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    10 Outstanding Brian Eno Productions

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    Inspired by an ever-changing new documentary about the musician and producer, listen to songs he helped construct by David Bowie, Talking Heads, U2 and more.Just four versions of Brian Eno.Kalpesh Lathigra for The New York TimesDear listeners,This week, I saw Gary Hustwit’s lively documentary “Eno,” about the musician, artist and producer Brian Eno. I’d recommend it to you — but it’s highly unlikely that you will see the same version of the film that I did.Formally inspired by Eno’s longtime fascination with generative art, “Eno” is essentially created anew each time it’s screened. A computer program called Brain One (a playful anagram of “Brian Eno”) selects from 30 hours of interviews with Eno that Hustwit conducted and 500 hours of archival footage, fitting it into a structure that lasts about 90 minutes. According to the Brain One programmer Brendan Dawes, 52 quintillion possible versions of the movie exist. I did not even know, before seeing this film, that “52 quintillion” was a real number.Some of my favorite parts of the version of “Eno” that I saw concerned his work as a producer. He’s certainly been a prolific one, working with traditional rock bands (Coldplay, U2), avant-garde composers (Harold Budd) and a whole lot of legends in between (David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads). Eno is neither a classically trained musician nor a conventional technician, and his role in the studio can be hard to define — maddeningly so, to certain record-label executives over the years. Admitted Bowie, in a clip from the film I saw, “I don’t really know what he does.” He meant that as a compliment.The most interesting parts of “Eno,” for me, shed a little more light on that elusive “what.” As a producer, he is equal parts agitator and sage. When he and Bowie were hitting a wall during the making of Bowie’s 1977 landmark “‘Heroes,’” they each pulled cards from Eno’s deck of Oblique Strategies cards, which provide creative jumping-off points; the result was the hypnotic ambient composition “Moss Garden.” When Bono was struggling to complete a soon-to-be classic U2 track, Eno showed patience. When Talking Heads were looking for a new musical direction before making “Remain in Light,” Eno played them one of his all-time favorite musicians, Fela Kuti. The rest — in so many clips of Eno in the studio — is history.Inspired by “Eno,” today’s playlist is a collection of songs produced by the man himself. Eno the Producer is merely one side of this multifaceted artist, but I appreciated that the sense of multiplicity baked into the structure of “Eno” speaks to how difficult it is to define him with a single identity. There are probably nearly 52 quintillion possible Brian Eno playlists I could have made — Jon Pareles made another in 2020, selecting 15 of Eno’s best ambient compositions — but here is the one I chose. It flows well from start to finish, but if you’re feeling inspired by Hustwit’s generative approach, you’re certainly welcome to put it on shuffle.Line my eyes and call me pretty,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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      ‘Jamaica Mistaica’: Jimmy Buffett Song Inspired After Plane Sprayed by Gunfire

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      In 1996, the police in Jamaica mistook Buffett for a drug smuggler after he landed his seaplane with the singer Bono and others on board and opened fire on it.Jimmy Buffett’s life evokes images of boozy chill-outs by the beach and a certain carefree calm, but in 1996 the singer’s seaplane came under a hail of gunfire in a dramatic encounter with the Jamaican authorities that inspired a song.Buffett’s song “Jamaica Mistaica” is a laid-back account of a dramatic near-death experience in which his plane, Hemisphere Dancer, was mistaken by the Jamaican authorities for a drug-smuggling aircraft.It’s one of the many tales that have resurfaced after his death on Friday.While on tour on Jan. 16, 1996, Buffett, an avid pilot, had just landed at an airport in Negril, Jamaica, accompanied by Paul David Hewson, better known as Bono, of the band U2, when a sudden burst of shots rang out, according to one of Buffett’s Margaritaville websites.“We flew the plane in, got off, and as the plane took off to go get fuel, we were surrounded by a Jamaican S.W.A.T. team,” Buffett said in a 1996 Rolling Stone interview. “I thought it was a joke until I heard the gunfire.”As Bono recalled, according to Radio Margaritaville: “These boys were shooting all over the place. I felt as if we were in the middle of a James Bond movie.”“I honestly thought we were all going to die,” he added.Also on board the HU-16 Grumman Albatross plane was Bono’s wife, Ali, their two young children, and Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records.Later that year, Buffett released his album “Banana Wind,” in which he recounts the story on “Jamaica Mistaica”:Just about to lose my temper as I endeavored to explainWe had only come for chicken we were not a ganja planeWell, you should have seen their faces when they finally realizedWe were not some coked-up cowboy sporting guns and alibis.“Like all things, it made for a good song,” Buffett told The Spokesman-Review in a 1996 interview.“I know that there are times in my life where I probably should have been shot at for a lot worse behavior,” he added. “But on this particular instance, I was innocent. Not even a spliff.”The plane, now an artifact of the Buffett universe, was struck by bullets but nobody was hurt.He later received an apology from the Jamaican government, according to an MTV News report at the time.“Some people said, ‘God, you could have sued them, you could have sued the government,’” Buffett said in The Spokesman-Review interview. “But I went, ‘No, it’s probably karma. We’re even now.’” More

