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      As Taylor Swift and Others Revive Cassettes, Fans Look for Tape Decks

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      Musicians and fans have developed a new taste for an old format, but manufacturers largely stopped making players. Listeners are finding creative (and vintage) solutions.When Taylor Swift released “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” in an array of physical formats last year, Cora Buel knew she had to get the cassette right away. Buel, a 48-year-old based in Daly City, Calif., is a fan of Swift’s music — an affinity she shares with her teenage daughter, who has since bought her mother more tapes as gifts. One main reason? Buel drives a 1998 BMW Z3, and has no other convenient options for on-the-road album playback.“Just get an old car that only plays cassettes,” Buel said, “and you’ll listen every day.”Although Buel might be an extreme proponent of retro design — she works as chief revenue officer at ThredUp, an online consignment store — the cassette’s return is by now almost as unmistakable as the format’s distinctive hiss and warble.Dominant in the United States from the early 1980s until it was overtaken commercially by the compact disc in the early 1990s, the cassette tape has survived as an underground phenomenon, a deliberately anachronistic medium of choice for artists on the noise, avant-garde and low-fi fringes. But tapes began turning up at the trend-chasing retailer Urban Outfitters as long ago as 2015, the same year that digital streaming first overtook download sales. Nearly a decade later, Swift’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” stands as the top-selling cassette of the year so far, with about 23,000 copies sold through June 30, according to the tracking service Luminate.Sure, cassette sales of Swift’s new album pale beside its performance in even other physical formats, where it boasts sales of 1.1 million copies on CD and another 988,000 on vinyl. But “Tortured Poets” alone is on pace to beat the total annual sales of all albums on cassette for as recently as 2009, when the Luminate precursor Nielsen SoundScan reported a mere 34,000 units shipped. If Spotify killed the iTunes star, and vinyl is increasingly a high-priced luxury item — never mind CDs for the moment — then cassettes could be the cockroaches that outlive them all.As labels look to capitalize on “superfans” who will buy multiple formats, artists releasing new music on cassette this year cross genres and generations. A sampling of musicians embracing the format includes: the pop polymath Charli XCX, the alternative-rock titan Kim Deal, the adventurous South Florida rapper Denzel Curry, the outré Thom Yorke band the Smile, the black-metal group Darkthrone, the pop-rock duo Twenty One Pilots, the meditative electronic producer Tycho, the masked country singer Orville Peck, the folk-pop troubadour Shawn Mendes, the reigning pop wunderkind Billie Eilish, the garage-rocker Ty Segall, the alt-pop eclecticist Remi Wolf and the sultry singer-songwriter Omar Apollo.Though the last new car to be factory-equipped with a cassette deck was reportedly a 2010 Lexus, more than a quarter of light-duty vehicles on the road are at least 15 years old, according to a recent analysis by S&P Global Mobility. Susanna Thomson of the Oakland, Calif., band Sour Widows still listens to cassettes in her 1998 Volvo wagon, which has a tape deck and a CD player. “I-90,” a song on the alternative-rock group’s bittersweet new album, “Revival of a Friend,” includes lyrics about driving down the interstate while singing along repeatedly to a beloved cassette; the tape in question was by the Southern California punk-rock outfit Joyce Manor.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

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      Kris Kristofferson Stood by Sinead O’Connor as the Boos Rained Down

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      At a moment when the Irish singer had few people defending her, the country music veteran showed strong support. It created a bond that remained throughout their lives.On Oct. 16, 1992, Columbia Records threw its longtime artist Bob Dylan an event at Madison Square Garden to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his first album with the label. The concert, available on pay-per-view, featured performances by Dylan along with some of the biggest stars of his era, among them Stevie Wonder, George Harrison, Johnny Cash and Eric Clapton.But it was the performance by the comparative newcomer Sinead O’Connor and the assist lent her by the country veteran Kris Kristofferson, who died Saturday at 88, that proved most memorable.O’Connor, then just 25, was at the center of a firestorm. Just two weeks earlier, the Irish singer was the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” when, at the conclusion of her second and final performance of the evening, she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II and exhorted, “Fight the real enemy,” a defiant act of protest against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (and also, she later revealed, a deeply personal statement — the photograph had belonged to her mother, who had physically abused her). The incident drew widespread outrage and turned O’Connor into a cultural pariah.Now, in the wake of that polarizing moment, it was Kristofferson who was tasked with bringing O’Connor to the stage.“I’m real proud to introduce this next artist, whose name’s become synonymous with courage and integrity,” Kristofferson said, in obvious reference to the “S.N.L.” incident. (As he would later sing of O’Connor, “She told them her truth just as hard as she could/Her message profoundly was misunderstood.”)O’Connor took the stage to a cascade of applause and boos, which did not let up as O’Connor stood silently at the microphone with her hands behind her back. A minute passed, and Kristofferson re-emerged from stage left, put his arm around O’Connor and whispered something in her ear.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

