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You might have heard: Taylor Swift cannot be stopped. Her new album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” sold 2.6 million copies in its opening week last month, earning Swift her eighth Billboard No. 1 album since 2020. At the Grammy Awards in February, she became the first artist to win album of the year for a […] More
Beyoncé’s 12-year-old daughter will make her feature film debut as Kiara, Nala and Simba’s daughter, in a prequel to the 2019 hit.Blue Ivy Carter will be joining her mother, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, in the movie musical “Mufasa: The Lion King,” which is expected in theaters in December.The movie — a prequel to “The Lion King,” the 2019 hyperrealistic remake of the Disney classic starring Beyoncé as the voice of Nala — will be directed by Barry Jenkins, who won a best adapted screenplay Oscar for “Moonlight.”Blue Ivy, 12, will make her feature film debut by voicing Kiara, the daughter of Nala and Simba, who will again be voiced by Donald Glover. (Billy Eichner, Seth Rogen, Mads Mikkelsen and Thandiwe Newton will also lend their talents.)“A buddy of mine, Matthew Cherry, made the short film called ‘Hair Love’ that Blue Ivy did the audiobook of,” Jenkins told Entertainment Weekly in an article published on Monday. “Starting this project and just having that in the ether, I was like, ‘Is it worth a shot? Would Blue Ivy want to do it? Would Beyoncé want to act opposite her daughter? Is it too close to home?’” he said. “But once we put the question to them, they both responded with enthusiasm.”Representatives for Beyoncé did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Last year, Blue Ivy joined Beyoncé onstage during the Renaissance tour, which wrapped up in October; she already has a Grammy, for best music video for “Brown Skin Girl,” a single by her mother. Beyoncé holds the record for most Grammys in history, with 32 wins.“The Lion King,” which was directed by Jon Favreau, was a box-office smash, earning $192 million at theaters in the United States and Canada in its first weekend. It ultimately made more than $1.5 billion in ticket sales globally. More
Pop’s two reigning queens are often cast as rivals, but they have continually supported each other — and spaced out their album releases.In February, Taylor Swift took the stage at the Grammy Awards to accept the prize for best pop vocal album. After dutifully thanking the Recording Academy and her fans, she got down to business: “My brand-new album comes out April 19,” she said, in a surprise announcement revealing “The Tortured Poets Department.” It was a heads up for her loyal followers, as well as anyone else in the business with a spring release on the radar: If you want your new album to debut at No. 1, don’t release it on April 19. Or April 26. Or May 3, for that matter.A week later, following a teaser during a Super Bowl commercial, Beyoncé also dropped news of a new album: “Cowboy Carter” would arrive earlier than “Poets,” with breathing room, on March 29. Another pop powerhouse in the Grammy audience made her own announcement in early April: Billie Eilish will unveil her forthcoming third album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” a month after Swift’s release, on May 17.Beyoncé and Swift, the 21st century’s pre-eminent pop stars, have often been cast as competitors if not rivals, a story line partly rooted in misogyny and amplified by dueling fan armies filled with stans, or superfans.For their part, the two artists have regularly dispelled the notion over the years. They were first linked, through no fault of their own, at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, when Kanye West interrupted a Swift acceptance speech to advocate for her fellow nominee Beyoncé; later that night, Beyoncé brought Swift onstage to finish her remarks. In 2021, Swift shared on Instagram that Beyoncé had sent her congratulatory flowers after Swift won the album of the year Grammy for “Folklore,” calling Beyoncé “the queen of grace & greatness.” And last year, following their blockbuster stadium tours, they appeared at each other’s concert film premieres, a pointed rebuke to message-board zealots looking to sow discord.“Clearly, it’s very lucrative for the media and stan culture to pit two women against each other, even when the two artists in question refuse to participate in that discussion,” Swift told Time magazine. (Representatives for Swift and Beyoncé declined to comment.)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
“Cowboy Carter” tops the Billboard 200 for a second week, boosted by physical sales of her album on CD and vinyl.Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” holds at No. 1 for a second week on the Billboard album chart, fending off new releases from J. Cole and the K-pop group Tomorrow X Together.“Cowboy Carter” stays at the top of the Billboard 200 with the equivalent of 125,500 sales in the United States, according to the tracking service Luminate. That total includes 133 million streams and 20,500 copies sold as a complete package. It is the first time Beyoncé has repeated at No. 1 since her self-titled “visual album” in 2013, which notched three consecutive times at the top and was initially available only as a download from iTunes.As in its opening week, Beyoncé’s total was helped by sales of physical copies of her album on CD and vinyl, which for the album’s first two weeks were available only through her website. Since then, retailers have started stocking “Cowboy Carter,” and — as she did with “Renaissance,” her last album, in 2022 — Beyoncé herself showed up for an in-store promo in Los Angeles, where fans could buy autographed LPs. (They quickly appeared on eBay for $2,000 and up.)“Might Delete Later,” a surprise release by the rapper J. Cole, comes in at second place with the equivalent of 115,000 sales, largely from streaming. The album got some attention for a diss track, “7 Minute Drill,” targeting Kendrick Lamar, which J. Cole promptly apologized for and removed from streaming versions of the album.Tomorrow X Together, a five-man South Korean group, opens at No. 3 with “Minisode 3: Tomorrow,” a seven-track mini album, which had 107,500 sales and was offered in 17 collectible CD editions. Also this week, Future and Metro Boomin’s joint album “We Don’t Trust You,” released three weeks ago, falls to No. 4 (a sequel, “We Still Don’t Trust You,” came out on Friday), and Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 5. More
Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicLast month, Beyoncé released “Cowboy Carter,” an album that tackles the whole of American music, using country, roots and Americana as jumping off points for explorations of race and power and the implicit politics that come with them. It is currently the No. 1 album in the country, with the biggest debut week of the year so far.On the heels of “Renaissance,” her 2022 album that served as a primer and commentary on the history of queer Black dance music, “Cowboy Carter” takes a parallel approach, unearthing and underscoring the Black history and influence behind genres that have, especially since the mid-20th century, been whitewashed.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about what Beyoncé is attempting to achieve on “Cowboy Carter,” the way the album has been received and where she is likely to turn next.Guests:Marcus K. Dowling, country music reporter at The TennesseanJulianne Escobedo Shepherd, who writes about music for Pitchfork and othersConnect 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
The pop superstar’s new album also reigns on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, the first time a Black woman has led that tally in its 60-year history.Beyoncé’s genre-bending “Cowboy Carter” has become her eighth No. 1 album, opening with the biggest sales of any release so far this year.“Cowboy Carter,” billed as “Act II” of a trilogy that began with Beyoncé’s dance-oriented album “Renaissance” almost two years ago, had been expected by fans, and the music industry at large, as primarily a country project. And indeed it features banjos, lyrics about hoedowns and a remake of Dolly Parton’s classic “Jolene.” But Beyoncé’s new release turned out to be a much broader take on modern pop music, with a kaleidoscopic array of references to the Beatles, Nancy Sinatra, Chuck Berry, rap and mellow rock, and critics praised it as a bold vision and a challenge to the historical segregation of pop genres.“Cowboy Carter” arrives with the equivalent of 407,000 sales in the United States, and in addition to topping the all-genre Billboard 200 chart it is also No. 1 on the magazine’s Top Country Albums chart, the first time a Black woman has led that tally in its 60-year history. Each of Beyoncé’s eight solo studio LPs, going back to “Dangerously in Love” in 2003, has hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200.Of its composite total sales figure, “Cowboy Carter” sold 168,000 copies as a complete album, including 62,000 on vinyl versions sold through Beyoncé’s website. The 27-track full album also racked up 300 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate — a blockbuster number, but less than Future and Metro Boomin had for their new joint release, “We Don’t Trust You,” which opened at No. 1 last week with 324 million clicks. (That album falls to No. 2 this week, with its overall numbers down 48 percent from the opening.)As impressive as Beyoncé’s numbers were, they may not hold for long as the year’s biggest, with Taylor Swift’s latest, “The Tortured Poets Department,” set for release next week.Also this week, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 3, Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” is No. 4 and “Hope on the Street Vol. 1,” a six-track release by J-Hope of the K-pop giants BTS, opens at No. 5. More
Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:Beyoncé’s new album, “Cowboy Carter,” and how it faces the genre battle head-on by playing with decades of country and rock signifiers, plus how the conversation about its specifics can obscure the conversation about its qualityThe new album by Future & Metro Boomin, “We Don’t Trust You,” which marks a return to form for Future and includes a verse from Kendrick Lamar (and some lyrics from the host) seemingly aimed at Drake, potentially reigniting a hip-hop cold warSongs of the week from Camila Cabello featuring Playboi Carti and Oliver Anthony MusicSnack of the weekConnect 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
In recent weeks, Beyoncé has sent elaborate all-white arrangements to musicians including Jack White, K. Michelle and Nicki Minaj.The expression “to give someone their flowers” means to praise a person and show them care.Beyoncé has taken that literally.The pop superstar recently sent elaborate all-white floral arrangements, along with personalized notes — some handwritten — to artists she admires, or who she says have inspired her work, including Jack White, SZA and K. Michelle.As the artists have shared photos of the bouquets on social media, Beyoncé’s fans have shared their excitement and expressed their jealousy as they parsed the list of recipients for clues about what her next musical project might be.Beyoncé has been known to send surprise, and often monochromatic, floral arrangements for years, but the recent activity has drawn outsize attention since the release last week of “Cowboy Carter,” Act II in an expected trilogy of genre-bending albums.This week, Jack White, the singer-guitarist and former White Stripes frontman, shared a picture on Instagram of an arrangement that Beyoncé had sent him. Attached was a handwritten note: “Jack, I hope you are well. I just wanted you to know how much you inspired me on this record. Sending you my love, Beyoncé.”He offered her praise in response. “Much love and respect to you Madam,” he wrote, adding, “Nobody sings like you.” (Fans were quick to speculate that Act III might be a rock album, and hoped Mr. White would be part of it.)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