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      U2’s Music Shaped My Life. Then It Helped Save It.

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      While I was undergoing treatment to eradicate a tumor, listening to songs from the band’s long career became its own vital form of medicine.The radiation oncology department in the basement of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York does not seem like a regular home for rock ’n’ roll. But every business day for almost seven weeks this year, U2 blared over the speakers at my request.I became a fan in the late 1980s and have attended nine of the band’s concerts, though I probably fall short of superfandom. I remember listening to songs from “The Joshua Tree” album as a preteen on my staticky clock radio, struck by U2’s carefully crafted music that builds into anthems, and lyrics exploring weighty but personal themes, like love and religion. In the 1990s, I watched its mesmerizing Zoo TV tour in the pouring rain from the nosebleed seats of the old Giants Stadium in New Jersey. My wife, Amy, and I danced to “In a Little While” at our wedding. In many ways, the group has provided the soundtrack to my life.That importance gained new dimension in the summer of 2022, when I was diagnosed with a benign tumor the size of a lime near my pituitary gland. I had surgery to remove it, only to develop a rare bleeding complication that left me in intensive care for about a week. I required emergency transport and five units of blood to survive.While my complication (thankfully) is on track to heal, a small bit of the tumor remains. In March, I finished a 30-session radiation cycle to keep the mass from growing again. All of my medical drama led to dozens of trips to Mount Sinai. And it brought many chances to request U2.Patients undergoing recurring care like radiation sometimes get their choice of music, which makes it easier to relax and keep still. Meditative or classical music are popular choices, according to the radiation technicians at Mount Sinai. My choice was slightly different.U2 served two purposes. One part, of course, was escape. At every treatment, for weeks upon weeks, I changed into a gown, laid on a table and had a suffocating mesh plastic mask installed on my head to ensure that I would not move or twitch. The M.R.I.s required absolute stillness for up to 35 minutes or more.Hearing U2 helped, especially in the latter parts of the radiation treatment, when the routine became harder to bear. Bono’s philosophical words, Adam Clayton’s steady bass, Larry Mullen Jr.’s crisp drums and the Edge’s ringing guitars — that was my focus. U2’s songs often surfaced memories that took me far from the treatment room: a high school trip (“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”), a college breakup (“One”), time spent in another city (“Beautiful Day”).The music also served a utilitarian purpose. U2’s songs routinely clock in at about four minutes long. That knowledge allowed me to estimate how much of the treatment remained. Radiation typically took me about 20 minutes, or four to five U2 songs. M.R.I.s lasted about eight songs.At the initial M.R.I. that kicked off my medical journey, I had no idea that music was even an option. Holding still in silence, the M.R.I. seemed to take eons to complete as the machine heated up and emitted ominous loud beeps and crackles. At my second scan, I asked about the possibility of audiobooks or music. Yes, they had Spotify, a technician said. My U2 treatment plan was born.During my many trips to Mount Sinai, I have heard music from the band’s five-decade catalog in random order. Sometimes, I reframed the songs in light of my circumstances. “Stories for Boys” (1980) made me think of my 6-year-old son and how I hoped to raise him longer. “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)” (1991) and “Kite” (2000) brought about thoughts of my 11-year-old daughter. “Every Breaking Wave” (2014) took me to a sunny beach. “With or Without You” (1987) popped up most often, sparking a feeling one might get if a best friend just walked into the room.Every once in a while, Spotify sent out a song that I had not heard before, often a B-side or an obscure dance version of a track (How many times did the band rearrange “Mysterious Ways”?). For my fifth M.R.I., the technicians mistakenly put on a karaoke version of a U2 album with no words. Luckily, the songs were a close-enough facsimile of — though definitely not even better than — the real thing.The song that induced the most catharsis during treatment? “Where the Streets Have No Name.” With its ethereal organ and guitar and racing beat, the song conjures images of speeding down an empty desert highway. Basically, the opposite of lying in a hospital bed.Life’s saving graces come in all sizes, with the small ones often accumulating and surprising us with their bigness when we least expect it. I think about the village of people that has helped me during this health crisis. Doctors, nurses, support staff, family, friends, colleagues. My wife, Amy, especially. Count U2 among them.Theodore Kim is Director of Career Programs for The New York Times. More

