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      Gordon Lightfoot’s 10 Essential Songs

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      The Canadian singer-songwriter, who died on Monday at 84, brought his rueful baritone to memorable, melancholy material.Bob Dylan once named Gordon Lightfoot one of his favorite songwriters, and called the musician “somebody of rare talent” while inducting him into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1986. On Dylan’s 1970 album “Self Portrait,” he even recorded Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain,” and the respect was mutual — Lightfoot listened carefully to Dylan’s songs, which instilled in him “a more direct approach, getting away from the love songs,” he once said.In an expansive career that drew from Greenwich Village folk and Laurel Canyon pop, Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr., who died on Monday at 84, was embraced by a diverse group of musicians: Elvis Presley and Duran Duran, Lou Rawls and the Replacements. He sang in a rueful baritone full of tenacity and an almost professorial air, and specialized in songs that dwelled on solitude, or recounted unhappy relationships, in grounded language that drew on folk and blues modes.“Lightfoot’s is the voice of the romantic,” Geoffrey Stokes of The Village Voice wrote in 1974. “For him (as for Don Quixote, one of his chosen heroes) perfection is always in view and always slipping from his grasp.”Nowhere was Lightfoot more beloved than in his native Canada, where he helped transform its music industry into a worldwide force. “He sent a message to the world that we’re not just a bunch of lumberjacks and hockey players up here,” Geddy Lee of Rush said in “If You Could Read My Mind,” a 2019 documentary. “We’re capable of sensitivity and poetry.” In the process, Lightfoot became one of the most successful recording artists of the 1970s.Here are 10 of Lightfoot’s most beloved and impactful songs.“For Lovin’ Me” (1966)The folk tradition in which Lightfoot initially worked is full of boastful songs about rambling men who are lighting out for the territory, but this one is uniquely cruel. It’s pushed along by his stout acoustic guitar strumming and David Rea’s sleek fingerpicking accents, which reinforce the lyric’s hauteur. “Everything you have is gone,” Lightfoot tells the woman he’s leaving. “That’s what you get for lovin’ me.” Her broken heart will eventually mend, he adds, at which point “I just might pass this way again.” He later felt some embarrassment about the song, and said, “I didn’t know what chauvinism was.”“Early Morning Rain” (1966)Lightfoot grew up in bucolic Central Ontario, which could hardly be farther from Memphis, but he sounds nearly Southern on this simple, brisk folk song, which Presley recorded a few years later. Its theme is homesickness (Lightfoot was living in Los Angeles when he wrote it); the narrator, who’s “as cold and drunk as I can be,” in addition to broke, watches a 707 fly overhead and envies its freedom as he pines for his hometown.“Did She Mention My Name” (1968)In this canny depiction of wounded pride, Lightfoot gets together with an old friend to shoot the breeze, but amid the chitchat about sports and mutual acquaintances, he casually slips in a question that reveals his agenda: “By the way, did she mention my name?” This song and “For Lovin’ Me” are fraternal twins, joined by their fascination with male pride.“Black Day in July” (1968)Lightfoot mostly worked the personal-relationship side of folk music and left the political side to others. The controversial “Black Day in July” has a restless, unsettled drum track, and describes the July 1967 uprisings in Detroit in which Black residents protested police abuse, prompting the governor to send in the National Guard and the president to send in the army. The song is full of irony, scorn and bafflement (“The soul of Motor City is feared across the land”) and most U.S. radio stations refused to play it.“If You Could Read My Mind” (1970)Lightfoot’s commercial breakthrough (it reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100) is also his masterpiece, with assistance from Nick DeCaro’s cascading string arrangement. The lyrics, inspired by his impending divorce, range from poetic to stark, until he reaches the stoic summary: “Stories always end.” The melody inspired Duran Duran’s “Save a Prayer,” and the song has been covered by a who’s who of singers, including Barbra Streisand, Johnny Cash and Neil Young — and, almost, by Frank Sinatra, who tried to record it but gave up, declaring it “too long.”“Sundown” (1974)Lightfoot was an alcoholic who knew a lot about tempestuous relationships. He wrote “Sundown” while in a jealous fit of fantasy about Cathy Smith, a girlfriend whose cheekbone he once broke during a fight. The lyrics are dark, and the snaking guitar solo is one of the great Red Shea’s finest moments. The song’s been covered by, among others, the goth legends Scott Walker and Depeche Mode.“Rainy Day People” (1975)The mid-70s was Lightfoot’s commercial peak, but this successor to the Top 10 pop hits “Sundown” and “Carefree Highway” didn’t get the reception it deserved. The chords and lyrics call to mind Jimmy Webb, as Lightfoot, with his usual precise elocution, celebrates the way loyal friendships give succor to “high-stepping strutters who land in the gutters.”“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (1976)His best-known song is one of the most unlikely pop hits: a six-and-a-half-minute folk ballad about a freighter that sank in Lake Superior a year earlier, killing 29 crew members. It’s also surely the only Top 40 song to ever mention Gitche Gumee, the Chippewa name for Lake Superior. The impish rock band NRBQ sometimes played a slow, out-of-tune cover of the song, and if the audience didn’t like it, it would play it a second time as well.“The Circle Is Small” (1978)In some of Lightfoot’s lyrics, it’s difficult to tell whether the conflicts he describes are factual or merely byproducts of a suspicious imagination. In this softly scornful song about cheating, which he recorded in 1968 and rerecorded 10 years later, in a superior version, he believes his lover is using a friend’s apartment to carry on an affair, and he implies that he’ll eventually catch her: “The city where we live might be quite large/But the circle is small.”“Harmony” (2004)In the 1980s, as music moved away from acoustic sounds, Lightfoot chased pop success by using synthesizers, drum machines and the producer David Foster, but he didn’t sound like himself. By the time of “Harmony,” he’d returned to working with the guitarists Shea and Terry Clements. Tobacco use had eaten away at the top of his range, but the title song of his penultimate studio album has a fragile, hard-won tenderness that seems to look back at his career (and his life) with peaceful regret. More

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      Europe’s Opera Stages Next Season: What to See

