About Popular Music

Popular Music is the name of the group. The name is not ironic. The Melbourne-based duo of former Parenthetical Girls leader Zac Pennington and composer Prudence Rees-Lee, Popular Music was born in Los Angeles. The shadow of the Hollywood sign still lingers over their sound: weird, hauntological pop built on lush string arrangements and analog electronics, where threads of grief, myth-making, and memory twist toward the tragic-comic.

In May/June 2025 they’re touring behind Against Men, a sardonic, seven-song treatise against hope, surrender, and the everyday disappointments of the unfair sex.

Praise for Popular Music:

“One of the year’s most inventive, hypnotic concept albums” — The A.V Club

“Truly astounding… exists in a realm inhabited by Sparks and Destroyer’s storied and theatrically minded lyricism with hints of Scott Walker and Gary Numan. Quite simply, there is nothing minor about this work.” — The Quietus

“Beautifully ornate pop with a haunted heart” — Bandcamp

“Popular Music seem to have not just created a soundtrack, but a whole world… there remains nobody quite like them and they’re all the more intriguing as a result.” — For The Rabbits

“[Pennington]’s voice remains as unmistakable as ever.” — Brooklyn Vegan