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    Book Review: ‘The McCartney Legacy’ by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair

    “The McCartney Legacy” follows the superstar from the last gasp of the Beatles to “Band on the Run.” It’s 700 pages — and only the first volume planned.The MCCARTNEY LEGACY: Volume 1: 1969-73, by Allan Kozinn and Adrian SinclairAre the world’s libraries adequately stuffed yet with literature about the Beatles, still the best-selling band of all time, and their diaspora?Nah.Volume 1 of “The McCartney Legacy,” by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, arrives like a well-planned encore a year after the publication of “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present,” by Paul McCartney, edited by the poet Paul Muldoon. The latter volumes were packaged in Kermit green, presumably a nod to the two Pauls’ Irish heritage. The new book is a saucy red, as if inviting customers to stack it atop “The Lyrics,” stick on a bow and cue up the bouncy seasonal synth of “Wonderful Christmastime.”Peter Jackson’s documentary, “Get Back,” also released at the end of 2021, changed the way many people thought about McCartney: always popular but wrongly blamed for the Beatles’ breakup, and often critically drubbed as a middle-of-the-roader given to sappiness or, worse, insincerity. There has always been blatant ageism and sexism in the dismissal of certain McCartney tunes as “granny music” — and this is a problem why? — likewise the idea that his ease with children and nursery-rhyme dabblings made him less of a rocker.Watching McCartney in “Get Back,” his boyish face solemnized by a beard, show up consistently (and at least once tear up), urging “a serious program of work” as his bandmates sulked or even stalked off, rebranded him as a devoted boss who brought his whole self to the office. Seeing him pull the film’s title song out of the air, soaring on bass and guitar before sinking into pillowy ballads at the piano, reminded viewers that, oh yeah, that guy who could be kind of corny and hammy in MTV videos is a musical genius (“about the only one that I am in awe of,” Bob Dylan told Rolling Stone); while his confidence in a sweater vest made even lesbians of my acquaintance swoon. At 80, McCartney continues to fill stadiums with screaming, lighter-hoisting fans.Kozinn, a former reporter and critic for The New York Times, and Sinclair, an English documentarian, were influenced by the methods of Mark Lewisohn, the exacting Beatles historian currently at work on the second volume of a trilogy about the group (the first was 900 pages, and that was an abridgment). In a way “The McCartney Legacy” out-Lewisohns Lewisohn, taking almost 700 pages to cover only five years, from the dying embers of “The End” (1969) to the Duracell bolt of “Band on the Run” (1973), by the star’s new group, Wings.McCartney with his wife, Linda, in 1971. Despite limited experience, she joined him as a keyboardist in Wings.Evening Standard/Hulton Archive, via Getty ImagesDescribed in minute detail are McCartney’s legal troubles with the Beatles manager he didn’t want, Allen Klein, and his retreat to rural Scotland with his new wife, Linda. Also the bumpy formation of Wings, which integrated the game but inexperienced Linda on keyboards and backing vocals — and his decision to go high (and get high, high, high) when his longtime writing partner, John Lennon, went low.But the text, dotted with tour ephemera and recording session recaps, reads less like a pop-rock “Power Broker” than a set of extended liner notes, a devoted document dump, assembled from diaries, court papers and reporting fresh and reconstituted. Seemingly finished with biographies since he authorized his friend Barry Miles to write “Many Years From Now,” published in 1997, the man himself was not interviewed for this project (though Kozinn has sat with him on other occasions) but gave the thumbs-up to other sources.The result is aptly patchwork, considering that McCartney — even as he became a billionaire — is constitutionally a saver and joiner of disparate parts, in life and art (listen to “Junk” for a meditation on waste in capitalist society). But it’s deft patchwork, the seams between old and new tucked away in the neat drawer of its index.Inevitably, too, “The McCartney Legacy” is a graveyard of the once-robust music print press: Melody Maker, Disc, NME — “Enemy!” McCartney once exclaimed. His jousts with journalists give the book some of its best points of tension. Displeased with a negative profile, he and Linda once wrapped up a turd made by their baby daughter Stella (now a major fashion designer), according to Wings’ former drummer Denny Seiwell, and sent it to the reporter responsible. “Hold your hand out you silly girl,” McCartney telegrammed one music critic, Penny Valentine, quoting the Beatles’ “Martha My Dear,” after she called his first solo album “a bitter disappointment.” She was just wrong, he told her. “It is simple it is good and even at this moment it is growing on you.”And you gotta love the aghast reaction of Clive James to the McCartneys’ somewhat cringey (though intermittently adorable) foray into television variety: a “monstro-horrendo, superschlock-diabolical special,” James wrote, that “burgeoned before the terror-stricken eye like a punctured storage tank of semolina.”Trivia, the coin of the realm in pop culture writing, is spilled here in abundance. Lots of it feels relevant or at least redolent, like that Seiwell once played at Mount Airy Lodge, the place in the Poconos known for heart-shaped tubs, and also at Judy Garland’s last performance. Other facts, like the exact dimensions and cost of the luxury liner that took the McCartneys from Le Havre to New York, might be superfluous.Most notably in a book that is all notes — both musical and literary — is how much its subject, in between eponymous albums, is forever trying to escape being Paul McCartney. The “man of a thousand voices,” as Valentine called him, is also a man of a thousand faces: writing songs for others under the fusty nom de plume “Bernard Webb”; checking into hotels under the alias “Billy Martin”; pretending to be a socialite named “Percy ‘Thrills’ Thrillington”; producing as “Apollo C. Vermouth”; signing his own sleeve copy as “Clint Harrigan”; even titling a song and album — his greatest, in my opinion — after a preferred pseudonymous surname, “Ramon.”There will be thousands more pages written about Paul McCartney, and yet, he seems to be taunting, we will never catch him.THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY: Volume 1: 1969-73 | By Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair | 720 pp. | Illustrated | Dey Street Books | $35 More

