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      Popcast (Deluxe): What’s an Industry Plant Anyway? Plus: Ariana Grande

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:Popcast’s win at the 2024 iHeartPodcast Awards for best music podcastThe 2024 Oscars, including Ryan Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” and Diane Warren’s reported meltdownThe quick ascent of the downtempo R&B singer 4batz and what the “industry plant” conversation that he’s triggered gets wrongThe new Ariana Grande album, “eternal sunshine,” and how it’s an impressive and modest comeback in advance of her star turn in the upcoming film adaptation of “Wicked”Reports from the opening nights of the Olivia Rodrigo tour and the Zach Bryan tourNew songs from Yung Lean and Yaya BeySnack of the weekConnect 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

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      On ‘Deeper Well,’ Kacey Musgraves Is Closer to Fine

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      The country singer and songwriter’s fifth album of original songs is a study in quiet thoughtfulness rooted in gratitude.Contentment makes for tricky songwriting territory. Songs thrive more often on extremes: desire, heartache, rage, despair, striving, longing, ecstasy. But Kacey Musgraves has now made two superb albums suffused with satisfaction: “Golden Hour” from 2018, which won the Grammy for album of the year, and her new one out Friday, “Deeper Well.”On “Golden Hour,” Musgraves sang about the gratification and relief of blissful romance in songs like “Butterflies.” With “Deeper Well” — which follows her divorce album, “Star-Crossed” — Musgraves finds more comfort in a wistful self-sufficiency. She savors small pleasures, personal connections and casual revelations, with a touch of new-age mysticism.In the album’s title song, Musgraves calmly notes how she’s setting aside youthful misjudgments. She’s moving away from people with “dark energy” and no longer getting high every morning (though her Instagram account is still @spaceykacey). At 35, she’s glad to be more mature. “It’s natural when things lose their shine,” she sings, “so other things can glow.”Musgraves grew up in a small East Texas town and she’s nominally a country singer. Her 2013 debut, “Same Trailer Different Park,” won a Grammy as best country album, as did “Golden Hour,” and she has won multiple Grammys for best country song.But while mainstream country has leaned into booze, trucks and arena-scale bombast, Musgraves prefers delicacy, detail and wryly upending small-town expectations. The title song of her second album, “Pageant Material,” explained: “It ain’t that I don’t care about world peace/But I don’t see how I can fix it in a swimsuit on a stage.”Her music prizes understatement, bypassing standard Nashville sounds and often harking back to 1970s Laurel Canyon folk-pop. Like that era’s songwriters and producers, Musgraves is steeped in folk music and seemingly diaristic, but also unassumingly savvy about pop structures and studio possibilities.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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      James Conlon to Step Down as Music Director of Los Angeles Opera

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      James Conlon, who has conducted more performances with the company than anyone else, will step down from his post in 2026.The year 2026 will mark James Conlon’s 20th anniversary as music director of the Los Angeles Opera. That seemed to him like it would be the right time to step down.“I’ve had 20 years — that’s a good round number,” Conlon, 73, said in a telephone interview. “I want to stop when I’m at my full capacity and I want to be able to go on loving the company the way I do.”His final season, the 2025-26 season, will coincide with the company’s 40th anniversary, and Conlon said that he “wanted to be there to celebrate that with them.”“It will mean I will have been there for half of its history,” said Conlon, who has led more than 460 performances of 68 different operas there, more than any other conductor.Conlon will be named the opera’s conductor laureate, which the company said would be in recognition “of his distinguished tenure and contribution to Los Angeles Opera and the community at large, and in acknowledgment of the mutual intention for Conlon to return to the company as a guest conductor.”Christopher Koelsch, the opera’s president and chief executive, praised Conlon’s musical leadership and said that there was “something elegant about the timing” of his departure, coinciding as it does with both anniversaries. He added that the transition “presents an opportunity for us as an organization for a different perspective and generational change.”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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      Neil Young Will Return to Spotify, Ending Protest of Joe Rogan

