Idol, I don't know. I don't think it will be as prescient or representative of what you and I think and know about pop culture in the music business. I do think anything Sam Levinson works on goes viral on Twitter just for being so fun and messy to watch, but I don't know.

I think that we are still in the middle of this conversation about nepotism babies. Lily-Rose Depp, who's a star of The Idol is an nepotism baby, and so I think think that it will maybe reflect our thinking about pop culture, but not necessarily pop culture as it exists, or as it's actually manufactured, if that makes any sense. I also think it will be just beautiful to watch from that-- The teasers I've seen of the moving camera and just the constant motion and poppiness of it.

Larisha Paul: Yes, definitely.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Larisha, let's go back to the structures around music. I want to see what you're imagining for these come 2023. Can you talk Ticketmaster?

Larisha Paul: Yes, I think definitely resale tickets on their own have become quite a bit of a problem when you think about third party resell sites like StubHub or SeatGeek. I know SeatGeek is now a partner for certain venues, and I think it changes where your tickets can be bought and resold. There are certain apps that don't allow you to resell tickets.

I think when Ticketmaster is the one that is reselling the tickets, when Ticketmaster is the one that is marking up the tickets, when the sale began five minutes ago and they've already enacted their dynamic pricing, which is supposed to reflect demand for tickets, but I think it's obvious there would be demand for tickets five minutes after they go on sale. I think it'd be a different story if they enacted that a week after the sale and there's still tickets left, but only a few, so they're going to price them up to really get that bidding world going for fans who really want those last tickets.

I think when it's just early on, it's just genuine fans trying to get into a building to see their favorite artists. It doesn't leave you with a ton of options when the main ticket seller is the one that is marking up these tickets. So many people say, "Well, why don't artists just opt out of it? Why don't artists just play different venues?" I think touring schedules are convoluted enough.

Post-pandemic, there are so many people trying to tour at one time. There are so many musicians trying to make their touring income back because so much of that income doesn't come from streaming anymore. It doesn't come from album sales anymore. It comes from merch sales. It comes from touring. They don't really have the option to just say, "No, we're not going to cooperate with the bigot ticket conglomerate in the world."

Melissa Harris-Perry: Larisha Paul is staff writer for Rolling Stone, and Hunter Harris is writer for the Hung Up newsletter. Thanks to both of you for talking a little pop culture with me.

Hunter Harris: Thank you.

Larisha Paul: Thank you so much for having us.

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