Music

ROME — When the rock group Maneskin won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, it was little known outside Italy. Then the competition catapulted the band in front of 180 million viewers, and propelled its winning song “Zitti e Buoni,” or “Shut Up and Behave,” into Spotify’s global Top 10, a first for an Italian band.As of Wednesday, the song had been streamed on Spotify more than 100 million times. With nearly 18 million listeners in the last month, Maneskin was performing better on the streaming service in the same period than Foo Fighters or Kings of Leon.Eurovision acts typically disappear from the spotlight as soon as the competition wraps, yet Maneskin’s members are hoping to build upon their existing fame here and newly won international interest to become a rare long-term Eurovision success story.A post-curtain controversy that dogged the group last month has only increased the band’s notoriety. On the night of the Eurovision victory, rumors spread on social media after a clip from the broadcast went viral, showing the lead singer, Damiano David, hunched over a table backstage. At a news conference later that evening, a Swedish journalist asked if David had been sniffing cocaine on live TV, and the singer denied any wrongdoing.David took a drug test, which came back negative. The European Broadcasting Union issued a statement saying that “no drug use took place” and that it “considered the matter closed.”From left, David, is the band’s lead singer, Raggi plays guitar and De Angelis is on bass. Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York TimesSo it’s been quite a world-stage debut for a foursome whose combined ages add up to just 83. (David is 22; Victoria De Angelis, the bassist, is 21; and the guitarist Thomas Raggi and the drummer Ethan Torchio are 20.)“For us,” De Angelis said in a recent interview, “music is passion, fun, something that lets us blow off steam” — no surprise to anyone who has seen Maneskin perform live. The band is a high-octane powerhouse of onstage charisma and youthful energy.One Italian music critic compared Maneskin — which means moonlight in Danish and is pronounced “moan-EH-skin” — to the Energizer Bunny. That may in part explain why “Zitti e Buoni” has transcended what could have been an insurmountable linguistic barrier (though there is already a cover version in Finnish).The song celebrates individuality and marching to the beat of one’s drum, or guitar riff. The refrain repeats: “We’re out of our minds, but we’re different from them.”For Eurovision, Maneskin channelled glam rock in laminated laced-up leather flares, studded leather jackets and gold-speckled poet’s sleeves. Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesWith its carefully curated, stylish androgynous nonchalance — accessorized with high heels, black nail polish and smoky eyes — Maneskin breaks down gender barriers and champions self-expression.The band was formed in 2015. David, De Angelis and Raggi knew each other from middle school in Rome. Torchio, whose family lives just outside the city, joined the group after responding to an ad in a Facebook group called “Musicians Wanted (Rome).”There weren’t many venues here for fledgling rock bands, so they busked on the street, played in high schools and in restaurants “where you were expected to bring your own paying public,” David recalled. Small-time battle of the band competitions “ensured that at least we’d be playing front of an audience,” he added.“These are the kinds of dynamics that toughen you up,” said Torchio.The band didn’t win the “X-Factor” final in 2017, but the show offered a springboard for other successes.Romano Nunziato/NurPhoto, via Getty ImagesAfter a couple of years of struggling to find gigs, the band went on the 2017 Italian edition of the talent show “The X Factor.”Anna Curia, 24, said “it was love at first sight” when she saw the group’s audition song on the program; a few weeks later, she founded the group’s official fan club. “From the first, they had a distinct style and sound,” she said. Other fan clubs soon followed follow. There’s even one, called Mammeskin, for women of a certain age.The “X Factor” stint also grabbed the attention of Veronica Etro, of the fashion brand Etro. “They had something,” said Etro, who is the brand’s creative director for the women’s collections. “I was very bewitched.”The fashion house reached out to the group and began dressing its members for album covers and videos. The collaboration evolved into providing the outfits for Eurovision, where the group’s studded laminated red leather looks made you “think Jimi Hendrix-meets-‘Velvet Goldmine,’” wrote Vanessa Friedman in The New York Times.“What I love is the way that they mix clothes for women and men,” said Etro in a telephone interview. “There is something very revolutionary about them, the way they don’t have any fear and they have fun with clothes.”Manuel Agnelli, who was one of the “X Factor” judges in 2017, took Maneskin under his wing. At first, its members weren’t musically mature, he said, “but I saw in them characteristics that can’t be taught, it’s something you’re born with, it’s personality.”