Music

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      ‘Shifty Shellshock,’ Crazy Town’s Lead Singer, Dies at 49

      by

      He was the frontman for the rap-rock band Crazy Town, which was most known for the hit song “Butterfly.”Shifty Shellshock, the lead singer of the late-1990s rap-rock band Crazy Town known for the hit song “Butterfly,” whose legal name was Seth Binzer, died at his home in Los Angeles on Monday. He was 49.The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner confirmed his death, the cause of which was still being investigated.Crazy Town rose to prominence after the band released its debut album, “The Gift of Game,” in 1999. In 2001, the record reached No. 9 on the Billboard album chart ranking the most popular albums, in large part because of the success of “Butterfly.” The song, which Rolling Stone magazine described as “a sweetly floating ballad that’s atypical for these hard-rocking B-boys,” gained wide acclaim, holding the top spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 ranking for two weeks.Mr. Binzer was open about his struggles with substance abuse. He appeared on two seasons of the VH1 series “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” in 2008 and also on the spinoff series “Sober House” from 2009 to 2010.Seth Binzer was born on Aug. 23, 1974, in Los Angeles to Rollin Binzer, who designed album art and directed films for rock bands, and Leslie Brooks, who was a model and script proofreader. He was raised in Southern California and spent part of his childhood in Marblehead, Mass.He was a creative child but also had a wild streak that got him into trouble, according to his mother, and sister, Aubrey Binzer. When he was about 10, he would break dance on the pier in Marblehead for tourists, Ms. Brooks said.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

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Can Chad Smith Make the Boston Symphony Innovative Again?

      by

      Chad Smith, the orchestra’s new chief executive, hopes to return the storied ensemble to its groundbreaking roots while moving it forward.“I’m going to sound like such a dork,” Chad Smith said as he drove a golf cart around the grounds of Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s pastoral summer home in the Berkshires. “I love Tanglewood so much.”He stopped the cart, and looked out beyond the manicured campus to rolling, tree-covered hills and the still waters of Stockbridge Bowl. It reminded him, he said, of the environment at the prestigious Salzburg Festival in Austria. But Salzburg isn’t attached to an orchestra and a music institute like Tanglewood has been since it’s founding in 1940.“This is the sense of innovation that is at the core of the B.S.O,” said Smith, who became the Boston Symphony’s president and chief executive in the fall. “The orchestra was not yet 60 years old, and it changed its identity again by becoming a symphony orchestra, a pops orchestra and an educational institution.”Gesturing to Stockbridge Bowl, he added: “And it has a beach. What other orchestra has a beach?”Smith has big plans for Tanglewood, whose Boston Symphony season begins on July 5, just as he has a long to-do list for the ensemble at home. History would suggest that he isn’t just dreaming: He came to Boston from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where for two decades he played a crucial role in building the orchestra’s reputation as one of the most innovative, important ensembles in the country.When he announced that he was leaving for Boston last year, Smith, 52, had risen through the ranks of the Philharmonic to became its chief executive in 2019. His departure was a shock to Angelenos, and to some signaled a crisis for the Philharmonic, which shortly before had found out that it was losing its starry maestro, Gustavo Dudamel, to the New York Philharmonic.Smith at Tanglewood, where the Boston Symphony’s season starts on July 5. “I want Tanglewood,” he said, “to be the classical music destination for the world.”Lauren Lancaster 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

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      Mavis Staples Is an American Institution. She’s Not Done Singing Yet.

      by

      After more than seven decades onstage, the gospel and soul great decided last year that it was time to retire. Then she realized she still had work to do.On a rainy April day in Chicago, Mavis Staples sat in the restaurant of the towering downtown Chicago building where she’s lived for the past four years. For two hours, she talked about the Civil Rights movement and faith. And finally, she mentioned her old flame Bob Dylan.The singer-songwriter first proposed to Staples after a kiss at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival; she hid from him during a show at the Apollo decades later, fearing he’d ask again. They’ve remained friends, even taking daily strolls during a 2016 tour together. She’d heard rumors he would soon retire, finally wrapping his fabled Never Ending Tour. Staples knew he would hate it.“Oh, Bobby: He gotta keep on singing,” Staples said. “I could handle it more than him. I will call him and say, ‘Don’t retire, Bobby. You don’t know what you’re doing.’”Staples speaks from experience: Late in the summer of 2023, soon after turning 84, she told her manager she was done. She’d been on the road for 76 years, ever since her father, Roebuck Staples, known as Pops, assembled a family band when she was 8. The Staple Singers became a gospel fulcrum of the Civil Rights movement and, later, a force for bending genres — mixing funk, rock and soul inside their spiritual mission, an all-American alchemy. The band’s mightiest singer and sole survivor since the death of her sister Yvonne in 2018 and brother, Pervis, in 2021, Mavis remained in high demand, a historical treasure commanding a thunderous contralto.“Being an American and not believing in royalty, meeting her was the closest I’d ever felt,” said Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, who marveled at her while watching “The Last Waltz” decades before he produced a string of her poignant albums. “I felt the same way when I met Johnny Cash, like meeting a dollar bill or bald eagle.”A seemingly indomitable extrovert, Staples had deeply resented being homebound during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. So she returned to the road with gusto, playing more than 50 shows last summer. But in July, she missed the end of a moving walkway in Germany and fell on her face. Was this, she wondered, the life she wanted? She’d previously mentioned retirement, but now she insisted.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 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      Mabe Fratti, a Spark in Mexico City’s Experimental Music Scene