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      Among our critic’s recommendations are multiple “Ring” cycles, a premiere by Ellen Reid and the soprano Lise Davidsen in Strauss’s “Salome.”Keeping up with opera in Europe is a nearly impossible task. There never seems to be enough time, or money, to see all that the continent has to offer across its many storied houses. Many of the most important among them have announced their 2023-24 seasons. Here are some highlights, in chronological order.‘Das Rheingold’The Royal Opera House in London embarks on the multiseason effort of staging Wagner’s four-opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen” with its first installment (Sept. 11-29) right as its music director, Antonio Pappano, enters his final season there. He will be back to conduct the other three, though, lending a sense of cohesion to this new staging by the reliably entertaining Barrie Kosky, starring Christopher Maltman as Wotan. Not long after, another major “Ring” begins at the Monnaie in Brussels, where the symbol-happy abstractionist Romeo Castellucci’s productions of “Das Rheingold” (Oct. 24-Nov. 9) and “Die Walküre” (Jan. 21-Feb. 11) will follow in quick succession.Antonio Pappano will conduct “Das Rheingold” at the Royal Opera House in London. This season will be Pappano’s last as the house’s music director.Victor Llorente for The New York Times‘Das Floss der Medusa’As the Komische Oper in Berlin closes for renovations, the company enters a nomadic period familiar to its neighbor, the Berlin State Opera, which for years operated out of the Schiller Theater, where many of the Komische’s productions will be presented next season. But it will also branch out, including with its new staging, by the sleekly smart Tobias Kratzer of Hans Werner Henze’s “Das Floss der Medusa” (“The Raft of the Medusa”), inside a hangar at the disused Tempelhof Airport (Sept. 16-Oct. 2).‘Aida’The provocateur Calixto Bieito’s production of Verdi’s “Aida” at Theater Basel over a decade ago has been described as a difficult, even disturbing depiction of immigration in Europe. His new staging, at the Berlin State Opera (Oct. 3-29), is being billed more modestly, as homing in on the work’s intimacy, and as mining the tension between the opera and the politics of its time. Nicola Luisotti conducts a cast that includes the tenor Yusif Eyvazov as Radamès and the bass René Pape as Ramfis.‘Masque of Might’Masques, which were something like variety shows in the 17th century, get contemporary treatment in this Opera North pastiche from the inveterate director David Pountney touring northern England (Oct. 6-Nov. 16). The hope is to give Henry Purcell — one of his country’s essential composers and, in Pountney’s view, its greatest creator of stage music until Benjamin Britten — his due as a writer for the theater. So, rather than revive Purcell’s only opera, “Dido and Aeneas,” Pountney has assembled bits and pieces from elsewhere in his output for a new show on topical contemporary themes.‘Antony & Cleopatra’After its premiere in San Francisco this season, John Adams’s latest opera, an intricate yet flowing adaptation of Shakespeare, travels to the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain (Oct. 28-Nov. 8). One of the stars it was written for, the soprano Julia Bullock, missed the earlier run because she was pregnant, but she will be back, with the rest of the principal cast, for this revival, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer. Adams, who famously revises his scores, will be at the conductor’s podium.John Adams’s “Antony & Cleopatra” will come to the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain, in the fall after an earlier staging in California.Cory Weaver‘Götterdämmerung’Yes, more of the “Ring.” The Zurich Opera House’s cycle, conducted by its general music director, Gianandrea Noseda, and directed by Andreas Homoki, its artistic leader, reaches its conclusion with the premiere of “Götterdämmerung,” starring the elegant, mighty soprano Camilla Nylund as Brünnhilde and the ethereal-voiced tenor Klaus Florian Vogt as Siegfried (Nov. 5-Dec. 3). Then, the whole “Ring” will be presented in cycles in spring 2024, with performers including Tomasz Konieczny as Wotan and Christopher Purves as Alberich (May 3-9 and 18-26).‘Le Grand Macabre’György Ligeti’s only opera — an apocalyptic dark comedy of dizzying eclecticism — was widely seen in the years immediately after its 1978 premiere. These days, a performance of it feels like more of a special occasion; but next season, there are two to choose from. At the Vienna State Opera, Jan Lauwers, who directed a strident revival of Luigi Nono’s “Intolleranza 1960” at the Salzburg Festival, helms a new production conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado (Nov. 11-23). Then, at the Bavarian State Opera, the work will be presented in a new staging by the cerebral Krzysztof Warlikowski, conducted by one of that house’s former general music directors, Kent Nagano (June 28-July 7).Gustavo Dudamel, the Paris Opera’s music director, will conduct a new production of Thomas Adès’s “The Exterminating Angel.”Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images‘The Exterminating Angel’Thomas Adès’s third opera — one of the finest so far this century — seemed to have a future threatened by its own ambition. With an enormous (which is to say expensive) cast of principal characters and an orchestra of Wagnerian scale, it was not exactly inviting revivals. Yet there it is on the schedule for the Paris Opera’s coming season — with a less starry cast than its early runs at the Salzburg Festival and the Metropolitan Opera, perhaps, but with a new production from Calixto Bieito, and the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, the company’s music director and a sure hand in Adès’s music (Feb. 29-March 23).Ellen Reid presents her opera “The Shell Trial” at the Dutch National Opera in March 2024.Erin Baiano‘The Shell Trial’The Dutch National Opera, which in the past couple of seasons has been a font of successful world premieres like Michel van der Aa’s “Upload” and Alexander Raskatov’s “Animal Farm,” has now commissioned the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid, whose “The Shell Trial” will be introduced at the house’s Opera Forward Festival (March 16-21). Inspired by a Dutch court’s 2021 ruling that the Shell company was legally responsible for contributing to climate change, it will feature Julia Bullock, a star of “Upload,” in the dual role of the Law and the Artist.‘Salome’Everything on this list has been a new production or a premiere. But opera is an art form that thrives on revivals of repertory classics, and on hearing the stars of today revisit the works, and productions, of the past. One of those singers is the soprano Lise Davidsen, who tends to astonish in her role debuts, like her Marschallin in “Der Rosenkavalier” at the Metropolitan Opera recently. Coming soon is more Strauss, when she takes on the title character in his “Salome” at the Paris Opera, in Lydia Steier’s staging, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth (May 9-28). More

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      The Bassist Carlos Henriquez Covers All the Latin and Jazz Bases