“For us,” said De Angelis, far left, “music is passion, fun, something that lets us blow off steam.”Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times“Their image is a big part of who they are, their sexuality, their charisma, their bodies. It’s part of rock, it’s part of performance,” said Agnelli.Maneskin didn’t win “The X Factor,” coming second to Lorenzo Licitra, a tenor whose style is more in sync with the Italian penchant for big melodic ballads. Yet the program proved to be a springboard to greater things.“They are a television phenomenon,” said Andrea Andrei, a journalist with the Rome daily newspaper Il Messaggero. “Without ‘The X Factor’ and the machine behind it that churns out products ready for mainstream success, Maneskin would have struggled for a lot longer, like other rock bands have.”The real surprise, for many Italian commentators, was Maneskin’s win last March at the Sanremo Festival of Italian Song, the national event that finds Italy’s Eurovision act. Until a few years ago, Sanremo had mostly attracted Italians whose musical heyday predated Woodstock, but recent editions have reached out to younger audiences by involving the winners of talent shows like “The X-Factor.”“Nothing could be further from rock than Sanremo,” said Massimo Cotto, an Italian music journalist and radio D.J.So there, too, Maneskin broke ground. “Italy has never had an idyllic relationship with rock music, it never became mainstream,” said Andrei. “Maneskin’s win was unexpected, because they are a real rock band.”Torchio’s look of androgynous nonchalance is typical of the band’s style.Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York TimesDuring the interview, David soundly rejected the accusations that he was caught on camera using drugs at Eurovision, complaining that the speculation had overshadowed their win.The allegations were both infantile and underhanded, he said. And they came to nothing, because drug tests came up negative. “We know we are clean. We have nothing to hide,” he said.Allegations aside, there have been some changes since the Eurovision win.Merchandise associated with the band’s most recent album sold out in minutes. It lent its music to a Pepsi commercial. And earlier this month, the band parted ways with Marta Donà, its manager since 2017. Some newspapers here wondered whether an Italian management agency had begun to feel too tight for Maneskin’s international aspirations, and the name of Simon Cowell, the mastermind behind “The X-Factor,” came up as a possible successor. The group has not announced who will replace Donà.Agnelli, the Italian “X-Factor” judge, offered the quartet some advice for building on its current momentum: Tour as much as possible, get experience under their belts and continue to be themselves.“It’s their greatest strength,” he said. More

A Night at the Jazz SpeakeasySinna Nasseri📍Reporting from Midtown ManhattanLast Friday, I received a coveted invitation to the Daddy Rabbit, a clandestine pop-up jazz speakeasy that hops around locations in Manhattan.I watched as a handful of musicians gathered to play in a dark, unmarked room. Here’s what I saw, and heard → More

The actor plays a burnout musician in this drama from Rachel Winter.Fans of “Frasier” may have found the singing voice of its star, Kelsey Grammer — who crooned a paean to “tossed salads and scrambled eggs” over the sitcom’s end titles — a balm, a comfort and a further source of humor. One is curious as to how they’ll take “The Space Between,” a comedy/drama in which Grammer plays a burnout ’70s rocker and sings nearly an LP’s worth of tunes written by Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo.No, I am not making this up. The movie, directed by Rachel Winter from a script by Will Aldis, is set in 1996 and narrated by a glib wannabe, Charlie (Jackson White), who works in the mailroom of a record company and haunts L.A.’s Viper Room, lying to bands about his ability to sign them. Aldis’s script nearly knocks itself unconscious trying to establish period bona fides; the names Spacehog, Hole, Guns ‘n’ Roses and River Phoenix are dropped rapid-fire.Back in the mailroom, Charlie overhears the company head, Donny (William Fichtner) complain about Micky Adams, a Dylanesque (but weren’t they all?) singer-songwriter from decades past, still living off the label. Charlie volunteers to hurry to Montecito and persuade Adams to sever his contract.Hence, Grammer, with frightful hair and attitude, is soon dosing Charlie with psychedelics and dispensing teachable moments as his disapproving daughter Julie pops in and out of the picture.This is one of those movies that never quite sinks to the risible depths you kind of wish it would. Grammar’s singing, stentorian in a Harry Chapin mode, is unusual, for sure. But once past the awkwardness Grammar shows some sharp instincts in his characterization. And Paris Jackson, as a would-be protégé of Charlie’s who gets a brushoff, gives a knowing and authentic period-L.A.-rocker turn, especially impressive given she was born well after the movie takes place.The Space BetweenRated R for language, nudity, themes, ’90s L.A. rock scene material. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Rent or buy on FandangoNow, Amazon, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative examined 4,060 executives at six types of companies, and found 19.8 percent were from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.A year ago, as protests spread across the country following the murder of George Floyd, the music industry promised to change.Major record labels, streaming platforms and broadcasters pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in charitable donations. The diversity of the music industry itself — a business that relies heavily on the creative labor of Black artists — came under scrutiny, with calls to hire more people of color and to elevate women and minorities into management and decision-making positions.But how diverse is the music business? The answer, according to a new study: not very.A report by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California, released Tuesday, examined the makeup of 4,060 executives, at the vice president level and above, at 119 companies of six types: corporate music groups, record labels, music publishers, radio broadcasters, streaming services and live music companies.Among those executives, 19.8 percent were from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, including 7.5 percent who were Black. Women made up 35.3 percent of the total.Delving deeper into the numbers, the authors of the 25-page report, led by Stacy L. Smith and Carmen Lee, found that the representation of women and minorities seemed to shrink as they looked higher up music companies’ organization charts.After filtering out subsidiaries, the researchers looked at the uppermost leadership positions — chief executives, chairmen and presidents — in a subset of 70 major and independent companies, and found that 86.1 percent of those people were both white and male. The 10 people of color who held those positions were all at independents, and just two were women: Desiree Perez, a longtime associate of Jay-Z who leads his company Roc Nation, and Golnar Khosrowshahi, the founder of Reservoir, which owns music rights.The report includes some stark findings. For example, among the 4,060 people in the study’s sample, the researchers found 17.7 white male executives for every Black female one.“Underrepresented and Black artists are dominating the charts, but the C-suite is a ‘diversity desert,’” Dr. Smith said in a statement. “The profile of top artists may give some in the industry the illusion that music is an inclusive business, but the numbers at the top tell a different story.”Each year since 2018, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has tracked the artists, songwriters and producers behind the biggest hits. Again and again, it has found that women are far outnumbered by men, yet revealed some encouraging numbers for underrepresented groups: People of color have made up about 47 percent of the credited artists behind 900 top pop songs since 2012.Yet the group’s new report, called “Inclusion in the Music Business: Gender & Race/Ethnicity Across Executives, Artists & Talent Teams,” and sponsored by Universal Music Group, shows that women and people of color are poorly represented in the power structure of the industry itself.The variation across different job levels and industry sectors is notable. Black executives fared best within record labels, making up 14.4 percent of all positions, and 21.2 percent of artist-and-repertoire, or A&R, roles, which tend to work most closely with artists. Black people hold just 4 percent of executive jobs in radio, and 3.3 percent in live music.According to U.S. census data, 13.4 percent of Americans identify as Black.Women posted their highest executive numbers in the live music business, holding 39.1 percent of positions. But drilling down, the study found, most of those women were white. Even at record labels, where Black executives were best represented, Black women held only 5.3 percent of executive jobs.The U.S.C. report is one of a number of efforts underway to examine the music industry and evaluate its progress in reaching stated goals of diversity and inclusion. This week, the Black Music Action Coalition, a group of artist managers, lawyers and other insiders, is expected to release a “report card” on how well the industry has met its own commitments to change.Much of the data used in the U.S.C. report, the researchers said, came from publicly available sources, like company websites. The report suggests that a lack of participation in the study by music companies was a reason.“Companies were given the opportunity to participate and confirm information, especially of senior management teams,” the report says. “Roughly a dozen companies did so. The vast majority did not.”The authors of the report, who also include Marc Choueiti, Katherine Pieper, Zoe Moore, Dana Dinh and Artur Tofan, said they want to spur the industry toward change. The report recommends a number of steps that companies can take to make their executive ranks more diverse, including making career pathways more flexible and “fast tracking” leaders with support and mentoring.“Our hope,” Dr. Lee said, “is that the industry will come together to tackle this problem in a way that creates meaningful progress.” More

