Our weekly recap highlighting the best feature stories from around the internet.
Max Martin is responsible for some of the biggest pop songs, including The Weeknd's 'Can't Feel My Face'. Photo: Unknown
Hit Charade – by Nathaniel Rich, The Atlantic
“The biggest pop star in America today is a man named Karl Martin Sandberg. The lead singer of an obscure ’80s glam-metal band, Sandberg grew up in a remote suburb of Stockholm and is now 44. Sandberg is the George Lucas, the LeBron James, the Serena Williams of American pop. He is responsible for more hits than Phil Spector, Michael Jackson, or the Beatles.”
Meet The Teen Girls Using Instagram To Recover From Anorexia – by Rachael Krishna, Buzzfeed
“Through Instagram’s search feature, hashtags, comments, and the followers she was gaining, Ashleigh found other young people in a similar situation to hers. She says they provided a vital support network.”
An Exit Interview with Simon Wilson, Editor of Metro 2010-2015 – by Duncan Greive, The Spinoff
“People who want to write things that look as if they’ve got a PhD or people who do have a PhD and want to prove that it was worth them getting a PhD. It all has its place, but I don’t have a very high opinion of a lot of that writing. It is writing I find boring and I find an awful lot of it makes a great to do over things that, in journalism, we quickly take for granted and move on to stuff that is more interesting.”
What the World Got Wrong About Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – by Jay Caspian Kang, NY Times
“This is the Abdul-Jabbar paradox: He’s a man who cares enough about his legacy to write two memoirs and eight other books, but he refuses to engage in the usual smoothing, sanding and editing that is required of a public persona. He instead asks you to accept his version of his truth, even if the truth is that at 68, he sometimes has a hard time being civil to children and still refuses to shake the hand of a reporter.”
Loose Canons – by Courtney Sina Meredith, The Pantograph Punch
“We were young brown women interested in social justice, amplifying our lives through art. Together we made a short film about Maori and Pasifika night people along K Road. That project saw us befriend strippers at Vegas show girls and I wrote plenty of poems smoking with the girls back stage, watching them get ready for their sets. I discovered what smart mothers and sisters and daughters they were.”
What Will I Hear When My Ears Stop Working? – by Ysabelle Cheung, Narratively
“What is silence? To most of us, it is found in temporary absence of sound: the quiet nights of sleep in suburban neighborhoods; the demi-beat before a pianist pounds the ivories; and the pause one takes after receiving bad news … But silence – true silence – is neither poetic nor dramatic. For those who can no longer hear, it is constant and formless.”
The flag process is not New Zealand Idol – by Grant McLachlan, NZ Herald
“Documents released to me under the Official Information Act demonstrate that the methods applied to reach decisions were more in line with a talent contest rather than a function of responsible government. The process should not be about celebrity judges, celebrity appearances, celebrity designers, or social media voting.”
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