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      Marvin Schlachter, Record Executive Who Championed Disco, Dies at 90

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      In the 1960s, he helped get wide exposure for Black artists like Dionne Warwick. A decade later, he brought dance music from the clubs to radio success.Marvin Schlachter, a music executive who helped launch Dionne Warwick and the Shirelles in the 1960s and who a decade later created one of the world’s most influential disco labels, bringing acts like Musique and France Joli to the masses, died on Sept. 19 in Manhattan. He was 90.His son Brad said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was intestinal cancer.Beginning in the early 1960s, Mr. Schlachter played a crucial role in the emergence of Black musicians from genre-based appeal to become a force in the American music mainstream.Mr. Schlachter in 1962, a year after he became executive vice president of Scepter Records.Record World magazine, via Schlachter familyHe spent nine years as an executive with Scepter Records, a New York label comparable in some ways to Motown in Detroit (although much smaller). The label brought in Black songwriters, producers and musicians and promoted their albums among white audiences — still an unusual idea at the time.Among Scepter’s biggest successes was Ms. Warwick, whom the label paired with the songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The Bacharach-David team wrote many of Ms. Warwick’s early signature hits, including “Don’t Make Me Over,” “Walk On By” and “Alfie.”Dionne Warwick’s first album was released by Scepter Records in 1963, early in her long association with the songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David.Scepter RecordsWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      GloRilla, Hip-Hop’s Master Motivator, Rounds Out Her Message

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      Self-empowerment rhymes catapulted her onto rap’s A-list. On “Glorious,” her debut LP, she’s hoping that showing more sides of her personality will help her stay there.GloRilla is always on the clock these days. Last month, the rapper born Gloria Hallelujah Woods stomped and bounced through her hits “Yeah Glo!” and “TGIF” at the MTV Video Music Awards, then spent the next morning at a photo shoot.By the time she arrived at Jungle City Studios in Manhattan, around 9 p.m., her trademark bravado was in short supply. Nursing a mild cold, she swaddled herself in a thick woolen blanket and laid practically supine on a couch. But, she explained, she intended to keep slogging through her exhaustion. “I don’t take having a lot of work for granted no more,” she said. “I can’t complain about a lot being on my plate when my goal was to eat.”GloRilla, 25, burst out of Memphis in 2022 with the release of her single “F.N.F. (Let’s Go),” recorded at the end of a 60-day fast — no men, no liquor — that she said changed the trajectory of her life. Its eminently chantable affirmations about being “F-R-E-E” and “S-I-N-G-L-E” proved ideal fodder for TikTok, radio and that year’s Grammys, where the song was nominated for best rap performance. One viral track begot another: “Tomorrow 2,” with Cardi B, vaulted into the Top 10 less than six months after “F.N.F.” dropped.GloRilla played the months that followed with a relative conservatism. She released an EP, “Anyways, Life’s Great …,” at the end of 2022, and a deluxe edition a few months later. She spent much of 2023 on the festival circuit and earlier this year shared “Ehhthang Ehhthang,” a sprightly mixtape that featured “Wanna Be,” a modest hit she shared with Megan Thee Stallion, who brought her on a global tour this summer. On Oct. 11, she’ll release her debut album “Glorious,” more than two years after becoming a next big thing.Myesha Evon for The New York TimesIt was a bit of a slow burn for a budding star of rap, a genre in which hits bloom and wither with astonishing speed. The relatively patient output was not by design: GloRilla was figuring out the shifting sands of her new stardom and how much she wanted to expand on the sound that launched her.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lauren Mayberry’s Lush Pop Ecstasy, and 13 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Bartees Strange, the Smile, Ela Minus and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Lauren Mayberry, ‘Something in the Air’Lauren Mayberry, the frontwoman of the Scottish synth-pop band Chvrches, strikes a note of defiance on “Something in the Air,” a track from her upcoming debut solo album, “Vicious Creature.” “You come up with your stories, conspiracy theories of why we’re all here,” she sings on a soaring pop chorus, before flinging off all that paranoia with some crescendoing synths and a melody that escalates toward liberation. LINDSAY ZOLADZWaxahatchee, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’MJ Lenderman’s chiming guitar sparks off the warm tone of Katie Crutchfield’s voice on “Much Ado About Nothing,” a previously unreleased track she’s been playing live on the tour for Waxahatchee’s latest album, “Tiger’s Blood.” “Oh no, I’m down and out, I’m tragically amiss,” Crutchfield sings, reaching to her warbling falsetto. But in the face of her desperation, the song’s laid-back and lived-in arrangement offers a safe place to land. ZOLADZBartees Strange, ‘Sober’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      10 Unforgettable Kris Kristofferson Covers

