Music

For evidence that all is not business as usual at Lincoln Center these days, look no further than its stately travertine campus, which, for much of the summer, was dominated by a giant glittering disco ball, pink and purple flowers painted on the sidewalk and a flock of 200 flamingo lawn ornaments.“There are some who will reasonably eye-roll at this,” said Henry Timms, the center’s president and chief executive, standing on the plaza recently. “I get it. But it sends a message that we are here to have some fun.”“We can afford,” he said, “to loosen up a little.”Since taking the helm in 2019, Timms has been on a mission to remake Lincoln Center. Having helped finally push through the long-delayed $550 million renovation of David Geffen Hall, he is working to forge closer ties with the city and to bring more diversity to the center’s staff, board and audiences.Now he wants to tear down the barriers that literally wall the campus off from Amsterdam Avenue, with its neighboring housing projects, schools and new developments. But as Lincoln Center rethinks its programming — this summer’s festival included hip-hop, K-pop and an LGBTQ mariachi group — it has drawn some criticism for presenting less classical music and international theater.For the summer, Lincoln Center hung up a disco ball on the plaza.Evelyn Freja for The New York TimesThis summer’s festival — which included more popular programming than in the past and choose-what-you-pay tickets for some events — attracted more than 380,000 people, officials said, many of whom were new to the campus. Among them was Sandy Mendez, a saleswoman who lives in Washington Heights, and saw her first Lincoln Center performance, a comedy show, after coming across an advertisement at a community center. She took photos in front of the disco ball with her husband and two children.“It feels like a dance club here,” said Mendez, 42, “not a performing arts center.”It is the kind of observation that both Timms’s admirers and his detractors might make.Running Lincoln Center is not easy. The center acts as landlord to the independent arts organizations on its campus, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet and the New York Philharmonic, but has little power over them, since each has its own leadership, board and budget.Linc. Inc., as it’s known, also presents its own work, which has sometimes led to tensions with constituents. Reynold Levy, its president for more than a decade, called his memoir “They Told Me Not to Take That Job.” After he left, in 2013, Lincoln Center cycled through four leadership teams in five years before appointing Timms in 2019.The British-born Timms, 46, who previously led the 92nd Street Y, helped create #GivingTuesday and co-wrote “New Power,” a book exploring bottom-up leadership, including movements like #MeToo and social networks like Facebook. Now he is trying to apply some of those participatory principles at Lincoln Center. He said his efforts were not “some new trendy idea” but a response to the fact that the center has for too long been disconnected from the community.“We very much came with an agenda, which was we were going to tell a different kind of story about Lincoln Center,” Timms said, “to fundamentally shift the institution in terms of who leads it, who represents it, who’s on our staff, who’s on our stages, who’s in our audiences.”Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi, the new restaurant at Geffen Hall, has been a hit with critics and is drawing crowds.Nico Schinco for The New York Times“We have a long way to go as an organization — nobody at Lincoln Center is taking a bow,” he added in an interview at Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi, the new restaurant at Geffen Hall that critics have named one of the best in the city. “But relative to where we were, I feel like we’ve made good progress.”Nevertheless, the reduction in programming, and the shift away from classical music and theater to other genres, has raised questions. Joseph W. Polisi, a former president of the Juilliard School who has written a history of Lincoln Center, said that Timms’s vision was a “sea change” for the center that could come at a cost.“It leaves a gap in music programming in New York City that is not being filled — it can’t be filled,” he said. “All the artistic leaders I know are fully in support of more program diversity at Lincoln Center. Now the question is, how far does the pendulum swing?”The critic Alex Ross recently wrote in The New Yorker that the new approach seemed “fundamentally out of step with Lincoln Center and its public, both extant and potential.”The conductor Jonathon Heyward will lead a reimagined version of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.Lawrence Sumulong/Lincoln CenterBut Timms pushes back on such criticism, partly by pointing out that “we have just spent four years through a pandemic, and half a billion dollars, creating a concert hall to house the New York Philharmonic” and noting that the center had hired Jonathon Heyward, who recently became the first Black music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, to lead a reimagined version of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.