Aurelia Butler

More stories

  • 125 Shares99 Views

    in Music

    Mk.gee, an Unlikely Guitar God, Chases the Promise of Pop

    On first listen, or even fourth, the songs of Michael Gordon, a guitarist, producer and vocalist who performs as Mk.gee, are not the sort one imagines generating a modern frenzy.Cracked, shrouded and fuzzy, with jazz, AOR and classic rock DNA — far from the trendiest of building blocks — Mk.gee’s music can feel like a strange whisper or a brief tantrum. Its hooks are sneaky, the payoff more often implied than obvious. And it’s never one thing for very long before warping into something else or stopping altogether.His breakout album, “Two Star & the Dream Police,” which Mk.gee considers his official debut, is just over 30 minutes long. At concerts, he has taken to playing a track called “Candy” twice. With repeat exposure, it all starts to click.“This record was supposed to feel like a little forest fire,” said Gordon, a boyish 27, with greasy hair and an understated murmur, from the porch of his Silver Lake, Calif., home and studio, in a rare interview. “Little refractions of perfect songs amid a lot of chaos and weird atonal moments,” he added, calling it “a new recipe” that he hasn’t quite perfected.Yet since the independent release of “Two Star & the Dream Police” in February, and especially since the sold-out spring tour where the album’s 12 songs blossomed, that fire, stoked by word of mouth, has been spreading wildly. And it’s putting Mk.gee’s status as a connoisseur’s cult figure — your favorite musician’s favorite musician’s favorite musician — at risk.Michael Gordon, who performs as Mk.gee, is bringing guitar music into unexpected places.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

  • 125 Shares119 Views

    in Movies

    James Darren, Actor, Singer and ‘Gidget’ Heartthrob, Dies at 88

    His role as a surfer in that trendsetting hit movie led to success on television shows like “The Time Tunnel” and “T.J. Hooker,” and on the pop charts.James Darren, an actor and singer whose starring role as a California surfer in the “Gidget” movies made him one of the most popular heartthrobs of the late 1950s and early ’60s, died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 88.His son Jim Moret said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was congestive heart failure.Mr. Darren, a Philadelphia native who didn’t surf and wasn’t even a particularly strong swimmer, had been a contract player with Columbia Pictures when he was cast as an aspiring surf bum in “Gidget,” which also starred Sandra Dee in the title role and Cliff Robertson as the Big Kahuna, the leader of a surfing gang.Released in 1959, the movie told the story of a high school girl who befriends that gang in Malibu and develops a crush on Mr. Darren’s character, Moondoggie. It was a hit, and it became one of the first signs of the surfing craze that would soon include the music of the Beach Boys and the “Beach Party” films.Mr. Darren and Sandra Dee in a scene from “Gidget,” the 1959 movie that made him a star.Columbia Pictures, via Getty ImagesMr. Darren went on to play the character in two more “Gidget” films, “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” (with Deborah Walley in the title role) and “Gidget Goes to Rome” (with Cindy Carol); land a role in the acclaimed 1961 World War II drama “The Guns of Navarone”; carve out a long career in prime-time television, including a starring role on the 1966-67 time-travel series “The Time Tunnel”; and release a number of singles and albums, first as a purveyor of lightweight pop tunes and later as a lounge singer whose repertoire consisted mostly of standards.Before he was cast as Moondoggie, a character with a prominent singing role, Mr. Darren had never sung professionally. At first the studio considered having him lip-sync to someone else’s voice.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

  • 100 Shares149 Views

    in Music

    Ease Into Fall With 7 Songs for September

    Listen to tracks inspired by this month of transitions and memories from Green Day, Barry White, Fiona Apple and more.Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, whose “September” song is often misinterpreted.Gabrielle Ravet for The New York TimesDear listeners,In previous installments of this newsletter, I’ve compiled collections of songs about specific months, like June and August. But we’re now entering one that has a particular and persistent hold on the musical imagination (sing it with me now): Sep-tem-ber. This definitely calls for a playlist.Why are there so many songs about September? I think some of it has to do with the musicality of the word itself — its meter, its mouthfeel and the fact that it rhymes with one of the more evocative verbs in the English language: “remember.” That moment when late summer gives way to early fall is also a period of transition, a handy metaphor for growing older and a poignant seasonal reminder that time is indeed passing. Exactly the kind of poetic sentiment out of which countless great songs have emerged.For all the wistfulness that the month inspires, I find it interesting that the song most closely associated with it — Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” — is ecstatic and joyful. It makes prominent use of that September/remember rhyme scheme, but the tone is far from the self-reflective nostalgia of, say, Frank Sinatra’s “The September of My Years” or Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” I wonder if that variation on the theme has something to do with the Earth, Wind & Fire song’s continued popularity. Plenty of tracks about remembering focus on loss. “September,” instead, reminds us that there is an alternative: to celebrate a beloved memory by throwing a party and filling the dance floor in its honor.Naturally, Earth, Wind & Fire kick things off on today’s playlist, which also features more introspective songs from Big Star, Barry White and — a great artist with a seasonably appropriate name — Fiona Apple.Sharpen those freshly purchased No. 2 pencils, pull that favorite sweater out of the back of the closet and press play.Also, if you’re not ready to say goodbye to summer just yet, there’s still time to submit your personal song of the summer for a future Amplifier playlist. Keep those recommendations coming!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