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    10 Stages and Screens Where I Saw Connection

    For our critic-at-large, “Fat Ham,” “Severance,” “A Strange Loop” and “Sandman” were some of the places she found truth and transcendence.I never venture too far from a theater, but when I did have some time away from New York stages, I was watching TV and movies. In so many of my favorites of 2022, there’s a sense of humanity to the work, whether that means it featured people connecting or simply being honest with themselves and others. Here are the plays, musicals, shows and films that stuck with me this year.‘Cost of Living’That Martyna Majok’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2018 play is written with such gut-busting empathy and humanity shouldn’t be a shock to anyone who’s read the script or seen the previous productions. And yet, “Cost of Living” was still surprising — stunning, even — thanks to the four actors (Gregg Mozgala, Katy Sullivan, Kara Young and David Zayas) and their portrayal of caregivers and patients in a story about the ways we look after one another and what that care costs us. Plays about connections can so easily turn into sentimental weep-fests that manipulate you into tears, but the script, cast and Jo Bonney’s compassionate direction made this Broadway gem feel not just tender but true. (Read our review of “Cost of Living.”)Gregg Mozgala and Kara Young in “Cost of Living.”Sara Krulwich/The New York Times‘300 el x 50 el x 30 el’When I try to describe this epic work by the Belgian theater collective FC Bergman, I get bogged down in contradictions: Grotesque yet radiant. Chaotic but woven into coherence by theme and feeling. Depressing, yet steeped with something even more forceful than joy — utter transcendence. Transforming the Harvey Theater into a village, with live animals and a pond, “300 el” drew inspiration from the biblical story of Noah’s ark. A film crew circled the stage, providing interior views to a pigeon homicide, a deadly game of William Tell and a feast where even the furniture is devoured. When the production ends in song and dance — a tameless exaltation of noise and movement — it seemed to leave even the air in the theater tremulous with excitement. (Read our feature on “300 el x 50 el x 30 el.”)‘Fat Ham’More than anything — including James Ijames’s whip-smart writing, Saheem Ali’s vivacious direction and the cast’s delightful performances — what most stood out to me in the Public’s staging of “Fat Ham” was the joy that seemed to emanate from every person in the room. Who knew “Hamlet,” a tragedy rife with revenge and murder, could be expanded to become a work about queerness and Black masculinity — and a funny, smart work at that? Ijames, apparently, and Ali, whose gleaming production ended in what felt like a party where everyone, audience included, was welcome to attend. (Read our review of “Fat Ham.”)‘A Strange Loop’It’s been quite a year for Black queer theater, due in large part to the Broadway debut of Michael R. Jackson’s mind-bending, genre-busting musical “A Strange Loop.” The production, starring an unforgettable Jaquel Spivey, succeeds on multiple levels: It provides trenchant commentary on Black art, the Black body, religion, masculinity and queerness, while also being laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreaking. As for the technical elements, its structure, choreography and score coalesce into a prime example of what Broadway can do at its best. (Read our review of “A Strange Loop.”)Jaquel Spivey stars in the Broadway musical “A Strange Loop.”Sara Krulwich/The New York Times‘Oratorio for Living Things’I knew I was seeing something special when I went to Ars Nova’s production of Heather Christian’s “Oratorio,” because I was infected with a desperate urge to see it again — even before I was through seeing it the first time. Having grown up with a Catholic education and Sunday masses, I’ve never felt connected to religious institutions, but Christian’s profound work, directed by Lee Sunday Evans, created a kind of secular mass for nonbelievers and believers alike. The exquisite vocals of the cast were magnified by the miniature amphitheater-style setup of the space, which created an aural experience that — like the text itself — felt both grand and intimate. (Read our review of “Oratorio for Living Things.”)‘English’I’m a sucker for works that examine language — the politics of it, the limitations and freedoms that can be found in words. So I was already onboard for Sanaz Toossi’s play, about a class in Iran where the students are preparing to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or Toefl. Under Knud Adams’s direction, the cast draws the audience into its word games, linguistic stumbles and individual struggles to learn and assimilate, whether for work or family or dreams of a life in America. (Read our review of “English.”)‘The Sandman’As a fierce fan of the author Neil Gaiman and owner of his complete “Sandman” graphic novel collection, I was so nervous about Netflix’s adaptation that I asked a friend — a fellow fan — to watch the first episode with me for emotional support. The series does justice to its characters with perfectly cast actors, including a mesmerizing Tom Sturridge, who embodies the brooding, awe-inspiring king of dreams with such finesse and gravitas that it’s as though Morpheus himself has escaped from the comics. It’s not just the characters who are well-matched; the world of “Sandman” is portrayed with sweep, imagination and such respect for the original illustrations that much of the dialogue and panels are replicated. I can’t wait for Season 2. (Read our critic’s notebook on “The Sandman.”)Gwendoline Christie and Tom Sturridge in the Netflix series “Sandman.”Netflix‘Severance’“Severance” may be my new favorite TV series. Perhaps I’m being hyperbolic, still buzzed with enthusiasm even months after my second time binge-watching it. Adam Scott gives a stellar performance as an employee of a shady corporation who elects to have his consciousness split between his work and outside selves. The show has an exquisite eye and ear for terror, wit and mundane interactions, so that it manages to be both otherworldly and eerily familiar. As for the script — the dialogue’s so fantastic that it makes me want to be a better writer. (Read our review of “Severance.”)‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’I’ve often wondered, in our age of multiversal franchises, what a multiverse narrative would look like if the story were driven by the characters’ emotional development and interpersonal relationships rather than just battle scenes, Easter eggs, and routes to spinoffs and sequels. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was my answer. It contained the unpredictability and boundary-expanding possibilities of the multiverse while staying grounded in the story of a family. Every moment of the film held a new delight. (Read our review of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”)‘Oresteia’When I think back to Robert Icke’s production of “Oresteia,” Aeschylus’ trilogy of Greek tragedies about a family that eats itself from the inside out, I think of one moment. Klytemnestra is grieving after her husband Agamemnon has killed their daughter Iphigenia because of a prophecy that the act would grant his army “fair winds” in war. After the deed, the winds sweep in, the doors to the house are flung open, ethereal white light streams in, and Klytemnestra is caught in a frenzy of flying papers. But what made the production so memorable wasn’t just the special effects but Anastasia Hille’s electrifying performance as Klytemnestra, a woman who folds in to grief and lets it fuel her revenge. (Read our review of “Oresteia.”) More