“Lincoln Center was founded as Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; it was not founded as Lincoln Center for the Classical Arts,” Timms said. “You go back to the beginning and there’s a reason Mahalia Jackson was playing here. And it’s not because we’re only supposed to be about the opera and the ballet.”Summers at Lincoln Center look different now. The old Lincoln Center Festival was scrapped a few years before Timms arrived, and with it the large-scale, ambitious productions it brought each summer from around the world, including Noh theater and Kabuki theater from Japan, Indonesian dance and Chinese opera. Lincoln Center’s programming is now overseen by Shanta Thake, its chief artistic officer, who was formerly an associate artistic director at the Public Theater. She and Timms have replaced the Mostly Mozart Festival, which had focused on classical music and recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, with the more eclectic Summer for the City festival.Portia and the American Composers Orchestra at “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle,” which Lincoln Center staged in Damrosch Park as part of its Summer for the City festival.Lawrence Sumulong/Lincoln Center“How do we build on this promise of being a performing arts center for all New Yorkers?” Thake asked. “How do we not rest on our laurels but push for what a performing arts center needs to be right now? Everybody’s willing to have hard conversations.”The coming fall and winter season will feature an array of classical offerings, including a new production of Henry Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen” and a performance of Philip Glass’s piano études. There will also be more experimental fare in line with the center’s new vision, including a reimagining of “The Sound of Music” through a “utopian, Afrofuturistic lens,” featuring gospel, funk, soul and Afrobeat music.Timms has also prioritized diversity backstage: of the 109 current members of the executive and senior management teams, about 60 percent are women and nearly 40 percent are people of color. In addition, the center recently started a two-year fellowship program to develop a diverse pipeline of potential board members for the resident organizations; three have been placed as trustees and three more have elections pending.Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, who serves on Lincoln Center’s board, praised Timms as a “once-in-a-generation leader” who “genuinely understands that diversity correlates with excellence.”A summer dance party on the Lincoln Center plaza.Mohamed Sadek for The New York TimesThe ballet dancer Misty Copeland, who joined Lincoln Center’s board under Timms, commended his spearheading of the Amsterdam Avenue project, a long-neglected plan to make right Lincoln Center’s initial razing of the low-income San Juan Hill neighborhood where the performing arts complex was built.“He does not shy away from a history that may not look clean and sparkly,” Copeland said. “I don’t think I could imagine 10 years ago that this is where Lincoln Center would be.”Timms, whose mother was an illustrator from the United States and whose father was a British archaeologist, grew up in Exeter, England, where his family often attended regional theaters.“Our childhood was full of ideas and the arts,” he said. “We had access and experience and ownership. You felt like you were a part of something.”He graduated from Durham University in England and landed a job overseeing programming at the 92nd Street Y in 2008, where he helped start #GivingTuesday, a day of philanthropy after Black Friday and Cyber Monday that became a global success. In 2014, he was named the Y’s executive director.Steven R. Swartz, the new chairman of Lincoln Center, said Timms had won over the center’s board with his energy and ideas, quickly recognizing the organization’s main problems, including tensions with the constituents. “He just so quickly diagnosed what needed to be done,” Swartz said.And after years of false starts and bitter feuds, Timms built a good working relationship with the leaders of the Philharmonic — he and Deborah Borda, who was the orchestra’s president and chief executive, sometimes resolved disputes over coffee or martinis — and finally renovated Geffen Hall. By accelerating construction during the pandemic shutdown, they were able to open the reimagined hall ahead of schedule.