Aurelia Butler

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    Duke Fakir, Last Surviving Member of the Four Tops, Dies at 88

    He sang tenor on hits like “Standing in the Shadow of Love,” “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” and “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch).”Abdul Fakir, who was known as Duke, the last remaining original member of the Four Tops, one of Motown’s best-selling and most beloved groups, died on Monday at his home in Detroit. He was 88.His family said in a statement that the cause was heart failure.Mr. Fakir sang first tenor with the Four Tops, who were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. The group’s hits not only helped define the “Motown Sound” but also the entire 1960s era of pop.Their classics included the exuberant “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” and the urgent “Reach Out, I’ll Be There,” both of which hit No. 1, along with the barreling Top 10 staples “It’s The Same Old Song,” “Standing In the Shadows of Love” and “Bernadette.”The Four Tops in an undated publicity photo. From left, Mr. Fakir, Levi Stubbs, Obie Benson and Lawrence Payton. Mr. Fakir had first met Mr. Stubbs at a neighborhood football game.Bettman Archive, via Getty ImagesFor a two-year period, the Four Tops worked with Motown’s celebrated songwriting and production team Holland-Dozier-Holland (the brothers Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier). After leaving the label in 1972, the quartet earned more Top 10 records with “Keeper of the Castle” and “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I Got”).On all the group’s songs, Mr. Fakir’s high, smooth voice added grace to harmonies that supported the baritone lead vocals of Levi Stubbs.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

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    Barbra Streisand, Spike Lee and Other Stars Endorse Harris

    Barbra Streisand lent her support to Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday, becoming the latest in a series of high-profile stars and celebrities who have coalesced around her candidacy since President Biden endorsed her as his successor.“President Biden and Vice President Harris ushered this nation out of the Trump chaos,” she said in a statement to The New York Times on Monday. “I’m so grateful to President Biden and so excited to support Kamala Harris. She will work to restore women’s reproductive freedom and continue with the accomplishments begun in the Biden-Harris administration.”Ms. Streisand praised Mr. Biden as “an honorable and compassionate leader” and called former President Donald J. Trump “a convicted felon” and a “pathological liar” who had been found liable for sexual assault and who had “incited an insurrection against our democracy.”Endorsements from Hollywood’s most recognizable figures can add cultural cache to candidates, and have traditionally helped campaigns raise money, turn out crowds at rallies and generate excitement on social media. Some campaigns have been leery of appearing too close to celebrities, fearing accusations of elitism. Both parties seek them; at the Republican National Convention last week, Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock and Dana White were among the celebrities supporting Mr. Trump.Since Mr. Biden announced he would not seek re-election, some stars have praised his decision, others have gotten behind Ms. Harris, and a few who made their views known earlier in the cycle have stayed quiet. Here’s a look at where some notable names in Hollywood now stand:George ClooneyMr. Clooney’s essay in The New York Times this month calling on Mr. Biden to not seek re-election rattled the Biden team and dealt a highly visible blow to the campaign at a particularly vulnerable moment, underscoring the power that stars can wield.A spokesman for Mr. Clooney said on Monday that the actor was not commenting on the latest developments in the race.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

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    Eminem Ends Taylor Swift’s Chart Run With His 11th No. 1 Album

    The rapper’s “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)” replaced the pop superstar’s “The Tortured Poets Department” after 12 weeks of dominance at the top.Eventually someone had to come along and bump Taylor Swift from No. 1 on the Billboard album chart — and it was Eminem.“The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce),” the latest LP by the 51-year-old shock-rapper from Detroit who has been posting No. 1s regularly for the entire 21st century, opens at the top of the Billboard 200 chart with the equivalent of 281,000 sales in the United States. That total includes 220 million streams and 114,000 traditional sales, all as digital downloads, according to data from the tracking service Luminate.It is Eminem’s 11th album to reach No. 1, a streak that ties him with Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand and Ye. The only artists ahead of them are Drake (13), Jay-Z and Taylor Swift (14 each), and the Beatles (19).Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” falls to No. 4 after an extraordinary 12-week run at the top, which began with blockbuster vinyl and streaming numbers. She continued to defeat all comers with a strategy of releasing special “versions” of her album, using bonus tracks and variant packaging to entice her fans to buy it again and again.Also this week, the K-pop boy band Enhypen opens at No. 2 with “Romance: Untold,” which had the equivalent of 124,000 sales, most from sales of CDs (17 collectible editions were available) and vinyl LPs. Zach Bryan’s “The Great American Bar Scene,” Swift’s last challenger, fell one spot to No. 3, and Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is in fifth place in its 73rd week on the chart. More

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    Charli XCX and Other Musicians Show Support for Kamala Harris on Social Media