      by

      The singer, cellist and composer has found inspiration in the city’s flourishing avant-garde. Her new LP, “Sentir Que No Sabes,” wrestles with the idea of progress.Ten years ago, the cellist and experimental composer Mabe Fratti came across a strange painting by Paul Klee. “Angelus Novus” depicts an angel, wings splayed, eyes wide open, who looks as though he is about to flutter away from whatever he is looking at. “It’s a metaphor for history,” she said, video calling from her friend’s living room couch in Berlin. “The philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote about it: this idea that we’re looking forwards, but also always looking back.”The concept would go on to form the basis for “Angel Nuevo,” the first song Fratti wrote on her new album, “Sentir Que No Sabes,” out Friday. “I wanted to talk about what it feels like to know you want to progress, but not know where you want to go,” she said of the track, which starts out quietly and builds in an anxious crescendo.Moving forward hasn’t exactly been a problem for Fratti, 32, who was born in Guatemala and is based in Mexico City. Since releasing her debut album, “Pies Sobre la Tierra,” in 2019, she has put out two more solo records, in addition to collaborations with her partner and producer, the Venezuelan musician Hector Tosta (known as I la Católica); the German electronic artist Gudrun Gut; and her improvisational quartet Amor Muere. In just five years, she has built a reputation as the most prominent member of Mexico City’s dynamic and rapidly evolving experimental music scene.Driven by an influx of musicians to the metropolis and the establishment there of new institutions — sound galleries like 316 Centro in the city’s La Merced neighborhood, and labels such as Umor Rex — the Mexican capital’s avant-garde music community has flourished in recent years.Older musicians have been sowing these seeds since at least the 1970s, Fratti said, citing Ana Ruiz, a pianist who helped create Atrás del Cosmos, a “community of improvisers Don Cherry participated in,” and the saxophone player Germán Bringas, who founded the venue Jazzorca in the 1990s.Fratti is known for her minimalist structures: economical arrangements made up of distorted cello sounds that sometimes build upon each other. Maria Sturm 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

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      Taylor Swift Notches a Ninth Week at No. 1 With New CD Versions

      by

      The singer’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” now has the second-most weeks at No. 1 of any Swift album.The spring of Taylor Swift has become the summer of Taylor Swift as the singer’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” holds for a ninth straight week at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.The 31-track LP, released on April 19, has continued to rack up sales and streams — thanks in part to special edition “versions” with bonus tracks — earning another 126,000 sales units, including 121 million streams and 33,000 copies sold as a full package, according to the tracking service Luminate.Album sales were up 42 percent with a boost from two new CD variations, sold exclusively by Swift’s web store, that each featured a different acoustic bonus song, Billboard reported; the CDs were available for a limited period of time in early June but shipped to customers last week, counting toward the latest chart totals.“The Tortured Poets Department” now has the second-most weeks at No. 1 of any Swift album, behind “1989” and “Fearless,” each of which spent 11 nonconsecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200.Also this week, Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” holds at No. 2 in its fifth week out, with 84,000 units; the rapper and singer Don Toliver’s “Hardstone Psycho,” which features Travis Scott and Future, debuts at No. 3 with 76,500 units; Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 4 with 73,000 units; and the underground rap duo Suicideboys’s “New World Depression” is No. 5 with 66,000 units. More