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    11 Ways I Escaped Reality This Year

    Our critic was haunted, in a good way, by the performances she saw in movies, theater and TV that offered glimpses into other worlds.In a year when so much, including our democracy, felt topsy-turvy, I was drawn to entertainment that took me out of our real world to another realm. Be it the supernatural, the surreal, the spirit world, or just a superb performance: Here’s my list of 11 otherworldly movies, TV series, actors and plays that brought me joy and centeredness amid the chaos.‘Macbeth’In Sam Gold’s take on “Macbeth,” I loved the lustful love story between Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga, but is it weird to say that I also really dug the stew? When we entered the theater, the three witches, dressed in sweaters and jeans, were already onstage stirring their pot, and later they utter the lines that seal Macbeth’s fate. But at the end of the play, when everyone in the cast sits together and shares a bowl, this update, along with one of the witches (Bobbi MacKenzie) singing Gaelynn Lea’s ballad “Perfect,” enacted healing. It reminded me that despite the setbacks that befell the cast and our country, being alive and in the community of theater was something to celebrate. (Read our review of “Macbeth.”)‘The Woman King’With “The Old Guard,” the filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood proved she had the chops for a feminist superhero flick. But with the Viola Davis-led “Woman King,” she went epic in scale and story. She wove in the history of the Agojie, the all-female army in the West African kingdom of Dahomey; produced brilliant fight scenes with actors who performed their own stunts; and explored war, sexual assault and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Here, prophecy is protection, and though it is never named as such, the Dahomey religious practice of Vodun is a guide for Davis’s character, General Nanisca, as she prepares to take on enemies, foreign and domestic, and confront her own demons. (Read our review of “The Woman King.”)Viola Davis, center, stars in “The Woman King.”Ilze Kitshoff/Sony Pictures‘P-Valley’Set at a strip club in Mississippi, the Starz series “P-Valley” is a “love letter to all women who are scrapping it out, but particularly for the Black women that I think a lot of people thumb their noses at, even Black folks,” according to its creator, Katori Hall. It is a sentiment channeled through the veteran dancer and aspiring gym owner Mercedes (Brandee Evans) and the up-and-coming Keyshawn (Shannon Thornton), who is trapped in her career and abusive marriage. But it is Hoodoo, the spiritual practice introduced to them by the club’s security guard Diamond (Tyler Lepley), that might save them. Based on the Season 2 cliffhanger, I’m hoping Diamond’s efforts worked or that he will be there to ward off evil spirits and people in the future. (Streaming on Starz.)‘Reservation Dogs’A coming-of-age tale told through four Indigenous teenagers — Elora, Bear, Cheese and Willie Jack — in the fictional town of Okern, Okla., “Reservation Dogs” masterfully pokes fun at Hollywood stereotypes and acknowledges the nuances of Native culture. While William “Spirit” Knifeman (Dallas Goldtooth) is a bumbling spirit guide who gives Bear unsound advice, he is also the counterpoint to ancestral “spirits” such as Elora’s grandmother or Daniel, a friend of the four teens whose suicide prompts them to leave their reservation (or at least attempt to). In the wonderfully rich ninth episode, Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) seeks advice from her aunt and Daniel’s mother, Hokti, who is incarcerated. After Willie Jack makes an offering of Cheez-Its, Flaming Flamers chips and a Skux energy drink, Hokti (Lily Gladstone) reveals that the many spirits surrounding Willie Jack will help her in time. (Streaming on Hulu.)‘The Piano Lesson’ and ‘Death of a Salesman’Ghosts came in different forms this Broadway season. In her revival of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “The Piano Lesson,” LaTanya Richardson Jackson decided to literalize the ghost of the white slave owner, Sutter. Though we never see him, his haunting of the Charles family becomes all too real, making the family’s battles over a piano a deeper allegory of race, property and American history. Equally compelling is Miranda Cromwell’s revival of “Death of a Salesman,” whose all-Black family includes Wendell Pierce as Willy Loman and Sharon D Clarke as his wife, Linda. Willy’s older brother, Ben (André De Shields), is not just a ghost but a griot, too. Sporting a white cane, a white suit and bedazzled shoes, Ben plagues Willy with his success while his spirit beckons his younger brother to the other side. This infuses the play with a new sense of ambiguity, never justifying Willy’s final decision but adding a layer of empathy and compassion. (Read our reviews of “The Piano Lesson” and “Death of a Salesman.”)Wendell Pierce, left, as Willy Loman and Andre De Shields as Ben Loman in “Death of a Salesman.