Pop Classics – playlists
Below is a database of pop songs, inspired by classic(al) history, literature, and myth.
- pop classics – eponymous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hYY86DmqPY&list=PLDfVyogKxqkvIEEZSc3tRc6XFWjVT3cZ7
- pop classics – lyrical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCCtiK7KlSo&list=PLDfVyogKxqktsEnzKALfnstj_gwXabWXC
- pop classics – visual: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzOvgu3GPwY&list=PLDfVyogKxqksftGtG7XhROl-FJ8TiWHDx
- pop classics – thematic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4BWxFgmAjo&list=PLDfVyogKxqku4p8Vz0J6JA3tLWroOrcgi
This list is by no means definitive, but instead a resource which exemplifies the vividity and texture of engagements with the ancient world in pop. I update it as and when I encounter instances of classical reception in 21st century music. If you have any song suggestions, please fill in this form and I’ll add them to the page accordingly.
Classical
eponymous
- Cassandra – Taylor Swift (2024)
- Caesar on a TV Screen – The Last Dinner Party (2024)
- Seasons & Narcissus – Bastille (2024)
- Bored & Overboard (Pandora’s Box) – Bastille (2024)
- I, Carrion (Icarian) – Hozier (2023)
- Swan Upon Leda – Hozier (2022)
- Cassandra – Florence and the Machine (2022)
- Helen of Troy – Lorde (2022)
- Artemis – AURORA (2022)
- Pandora’s Box – MARINA (2021)
- Alrighty Aphrodite – PEACH PIT (2018)
- Pompeii – Bastille (2013)
- Icarus – Bastille (2013)
- Venus – Lady Gaga (2013)
- Pyramids – Frank Ocean (2012)
lyrical
- Talk – Hozier (2019)
- I’d be the voice that urged Orpheus / When her body was found (hey ya)
- Sunlight – Hozier (2019)
- Each day, you’d rise with me / Know that I would gladly be / The Icarus to your certainty / Oh, my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight / Strap the wing to me / Death trap clad happily / With wax melted, I’d meet the sea / Under sunlight, sunlight, sunlight
- State of Grace – Taylor Swift (2012)
- Love is a ruthless game / Unless you play it good and right / These are the hands of fate / You’re my Achilles heel / This is the golden age of something good and right and real
- No Church in the Wild – JAY-Z, Kanye West, Frank Ocean, The-Dream (2012)
- Tears on the mausoleum floor / Blood stains the colosseum doors
- Is Pius pious ’cause God loves pious / Socrates asked whose bias do y’all seek? / All for Plato, screech
- Explored in my blogpost about the Gladiator II trailer (2024).
visual
- ‘Karma’ – Midnights – Taylor Swift (2023)
- ‘MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)’ – MONTERO – Lil Nas X (2021)
- ‘Rumors’ – Lizzo ft. Cardi B (2021)
- ‘APESHIT’ – The Carters | Beyoncé x JAY-Z (2018)
- ‘Ice Princess’ – Broke with Expensive Taste – Azealia Banks (2015)
- ‘Dark Horse’ – Prism – Katy Perry (2013)
- n.b. Lyrical reference: ‘Make me your Aphrodite’.
thematic
- Burn Alive – The Last Dinner Party (2024)
- Read my exploration of this song and its relationship to the story of Dido here (2025).
- tolerate it – Taylor Swift (2020)
- I greet you with a battle hero’s welcome / I take your indiscretions all in good fun / I sit and listen / I polish plates until they gleam and glisten / You’re so much older and wiser and I
- Reference to Odysseus and Penelope?
The Pop Classicist 