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      Many of his songs are better known by other singers’ interpretations, like Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee,” Johnny Cash’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and more.Laura Roberts/Invision, via Associated PressDear listeners,“You can look at Nashville pre-Kris and post-Kris,” Bob Dylan once said of Kris Kristofferson, who died on Saturday, “because he changed everything.”That’s high praise coming from Dylan, especially considering that when they first crossed paths in Nashville’s Columbia Recording Studios in 1966, Dylan was recording his opus “Blonde on Blonde” — and Kristofferson was the studio’s janitor, lingering in the halls with his own dreams of songwriting glory. A few years later, he’d finally achieve them, thanks to artists like Ray Price, Roger Miller and Johnny Cash, who all had hits with early Kristofferson compositions. Then came Janis Joplin’s rendition of “Me and Bobby McGee,” which posthumously topped the pop chart and gave Kristofferson, as he once put it, “the biggest shot of fame that I ever got at that time. It was never the same after that.”Though a household name thanks mostly to his acting career, Kristofferson never achieved more than modest success as a solo recording artist. I happen to love that gruff, mumbly Everyman quality of his voice, but I recognize that it’s an acquired taste. That’s probably why so many Kristofferson songs are better known by other singers’ interpretations, whether it’s Joplin’s “Bobby McGee,” Johnny Cash’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” or a whole host of other musicians who have tackled his breakthrough breakup ballad “For the Good Times.”Today’s playlist is a compilation of some of the best of those covers, from artists as varied as Al Green, Waylon Jennings and Tom Verlaine. If you’d like to hear Kristofferson’s words in his own ragged drawl, consider this a companion piece to the excellent playlist that Jon Pareles put together, featuring 12 of Kristofferson’s essential songs.Lastly, a quick programming note: I’m going to be taking the next few weeks off from writing The Amplifier so I can get some work done on the book I’ve been trying to write. I have a few great guest playlisters lined up while I’m out, and they’ll be sending you an Amplifier once a week, each Tuesday. Enjoy their eclectic selections, and you’ll hear from me again soon!I ain’t saying I beat the devil, but I drank his beer for nothing,LindsayWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Atlanta Opera Is Growing, and Bucking Trends

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      Under the leadership of Tomer Zvulun, Atlanta Opera powered through the pandemic, has tripled its budget and is producing ambitious work.Walking through a repurposed industrial space in Atlanta one recent afternoon, Tomer Zvulun gestured toward a cafe table in the middle of a wraparound stage covered in graffiti.Zvulun, the general and artistic director of Atlanta Opera, described how the action in his contemporary-dress production of Puccini’s “La Bohème,” which was a few hours from opening, would swirl around the audience, providing an immersive experience for some of the 500 ticket buyers.“If people need neck braces at the end,” he said, “we’re doing our job.”Not only was Atlanta Opera presenting an unusually intimate, head-swiveling “Bohème,” it was also doing the show on alternating nights with — and on the same set as — “Rent,” the 1996 musical based on the Puccini classic. When the combination occurred to Zvulun and his team, they assumed that another company had already had the idea.“But we Googled it,” he said, “and no one’s ever done it.”The company’s production of “Rent,” in repertory with “La Bohème.”RaftermenAtlanta Opera’s production of “La Bohème.”RaftermenJuxtaposing the pieces was a coup that embodied an organization trying to make opera vibrant and accessible — and succeeding in the bottom line. Over the past decade, Atlanta Opera has been on a very different trajectory from many American companies: It has been growing rather than shrinking.Under Zvulun — an Israeli-born stage director who started at Atlanta Opera in 2013 when he was in his mid-30s, having never held an administrative position anywhere — its budget has tripled to roughly $15 million. (Only about 10 companies in the country are larger.) It braved the pandemic with a burst of programming.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Garth Brooks Is Accused of Rape and Assault in Lawsuit