“He was intent on moving past the history of animosity that existed between Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic,” said Borda, who stepped down at the end of June. “He put a premium on working together. He was essentially the right man at the right time at the right place.”Katherine G. Farley, who stepped down as Lincoln Center’s chairwoman in June, said Timms “has led the transformation of a traditional institution” and that he is “quick and eager to experiment.””Not everything works out,” she added. “When it doesn’t work, he’s quick to shut it down and try something else.”Like other arts institutions, Lincoln Center is still trying to recover from the pandemic shutdown, when the performing arts came to a halt for more than 18 months. The organization is spending less on programming than it did when Timms began his tenure: about $14 million in the fiscal year that ended in June 2022, down from $23 million in 2019, a decrease of about 40 percent that officials attributed in part to the fact that Geffen Hall remained closed for construction through the fiscal year of 2022.But fund-raising remains relatively strong, and the endowment has risen to about $268 million, compared to $258 million in 2019. Moody’s recently affirmed its A3 rating on the center’s $356 million of debt but revised its outlook to stable from negative, noting the completion of Geffen Hall and the center’s efforts to cut expenses and attract new audiences.And relations have eased with the constituent organizations — who historically competed with Lincoln Center for audiences, donors and attention.David Geffen Hall, the home of the New York Philharmonic, reopened last year after a long-delayed renovation.Hilary Swift for The New York Times“He’s been very clear that it’s the job of Lincoln Center to honor and pay attention to and try to help all the constituents that make up Lincoln Center,” said Andre Bishop, the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater. Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, said Timms had signaled to the constituents early in his tenure that the days of infighting were over. “Here was somebody who understood and really seemed to be listening,” he said. And Damian Woetzel, the president of Juilliard, said Timms had proven “tradition is not at war with innovation.”On a recent day, a team of Lincoln Center staff members inside Geffen Hall was conducting research to prepare for the Amsterdam Avenue project, asking visitors where they spent time on campus and what they would like to do more of: attend cultural events? meet friends? play games? exercise? A poster explained the history of the San Juan Hill neighborhood and said: “Help us make our campus more welcoming!”In a few hours, Timms would join a salsa band on the outdoor dance floor in a pair of coral-colored Nike Air Max sneakers.“Changing with the world isn’t just the right thing to do morally,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do strategically. And if leaders in a position like ours don’t lead this change, what on earth are you doing?” More

Berlin’s public prosecutor’s office dropped its investigation, citing a lack of evidence for allegations that Mr. Lindemann had drugged young women in order to have sex with them.Berlin’s public prosecutor’s office on Tuesday said it had dropped its sexual assault investigation into Till Lindemann, the frontman for the rock band Rammstein, citing a lack of evidence.The investigation began in June after several women said that Mr. Lindemann had plied young people with alcohol and drugs before, during and after concerts in order to have sex with them. Lawyers for Mr. Lindemann denied those claims in a statement and threatened legal action against those making the claims and news outlets reporting on them.“I thank all those who have waited impartially for the end of the investigation,” Mr. Lindemann, 60, posted to Instagram on Tuesday.When the German news media reported on the allegations of impropriety against the leader of one of the country’s most successful modern music groups, commercial partners ended their ties with Mr. Lindemann. Universal, which distributes Rammstein’s music, said it would stop any promotional activities. And politicians condemned the described behavior.“We need more awareness about abuse of power and sexualized violence, and not only in the music industry, but in the whole cultural industry,” Claudia Roth, Germany’s culture minister, told Der Spiegel, a newsweekly, adding, “The times of foul machismo combined with abuse of power up to sexualized violence should really and definitely be over.”According to the prosecutor’s office, however, it was impossible to substantiate the reports against Mr. Lindemann because so many accusations were made anonymously. Kaya Loska, a prominent influencer who had described her experience backstage during a concert in 2022, was interviewed by prosecutors. But they said she was of little help because she did not witness any crimes being committed.“It was therefore not possible to sufficiently substantiate any allegations of the crimes, nor was it possible to gain an impression of the credibility of the alleged injured parties and the believability of their statements during questioning,” Sebastian Büchner, who speaks for the public prosecutor’s office, wrote in a statement.Shelby Lynn, a former fan of the band, helped make the allegations public when she posted on social media about her experience at a concert in Vilnius in May, during which she believed she was drugged. Ms. Lynn took her complaint to the Lithuanian police, but they declined to investigate. More

Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThe first leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has come to a close, with the pop superstar having performed in stadiums across North America for several million people.A few of those people are friends of Popcast. This week and next, we’ll speak with a few of them about their experiences at the show.On this week’s Popcast, conversations about the consonances between the Eras Tour and Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, the way Swift does (and does not) deploy dance as part of her arsenal and the thrills of seeing Swift perform for the first time.Guests:Wesley Morris, a critic at large for The New York TimesBrian Seibert, who writes about dance for The New York Times and othersYasi Salek, host of the Bandsplain podcastConnect 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 [email protected]. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

Hear songs from Beyoncé, Alvvays, Mdou Moctar and more.Beyoncé, a master of ballads and addition.The New York TimesDear listeners,I sincerely hope I am not the first person to break this news to you, but it’s true: Summer is almost over.Let us not mourn what is lost, though. Let us celebrate the summer that was. And what it was, for me at least, was a time to go to a lot of concerts. Most of them outdoors!While the post-lockdown summer concert has made its gradual, necessary return over the past two years, this season it felt back in full bloom. The news was, of course, dominated by a few extremely high-profile ones (Taylor Swift’s cultural juggernaut Eras Tour; Beyoncé’s first solo outing in seven years, the Renaissance World Tour) but there were plenty of simpler (and cheaper) pleasures to be had, too. I caught some incredible free shows over the past few months in New York City parks, from the likes of Mdou Moctar and John Cale. And in a smaller club environment, I was introduced to the up-and-coming singer-songwriter Blondshell.Today’s playlist is a kind of sonic scrapbook of my summer of shows. I’d encourage you to make your own, too; even as this season fades out (sob), it’s a great way to hold onto its most tuneful memories.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Alvvays: “Easy on Your Own?”Let’s start with the most recent one: Last Wednesday, I caught an excellent double bill in Prospect Park, as a part of BRIC Arts Media’s annual Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival. The Canadian dream-pop band Alvvays played first; its last album, “Blue Rev,” was one of my favorites of 2022, and I especially love this fuzzed out, gently melancholic second track. (Listen on YouTube)2. Alex G: “Gretel”And here’s the other half of that double bill, the Philadelphia indie musician Alex G, who also released one of my favorite albums of last year, the strange and poignant “God Save the Animals.” Alex’s live shows are always a bit louder and more raucous than his records would lead you to believe; I have actually seen mosh pits break out when he plays this seemingly subdued standout from his great 2019 album, “House of Sugar.” (Listen on YouTube)3. Taylor Swift: “The Archer”I have been known to refer to this one as “The Sagittarius National Anthem.” The more I think about Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour — and there are plenty of opportunities to do so; it’s still all anybody wants to talk about — the more I think my favorite stretch of the concert was the first one, when she finally got to play some songs from her 2019 album “Lover.” Here she is at her most minimalist, and her most antiheroic, as she punctures her own good-girl image on “The Archer”: “I see right through me, I see right through me.” (Listen on YouTube)4. Tanya Tucker: “Delta Dawn”When I traveled to the Gorge in Washington earlier this summer to catch Brandi Carlile’s Echoes Through the Canyon festival — and, you know, a certain very, very special headliner — I was lucky enough to catch an early evening set by the country icon Tanya Tucker. My second favorite part of the show was when she played “Delta Dawn,” which she recorded at age 13, and every single person there sang along at the top of their lungs. My first favorite part was when Tucker uncorked a bottle of her signature tequila and passed it around the front row. (Listen on YouTube)5. Amanda Shires & Bobbie