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      In ‘Songs of Surrender’, U2 Revisits Its Past

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      With “Songs of Surrender,” an album of 40 reimagined songs, and “A Sort of Homecoming,” a documentary on Disney+, the Irish band pauses to reflect.For decades, U2 refused to rest on its catalog. A rarity among bands for having kept the same lineup since its formation in 1976 — Bono on lead vocals, the Edge on guitar and keyboards, Adam Clayton on bass and Larry Mullen Jr. on drums — U2 has headlined arenas since the early 1980s. It determinedly brought new songs to huge audiences as recently as 2018, when it mounted its Experience + Innocence Tour.The band did allow itself a 30th anniversary stadium tour to reprise its biggest release, the 1987 album “The Joshua Tree,” in 2017 and 2019. And now, in the pandemic era, U2 is looking back even further.Its new album, “Songs of Surrender,” remakes 40 U2 songs with largely acoustic arrangements. U2 has also booked a Las Vegas residency for the fall, when it will revisit its 1991 masterpiece, “Achtung Baby,” in a newly built arena, the MSG Sphere. In a startling change, the band will have a substitute drummer, Bram van den Berg, rather than Mullen, who has been dealing with injuries to his elbows, knees and neck.Bono, 62, published his memoir, “Surrender,” in fall of 2022, using 40 U2 songs as chapter headings. On St. Patrick’s Day, the (Irish) band is releasing a Disney+ documentary, “Bono & the Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, With Dave Letterman,” alongside “Songs of Surrender.”U2’s career has been one of triumphs, misfires and moving on. In the 1980s, the group was earnest and expansive, creating a chiming, marching, larger-than-life rock sound that countless bands would emulate. In the 1990s, leery of its own pretensions, U2 remade itself with electronic beats and artifice until it came to a dead end with its 1997 album, “Pop.” In the 2000s, it circled back to rock beats and sincerity, but its music was pervasively infused with the latest technology.From the beginning, U2 has worked on the largest scale: sometimes to magnificent effect, like its 2002 Super Bowl halftime show that memorialized Sept. 11, and sometimes badly backfiring, like the giveaway of its 2014 album, “Songs of Innocence,” that forced the album into iTunes libraries worldwide, often unwanted. “Songs of Surrender” is an act of renunciation, drastically scaling down songs that once strove to shake entire stadiums.Remake albums are always fraught. They offer second thoughts rather than discoveries, revisions rather than inspirations. They also remind listeners, and no doubt performers, of time slipping away.In recent years, extraordinary songwriters like Paul Simon and Natalie Merchant have made albums that revisit their old songs with decidedly different arrangements; they’re thoughtful and musicianly, but wan. Even Taylor Swift’s ongoing series of “Taylor’s Version” remakes — reclaiming her old albums by making every effort to replicate them note for note — can’t quite match her more youthful voice or the precise overtones of every mix.Among U2’s three retrospective projects, Bono’s book is by far the most vivid. “Surrender” leapfrogs through Bono’s and U2’s improbable story in vignettes that zigzag between poetic and prosaic, devout and skeptical, privileged and conscientious, mystical and political.The book’s messages about faith, friendship and family are reprised — sometimes in near-literal quotes — in “A Sort of Homecoming.” It’s an awkward project that skims through U2’s career while David Letterman serves as both modest interlocutor and celebrity star-tripper.The documentary mixes biographical interviews and bits of Ireland’s history, and it stages two performances: a concert by Bono and the Edge with a choir and strings at Dublin’s Ambassador Theater, and a singalong at a pub that’s not exactly impromptu. It just happens to include U2-influenced Irish musicians like Glen Hansard, Imelda May and Dermot Kennedy. “A Sort of Homecoming” also digresses, pointlessly, with attempts at comedy recalling Letterman’s “Late Show” shticks. A new Bono-Edge song, dedicated to Letterman, isn’t exactly prime U2.