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      Reimagining ‘Madame Butterfly,’ With Asian Creators at the Helm

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      As opera houses rework Puccini’s classic, criticized for stereotypes about women and Japanese culture, artists of Asian descent are playing a central role.The auditorium lights dimmed, and the cast and crew of Cincinnati Opera’s new production of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” anxiously took their places.For months, the team, made up largely of Asian and Asian American artists, had worked to reimagine the classic opera, upending its stereotypes about women and Japanese culture. They had updated the look of the opera with costumes and sets partly inspired by anime, scrubbed the libretto of historical inaccuracies and recast much of the work as a video-game fantasy. They gathered at the Cincinnati Music Hall one evening last week to fine-tune their creation before its opening last Saturday.“It feels a little like a grand experiment,” said the production’s director, Matthew Ozawa, whose father is Japanese and mother is white. “It’s very emotional.”“Madame Butterfly,” which premiered in 1904 (and is set around that time), tells the story of a lovelorn 15-year-old geisha in Nagasaki who is abandoned by an American Navy lieutenant after he gets her pregnant. The opera has long been criticized for its portrait of Asian women as exotic and submissive, and the use of exaggerated makeup and stereotypical costumes in some productions has drawn fire.Now, after years of pressure by artists and activists and a growing awareness of anti-Asian hate, many companies are reworking the opera and giving artists of Asian descent a central role in reshaping its message and story. In a milestone, directors with Asian roots are leading four major productions this year in the United States.San Francisco Opera recently staged a version, directed by Amon Miyamoto, that explored the suffering and discrimination experienced by a biracial character. Boston Lyric Opera is setting part of its coming production in a Chinatown nightclub in San Francisco in the 1940s, and part in an incarceration camp.New Orleans Opera rewrote the traditional ending in a recent production to give the title character a sense of agency. Instead of committing suicide, she throws aside a dagger handed to her, picks up her son and storms offstage.Adam Smith dons a virtual reality headset as the overture begins in the Cincinnati production. “We decided we’re going to honor the fact that this is a white man’s fantasy — a fantasy of a culture and a fantasy of a woman,” Ozawa said.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesIn Cincinnati, the opera begins in the apartment of a lonely white man in his 20s who worships Japanese video games. The overture begins when he puts on a virtual-reality headset to enter a fantasy about Japan, assuming the character of the American lieutenant, B.F. Pinkerton.“We decided we’re going to honor the fact that this is a white man’s fantasy — a fantasy of a culture and a fantasy of a woman,” Ozawa said.At times, the fantasy breaks down and the characters freeze, such as when Pinkerton says something offensive or the chorus makes stereotypical gestures. “We see these moments that hearken to what the tradition usually would look like and then we erase it,” Ozawa said.A scene from San Francisco Opera’s recent “Butterfly,” directed by Amon Miyamoto, which explored the suffering and discrimination experienced by a biracial character. Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera.The re-examination of “Madame Butterfly” comes as cultural institutions face pressure to feature more prominently musicians, dancers, choreographers and composers of color amid a broader discussion about racial discrimination.The reconsideration extends beyond the United States: The Royal Opera House recently updated its “Madame Butterfly” production, getting rid of white makeup and other elements, like wigs and samurai-style coiffures.While the changes have alienated some traditionalists, the artists behind the new productions say they want to preserve the spirit of Puccini’s work while making it accessible to a broader audience.Phil Chan, who is directing the production in Boston and has helped lead the push to confront stereotypes in opera and ballet, said he hoped to make familiar stories more authentic and relevant. The creative team in Boston includes Nina Yoshida Nelsen, a founder of the Asian Opera Alliance, which was formed in 2021 to help bring more racial diversity to the field.“Some people might be afraid that we’re somehow messing with a masterpiece,” said Chan, whose father is Chinese and mother is white. “But we see it as an opportunity to make the work bigger and resonate with more people.”As they reimagine “Butterfly,” artists of Asian descent are working to help each other, exchanging ideas and offering encouragement.Aria Umezawa, who directed the New Orleans production, was distressed after coming across photos of white chorus members in exaggerated makeup and costumes in an old Canadian production of “Madame Butterfly.” She sought out Ozawa.“It’s just been always really helpful to talk to my colleagues,” Umezawa said, “to hear their concerns, to understand the nuance and the shades of gray that exist between different elements of our community. It’s just nice not to be alone.”A scene from the New Orleans production of “Madame Butterfly.” Instead of killing herself at the end, the title character picks up her son and takes him offstage.Jeff StroutWhile the experience of remaking “Madame Butterfly” has been liberating for many artists, the reaction from the public has been mixed.In New Orleans, many people applauded Umezawa’s production, saying it was refreshing to see a strong woman at the center of the opera. But some were critical of the ending.“Not having her die stole the pathos of the story,” an operagoer wrote in response to a survey by the company. “I don’t need an empowered Butterfly. What lesson do I learn from Butterfly riding off into the sunset?”Umezawa said she felt constrained at times by Puccini’s vision. “Ultimately, no matter what I do,” she said, “it’s still Puccini’s music, and it’s still his best guess with Japanese culture.”Next year, when she directs a production of “Butterfly” in Philadelphia, she said she hoped to experiment some more, perhaps by incorporating taiko drums into the orchestra.The focus on “Madame Butterfly” has helped shine light on the dearth of Asian artists in opera. While Asian singers make up a large share of conservatory vocal programs, they remain significantly underrepresented in principal roles at major opera companies, and among stage directors and in other leadership posts.The production in Cincinnati, which closes on Saturday, almost didn’t happen. In 2020, Ozawa backed out of a plan to direct a traditional version of “Madame Butterfly” at the opera house, worried that it would not be true to his artistic mission.But Evans Mirageas, the company’s artistic director, persisted, agreeing to support Ozawa’s vision for a reimagined work. The idea gained the backing of several co-producers, including Detroit Opera, Pittsburgh Opera and Utah Opera, which will stage the Cincinnati production in the coming years.Mirageas said it had become increasingly difficult to ignore the problems of “Madame Butterfly” because of the surge in violence and harassment targeting Asians in recent years. “It’s a production that’s found its moment in time,” he said.At Ozawa’s request, Cincinnati Opera hired three women of Japanese descent — Maiko Matsushima, Yuki Nakase Link and Kimie Nishikawa — to oversee costumes, lighting and scenery.The almost entirely Asian cast and crew brought a sense of camaraderie to the production.