    • 50 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ Breakthrough

      by

      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThe iconoclastic pop star Charli XCX has long flirted with mainstream success — helping write Icona Pop’s omnipresent 2012 hit “I Love It,” appearing on the hook of Iggy Azalea’s smash “Fancy” and in 2014 scoring a Top 10 hit of her own with “Boom Clap” — but largely exists as a self-proclaimed “cult classic,” a denizen of the club underground known for a string of innovative but niche records. Charli’s brash, strobe-lit sixth album, “Brat,” is in some ways her most daring release yet, but — improbably — it’s also her most commercially successful, debuting at No. 3 in the United States and earning her highest opening-week sales in her native United Kingdom.Why is “Brat” such a breakthrough? Some of its success has to do with the raw honesty of its lyrics, which find Charli musing on her innermost insecurities — at least when she isn’t playing the “365 party girl.” But to many listeners growing tired with certain trends in contemporary pop music (faux relatability, therapy-speak, demo-dumps disguised as deluxe editions), “Brat” provides a welcome and unapologetic alternative.On this week’s Popcast, guest hosted by the Times pop music critic Lindsay Zoladz, a conversation about “Brat,” placed in the context of Charli’s eccentric career and the wider pop landscape.Guests:Shaad D’Souza, a freelance writer for The New York Times, New York magazine, the Guardian and othersMeaghan Garvey, a writer from Chicago who runs the newsletter Scary Cool Sad GoodbyeConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      Discord at the Symphony: Losing a Star, San Francisco Weighs Its Future

      by

      The struggles of one of the nation’s finest orchestras show the difficulties facing classical music in the United States.For a night at the symphony, there was a lot of tension in the air.As concertgoers filed in to Davies Symphony Hall earlier this month, they were greeted by players from the San Francisco Symphony passing out bright yellow fliers accusing management of having “no clear artistic vision.” Then, shortly before the performance began, a shout echoed from one of the balconies, exhorting people to “Act!”It was the conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen’s first concert in the hall since March, when he stunned the classical music world by announcing that he would step down as the orchestra’s music director amid a dispute with management over budget cuts. The evening’s program was just the sort of thing he had promised when he was hired with a mandate to rethink the concert experience: Ravel’s charming “Mother Goose” brought to life by dancers from Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, and then Schoenberg’s nightmarish “Erwartung” staged by the director Peter Sellars.His decision to leave once his contract is up next year has upset fans — “Who he is and what he brings can’t be replicated,” Mark Malaspina, an audience member, lamented as he entered the hall — and left some concerned about the future of the 113-year-old San Francisco Symphony.“An orchestra that was in very good shape is now in crisis,” said Peter Pastreich, a longtime arts administrator who managed the San Francisco Symphony from 1978 to 1999. “It is heartbreaking to watch.”Salonen’s unexpectedly short tenure in San Francisco is in some ways a very local story, but it also says something about the challenges facing classical music in 21st century America. Even before the pandemic, many orchestras around the country were struggling. Audiences were aging and shrinking. Costs were rising. Old business models were withering. And philanthropy, which has replaced ticket sales as the main source of income for most orchestras, was becoming increasingly hard to come by.When San Francisco landed Salonen, it was hailed as a coup.The orchestra enjoyed a reputation for musicianship and innovation and had a relatively large endowment. But it also had been running deficits, losing subscribers and seeing its donor base diminish. Salonen — a pathbreaking, charismatic conductor and composer from Finland who had previously led the Los Angeles Philharmonic — was seen as someone who could capture the imaginations of new audiences.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

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Music

      Jeremy Tepper, Alt-Country Impressario, Dies at 60

      by

      As a journalist, singer, label owner and radio producer, he fostered a community of musicians on the outskirts of Americana.Jeremy Tepper, who over a long and varied career as a journalist, singer, label owner and radio producer championed the anarchic, high-energy music that straddled the lines separating country, rock, punk and plain old Americana, died on June 14 in Queens. He was 60.His wife, the musician Laura Cantrell, said the cause of death, at Elmhurst Hospital, was a heart attack.Born in upstate New York and educated in Manhattan, Mr. Tepper was perhaps an unlikely apostle for a style of music variously called alt- or outlaw country, but which he preferred to call “rig rock” — the sort of sounds favored by long-haul truck drivers. Far from the big hats and ostrich-skin boots of Nashville’s Lower Broadway, it is the music one might hear coming from honky-tonks, jukeboxes, truck stops and big-rig radios, the corners of Americana that Mr. Tepper celebrated with unironic joy.“It is taking all that truck-driving music — streamlined, guitar-based country rock — and dragging it onto the modern interstate,” he told Newsday in 1990.Mr. Tepper was rig-rock’s greatest fan and biggest booster. He wrote about it for publications like Pulse and The Journal of Country Music, and for his own magazine, Street Beat, which was dedicated to jukeboxes and the music one found in them. 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