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesRegina HallRegina Hall showed her versatility this year with two wildly different performances. In Mariama Diallo’s horror movie “Master,” she plays Gail Bishop, who, as the first Black dean of a residence hall at the elite Ancaster College, must constantly contend with racism and its impact on her and on Black students. In Adamma Ebo’s comedy “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul,” she is Trinitie Childs, the wife of a disgraced Southern Baptist pastor (Sterling K. Brown) and a woman obsessed with climbing back to her former state of church glory. The way she evokes Trinitie’s pity, pettiness, petulance and pride gives this film its most memorable and haunting moments. (Read our reviews of “Master” and “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.”)‘Nope’The cinephile in me was pleasantly surprised that Jordan Peele’s “Nope” was a movie about movies. Peele not only pays homage to early film and photography technologies, and the suspense and terror brought on by Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Jaws,” but he also does so while remembering those African Americans whose early contributions to the motion picture industry have been forgotten or ignored. Thanks to Peele’s clever writing, creative directing and smart casting of his frequent collaborator Daniel Kaluuya (“Get Out”) as well as the magnanimous Keke Palmer, this movie about gentrification, U.F.O.s and racial discrimination ended up being just an old-fashioned, feel-good movie, the kind we still desperately need. (Read our review of “Nope.”)‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’It was a bold move to follow up on a sci-fi classic starring David Bowie as an extraterrestrial. Rather than compete with such memorable casting, Showtime’s 10-episode series “The Man Who Fell to Earth” humanized its protagonist, Faraday (Chiwetel Ejiofor), by doubling his outsiderness: He arrives in the United States as both an alien and a Black man. In an electrifying sixth episode on jazz music, Faraday and other characters discover a sound of their shared humanity and a possible key to salvaging both of their planets. (Streaming on Showtime.)Chiwetel Ejiofor stars in the TV series “The Man Who Fell to Earth.”Showtime‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’I can’t stop raving about this movie — the costumes, the makeup, the editing (oh, the editing!). The fight scenes, the I.R.S. scenes. The marvelous Michelle Yeoh, playing the laundromat owner and cosmic warrior Evelyn Wang, and Stephanie Hsu, playing her disenchanted daughter, Joy. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who work under the name Daniels, have said that this is mostly a film about the confusion that arises when its characters believe they are in different movie genres from one another. I also admire how this genre diversity (thriller, sci-fi, martial arts, domestic drama) perfectly captured expansive cultural identities (immigrant narratives, Asian American families, queer children) and the depth of our earliest love story (between mother and daughter) — all of which still seem to be unmined in Hollywood. (Read our review of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”)Brian Tyree HenryThe surreal TV series “Atlanta” started off focused on the Princeton dropout (Donald Glover) who became his rapper cousin’s manager, but in its final season it was mainly about the rapper, Alfred a.k.a. Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), and his journey to define himself beyond the trappings of fame, wealth or the music industry. His textured performance gave Alfred more emotional depth as his character confronted feral hogs, white privilege in hip-hop and his own mortality. Henry’s onscreen brilliance led Lila Neugebauer to rewrite and reshoot key scenes in her debut film, “Causeway,” now on Apple+, devoting more time to the friendship between his character and Jennifer Lawrence’s. The result is a moving portrait of grief and hope, in which Henry lights up the film. (Read our review of “Causeway.”) More