“Songs of Surrender” is the weightier project. Like all of U2’s albums, it’s anything but casual; the songs have been minutely reconsidered. Some get different lyrics: changing present tense to past tense in “Red Hill Mining Town,” clarifying that “Bad” is about drug addiction, swapping in new verses in “Beautiful Day” and “Get Out of Your Own Way,” rewriting “Walk On” to allude to the war in Ukraine.The album sets out to recast U2’s arena anthems as private conversations. Bono croons as if he’s singing quietly into your ear, and most of the arrangements rely on acoustic guitar or piano — like MTV’s old “Unplugged” shows, but by no means devoid of studio enhancements.“Unplugged” was MTV’s tribute to the recording-business cliché that a great song only needs chords and a voice to reveal its quality, as if everything else is embellishment. Yes and no. Melody, harmony and lyrics say a lot, but production can be transformative. Songs engrave themselves in fans’ memories — and lives — not just for their words and music, but for their sheer sound. We can recognize a favorite oldie from an opening guitar tone or a drumbeat. And the more we’ve taken a song to heart, the more its sonic details resonate.U2 got together in the era when punk insisted that anyone, trained or not, could make vital music. But even during that movement, musicians and producers understood how much texture matters. Recording in the analog era was a costly, intentional effort, and low-budget, lo-fi recordings could still create high intensity.One of U2’s enduring strengths has been the way its songs ennoble yearning and turbulence. Bono sings about self-questioning and contradictions with a voice that might scratch or falter but pushes ahead, unabashedly working itself up to shouts and howls. And the band’s martial drums, chiming guitars and inexorable crescendos create arena-size superstructures filled with rhythmic — and emotional — crosscurrents.The remakes on “Songs of Surrender” often strip away too much. In the original 1983 “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” a song about a terrorist bombing during Ireland’s “troubles,” the track evokes sirens and gunshots while Bono sounds both desperate and furious, right in the middle of the strife. The remake, with a lone acoustic guitar, recasts the song as something between a lullaby and lament, crooned as if it’s a learned memory.“Out of Control,” which in 1979 had jabbing, buttonholing electric guitar and bass lines, has become a cozy, cheerfully strummed self-affirmation, very much in control. And the surging, cathartic peaks of songs like “With or Without You,” “Vertigo,” and “Pride (in the Name of Love)” are far too muted in the remakes.“Songs of Surrender” does have a few clever second thoughts about U2’s catalog. A brass band lends historical gravity to “Red Hill Mining Town,” while “Two Hearts Beat as One” — with lyrics that insist, “Can’t stop to dance” — gets a wry disco makeover. The album’s subdued arrangements and upfront vocals offer a chance to focus on lyrics that were obscured in the onrush of U2’s original versions.But for most of “Songs of Surrender,” less is simply less. What comes across throughout the 40 songs is not intimacy, but distance: the inescapable fact that these songs are being rethought and revived years later, not created anew. Wild original impulses have been replaced by latter-day self-consciousness. And U2, like most artists, is better off looking ahead than looking back. More

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      New Yorker Festival, which runs Will Host Bono and Rep Jamie Raskin