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      The rock musician removed his songs from the streamer in 2022 to protest coronavirus podcast episodes, but reversed course in light of the show’s wider distribution.Neil Young will return his music to Spotify, two years after withdrawing it in protest over the podcast host Joe Rogan’s shows about Covid-19, the veteran rock musician announced on his website Tuesday.Without naming Rogan, Young wrote: “My decision comes as music services Apple and Amazon have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at Spotify.” Rogan previously had an exclusive deal with Spotify, which has since been renewed to allow wider distribution of his show.In January 2022, Young drew wide attention by accusing Spotify of “spreading fake information about vaccines” through Rogan’s show, and he gave the platform an ultimatum: “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”Rogan, a comedian and actor, has become one of the most popular and influential figures in podcasting with his show “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which features long, freewheeling interviews with guests like Elon Musk, Ye, scientists and fellow comedians.Days before Young’s public letter, a group of doctors, scientists and public health officials asked Spotify to crack down on Covid-19 misinformation, pointing to an episode of Rogan’s show that featured Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist and vaccine skeptic who promoted a theory that millions of people had been “hypnotized” about the coronavirus.Following Young’s protest, the singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell also removed her music from Spotify, and the R&B singer India.Arie circulated clips showing Rogan using a racial slur repeatedly on the show. Rogan apologized for his use of the word, and Spotify quietly removed dozens of episodes of his show. Rogan also said he was willing to have “more experts with differing opinions right after I have the controversial ones.”In a public statement at the time, Daniel Ek, Spotify’s chief executive, said, “It is important to me that we don’t take on the position of being content censor while also making sure that there are rules in place and consequences for those who violate them.” The company added a “content advisory” notice to any podcast episode that involved Covid.Spotify signed Rogan to a deal in 2020, worth at least $200 million, that made his show exclusive to that platform. Last month, the company announced a new, multiyear arrangement with Rogan in which Spotify would also distribute “The Joe Rogan Experience” to other podcast platforms, as well as YouTube. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the new deal could be worth as much as $250 million.In his statement on Tuesday, Young didn’t give a timeline for when his music would return to Spotify, and a representative of Spotify did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Last year, in an analysis of how Young’s streaming activity had changed since withdrawing his music from Spotify, Billboard estimated that the protest had cost him about $16,000 in royalties per month. More

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      Tate McRae, Dua Lipa and the Fight to Be ‘Main Pop Girl’

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicOver the past few years, one question has been hovering over the careers of some of the most well-known pop singers in the world: Have they reached the tier of Main Pop Girl?It is elite company — think Rihanna, Taylor, Ariana. But what about Dua Lipa, who has loads of hits but maybe no metanarrative? Or Tate McRae, a young up-and-comer who understands the contours of pop stardom but is still filling in the outline? Or even Charli XCX, who plays with the idea of pop stardom in a self-aware way?On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the history of the Main Pop Girl idea, its roots in stan communities and whether it’s a title conferred upon you, or one you can earn.Guests:Jason P. Frank, news writer at VultureLarisha Paul, staff writer at Rolling StoneConnect 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

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      Yvonne Loriod Was So Much More Than a Composer’s Muse