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    Man Is Sentenced to 21 Years in Shooting of Lady Gaga’s Dog Walker

    Two of the singer’s French bulldogs were stolen during the attack in Hollywood last year, during which her dog walker was shot in the chest, the police said.A man who shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker during a violent robbery last year during which two of the singer’s French bulldogs were stolen was sentenced on Monday to 21 years in prison, prosecutors said.The man, James Howard Jackson, reached a deal with prosecutors under which he pleaded no contest to one count of attempted murder and admitted to inflicting great bodily injury and to “a prior strike,” according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.Mr. Jackson, 20, was immediately sentenced to 21 years in state prison, the district attorney’s office said. “The plea agreement holds Mr. Jackson accountable for perpetrating a coldhearted, violent act and provides justice for our victim,” the office said in a statement.Ryan Fischer, the dog walker who was shot in the chest during the attack on Feb. 24, 2021, in Hollywood, spoke directly to Mr. Jackson in court shortly before Mr. Jackson entered his plea, Rolling Stone reported.“You shot me and left me to die, and both of our lives have changed forever,” Mr. Fischer said, according to Rolling Stone. He added that the shooting led to “lung collapse after lung collapse,” as well as the loss of his career and friendships.Still, Mr. Fischer told Mr. Jackson, according to Rolling Stone: “I do forgive you. With the attack, you completely altered my life. I know I can’t completely move on from the night you shot me until I said those words to you.”It was not immediately clear who Mr. Jackson’s lawyer was.Mr. Jackson was accused of participating in the robbery along with two others, Jaylin White and Lafayette Whaley, who were also charged in the case last year.The area where Lady Gaga’s dog walker was shot and two of her French bulldogs were stolen in Los Angeles last February.Chris Pizzello/Associated PressThe police had said that the robbers, who grabbed the dogs and fled in a car after the shooting, were not targeting the French bulldogs because they belonged to Lady Gaga.Evidence instead suggested that the men knew that the breed was valuable, according to the police. Lady Gaga had offered a $500,000 reward for the safe return of the dogs, which are named Koji and Gustav.Mr. Fischer, who was critically wounded in the shooting, had recalled lying in a pool of blood and holding one of Lady Gaga’s dogs that had not been stolen in the attack.In August, Jaylin White and Mr. Whaley each pleaded no contest to one count of second-degree robbery, the district attorney’s office said. Mr. White was sentenced to four years in state prison, and Mr. Whaley was sentenced to six years in state prison, the office said.The police said last year that two others — Harold White and Jennifer McBride — had been charged with being accessories after the shooting. Ms. McBride reported that she had found the dogs and had responded to a reward email to return them, the police said.Ms. McBride ultimately took the dogs to a Los Angeles police station, the police said. The police said that they later discovered that Ms. McBride had a relationship with one of the men who had been arrested.According to the district attorney’s office, Harold White pleaded no contest on Monday to one count of being a former convict in possession of a gun. He is scheduled to be sentenced next year, the office said. Ms. McBride’s case is continuing, the office said. More

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    Taylor Swift Fans Sue Ticketmaster’s Parent Company

