As fans from around the world spent money to witness the kick off of the star’s tour in Sweden, they may have caused the country’s inflation rate to stay higher than expected.In Europe’s relentless battle against inflation, another culprit has apparently emerged: Beyoncé.Last month, as the star kicked off her world tour in Stockholm, fans flocked from around the world to witness the shows, pushing up prices for hotel rooms. This could explain some of the reason Sweden’s inflation rate was higher than expected in May.Consumer prices in Sweden rose 9.7 percent last month from a year earlier, the country’s statistics agency, Statistics Sweden, said on Wednesday. The rate fell from the previous month’s 10.5 percent, but was slightly higher than economists had forecast.Michael Grahn, an economist at Danske Bank, said that the start of Beyoncé’s tour might have “colored” the inflation data. “How much is uncertain,” he wrote on Twitter, but it could be responsible for most of the 0.3 percentage point that restaurant and hotel prices added to the monthly increase in inflation.Restaurant and hotel prices rose 3.3 percent in May from the previous month, while prices for recreation and cultural activities and clothing also increased.Fans came from around the world to attend Beyoncé‘s sold-out shows. Their spending could explain some of the reason Sweden’s inflation rate was higher than expected in May.Felix Odell for The New York TimesBeyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, her first solo tour since 2016, started on May 10 in Stockholm, with two nights at a 50,000-capacity arena. Fans from around the world took advantage of favorable exchange rates and flew in to buy tickets that were cheaper than in the United States or Britain, for example.Mr. Grahn said in an email that he wouldn’t blame Beyoncé for the high inflation number but “her performance and global demand to see her perform in Sweden apparently added a little to it.”He added that the weakness of Sweden’s currency, the krona, would have added to demand as well as cheaper ticket prices. “The main impact on inflation, however, came from the fact that all fans needed somewhere to stay,” he said, adding that fans took up rooms as far as 40 miles away. But the impact will only be short-lived, as prices revert this month.While this is a “very rare” effect, he said that Sweden had seen this kind of inflationary effect on hotel prices before from a 2017 soccer cup final, when foreign teams played in the country.“So it is not unheard-of, albeit unusual,” Mr. Grahn said.Carl Martensson, a statistician at Statistics Sweden, said that “Beyoncé probably had an effect on hotel prices in Stockholm the week she performed here.” But he added, “it should not have had any significant impact of Sweden’s inflation in May.” More

RM and V emerged from a base in South Korea on Wednesday in fatigues. Three other members of the hugely popular boy band will finish their national service this month.RM and V of BTS emerged from a base in Chuncheon, South Korea, and gave fans a brief saxophone performance.Kim Hong-Ji/ReutersJin: check. J Hope: check. And on Tuesday, RM and V: check.That leaves only three members of the K-pop boy band BTS still doing their national service: Jimin, Jungkook and Suga. And when they too are discharged this month, their fans’ long wait will be over. BTS will be civilians again, and a vastly lucrative reunion can follow.RM and V emerged from a base in Chuncheon, South Korea, on Wednesday in military fatigues. V, 29, carried flowers, while RM, 30, had a saxophone on which he gave a brief impromptu performance on one knee.“There were tough and painful moments, of course,” RM said, as translated by The Korea Herald, “but during our service, I came to deeply appreciate the many people who have protected this country.”BTS’s record label, Big Hit Music, had pleaded with fans to stay home and not make a circus of the members’ discharges: “We kindly ask fans to send their warm welcome and support from their hearts.” But hundreds of screaming, camera-wielding, flag-waving fans showed up anyway.RM of BTS gave an impromptu saxophone performance after he and another member of the band, V, were discharged from South Korea’s military on Tuesday.Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNearly all able-bodied young men in South Korea are required to serve a year and a half of military duty.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Known by his nickname, Family Man, he was the group’s musical director, crafting the hypnotic rhythms and melodies that elevated reggae to global acclaim.Aston Barrett, who as the bass player and musical director for the Wailers — both with Bob Marley and for decades after the singer’s death in 1981 — crafted the hypnotic rhythms and complex melodies that helped elevate reggae to international acclaim, died on Saturday in Miami. He was 77.The cause of death, at a hospital, was heart failure after a series of strokes, according to his son Aston Barrett Jr., a drummer who took over the Wailers from his father in 2016.Mr. Barrett was already well known around Jamaica as a session musician when, in 1969, Mr. Marley asked him and his brother, Carlton, a drummer, to join the Wailers as the band’s rhythm section.More than anyone else, the collaboration between Mr. Marley and his bassist turned both the Wailers and reggae itself into a global phenomenon during the 1970s.Mr. Barrett with Mr. Marley in 1977. He kept the Wailers going after Mr. Marley died in 1981, playing an evolving sound rooted in his musical innovations.Kate SimonMr. Marley wrote and sang the songs and was the band’s soulfully charismatic frontman. Mr. Barrett arranged and often produced the music. He also kept the band organized during its constant touring, earning him the nickname Family Man — or, to his close friends, Fams.