  • 138 Shares109 Views

    in Music

    Sabrina Carpenter Beats Travis Scott to No. 1 by a Hair

    The pop singer and songwriter’s “Short n’ Sweet” debuts atop the Billboard 200 with the equivalent of 362,000, the third-best opening of the year.In an extraordinarily close contest on this week’s Billboard album chart that left the music industry biting its collective nails with anticipation over the holiday weekend, the pop singer Sabrina Carpenter triumphed over the veteran rapper Travis Scott to clinch the No. 1 spot — but just barely.Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet,” her sixth studio LP, featuring infectious tracks like “Espresso,” “Please Please Please” and “Taste” that have dominated streaming and radio playlists this year, opens at the top with the equivalent of 362,000 sales in the United States, according to the tracking service Luminate. That is the third-best opening week of the year, behind only Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, and it is Carpenter’s first time at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.But Carpenter, who released “Short n’ Sweet” on Aug. 23, came close to losing her big moment to a 10-year-old mixtape by Scott, “Days Before Rodeo,” which was rereleased on the same day. Scott’s album was credited with 361,000 sales — meaning the race came down to a margin of only about 1,000 copies, give or take a few. (Luminate’s publicly announced numbers are rounded.)Carpenter, 25, who began her career as a Disney Channel actress, has been releasing music for a decade. But she has been a major pop contender only for the last couple of years, with a string of bubbly and smart singles, like “Feather,” that have been pop-culture bulls-eyes; this year and last, she also performed as an opening act for a number of dates on Swift’s Eras Tour. She was widely expected to open on the chart with a big splash — until the rerelease announcement a few days earlier by Scott, who in addition to his popularity as a rapper is a master direct-to-consumer marketer.Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet” garnered 233 million streams in the United States. According to the formula that Billboard uses to reconcile streams with album sales, that means that clicks on streaming services gave her the equivalent of 176,000 album sales, nearly half Carpenter’s total for the week. She also sold 184,000 copies of the LP as a complete package.Scott’s “Days Before Rodeo,” revisited almost exactly 10 years from its initial release, had never been released commercially before, nor had it been widely available on all streaming services, according to Billboard. Yet streaming ended up being a relatively small part of its total consumption, with about 41 million clicks, equivalent to about 30,000 album sales.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

  • 100 Shares99 Views

    in Movies

    Daniel Craig Gets Explicit in Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Queer’

    At the Venice Film Festival, the star said he embraced the scenes with sexual encounters: ‘If I wasn’t in the movie and saw this movie, I’d want to be in it.’If you know Daniel Craig only as James Bond, “Queer” is liable to throw you for a loop. In this new film from Luca Guadagnino, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, Craig, 56, plays a drug addict whose sexual escapades and heroin use are filmed with matter-of-fact candor.But if you knew Craig even before he was pressed into Her Majesty’s Secret Service — when he was still an up-and-coming young actor who appeared in risky, sexually explicit films like “Love Is the Devil” and “The Mother” — then you might guess that “Queer” is much more in line with his sensibilities than some of the big studio fare he’s made recently are. At the film’s Venice news conference, he all but confirmed that hunch.“If I wasn’t in the movie and saw this movie, I’d want to be in it,” Craig told reporters. “It’s the kind of film I want to see, I want to make, I want to be out there. They’re challenging but hopefully incredibly accessible.”Adapted from the novel of the same name by William S. Burroughs, “Queer” follows Lee (Craig), an American expat wasting away in Mexico City. Most of Lee’s waking hours are spent pursuing some sort of high, whether that means drinking to excess in dive bars, cruising any handsome man to cross his path, or shooting up heroin while all alone in his apartment.In his linen suits, Lee lurches through life like a well-attired zombie until he meets Allerton (Drew Starkey), a beguiling young drifter whose sexuality seems up for grabs. Does he like Lee or does he just like being liked? Allerton says awfully little, which only beguiles Lee even more. As the older man’s romantic obsession grows, he entices Allerton to help him search for a drug that can supposedly induce a type of telepathy; if it can be scored, maybe he’ll learn what the object of his affection is really thinking.Written in the early 1950s but not published until 1985, the Burroughs novel is slight and scuzzy. Guadagnino takes a much different approach to the source material, building lavish sets (this Mexico City was erected at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios) and imbuing the story with a sweeping romanticism.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