    In a lawsuit filed on Friday in a California court, a group of 26 fans said Ticketmaster had engaged in anticompetitive conduct.A group of 26 fans of the singer-songwriter Taylor Swift filed a lawsuit on Friday accusing Ticketmaster’s parent company of anticompetitive conduct and fraud several weeks after a chaotic, glitch-filled sale of tickets for Ms. Swift’s upcoming tour left thousands of eager fans empty-handed and unhappy.The 33-page complaint, filed in the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County, came after Ticketmaster canceled the public sale of tickets last month for Ms. Swift’s Eras Tour, 52 shows scheduled to begin in March. The resulting outcry from fans prompted calls from lawmakers to break up the 2010 merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation.The complaint accuses Ticketmaster of anticompetitive conduct, saying the company has long perpetuated a “scheme” by forcing fans to exclusively use it for presale and sale prices, which are higher than what a competitive market price would be.Ticketmaster also “forced attendees to exclusively use” the platform that it operates for the resale of tickets, called the Secondary Ticket Exchange, to obtain fees and profits above what it could earn in a competitive market, the complaint states. That “anticompetitive behavior,” according to the lawsuit, harms fans and the ticket market.Fans who tried to buy tickets during a presale in mid-November reported waiting in queues for hours or being locked out of online sales. They had to preregister on Ticketmaster and be designated Verified Fans, but, for many, that didn’t help. Ticketmaster ultimately canceled its planned public sale of tickets amid the high demand.The Cultural Impact of Taylor Swift’s MusicNew LP: “Midnights,” Taylor Swift’s 10th studio album, is a return to the pop pipeline, with production from her longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff. Here is what our critic thought of it.Millennial Anti-Hero: On her latest album, Swift probes the realizations and reckonings of many 30-something women around relationships, motherhood and ambition.Fight for Her Masters: Revisit the origin story of Swift’s rerecordings of her older albums: a feud with the powerful manager Scooter Braun.Pandemic Records: In 2020, Swift released two new albums, “Folklore” and “Evermore.” In debuting a new sound, she turned to indie music.“Hundreds of thousands of people waited from four to eight hours and never got an opportunity to buy tickets, so they just want the system to change,” said Jennifer Kinder, a lawyer representing the fans.The lawsuit asks the court to stop Ticketmaster from engaging in similar conduct in the future and to fine the company $2,500 for each violation of a state code that governs unfair competition in California, where the parent company, Live Nation, is based.Even before the botched sale of Taylor Swift tickets, Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, had come under scrutiny for its power.Justin Lane/EPA, via Shutterstock“It has to be made fair,” said Ms. Kinder, who added that she and her 11-year-old daughter were Swift fans. “This is not a fair market. This is not supply and demand. This is a manipulated market that benefits Ticketmaster.”In 2010, Ticketmaster, a ticketing giant, merged with Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promotion company, becoming Live Nation Entertainment. The company, which says it processes 500 million tickets per year in more than 30 countries, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.Greg Maffei, the chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, said in an interview on CNBC last month that the company “could’ve filled 900 stadiums,” and he partly blamed Swift’s popularity for the problems. “The reality is, Taylor Swift hasn’t been on the road for three or four years, and that’s caused a huge issue,” he said.Ticketmaster apologized in November to Swift fans for the problems with its ticket sales for the Eras Tour.It said that more than two million tickets for the tour were sold on Nov. 15, the most for an artist in a single day. Ticketmaster said it had faced a “staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have codes” to buy tickets, resulting in 3.5 billion system requests, four times its previous peak.Even before the botched sale of the Swift concert tickets, Live Nation had come under scrutiny for its power and size. The Justice Department has in recent months been investigating its practices and whether the company maintains a monopoly over the multibillion-dollar live music industry, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.Ms. Swift called the situation “excruciating” in a sharply worded statement on Instagram last month that did not name Ticketmaster.Ms. Swift wrote that she was “extremely protective” of her fans and had brought “so many elements” of her career in house in order to improve fan experiences “by doing it myself with my team who care as much about my fans as I do.”“It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse,” Ms. Swift added. “There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward. I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.” More

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    Taylor Swift Holds at No. 1 as Christmas Music Returns to the Charts

