The same few seconds of smooth psychedelia tinged with yearning have appeared in countless TikTok videos (or at least half a million, if you insist), and they come from Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit.†And thanks to its power to halt our aimless scrolling, the song is spending its third week atop the Billboard Hot 100.
Lacy is an artist dedicated to shifting form and convention, from his records with the Internet to his production for artists like Mac Miller and Vampire Weekend. Even solo work is unpredictable, deftly moving between genres in the vein of artists like Prince and Stevie Wonder. (His 2015 track “C U Girl†flips itself halfway through and plays in reverse.) “Bad Habit†specifically is rooted in the micro-genre of bedroom pop, a scene that Lacy helped pioneer and one that has grown from Spotify algorithms to the top of the charts.
On this episode of Switched on Pop, we dig deep into Lacy’s career and his ability to craft immaculate melodies. Listen to it below or wherever you get your podcasts.