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Alice McDermott, 70, writer There are three kinds of novels I’ve never taken to heart: science fiction, murder mysteries and novels about novelists. So I’ve decided to try my hand at each. If I fail, they’re probably not books I’d want to read anyway. Thurston Moore, 65, musician and author I’m putting the final touches […] More
Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicTracy Chapman’s ascent to the pop stratosphere in 1988 was not in any way guaranteed. She was making folk music in a time of stadium rock and hip-hop. She was orienting her songs around social concerns. And yet, after a few fortuitous turns in the summer of that year, Chapman’s “Fast Car” became a global anthem. And its success landed her on the cover of Rolling Stone.For a young Black woman on her first album, it was a startling achievement. The magazine was relatively cloistered in its coverage, but Chapman proved a force to reckon with. The story, written by Steve Pond, is a crucial document — but it is also prophetic, capturing how Chapman was skeptical of the spotlight, and even of the reasons people had embraced her so assiduously.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Chapman’s rapid rise to pop royalty, how her music figured into the broader musical conversation of the late 1980s, and the ways in which she’s changed little over the decades.Guest:Steve Pond, a longtime music journalist for Rolling Stone and The Los Angeles Times who is now the awards editor of The WrapConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More
Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicAt Sunday’s Grammy Awards, Taylor Swift won album of the year for “Midnights” and, for good measure, announced a new album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” due in April. Other big winners included Victoria Monét, Phoebe Bridgers (and boygenius), Killer Mike, Miley Cyrus and Billie Eilish.The show featured several moving live performances from elders: Tracy Chapman duetting with Luke Combs on “Fast Car,” a striking Joni Mitchell singalong and a closing stomper from Billy Joel.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation on whether this was the year the Grammys got it correct, whether there was a gap between what the awards indicated and what the speeches were saying, and the grounded joy of seeing worthy stars brought back into the spotlight properly.Guests:Caryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editorJon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticLindsay Zoladz, a New York Times pop music criticConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More
Her triumphant performance at the Grammy Awards left fans wondering what she has been doing since she left the music world, and whether she might return.Tracy Chapman’s rare public appearance at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night — where she practically stole the show performing her 1988 song “Fast Car” with the country singer Luke Combs — left many fans wondering why she had largely stepped away from music for more than a decade.Despite some scattered performances on television and at awards shows, Chapman, 59, has remained almost entirely absent from the music world in recent years, having released her last studio album in 2008 and done her last tour in 2009. Since she first emerged in the late 1980s, she has always been known as a reclusive and private figure.“Being in the public eye and under the glare of the spotlight was, and it still is, to some extent, uncomfortable for me,” she told The Irish Times in 2015. “There are some ways by which everything that has happened in my life has prepared me for this career. But I am bit shy.”The acclaim for her Grammys performance — Taylor Swift could be seen singing along in the crowd — was a sign of how beloved Chapman remains. Combs’s note-for-note cover of “Fast Car” went to No. 2 on Billboard’s pop singles chart last year, and after the Grammys, Chapman’s original began shooting up iTunes’s download chart.After her debut LP, “Tracy Chapman,” was released in 1988 — and went to No. 1 on the Billboard chart — she released seven more studio albums. Her last, “Our Bright Future,” came out in 2008. Jon Pareles of The New York Times described it as a collection of “morose love songs” as well as “her latest utopian vision of a world without war or greed.”Chapman performed at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012. Kevin Wolf/Associated PressWe 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
Culture can too often drive us apart. At the Grammys on Sunday, two artists delivered something different.When a beloved artist who has not performed live in some time returns to the stage, we often expect them to appear fragile, unsteady, ill at ease. But during Sunday night’s Grammy Awards, when the camera first pulled back from a tight shot of a woman’s fingers picking a familiar riff on an acoustic guitar and revealed the face of the great, elusive folk singer Tracy Chapman, what you noticed was the joy radiating from her face. Her contented smile. The unwavering tone and rich steadiness of her voice.It was a genuine moment of warmth and unity, the sort seldom offered these days by televised award shows — or televised anything, really. Singing her rousing 1988 hit “Fast Car” live for the first time in years, duetting with the country star Luke Combs — whose faithful cover of the song was one of last year’s defining hits — and taking in the rapturous applause of her musical peers, Chapman gave off the feeling, in the words of her timeless song, that she belonged.Thirty-five years ago, at the 1989 Grammy Awards, Chapman stood alone onstage and performed a wrenching rendition of “Fast Car” accompanied by only her own acoustic guitar.What made Sunday night’s performance feel different wasn’t just the time that had passed, or the gray hair that now elegantly frames Chapman’s face. It