    “Midnights” and “Anti-Hero” top the Billboard 200 and Hot 100, but nostalgic favorites are starting to arrive in force.Taylor Swift holds the top spots on the Billboard album and singles charts this week, as a wave of holiday music arrives with help from streaming playlists.Swift’s “Midnights” reigns atop the Billboard 200 album chart for a fifth time, with the equivalent of 151,000 sales in the United States, according to the tracking service Luminate. Her single “Anti-Hero” notches its sixth No. 1 on the Hot 100, with 21 million streams and 69 million “airplay audience impressions,” a measurement of the song’s popularity on radio.Otherwise, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas — particularly on the singles chart, where six nostalgic favorites reach the Top 10. Mariah Carey’s 28-year-old “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is No. 2, and Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (1958) is No. 3, sending Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s recent dark pop hit “Unholy” to fourth place. Bobby Helms’s “Jingle Bell Rock” (1957), at No. 5, and Burl Ives’s “A Holly Jolly Christmas” (1964), at No. 6, beat out the latest from Drake and 21 Savage, whose “Rich Flex” lands at No. 7.Also in the Top 10: Andy Williams’s “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” (1963) is No. 9, and Wham!’s “Last Christmas” (1984) is No. 10.On the album chart, Drake and 21 Savage’s “Her Loss” holds at No. 2 and Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” is No. 3. (Along with “Midnights,” those positions have held firm for three weeks.) From there, the Christmas brigade begins. Michael Bublé’s “Christmas” (2011) is No. 4, bumping Lil Baby’s “It’s Only Me” to fifth place.Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” (a version of an LP that dates to 1960) is No. 8 and the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965) is No. 10. More

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    Music Inspired by Notre-Dame Fire Wins a Top Prize

    The British composer Julian Anderson won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for “Litanies,” a meditation for cello and orchestra.When a fire broke out at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019, the British composer Julian Anderson was devastated.“Seeing a precise and beautiful and precious structure like that dissolving almost into the fire was very, very traumatizing,” he said in an interview.Anderson soon began channeling some of his despondence into “Litanies,” a 25-minute meditation for cello and orchestra. In the second movement, a series of chords emerges then melts away, echoing the disaster.On Monday, “Litanies” won the 2023 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, one of contemporary music’s most prestigious prizes. The Grawemeyer, which is administered and was announced by the University of Louisville in Kentucky, comes with $100,000.In choosing Anderson, 55, the prize paid homage to a prolific composer known for his vivid imagination. His music draws on a variety of traditions — blending folk, for example, with more modern sounds. He has won commissions from top orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.The composer Marc Satterwhite, who directs the award, praised “Litanies” for its exploration of “virtually every sound a cello and orchestra can make together.” Anderson wrote the piece for the cellist Alban Gerhardt, who premiered the work in 2020 with the National Orchestra of France.“It spans a vast emotional range and is constantly inventive,” Satterwhite said in a statement, “but always toward an expressive end, never for the sake of novelty.”Anderson completed “Litanies” in 2019, several months after the fire and a year after the death of his close friend Oliver Knussen, the influential composer and conductor.Knussen’s death also influenced the work. “There is a sense of time running out,” Anderson said of a cadenza that gradually dissipates.The Grawemeyer has been awarded to some of the most important modern composers, including Gyorgy Ligeti, John Adams, Tan Dun, Thomas Adès, Pierre Boulez, Kaija Saariaho, Olga Neuwirth and Esa-Pekka Salonen, among others. Anderson will accept the prize in Louisville in the spring.Anderson, a professor of composition and composer-in-residence at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, said that he hoped the award would help bring attention to the importance of contemporary music and live performance.“There is nothing that replaces the live experience,” he said. “The joy, the pleasure, the revelation, even, of hearing wonderful music played actually in the room with you, not just on a computer screen with headphones.” More

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    Review: ‘A Beautiful Noise’ Makes for a Morose Neil Diamond Musical