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      The longtime Jazz at Lincoln Center musician leads a tribute this weekend to his mambo ancestors Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez.As he worked his way through a rice bowl at a Japanese restaurant near Columbus Circle in Manhattan on a recent afternoon, the bassist, composer and arranger Carlos Henriquez reflected on the long history of Latino musicians in the jazz world.“In the 1920s, there was a bassist and tuba player called Ralph Escudero who used to play with W.C. Handy and Fletcher Henderson,” he said, arching his manicured eyebrows for emphasis. “We’ve always been part of this. So, I’m going to say, Hey, I’m from the South Bronx, I’m Puerto Rican and I love jazz.”Henriquez, who will lead an all-star band on May 5-6 in a centennial tribute to the mambo kings Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez at Jazz at Lincoln Center, was about to join a rehearsal for the institution’s annual gala. Dressed down in a gray plaid flannel shirt and dark bluejeans, he took his place at his pivotally placed bassist’s chair as the orchestra practiced standards — the theme this year was “American Anthems” — including Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”“I’ve always visualized the bass as the catcher of a baseball team — we see everything, the whole game,” he said. “That catcher is dealing with everything that’s coming in and calling the plays. We, the bass players, can really determine where the music is going to, where the concept is going.”Over about 25 years as a professional musician, Henriquez has developed a reputation as a grounded but wildly imaginative composer and player. “Carlos has become a master of his instrument and writing arrangements,” said the timbalero José Madera in a phone interview from his home in Colorado. “He’s grown, he’s left the planet, he’s in outer space somewhere.”Henriquez’s path from the streets of 1980s Mott Haven in the Bronx to the Jazz at Lincoln Center stage was sparked in part by an encounter as a teenager with the organization’s director, Wynton Marsalis. “When I was a kid, the Jazzmobile used to come to St. Mary’s Park across the street from the Betances Houses, where I grew up,” Henriquez said, referring to the portable stage that brings jazz to New York neighborhoods. “I remember Clark Terry and David Murray played, and also Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Larry Harlow.”Henriquez said his father, who worked at a V.A. hospital, was given cassettes by his African American friends. “One day he gave me a tape with Bill Evans, Eddie Gomez and Paul Chambers, and I was freaking out — I was like, man, this is killing.”At first, Henriquez played the piano, and then switched to classical guitar, which landed him in the Juilliard School’s music advancement program while he attended the performing arts high school LaGuardia. He switched to bass in his second year‌ at Juilliard, and won first place in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition for high school bands. At 19, he joined the Wynton Marsalis Septet and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.“I started going to Wynton’s house religiously, and we exchanged information about Latin music, something we do to this day,” Henriquez said. “And vice versa. If I need help with classical music or something, he’ll help me out.”Henriquez onstage with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, featuring its leader, Wynton Marsalis (at right).Tina Fineberg for The New York TimesDuring a question-and-answer session at Essentially Ellington in 2019, Marsalis praised his protégé: “Every night this man is coming to swing,” he said, addressing a roomful of jazz hopefuls. “He gave me a another whole way of understanding music,” Marsalis added. Describing a moment when Henriquez offered a critique on a piece Marsalis had written, the trumpeter recalled the bassist saying, “It’s all on the wrong beat.’”For Henriquez, the key to fusing Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz is finding a way to get the feeling of swing to conform to the five-beat clave rhythm. “It’s not just imagining ‘The Peanut Vendor’ as played by John Coltrane,” he said. Henríquez credits Manny Oquendo’s Conjunto Libre and the Fort Apache Band, which was headed by the Bronx brothers Andy and Jerry González, as “spiritual leaders.”As a session bassist, Henriquez has played with Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Lenny Kravitz, Natalie Merchant, the bachata group Aventura and the Cuban jazz pianists Chucho Valdés and Gonzalo Rubalcaba. He has even toured with Nuyorican Soul, the dance-music project led by the D.J.s Little Louie Vega and Kenny (Dope) Gonzalez. “We had DJ Jazzy Jeff spinning records onstage while we were playing Latin grooves,” he said.Since 2010, when Henriquez served that year as musical director of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s cultural exchange with the Cuban Institute of Music, he has been integrally involved in the group’s Latin jazz programming. In the past decade, he’s been at the helm for a show featuring Rubén Blades singing jazz and salsa standards, a Latin spin on the work of Dizzy Gillespie, and last year’s scintillating “Monk con Clave” tribute to Thelonious Monk.“I was telling them, look, there’s a bigger picture to this,” Henriquez said of his message to the orchestra’s leadership. Musicians from earlier eras who are meaningful to the New York scene are “not getting credit,” or opportunities to perform. “We need to hire these people so that we could at least let them know that we didn’t forget about them.”“We, the bass players can really determine where the music is going to, where the concept is going,” Henriquez said.Dana Golan for The New York TimesFor this week’s Puente and Rodríguez tribute, Henriquez, who played with the Tito Puente orchestra when he was in his late teens, enlisted longtime Puente collaborators like the bongo player Johnny (Dandy) Rodríguez Jr. and Madera, and crafted a set list that combines both well-known and somewhat obscure tracks from the two luminaries.One of Henriquez’s charms is his ability to ad-lib nuggets of Latin music and jazz history between songs, in quips that land somewhere between stand-up comedy and a TED Talk. Asked over lunch about the rumored rivalry between Puente and Rodríguez, who vied for top billing at shows at the Palladium and other venues, he coolly demurred in deadpan comic tone. The song “El Que Se Fue” (“The One Who Left”)? “Rodríguez was trashing a guy,” Henriquez said, “but it wasn’t Tito Puente.”The Puente centennial has also occasioned a tribute and art exhibit at Hostos Community College in the Bronx; a vinyl reissue on Craft Recordings of “Mambo Diablo,” Puente’s 1985 jazz album, which featured “Lush Life” and other jazz standards; and an event at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts on May 20. Yet as much as the mambo era burns brightly in the spirit of Latin New York, Henriquez, whose 2021 solo album “The South Bronx Story” mined 1970s lore of widespread arson and street gang truces, continues to dig deeper into other neglected histories.“I’m working on my next album and I realize, we’re right in the middle of this neighborhood that used to be called San Juan Hill,” he said, referring to the area that was demolished to build Lincoln Center. “And then I find out, we used to live here, with African Americans, and Benny Carter wrote a suite called Echoes of San Juan Hill, and Thelonious Monk used to play here. I came to realize how valuable this neighborhood was, and I found this out because I was yearning to find my connection to jazz.“It’s the spirits of our ancestors, and they’re calling, you know?” More

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      The Met Gala Was Just the Start. Welcome to the After-Parties.

