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      10 Unforgettable Songs From 1999 Movies

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      Listen to tracks by the Chicks, Aimee Mann, Blink-182 and more linked to moments in a monumentally interesting — and busy — year of cinema.Julia Roberts offering a hint of what happens in “Runaway Bride.”Paramount PicturesDear listeners,For the past few weeks, my colleagues in The Times’s movies section have been running a highly entertaining series called “Class of 1999,” celebrating the 25th anniversary of a monumentally interesting — and busy — year of cinema.At the box office, the final year of the millennium truly had it all: era-defining horror (“The Sixth Sense,” “The Blair Witch Project”), boundary-pushing comedy (“Being John Malkovich,” “Election”), enduring art-house favorites (“Eyes Wide Shut,” “Magnolia”) and fodder for future dorm-room posters (“Fight Club,” “The Matrix”). It was, as Wesley Morris puts it in a delightful new essay summing up what some have called the “Best. Movie. Year. Ever.,” a time of “range, volume, abundance, deluge.” It was the year of both “The Phantom Menace” and “The Spy Who Shagged Me.” Of Americans “Pie” and “Beauty.” But, most importantly for our purposes, it had a killer soundtrack.Today’s playlist is a sonic tribute to the movies of 1999, culled entirely from soundtracks released that year. It’s got some names you’ll still recognize (Madonna, Blink-182, the Chicks) and some (Imperial Teen, Harvey Danger) that remain time-stamped in the late ’90s.I wanted to limit myself to songs released in 1999, which means that a few of the year’s most memorable musical moments (the Pixies song forever linked with the end of “Fight Club,” the Eurodance anthem that plays during the startling conclusion of Claire Denis’s masterpiece “Beau Travail”) must go unmentioned, except for the mentioning I just did there. I’ve also omitted a few of the most obvious and overplayed choices: I do not think I need to remind you of Sixpence None the Richer’s swoony “She’s All That” theme “Kiss Me,” or of that end-of-the-Willennium indulgence “Wild Wild West.”Still, I hope this playlist makes you feel like Austin Powers in reverse, aurally transported back to the brink of Y2K. Naturally, it’s oozing with nostalgia, but I think you may actually be surprised at how many of these tracks still hold up 25 years later.Also! Since we already determined last week what the song(s) of the summer are, I want to hear what your personal song of the summer was. Maybe it was an old song that you discovered (or rediscovered), or a newer song that provided the perfect soundtrack to your season. Here is a submission form where you can share your pick with me. We may use your response in an upcoming edition of The Amplifier.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 and LL Cool J Duel in Speedy Raps, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Sophie featuring Bibi Bourelly, Kim Deal, Tommy Richman and more.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.LL Cool J featuring Eminem, ‘Murdergram Deux’LL Cool J, 56, and Eminem, 51, show off old-school, high-speed, crisply articulated rhyme technique in “Murdergram Deux,” nominally a sequel to “Murdergram” from LL Cool J’s 1990 album “Mama Said Knock You Out.” It’s all boasts, threats, wordplay and similes — “’bout to finish you like polyurethane,” Eminem raps — set to a jaunty, changeable track produced by Eminem and none other than Q-Tip. Eminem has the slightly higher syllable count, while LL Cool J gets the last word, a cheerful callback to his commercial peak. JON PARELESSophie featuring Bibi Bourelly, ‘Exhilarate’The hyperpop visionary Sophie had mapped out a full album before she died in an accident in 2021; “Sophie,” completed by her brother and other collaborators, is due in September. “Exhilarate” takes the conventions of a big-room trance anthem — four chords, sumptuously reverberating synthesizer tones, a stately underlying beat — and warps them from the bottom up. Bibi Bourelly sings euphoric layered harmonies, proclaiming, “Got my foot on the gas/And I won’t stop for no one.” But the drumbeat leaves spaces instead of thumping four on the floor, while bass tones wriggle and melt and the midrange gets zapped with buzzy tones. The track’s entire last minute is a slow-motion collapse into entropy and silence. PARELESKim Deal, ‘Crystal Breath’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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      Basel Will Host Eurovision Song Contest (Unless Its Taxpayers Revolt)