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      The three day-festival beginning on Oct. 7 will also include conversations with stars like Ben Stiller, Chloe Bailey and Sandra Oh.The New Yorker Festival returns for its 23rd edition, featuring conversations with Bono, Quinta Brunson, Ben Stiller, Chloe Bailey, United States Representative Jamie Raskin and more, and will run from Oct. 7-9.Bono, the Irish rock star and more recently the motorbike-riding lion in “Sing 2,” will be in conversation with The New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick, about his new memoir and his decades as an activist and musician. The book, “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story,” will be released in November.“Like so many memoirs that I’ve read, the most intriguing part is how someone becomes himself or herself,” Remnick said in an interview.Quinta Brunson, who plays the chirpy yet clumsy elementary school teacher in “Abbott Elementary,” will speak with the magazine’s television critic, Doreen St. Félix. And Chloe Bailey (of the R&B sister duo Chloe x Halle) will perform live at the festival after a conversation.Remnick said that politically driven conversations can be had by artists, authors and actors, as well as lawmakers. Raskin, a Democrat of Maryland and a member of the Jan. 6 House select committee, along with three of the magazine’s writers, will join a live taping of The New Yorker’s “The Political Scene” podcast.The political conversation will continue with a talk about Asian American culture and representation, with the chef David Chang, the filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung, the writer Min Jin Lee and the actor Sandra Oh. And the climate activists Sara Blazevic and Molly Burhans, and the climate expert Leah Stokes, will delve into the future of the environment.“All of these people in cultural life are also in many ways connected to the political,” Remnick said.The writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will return to the festival, where Hari Kunzru, Elif Batuman, Gary Shteyngart, Rachel Kushner and Ottessa Moshfegh will also appear.As for comedy, Molly Shannon and Vanessa Bayer, the actresses and comedians who star in the Showtime series “I Love That for You,” will chat with Susan Morrison, an editor at the magazine. And the comedians Hasan Minhaj, Phoebe Robinson, Billy Eichner and Jerrod Carmichael will also participate in festival conversations, along with the directors Stiller, the duo Daniels, Sharon Horgan and Maggie Gyllenhaal.Remnick said that with the return to theaters and the arrival of vaccine boosters, he feels confident sharing a room with readers, thinkers and performers, and the festival will hold select events virtually.“Part of cultural lifestyle was taken from us, and now it’s bounced back,” he said. More