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      Kris Kristofferson: A Life in Pictures

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      Kris Kristofferson, who died on Saturday at 88, was most revered for his songwriting, favoring an aphoristic style that surveyed the many detours a life could take. By the time he broke through, at nearly 34 years old, Kristofferson had swerved off prescribed courses a number of times. The son of an Air Force major general and a socially conscious mother, he’d been a Rhodes Scholar, an Army helicopter pilot and a family man before going all in on music in 1965, a decision that splintered his family and left him scuffling for money.“I was working the Gulf of Mexico on oil rigs. I’d lost my family to my years of failing as a songwriter. All I had were bills, child support, and grief,” Kristofferson once said of writing “Me and Bobby McGee” in the late 1960s. “I was about to get fired for not letting 24 hours go between the throttle and the bottle. It looked like I’d trashed my act. But there was something liberating about it. By not having to live up to people’s expectations, I was somehow free.”By the time success came in 1970 — as Ray Price’s cover of his song “For the Good Times” reached the Top 40 on the pop chart, and Johnny Cash’s version of “Sunday Morning Coming Down” became a No. 1 country hit — Kristofferson had experienced love, loss and hard times, all of which gave his career a hard-earned sagacity as it expanded over the next 50 years.Here are some snapshots from his life and career.Kris Kristofferson, an Oxford-educated Army helicopter pilot, turned down a teaching job at West Point to pursue songwriting in Nashville.Al Clayton/Getty ImagesKristofferson, in 1970 or 1971, in a Nashville hotel room listening to a reel-to-reel tape recorder after his appearance on “The Johnny Cash Show.”Al Clayton/Getty ImagesKristofferson in 1970, the year two songs he wrote — “For the Good Times” and “Sunday Morning Coming Down” — became hits for other artists.Al Clayton/Getty ImagesIn the liner notes of his 1971 album, “The Silver Tongued Devil and I,” Kristofferson described his music as “echoes of the going ups and coming downs, walking pneumonia and run-of-the-mill madness, colored with guilt, pride, and a vague sense of despair.”Don Paulsen/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesKristofferson with Janis Joplin in the summer of 1970, shortly before her death in October of that year. Her version of “Me and Bobby McGee,” penned by Kristofferson, went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1971.John Byrne Cooke Estate/Getty ImagesKristofferson starred opposite Barbra Streisand in Frank Pierson’s 1976 remake of “A Star Is Born.”Max B. Miller/Fotos International and Archive Photos, via Getty ImagesKristofferson and Streisand in a publicity photo from “A Star Is Born.” He won a Golden Globe Award for his performance.Screen Archives/Getty ImagesStreisand and Kristofferson at a preview of “A Star Is Born” in New York City in December 1976. She cast Kristofferson as the male lead in the film after seeing him onstage at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, Calif.Suzanne Vlamis/Associated PressKristofferson performing with Olivia Newton-John and Rod Stewart at a UNICEF benefit in New York City in 1979. His work in the 1980s and ’90s would venture into social justice and human rights.Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection, via Getty ImagesKristofferson, center, with from left, Candice Bergen, Rita Coolidge, Willie Nelson and Burt Reynolds after a performance at the Bottom Line in New York City in 1979. Kristofferson and Coolidge, who were married for much of the 1970s, released three duet albums before divorcing in 1980.Associated Press/Associated PressKristofferson and Isabelle Huppert, with whom he appeared in the film “Heaven’s Gate” (1980), at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981.Associated PressKristofferson with Don King, commentating during a fight between Larry Holmes and Muhammad Ali in 1980. Kristofferson, a Golden Gloves boxer in college, was a lifelong fan of the sport.Randy Rasmussen/Associated PressKris Kristofferson and Jane Fonda at the premiere of the film “Rollover” in Los Angeles in 1981.Nick Ut/Associated PressWith Willie Nelson on the set of the film “Songwriter” in 1983.John Bryson/Getty ImagesFrom left, Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kristofferson performing as the Highwaymen in 1985 at Nelson’s Fourth of July picnic in Austin, Texas.Beth Gwinn/Getty ImagesKristofferson, left, with Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt in San Francisco in 1989, performing in protest of the war in El Salvador. Tim Mosenfelder/Getty ImagesKristofferson comforted Sinead O’Connor after she was booed at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1992. “It seemed to me very wrong, booing that little girl,” he later said. “But she was always courageous.”Ron Frehm/Associated PressFrom left, Kristofferson, Victoria Williams, Suzanne Vega, Vin Scelsa and Lou Reed backstage at the Bottom Line in New York City in 1994.Ebet Roberts/Redferns, via Getty ImagesKristofferson joined Streisand onstage in London in 2019 for their duet “Lost Inside of You.” “He was as charming as ever, and the audience showered him with applause,” she wrote on social media after his death.Dave J Hogan/Getty ImagesKristofferson with Charlie McDermott in Vermont in 2005, during a break in the filming of “Disappearances.”Toby Talbot/Associated PressKristofferson performing with Nelson at a concert for Nelson’s 70th birthday in 2003. James Estrin/The New York TimesKristofferson performing at the Stagecoach Festival in Indio, Calif., in 2007. He retired from performing during the Covid-19 pandemic.Heidi Schumann for The New York Times More