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      Loriod, the vessel for Olivier Messiaen’s piano works, had a rich musical life beyond him, which is captured in a new set of recordings.The composer Olivier Messiaen’s earliest students at the Paris Conservatory liked to call themselves the Arrows. They didn’t see themselves as mere pupils; with the help of their teacher, one of the most important voices in 20th-century French music, they imagined themselves shooting arrows into the future.They weren’t just dreaming. Messiaen’s first batch of students, in the 1940s, included Pierre Boulez, who would become the de facto face of French serialism and modernist thought. Their teacher, though, was partial to another musician in the class: a young pianist named Yvonne Loriod.Born 100 years ago and a prodigious keyboard talent from an early age, Loriod so impressed Messiaen that he quickly began to write for her, immense masterpieces like “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus” and “Catalogue d’Oiseaux.” She challenged him to push the piano to new limits; he in turn gave her more to chew on than the standard repertoire with which she had built her reputation. They elevated each other, creating what The New York Times would eventually describe as a composer-performer partnership likely without parallel in music history.“It’s obvious that while writing ‘Vingt Regards’ or ‘Catalogue d’Oiseaux’ I knew they would be played by Yvonne Loriod,” Messiaen said in a book of interviews with Claude Samuel. “I was therefore able to allow myself the greatest eccentricities because to her, anything is possible. I knew I could invent very difficult, very extraordinary, and very new things: They would be played, and played well.”Their relationship was formalized by marriage in 1961, and it was so fruitful that it’s hard to imagine 20th-century piano music without those solo works or the extravagant, orchestral “Turangalîla-Symphonie.” But their collaborations also tend to overshadow Loriod’s life before and beyond Messiaen. Her devotion to him required renunciation: She let go of her composing ambitions and gave over the majority of her schedule to performing his scores. Yet she remained a brilliant artist with a broad-minded, generous view of her instrument and its long history.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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      Karl Wallinger, Who Sang With World Party and the Waterboys, Dies at 66

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      As a songwriter and instrumentalist as well, he blended pop and folk influences into music that helped define college radio in the 1980s and ’90s.Karl Wallinger, a Welsh singer-songwriter who helped define college radio in the 1980s and ’90s as a member of the Waterboys and the founder of World Party, died on Sunday at his home in Hastings, England. He was 66.His daughter, Nancy Zamit, confirmed the death but did not provide a cause. Mr. Wallinger suffered a brain aneurysm in 2001 that forced him to stop performing for several years.Following on the heels of the post-punk, new wave and new romantic movements of the early 1980s, Mr. Wallinger embodied something of a throwback to the classical pop and folk styles of an earlier era, with music and lyrics influenced by the Beatles and Bob Dylan.Though he rejected the label “retro,” onstage he looked like a stylish hippie, with long stringy hair and tinted round glasses that would have fit in at Woodstock.Mr. Wallinger was widely admired for his instrumental skills. He primarily played keyboards for the Waterboys, an influential folk-rock band founded by the Scottish musician Mike Scott, but on his own he usually played a guitar — which, though he was right-handed, he played upside down, with his left hand.After two albums with the Waterboys, Mr. Wallinger left in 1985 to form World Party, which was at first a one-man act: He wrote all the music and recorded all the parts in the studio. Only when he began to tour did he add members and make it a true band.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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      9 Sunny Songs for Springing Ahead

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      To celebrate the return of daylight saving time, here’s a playlist full of songs about sunshine and daylight.Harry Styles curses the sun on “Daylight.”The New York TimesDear listeners,Is it just me, or has this winter felt never-ending? Snow, cold rain, cloudy days when the sun sets before work ends — enough already!Thankfully, this weekend brought what I always consider the first harbinger of spring: The beginning of daylight saving time. As someone who reaches for the snooze button more often than I should, springing forward presents its own challenges. But I’ll gladly deal with them for an extra hour of sunlight in the evening.That bonus sunlight has inspired today’s playlist, full of songs about sunshine and daylight. Light takes on a spiritual quality in some of these tunes (including a modern standard by Hank Williams) while others bask in its meteorological reality (the bees and things and flowers name-checked by Roy Ayers Ubiquity). A few of these artists (the Velvet Underground; Harry Styles) claim not to care about the sun, but the incandescence of their music begs to differ.Am I jumping the gun a bit by celebrating sun songs in mid-March rather than during the dog days of summer? No way! Plus, by then we’ll probably be sick of them. Best to celebrate the sun’s welcome return, and especially on such a bright day here in New York. Here’s your soundtrack for strutting down the street in the short-sleeve outfit you’ve been waiting all winter to wear. (And then, you know, rushing back into the house to grab a light jacket, because it’s still only March.)Also, I’ll be out on Friday, but I’m leaving you in the very capable hands of a special guest playlister. Till then!People gotta synchronize to animal time,LindsayWe 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