“We can easily understand each other because we know each other’s stories and cultures,” said Karah Son, a South Korean soprano who sings the title role. She recalled being able to quickly master a geisha dance because she knew what Ozawa wanted.The production’s conductor, Keitaro Harada, used a Japanese phrase to capture the dynamic: “aun no kokyu,” describing a sense of harmony.“We just understand each other in a very natural way,” said Harada, who was born in Japan. “We know what we’re all thinking.”Ozawa directing a rehearsal in Cincinnati. “It feels a little like a grand experiment,” he said of the reimagined production. “It’s very emotional.”Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesOzawa said he felt an obligation to “Madame Butterfly” because he is of Japanese descent, even if working on it could be uncomfortable. Earlier in his career, he recalled that white colleagues would sometimes squint their eyes, bow to him or greet him by saying “konichiwa” while working on the production.He said he was nervous that he would let down the Japanese community if his production was not a success. But on opening night, his fears subsided when cheers erupted after the final curtain fell at Cincinnati Music Hall.“We have an immense duty to this piece, to Butterfly and to the Asian community,” he said. “There might be some discomfort in our story, but change can only come if there’s discomfort.” More

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      How the Indigo Girls Brought Barbie ‘Closer to Fine’

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      A 1989 song about soul searching has maintained cultural relevance for three decades, but the band has also long been the target of homophobic jokes. Fans are savoring a moment of vindication.In Greta Gerwig’s Barbieland, where every day is the best day ever, pop stars like Lizzo, Dua Lipa and Charli XCX provide a bouncy soundtrack as the live-action dolls go about their cheery, blissful lives. That is, until Margot Robbie’s “stereotypical” Barbie cues a record scratch with a rare and shocking existential query: “Do you guys ever think about dying?”To resolve this disruption to her otherwise perfect life, she hops in her pink Corvette and belts along to a track filled with strummed acoustic guitars and close harmonies. “There’s more than one answer to these questions, pointing me in a crooked line,” she sings with a smile, before thrusting a manicured pointer in the air.Barbie’s song of choice on her way to the Real World is the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine.”The Indigo Girls, a folk duo from Georgia who have released 15 studio albums since 1987, featured “Closer to Fine” as the opening track on their self-titled 1989 LP. Emily Saliers wrote the song after she and her fellow singer and guitarist, Amy Ray, graduated from Emory University in Atlanta and were regularly playing a local bar called Little Five Points. It became a staple of the Girls’ live show that spread thanks to college radio play and an opening slot on tour with another Georgia band, R.E.M.It’s a song about seeking, Saliers said by phone this month: “I searched here and I searched there, and if I just try to take it easy and get a little bit of knowledge and wisdom from different sources, then I’m going to be closer to fine.”“Closer to Fine,” with its four-chord verses, octave-jumping chorus and slightly inscrutable lyrics, has been a staple of dorm room singalongs, karaoke excursions and car rides for years, and it is the Indigo Girls’ most identifiable tune. “Indigo Girls,” their first album for a major label, went double platinum and won a Grammy.“It’s got a very easy melody and really easy chorus, and the chorus repeats,” Saliers said. “When you get to a chorus of a song that you’re into and you can just sing it at the top of your lungs, I think just structurally, melodically, it’s really a road trip song and I think that’s why you see it in those kinds of scenes.”Ray said “Closer to Fine” represents 80 percent of the band’s licensing, but the duo are generally told very little about how their music will be used. They don’t allow commercials, but have had successful soundtrack and onscreen placements in films like “Philadelphia” and TV shows including “The Office” and “Transparent.” In 1995, the duo starred as Whoopi Goldberg’s house band in the movie “Boys on the Side.”“I think it was really important at that time for us to reach more people,” Ray said in a phone interview. “Those kinds of things are just invaluable for an artist.”The Indigo Girls have a similar hope for “Barbie,” already a global phenomenon with powerhouse marketing and intergenerational brand recognition. A “Closer to Fine” cover by Brandi and Catherine Carlile appears on the expanded edition of the movie’s soundtrack.“I always felt that song was really defining of who they were in that era,” Brandi Carlile said in an interview. “That, even more than lesbians, what they were was intellectuals. They were offering up a life beyond the life that young people knew. And it’s a very young person’s song,” she added. “It’s about seeking out more than you thought you believed.”Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie in the movie. “It’s really a road trip song,” Saliers said of the band’s most recognizable tune.Warner Bros. PicturesStill, given little context in an initial call from their manager, Saliers said she was nervous. “I didn’t know who was directing it or anything, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is about Barbie? We better check to make sure this is kosher,’” she recalled. “But as it turned out, it’s in the hands of Greta and it’s just this amazing thing that happened. It was a complete surprise to me and Amy.”Ray called it a gift: “It’s just absolutely wonderful that they’re using it.”“Closer to Fine” recurs in the film three times and appears in its official trailer, but it’s been recirculating in pop culture organically, too. In March, a video of the comedian Tig Notaro singing it on a party bus alongside a crew that included Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Sarah Paulson blew up online. The band’s latest album, “Long Look,” arrived in 2020, and they have been on a tour (typically closing with the tune) that touches down in Ireland and Britain next month.