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The English singer and songwriter’s third album, featuring production from Danny L Harle and Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, is nonstop ear candy.Romance is a blast on Dua Lipa’s third album, “Radical Optimism.” It’s a thumping, reverberating, woofer-rattling, arena-scale sensation, something to exult in even when it doesn’t always go right.On Lipa’s first two albums, she juxtaposed flirtations and breakups with thoughts about power and gender. “I know you ain’t used to a female alpha,” she sang in the title track of “Future Nostalgia” in 2020, and she denounced male entitlement in “Boys Will Be Boys.” But on “Radical Optimism,” all that’s at stake is coupledom: sizing up each other, testing the possibilities, envisioning permanence or — surprisingly graciously — letting go. Her new songs treat single life as an adventure game full of ups and downs, but not as cataclysmic or tragic.Lipa, 28, has never bothered with subtlety. She aims for — and usually achieves — full-fledged bangers. There’s always an underlying confidence in her firm alto voice, and she has a gift for big, blunt, instantly legible pop hooks, the kind that sum up a situation in a terse chorus. “I’m not here for long/Catch me or I go Houdini,” she demands in “Houdini,” one of the album’s prerelease singles, creating an open-voweled, singable shorthand for making her escape.With “Future Nostalgia,” Lipa was an early mover in what grew into a pandemic-era disco revival. That album and others (from Jessie Ware, Doja Cat, Kylie Minogue, Roisin Murphy and Lady Gaga) would summon a communal clubland experience that had been shut down in 2020 and was sorely missed.Four-on-the-floor beats and snappy funk bass lines continue to drive Lipa’s tracks on “Radical Optimism,” which opens with “End of an Era,” a song about a club meet-up that might just be the right one. “Is this my happy ending?,” Lipa wonders amid cooing backup vocals, and she goes on to rap, “Another girl falls in love/Another girl leaves the club.”Lipa’s collaborators on “Radical Optimism” include Danny L Harle — who has easily moved from the self-conscious hyperpop of PC Music to making glossy, up-to-the-minute mainstream pop — and Kevin Parker, who creates era-melding grooves as Tame Impala. The productions reach back to the larger-than-life sounds of the 1980s, when hitmakers like Madonna and Michael Jackson commanded a pop monoculture with superhuman performances: singing, dancing, acting in videos, forever poised and strategic.Lipa shares that level of ambition. She has made it her business to be at once technical and physical, choreographed and carnal. Even in a much more fragmented pop landscape, her songs are built for a mass audience. The tracks on “Radical Optimism” are lavishly maximalist. They mingle sleek programmed sounds and luxurious live ones; bass, percussion and acoustic guitars bring a human touch, even as they’re surrounded by sci-fi synthesizers and metronomic beats.It’s an album of nonstop ear candy. “Training Season,” her demand for a partner who already knows “how to love me right,” has tickling guitar syncopations and girl-group harmonies popping out of nowhere. “French Exit,” in which Lipa decides to disappear instead of going through a laborious breakup — “Goodbye doesn’t hurt if I don’t say it” — laces a sputtering beat with playful, elusive instrumental cameos: finger cymbals, flute, handclaps, string-section swoops.“Falling Forever” harks back to disco-era dramas like Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” but flips the tone to positive thinking. It summons thundering drums as Lipa savors a blissful connection, belting “How long can it just keep getting better?”And “Happy for You” is a post-breakup song that radiates absolution for all involved. The singer sees her ex with a new girlfriend — “I think she’s a model” — and instead of jealousy or regret, she’s overjoyed that everything worked out. “Even the hard parts were all for the best,” she decides, and her voice leaps up — above double-time drums, swirling backup vocals and cavernous bass tones — as she realizes, “I must have loved you more than I ever knew,” at once self-congratulatory and unburdened.There’s immense discipline and effort behind the songs on “Radical Optimism,” and Lipa flaunts her work in the studio and in her effortful onstage dance routines. But she also brings a determined lightheartedness to her new songs, somehow managing not to take them too seriously. Romance can be all-encompassing and all-important in the moment. But if it doesn’t work out, she knows she can move on.Dua Lipa“Radical Optimism”(Warner Records) More

He will be the youngest music director in the orchestra’s 133-year history, and one of the youngest ever to lead a top American ensemble.The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which has been led for decades by conducting titans including Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim and Riccardo Muti, announced Tuesday that its next music director would be Klaus Mäkelä, a 28-year-old Finnish conductor whose charisma and clarity have fueled his rapid rise in classical music.When he begins a five-year contract in 2027 at 31, Mäkelä will be the youngest maestro in the ensemble’s 133-year history, and one of the youngest ever to lead a top orchestra in the United States.Mäkelä, who will become music director designate immediately, said in an interview that he did not think his age was relevant, noting that he had been conducting for more than half his life, beginning when he was 12.“I don’t think about it,” he said. “Music doesn’t really have any age.”Mäkelä, who will also take over as chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam in 2027, said he was joining the Chicago Symphony because it has “that intensity — that same sound from the past.”“You felt as if anything you would ask, they could actually improve and do more,” he said, recalling his recent guest appearances there. “For a conductor, that is a very, very special feeling because you see that there really are no limits to what you can achieve.”Mäkelä making his debut conducting the New York Philharmonic in December 2022.Chris LeeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More