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      Nicki Minaj Reunites With Lil Wayne and Drake, and 13 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Olivia Rodrigo, Tony Allen, L’Rain and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Nicki Minaj with Drake and Lil Wayne, ‘Seeing Green’In honor of Nicki Minaj’s still-incendiary 2009 debut mixtape “Beam Me Up Scotty” finally arriving on streaming services, she’s organized a little YMCMB family reunion. “Seeing Green” is more of a status update than a club banger à la the trio’s classic “Truffle Butter,” but everyone is still in fine form. Wayne, as usual, plays the gonzo court jester, and he seizes the opportunity to unload all of those pandemic-related rhymes he’s been holding onto for the last year (“I put you six feet deep, I’m being socially distant”). Nicki locks back into her standard eviscerate-the-haters flow, and Drake continues to rap with a precision and bite that suggests, as did the recent “Scary Hours 2,” that whenever his promised “Certified Lover Boy” arrives, it might actually be worth the wait. “I played 48 minutes on a torn meniscus,” he boasts, “who’s subbing?” (But maybe see a doctor about that, Drake — it’s serious!) LINDSAY ZOLADZOlivia Rodrigo, ‘Good 4 U’The third single from Olivia Rodrigo’s forthcoming debut album, “Sour,” tells a story that will be familiar to anyone who’s heard her first single, “Driver’s License”: A former flame moves on too quickly after a breakup, leaving Rodrigo alone with all her feelings. But this time the 18-year-old Disney actress refracts it through a different lens and a whole new sonic palette. Though it starts off quiet, by the chorus “Good 4 U” explodes into a kind of “You Oughta Know” for the TikTok era, all righteous anger and pop-punky, primal-scream rage: “Good for you, you’re doing great out there without me — like a damn sociopath!” ZOLADZTorres, ‘Don’t Go Puttin Wishes in My Head’The new song from Mackenzie Scott — who makes brooding, searching indie-rock under the name Torres — might be the most accessible thing she’s ever released. And she knows it: She’s wryly described “Don’t Go Putting Wishes in My Head,” the first single from her forthcoming album “Thirstier,” as “my relentless arena country star moment.” More than anything, though, with its buzzing synths and soaring chorus, “Wishes” recalls the Killers at their most fist-clenchingly anthemic. “Just when I thought that it was over, it was only just beginning,” Scott sings, her voice trembling with intensity. She seems to understand that accepting joy can sometimes be an even more vulnerable act than confessing pain, but by the end of the song she sounds fearless, and ready to move toward the light. ZOLADZTony Allen, ‘Mau Mau’The drummer Tony Allen supplied the rhythmic foundation for Fela Kuti’s Nigerian Afrobeat in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on West African traditions, jazz and funk, he built an architecture of unpredictable offbeats, unhurried but kinetic. Before his death in 2020, he had started a hip-hop project, creating beats and synthesizer bass lines and lining up vocalists. Allen’s new album, “There Is No End,” was completed posthumously by the producers Vincent Taeger and Vincent Taurelle. “Mau Mau” features Nah Eeto, a rapper from Kenya, with multitracked vocals that calmly bounce around the syllables of her lyrics — some in English, some not — to highlight all the ways Allen could dodge the downbeat while constantly flicking the music onward. JON PARELESMaría Grand, ‘Now, Take, Your, Day’The rising tenor saxophonist María Grand wrote the tunes that appear on “Reciprocity,” her new LP, in the middle of a pregnancy, while reading spiritual texts and paying close attention to the bond she was building with her not-yet-born child. (The album’s liner notes include her written reflections on becoming a mother, and how this found its way into the music.) The album, featuring Kanoa Mendenhall on bass and Savannah Harris on drums, is also a testament to the constant regeneration that becomes possible within a close musical partnership; on track after track, Grand dances nimbly over Harris’s subtly shifting patterns, and Mendenhall stubbornly insists on never repeating herself. “Now, Take, Your, Day” begins with all three members singing the song’s title in harmony, before the rhythm section lays down a loosely funky beat and Grand introduces the song’s downward-slanting melody on saxophone. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOBella Poarch, ‘Build a Bitch’Like many TikTok stars, Bella Poarch is making a move into her own music. “Build a Bitch” comes across cute and furious. Tinkly toy-piano sounds and perky la-las accompany her as she points out that women aren’t consumer products. “You don’t get to pick and choose/Different ass and bigger boobs,” she coos. “If you need perfect, I’m not built for you.” A post-“Westworld” video set in an android factory ends, inevitably, in mayhem. PARELESSleater-Kinney, ‘Worry With You’The forthcoming, self-produced Sleater-Kinney album “Path of Wellness” will be the first the Portland band releases as a duo, since its longtime power-drummer Janet Weiss departed in 2019, and her absence certainly makes the song feel a bit muted and minor. But there’s still a familiar pleasure in hearing Carrie Brownstein’s snaking guitar riffs and staccato vocals intertwine with Corin Tucker’s, as they sing of a long-term togetherness that’s provided comfort in good times and bad: “If I’m gonna mess up,” they avow, “I’m gonna mess up with you.” ZOLADZMartin Garrix featuring Bono & The Edge, ‘We Are the People’The official 2020 UEFA European Football Championship song is exactly what you’d expect from a soccer anthem by a big-room EDM D.J. collaborating with half of U2: a grand, thumping march with pinging guitars, vast synthesizer swells and determinedly inspirational lyrics. “You’ve faith and no fear for the fight,” Bono sings, “You pull hope from defeat in the night.” The song uses familiar tools for stadium-scale uplift, but they can still work. PARELESHolly Macve, ‘You Can Do Better’Regrets and reverb both loom large on Holly Macve’s second album, “Not the Girl,” a set of country-rooted ballads that place her reedy voice — determinedly sustained through countless breaks and quavers — in wide-screen, retro arrangements. “You Can Do Better” is a stately, swaying waltz, a breakup-and-makeup scenario that builds up to dramatic questions, swirling across voices and strings: “Is it so wrong to love you?/Is it so wrong to care?” PARELESL’Rain, ‘Blame Me’L’Rain — the songwriter, musician and producer Taja Cheek — opens an ever-widening, ever more disorienting sonic vortex in “Blame Me,” from her second album, “Fatigue,” due June 25. Sparse guitars pick fragments of chords that fall, then rise, as L’Rain muses cryptically on mortality and remorse. Soon, they’re enveloped by a ghostly orchestra and distant voices intoning, “Waste away now, make my way down”; as the track ends, she’s still in a lush harmonic and emotional limbo. PARELESElaine, ‘Right Now’Elaine is from South Africa, where she already has a large audience. But her sound bespeaks international R&B ambitions, with programmed trap drum sounds and an American accent. In “Right Now,” she tries to juggle a damaged relationship against a burgeoning career. “I cannot continue carrying all your insecurities/I got more priorities,” she sings, quietly but adamantly. Her alto is low, intimate and flexible; with her priorities, she’s not about to indulge a cheating ex, even if she’s tempted. PARELESAlan Jackson, ‘Where Have You Gone’“Where Have You Gone,” the title song of Alan Jackson’s new, 21-song album, starts off like a lonely lament for someone who’s left him: “It’s been way too long since you slipped away.” But it turns out he’s lamenting the way “sweet country music” used to sound: steel guitar, fiddle, “words from the heart.” It’s the style Jackson has upheld through his career, looking back to Merle Haggard and George Jones, only to see it supplanted lately by arena-country and infiltrations of hip-hop. “The airwaves are waiting,” he insists; current country radio says otherwise. PARELESSons of Kemet featuring Moor Mother and Angel Bat Dawid, ‘Pick Up Your Burning Cross’Over the rough rhythmic onrush of this United Kingdom-based quartet — featuring Theon Cross’s pulsing tuba, Shabaka Hutchings’s roof-raising saxophone and the interlocked drumming of Edward Wakili-Hick and Tom Skinner — a voice hovers, singing and speaking and laughing. It belongs to Angel Bat Dawid, and it’s soon joined by that of Moor Mother, another revolutionary poet and musician from this side of the Atlantic. “I don’t think you remember me/I was in last place,” Moor Mother begins, serving notice as the band presses ahead. The piece is on “Black to the Future,” Sons of Kemet’s fourth album. RUSSONELLOErika Dohi, ‘Particle Of …’Erika Dohi, a Japanese keyboardist and composer now based in New York City, is one of the musicians affiliated with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver’s label 37d03d (“people” upside-down). “Particle Of …” comes from her new album “I, Castorpollux,” and while it was composed by Andy Akiho (who also directed her music video), it fits the album’s aesthetic of Minimalistic repetitions and startling fractures. It uses percussive, single-note patterns on piano and prepared piano, played live and then computer manipulated, equally virtuosic and digitally skewed. Chords arrive at the end, like a surprise visit from 20th-century modernism. PARELES More