“You don’t imagine a folk lesbian duo to be in this hot-pink Barbie movie,” said Notaro, who has been a fan since seeing the “Closer to Fine” video on MTV’s alternative rock show “120 Minutes.” “Kind of just selfishly and personally, I feel like, ‘Yeah, we were onto something all these years,’ you know? It’s validating. Obviously it’s been a huge hit forever, but this is so next level.”“When I hear a song like that,” she added, “it feels like just my chest bursts open with joy and hope.”The Indigo Girls are also the subject of a documentary, “It’s Only Life After All,” directed by Alexandria Bambach, which premiered at Sundance in January. The film serves as a reminder of how Saliers and Ray, both openly queer and from religious Southern backgrounds, endured scrutiny and prejudice as “Closer to Fine” put them in an early spotlight.“For the longest time I always felt we were the brunt of lesbian jokes in kind of a lowest common denominator,” Saliers says in the documentary. Ray echoed those sentiments in the film, saying, “It seemed like the most derogatory thing you could be is a female gay singer-songwriter.”Critics would refer to them as too earnest or overly pretentious, if they covered them at all. The duo were used to comic effect on “Saturday Night Live” and “South Park”; even Ellen DeGeneres employed them as a punchline after her character came out on national television on her sitcom “Ellen.”“That time period that really was just so critical of women — of queer women, of women that didn’t present the way that a patriarchal system wanted them to,” Bambach said. “I think it’s a really critical time for us to be looking back at, you know, just things that we scoffed or laughed off or said were OK.”Brandi Carlile said after watching the duo take so many shots over the years, the “Barbie” moment is extra sweet. “The real injustice of how the Indigo Girls have been treated throughout these last few decades is that they’ve been used as kind of this dog whistling acceptable way to sort of parody lesbians, and I always felt destabilized by it,” she said. “And so seeing something like this happen for them on this scale and watching them and that iconic kind of life-affirming song make its way to new ears is probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen in years.”The singer-songwriter Katie Pruitt, 29, found the Indigo Girls in high school but further embraced them in college, when she said their music gave her the confidence to write personal and descriptive lyrics from her experiences as a gay woman.“Representation in culture is the biggest, the single most important thing I think for people to fully embrace themselves,” she said. “You need all these different examples of who you’re allowed to be, and the answer is anybody — you’re allowed to be anybody.”Pruitt called “Closer to Fine” the “northern star” of songwriting. “It’s incredible that it’s having a resurgence in 2023” in “a franchise that I grew up associating with extreme heteronormativity,” she said. “I love how now they’re rebranding it as something incredibly inclusive.”Bambach, who discovered the Indigo Girls during singalongs led by counselors at youth summer camp, saw “Barbie” on opening weekend in Atlanta and said there were screams of joy and recognition when “Closer to Fine” played onscreen.“It’s very gratifying to think that there’s something that this very fine director saw in the song that had cultural relevance in this day and time,” Saliers said. But above all, she appreciates that time has allowed listeners to step back and appreciate the band’s music as simply music.“We’re finally allowed to just be us,” Saliers said. “I guess we’ve stuck around long enough and it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s just Amy and Emily.’ We no longer are the brunt of a joke and we’re flourishing in certain ways in terms of this relevancy, which is gratifying. It’s strange, you know, to watch culture change and move — and it really has changed for us.” More

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      At Wagner’s Festival, New Technology Reveals a Leadership Rift

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      The Bayreuth Festival’s production of “Parsifal” will feature augmented reality. Securing the equipment set off a financial and philosophical dispute.The American director Jay Scheib was looking at a bank of monitors inside the Bayreuth Festival Theater on a recent afternoon.He was rehearsing his new production of Wagner’s “Parsifal,” which opens the storied Bayreuth Festival on Tuesday, and as performers circled a large metallic monolith onstage, the screens showed three-dimensional flowers floating through blank space — psychedelic animations that will come to life for audience members who see them with augmented-reality glasses.Through those glasses, Scheib said, the flowers, and other items during the performance, will appear to float through the auditorium. In keeping with the opera’s themes, he added, these moments are meant to provide the audience with “sacred visions” of “a world where wonder still exists.”Scheib’s production is one of the most ambitious, and high-profile, attempts to incorporate augmented reality into opera performance. But it also caps months of tumult at Bayreuth, after plans to outfit nearly 2,000 audience members with the glasses for each performance were downscaled because of an apparent money dispute between the festival’s artistic and financial leadership. The compromise, in which only 330 attendees will be provided with the glasses to experience the production’s signature flourishes, has left many fuming, and concerned that internal conflicts at one of the most important events in opera were undermining its relevance.Founded by Wagner in 1876 as a showcase for his work, the Bayreuth Festival draws opera fans from around the world for one month every summer to hear a handful of the composer’s works in repertory — including a new production at the start of each edition. A major event on the German cultural calendar, the opening is usually attended by prominent political figures including Angela Merkel, the country’s former chancellor.Angela Merkel, the former chancellor of Germany, with her husband, Joachim Sauer, at the opening of last year’s Bayreuth festival, which remains a major event on the German cultural calendar.Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe festival remains treasured worldwide for the pristine acoustics of its theater, a hilltop opera house that Wagner had a hand in designing, and for its connection to the composer: It has been led by a family member since his death in 1883. His great-granddaughter Katharina Wagner took over creative leadership with her half sister, Eva Wagner-Pasquier, in 2008, before becoming the sole artistic director in 2015.In recent years, though, a new leadership structure has added a layer to the festival’s decision-making. In 2008, the budget came under the control of four members of an independent board representing outside shareholders that collectively provide about 40 percent of the budget: the city of Bayreuth, the state of Bavaria, the German federal government and a group of private donors called the Society of Friends of Bayreuth, who currently chair the board.Although the funders are meant to refrain from interfering with choices made by Bayreuth’s artistic leadership, some in the media have argued that the decision to withhold the money for the purchase of 2,000 glasses represented an attempt by the shareholders to rein in Wagner’s approach to the festival and her great-grandfather’s work.Since World War II, Bayreuth directors — including Richard Wagner’s descendants — have brought a modern or experimental sensibility to the composer’s works. In 2013, Katharina Wagner invited Frank Castorf to reimagine the “Ring” as an anticapitalist epic about oil; the next “Ring,” Valentin Schwarz’s production, which opened last year, recast the cycle as, in part, an allegory about the anxieties of aging.Toni Schmid, a former high-ranking Bavarian civil servant who led the festival’s board of shareholders until 2020, said the decision not to fund the glasses was emblematic of the Society of Friends of Bayreuth’s “more conservative idea of how a Wagner opera should look today,” which is at odds with Katharina Wagner’s vision.A scene from Frank Castorf’s reimagined “Ring,” in 2013. Since World War II, Bayreuth directors have brought a modern and sometimes experimental sensibility to their Wagner stagings.AlamyThe largely older members of the donor group, Schmid said, “would like to have the productions they saw 50 years ago back, when they were young — but that’s not art, it’s a museum.” He added that he wished the shareholder’s board was occupied by representatives “who know what they’re talking about” and described the decision to not finance the full number of glasses as “a joke.”Manuel Brug, a German journalist and critic for Die Welt, said in a phone interview that the current festival structure allowed too much power to Friends of Bayreuth. “The group is too old, with many people who joined because it makes it easier to get tickets,” he said, arguing that the donors should be excluded from the governing body in the future. The Bavarian arts minister Markus Blume said in article in the Nordbayerischer Kurier on Thursday that the state of Bavaria might take over some of the donor group’s shares in the future.Georg von Waldenfels, the chairman of the shareholders board and head of Friends of Bayreuth, disputed that he had interfered in Wagner’s decision-making and said in a phone interview that the decision to downscale the number of glasses was “purely a decision of the artistic leadership.” He added that the shareholders had merely “stuck to the business plan.” Wagner, however, said that the original plan failed “because of the financing and divergent views about the glasses” and that the outcome was “unfortunate.”This disagreement reflects a broader debate about Wagner’s legacy, and adds another chapter to the festival’s history of public arguments and reckonings. Winifred Wagner — the English-born wife of Richard’s son, Siegfried — who oversaw the festival from 1930 to 1944, was an avowed fan of Adolf Hitler until her death in 1980. Following World War II, the composer’s grandsons, Wieland and Wolfgang, opened the festival anew as something more apolitical.More recently, the festival has been a subject of chatter, including longstanding rumors of a feud between Katharina Wagner and her former musical director, Christian Thielemann, who left his post in 2020. Last year, he publicly criticized her decision to replace the word “Führer” (“leader”) with the word “Schützer” (“protector”) in a production of “Lohengrin,” a change that had been made out of sensitivity to Bayreuth’s past associations with Nazism.Katharina Wagner, a great-granddaughter of the composer, took over creative leadership of the festival with her half sister in 2008, before becoming the sole artistic director in 2015.Enrico NawrathJay Scheib, the American director who is staging “Parsifal” for the festival this year.Helen DurasIn a phone interview, Thielemann denied any feud with Wagner, and said that Bayreuth has long been plagued by gossip. “There is something about Wagner that poisons people,” he added. “He is both an intoxicant and a perfume.”Wagner’s contract will be up for renewal this fall, pending a vote by the festival’s board of directors. She said that if the offer were made, her acceptance would be contingent on changes to the festival’s organization. “You need to make this place ready for the future, and if some structural things don’t change, then it’s impossible to do the work,” she said, though declined to provide specifics.If she were to depart the festival, it would likely mean the end of the Wagner family’s creative leadership: No other relative has publicly expressed an interest in taking over.Wagner said that her push to find innovative ways of staging her great-grandfather’s work was necessary, given the “limited repertoire” of the festival — Richard Wagner’s 10 mature works — and global competition among high-profile theaters staging his operas. If Bayreuth just continued to mount old-fashioned productions, she added, “people can just watch a DVD.”The idea of incorporating augmented reality into “Parsifal” emerged in early 2019. Among the challenges was adapting the technology, which is conceived for looking at nearby objects in brightly lit spaces, for a large, darkened theater. Ultimately, Scheib’s team solved the problem by creating a laser scan of the entire auditorium, down to the millimeter.Scheib said that augmented reality would emerge during crucial scenes, and would include a gigantic floating tree and a flaming horse. When Parsifal naïvely kills a swan, a pair of enormous ones will appear to fly near the auditorium’s ceiling, spouting blood.An example of the augmented-reality that viewers with glasses will see in “Parsifal.” Scheib said the uncertainty about the glasses had been a “distraction.”Bayreuth FestivalThis “Parsifal,” however, can still be experienced without the glasses, with sets, lighting and costume design depicting what Scheib described as a “post-human landscape in which the last group of people are hanging on, trying to make sense of faith, forgiveness and belonging.” But, he noted, the uncertainty about the glasses has been a “distraction.”The use of the technology, Scheib said, was in keeping with Wagner’s own way of approaching opera. “He carried out so many innovations, with lighting and architecture,” he added. “Ultimately, he wanted the theater to completely disappear.” More

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      Are You Ready? Gen Z Is Bringing Nu Metal Back.

