Selena Gomez dialed in to chat with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe on Monday (April 27) and while discussing the “At Home” playlist she created for the streaming service, Sel also spilled on why Rihanna is her favorite artist while heaping major praise on pal Taylor Swift, who she considers to be “one of the greatest songwriters.”
“All I’m going to say is from the get go, I’ve been a Rihanna fan,” Gomez said about her lifetime membership in the Navy in the interview slated to air in full at 1:00 p.m. EST on Monday. “‘SOS’ to now. So there isn’t any real moment that it isn’t gold, but ‘Love on the Brain,’ and when she performed that live, I think that’s one of the greatest songs of our time. I just think that the way she sings that song.”
When Lowe asked if Rih Rih is Selena’s absolute favorite, the answer was clear. “Oh, I mean, yeah. Yes. I have a whole book in there dedicated to Rihanna in my living room,” she said, though good friend Swift’s considerable skills were also on her mind. “There’s nothing really to say other than this is another song that shows her ability to take it back to the old, to also combine it with her challenging to do new things with her music,” Gomez said of Swift’s hit “Lover.” “So I think that’s as pure that- I’ll always, not even biased, just think she is one of the greatest songwriters.”
Running down some of the other acts on her list — which includes Kid Cudi, Erykah Badu, Fleetwood Mac, Julia Michaels and H.E.R.,” Gomez said her “At Home” selections reflect the time she’s had while quarantined to listen to a wide variety of music and that, without realizing it, she did realize a recurring theme emerged.
“There’s so much storytelling in each of these songs,” she said. “I sat back and I was like, ‘that’s so interesting,’ because I have these pivotal songs that leave me in this trance and inspire me to then listen to other type of music. It’s about lyrics, strong lyrics, a lot of love and pain and then there’s just some party songs that just make me feel like I’m a kid again.” Among the tracks she gushed about was Billie Eilish’s “Everything I Ever Wanted,” which she said made her cry the first time she heard it because of the truths it revealed about the music industry.
“I just sobbed because I’ve been doing this for so long and it’s like, damn, that’s so true,” she said. “There’s so many moments where I was just like, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter who you are.’ There’s moments in my life that’s like ‘is this it?’ She deserved every single thing that she got and has. She’s an amazing, amazing artist.”
Gomez also described how routine helps her cope with the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, including building a home studio that includes an area where she can FaceTime with her engineer and producer friends while they make new music. “Which I’m so excited about. But in general yeah, I do a lot of walks because that’s all I feel like I can do,” she said. “I do weights inside the house, definitely embarrassingly watch the YouTube videos where I’m trying to do what the woman is telling me to do, but she looks so glamorous doing it.”
The singer also talked about her lifelong love of Fleetwood Mac and how Stevie Nicks would be her dream wedding singer, why Julia Michaels is her ultimate songwriting partner.
Watch the interview below.