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      A woman who worked as a hair and makeup stylist for the country superstar says he subjected her to repeated advances. Mr. Brooks did not immediately respond to the allegations.Garth Brooks, one of country music’s biggest stars, has been accused of sexual assault by a woman who said he raped her in a Los Angeles hotel room and subjected her to repeated unwanted sexual advances over a period of about two years, according to a lawsuit filed in a California court on Thursday.The woman was not named in court papers but was described as a hair and makeup stylist who worked with Mr. Brooks from 2017 to about 2020. In that time, her suit says, he repeatedly harassed her, describing graphic sexual fantasies and in one instance placing her hands on his genitals when he came out of a shower.A spokeswoman for Mr. Brooks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mr. Brooks, 62, is a star of the highest order in the world of country music and beyond, a household name who has sold tens of millions of albums and, decades into his career, still plays to stadiums full of adoring fans. He has also long been devoted to charitable organizations, particularly those focused on children and local relief after natural disasters.But the suit accuses him of preying on a woman working for him and then trying to silence her.Litigation over the woman’s accusation began three weeks ago with an anonymous suit filed in federal court in Mississippi. In that case — called John Doe v. Jane Roe — a man identified only as “a celebrity and public figure who resides in Tennessee” said that a woman residing in Mississippi had made “false and outrageous allegations of sexual misconduct she claims occurred years ago.” He asked a judge to protect his identity and to declare that the woman’s accusations against him were false.In a filing this week in response, the woman’s lawyers portrayed that lawsuit as a pre-emptive move to silence her, and said that she would be filing her case imminently, which would name the man.The 27-page lawsuit filed by the woman on Thursday, in Los Angeles Superior Court, says she is the same person listed as the defendant in the Mississippi action, and identifies Mr. Brooks as the John Doe plaintiff.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lawyers for a Sean Combs Accuser Ask to Withdraw From Her Case

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      A dispute between Adria English, who has accused Mr. Combs of sexual misconduct, and her lawyers is the latest twist in the civil litigation the music mogul is facing.Lawyers for a woman who accused Sean Combs of plying her with drugs at his famous White Parties and commanding her to have sex with guests are seeking to withdraw from representing her, writing in court papers that she had displayed “undermining behavior and questionable antics.”The plaintiff, Adria English, sued Mr. Combs in July, alleging that as an employee who worked at the parties in the Hamptons and Miami in the mid-to-late 2000s, she had been “groomed” into being sex trafficked and had been given ecstasy-laced liquor.The lawsuit is one of a dozen sexual misconduct suits that have been filed against Mr. Combs over the past year. He is also facing a federal criminal case and was indicted last month on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty.In their court filing, lawyers for Ms. English, Ariel Mitchell-Kidd and Steven A. Metcalf, told a judge in federal court in Manhattan that “irreconcilable differences” had developed with their client.“As a result of a fundamental disagreement between Attorneys and Plaintiff regarding almost every aspect of the litigation,” the filing says, “including settlement demands, causes of actions in the pleadings and Plaintiff’s undermining behavior and questionable antics an irreconcilable conflict and tension has developed between Plaintiff and Attorneys.”Ms. Mitchell-Kidd said in a text message response to questions on Thursday, “I never lost faith in her case, just in her.”“Her case is great,” she added. “My issue was with her undermining my work and going behind my back doing things incongruent to advancing her case.”In a phone interview on Thursday, Ms. English — who reported her claims to the police in Miami Beach, Fla., after filing her lawsuit — said she was seeking new counsel. She said she had clashed with Ms. Mitchell-Kidd repeatedly, including over a demand from the lawyer that Ms. English not speak to the media.“I’m the client; you work for me,” Ms. English said to describe her perspective.Mr. Combs, who is currently detained in a Brooklyn jail after a judge ordered him held until trial, has denied sexually assaulting or sex trafficking anyone. In a statement on Wednesday, his representatives called Ms. English’s claims “fabricated.”“As we’ve said from the start, anyone can file a lawsuit without proof — and this case is a clear example of that,” the statement said. “Adria English escalated things by filing false police reports and making baseless claims, using high-profile events as a backdrop to harm innocent people.”Mr. Combs’s legal team has been defending him against a mounting pile of lawsuits since the indictment was brought in September and lawyers in Texas have said they are preparing suits on behalf of multiple accusers who have reached out to them with accounts of misconduct. More