Nelson: “Always on My Mind”The headliners that final night of Echoes Through the Canyon were the Highwomen, a country supergroup that features Carlile, Maren Morris, Natalie Hemby and the fiery fiddle player and singer-songwriter Amanda Shires. Each Highwoman played a solo cover during the set, and Shires wowed me with a poignant rendition of “Always on My Mind,” which she dedicated to Bobbie Nelson. Luckily, you didn’t just have to be there: The studio recording of the song, on which Nelson played piano shortly before she died last year, is gorgeous, and quite close to the version Shires played live. (Listen on YouTube)6. John Cale: “Heartbreak Hotel”Another brilliant show in Prospect Park: Earlier this month, 81-year-old John Cale treated Brooklyn to a spellbinding concert on one of the most temperate evenings of the whole summer. His set pulled from decades of his own material, but one of the most memorable moments was when he played an eerily deconstructed reimagining of “Heartbreak Hotel,” similar to this version that appeared on his 1992 live album “Fragments of a Rainy Season.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Blondshell: “Dangerous”I already knew, from listening to her 2023 self-titled debut as Blondshell, that Sabrina Teitelbaum was a sharp songwriter with a distinct take on the dark side of young adulthood and an easy way with minor-key melodies. What I didn’t realize until I saw her live this summer, though, is that she can really sing. She belted out “Blondshell” highlights like “Salad” and “Sepsis” (two great titles for songs), but the finely calibrated pathos she brought to the haunting “Dangerous” lingered with me long after the show. (Listen on YouTube)8. Mdou Moctar: “Tarhatazed”Mdou Moctar, the Tuareg guitar wizard whose last few albums have gained him much-deserved recognition in the West, leads what I believe to be one of the best rock bands in the world right now. I’ve seen them live a few times, and they’ve never sounded tighter than they did at the free — what a bargain! — show they played in July at Central Park’s SummerStage Festival. The new material was amazing and has me very excited for whatever the group decides to release next, but in the meantime, here’s an epic jam from the band’s 2019 album “Ilana the Creator.” (Listen on YouTube)9. Beyoncé: “1+1”As I pointed out in my review of the North American opening of her dazzling Renaissance World Tour, Beyoncé began a show that honors the vast history of dance music with, unexpectedly, a mini-set of slow, piano-driven torch songs. I confess I was getting a little impatient with the Queen — didn’t we come to dance?! — until she played a transcendent “1+1,” one of her greatest ballads. Then I had no choice but to bow down. (Listen on YouTube)I’ve got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“A Summer of Live Music” track listTrack 1: Alvvays, “Easy on Your Own?”Track 2: Alex G, “Gretel”Track 3: Taylor Swift, “The Archer”Track 4: Tanya Tucker, “Delta Dawn”Track 5: Amanda Shires & Bobbie Nelson, “Always on My Mind”Track 6: John Cale, “Heartbreak Hotel”Track 7: Blondshell, “Dangerous”Track 8: Mdou Moctar, “Tarhatazed”Track 9: Beyoncé, “1+1”Bonus tracksI purposely left off the summer concerts to which I’d already devoted entire playlists, but in case you missed those, the Cure and the Pretenders were both amazing.Also, my beleaguered New York Mets are still giving me little to cheer about, but I continue to be amused by the special walk-up songs they choose for “Women’s Day” (which was March 8 everywhere else in the world but, for some reason, was Aug. 26 at Citi Field). Each player changed his walk-up song to one by a female artist, and for the second year in a row, Daniel Vogelbach’s pick was the one to beat. This year he chose Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles,” and last year, he went with Kelis’s “Milkshake.” Daniel Vogelbach, I salute you. More

A writer struggled with being present. This Brazilian drum helped her pay attention.Earlier this year, Paul Simon’s “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” came on at a party I was at. I didn’t recognize the song at first; the room was crowded, and making out Simon’s strumming over multiple streams of chatter and conversation proved difficult. But then I heard it: a sharp noise, cutting through the track’s major chords in jagged intervals like a pair of blunt scissors. When I asked my friend what she thought the sound was, she paused, then guessed it might have been a duck. Another friend likened it to throat singing. They didn’t expect that the alien noise came from a type of drum — the cuíca.The cuíca is an odd instrument. It can buzz, hum, squeak and squawk; it can moan or creak; sometimes it even sounds like it’s weeping. If we’re being specific, cuícas are Brazilian friction drums, and although the word “friction” refers to the method used to play the instrument (musicians reach inside the drum to manipulate a wooden stick while their second hand applies pressure to the other side), the word also describes the abrasive effect it can have on listeners. Punching through songs as if it disagrees with how they’re supposed to sound, the cuíca is a key instrument in the bateria, the drumming wing of Rio de Janeiro’s samba ensembles during Carnival.I can’t remember the first time I heard it. Maybe it was in my grandmother’s living room in Brasília late one Christmas Eve, when, after a few drinks, my aunt Patrícia would put on Chico Buarque’s “Apesar de Você.” Or perhaps I heard it when I was still a baby, when my mom would play one of her favorite songs, “Carolina Carol Bela,” by Jorge Ben Jor and Toquinho. The particular moment hardly matters. The cuíca’s central role in most Brazilian music — from samba to Tropicália — means it has swathed me all my life. While I’ll never know where I first heard the drum, I keep going back to that sound, searching it out.I left Brazil when I was 1 and have spent most of my life outside the country. Though I now live in London, I’m still sensitive to sounds and smells that remind me of my birthplace. I would be lying if I said I like to listen to the cuíca for that reason, though. When I hear the cuíca, it doesn’t take me back to Brazil; it takes me somewhere else altogether.I struggle with being present, and often gravitate toward things that demand my attention in quick bursts: fountains, spicy food, the color orange, Leos. Cuícas fall into that category. They swallow me whole one moment, only to cough me back up the next. Hearing the sound feels like the aural equivalent of driving over a pothole. For a second or two, I jump in my seat. My stomach clenches. I lose track of space and time. Then, after a few measures, I’m back in the real world again, only now everything around me feels clearer and louder — and emptier, too. Sometimes I feel as though I may have misplaced something in the process. But when I rack my brain for what that might be, I can never figure out what I’m looking for.It can buzz, hum, squeak and squawk; it can moan or creak; sometimes it even sounds like it’s weeping.In some ways, the cuíca’s ability to transport listeners is part of its appeal. When Paul Simon was recording “Me and Julio” with the Brazilian jazz percussionist Airto Moreira, he said he wanted something that sounded “like a human voice” in the mix — a noise that would surprise and move people, making the song’s characters come alive. After Moreira played the cuíca for him, Simon knew he’d found what he needed. He wasn’t the only one who liked the way it sounded either: In 1972, the song charted in the U.S. for nine straight weeks.It’s a strange yet pleasant sensation, often making me think of the different processes that move sounds across space and instruments across continents. Pain and joy commingle in the history of the cuíca. Some historians believe that, like many percussion instruments in the region, enslaved Africans brought it to the Americas; it took root in Brazil in the form of samba. It’s believed that people originally used the drum to hunt lions, hoping that the animals would mistake the noise for another living being. After all, not many instruments sound like weeping or laughing, ducks or singing.The more I reflect on the uniqueness of the sound, the more I find myself reckoning with the complex history of migration — both forced and otherwise — that underpins it. It makes me think of how, in the Americas — where most of us are migrants or descendants of migrants — it’s hard to know exactly where or what “home” is. Sometimes it’s beans and bay leaves and strangers whose voices undulate when they talk. The cuíca, though, reminds me of my own history of movement. It complicates the idea of home.A few months ago, I was out at a bar when I heard the instrument again — this time in the form of Jorge Ben Jor’s “Taj Mahal.” Seated at the table with my friend, I couldn’t keep track of what we were talking about. That strange noise — laughing? gasping? weeping? — in the background commanded my attention. Once the song was over, I returned to the conversation in full. Secretly, though, I’d been carried to a different time and place entirely, and found myself wishing I could stay there a while longer. Carolina Abbott Galvão is a writer based in London. More