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      Sean Combs, Dua Lipa, Lizzo and Janelle Monáe were among the revelers who kept going after the formal affair, with drinks, dancing and no cockroach sightings.At 11 p.m., outside the Mark Hotel on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, gawkers pressed up against police barricades, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone — anyone — who had been at the Met Gala and was now showing up to the first of its after-parties.Jeremiah Scott, who said he was an aspiring designer, put on his boxy double-breasted blazer, pulled up his studded cargo pants and headed for the front of the line. Within seconds, he and a friend — a rapper who goes by the tag NYXJVH and who wore a studded $3,000 Margiela mask that covered his entire face — strolled through the lobby toward an event space where waiters passed out crispy spring rolls and a D.J. played vintage Madonna. Neither Mr. Scott nor his friend was on the list, but they managed to blend in with the invited guests.In the center of the room was a giant gold statue in the shape of Karl Lagerfeld’s face. Posing against it was Amanda Lepore, the nightlife diva whose physical transformation into an hourglass-shaped kewpie doll put her in the plastic surgery pantheon alongside Jocelyn Wildenstein.A reporter asked Ms. Lepore if she had attended the ball, which celebrated the opening of a Karl Lagerfeld retrospective at the Met’s Costume Institute. “No,” she said, disappearing into the crowd.Nicky Hilton Rothschild, Paris Hilton, Char Defrancesco and Marc Jacobs at Richie Akiva’s “The After” party, held at the Box and hosted by Diddy and Doja Cat.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesCara Delevingne dances with Alton Mason during the Karl Lagerfeld Met Gala afterparty at the Mark Hotel.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesJonathan Groff, Lea Michele, Darren Criss and Micaela Diamond with friends at the Met Gala afterparty at the Top of the Standard at the Standard Hotel.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesDiddy onstage during Richie Akiva’s party at the Box. Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesNeither had Aquaria, the Season 10 winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”Like a number of the gala’s actual attendees, Aquaria had on a catsuit that paid homage to Choupette, Mr. Lagerfeld’s tortie Birman cat. “I’m here representing the mentally unwell members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community,” she said, adding that fashion doesn’t have to be so serious.A rapper who goes by the tag NYXJVH wore a studded $3,000 Margiela face mask.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesLil Nas X at the Top of the Standard.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMary J. Blige at the same party.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesA bust of Karl Lagerfeld at the Mark Hotel. Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesAfter a cockroach became a viral sensation by crawling across the carpeted steps at the Met, who could argue with that?Certainly not the gala’s main organizer, Anna Wintour, who has shown a willingness to move with the moment, even if that means putting on a yearly bacchanal that increasingly feels more like the world’s highest-wattage Halloween parade than fashion’s biggest night out.And certainly not Mr. Lagerfeld, a man who, until a few months before his death at 85, hit the social circuit in Hedi Slimane suits, spouting proclamations about the pointlessness of preciousness.“There is nothing worse than bringing up the ‘good old days,’” he once said. “To me, that’s the ultimate acknowledgment of failure.”Into the Mark waltzed Lisa Airan, a cosmetic dermatologist whose skills with syringes have prevented many a gala regular from becoming an example of what once was.Inside the party at the Box. Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesStephanie Hsu at the Top of the Standard.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesBrian Tyree Henry at the Mark Hotel.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesBillie Eilish and Pier Paolo Piccioli at the Top of the Standard. Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMs. Airan wore a cream-colored Grecian dress. Holding the train was her husband, the cosmetic surgeon Trevor Born.“It was designed with A.I.,” Ms. Airan said, naming Discord as the software program that had dreamed it up. “Then I got Gilles Mendel to execute it. I thought that if Karl was alive today, that’s what he would do. Because he was so forward thinking.”To Ms. Airan, who said she attends the gala every year, there had been nothing about the crowd at this year’s event that indicated a drop in quality. “Everyone looked great,” she said. “This was the first year it was sponsored by Ozempic.”Only the second part of that statement was a joke, she was quick to add.Chris Rock at the Box. Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesTeyana Taylor at the Mark Hotel.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesMs. Taylor performed during the party at the Box.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesTrevor Noah, center, at the Standard Hotel party.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesAround midnight, a few genuinely famous people had arrived at the Mark.James Corden stood by the bar in his black tuxedo pants and blue tuxedo jacket. Brian Tyree Henry, a star of the beloved FX series “Atlanta,” posed for photographers a few feet away.It was Mr. Henry’s first time as a Met Gala guest. Although he said he had never met Mr. Lagerfeld, he had been placed by Vogue at the Chanel table, a clear measure of his status near the top of this year’s heap.“It was unbelievable,” Mr. Henry said of the gala. “Everyone looked stunning. Nothing like a black and white ball.”Many of the guests started heading downtown, to the Standard Hotel, the site of another after-party.In the “Mad Men”-meets-Rainbow Room top-floor space, professional dancers gyrated on platforms in white spray-painted bodysuits that brought to mind Keith Haring’s collaboration with Grace Jones. The designer Jeremy Scott stood at the bar. The model Coco Rocha passed by in a sparkly gold dress. The host was Janelle Monáe.Jenna Ortega at the Top of the Standard. Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesCarla Bruni at the Mark Hotel.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesQuinta Brunson at the Top of the Standard.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMs. Monáe had arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a Chanel-inspired Thom Browne black and white coat, which she stripped off in front of photographers to reveal a see-through hoop skirt, under which she wore a black bikini with Lagerfeld-like pearls dangling from the waistline. Now she had ditched the skirt and went around with a black cape draped across her shoulders.The star wattage in the Standard crowd did not approach that of earlier years, when Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Uma Thurman, Donatella Versace and Madonna parked themselves at banquettes and partied until the wee hours, but there were still some big names in the room.Mary J. Blige arrived as Ms. Monáe and the dancers climbed aboard the bar to put on a short show. After that, Lil Nas X and Billie Eilish strolled in.The nightlife impresario Richie Akiva put on “The After,” a party at the Box with Diddy and Doja Cat.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAquaria, dressed as Choupette, at the Mark Hotel.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesSelah Marley at the Karl Lagerfeld party.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesDownstairs, an Escalade big enough to have Lizzo’s name skywritten in the ozone layer pulled up, and out she stepped. “We love the blond hair,” a fan yelled from the middle of the Belgian-block street.Pier Paolo Piccioli, the designer at Valentino, headed off in a car, bound for Virgo, a basement nightclub on the Lower East Side, where a party hosted by Dua Lipa was taking place.To get there, one descended a dark staircase lit from both sides in neon red.Florence Pugh, her head newly shaved, stood at the bar in the front room. Ms. Lipa was at the front of a narrow, packed dance floor, dancing in an outfit adorned with pearls. Dom Pérignon was in abundance.Penélope Cruz took a quick tour of the room in her black Chanel dress shortly before the arrival of the director Baz Luhrmann and the designer Prabal Gurung. Mr. Gurung mentioned that this was the third after-party he had attended, adding that it was, in his own estimation, “too many.”But with the music still blasting, people still dancing, and Rihanna and ASAP Rocky moments away in an ozone-shattering vehicle of their own, it would be hours before things ended there or at the Box, a nearby burlesque club where Sean Combs, the rapper known as Diddy, held a party of his own.There, Usher sipped a drink in front of the D.J. booth. The singer Juan Luis Londoño Arias, who performs as Maluma, was on the balcony, flashing peace signs to the crowd below. Paris Hilton swayed from side to side, eyes hidden behind white sunglasses, with Marc Jacobs at her side. Naomi Campbell danced nearby. Mary J. Blige stood next to Mr. Combs as he played emcee.“If you’re tired, you can leave,” he said into the mic.The cat head Jared Leto wore to the Met Gala was spotted at the Karl Lagerfeld party at the Mark Hotel. Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times More

