Cat Zhang

Hey, I’m Cat! I’m a critic and jour­nal­ist in Brooklyn, New York. I’m cur­rently the Associate Editor at Pitchfork, and I’ve also con­tributed to the New Yorker, Washington Post, the Cut, Slate, NPR, Vice, and Real Life. I won a 2022 ASME Next Award for jour­nal­ists un­der 30, where judges praised my “sophisticated and en­gag­ing style” and abil­ity to oc­cupy many roles, in­clud­ing “historian, so­ci­ol­o­gist, an­a­lyst and mu­sic critic.” I’d love to write for you.

Pitchfork

• Profile of Yaeji ahead of her de­but al­bum With a Hammer
• Review of Caroline Polachek’s Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
• Review of Rina Sawayama’s Hold the Girl
• Essay about Imogen Heap’s long­stand­ing in­flu­ence
• Profile of in­die pop artist Grace Ives
• Deep dive into mu­sic fan­dom on Discord
• Review of Mitski’s Laurel Hell
• Profile of Jane Remover
• Review of FKA Twigs’s Caprisongs
• Recap of 2021 mu­sic trends on TikTok
• Retrospective on Kesha’s 2010 de­but, Animal
• 4,000-word search for the mean­ing of “Asian American mu­sic”
• Critical es­say about city pop and the Western imag­i­na­tion of Japan

Select other

• Review of Awkwafina’s sit­com Nora from Queens (The Cut)
• Profile of co­me­dian Jamie Loftus (New Yorker)
• Analysis of “TikTok Face” (Real Life)
• Look at the Instagram gos­sip site Deuxmoi (Real Life)
• Interview with TikTok fash­ion fore­caster OldLoserInBrooklyn (Vice)
• Critical es­say about Mitski’s Be the Cowboy (NPR)

Appearances

• On the Pitchfork Review talk­ing about Caroline Polachek
• On the NYT Popcast dis­cussing Mitski
• On the Netflix show Explained dis­sect­ing TikTok dances
• On NPR talk­ing about TikTok sen­sa­tion PinkPantheress
• On Vulture’s Switched on Pop break­ing down Japanese city pop
• On Vulture’s Switched on Pop ex­plain­ing TikTok’s mu­si­cal land­scape
• On the Pitchfork Review dis­cussing TikTok and ac­tivism
• In the Guardian talk­ing about TikTok teaser cam­paigns
• In Astra Magazine on­line re­cap­ping my search his­tory
• In the Embedded newslet­ter ex­plain­ing my dig­i­tal habits
• In Music Journalism Insider break­ing down my Discord fea­ture
• My city pop fea­ture was fea­tured in the NYT Morning newslet­ter
• My “TikTok Face” ar­ti­cle was in­cluded in me­dia stud­ies. press’s Social Media and the Self reader