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      Kris Kristofferson, Country Singer, Songwriter and Actor, Dies at 88

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      Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.His death was announced by Ebie McFarland, a spokeswoman, who did not give a cause.Hundreds of artists have recorded Mr. Kristofferson’s songs — among them, Al Green, the Grateful Dead, Michael Bublé and Gladys Knight and the Pips.Mr. Kristofferson’s breakthrough as a songwriter came with “For the Good Times,” a bittersweet ballad that topped the country chart and reached the Top 40 on the pop chart for Ray Price in 1970. His “Sunday Morning Coming Down” became a No. 1 country hit for his friend and mentor Johnny Cash later that year.Mr. Cash memorably intoned the song’s indelible opening couplet:Well, I woke up Sunday morningWith no way to hold my head that didn’t hurtAnd the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t badSo I had one more for dessert.Expressing more than just the malaise of someone suffering from a hangover, “Sunday Morning Coming Down” gives voice to feelings of spiritual abandonment that border on the absolute. “Nothing short of dying” is the way the chorus describes the desolation that the song’s protagonist is experiencing.Steeped in a neo-Romantic sensibility that owed as much to John Keats as to the Beat Generation and Bob Dylan, Mr. Kristofferson’s work explored themes of freedom and commitment, alienation and desire, darkness and light.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

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      As ‘Saturday Night Live’ Starts 50th Season, Here’s What Cast and Crew Remember About the Debut