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      Bono Brings In Penelope Cruz and David Oyelowo for Animated Series About COVID Vaccines

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      WENN/AEDT/Instar

      The U2 frontman launches ‘Pandemica’, which also features Michael Sheen, Kumail Nanjiani and Danai Gurira among others, through his ONE global health and anti-poverty charity.

      Mar 26, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Rocker and activist Bono has recruited Penelope Cruz, Michael Sheen, and David Oyelowo to lend their voices to a new animated series promoting the importance of access to vaccines.

      The U2 frontman has launched “Pandemica” through his ONE global health and anti-poverty charity, with fellow castmembers including Kumail Nanjiani, Danai Gurira, Phoebe Robinson, and Wanda Sykes.

      The seven-episode series features the stars as various characters as they highlight the lack of coronavirus vaccines available to people in many of the world’s poorest countries.

      “Pandemica’s animated world animates a simple truth – that where you live shouldn’t determine whether you get these life-saving shots,” Bono shared in a statement.

        See also…

      “Even while many of us still wait our turn, we need to commit to making sure that billions of people around the world aren’t left at the back of the line. It’s the right thing to do, obviously, but it’s also the only way out of this pandemic for all of us. If the vaccine isn’t everywhere, this pandemic isn’t going anywhere.”

      “We’re all trapped in Pandemica, but only some can get out,” Oyelowo said as he discussed the series.

      “This virus thrives on inequality, and right now billions of people around the world are seeing the promise of a vaccine, but not the opportunity to receive it. We must step up and do what it takes to end this pandemic for everyone, everywhere.”

      Cruz has also shared her thought on the series. “Pandemica is a compelling illustration of the inequality around the world,” she said in a statement. “I hope that everyone who watches this series will use their voice and take action to ensure that no one gets left behind.”

      All episodes are available to view on the ONE campaign’s YouTube channel.

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      Bono Reveals 'Songs That Saved His Life' on 60th Birthday

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      The U2 rocker celebrates his 60th birthday by posting a list of songs by the likes of David Bowie, John Lennon, and Kanye West that inspired him over the years
      May 11, 2020
      AceShowbiz – U2 star Bono celebrated his 60th birthday on Sunday, May 10, 2020 by listing the 60 songs that have most inspired him over the years.
      He told fans the tracks were “songs that saved my life” in a post on the band’s official website.
      “These are some of the songs that saved my life… the ones I couldn’t have lived without… the ones that got me from there to here, zero to 60… through all the scrapes, all manner of nuisance, from the serious to the silly… and the joy, mostly joy,” the Irish rocker wrote.
      “I wanted to thank the artists and everyone who helped make them… they were doing the same for me… I am writing a fan letter to accompany each song to try and explain my fascination.”

      Bono’s list included “Miserere”, the song he recorded with the late Luciano Pavarotti and Zucchero, Billie Eilish’s “everything i wanted”, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by The Beatles, and songs by Sex Pistols, Kanye West, David Bowie, Ramones, The Clash, Kraftwerk, Johnny Cash, The Fugees, Public Enemy, Patti Smith, Lady GaGa, and John Lennon.

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      Bono Urges People to Keep Singing Amid Coronavirus Crisis in New Song 'Let Your Love Be Known'

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      WENN/Brian To

      Releasing his first new music in three years, the U2 frontman says the song is inspired by footage of Italians who sang together from their home quarantine.
      Mar 19, 2020
      AceShowbiz – Bono wants people to keep singing in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus crisis. On Tuesday, March 17, the U2 frontman released a new ballad song titled “Let Your Love Be Known” which is dedicated to those who kept their spirit up during this tough time as well as those in the front line.
      Taking to his band’s official Instagram account, the 59-year-old singer uploaded a video of him singing from his home in Dublin, Ireland. About this first music in three years, he explained that he wrote it in “about an hour,” and claimed to be inspired by footage of quarantined Italians who sang together in balconies as he wrote in the caption, “For the Italians who inspired it.”
      “And I can’t reach but I can rain/ You can’t touch but you can sing/ Across rooftops/ Sing down the phone/ Sing and promise me you won’t stop/ Sing your love, be known, let your love be known,” the “Beautiful Day” singer, whose real name is Paul David Hewson, could also be heard singing about his inspiration.
      In the caption of his post, Bono also dedicated his piano ballad to “the Irish.” Additionally, the “With or Without You” rocker stated that it is also “for ANYONE who this St. Patrick’s day is in a tight spot and still singing. For the doctors, nurses, carers on the front line, it’s you we’re singing to.”

      “Let Your Love Be Known” is Bono’s first music since U2’s 14th studio album “Songs of Experience” which was dropped in late 2017. Addressing how the virus affected the world, its lyrics read, “Yes there was silence/ yes there was no people here/ yes I walked through the streets of Dublin and no-one was near/ Yes I don’t know you/ No I didn’t think I didn’t care.”
      COVID-19 originated from Wuhan, China before spreading worldwide. Its outbreak has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11. People around the world have been advised to practice social distancing in an effort to fight the spread of the virus that has since killed around 8,810 people with 2,978 deaths coming from Italy.

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