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      Many in the Swiss city celebrated the announcement. But after a debate about the cost, a conservative party wants a referendum over whether the public should pay.Basel, a quaint riverside city in northern Switzerland, on Friday won the right to host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, the high-camp international singing competition.To many Basel residents, the news, which Eurovision’s organizers announced in a release, was a cause for celebration: Next May, the city would have a moment in the international spotlight.Yet some lawmakers in Switzerland had an altogether different reaction. To them, Eurovision is not a fun spectacle; it is a waste of money and “a celebration of evil” that has no place in their country.Members of the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland, a conservative Christian party, are campaigning for a referendum to stop Basel’s government contributing tens of millions of dollars toward Eurovision’s running costs.Samuel Kullmann, the lawmaker leading the campaign, said that Eurovision had a “cultural agenda” that threatened Christian values. That included, he added, allowing musicians to promote Satanism onstage.At this year’s Eurovision, Kullmann said, entrants included Bambie Thug, a heavy metal act representing Ireland, who sang standing in a pentagram. “People might say it’s metal or Gothic music, but they’re ignoring the obvious,” Kullmann said. “It was a celebration of evil.”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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      Dueling Ramones Heirs Fight Over the Punk Band’s Legacy

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      The brother of Joey Ramone and the widow of Johnny Ramone, who each control half of the band’s intellectual property rights, have filed lawsuits against each other.Years of disputes over control of the legacy of the Ramones escalated this month when the brother of Joey Ramone sued the widow of Johnny Ramone, accusing her of trademark infringement, trademark dilution and breach of contract.Joey Ramone’s brother, Mickey Leigh, and Johnny Ramone’s widow, Linda Cummings-Ramone, each control 50 percent of Ramones Productions, the company that holds the punk band’s intellectual property rights. Joey Ramone, its lead vocalist, died in 2001, and Johnny Ramone, the guitarist, in 2004.In the lawsuit, Mickey Leigh, whose legal name is Mitchel Hyman, accuses Ms. Cummings-Ramone of improperly exploiting the band’s legacy — often in sharply personal terms — and leveraging its intellectual property “for her own fame and vanity.”Ms. Cummings-Ramone had sued Mr. Hyman in January, accusing him of wrongfully developing a Ramones biopic without her approval. That case is pending.Representatives for Mr. Hyman and Ms. Cummings-Ramone did not respond to a request for comment.Alan Fisch, a veteran intellectual properties litigator, said Ms. Cummings-Ramone’s ownership stake in Ramones Productions did not necessarily grant her control over its intellectual assets.“Just because she owns half of the business doesn’t mean she has an unfettered right to use its intellectual property,” he said. “That each of the two shareholders have different views is part of the challenge that they’ve created for themselves in being 50 percent owners.”The rivalry between Mr. Hyman and Ms. Cummings-Ramone in some ways mirrors the famously chilly relationship between Joey and Johnny Ramone. Before she began dating Johnny Ramone, Ms. Cummings-Ramone, a philanthropist and model, was in a multiyear relationship with Joey Ramone.Mr. Hyman and Ms. Cummings-Ramone’s clash reached an inflection point in 2018, when he took her to arbitration over the usage of Ramones trademarks in an annual tribute event for Johnny Ramone. Mr. Hyman also objected to Ms. Cummings-Ramone’s adoption of the name “Linda Ramone,” which he said falsely portrayed her as the “keeper of the legacy” of the group. (The last name “Ramone” was a pseudonym and not the legal name of any member of the band.)When the arbitrator ruled on those disputes, he also expressed frustration with their frequent battles.“Mickey Hyman and Linda Cummings-Ramone have an almost sacred mission to be the caretakers for the band’s creative work, to protect their iconic brand and to educate new fans in order to grow their legend,” he wrote. “Instead, the parties have allowed their personal egos and their animus for one another to interfere with their joint obligations.” More

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      What’s the Deal With the Dare?

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      In the stairwell of Electric Lady Studios a few weeks ago, Harrison Patrick Smith, 28, was handed a coat hanger carrying an unassuming pair of pants and a T-shirt. “Oh, my street clothes!” he said and laughed, subtly pumping a low fist by his side. “Yes!”Smith, who records dance rock he characterized as “electroclash revival” with a “supersized attitude” as the Dare, isn’t always in his signature crisp black suit, and doesn’t always prefer it. But you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise, as he’s been spotted in it a lot lately: performing live, attending fashion shows, filming music videos, at parties.“All of my musical heroes typically commit to the bit, and are larger than life, and the music is never secondary,” Smith explained earlier that day. “The bit” — in this case, the suit — “furthers the story of the music, or piques the interest or the imagination of the listener even more.”He referenced David Bowie’s Thin White Duke persona. “If he was just wearing a T-shirt and jeans, would he be David Bowie? And would you even like the music as much?” Smith continued. “If there wasn’t that lore around the music, would you even like any of it?” he asked, not without earnestness.Harrison Patrick Smith, who records as the Dare, makes music that provokes a strong response.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesNearing the release of his debut album, “What’s Wrong With New York?” (out Sept. 6), mentioning the Dare to anyone with an opinion about him is sure to provoke a strong one.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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      How Laurie Anderson Conjured Amelia Earhart’s Final Flight