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      A Drone Opera, Brought to You by General Dynamics? A Company Clarifies.

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      “Grounded,” a new work about the psychological toll of drone warfare, drew scrutiny after its presenter, Washington National Opera, advertised the support of a major military contractor.When the Washington National Opera announced that it would open its coming season with the premiere of “Grounded,” a new opera exploring the psychological toll of drone warfare, its star composer, Jeanine Tesori, got less attention than its listed sponsor: General Dynamics, the military contractor.Anger erupted online, with critics accusing Washington National Opera of serving as a mouthpiece for the defense industry. A think tank that advocates military restraint labeled it a “killer drone opera.” New York magazine gave the opera a “despicable” rating on its Approval Matrix, describing it as “the drone-bombing opera ‘Grounded,’ sponsored by General Dynamics.” RT, a state-owned Russian news outlet, said the work showed the strength of the American military-industrial complex.The creative team behind “Grounded,” an adaptation of an acclaimed Off Broadway play, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which commissioned the opera, grew disturbed by how the new opera was being portrayed. They worked behind the scenes to push the Washington National Opera to make it clear that General Dynamics, which has been a major sponsor of the opera company since 1997, had nothing to do with the creation of the opera.“I felt action was needed to guarantee that the audience would see ‘Grounded’ knowing that it is solely the work of its creators,” Tesori, a major Broadway composer who has expanded into opera, said in a statement to The New York Times. She added that she had only recently become aware of the philanthropic support of General Dynamics.The composer Jeanine Tesori said that “action was needed to guarantee that the audience would see ‘Grounded’ knowing that it is solely the work of its creators.”An Rong Xu for The New York TimesOn Tuesday, after days of negotiations, Washington National Opera posted a statement seeking some distance from its benefactor.“For the sake of clarity,” the statement said, “no sponsor or supporter of W.N.O. had any involvement in the creation of ‘Grounded’ or in the contents of its libretto.”The company changed its website, whose “Grounded” page had described General Dynamics as its “presenting sponsor,” to clarify that the company is a “W.N.O. season sponsor.” It also rewrote its promotional text for the opera, removing some militaristic language, including a line that had described its protagonist as a “hot shot F-16 fighter pilot, an elite warrior trained for the sky” and a line noting that “war ‘with all the benefits of home’ isn’t clear-cut.” The new description cut a reference to the “horror of war.”An early rendering of the set of the opera “Grounded.”Design and rendering by Mimi LienThe episode highlights the difficulties that cultural institutions sometimes face in protecting the integrity of their art while cultivating rich donors. The Kennedy Center, the parent organization of Washington National Opera, has in recent years faced pressure to cut ties with some benefactors, including tobacco companies.General Dynamics has long been a sponsor of Washington National Opera, providing more than $500,000 to the company each year in recent years. Gregory S. Gallopoulos, a senior vice president at General Dynamics, is a member of the opera company’s board.Timothy O’Leary, the general director of Washington National Opera, said in an interview that General Dynamics had no input on “Grounded,” or any other works.“No sponsor has any say in our artistic decisions, or ever could,” he said. “Any sponsor who tried to interfere in that way is not a sponsor from whom we would accept support.”The “Grounded” opera, adapted from a play by George Brant, was announced by the Met in 2017, part of an effort by the company to promote contemporary opera. The Met agreed to co-produce the opera with Washington National Opera ahead of its planned Met premiere in 2025.The New York Times described the play it is based on as a “haunting portrait of a woman serving in the United States Armed Forces coming under pressure as the human cost of war, for combatants as well as civilians, slowly eats away at her well-armored psyche.”Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, described the work as an “antiwar opera” and said that it provided a nuanced portrayal of the costs of war. He said he had advised his counterparts in Washington to take swift action once concerns started spreading on social media about the opera’s support from General Dynamics.“If this misperception was not corrected, it would be very bad for the work,” he said in an interview. “The work would be somehow tainted before anybody ever got a chance to see it.”General Dynamics on Tuesday declined to comment on the controversy, but said in a statement, “We are proud to support the arts.”Phebe N. Novakovic, the chairman and chief executive of General Dynamics since 2013, is an opera buff who grew up listening to recordings on a Victrola record player with her Serbian grandmother. Shortly after she rose to the top of the company, General Dynamics became a full-season sponsor of Washington National Opera.When asked in a 2016 interview why the company was such a big supporter of the opera, Novakovic cited her grandmother’s influence.“I have honored both her memory and my love of that form of human expression through supporting the opera,” she said at the Economic Club of Washington. “We get folks from all over our company coming to the opera.” More

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      How Did ‘Beau Is Afraid’ Land a Mariah Carey Song? Indies Have Their Ways.