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      Bands like Deftones and Slipknot are resonating with younger fans, thanks to TikTok, the Y2K revival and, of course, enduring teenage angst.When Deftones’s hit “Change (In the House of Flies)” blared out of Tyson Burden’s car stereo in April 2020, he started to choke up. It wasn’t the tune’s familiar growls or the teenage nostalgia it prompted that made him almost cry; it was his 15-year-old daughter, Nia LaVey Burden, sitting in the passenger seat and reciting the words to the song.“She knew all the lyrics, and my mind was blown,” said Mr. Burden, 39, a retail manager in Jacksonville, Texas. Turns out, Nia had discovered the band on TikTok a few months earlier. After the initial shock, he joined in, and the two threw their heads back and belted out the chorus.“It was just this really magical moment between parent and child where we love the same thing,” he said.Tyson Burden, right, started choking up when his daughter, Nia LaVey Burden, started reciting all the lyrics to Deftones’s “Change (In the House of Flies).”Tyson BurdenNia is part of a growing group among Generation Z that is listening to nu metal for the first time. The subgenre, considered one of the most accessible forms of metal, blends a heavy sound with elements of hip-hop, funk and alternative rock (think: Slipknot, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and Kittie), and its lyrics often tackle dark subjects like pain, depression and alienation. Once popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it has now found a second life among young listeners, thanks to TikTok, the Y2K revival and, of course, enduring teenage angst.For Asher Nevélle, listening to nu metal is inspiring. “You feel like you can do anything,” said Mr. Nevélle, 25, a musician based in Los Angeles who performs under the stage name Freak. “It’s this ‘I don’t care’ attitude. Like, you can look at me, you can stare at me, you can judge me, but I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing.”Silver chains, overly lacquered liberty spikes, pants so big they put ball gowns to shame — part of nu metal’s appeal is its flamboyant style, and celebrities have taken note. Billie Eilish is topping her oversize outfits with baseball caps à la Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit; Machine Gun Kelly is gelling his hair up into five-inch stalagmites; and in June, Justin Bieber was spotted in a pair of baggy wide-leg JNCO jeans.Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit once blew up a boat live on MTV.George DeSota/Newsmakers, via Getty ImagesBillie Eilish is known for wearing oversize outfits, often topped with a baseball cap à la Mr. Durst.Mauricio Santana/Getty ImagesRenee Dyer, 19, fell in love with nu metal fashion before the music. She doesn’t think a person needs to dress a certain way to be considered a fan, but her clothing choices are heavily inspired by nu metal. “It makes me feel as though I’m living in that era,” said Ms. Dyer, a retail associate who lives in Toronto. Among her favorite pieces are JNCO jeans and Tripp NYC pants. (“The bigger the jeans, the better!” she said.)During nu metal’s initial explosion, visual aesthetics were central to the scene by design, said Alex Strang, a cultural analyst at Canvas8, a market research agency. Bands adopted flashy costumes and provocative stunts to distinguish themselves and grab people’s attention. “If you’re TRL,” Mr. Strang said, referring to a television program popular in the early aughts, “and you see this weird thing with people rapping and shouting and being angry, and some people in boiler suits or wearing masks, you’re going to want to put it on TV, right?”Nu metal’s embrace of shock value led to a plethora of theatrical antics, such as when Mr. Durst blew up a boat live on MTV and when members of the band Mudvayne attended the Video Music Awards with fake bullet holes in their heads. More than two decades later, these bits are now ripe for recirculation on social media. For example, one popular Twitter account run by Holiday Kirk, a music journalist, posts bite-size clips of absurd moments in nu mental history, frequently garnering tens of thousands of views.On the internet, “everybody has access to everything all the time,” Mr. Strang said. “And so Gen Z kids will just cherry-pick the best bits of a bunch of different genres and be into everything and like everything. It’s like a bricolage in action.”Historically, nu metal has appealed to outsiders who felt a strong emotional connection with its gloomy subject matter. The most die-hard fans felt protective over their favorite bands and did not like the idea of “normies,” or people who were conventional or popular, listening to nu metal. In the 1990s, “either you were all in or you were a poser,” said Lynn Thomas, 53, a longtime Deftones fan from Pittsburgh, whose 21-year-old daughter discovered the band on TikTok.A growing group among Generation Z is listening to nu metal bands for the first time, including Deftones …Bridget Bennett/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images… and Slipknot.Jose Sena Goulao/EPA, via ShutterstockBut now many Gen Zers are more concerned with sociopolitical issues such as abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, “rather than, ‘Who am I hanging out with at the field party this weekend?’” Mr. Thomas said.These spaces may be less exclusionary now, but fans say there is still a sense of gatekeeping among nu metal heads — whether it’s older fans looking down on the newly initiated, or pretension from people of all ages about the bands they deem uncool. Since discovering the subgenre in January, Jay Katze, a 17-year-old high school student in Bradenton, Fla., has connected with some fellow listeners on the internet, but he has also been called a poser, a term he finds “silly” and “childish.”“Who do you expect to support the band you love if you’re pushing out anyone else who shows interest?” Mr. Katze said.Since discovering nu metal this year, Jay Katze, a 17-year-old student in Florida, has connected with other fans on the internet, but some of them have called him a poser — a term he finds “silly” and “childish.”Jay KatzeOff the internet, fans are also creating physical spaces to cultivate the nu metal community. For the past two years, Sam Gans, 31, and Danielle Steger, 38, both die-hard nu metal fans, have organized sold-out “Nu Metal Night” dance parties in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. People go “absolutely nuts” with their fashion at these quarterly events, Mr. Gans said, showing up with gelled and colored hair, studded belts, JNCOs, chain wallets and face paint.“There were people doing back flips off the stage,” Ms. Steger said of one New York party in March. “There was a whole row of headbanging, moshing.” One man kept asking the D.J.s to play “that one song” so he could propose to his girlfriend, Mr. Gans said. Nobody could hear him and figure out the name of the song — so the man never went through with the proposal.The nu metal wave isn’t lost on popular artists today, either. Grimes, 100 gecs, Rina Sawayama and Demi Lovato have introduced elements of the subgenre into their sound, and some bands who were part of the initial nu metal explosion are feeling the impact as well.In May, Kittie performed its first new song since 2011 at Sick New World, a music festival in Las Vegas featuring almost entirely nu metal bands. The group went on indefinite hiatus in 2017, but bookers started calling again in the fall of 2021 because of renewed interest, said Mercedes Lander, 39, Kittie’s drummer.