  • 150 Shares99 Views

    in Music

    Sabrina Carpenter and Pop’s Next Gen Have a Secret Weapon: Amy Allen

    Some well-played profanity can make a pop song sizzle.But few expletives in recent memory have had the potentially career-altering crackle of the one let fly by Sabrina Carpenter, a former Disney Channel star, on “Please Please Please,” her Dolly Parton-meets-Abba confection that became a surprise No. 1 hit this summer.“Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another,” Carpenter flutters, before a plea to a new fling: “I beg you, don’t embarrass me, little sucker” — except instead of little sucker (the radio edit), she rhymes an unprintable four-syllable term of tongue-in-cheek endearment, dropping her voice low and lathering it in a knowing hillbilly sass.Carpenter sells it. But she had help — a playful, foul-mouthed voice in her ear insisting that a pop star these days might as well run Dolly through a TikTok-friendly system update, or sneak a Dada phrase like “that’s that me espresso” into the cultural lexicon.“Five years ago, I would have never thought it was OK,” said Amy Allen, the hit songwriter credited on “Please Please Please,” along with “Espresso” and every other track on Carpenter’s breakout album, “Short n’ Sweet.” But Top 40, in no small part thanks to Allen, is entering a much-needed era of quirk, in which regular jolts of the unexpected are cutting through a sludge of smooth-brained content.“Now I feel scared of generic things that sound like No. 1s,” said Allen, 32, who landed her first chart-topping hit, “Without Me” by Halsey, five years ago. “Listeners are just getting smarter and smarter now,” she added. “They want something to be odd, something to be off, something to be really catchy and unexpected about a lyric or melody. The days of really polished pop are shifting out.”“There’s not a lot of women that have a ton of longevity as songwriters, which is really upsetting,” Allen said. “I will do everything in my power to break that stereotype.”Adali Schell for The New York TimesWe 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

  • 88 Shares159 Views

    in Music

    What if Orchestras Were More Like Netflix?

    As subscriptions face an uncertain future, classical music could look to the membership models of streaming services and gyms for inspiration.Perhaps you spend your mornings at the gym, working out with the help of a playlist on Spotify. In the evening, you wind down with Netflix or a movie on Max. As you go to bed, you might even open a meditation app to help you fall asleep. Then you wake up, and do it all again.A routine like that is built on memberships that provide unlimited access to something for a monthly fee, and are tightly woven into our lives in part because they’re convenient. (Dangerously so: I’m far from alone in having realized too late how many free trials have turned into valves quietly hoovering up money from my bank account.) Why, then, have they not caught on in classical music performances?The model could go something like this: You pay a monthly membership fee to your local symphony orchestra that entitles you to attend however much you’d like. As with a gym or a streaming service, some people may go often; some, not at all. Regardless, the orchestra receives steady revenue, and you have full control of your calendar, with the ability to make plans even the day of a performance.While a handful of orchestras have experimented with this model, it hasn’t become standard because most institutions already have a long-established ticketing program they prefer: subscriptions. In that system, people are sold packages for a season, which involves planning evenings out up to a year or more in advance. This works for those who like to go on the same night of the week, or sit in the same seat. Orchestras, in turn, are provided with financial security.According to the League of American Orchestras, subscriptions have bounced back from a pandemic slump strongly enough that they grew by 7 percent from 2019 to 2024. Administrators, however, have long been anxious about the future of the subscription model. Less than a decade ago, the League itself commissioned a study that revealed subscriptions were not only in decline, but also out of touch with how people plan and purchase entertainment today.The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, shown performing in April, was an early adapter of the member model. “There just aren’t that many people in April who want to commit to concerts from September to June,” the ensemble’s leader said.Claire Loes for the St. Paul Chamber OrchestraWe 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

  • 100 Shares189 Views

    in Movies

    At Telluride, Experimental, Topical and Sometimes Crazy Movies

    A documentary made with Legos and a biopic starring a CGI monkey showed alongside films about abortion restrictions and other subjects in the news.As the 51st edition of the Telluride Film Festival came to a close on Monday, the films seemed to sort themselves into two categories: experimental or topical. The documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville and the musical director Michael Gracey each took big, ambitious swings to tell the stories of Pharrell Williams and the British pop star Robbie Williams (no relation). One used Legos. The other a CGI monkey. Other filmmakers turned the lens on issues in the news like transgender-care laws, abortion restrictions and further matters facing voters in the November election.And as always, conversations swirled around what will and will not go the distance to the Oscars in March.The director of Telluride, Julie Huntsinger, told the media at the start of the festival on Friday to prepare themselves for some crazy movies (though she used a more colorful term). It was less a warning than a promise, and it was followed by Neville’s film “Piece by Piece,” which was filmed entirely with Legos, depicting pop and rap superstars like Jay-Z, Missy Elliott and Pharrell Williams.“What if nothing is new?” Williams says in the glossy depiction of his life, due in theaters Oct. 11. “What if life is like a Lego set and you’re just borrowing from everyone else?”Later that evening Gracey (“The Greatest Showman”) relied on the magicians at Weta FX to depict Robbie Williams as a monkey, an approach that allowed the audience to “see Robbie as he sees himself,” the director told the crowd. Robbie Williams compared the experience of debuting his story to being “like an 11-year-old who’s having the best day possible.”“Piece by Piece” uses Legos to tell the story of Pharrell Williams.Focus FeaturesWe 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