Wonky, plucked strings are a prominent co-star on Ari Lennox’s “Broke,” and it’s hard to tell if she’s working with or against them. That’s part of the appeal, of course, the ambiguity between foreground and background in a song about the young, poor, Amtrak-taking stage of a relationship. Who is this story about, anyway?

I don’t know how it took this long, but this week the NYT dropped a piece about how most amateur podcasts are bad. Read it if you want, or leave it here: Unless you are Joe Rogan, people don’t want to listen to you talk, unedited. Case closed.

Meanwhile over in the world of ecomm, press teams at large retailers are using sales data to pitch journalists with useful stats. Lyst, for example, which aggregates and sells thousands of brands online, has analysts pull stories about which brands are top sellers, how the Beyoncé album impacts Adidas sales, and which retailers are successfully navigating Pride month. And it’s working– Lyst has been in 400 articles in the last month alone. Data: the new spin machine.