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      As the historic 50th season of “Saturday Night Live” gets underway, its very first episode has become a piece of show-business mythology: the story of how a group of misfit writers and performers, led by a 30-year-old Canadian upstart named Lorne Michaels, put together a counterculture comedy-variety show in Manhattan amid interpersonal conflict, last-minute changes and substance abuse, and somehow established a television institution.It’s a legend so revered that it has inspired a new film, “Saturday Night,” directed by Jason Reitman, in which a cast of young actors portraying the Not Ready for Prime Time Players (as well as the show’s producers and crew members) act out a version of events as they might have unfolded on that fateful evening of Oct. 11, 1975.For the people actually involved in the debut broadcast of what was then called “Saturday Night” — the writers, cast members, comedians and musicians — that excitement and energy is only one part of the tale. They remember the creation of the NBC show — the long buildup to its premiere, the performance itself and the aftermath — as sometimes hectic, sometimes carefully organized. It was a period full of head-butting, but one that also fostered camaraderie and lifelong friendships. And it never would have happened without some crucial, 11th-hour discoveries, or the right people in place to make those realizations.But at no point did they wonder if they were about to make history. “I don’t think it concerned us one way or the other,” said Chevy Chase, a founding cast member and writer. “We were going to do what we do, and if you laugh, great, you laugh. You’ll tell somebody else about it, and they’ll laugh the next time.”Here, some of those participants share their memories of how “Saturday Night” came to life.Jane CurtinJane Curtin said that she realized the show was catching on when she left 30 Rock and on the street “you’d pass by people and they would shake.”NBCU Photo Bank/Getty ImagesCurtin had acted in theater, commercials and a Boston-area improv group, the Proposition, when she auditioned for “Saturday Night” in summer 1975. At her callback, Curtin expected a conversation with producers: “I walked in the door,” she recalled, “and they said, ‘OK, what have you prepared?’ The classic anxiety dream.” Fortunately, she had some old material in her purse. “It was a big purse,” Curtin said.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

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      in Movies

      ‘SNL’ Debut Cast and Crew Look Back on 50 Seasons

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      As the historic 50th season of “Saturday Night Live” gets underway, its very first episode has become a piece of show-business mythology: the story of how a group of misfit writers and performers, led by a 30-year-old Canadian upstart named Lorne Michaels, put together a counterculture comedy-variety show in Manhattan amid interpersonal conflict, last-minute changes and substance abuse, and somehow established a television institution.It’s a legend so revered that it has inspired a new film, “Saturday Night,” directed by Jason Reitman, in which a cast of young actors portraying the Not Ready for Prime Time Players (as well as the show’s producers and crew members) act out a version of events as they might have unfolded on that fateful evening of Oct. 11, 1975.For the people actually involved in the debut broadcast of what was then called “Saturday Night” — the writers, cast members, comedians and musicians — that excitement and energy is only one part of the tale. They remember the creation of the NBC show — the long buildup to its premiere, the performance itself and the aftermath — as sometimes hectic, sometimes carefully organized. It was a period full of head-butting, but one that also fostered camaraderie and lifelong friendships. And it never would have happened without some crucial, 11th-hour discoveries, or the right people in place to make those realizations.But at no point did they wonder if they were about to make history. “I don’t think it concerned us one way or the other,” said Chevy Chase, a founding cast member and writer. “We were going to do what we do, and if you laugh, great, you laugh. You’ll tell somebody else about it, and they’ll laugh the next time.”Here, some of those participants share their memories of how “Saturday Night” came to life.Jane CurtinJane Curtin said that she realized the show was catching on when she left 30 Rock and on the street “you’d pass by people and they would shake.”NBCU Photo Bank/Getty ImagesCurtin had acted in theater, commercials and a Boston-area improv group, the Proposition, when she auditioned for “Saturday Night” in summer 1975. At her callback, Curtin expected a conversation with producers: “I walked in the door,” she recalled, “and they said, ‘OK, what have you prepared?’ The classic anxiety dream.” Fortunately, she had some old material in her purse. “It was a big purse,” Curtin said.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

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      Katy Perry’s ‘143’ Is Bad. Her Timing Is Worse.