    Charli XCX, John Legend and other musicians posted messages supporting the vice president’s nomination, while fans remixed an old speech into pop hits on TikTok.Within hours of President Biden’s announcement that he would not seek re-election and would instead endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, social media exploded with support from the pop music world.As concerns about Mr. Biden’s electability have accelerated in recent months, Ms. Harris, who is 59, with a big, diverse family, seems to have energized digitally engaged voters in a way that Mr. Biden did not.Fans quickly started posting remixes on TikTok that incorporated audio from Ms. Harris’s speeches, along with her laugh, into songs by Charli XCX, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Chappell Roan, Mitski and Kim Petras.The snippet most often used is from a speech Ms. Harris gave in May 2023. She was addressing the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics and recalled an adage from her mother: “She would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’”After pausing to laugh, Ms. Harris continued: “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” (The combination of a coconut emoji and a palm tree emoji has become shorthand to refer to Ms. Harris’s campaign.)Charli XCX, in a nod to her latest album, “Brat” — and its signature green album cover that has become a Gen Z emblem of the summer — set the tone (literally) Sunday night by posting: “kamala IS brat.” On X, formerly Twitter, the official Harris campaign account updated its header to match the color and typography of the album.The pop singer Kesha used the “coconut” quotation to open a pair of posts on TikTok, in which she takes a beat after the word “tree” before breaking into dance.Katy Perry, whose song “Roar” featured prominently in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016, posted a montage of videos of Ms. Harris soundtracked by a remix that integrated the “coconut” quotation and clips of Ms. Harris laughing into Ms. Perry’s new single “Woman’s World.” “It’s a woman’s world, and you’re lucky to be living in it,” Ms. Perry sings.On Sunday, Cardi B reposted a selfie video recorded on June 30, in which she says, in an extended and profane message, that Ms. Harris should have been the Democratic nominee all along. “Been told y’all Kamala should’ve been the 2024 candidate,” she wrote in the caption. “Y’all be trying to play the Bronx education, baby this what I do!!!”And Tina Knowles, mother of Beyoncé and Solange, posted a photo of her and Ms. Harris with a caption that began: “New, youthful, sharp, energy!!!!”Other artists have thrown their weight behind Ms. Harris, who will face former President Donald J. Trump if she is the nominee. Janelle Monáe posted to her Instagram story a simple “I’m in,” and John Legend, who praised Mr. Biden at length, said of Ms. Harris, “She’s ready for this fight.” More

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    ‘Barbie’ Was Supposed to Change Hollywood. Many See ‘No Effect.’

    The film was a global phenomenon and seemed to herald a new era of embracing stories by, about and for women. What happened?When “Barbie” was released in 2023, it quickly became a phenomenon. It was the top box office film of the year, earning $1.4 billion worldwide, and it became Warner Bros.’s highest-grossing film ever, outpacing both “Dark Knight” movies, “Wonder Woman” and every chapter in the “Harry Potter” franchise.It was a DayGlo-pink rebuttal to decades of conventional Hollywood thinking, and its success seemed to herald a new paradigm for the film industry. Movies written and directed by women and focused on female protagonists could attract enormous audiences to multiplexes around the world.Yet in the 12 months since the movie’s release, little has changed in Hollywood. Buffeted by dual labor strikes that went on for months and a general retrenchment by entertainment companies trying to navigate the economics of the streaming era, the industry has retreated to its usual ways of doing business.The box office is down 17 percent from last year at this time, and studios spooked by a fickle audience (yes to “Twisters,” no to “Fall Guy”) are again questioning the reliability of the theatrical marketplace. Films released in 2023 featured the same number of girls or women in a leading role as in 2010, according to a report from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. Ask around Hollywood and the consensus seems to be that “Barbie” is a singular success, a gargantuan feat helmed by particular talents, the writer-director Greta Gerwig and the star Margot Robbie. Translation: Don’t expect a lot of movies like that in theaters anytime soon.“‘Barbie’ had no effect,” said Stacy L. Smith, the founder of the inclusion initiative, which studies inequality in Hollywood. “It’s perceived cognitively as a one-off. They have individuated the Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig success and haven’t thought about how their own decision-making could be different and inclusive to create a new path forward.“Like most things with this industry, they’re like, ‘Oh, this is neat and shiny,’ and then they go right back to the way they’ve always been.”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

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    A New Era for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Begins