Florence Welch, the front woman of the band, apologized to fans for canceling her recent shows after undergoing what she said was lifesaving surgery.Florence Welch, the front woman of the English indie rock band Florence + the Machine, announced on Instagram that she had undergone emergency surgery, which is why she had canceled some of her recent shows.“I had to have emergency surgery for reasons I don’t really feel strong enough to go into yet, but it saved my life,” Welch wrote.“I’m so sorry that I had to cancel the last couple of shows,” she added.The singer said she plans to return to the stage for the Meo Kalorama festival in Lisbon, Portugal, where she is slated to perform on Sept. 1, and close out her Dance Fever tour in Malaga, Spain, on Sept. 2.The Dance Fever Tour was initially postponed in November, when an X-ray revealed that she had been dancing on a broken foot, Welch said on Instagram at the time.“It is not in my nature to postpone a show, and certainly not a U.K. tour, but I’m in pain and as dancers know, dancing on an injury is not a good idea,” she wrote in November.In her most recent Instagram post, she assured fans that her feet were fine but said that upon her return to the stage she might not be jumping around as much, adding, “you can do that for me.”“Suffice to say I wish the songs were less accurate in their predictions,” she wrote. “But creativity is a way of coping, mythology is a way of making sense. And the dark fairy tale of Dance Fever, with all its strange prophecies, will provide me with much-needed strength and catharsis right now.”The band is most known for its hit “Dog Days Are Over,” which peaked at 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2010, and “Shake it Out,” which peaked at 72 in 2012. More

The song by Oliver Anthony Music played a role at the Republican primary debate, though the musician clarified he doesn’t identify with “people on conservative news.”“Rich Men North of Richmond,” the out-of-nowhere viral protest song by Oliver Anthony Music, is the country’s No. 1 single for a second time, after playing a key role in last week’s Republican primary debate.“Rich Men,” a spare acoustic track uploaded to YouTube just weeks ago by the largely unknown Anthony, quickly caught fire as an angry cry against corporate and political elites, though it also took shots at welfare recipients. Embraced by conservative commentators, the song shot to the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, with big download and streaming numbers.Last week, the first question at the Republican debate was about the significance of “Rich Men,” and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida spun it as a sign of policy failures by the Biden administration.In a video response posted to YouTube, Anthony — real name Christopher Anthony Lunsford — said he was bothered by how his song has become a political talking point. “It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I’m one of them,” he said. “I see the right trying to characterize me as one of their own. And I see the left trying to discredit me.” The song, he added on Facebook, “is about corporate owned D.C. politicians on both sides.”“Rich Men” repeats at No. 1 on the all-genre Hot 100 with 23 million streams and 117,000 downloads, according to the tracking service Luminate. It is also No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart.On the Billboard 200 album chart, Travis Scott’s “Utopia” marks a month at No. 1 with the equivalent of 161,000 sales, including 92 million streams and 92,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to Luminate, driven by discounted vinyl sales on the rapper’s website. According to Billboard, “Utopia” is the first rap album to spend its first four weeks at the top since 2018, when Drake’s “Scorpion” had five. (In 2021, Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” spent its first three weeks at No. 1, then returned to the top for another two weeks later on.)Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” holds at No. 2, while the singer-songwriter Hozier opens at No. 3 with his new “Unreal Unearth.” The “Barbie” soundtrack remains in fourth place, and Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” is No. 5. More

“Getting In,” a new book from David Kennerley, collects the edgy advertisements for parties at clubs like the Palladium and records a culture forged from defiance.In the new book “Getting In,” the journalist David Kennerley takes an electric visual stroll through New York’s 1990s gay club scene. Not with photos, exactly, but through fliers — more than 200 of them — featuring polychromatic drag queens and come-hither hunks who enticed him to dance to Frankie Knuckles and Junior Vasquez remixes at popular nightclubs like Twilo and the Palladium, and parties like Jackie 60 and Lick It!“People threw the fliers on the ground,” Kennerley, 63, said in a recent interview at a Midtown cafe. “I thought, why would you throw this out? It’s going to be a memento.”Kennerley assembled the book from his collection of over 1,200 fliers that he acquired from several sources — promoters outside clubs, now-closed gay shops and bars, club mailing lists — all before social media. A self-described “bit of a hoarder,” Kennerley considers the book an act of queer music history preservation.