    In the new Broadway show, Will Swenson plays the superstar, who seems perpetually dissatisfied, as if on a quest — but for what?For decades, Neil Diamond was on top of the world. He toured arenas packed with shrieking fans. He wrote “Sweet Caroline,” an irresistible anthem that continues to trigger Pavlovian singalongs — a feat that would delight most performers, but Diamond didn’t leave it at that and was a prolific hit machine.A 1986 profile in The New York Times described him in these words: “Olympian aspiration, raw aggression and agonizing self-doubt.”As unlikely as this might sound, it is that last trait that forms the narrative engine of “A Beautiful Noise, the Neil Diamond Musical,” the ambitious, often rousing, occasionally heavy-handed biographical show that opened on Broadway on Sunday at the Broadhurst Theater. We meet a superstar with no confidence, despite being known to engage the beast mode in concert and prowling stages in tight pants and a wide-open satin shirt. He seems perpetually dissatisfied, as if on a fruitless quest — but for what? What gnaws at him?To answer those questions, the book writer, Anthony McCarten, put Diamond on the couch, or more exactly in an armchair: “A Beautiful Noise,” directed by Michael Mayer, is framed as an extensive therapy session between the aging singer (Mark Jacoby) and a psychologist (Linda Powell).Diamond is there because his wife Katie — spoiler alert: she’s the third one — and kids forced his hand. Apparently Diamond is “a little hard to live with these days,” we’re told. Maybe his family is frustrated by his grouchiness and poor interpersonal communication skills, at least based on his laconic sullenness with the doctor. When she presses him for insights, he curtly says, “I put everything I have into my songs.” Fine, then let’s see what they have to tell us about the man who wrote them.Mark Jacoby, seated left, as Neil Diamond and Linda Powell, seated right, as his therapist in the musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnd so Diamond makes a second entrance, but now he is in his prime and portrayed by Will Swenson (“Les Misérables,” “Assassins”) in a gravity-defying statement pompadour. This is a swaggering coif that means business, but it is contradicted by the 1965 Diamond’s passive posture and apologetic stammering.As the doctor and the older singer revisit his catalog — often commenting on the action from their chairs, like a double vision of the narrator in “The Drowsy Chaperone” — we retrace Diamond’s journey, starting with his early days at the Brill Building. One of the influential American hit factories, the location also played a key role in “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” and it’s where the mighty Ellie Greenwich (an amusingly perky Bri Sudia) starts mentoring the shy young man from Brooklyn in the mid-1960s.Diamond, after writing hits for others, like “I’m a Believer” for the Monkees, sets out to perform his own material, with smashing results. In one of the most entertaining episodes, he signs with Bang Records, a mob-associated label run by Bert Berns (Tom Alan Robbins), himself a songwriter good enough to earn his own tribute musical, “Piece of My Heart.”By the end of the ’60s, Diamond was a serial chart-topper; by the early ’70s, he had mutated into the Lord Byron of soft rock, all strutting gloom and troubled romanticism. That turning point is when Swenson, a stage veteran and Tony nominee for the 2009 Broadway revival of “Hair,” really takes ownership of the role. While he doesn’t entirely let go during the concert scenes — a common issue with Broadway performers playing rockers — Swenson gets close to Diamond’s swaggering sexuality and delivers hit after hit with a relaxed confidence: “Sweet Caroline,” of course, and especially “Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show.” But there is no “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon,” the epitome of Diamond in his louche Lee Hazlewood mode, which could have really spiced up a musical that can feel timid; likewise, the show’s title echoes Diamond’s 1976 album and one can’t help but wonder what would have happened if his 1968 LP “Velvet Gloves and Spit” had inspired McCarten instead.In any case, the superstar continues seeking, especially love. While still married to his first wife, Jaye (Jessie Fisher), he falls for Marcia (Robyn Hurder, channeling Ann-Margret). The latter gets some of the numbers directly connecting a character’s motivation or emotion with a song — she sings “Forever in Blue Jeans,” for example, when feeling neglected by her constantly touring husband.Robyn Hurder as Marcia and Will Swenson as the younger Diamond.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut much of the time McCarten — who wrote the screenplays for the Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” and whose play “The Collaboration” opens on Broadway later this month — refrains from shoehorning new meaning into existing lyrics by manipulating the context in which the songs are used, à la “Mamma Mia!” Many of this show’s most effective moments simply use the songs as surface signposts, an approach that defeats the purported point of the book but reflects the way many listeners experience pop music: We associate it with events and moods, recall what was happening when a hit came on the radio or when we attended a concert.One such scene is Diamond’s debut at the Bitter End. He performs “Solitary Man” and the audience members, sitting at nightclub tables, slowly lean forward, like flowers drawn to the sun. This is the most striking example of Steven Hoggett’s subtle choreography, which to its credit looks like nothing else on Broadway right now: The movement is fluidly, organically incorporated into the scenes, rather than awkwardly grafted onto them.As Diamond sharpens his live persona in Act II, David Rockwell’s set, until then dominated by hanging lamps, morphs into a “Hollywood Squares”-like concert stage that incorporates the orchestra. (Considering how energized Diamond was when performing, having to retire from touring in 2018 because of Parkinson’s disease must have been especially painful.) It all looks and sounds great, but the clock is ticking — therapy! — and we are no closer to understanding the real Neil.Until, at long last, the older singer cracks and stops obfuscating. Naturally, the source of his discontent can be found in his childhood, and the show finally makes the essential connection between Diamond’s artistry and his roots, including his Jewishness. By that point it feels rushed and not quite earned, not to mention a little too nakedly sentimental.And yet, the beating heart of “A Beautiful Noise” is that sequence, featuring “Brooklyn Roads” and “America” leading into “Shilo,” which becomes Diamond’s Rosebud and is performed with almost unbearable grace by the ensemble member Jordan Dobson. Never mind: naked sentimentality is just fine.A Beautiful NoiseAt the Broadhurst Theater, Manhattan; abeautifulnoisethemusical.com. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. More