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      A well-written letter and other methods of persuasion can help reduce the cost of expensive hits and produce unforgettable results.Beau, the addled midlife wreck played by Joaquin Phoenix in “Beau Is Afraid,” isn’t just afraid, he is terrorized: harassed, beaten, stabbed and even kidnapped in a surreal black comedy that often feels less like a conventional film than a three-hour panic attack. (In the hands of high-anxiety auteur Ari Aster, of “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” fame, consider that a compliment.)Thanks to his monstrous mother, he has become a man resigned to life without love or companionship. Then, deep in the movie comes a reprieve — a late chance at romance with his childhood crush (Parker Posey), soundtracked, incongruously, to the lilting strains of Mariah Carey’s smash 1995 ballad “Always Be My Baby.” Things go obscenely, catastrophically awry from there, as they are wont to do with Beau, but the song plays on.When the scene played at a preview at the Metrograph Theater in Manhattan this month, a packed room of industry insiders, press and celebrities that included Phoenix and the actor Robert Pattinson collectively gasped in recognition, then cheered. How exactly did the queen of five-octave pop end up here? For Aster, it turns out, there was never a second choice.“Ari had written a first draft of the script over 10 years ago, and ‘Always Be My Baby’ was in it from the very beginning,” said his production partner, Lars Knudsen, who also works frequently with filmmakers like Robert Eggers (“The Northman”) and Mike Mills (“Beginners”). “I honestly didn’t know how integral and crucial it was to him to have that song until we were in the edit, but we knew that it was going be very expensive, and that Mariah might not approve it. There was a feeling like, ‘Look, we’ll try, but we likely won’t be able to afford it.’”Nevertheless, Aster penned what Knudsen called “a very beautifully written letter” to the singer and pleaded his case; improbably, she said yes. When she first received the request, Carey said via email, “I was quite intrigued. Then, as I watched the scene, I was a bit shocked at first because of my prudish nature (ha!), but immediately understood the importance of that particular moment.”The writer-director Ari Aster wrote a letter to Carey, one strategy indie directors use when they can’t afford a song.A24She continued, “I’m really happy with the way people are responding to it, and thrilled that Ari is being recognized for his talent, creativity and artistic vision.”(Several days after the Metrograph screening, Carey briefly lit the internet ablaze when she appeared beaming on the red carpet alongside Posey and Aster at the film’s official New York premiere, resplendent in black leather.)“Beau” is perhaps the most prominent recent example of indie movies — many of which seem to stem from the tastemaking studio A24 — that stake their wildest hopes on finagling the rights to an instantly recognizable and often formidably expensive pop song. When the pairing goes well, it can be a zeitgeist-y boon for the kind of projects that rely more on word of mouth than marketing (in addition, of course, to fulfilling the highly specific vision of their creators).Think of ’N Sync’s elastic boy-band anthem “Bye Bye Bye,” which runs prominently throughout “Red Rocket,” the 2021 festival hit from writer-director Sean Baker (“The Florida Project”) about a washed-up porn star, or Paris Hilton’s featherweight bop “Stars Are Blind,” which provides a rare moment of levity in the bleak hard-candy noir of Emerald Fennell’s 2020 “Promising Young Woman.”A movie like “Guardians of the Galaxy” has Marvel Studios to underwrite its wall-to-wall usage of hits by David Bowie, the Jackson 5 and Marvin Gaye, among others. (The franchise’s director, James Gunn, once said he had paid “a million dollars” for a single song.) For small independent projects like “Aftersun,” though, the dreamy, elliptical father-daughter drama by the first-time director Charlotte Wells, a track like Queen and Bowie’s anthem “Under Pressure” — used to harrowing effect in a climactic scene — can easily consume the entire budget.That’s where highly personal appeals to the artist or estate with rights to the song — and no small amount of serendipity — often come into play. For “American Honey” (2016), a sexually frank verité road trip with a largely unknown cast, the British director Andrea Arnold had little choice but to get permission after the fact, or recut the film entirely; tracks including Rihanna and Calvin Harris’s “We Found Love” were not overlaid but woven into scenes that had already been shot.In that case, said Knudsen, who also produced “Honey,” both artists were moved enough by the material to not only give their permission, but also provide a sort of friends-and-family discount: “If it had been made by a bigger studio, then obviously we would have to pay” full price, he said. “But because we were an under-five-million-dollar movie with a reputable director who was trying to tell this very personal story where that song was the center of it, I think it definitely helped.”In the right circumstances, of course, less-expected collaborations like these can very much serve the musicians, too, even when they reduce their fees — a feedback loop of indie cred and mainstream appeal that confers fresh relevance to both parties.“When you make a convincing case, the publishing companies and the artists do understand,” Knudsen said. “I mean, ‘American Honey’ played in competition at Cannes, and A24 released it. If there wasn’t a sliding scale, then no independent film would be able to have any of these songs in their movies.”For directors like Arnold or Aster, those scenes become signatures. And for a certain kind of cinephile, “those songs will just have a very different place in their hearts. So that’s good for everyone, right?”Little Indie, Big Song“Aftersun”: David Bowie and Queen’s classic “Under Pressure” underpins the emotional climax of this impressionistic 2022 drama, which earned Paul Mescal an Oscar nomination for best actor.“Red Rocket”: ’N Sync’s 2000 hit “Bye Bye Bye” bookends this scrappy 2021 film, a character study of a prodigal porn star (Simon Rex) returning to his Texas roots.“Promising Young Woman”: Paris Hilton’s “Stars Are Blind” provides a rare moment of connection for two damaged characters in this highly stylized 2020 neofeminist revenge tale.“American Honey”: The Rihanna-Calvin Harris banger “We Found Love” becomes a sort of central theme for conflicted lovers played by played by Sasha Lane and Shia LaBeouf in this 2016 road movie.“Spring Breakers”: Britney Spears’s lachrymose 2003 ballad “Everytime” plays as a girl gang in pink balaclavas goes on a crime spree led by a demented James Franco in this 2013 nihilist comedy. More

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      Illuminating Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, a Pinnacle of Russian Sacred Rep