was the presence of Combs, born a year after that Grammy performance, regarding Chapman with an awe-struck reverence. He seemed to be a stand-in for the many, many people over the years — of all races, genders and generations — who have heard their deepest desires reflected in this song and wished to pay Chapman their gratitude.They traded a few lines and harmonized beautifully on the chorus — her tone opalescent, his bringing some grit — but Combs never overshadowed Chapman. He knew that in that moment, no one could. Something about the way he looked at her said it all: His eyes shone with irrepressible respect. Here was a grown man, an assured performer who sells out stadiums, visibly trembling before the sight and the sound of the folk singer Tracy Chapman.He was hardly alone in that: The few crowd shots during the performance revealed some of music’s major stars, including Brandi Carlile, on their feet, thrilled, before a standing ovation. More
Young women brought the drama, Jay-Z surprised with a barbed speech and heroes long absent from the show’s stage made welcome returns at the 66th annual awards.The most awards at the 66th annual Grammys went to Phoebe Bridgers, who picked up three with her band boygenius and one for a feature on a SZA song. SZA, who came into the night with the most nominations, was shut out of the biggest honors — for album (which went to Taylor Swift’s “Midnights”), record (Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers”) and song (Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?”) — but took home three trophies. Victoria Monét was named best new artist, and Swift’s album win broke a Grammy record for the category. The show was particularly joyous, slick and thoughtful, featuring several striking performances and a few raw acceptance speeches. All in all, it captured pop music as it actually is — centerless, and subject to change at any moment.Best Theatrical Pop Stars: Billie Eilish and Olivia RodrigoFrom left: Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo brought powerful vocals and a bit of theater to the Grammy stage. Photographs by Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTwo of the night’s strongest performances came from young women using pianos to accompany the wispy, stratospheric upper reaches of their registers — and to comment on the tyranny of fragility and prettiness. The first was Billie Eilish, stunning the crowd to silence with a sparse, deeply felt reading of “What Was I Made For?,” her “Barbie” ballad that later picked up song of the year. The second was Olivia Rodrigo, who nailed the vertiginous high notes that punctuate her rock-operatic smash “Vampire,” and then riffed on the song’s theme as she smeared herself with spurting fake blood. Each performance, in its own way, felt like a rebuttal to the constricting standards to which so many young women are held. Eilish’s was about the pain of being perceived as an object; Rodrigo’s reimagined the same kind of pressure as a horror movie. Both understood the power of a little theatricality. LINDSAY ZOLADZBest Debut Grammy Performance: Joni MitchellJoni Mitchell won a Grammy for best folk album, then performed with a group of musicians.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesJoni Mitchell, 80, has been singing her prismatic folk ballad “Both Sides Now” since she was 23, and yet every time she performs it, she seems to be interpreting its infinitely wise lyrics anew. The rendition she performed at the Grammys — her first-ever performance on the award show, which makes sense given how underestimated and slighted by the industry Mitchell has felt throughout most of her career — was at once elegiac and nimble, backed by a loose jazz arrangement that allowed her to riff on its familiar melody. Showing off a resonant tone and impressive range that she has worked diligently to strengthen since suffering an aneurysm in 2015, Mitchell’s performance was like a brief, magical visitation from a musical deity. ZOLADZBest Surprise Roast: Jay-ZJay-Z brought his daughter Blue Ivy Carter onstage during his acceptance speech at the Grammys.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe 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
Women thoroughly dominated the 66th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, with a history-making album of the year win by Taylor Swift and victories by Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish, SZA, Lainey Wilson, the Colombian pop star Karol G and the band boygenius.The wins capped a year when women were extraordinarily successful in pop music, and also signified a change for the Grammys, which have frequently been criticized — as recently as five years ago — for overlooking female artists on the show.In addition to the wins, the show featured powerful performances by SZA, Eilish, Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo and even Joni Mitchell and Tracy Chapman — two godmothers of modern songwriting who have made only rare public appearances in recent years.In taking album of the year for “Midnights,” Swift became the first artist to win the Grammys’ top prize four times, beating a trio of male legends — Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon — who had three.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