“It did take a little bit of talking into,” Ms. Lander said of the offer to reunite. But one year after the initial request, Kittie got back together. “When we stepped onstage, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is how it’s supposed to be. This is what I’m supposed to be doing,’” she said. “This is a fantastic feeling.”In May, Kittie performed its first new song since 2011 at Sick New World, a music festival in Las Vegas featuring almost entirely nu metal bands.Greg Doherty/Getty ImagesTo Ms. Lander, it makes sense that the songs she wrote with her older sister, Morgan Lander, when they were teenagers still resonates with people. “It just kind of proves that teenage angst is timeless,” she said.Morgan, 41, Kittie’s frontwoman, shared the sentiment. “That’s not to say there isn’t still a fire and anger in us now — yeah, we’re still pissed,” she said, jokingly.Mr. Burden, the retail manager in Texas, said that after discovering his daughter was into Deftones, he showed her more of the band’s discography — particularly the album “White Pony,” which he loved as a teenager. And in May 2022, he even found himself at a scene he had dreamed about for over 20 years: screaming, headbanging and thrashing at a Deftones concert alongside hundreds of sweaty, decked-out fans. He just never imagined that he would be standing next to his daughter. More

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      An Encounter With Shaun Cassidy, My First Crush

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      A fan finds herself in a backstage hug, decades after she kissed her poster of the onetime teen idol.I was approaching the George Washington Bridge when my friend Lynn fired a text into the Shaun Squad group chat: “GET READY, PARTY PEOPLE!”My heart sank as the message piped through the car speakers in a robotic female voice.I dictated back: “OMG, Lynn, you better not be about to text something that’s going make me regret that I didn’t get my brows waxed for tonight.”“I am,” she replied.A flood of adrenaline sent my pulse racing.An hour later, I would be face to face with my original schoolgirl crush, Shaun Cassidy. Unruly eyebrows and all.In the late ’70s, thanks to the one-two punch of his starring role in ABC’s teen detective series “The Hardy Boys” and a run of hit singles, he was regularly on the cover of Tiger Beat and other teen magazines. His look — feathered hair, satin baseball jackets and skintight pants — launched a tsunami of adolescent hormones.Long before “nepo baby” was a thing, he rose to fame as the firstborn son of the musical star turned “Partridge Family” matriarch Shirley Jones and the Broadway legend Jack Cassidy. His half brother, David Cassidy, had preceded him in teen dream stature.Shaun’s most popular single was his cover of the Crystals’ “Da Do Ron Ron,” but my favorite was “That’s Rock ’n’ Roll,” a solid bop written by Eric Carmen. Centered on a narrator who’s 16 and sick of school, the lyrics preach the gospel of rock rebellion, and even in my grade school years, the song stuck.Each of his albums came with a poster — the record label knew its market — and my friend Kristin and I pretended to kiss him until we dissolved into giggles.As I marched into teendom, I moved from roller skates to combat boots, and my crushes took a more androgynous turn. MTV introduced a slew of British sad boys with teased hair and makeup, the most famous on American shores being Depeche Mode and the Cure. Their subtly subversive masculinity so besotted me that my real-life male contemporaries were a letdown. A memoir of my romantic coming-of-age could be titled “I Was Told There Would Be Eyeliner.”Then I saw Catherine Deneuve as the nightclubbing vampiress Miriam Blaylock in “The Hunger.” Kissing Shaun’s poster gave way to kissing a shy Goth girl under the poster for the film on her bedroom wall. But you never forget your first, and Shaun, with his faunlike visage, was the perfect gateway crush.I fell for him the second time because of the rats.Two years ago, one of his tweets appeared in my timeline. It showed a screen grab of a text from his wife asking him to talk with her about their “rat problem.” Shaun gave it a caption: “She is such a romantic.”Former teen idol turned Wife Guy? Sure, I’d follow that. Four of my friends also started following him on Twitter, and the Shaun Squad was born.So when the New York engagement of his “Magic of a Midnight Sky” solo show was announced, one Squad member, Joy, bought tickets the minute they went on sale, and Lynn contacted his tour manager, vowing to arrange a meet-and-greet.Not likely, I thought. But the girl in me held fast to the fantasy.As the club filled on the night of the show, our hopes for a meeting began to fade. Monica had a fresh keratin treatment, her hair a glossy curtain. Marjorie had found some old iron-on transfer paper and whipped up her own Shaun tank top. She even made us Swiftie-style “Shaun Squad” friendship bracelets. We were sighing dejectedly into our $18 cocktails when the tour manager appeared.“OK, let’s go,” she said. “But we’ve got to be quick.”We moved past the audience of women clutching vintage Shaun memorabilia. I noticed that one of them had brought her “Hardy Boys” lunch box.Up an elevator and down a narrow hall to the dressing room. And there he was — tall, his hair a mix of blond and gray, the shiny disco-era outfit traded for a black button-down and jeans.Shaun Freakin’ Cassidy, OK?I’m enough of an extrovert that I will go into a convenience store to buy chips and, five minutes later, end up saying, “What’s your Instagram?” to the clerk. But not now.Not now at all.I let my fellow Shaun Squad members go first, watching them angle in for photos and autographs while he chatted with them, the basso profundo of his speaking voice a pleasing rumble.Then there was nothing to do but move forward. I was like: “Why is he opening his arms? What is happening? Are we hugging? We are hugging!”It wasn’t a crazy hug — a quick companionable embrace, followed by that 1-2-3 closure pat — but it produced enough dopamine to make me unable to feel my face for the rest of the night.The show, even without a fan’s forgiving grading curve, was excellent, a mix of song and story. Given the heedlessness of 1970s celebrity culture, it’s a wonder that Shaun was able to survive the reverse panopticon of teen stardom.Tactful but candid, he talked about female fans tearing out chunks of his hair and his dad joking about putting his childhood bedroom up for rent when it seemed his son’s fame might eclipse his own. He also included a touching tribute to David, who died of liver failure at age 67 in 2017.Shaun made it clear that he wasn’t coasting on the fumes of his former glory, having segued from teen idol to television writer and producer. Yet he seemed comfortable enough with his cultural footprint that, in his side hustle as a vintner, his wine is branded My First Crush.Writing about a fangirl crush can make you feel like a goober, because it elicits contempt that is explicitly gendered. Female fandom — especially Top 40 fandom — carries a processed-cheese sheen. But a guy going on for an hour about a Bruce Springsteen chord progression or a Wilco set list? That’s depth, man. (And queer fandom? Big heteroblivious shrug.)But