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      Steven Fox and the Clarion Choir are tending to a less well-known part of the composer’s canon for his 150th birthday: His choral works.In a classical music world obsessed with anniversaries, be they grand or modest, the 150th birthday of the Russian émigré composer Sergei Rachmaninoff has inevitably drawn notice. Just as inevitably, commemorations have tended to focus on his war horses: the symphonies, piano concertos and solo piano works.It seems to have fallen to Steven Fox and his excellent choirs to tend to Rachmaninoff’s motley but treasurable body of choral works. The sacred ones, particularly — with their flowing yet restrained lyricism and none of the bombast or sentimentality often associated with the composer — represent the very best of Rachmaninoff.On Wednesday, Fox, the artistic director of the New York-based Clarion Music Society, will return to his alma mater — Dartmouth College, in Hanover, N.H. — to lead the Clarion Choir in Rachmaninoff’s exquisite All-Night Vigil, a pinnacle of the rich Russian Orthodox repertory. They will repeat the performance on Friday at Carnegie Hall.Fox, 44, first conducted the work — commonly called the Vespers, after a liturgical service included in it — as part of a senior project at Dartmouth in 2000. He also handled the logistics — simple enough, you might think, because Russian Orthodox practice bans musical instruments, using only voices.But those voices must be special, combining virtuosity with smooth blend. The basses, in particular, have to travel comfortably and sonorously below the clef, and typically, professional ringers are needed to fill out an amateur performance. (Clarion will feature Glenn Miller, the current go-to American basso profundo, in its two performances.)And to boot, the text is not quite in Russian but in antiquated Old Slavonic.“I can’t say I knew exactly what I was doing at that time,” Fox said in an interview. “There was a point about a week before the concert when I felt overwhelmed. I remember calling my adviser in tears and saying: ‘It’s too much. I can’t keep track of all the details.’ But leading up to the performance, even during it, I just felt calm. That really was the moment I discovered that I wanted to pursue conducting as a profession.”Fox has since made specialties of Russian Orthodox music in general and Rachmaninoff in particular. He and Clarion have presented the Vespers often at New Year in New York and recorded it beautifully for Pentatone.Fox, who first tackled the Vespers as an undergraduate at Dartmouth, has since made specialties of Russian Orthodox music in general and Rachmaninoff in particular.Olivia Galli for The New York TimesThe performances this week are just one part of Fox’s yearlong celebration of the Rachmaninoff anniversary. At New Year, he led Clarion performances of the composer’s other great sacred work, the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. And in March, he conducted the Cathedral Choral Society, of which he is music director, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in a stirring rendition of “The Bells,” Rachmaninoff’s tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, at the National Cathedral in Washington.Still to come, in November, are the cantata “Spring” and “Three Russian Songs,” with Clarion at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City, where Fox lives.Might Fox worry about the appropriateness of celebrating a son of Russia so deeply rooted in its culture as Russia wages war on Ukraine?“I did have misgivings,” he said. “My main concern was singing liturgical music, given the church’s role in what is happening now. But as I thought more about Rachmaninoff’s story, I thought in a way it relates to what many Ukrainians are experiencing. He kind of kept politics at arm’s length for a long time, but at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, he said: ‘I have no choice. I have to leave.’”In the end, Clarion added a program note for the New Year performances of the Liturgy: “There is a terrible war taking place in the part of the world from which this beautiful music comes. As we sing tonight, we pray for peace in the New Year.”And Leonid Roschko, an Orthodox priest and a basso who sang the Deacon in those performances, added a prayer to the Liturgy: “That Thou mightest enlighten with the light of Thy divine wisdom the minds of those darkened with hardness of heart, and protect the people of Ukraine from any harm.”On study and work travels to Russia before the invasion, Fox honed another specialty, Baroque music. He founded Musica Antiqua St. Petersburg, which called itself the nation’s first period-instrument orchestra. He also unearthed what he calls “the earliest known Russian symphony,” from about 1771, by the Ukraine-born Maksym Berezovsky.Back in New York, Fox took the lead in reviving the Clarion Music Society, which had fallen idle shortly after the death of its founder, Newell Jenkins, in 1996. Fox took it over in 2006 and, while expanding its range and pushing it to new heights of virtuosity, he furthered his own ventures into early music, notably including that of Bach.So when the New York Philharmonic asked him to cover for Jaap van Zweden during a run of Bach’s towering “St. Matthew Passion” in March, he was eager to do it. No matter that rehearsals were to begin the day after the “Bells” performance in Washington.“I know the piece, and it would have been hard to say no,” Fox said. “Jaap and I got on very well. I admired his intensity. I thought he knew the score really well, and yet every time I went back to his office, he was studying it more, preparing.”Van Zweden reciprocated the sentiment: “Steven Fox comes from the same school of interpreting Bach that I do,” he said in an email. “His excellent ears and good ideas were a real asset. I have asked him back next year when we do the Mozart Requiem at the New York Philharmonic.”And Fox continues to till Russian soil. Spurred by the renowned music publisher Vladimir Morosan, Fox has been exploring music by Alexander Kastalsky. For Naxos, he recorded “Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes” with Clarion, and prepared Clarion and the Cathedral Choral Society to take part in Leonard Slatkin’s recording of an expansion of that work, “Requiem for Fallen Brothers,” with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.Morosan has described Kastalsky as “a seminal figure upon the landscape” of the early 20th century. Yet he remains so obscure in the West that he didn’t even register in the 2001 edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. What other rarities might Fox and Morosan unearth? More

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      Moogs and Muppets: Record Shopping in Brooklyn