    As a comic book series to honor the Turtles’ 40th anniversary debuts, here’s a look back at their milestones.The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are getting a new comic book series Wednesday, from IDW Publishing, to commemorate their 40th anniversary. Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo have come a long way from their early comics days as turtles who, after being exposed to a mysterious green ooze, turned into sewer-dwelling heroes. They made the leap to animation, video games and merchandise. Here’s a look at some significant moments in Turtle history — and a glimpse at what lies ahead.WHERE IT BEGANThe cover of the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, from 1984. “We took our favorite things and kind of put it into a blender,” a creator, Kevin Eastman, said.Kevin Eastman/IDW PublishingThe Turtles were created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, two die-hard comic book fans in New Hampshire whose influences included ninjas by Frank Miller, the X-Men and the work of the comic book artist Jack Kirby. In imagining the Turtles, “we took our favorite things and kind of put it into a blender,” Eastman said in a phone interview, adding that they never thought the Turtles would be such a huge success. There is no “To Be Continued” at the end of the first issue, which was published in 1984, because “we never thought there’d be a second,” Eastman said. (They were wrong, of course. They both eventually quit their day jobs to focus on the Turtles.)THE FIRST ANIMATED SERIESThe animated series introduced the Turtles’ love of pizza.ParamountThe “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” animated TV series came out in December 1987, and it aired until 1996. It took a lighter tone than the comic, making it more suitable for younger audiences. In another instance of how far-fetched the success seemed at the time, Eastman recalled proudly telling his mother about the series, which would premiere around Christmas. But, he said in the interview, she didn’t believe him until she read it in TV Guide. The cartoon helped cement Turtles as a cultural and commercial phenomenon — and added pizza to their routine. And “by 1990, if you wanted to have a complete Ninja Turtles day, you could wake up in Turtles bedsheets wearing your Turtles pajamas, have your Turtles toothbrush and eat your cereal out of a Turtles bowl,” said Andrew Farago, the curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco and the author of a Turtles visual history.FEMALE TURTLESJennika went from human enemy to turtle ally.Brahm Revel/IDW PublishingWe 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

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    Review: A Lost Opera Returns, and Shouldn’t Be Lost Again

    Teatro Nuovo is giving Carolina Uccelli’s pioneering “Anna di Resburgo” its first performances since its premiere in 1835.Luck has a lot to do with legacy in music, and Carolina Uccelli didn’t have much of it.That’s why you may not recognize the name of this Italian composer, who was born in Florence in 1810 and died there in 1858. She was a promising talent, encouraged by Rossini, and had a first opera, “Saul,” under her belt by the time she was 20.Then came her second opera, “Anna di Resburgo,” in 1835. It had the misfortune of premiering in Naples a month after Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor.” Both featured a strong-willed soprano, and took place in the countryside of Scotland. But “Lucia” was a masterpiece written by a composer at the height of his powers, while “Anna” was the work of a beginner, not to mention a woman. (Few sophomore outings become classics; there’s a reason you almost never hear Wagner’s “Das Liebesverbot.”)“Anna” was given just two performances before closing. Uccelli went on to write songs and tour with her daughter, Emma. She didn’t, however, compose another opera. The score for “Saul” was lost, and “Anna” went on to languish in a Neapolitan library.That is, until it was picked up by Will Crutchfield, the invaluable bel canto specialist and founder of Teatro Nuovo, which at Montclair State University on Saturday gave the first known performance of “Anna di Resburgo” since 1835. Crutchfield tracked down the score, transcribed its 600 pages of chicken scratches and programmed it for his company, which is giving the opera a fantastic concert showing in repertory with Bellini’s more-famous “I Capuleti e i Montecchi.”“Anna” travels to the Rose Theater in Manhattan on Wednesday. If you’re an opera lover, get a ticket. So rare is it to see this art form’s lost history return to life with such care and expertise. Most important is the revelation that Uccelli never deserved to be overlooked; she may have been a beginner, but she was good.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

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    Alex Izenberg Was Almost a Teen Rock Star. His Second Chance Is Here.

    On his 12th birthday, in April 2003, Alex Izenberg went to Guitar Center to jam.He was the prankster of his Los Angeles public school, a high-strung and mischievous kid who hated class but loved rock ’n’ roll. He dressed the part, too — a small, cherub-faced boy with a poofy brown mop tucked beneath a top hat, a black Stratocaster slung across a velvet vest. At Guitar Center, his friends marveled at his best Hendrix, and he attracted a famous listener, too.“I’m checking out, and I think, ‘Whoever’s playing has a really cool tone, a great feel,’” Linda Perry, the former 4 Non Blondes singer and pop songwriter, remembered in a phone interview. “I’m expecting to see some older dude, seasoned. But I see this dorky little kid in high-water pants and big glasses. I was in love.”Perry wanted to know everything: Were Izenberg’s parents musicians? Where’d he learn to play? Did he have that rig at home? When Izenberg chuckled and said no, Perry bought it for him, plunking down $5,000 for a “fiesta red” Fender Relic and a Marshall amp. She left her number, too, so he started calling, imploring her to see his preteen trio, Din Caliber. “It was a mini-Zeppelin or Beatles, all virtuoso-type geniuses,” she said. “I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to take you guys in.’”“Life doesn’t always make sense; oftentimes, it doesn’t,” Izenberg said.Peyton Fulford for The New York TimesIzenberg raced down a trail of teenage stardom. He shifted to home-school to focus on music. Perry introduced the band to a producer. The group changed its name to Paper Zoo, cut an EP for her label and toured with Roger Daltrey in 2009. But at 18, Izenberg left the band because its retro-rock no longer excited him like the indie-rock that had become an obsession — Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes.Bad news soon ballooned. His longtime girlfriend left. His parents split, and lost their house. He moved in with his grandmother. And there, in the speckles of the popcorn ceiling and in the reflection of the TV screen, he began seeing faces. In 2012, at 21, Izenberg was diagnosed with schizophrenia.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