fandom cuts across all demographics, and everyone’s deserves respect. One of my favorite viral videos of recent years shows a subway car full of New Yorkers singing the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” in unselfconscious joy. We should not be pressured to be so mature in our tastes that we miss all the fun.In the Fugazi song “Bad Mouth,” the punk stalwart Ian MacKaye sang: “You can’t be what you were. So you better start being just what you are.” As a younger woman, I adopted those lines as a cri de coeur, taken by the hard stance against nostalgia and sentimentality. But I have since reconsidered.I drove home from the show listening to “That’s Rock ’n’ Roll” on repeat, knowing that a number of my friends were seeing the Cure that same night, my Gen X gloomster cohort having their own flashback moment. And I salute them.Nostalgia can be a blinkering agent, but it can also be a benevolent time lord, allowing who you were and who you are to join hands. Through the alchemical magic of fandom, you can occupy both phases of your life at once — sensible adult and keening fangirl. Steady sun and hormonal supernova, all of it just a song’s play away.That’s the crush spirit. That’s nostalgia. That’s rock ’n’ roll.Lily Burana is the author of “Grace for Amateurs: Field Notes on a Journey Back to Faith” and three other books. More

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      Tony Bennett’s Commitment to Civil Rights

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      The singer witnessed racism in the military and in the music industry, experiences that informed his decision to join the Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965.In explaining the roots of his commitment to civil rights, Tony Bennett often told a story from his Army days, when he brought a Black soldier as his guest to Thanksgiving dinner, prompting a furious reprimand and a demotion.It was 1945, three years before the end of segregation in the U.S. military, and Bennett, who had been drafted into World War II shortly after he had turned 18, happened to run into a high school friend and fellow serviceman in occupied Germany. As he brought the friend, Frank Smith, to the holiday meal in the white servicemen’s mess hall, an officer intercepted them in a rage, Bennett recalled in his 1998 autobiography.“It was actually more acceptable to fraternize with the German troops than it was to be friendly with a fellow Black American soldier!” Bennett recalled in the book, “The Good Life.”Bennett recalled that in that moment, the officer took out a razor blade and cut the corporal stripes from his uniform, spitting on them and throwing them to the floor. He was then assigned to dig up the bodies of soldiers in mass graves so that they could be reburied with more dignity.“For a while the whole affair soured me on the human race,” Bennett remembered in the autobiography.It was a pivotal moment for the young singer, who returned from the war focused on developing his music career. Twenty years and a whirlwind of fame later, Bennett participated in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march in 1965, performing for marchers alongside other musicians such as Harry Belafonte, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone and Joan Baez.As his death on Friday at 96 unearthed memories of Bennett’s suave affability and charm as one of the foremost purveyors of the American songbook, it also prompted recollections of Bennett as a steadfast advocate for civil rights.Bennett’s career took off in the 1950s and ’60s, and as he joined jazz circles that included greats such as Nat King Cole and Duke Ellington, he came to witness the blatant racism that had been ingrained in the American entertainment industry. Cole, for example, could not sit down in the dining room of the club where he had been performing, Bennett recalled, and Ellington wasn’t allowed to attend the party at the hotel where he and Bennett were top billing.“I’d never been politically inclined, but these things went beyond politics,” Bennett said in his autobiography. “Nat and Duke were geniuses, brilliant human beings who gave the world some of the most beautiful music it’s ever heard, and yet they were treated like second-class citizens.”In 1965, Belafonte asked him to attend the march to Montgomery, explaining that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hoped that entertainers could help rally media attention, he recalled in the book. Bennett agreed, traveling with the singer and bandleader Billy Eckstine. He said in his autobiography that the march reminded him of fighting his way into Germany at the end of the war, comparing the hostility of the Germans to that of the white state troopers.The day before the marchers reached the Alabama State Capitol, Bennett was among the performers at a rally in a field where the marchers were camping for the night, singing from a makeshift stage built from coffin crates and plywood.When Bennett and Eckstine left the march, Viola Liuzzo, a volunteer from Michigan, drove them to the airport. She was murdered later that day by members of the Ku Klux Klan.In a 2007 documentary about Bennett, Belafonte recalled that his friend brought the “spirit of the Second World War into our vision of the America of the future.”The singer’s commitment to the cause persisted. According to the 2011 biography of Bennett, “All the Things You Are,” the singer also refused to perform in apartheid-era South Africa. Coretta Scott King has said that he remained committed to the King Center, the organization she created after her husband’s assassination. In Atlanta, Bennett has a spot on the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame.In his later years, Bennett dedicated much of his charitable contributions to arts education, establishing a public high school in Queens called Frank Sinatra School of the Arts with Susan Benedetto, whom he married in 2007, and a nonprofit that funds arts programming at schools in need of support.In his final years, when discussing social justice, Bennett would often quote the singer Ella Fitzgerald, who attended the Selma-to-Montgomery march as well: “Tony, we are all here,” he said she told him.“All the tribulations, the wars, the prejudice — and everything that divides us — simply melt away,” he told Vanity Fair in 2016, “when you realize that we’re all together on one planet and that every problem should have a solution.” More

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      50 Rappers, 50 Stories: Behind the Scenes