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      Picking through the bins at the Academy Records Annex, and rediscovering “Switched-On Rock,” as well as albums by Tim Hardin and Otis Redding.Lindsay ZoladzDear listeners,It’s time for another installment of the recurring Amplifier segment My Record Haul, honoring the serendipity and bargains that can be found at brick-and-mortar shops. Today’s features weird and wonderful finds from one of my favorite places in Brooklyn, the Academy Records Annex.I’ve been shopping at the Academy Records Annex (the Brooklyn offshoot of Academy Records on 12th Street in Manhattan) for long enough that I’ve visited it in three different locations: its huge former home on North 6th Street in Williamsburg; the Greenpoint spot it moved to in 2013 right by the East River*; and, now, its brand-new store in the same neighborhood, at 242 Banker Street.My latest visit was particularly fruitful — especially in the dollar bins — and I’ve put together a playlist from the records I bought that day. It’s fun, breezy and, as you’ll see at the very end, contains a few unexpected musical connections.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. The Moog Machine: “Get Back”I have a morbid fascination with the many novelty synthesizer records that were pumped out in the late 1960s after Wendy Carlos’s “Switched-On Bach” became an unexpected commercial hit. By 1970, there was “Switched-On Country,” “Switched-On Bacharach” (clever) and my personal favorite in title if not in execution, “Switched-On Santa.” I did not own a copy of “Switched-On Rock,” one of the most popular of the bunch, and when I saw a cheap one in the crates, I could not resist. Please enjoy what I hope is one of the strangest Beatles covers you’ll ever hear, centered around a Moog modular synthesizer just five years after it was invented. For all their overwhelming kitsch, there’s something I genuinely love about the “Switched-On” records and this era of electronic music in general, when there was a palpable sense of wonder (and slight confusion) about what these newfangled machines could actually do. (Listen on YouTube)2. Otis Redding: “Mr. Pitiful” (Live at the Whiskey a Go Go, 1966)A year before his untimely death, Otis Redding played a three-night, seven-show residency at the Whiskey a Go Go, the famed Los Angeles rock club that at that point didn’t book many soul acts as headliners. This quick, ecstatic performance of Redding’s own “Mr. Pitiful” is just a taste of the brilliance that the audience (which, according to the liner notes, on this particular night included Bob Dylan) witnessed at those shows. It comes from the 10-track “In Person at the Whiskey a Go Go,” which was released in 1968. But if you’re looking for more Otis (and really, who isn’t?), a comprehensive boxed set of the complete Whiskey recordings was released in 2016. (Listen on YouTube)3. John Cale: “Dead or Alive”Remember just a few weeks ago, when I sent out a newsletter about John Cale and raved about his 1981 post-punk record “Honi Soit”? Just days later, I managed to find a copy in Academy Records’ New Arrivals section! Record-shopping serendipity is a beautiful thing. (Listen on YouTube)4. Tim Hardin: “Don’t Make Promises”Tim Hardin, if you’re not acquainted, was a superbly talented folk singer-songwriter who lost his battle with addiction in 1980, at just 39. While he could have done a lot more, the work he left behind is sterling. This jaunty little tune is one of my favorites on a 1970 Golden Archives Series compilation — a record that I totally forgot I already owned. I have no regrets, though, since it was a dollar-bin find too good too pass up, and I’m sure I can locate a friend who wants it. (Listen on YouTube)5. Roger Miller: “Dang Me”Perhaps the best dollar I have spent this year was on an unscratched copy of the goofball country singer Roger Miller’s greatest hits. It is scientifically and psychologically impossible to stay in a bad mood while listening to Miller: I have tested this hypothesis many times over. Same goes for this zany video of Dick Clark interviewing him on a 1964 episode of “American Bandstand,” which gives Miller an opportunity to do his impression of a telephone. (Listen on YouTube)6. Chuck Berry: “Memphis, Tennessee”Speaking of value (and, oddly enough, telephone operators), I was pleased to find a two-LP compilation of Chuck Berry songs in the bargain bin for just $2. “Memphis, Tennessee” isn’t one of his hardest rockers, but it’s a favorite nonetheless. (Listen on YouTube)7. Kermit and Fozzie: “Movin’ Right Along”OK, maybe this was the best dollar I’ve spent this year: a pristine copy of the soundtrack from “The Muppet Movie.” The LP cover alone made me smile and filled me with memories of a movie I loved as a kid, but this particular bop was the one that really brought me back. At first I thought I would put it on the playlist as a lark, especially since there’s been a relative lightheartedness to today’s selections. But then, while scrutinizing the liner notes of “Switched-On Rock,” I noticed a wild coincidence: The keyboardist on that Moog record was Kenny Ascher, the jazz pianist and composer who co-wrote the songs on the “Muppet Movie” soundtrack with Paul Williams. So, unexpectedly, today’s playlist ends where it began. I will say it again: Record-shopping serendipity is a beautiful thing. (Listen on YouTube)Footloose and fancy free,Lindsay*The Academy Records Instagram boasted of the new space, “It’s bigger! It’s clean! It doesn’t smell weird!” As a loyal customer I would contest the implication that the previous Oak Street location smelled weird, but I can confirm that there was some lovely, musky incense burning at 242 Banker Street, so I will admit, at least on the day that I visited, that this new space is the best-smelling Academy Records Annex yet.The Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Moogs and Muppets: Record Shopping in Brooklyn” track listTrack 1: The Moog Machine, “Get Back”Track 2: Otis Redding, “Mr. Pitiful (Live at the Whiskey a Go Go)”Track 3: John Cale, “Dead or Alive”Track 4: Tim Hardin, “Don’t Make Promises”Track 5: Roger Miller, “Dang Me”Track 6: Chuck Berry, “Memphis, Tennessee”Track 7: Kermit and Fozzie, “Movin’ Right Along”Bonus tracksA person dressed head-to-toe as Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker. An inflatable boa constrictor worn around someone’s neck. An inflatable alligator crowd surfing. A Jerry Springer T-shirt worn in seemingly earnest tribute. (R.I.P.) These were just some of the things I saw on Saturday night, when I left the rational world behind and went to a sold-out 100 gecs show.100 gecs are the sonically anarchic duo of Laura Les and Dylan Brady; if you’re unfamiliar with them, my colleague Joe Coscarelli’s recent profile is a great primer. Their latest album, “10,000 gecs,” is a brash, frequently hilarious assault on good taste — and with each passing day I become more certain that it’s one of my favorites of the year. (See: the towering, Blink-182-esque “Hollywood Baby” or, in keeping with our Kermit theme, the absurdist and deliriously catchy “Frog on the Floor.”) Its appeal is perhaps impossible to explain (or, some might say, justify) but I keep coming back to an idea that the critic Julianne Escobedo Shepherd articulated in her astute review of the album for Pitchfork: “It’s a re-evaluation of the most déclassé and dunderheaded rock genres that roiled the 2000s, positing that when it’s not delivered by misogynistic frat guys, it can be terrific music. 100 gecs are speaking to and for the regressive ids of us all; dumb [expletive] should be inclusive too.” A lot of the punk-rock humor espoused by the bands I grew up with was, when you held it up to the light, woefully homophobic, sexist or racist — sometimes all of the above. Like Shepherd, I appreciate the more inviting inanity of this new generation of weirdos. As I realized, chanting “gecs! gecs! gecs!” among my fellow misfits on Saturday night: The kids are all right. More