At 70, the influential English songwriter is still writing and recording solo, remaining as private as she can and “trying to get really good.”The pandemic arrived while Joan Armatrading was making her new album, “Consequences.” Yet unlike countless musicians whose work was completely upended by quarantines and separations, Armatrading barely had to adjust. Since 2003, she has been recording her albums on her own: writing, arranging, playing and engineering entire songs by herself.“I actually don’t physically need one other person in the room with me,” she said via video interview from her home in London, sitting in front of a blank white wall. “I just did what I do.”What Armatrading has been doing, beginning with her 1972 debut album, “Whatever’s for Us,” has been writing and singing, with insight and empathy, about a broad panorama of human relationships. She sings about romance, friendship, family and community; she sings about longing, infatuation, discord, heartache and healing. The songs on “Consequences” celebrate love at first sight (“Already There”) and delirious obsession (“Glorious Madness”); they also recognize romantic turmoil (“Consequences”) and aching loneliness (“To Anyone Who Will Listen”).Through decades of performing, Armatrading has determinedly kept the focus on her songs rather than herself. “I’m really introverted. I don’t need people to know about me,” she said. “But I’m desperate for people to know about my songs. And I’m an extrovert about my songs. I’m actually quite bigheaded about my songs.”Armatrading, 70, was born in St. Kitts, and settled in England with her family when she was 7 years old. She liked writing jokes and limericks; then, when she was 14, her mother bought a piano “as a piece of furniture,” Armatrading recalled.“Literally, as soon as it arrived, I started writing songs,” she said. “I think I was born to do what I’m doing. I always say I can’t take credit for it because I did nothing for it. All I did was be born, then was given this gift.”Armatrading in 1977. “People have said to me, I couldn’t find the words to express what I was thinking or feeling at that moment to this person. And your song has helped me to do that.”Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis and VCG, via Getty ImagesShe began her recording career in an era of singer-songwriters alongside Joni Mitchell, Elton John and Carole King, three musicians she was compared to early on. But Armatrading quickly forged her own style, juxtaposing layers of crisp riffs and rhythms while wielding a voice that can dive into a hearty contralto or leap upward to radiate fragility and tenderness.Armatrading is insistently modest about her singing. “I don’t know that I’ve got a voice. I sing because I write songs,” she said. “I know that some people love my voice, but that’s the last thing I’m thinking of. I’m just thinking about the structure of it, the arrangement of it. Does it sound good? Is it working? Is the emotional part of it working?”On her first albums, Armatrading worked with leading producers: Gus Dudgeon (Elton John), Glyn Johns (the Rolling Stones, the Who), Steve Lillywhite (XTC, U2), Richard Gottehrer (Blondie, the Go-Go’s). But by the mid-1980s, she was ready to produce herself. And in the 21st century, she dispensed with studio musicians; she now plays all the keyboards, electronics and guitars, and she programs the drumming.Even as a teenager, Armatrading said, she heard her songs as full-blown arrangements. “I’ve always gone in with a complete song,” she said. “I’m the writer, so I need to know how every aspect of the song goes. I can hear the bass and the drums and the keyboards. That’s how I go into the studio. It has a verse, a chorus, a middle eight, a solo, an end. If it’s going to fade, if it’s going to end, whatever — I need to know exactly what that is.”Armatrading had American and British hits in the 1970s and ’80s and a trove of FM radio staples, including “Love and Affection” and “Drop the Pilot,” and she has never stopped making albums and performing. She has earned loyal, long-haul fans, and is still being discovered by younger generations of songwriters, among them the widely acclaimed Laura Mvula — whose mother, like Armatrading, came from St. Kitts.“I remember being transfixed,” Mvula said in an interview. “It was similar to the first time I heard Nina Simone and really listened.” She recalled watching a performance on YouTube: “I do remember being like, ‘This is a Black woman from St. Kitts. She’s wearing no makeup. That seems to be her thing. She is as she appears.’ And that’s how the music is. It speaks very deeply to who I am. And it fills me with this unknowable pride that without even being able to give myself props, this is my heritage.”For decades, Armatrading’s songs have moved listeners. “People have said to me, I couldn’t find the words to express what I was thinking or feeling at that moment to this person. And your song has helped me to do that,” said Armatrading. “And these three-minute songs that we’re doing, because it’s in this really short, squashed-in, compressed form, have to be quite precise. It has to be succinct. It’s got to say exactly what you’re trying to say. And that’s what’s helpful to people.”Armatrading in Regents Park, London, this month. “I’m trying to write the song where I say, that’s it. I’ve done it. I found the secret of life and that’s it.”Adama Jalloh for The New York TimesFor all the seeming intimacy of her lyrics, Armatrading has steadfastly insisted that the vast majority of her songs are not confessional. “If you hear a song like ‘Blessed,” or ‘I’m Lucky,’ or anything that’s got this feeling of, ‘I’m so thankful for where I am,’ that’s me,” she said. “But in general I’m just working from observation. If you’re going to write all those songs and all of those songs are going to be about you, that’s not healthy. I try and be as private as I can and as quiet as I can.”But she has offered a few glimpses of autobiography. “Mama and Papa,” from her 2007 album “Into the Blues,” offers memories of her childhood after moving to Birmingham, England, mixing fondness and struggle: “Seven people in one room/No heat, one wage and bills to pay.” Back in 1979, Armatrading released an angular new wave song, “How Cruel,” which noted, “I had somebody say once I was way too Black/And someone answers she’s not Black enough for me.”Armatrading says now that she didn’t intend “How Cruel” as a broad indictment. “It was just thinking about some of the things that people say,” she said. “I absolutely have not been plagued with racism at all, and I feel quite lucky in that respect. It’s not that I don’t know that I’m Black. Of course I do. But I didn’t grow up with a lot of that, and I think it was probably because I was a songwriter and people are interested in the songs.”Armatrading’s recent albums have started with concepts and strategies. She made a trilogy concentrating on genre: blues (“Into the Blues,” 2007), guitar-driven rock (“This Charming Life,” 2010) and jazz (“Starlight,” 2012). For “Not Far Away,” she decided to write all the lyrics first, then add music, a method she repeated on “Consequences.” That choice apparently encouraged Armatrading to make her music splash and change around the words.“Consequences” itself, a lovers’ quarrel, begins with burbling, aquatic synthesizers, introduces a funky beat and bass line, tosses in jazzy piano clusters and, at one point, deploys Queen-like multitracked guitar. Meanwhile, Armatrading layers on vocals that wrangle and interweave with warnings, accusations, apologies and overtures: “Let’s try hard to work things out.”Pandemic isolation didn’t curtail Armatrading’s songwriting by observation. “We have television,” she said. “And when I watch films, I watch very closely. I like looking to see what the extras are doing. I’m concentrating on the film, but I’m looking to see what’s different back there, what I’m not supposed to see.”The album ends with “To Anyone Who Will Listen,” a plea for sympathetic attention. It could be a songwriter’s cri de coeur, but it was one of Armatrading’s observations; she read about a man in deep depression who was desperate for someone to talk to. “He wasn’t asking them to cure him or make his life necessarily better. He just wanted them to let him tell what he had to say,” she said. “I don’t know him. He was just a person in an article. But I really felt for what he was saying.”While “Consequences” is Armatrading’s 20th studio album, she insists she’s in no danger of running out of ideas. “I’ve never suffered with writer’s block. I can always write a song,” she said. “I’m just trying to get really good at what I do. I’m trying to write the song where I say, that’s it. I’ve done it. I found the secret of life, and that’s it. I want to get to where that song is.“I’m doing this till I die,” she added, smiling, “My last act will be writing a song.” More

With David Geffen Hall under construction, the orchestra will spend most of 2021-22 at two other Lincoln Center venues.For any major music ensemble, planning a season of concerts as a pandemic stretches on is daunting. For the New York Philharmonic, there is an added challenge: The orchestra’s home, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, is in the midst of a $550 million renovation.That will leave the orchestra roving for the next year as it tries to recover from the pandemic, which resulted in the cancellation of its 2020-21 season and the loss of more than $21 million in ticket revenue, forcing painful budget cuts.But the Philharmonic won’t travel too far. On Tuesday, it announced its 2021-22 season: a slate of about 80 concerts, compared to 120 in a normal year, spent mostly at two other Lincoln Center venues, Alice Tully Hall and the Rose Theater, with four forays to Carnegie Hall and a holiday run of “Messiah” at Riverside Church.