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      The (Not So?) Tentative Return of Live Music

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      Fewer industries felt a more specific and intense economic burden during the pandemic than live music. Venues went quiet. Musicians were stuck at home, with an occasional livestream to leaven the boredom (and financial strain). Though the federal government recently passed relief measures intended to stem the financial pain felt by performance venues, the rollout of the programs has been chaotic, leaving the industry not much better off than it was 16 months ago.Still, tours are being announced for the fall, and concerts are starting up again, even as new variants of the coronavirus threaten the fragile balance between freedom and safety afforded by vaccines.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the challenges faced by the live music business over the last year, and how the industry is adjusting to the new normal.Guest:Ben Sisario, The New York Times’s music business reporter More

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      Britney Spears Takes On Her Conservatorship

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      Britney Spears has been living under a conservatorship of her person and her estate since 2008, and in recent years, that arrangement has come under increased scrutiny. Last week, the singer spoke out publicly in a court hearing about her frustrations with the arrangement in a passionate speech that explained how she felt living under other people’s control.“I’ve been in shock. I am traumatized,” she said. “You know, fake it till you make it. But now I’m telling you the truth, OK? I’m not happy. I can’t sleep. I’m so angry it’s insane. And I’m depressed. I cry every day.”The revelations constituted Spears’s most detailed public statements about the terms under which she lives and works, and in the days since, her father, James P. Spears, — who has largely been in control of the arrangement from the start — filed legal documents calling for an investigation into her claims.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the status of Spears’s conservatorship, the ways it has intersected with her creative work, and the possibilities for her personal and professional future.Guests:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterLiz Day, senior story editor of “Framing Britney Spears”Samantha Stark, director of “Framing Britney Spears” More

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      in Movies

      In the Weeds of ‘In the Heights’

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      The film adaptation of the Tony-winning musical “In the Heights” was released this month, one of the first blockbuster movies to arrive after more than a year of pandemic shutdowns. The original musical was the breakthrough for Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote its music and lyrics and went on to gain global fame with “Hamilton.”The film opened to successful box office numbers, but also spawned several critical conversations, particularly about the lack of Afro-Latino representation among the film’s lead actors, and the ways in which it failed to capture the full mosaic of the actual neighborhood of Washington Heights.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Miranda’s evolutionary approach to the musical theater lineage, how the film left certain elements of the musical on the cutting room floor and the critical blowback brought on by the film’s casting choices.Guests:Sandra Garcia, a Styles reporter for The New York TimesIsabelia Herrera, an arts critic fellow for The New York Times’s Culture deskLena Wilson, a film critic who has written for The New York Times, Slate and others More

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      in Music

      Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Sour’ Breakthrough

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      For the past few years, there’s been something of a pop star vacuum — or at least, a pop-music star vacuum. By and large, performers making centrist, big-tent pop music have been relegated to the sidelines as hip-hop — and other genres borrowing heavily from it — took center stage.But Olivia Rodrigo, a Disney child star wielding a bad breakup and a tart voice, has made pop primal, and primary, again. “Sour,” her first album, just debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with the biggest sales week of the year.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Rodrigo’s meteoric year so far, the long arc of the mainstreaming of emo and the quickening of the maturing of Disney idols.Guests:Olivia Horn, who writes about music for Pitchfork, The New York Times and othersLindsay Zoladz, who writes about music for The New York Times and others More