Hear songs by Amythyst Kiah, Kara Jackson, Tray Wellington and more.Amythyst Kiah.Liam Woods for The New York TimesDear listeners,“Today Black folk performers have reached a critical mass and level of exposure not seen since the early decades of the 20th century,” writes the author Adam Bradley in a fascinating article published last week in T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Bradley’s piece is densely populated with a number of modern musicians who are pushing the limits of folk and reclaiming a style of music that has come to be associated — ahistorically, Bradley points out — with whiteness.What is folk music, though? It’s a slippery term that seems to mean something different to every generation. Is it strictly music rooted in the past and played with acoustic instruments, or can it include more forward-thinking artists like the Americana experimentalist Jake Blount and the blues rocker Amythyst Kiah? I like the expansive non-definition proposed by the singer-songwriter and guitarist Big Bill Broonzy, as quoted by Bradley: “Some people call these ‘folk songs,’” he said onstage once. “Well, all the songs that I’ve heard in my life was folk songs. I’ve never heard horses sing none of them yet!”Today’s playlist provides an introduction to some of the musicians Bradley mentions in his article, like the folk-poet Kara Jackson and the lightning-fingered banjo player Tray Wellington. It also features some Black folk pioneers who inspired future generations, like Odetta and Tracy Chapman. May it open your ears and expand your conception of what folk is, and what it can be.Also: A very special thank you to Jon Pareles for filling in for me for Friday’s newsletter while I was on vacation! It was the first time someone else has taken the reins of The Amplifier, but I knew it was in the best of hands.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Our Native Daughters: “Black Myself”Named in reference to James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son,” Our Native Daughters is a formidable collective featuring four artists at the heart of the Black folk revival: Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla and Allison Russell. Kiah wrote the powerful opening track of the group’s 2019 debut “Songs of Our Native Daughters,” and later rerecorded it on her 2021 solo album “Wary + Strange.” (Listen on YouTube)2. Kara Jackson: “Pawnshop”In April, Kara Jackson — the former National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States — released her debut album “Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?” The slinky “Pawnshop” shows off the 23-year-old’s lyricism, as she asserts in a sly voice, “I’m not a liquidated asset, I’m sharper than a jewel/What kind of miner does that make you?” (Listen on YouTube)3. Odetta: “Hit or Miss”A central figure in the 1960s folk revival, the Alabama-born singer and guitarist Odetta inspired Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and countless others with her impassioned take on traditional Americana and her unmistakable voice. “Hit or Miss,” from her 1970 album “Odetta Sings,” is one of her greatest originals. “Ain’t nobody just like this,” she sings on this soulful song of self. “I gotta be me, baby, hit or miss.” (Listen on YouTube)4. Tray Wellington: “Crooked Mind”“Tray Wellington knows that many will take the title of his 2022 album, ‘Black Banjo,’ as an oxymoron,” Bradley writes in his article. But on that album — and its lively, dexterously picked opening track — Wellington reclaims the instrument’s African origins while adding his own modern flair. (Listen on YouTube)5. Rhiannon Giddens: “You’re the One”Earlier this year, Giddens — a founding member of both the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Our Native Daughters, as well as a prolific and ever-evolving solo artist — won a Pulitzer Prize for co-writing her first opera, “Omar,” which tells the true story of a Muslim African man enslaved in America in the early 19th century. This August, Giddens also released her third solo album (and first full LP of her own tracks), the eclectic “You’re the One,” which features this sunny, banjo-driven track. (Listen on YouTube)6. Amythyst Kiah: “Hangover Blues”“Woke up this morning, feeling bad,” the mighty Kiah wails on “Hangover Blues,” accompanied by a beat that stomps like a throbbing headache. That’s not to say, on this standout from her 2021 album “Wary + Strange,” that she regrets anything: “And if I did it all over again,” she sings, “you know I’d do the same damn thing anyhow.” (Listen on YouTube)7. Tracy Chapman: “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution”This year, the country musician Luke Combs’s hit cover of “Fast Car” has brought some much-deserved attention to Tracy Chapman and the heartfelt brand of bluesy folk for which she first became known in the late 1980s. This galvanizing opening track from her 1988 self-titled album is just as deserving of a revival. (Listen on YouTube)8. Jake Blount: “Didn’t It Rain”The 28-year-old singer, songwriter and banjo player Jake Blount — who has described his music as “genrequeer” — has one ear oriented to the past, the other to the future. His 2020 album “Spider Tales” established him as a thrilling new voice, and his 2022 follow-up “The New Faith” (which features the portentous “Didn’t It Rain”) took his ambitious vision even further. (Listen on YouTube)9. Carolina Chocolate Drops: “Hit ‘Em Up Style”In 2005, the young folk revivalists Giddens, Dom Flemons and Súle Greg Wilson formed the Carolina Chocolate Drops, an influential, all-Black string band with a 21st century style. As on this playful cover of Blu Cantrell’s 2001 R&B hit “Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!),” the Chocolate Drops connected the dots between Black music past and present, inspiring others to do the same. (Listen on YouTube)It sounds like a whisper,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“Meet the Next Generation of Black Folk Singers” track listTrack 1: Our Native Daughters, “Black Myself”Track 2: Kara Jackson, “Pawnshop”Track 3: Odetta, “Hit or Miss”Track 4: Tray Wellington, “Crooked Mind”Track 5: Rhiannon Giddens, “You’re the One”Track 6: Amythyst Kiah, “Hangover Blues”Track 7: Tracy Chapman, “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution”Track 8: Jake Blount, “Didn’t It Rain”Track 9: Carolina Chocolate Drops, “Hit ‘Em Up Style”Bonus TracksI do not think I fully understood the bluesy pathos of Green Day’s 1997 single “Hitchin’ a Ride” until I heard Amythyst Kiah’s smoldering cover, from her imaginative 2022 EP “Pensive Pop.” Highly recommended. More