“People are starved for live entertainment,” Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, said in an interview. “There may be some slight hesitancy at the beginning, but I think people are going to come flocking back.”The season opens Sept. 17 with the pianist Daniil Trifonov playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 at Tully. Other prominent artists on the schedule include the pianists Yuja Wang and Leif Ove Andsnes; the violinists Hilary Hahn and Joshua Bell; the saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who will play a concerto by John Adams; and the conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who will lead Schumann’s four symphonies and two world premieres over two weeks in March. The Philharmonic’s principal clarinetist, Anthony McGill, will be featured in Anthony Davis’s “You Have the Right to Remain Silent.”Soloists appearing for the first time with the orchestra include the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who will play Dvorak’s concerto and also participate in a Young People’s Concert; the soprano Golda Schultz; the pianist Beatrice Rana; and the conductors Jeannette Sorrell and Dalia Stasevska.In its fourth year with the conductor Jaap van Zweden as its music director, the Philharmonic will also premiere a variety of works, including by the American composers Joan Tower and Sarah Kirkland Snider. Those two premieres are part of Project 19, a multiyear initiative to commission works from 19 female composers to honor the centenary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which barred the states from denying women the right to vote.A few of the concerts will be at an unusual time: The orchestra will present three Sunday matinees, the first time it has done that since the 1960s, in an effort to broaden its audience.The Philharmonic has been at the center of the recent revival of the arts in New York. The orchestra appeared at the Shed in April, its first indoor concert in 13 months. And it performed at Bryant Park last week, the first time its musicians had played together without masks since the start of the pandemic.The orchestra is taking precautions in its planning to ease fears about the virus. There will be no intermissions at least through December, to prevent crowds from gathering. Borda said the orchestra would follow guidance from the state and federal authorities in deciding other public health measures, like requiring masks or proof of vaccination.“What it will be like in September is anybody’s guess,” Borda said. “We have to remain flexible.”The Philharmonic had to make a series of painful cuts as more than 100 of its concerts were canceled. The orchestra reduced its administrative staff by about 40 percent, largely through layoffs. In December, its musicians agreed to a four-year contract that included a 25 percent cut to the players’ base pay through August 2023, with compensation gradually increasing after that, though remaining below prepandemic levels.There were some bright spots amid the turmoil. Donations increased 11 percent last year, totaling $31.5 million. The orchestra also worked to deepen its connections with city residents through two series of Bandwagon concerts, bringing first a pickup truck and then a 20-foot shipping container with a foldout stage to neighborhoods across the city, and giving local artists an opportunity to perform.Several of the organizations that took part in Bandwagon concerts, including National Black Theater, a nonprofit arts group in Harlem, and El Puente, a social justice organization in Brooklyn, will be featured in the 2021-22 season. Those collaborations will be organized by Anthony Roth Costanzo, a countertenor who produced the Bandwagon series and is also the orchestra’s artist-in-residence next season; he has also helped prepare a two-week festival focusing on identity, “Authentic Selves: The Beauty Within.”The coming season will be the first time in recent decades that the orchestra has not had access to its own hall. Its administration and Lincoln Center decided to use the shutdown to accelerate the renovation of Geffen Hall, which is set to reopen in the fall of 2022, a year and a half earlier than planned. The hall will feature state-of-the-art acoustics and a more intimate feel, with seats that wrap around the stage.Borda said much of the coming season would be devoted to preparing for the orchestra’s return to Geffen.“This hall provides an opportunity to transform ourselves,” she said, “but also to paint on an even larger palette.” More

The singer-songwriter details her cultural must-haves as she prepares to release “Home Video,” an album that looks back at her past.Lucy Dacus said she became “a more reminiscent person” five years ago when she began touring regularly. “I feel better when I’m thinking about the past,” the singer-songwriter said. “The past is stable. The future doesn’t exist.”The songs on her third album, “Home Video” (due June 25), draw on her adolescent experiences growing up Baptist (now lapsed) in Richmond, Va. Her lyrics ache with the specificity of a longtime diarist: an ex’s awful poetry, a bad man’s alcoholic beverage of choice.“I’ve tried to talk about heavy stuff with a general core of warmth so that I’m not alienating anybody,” Dacus, 26, said from her house in Philadelphia, where she lives with six roommates. She was speaking on the eve of the release of “Brando,” a single based on a pretentious high school friend. “I’m really nervous about that person reaching out to me,” she added.In 2018, Dacus teamed up with Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers, like-minded songwriters to whom she was often compared, and released a critically lauded EP as boygenius. “That was healthy and meaningful,” she said. “Sometimes I tell myself, ‘Your job is selfish, because it’s all about you.’ Joining forces reminded me that we’re participating in the act of musicmaking, not self-aggrandizement.” Baker and Bridgers reconvened to offer backing vocals on several songs on the new album. “Having their support, even sonically, felt like being held.”From her office, decorated with photos of Patti Smith and prints by the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, Dacus sifted through a long list of her cultural essentials. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “The Fox and the Hound”This is maybe the first movie that ever made me cry as a child. I remember so distinctly watching over and over again the final scene where they’re not allowed to be friends anymore and crying “No!” I wanted them to be friends forever. But maybe it’s a good lesson for kids. There are circumstances that make people come into and out of your life, and even if it’s sad, you have to get used to it.2. “Tuck Everlasting”I used to read this book by Natalie Babbitt every year between ages 8 and 12. A couple falls in love and one of them [the boy] is immortal and wants the girl to become immortal, too. But she makes the decision not to, and in the final scene the boy goes and visits her grave. How hard-core is that? I liked the idea that even if you had the chance to live forever, you wouldn’t take it. Life is so precious, and the things that would change fundamentally if you were immortal would make it less brilliant.3. Beret Girl From “An Extremely Goofy Movie”Goofy loses his job in a scary scene at the beginning of the movie, which was an entry into understanding workers’ rights, but I bring this up because of the poet dog, Beret Girl. My dad covered my eyes when she came onscreen. I was like, “Why?” Later, I figured out he had a habit of covering my eyes whenever any sexy person was on the screen. She’s wearing a turtleneck and a beret and she’s reading poetry, but even though she was clearly a fully clothed animated dog, I was like, wow, she must be really sexy. That always stuck with me. That type of human woman is very appealing to me.4. “Gilmore Girls”Every third line of that show is a pop culture reference, and I used to write them down and go to Wikipedia after every episode. It gave me a road map. I watched “Casablanca” for the first time because of “Gilmore Girls.” There’s an episode where Sonic Youth stars and Yo La Tengo play live. Now I’m a huge Yo La Tengo fan and I’m on [the record label] Matador because of them.And I think it helped my mom and I be friends. I was rewatching some of it recently and I was like, “Wow, they really didn’t have boundaries, and Lorelei puts a lot of emotional processing on Rory.” They’re not perfect, but they wanted to spend time together, and it gave us an example of that relationship.5. Brittany HowardThe first time I heard Alabama Shakes, I was like, “This is for me. This is what I love.” It was the summer of 2012 in Richmond. At the time, I wanted music that felt southern without being pop country. I associate their first record [“Boys & Girls] with heat and fireworks and eating outside with my friends. My first record was inspired by it, in terms of being roots-y but with a lot of rock elements. Everything Brittany makes is raising the bar for everybody else.6. “You! Me! Dancing!” by Los Campesinos!It became an anthem with my group of friends who did theater in high school. I could take or leave the plays, but the cast parties were the social event of the season. People would be completely unhinged. Somebody with a giant house would let everybody sleep over and, for some reason, parents let this happen. I would have the aux cable and I would D.J., and there was always the point of the night where we would play “You! Me! Dancing!” as a signal that the dance party had begun. I remember literally throwing my body against the walls.7. Alexander McQueenI was interested in fashion when I was really young. My dad really liked to shop and we used to go to Kohl’s and buy a bunch of clothes and do a fashion show and then return all of them. And then in 8th grade, I got into my monk-era of Christianity. Like, having no connection to material possessions is key to a divine faith. If anything new came into my life, it had be a gift.But when the Alexander McQueen exhibit went up at the Met in 2011 I went twice and cried both times. My brain was like, “I could have never thought of this and I’m so glad that somebody had this mind.” I still have this weird, useless guilt around shopping, but it helped me get over the ascetic period of my life and realize there’s room everywhere for beauty. It doesn’t have to be rooted in capitalism or consumerism. It can be rooted in creativity.8. A Bushel of CrabsI really like foods that play hard to get. Growing up in Virginia, I learned at a really young age how to properly get meat out of a crab. It takes a lot of work to get a very little amount, but it makes me feel like I earned it, and it’s fun to teach people. For my last few birthdays, we’ve