A Scholarly Look at Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’ Wins ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award: Full Winners List

Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” was the earworm of 2024, an inescapable pop smash that miraculously retained its charm even after hundreds of listens. But did you ever think a scholarly look at the song would win a Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award?

One just did. The 2025 Virgil Thomson Award for outstanding music criticism in the pop music field is presented to Dan Charnas for his Slate article “The Musical History Lesson Buried Beneath the Song of the Summer.” ASCAP says the article looks at “the popular but ‘nameless’ musical genre that is the foundation” for Carpenter’s smash. (For the record, the song, which Carpenter co-wrote with Amy Allen, Steph Jones and Julian Bunetta, ranked fourth on Billboard’s 2024 Song of the Summer chart.)

The winners of the 56th annual ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Awards were announced Thursday (Oct. 30). Awards are presented for outstanding books, articles, liner notes and broadcast programs on the subject of music. Established in 1967 to honor the memory of composer, critic and former ASCAP president Deems Taylor, the awards are made possible by the support of the Virgil Thomson Foundation.

Here are this year’s other winners:

Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award recipients for articles published in 2024:

The award for an article in the pop music field goes to Robert Michael Marovich for his article on the prolific Black songwriter Ted Jarrett, “The Black Songwriter Who Took Nashville by Storm,” published by Zocalo Public Square.

The award for an article in the concert music field goes to Jonathan Kregor for his article “Remembering Clara Wieck in Vienna: Gender, Genius, and Genre in the Post-Beethoven Biedermeier,” published in Women’s Agency in Schubert’s Vienna.

The award for outstanding music criticism in the concert music field is presented to Kevin Bartig for his article, “Olin Downes and the Soviets,” published by the Journal of the American Musicological Society.

A runner-up award in the above category goes to Andy Zax for “Extinctophonics: The Game of Jim,” published in Third Man Records & Books’ Maggot Brain.

Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Broadcast/Media Award in pop music:

Director Alex Stapleton, writer Stephen Witt and producer Philip Byron for their documentary, How Music Got Free. The Paramount+ film tells the story of how technology-driven disruption changed music in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Additional producers included Marshall “Eminem” Mathers, LeBron James, Paul Rosenberg, Maverick Carter, Jamal Henderson, Steve Berman, James Chapman, Bruce Gillmer, John Janick, Dan Sacks, Bridgette Theriault, James Thayer, Naomi Wright, Steve Stoute, Anthony Seyler, Stevenson Waite, Michael Maniaci and Malik Johnson.

Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Broadcast/Media Award in concert music:

Producer David Osenberg for the weekly program “Sounds Choral,” a production of WWFM, The Classical Network. The program explores the choral art form and is hosted by a rotating roster of choral conductors, composers and scholars including Ryan Brandau, Gabriel Crouch, Jason Max Ferdinand, Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, Christopher Jackson, James Jordan, Amanda Quist, Steven Sametz, Deborah Simpkin-King and Ethan Sperry.

ASCAP Foundation Paul Williams “Loved the Liner Notes” Award:

Lauren Du Graf for “Alice Coltrane: The Artist in Ascension” from The Carnegie Hall Concert on Impulse Records. 

Runner-up awards in the above category are also given to Elizabeth Nelson for “Hours in the Colosseum: Notes on the 1974 Tour” from The 1974 Live Recordings by Bob Dylan & The Band on Sony Legacy and Shana L. Redmond for Paul Robeson – Voice of Freedom: His Complete Columbia, RCA, HMV and Victor Recordings on Sony Classical.

The “Loved the Liner Notes” Award was established in 2016 and is funded by ASCAP Foundation President Paul Williams.

Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Awards in pop music:

Joe Boyd for And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, a history of music from all over the world that influenced jazz, rhythm & blues and rock ‘n’ roll, published by Faber & Faber

Brian Wright for The Bastard Instrument: A Cultural History of the Electric Bass, published by University of Michigan Press.

A runner-up award in this category goes to Sheila Curran Bernard for Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly’s Truths from Jim Crow’s Lies, published by Cambridge University Press.

Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Award in concert music:

David Suisman for Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America’s Soldiers, published by University of Chicago Press.

A runner-up award in this category goes to Mikel Rouse for The World Got Away: A Memoir, published by University of Illinois Press.

More information about The ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Awards is available at their site.