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      As Taylor Swift and Others Revive Cassettes, Fans Look for Tape Decks

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      Musicians and fans have developed a new taste for an old format, but manufacturers largely stopped making players. Listeners are finding creative (and vintage) solutions.When Taylor Swift released “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” in an array of physical formats last year, Cora Buel knew she had to get the cassette right away. Buel, a 48-year-old based in Daly City, Calif., is a fan of Swift’s music — an affinity she shares with her teenage daughter, who has since bought her mother more tapes as gifts. One main reason? Buel drives a 1998 BMW Z3, and has no other convenient options for on-the-road album playback.“Just get an old car that only plays cassettes,” Buel said, “and you’ll listen every day.”Although Buel might be an extreme proponent of retro design — she works as chief revenue officer at ThredUp, an online consignment store — the cassette’s return is by now almost as unmistakable as the format’s distinctive hiss and warble.Dominant in the United States from the early 1980s until it was overtaken commercially by the compact disc in the early 1990s, the cassette tape has survived as an underground phenomenon, a deliberately anachronistic medium of choice for artists on the noise, avant-garde and low-fi fringes. But tapes began turning up at the trend-chasing retailer Urban Outfitters as long ago as 2015, the same year that digital streaming first overtook download sales. Nearly a decade later, Swift’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” stands as the top-selling cassette of the year so far, with about 23,000 copies sold through June 30, according to the tracking service Luminate.Sure, cassette sales of Swift’s new album pale beside its performance in even other physical formats, where it boasts sales of 1.1 million copies on CD and another 988,000 on vinyl. But “Tortured Poets” alone is on pace to beat the total annual sales of all albums on cassette for as recently as 2009, when the Luminate precursor Nielsen SoundScan reported a mere 34,000 units shipped. If Spotify killed the iTunes star, and vinyl is increasingly a high-priced luxury item — never mind CDs for the moment — then cassettes could be the cockroaches that outlive them all.As labels look to capitalize on “superfans” who will buy multiple formats, artists releasing new music on cassette this year cross genres and generations. A sampling of musicians embracing the format includes: the pop polymath Charli XCX, the alternative-rock titan Kim Deal, the adventurous South Florida rapper Denzel Curry, the outré Thom Yorke band the Smile, the black-metal group Darkthrone, the pop-rock duo Twenty One Pilots, the meditative electronic producer Tycho, the masked country singer Orville Peck, the folk-pop troubadour Shawn Mendes, the reigning pop wunderkind Billie Eilish, the garage-rocker Ty Segall, the alt-pop eclecticist Remi Wolf and the sultry singer-songwriter Omar Apollo.Though the last new car to be factory-equipped with a cassette deck was reportedly a 2010 Lexus, more than a quarter of light-duty vehicles on the road are at least 15 years old, according to a recent analysis by S&P Global Mobility. Susanna Thomson of the Oakland, Calif., band Sour Widows still listens to cassettes in her 1998 Volvo wagon, which has a tape deck and a CD player. “I-90,” a song on the alternative-rock group’s bittersweet new album, “Revival of a Friend,” includes lyrics about driving down the interstate while singing along repeatedly to a beloved cassette; the tape in question was by the Southern California punk-rock outfit Joyce Manor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More