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThis week, The New York Times published 50 Rappers, 50 Stories, a collection of oral histories gathered from hip-hop artists across generations, regions and styles. It includes testimonials from superstars like Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, Cardi B and Eminem; local heroes like Project Pat, Uncle Luke, Bun B and Krayzie Bone; and outlier champions like Trippie Redd, stic, Slug and Boots Riley.Taken together, the interviews show a genre that started local and became global, was cohesive and then fragmented. And yet some common themes echo throughout — a sense of outsider ambition, a restless commitment to innovation, a reverence for craft.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the making of the project, the common threads uniting the subjects’ stories across generations, and the joys of listening to artists rap along to some of their favorite songs from childhood.Guests:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterElena Bergeron, an assistant sports editor at The New York Times and a contributor to the 50 Rappers projectKeith Murphy, a music journalist and contributor to the 50 Rappers projectConnect 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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      A Thrilling, Rediscovered Nina Simone Set, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Snoh Aalegra, DeYarmond Edison, Explosions in the Sky and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Nina Simone, ‘Mississippi Goddam’Just a week after performing at the historically Black Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., supporting James Meredith’s March Against Fear, Nina Simone was on fire as she strode onstage to play for a very different audience at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 2, 1966. Her interactions with the bourgeois New Englanders at Newport were hardly warm: In the middle of an acid-rinsed version of “Blues for Mama,” she dismisses them — “I guess you ain’t ready for that” — and later she hushes them: “Shut up, shut up.” But she pours every ounce of vitriol she’s got into the performance, especially on “Mississippi Goddam.” She’d first released the song in 1964, and two years later it felt as topical as ever. Meredith had just been shot while marching across Mississippi, and unrest was overtaking redlined Black neighborhoods across the country. At Newport, she amends one of the verses to address the oppression of Los Angeles’s Black community: “Alabama’s got me so upset/And Watts has made me lose my rest/Everybody knows about Mississippi, goddamn!” The entire Newport performance is now available for the first time as an album titled “You’ve Got to Learn.” It’s spellbinding, heartbreaking stuff, reminding us just how much Simone would still be lamenting today. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOSnoh Aalegra, ‘Be My Summer’Snoh Aalegra sings about not being able to let go in the forlorn, slowly undulating “Be My Summer.” She confesses, “I can’t change how I feel/Tried moving on but I’m right here where we left off.” The song arrives with a tangle of voices — some harmonizing, a few straying — and they return in choruses that are never quite unanimous, hinting at misgivings behind her pleas to “protect me from the rain.” JON PARELESAma Lou, ‘Silence’“Bring me silence till you start hearing sounds,” the English R&B songwriter Ama Lou instructs in a song that veers between sorrow and spite. The production isn’t silent but it feels sparse and hollow. Her vocals pour out over two chords implied by sustained bass notes and a hollow, stop-start drumbeat. With bursts of vocal melody that hint at prime Janet Jackson, Ama Lou mixes accusations and regrets, making it’s clear that she wasn’t the betrayer. “I believe I was convinced that you were actually all right,” she sings, quivering with disbelief. PARELESBlur, ‘The Ballad’“I just looked into my life and all I saw was that you’re not coming back,” an exquisitely mopey Damon Albarn sings at the beginning of “The Ballad,” a clear highlight from Blur’s new album, “The Ballad of Darren.” Lush backing vocals from the guitarist Graham Coxon and punchy percussion from the drummer Dave Rowntree provide a buoyancy, and layers of sonic details give “The Ballad” a kind of dreamy, weightless atmosphere. LINDSAY ZOLADZbeabadoobee, ‘The Way Things Go’The Filipino-English songwriter beabadoobee keeps a light touch as she whisper-sings about crumbling relationships like the one in “The Way Things Go.” Bouncy, folky guitar picking accompanies her as she claims the romance is only “a distant memory I used to know.” But later she gets down to accusations — “Didn’t think you’d ever stoop so low” — while a faraway orchestra with scurrying flutes floats in around her, a fantasy backdrop for her pointed nonchalance. PARELESDeYarmond Edison, ‘Epoch’Before Bon Iver, Justin Vernon was a member of DeYarmond Edison, which also included Brad Cook, Phil Cook and Joe Westerlund, who would form the band Megafaun. “Epoch,” recorded in 2005 and 2006, is the title track of a boxed set due in August and a harbinger of Bon Iver. It’s a resigned, measured ballad, with cryptic lyrics contemplating mortality and technology: “Out with the new in with the old/The wavelength rests at its node.” And behind the stately melody, the folky acoustic instruments that open the song — a banjo, a tambourine — face surreal echoes and incursions of noise. PARELESThe Mountain Goats, ‘Clean Slate’In 2002, the Mountain Goats — then the solo project of John Darnielle — released one of the most beloved albums in its vast catalog, “All Hail West Texas,” a collection of wrenching character studies bleated into a boombox accompanied by just an urgently played acoustic guitar. More than two decades later, and now with a full band behind him, Darnielle will revisit those same characters on the forthcoming album “Jenny from Thebes.” The first single, the lively “Clean Slate,” suggests that he won’t be returning to the previous album’s lo-fi sound; the new track has a rock operatic grandeur and a ’70s AM radio brightness. The lyrics are full of closely observed desperation and stubborn glimmers of hope — which is to say they’re classic Darnielle. “It’s never light outside yet when they climb into the van,” he sings. “Remember at your peril, forget the ones you can.” ZOLADZGrupo Frontera and Ke Personajes, ‘Ojitos Rojos’There are worse misfortunes than having no space left on a cellphone because it’s filled with photos of an ex. But that’s the situation in “Ojitos Rojos” (“Little Red Eyes”), the latest collaboration by the well-connected Mexican American band Grupo Frontera, from Texas — this time with another cumbia band, Ke Personajes from Argentina. Over hooting accordion and a clip-clop cumbia beat, the singers trade plaints about maxed-out memory capacity and lingering, near-stalker-ish devotion: “Although you tell me no and deceive yourself with another baby/I know I’m the love of your life,” sings Emanuel Noir of Ke Personajes. Is it heartache, or would cloud storage help? PARELESTravis Scott, Bad Bunny, the Weeknd, ‘K-Pop’One beat, three big names and an SEO-optimized title are the makings of “K-Pop,” a calculated round of boasting and come-ons from Travis Scott, Bad Bunny and the Weeknd. The track, produced by behind-the-scenes hitmakers — Bynx, Boi-1da, Illangelo and Jahaan Sweet — hints at crisp Nigerian Afrobeats, and it spurs three distinct top-line strategies. Travis Scott is quick, percussive and melodically narrow; Big Bunny leaps and groans; the Weeknd is sustained, moody and on brand, crooning “Mix the drugs with the pain” and promising vigorous, alienated sex. As in K-pop, hooks are flaunted, then tossed aside when a new one arrives. PARELESExplosions in the Sky, ‘Ten Billion People’The Texas band Explosions in the Sky has been playing instrumental rock — “post-rock” — since the late 1990s, relying on patterns, textures and dynamics to make up for the absence of lyrics. “Ten Billion People” is one of its perfectly paced wordless narratives: clockwork and skeletal to start, swelling with keyboards and guitars, seesawing with stereo dueling drum kits, pausing the beat and then rebuilding toward something more majestic and reassuring. It’s both minimalist and dramatic. PARELES More