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      Imagine — or perhaps remember — a time when the world seemed much larger, when air travel was novel and dangerous, when wireless communication could never be taken for granted.That’s the era Laurie Anderson conjures on her new album, “Amelia,” out Friday. In a fast-moving 36 minutes and 22 tracks, “Amelia” traces the doomed final flight of Amelia Earhart, who set out “to become the first woman to circumnavigate the Earth,” as Anderson narrates. Earhart took off from Oakland on May 20, 1937, and flew across the Americas, Africa and Asia before her plane disappeared over the Pacific on July 2.“I really fell in love with Amelia,” Anderson said in a video interview from her New York City studio, where she was surrounded by keyboards and mixing equipment, preparing for a tech rehearsal. “Amelia really was this badass person.”Amelia Earhart “was the original blogger,” Laurie Anderson said, noting her journey was very documented.Like nearly the entire body of work that Anderson has created since the 1980s, “Amelia” is an uncontainable hybrid. It unfolds as something between a song cycle, an oratorio and a vintage radio drama. Anderson deploys a string orchestra, electronics and a jazz-tinged rhythm section along with her gallery of singing and speaking voices. Parts of “Amelia” are matter-of-fact and diaristic, noting dates and places. But there are also stretches of heaving orchestral counterpoint that grow enveloping, even dizzying, evoking the vastness, and danger, of sky and ocean.Anderson describes “Amelia” as “a distant cousin” of music she composed for a concert series in 2000 by the American Composers Orchestra for the turn of the millennium. The conductor Dennis Russell Davies had called on Anderson, Philip Glass, Samuel Barber and others to write music about flight.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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      Oasis Comeback: A Timeline of the Gallagher Brothers’ Feud

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      When Liam and Noel Gallagher get together, hide the tambourines.The Kinks, the Allman Brothers Band, the Jacksons: Every band of brothers occasionally bickered, even feuded.But no sibling rivalry reached the level of rancor found in Oasis, the Britpop band that improbably announced that it is reuniting after years of animosity, insults and at least one incident involving a cricket bat.Here’s a look at the roller coaster career of Liam and Noel Gallagher, two brothers who managed to produce the music of a generation while mostly despising each other.The sound of the ’90s had a taste of the ’60s.The members of Oasis in 1993, from left to right: Paul McGuigan, Noel Gallagher, Tony McCarroll, Paul Arthurs and Liam Gallagher. James Fry/Getty ImagesOasis was formed in 1991 in Manchester, England. There were various members, some of whom came and went. But the constants were the Gallagher brothers: Liam, the lead singer, and Noel, the lead guitarist and songwriter.They soon came to be the most prominent band in a ’90s movement called Britpop, joining groups like Blur and Pulp in producing catchy rock music with a ’60s influence.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 Bargain at the Opera: Philadelphia Offers All Seats for as Low as $11

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      Seeking new audiences, Opera Philadelphia is putting in place a pay-what-you-can model, one of the first of its kind by a major opera company.In Philadelphia, a night at the opera may now be cheaper than going to the movies.Opera Philadelphia, a company with a reputation for innovation and ambition, announced on Tuesday that it was putting in place a pay-what-you-can model for the 2024-25 season, with all tickets for all performances starting at $11. The initiative, which the company calls Pick Your Price, is aimed at attracting new audiences.“People want to go to the opera, but it’s expensive,” said Anthony Roth Costanzo, the celebrated American countertenor who became the company’s general director and president in June. “Our goal is to bring opera to more people and bring more people to the opera.”It immediately proved popular. On Tuesday, the day the initiative was announced, Opera Philadelphia said it sold more than 2,200 tickets for the coming season, compared with about 20 the day before. The tickets were originally priced at $26 to $300.High ticket prices have long been a barrier to audiences, and especially to newcomers. In recent years a number of performing arts groups, including Lincoln Center, the Chicago Sinfonietta and Ars Nova, the Off Broadway incubator, have experimented with pay-what-you-can approaches. Other opera companies have experimented with discounts, including rush tickets and deals offered to young people. But Opera Philadelphia’s approach was one of the boldest yet.Its website explains that all tickets start at $11 but that people will be given the option of choosing to pay much more, including the standard price.Like many nonprofit performing arts organizations, Opera Philadelphia gets much more of its revenue from philanthropy than through ticket sales. Radically lowering the prices could encourage more donations, which will no longer risk being seen as subsidizing an expensive art form that is out of reach for many people. And Costanzo said that the new model would allow the company to concentrate more on staging interesting works, and less on worrying about ticket 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