New Orleans’ Gender-Bending Rap by Jonathan Dee (New York Times): You know a musical genre is the next big thing when the New York Times devotes a lengthy magazine article to it; and sissy bounce – the genre in question – is pretty weird. Sure, it’s basically supersexualised hip-hop about shaking your ass, like all good party music, but it’s a genre of music which is largely characterised by female fans and transgender performers, which is highly unusual within the macho world of hip-hop.

Andy Hummel In His Own Words by Bruce Eaton (Big Star’s Radio City) – parts one, two and three: RIP Andy Hummel, the bass player from 1970s power pop geniuses Big Star, who died last week. Last year, Eaton released a book on Big Star’s second album, Radio City, and did detailed and lengthy interviews with Andy Hummel, who after Big Star decided to go into aeroplane engineering. As a tribute to Hummel, he’s posted the entire transcript of the interviews, and in a lot of ways I can’t think of a much better tribute.

The Oldest Swingers: The Jolly Boys by Sarfraz Manzoor (The Guardian): Before dance hall, before reggae, before ska, Jamaicans had mento music, a country folk style analogous to the delta blues (and just as influential). And the Jolly Boys, now old toothless men who have played mento music for a good 60 years, may well be the Jamaican Buena Vista Social Club, and are covering modern tunes – including 'Rehab', 'Golden Brown', and 'Blue Monday' – in the style.

The Heart Of The Crowd by Tom Ewing (Pitchfork): Sometimes we dismiss music as ‘generic’ – a put-down meant to indicate that nothing about the music stands out, that it doesn’t surpass our basic expectations of the music. But sometimes people want generic music. After all, if you’re a fan of a genre like black metal or power pop, sometimes the music only succeeds if it manages to encapsulate the genre.

Best Coast And Wavves, Sitting In A Tree by Sean Fennessey (Village Voice): Right now, two of the indie records getting the most hype in the US are the new albums by young Californian bands Best Coast and Wavves; each turns their influences into something new, each got an 8.4/10 from Pitchfork, and each is probably going to. And also, awww, the lead singers are in love. 

There’s A Curious Album That’s Available For Sale by Maura Johnston (maura.tumblr.com): Knock off albums featuring remade versions of the big hits have always been a dime-a-dozen – people like Elton John made cash making knock offs of big hits before their careers hit big. But nonetheless, the way that the versions of these songs fail or succeed is actually quite informative about the way that pop music works – and Johnston suggests that it shows that it’s really quite difficult to project personality and charisma into your singing, especially in a world of autotune.

It’s Your Birthday! by Stephany Anne Goldberg (The Smart Set): What’s the biggest hit ever in the history of Western civilisation? If you said something by MJ, the Beatles, Elvis or Lady Gaga, you’re wrong. Instead, the biggest hit ever was written by two sisters in the late 19th century, one of whom was a respected ethnomusicologist and composer. Its name? 'Happy Birthday'. It’s kind of amazing to think someone wrote that song, it seems like it just exists!

Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, And The Narratives Of Popular Song by Ben Ewing (PopMatters): Both Elvis and Bing Crosby often get tagged with lines like “most influential American musician of the 20th century” – where Elvis arguably turned rock’n’roll into pop, Bing Crosby arguably turned jazz into pop. However, where Elvis is cool, Bing Crosby is daggy. Actually, scratch that. Both had surprisingly similar careers, starting off cool, and then becoming daggy, wholesome entertainers.