gotten a bushel of crabs and I’ve invited many people over and we’ve devoured the entire bushel together at a really long table covered in newspaper. It’s a nice tradition.9. Miranda JulyShe’s one of the first people whose entire body of work I became familiar with. She has something essential at her core fueling everything that she makes, and it’s a message that I agree with: telling people that they belong and freaks don’t have to be lonely. I love that she wrote “It Chooses You” while she was procrastinating making her movie “The Future,” and even in her avoidance she made something really good. And now that I’m a fan of Agnès Varda, I can see how Agnès inspired Miranda, so it’s fun to go back another layer.10. “Veneno”I think it might be the best TV show I’ve ever seen. I watched it with my housemates and I was covered in tears after every single episode. It’s about La Veneno, the first very famous transgender woman in Spain. There are cast members who were her actual friends in real life. I’m so sad it’s over. The really nuanced depictions and all the trans joy was extremely moving. I followed a bunch of the actors on social media. I would simply bow to them if I saw them. More

LONDON — Andrew Lloyd Webber last week promised to open his musical “Cinderella” in London’s West End on June 25 — even if it were illegal to do so.“We are going to open come hell or high water,” he told The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper. If Britain’s government tried to stop him because of rising coronavirus cases, he had one response, he added: “We will say: Come to the theater and arrest us.”Now, Mr. Lloyd Webber, 73, has his chance to go to prison — although he doesn’t appear to want to take it.On Monday evening, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said that social distancing would continue in England until July 19, at least — almost a month later than originally planned.The decision, announced at a televised news conference, was made because of a rise in coronavirus cases linked to the Delta variant. An average of 7,278 cases per day were reported in United Kingdom in the last week, an increase of 127 percent from the average two weeks ago. Deaths are rising but still very low, with an average of nine a day over two weeks.Scientists remain at odds over exactly how serious a threat it poses in Britain, however, with some arguing that the most dire predictions about rising hospitalizations underestimate the effect even the current level of vaccinations have on breaking the link between the number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths.United Kingdom Coronavirus Map and Case CountSee the latest charts and maps of coronavirus cases, deaths, hospitalizations and vaccinations in United Kingdom.“I think it’s sensible to wait just a little bit longer,” Mr. Johnson said, adding that the delay would allow more people to be fully vaccinated.The delay was a gut punch to the British cultural world, which has been desperately seeking an end to social distancing.The delay leaves “thousands of jobs hanging in the balance,” Julian Bird, chief executive of UK Theater, a trade body, said in a statement. A quarter of nighttime businesses cannot survive longer than a month without new government support, the Night Times Industries Association, which represents clubs and pubs, said in a news release.The biggest blow may be to England’s nightclubs, which were told for the fourth time that they could not reopen at all, even with distancing. Nightclubs in Britain have been closed since March 2020, and over 150 events were planned in London alone for the weekend of June 25, including a sold-out 42-hour-long party at Fabric, a famed club that can hold 1,500 people.Those were all immediately canceled.“It’s really, really frustrating,” Cameron Leslie, one of Fabric’s founders, said in a telephone interview. He had hired over 100 staff over the past month, expecting to reopen, and now was not able to furlough them. “You can only be pushed and tested so far before our entire sector can’t respond anymore,” Leslie added.Stuart Glen, the founder of The Cause, another London club, said in a telephone interview that the delay would cost him “hundred of thousands” of pounds and force him to rearrange 40 events. He’d had enough, he said. “I think everyone should riot if July doesn’t happen,” he said. “They can’t control people like this,” he added.“It’s so devastating for so many people,” said Yousef Zahar, a D.J. and co-owner of Circus, a nightclub based in Liverpool, that in May held two pilot events featuring 6,000 maskless dancers.Theaters, museums and music venues were allowed to reopen with distancing last month, but larger venues and all nightclubs have remained firmly shut. Mr. Lloyd Webber has repeatedly said that glitzy productions like “Cinderella” — which has a 34-strong cast and is already weeks into rehearsals — are financially unviable in half-full theaters.For those hoping to attend the opening of“Cinderella,” it was still unclear if the show would go on.“We’re working hard behind the scenes to make sure everyone gets to the ball,” the show’s producers said in a statement posted on Twitter. More