“We weren’t all snapping pictures at clubs back then, so we don’t have much of a visual record,” he said. “These provide some sort of visual evidence of what went on.”Kennerley and other ’90s club veterans recently shared memories of some of the fliers, and the era. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.via David KennerleyDivas Fight AIDS, Palladium (1992)LADY BUNNY, D.J. and CLUB KID Back in the ’80s and ’90s, we felt we needed to come together as a community to fight AIDS. The fear of AIDS made us party with greater abandon. For an entire generation of gay men, especially those connected to the club world, we weren’t saving money. We assumed the odds were against us. Loleatta Holloway and Lonnie Gordon — that’s quite a lineup in terms of what songs packed dance floors.MICHAEL MUSTO, NIGHTLIFE CHRONICLER We learned the power of graphic art from ACT UP and Queer Nation. They knew how to use slogans and imagery to get a point across. Promoters used that know-how to sell their parties.DAVID KENNERLEY It feels like she’s a superhero in a way. That’s what people needed to be then because of the stigma and persecution.via David KennerleyPurgatory, Sound Factory Bar (1992)KENNERLEY At first glance it would be muscle boys in short shorts. It is, but someone Photoshopped on the heads of Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Notice it was about getting out to vote. This one has credits of Jon McEwan and Jason McCarthy, the photographer and the promoter. They did one of George Bush spanking Dan Quayle, too.MARK ALLEN, GO-GO BOY and MODEL This was taken during a session where I was photographed with Richard, this kid from Venezuela, whose body was Al Gore. Mine was Bill Clinton. And Jon goes, I want to photograph you in cutoff shorts, the kind that were popular on Fire Island then. It sounded like something Spy would do in the ’80s. They took three shots and we went on to the next thing.You saw T-shirts of this image on cards. It was a good example about how something could go viral before the internet. I didn’t mind being anonymous. I thought it was art.SUSAN MORABITO, D.J. I don’t remember that particular party but I remember the flier.via David KennerleyThe Saint at Large, Tunnel (1992)MORABITO Back then, fliers inspired conversation and controversy sometimes. When the Saint at Large party used to send them in the mail, you couldn’t wait to get it. You’d get on the phone with your friends and talk about it.KENNERLEY Marky Mark had a song called “Good Vibrations” that went to No. 1. He was the Calvin Klein model for a while, and he would pull down his trousers and show off his tighty whities.The promise of the poster is, he’s going to show off his muscular physique. I paid a lot of money to go that night but I was very disappointed. He got onstage and he strutted around in a dark hoodie. Before you knew it, the song was over. I was like, wait, what about dropping the pants? I guess you could say it was misleading advertising.via David KennerleyCopacabana (1992)CHIP DUCKETT, PUBLICIST and PRODUCER Susanne [Bartsch, the club promoter and hostess] has a deep love of all things party. Inside Copa it was this perfect mix. There’s a baroness over here, a real one. Here’s a hooker and here’s a fashion model and it’s really gay but it’s also not gay. I don’t think Studio 54 did it in the same way. She’s still hosting parties every week.In those days I printed 50,000 fliers a month. Some guys in Queens who ran a club opened a printing company called Nightlife Printing. They did fliers for everybody. When I think of the amount of paper that got delivered to my office …Pork, The Lure (1994)KENNERLEY The Lure was leather and Levi’s oriented and they had a dress code. The party on Wednesday was geared toward the younger crowd, to get them involved in the scene. They also had B.D.S.M. shows on occasion. It got racy.MUSTO The way people forged a sense of communal identity was by going out. It was vital to have niche parties, where you had an exact type of gay, like twinks or bears. Now everybody has sex via Grindr, so that if you walk into a gay bar there is zero sexual urgency in the air.via David Kennerley‘Big’ Opening Night Party, Roxy (1996)ALLEN This was me, taken by the photographer Hans Fahrmeyer. I made some money on that one. It was on greetings cards and posters. I remember being in a cab and somebody had plastered on scaffolding 50 or 100 of the posters. I saw it for a few seconds. I thought, this is the closest I’ll ever get to my picture being in Times Square. I went back a week later and it was gone. That captured the fleetingness of the whole scene.LADY BUNNY This was a time when record companies would send D.J.s records to see what was a hit with our crowd. Gays has such good taste in dance music with zero promotion and a cover that didn’t even have the artist’s picture on it!ALLEN I thought it would lead to something incredible. It didn’t. But now it makes me think of my youth and the passage of time and how important the memories are. More