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      The pop singer’s latest LP, “143,” has been gleefully panned, but its musical faults aren’t as remarkable as Perry’s failure to read the current cultural moment.Less than 24 hours after its release last Friday, Katy Perry’s seventh studio album, “143,” had already earned a place in pop musical infamy.It debuted on Metacritic, a website that collects and quantifies music reviews, with a score of 35 out of 100, becoming the site’s lowest-rated album since 2011 and the worst-reviewed album by a female artist in its 23-year history. Seemingly the kindest thing any critic said about “143” was that it “falls short of total catastrophe.” Online, dunking on Perry became a semiprofessional sport, as representatives of rival stan armies posted about her supposed downfall with irrepressible glee.But is “143” really that bad? It certainly lacks the sparkle, personality and campy wit that characterized “Teenage Dream,” Perry’s blockbuster 2010 album. (Along with Michael Jackson’s “Bad,” “Teenage Dream” is the only album to spawn five No. 1 hits.) But none of the songs on “143” are as ostentatiously awful as some of Perry’s previous failures, like, say, “Bon Appétit,” the Migos-assisted nadir of her 2017 album, “Witness,” or the track from her 2013 release, “Prism,” on which she sang about a night out doing (gulp) “Mariah Carey-oke.” The defining qualities of “143” are its blandness, anonymity and deadeyed seriousness — rather surprising for a woman whose 2022 Las Vegas residency, “Play,” found her singing beside a 16-foot toilet.Unfortunately, dull, uninspired pop albums come out all the time, and plenty of Perry’s pop star peers have also recently had to reckon with diminishing sales. It was highly unlikely that a new album was going to launch Perry, who in recent years has been appearing as a judge on “American Idol,” back to pop’s epicenter. Despite a lead single (the anthemic synth-pop number “Never Really Over”) far superior to anything on “143,” Perry’s 2020 album, “Smile,” failed to make much of an impression. But it also did not prompt the outsized scorn and schadenfreude that has accompanied her latest release.I can’t say I’ll be putting “143” in heavy rotation, but I also do not think it is the worst album I have heard since 2011, nor the most odious collection of music made by a woman in over two decades. (It is also not a total commercial failure, projected to debut with around 40,000 units sold in its first week.) The album’s anodyne jams might not tell us much about Katy Perry, but the Great Flop of “143” says a lot about the way pop is consumed, evaluated and discussed in this particular moment, when music is just one part of the package. Listeners are more aware than ever how the cotton candy is made, debating the merits of various figures who were once tucked behind the curtain: producers, writers and in some cases even managers and publicists. In a time when an album’s promotion and rollout strategy are often scrutinized as heavily as its content, Perry was already doomed to fail.A mediocre album from a pop star past her commercial peak, “143” probably would have come and gone without much notice were its rollout not prone to so many cringe-inducing gaffes, like the controversy surrounding the music video for the blithe, house-inflected single “Lifetimes,” which prompted a government investigation for filming on a UNESCO World Heritage nature reserve off the coast of Spain.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

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      Lhasa’s Music Captivated Audiences Everywhere but Here

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      At Pop Montreal, tribute concerts on Sept. 29 and 30 will honor the memory of Lhasa de Sela, the American-born multilingual singer-songwriter.Montreal’s wide-ranging music scene has been one of its calling cards for decades, with border-crossing success stories like the ambitious rock band Arcade Fire, the arty electro-pop artist Grimes and the renowned post-rock modernists Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Yet one of the musicians most beloved there is the spellbinding Lhasa de Sela, who wrote and sang in English, French and Spanish, but remains largely unknown in the United States.She was usually referred to simply as Lhasa, and before she died of breast cancer in 2010 at 37, she became a platinum-selling recording artist in Canada, with genre-busting albums that synthesized Romani music, Mexican rancheras, Portuguese fados, Americana, chansons française and South American ballads, marrying them with mystical, romantic and intensely personal lyrics.In Europe, where Lhasa was a mainstay of the festival circuit, and lived in Marseilles for several years, she became a star on the strength of her intimate performances. But in the United States, where she was born and spent most of her childhood, Lhasa’s multilingual recordings proved too much of a marketing challenge for her American record companies, even after she toured with Sarah McLachlan’s traveling festival, Lilith Fair.Feist, Calexico, Juana Molina, Silvana Estrada and many other stars will perform in the tribute concerts that will cap this year’s Pop Montreal festival on Sept. 29 and 30. Their homage underscores an enduring love affair between a city and an artist who made just three otherworldly albums, including a last, self-titled album, all in English, that she hoped would finally establish her in her home country.Bia Krieger, the Brazilian-born, Montreal-based singer who was a friend of Lhasa’s, said, “Iconic is the right word” to describe her. “There’s a circle of people here that cherish her.”Lhasa is now even woven into the landscape of her old neighborhood, Mile End, which is anchored at its southern end by a huge mural of the singer created by a local artist, Annie Hamel, and, on the north by Parc Lhasa de Sela, a children’s playground the city erected in her memory.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