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    Testing Britney Spears: Restoring Rights Can Be Rare and Difficult

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    To get out of conservatorship, the pop star will likely have to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, an uneasy melding of legal standards and mental health criteria.Her voice quaking with anger and despair, the pop star Britney Spears has asked repeatedly in court to be freed from the conservatorship that has controlled her money and personal life for 13 years. What’s more, she asked the judge to sever the arrangement without making her undergo a psychological evaluation.It’s a demand that legal experts say is unlikely to be granted. The mental health assessment is usually the pole star in a constellation of evidence that a judge considers in deciding whether to restore independence.Its underlying purpose is to determine whether the conditions that led to the imposition of the conservatorship have stabilized or been resolved.The evaluation process, which uneasily melds mental health criteria with legal standards, illustrates why the exit from strict oversight is difficult and rare. State laws are often ambiguous. And their application can vary from county to county, judge to judge, case to case.Isn’t Ms. Spears’s artistic and financial success proof she is self-sufficient?Yes and no. A judge looks for what, in law, is called “capacity.” The term generally refers to benchmarks in a person’s functional and cognitive ability as well as their vulnerability to harm or coercion.Under California law, which governs Ms. Spears’s case, a person deemed to have capacity can articulate risks and benefits in making decisions about medical care, wills, marriage and contracts (such as hiring a lawyer), and can feed, clothe and shelter themselves.Annette Swain, a Los Angeles psychologist who does neuropsychological assessments, said that because someone doesn’t always show good judgment, it doesn’t mean they lack capacity. “We all can make bad decisions at many points in our lives,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that we should have our rights taken away.”Even so, Ms. Spears’s professional and financial successes do not directly speak to whether she has regained “legal mental capacity,” which she was found to lack in 2008, after a series of public breakdowns, breathlessly captured by the media. At that time, a judge ruled that Ms. Spears, who did not appear in court, was so fragile that a conservatorship was warranted.Judges authorize conservatorships usually for one of three broad categories: a severe psychiatric breakdown; a chronic, worsening condition like dementia; or an intellectual or physical disability that critically impairs function.Markers indicating a person has regained capacity appear to set a low bar. But in practice, the bar can be quite high.“‘Restored to capacity’ before the psychotic break? Or the age the person is now? That expression is fraught with importing value judgment,” said Robert Dinerstein, a disability rights law professor at American University.Records detailing grounds for the petition from Ms. Spears’s father, Jamie Spears, to become his daughter’s conservator are sealed. A few factors suggest the judge at the outset regarded the situation as serious. She appointed conservators to oversee Ms. Spears’s personal life as well as finances. She also ruled that Ms. Spears could not hire her own lawyer, though a lawyer the singer consulted at the time said he thought she was capable of that.Earlier this month, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny said Ms. Spears could retain her own counsel.Does “capacity” differ among states?Yes. Some states, like California, detail basic functional abilities. Others do not. Colorado acknowledges modern advances like “appropriate and reasonably available technological assistance.” Illinois looks for “mental deterioration, physical incapacity, mental illness, developmental disability, gambling, idleness, debauchery, excessive use of intoxicants or drugs.”Sally Hurme of the National Guardianship Association noted: “You could be found to be incapacitated in one state but not in another.”Who performs the psychological assessment?Ideally, a forensic psychiatrist or a psychologist with expertise in neuropsychological assessments. But some states just specify “physician.” Psychiatrists tend to place greater weight on diagnoses; psychologists emphasize tests that measure cognitive abilities. Each reviews medical records and interviews family, friends and others.Assessments can extend over several days. They range widely in depth and duration.Eric Freitag, who conducts neuropsychological assessments in the Bay Area, said he prefers interviewing people at home where they are often more at ease, and where he can evaluate the environment. He asks about financial literacy: bill-paying, health insurance, even counting out change.Assessing safety is key. Dr. Freitag will ask what the person would do if a fire broke out. “I’d call my daughter,” one of his subjects replied.Who chooses the evaluator?Ms. Spears has not been able to choose her evaluators in the past because the conservator has the power to make those decisions. However, if she moves to dissolve the conservatorship, she can select the evaluator, to help build her case. If the conservator, her father, opposes her petition and objects to her selection, he could nominate a candidate to perform an additional assessment. Ms. Spears would likely pick up both tabs as costs of the conservatorship.To avoid a bitter battle of experts and the appearance that an assessor hired by either camp would be inherently biased — plus the strain of two evaluations on Ms. Spears — the judge could try to get both sides to agree to an independent, court-appointed doctor.What impact does a mental health diagnosis have on an evaluation?Many states explicitly say that a diagnosis of a severe mental health disorder is not, on its own, evidence that a person should remain in conservatorship.Stuart Zimring, an attorney in Los Angeles County who specializes in elderlaw and special needs trusts, noted that he once represented a physician with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder who was under a conservatorship. The doctor’s rights were eventually restored after he proved he was attending counseling sessions and taking medication.“It was a joyous day when the conservatorship was terminated,” said Mr. Zimring. “He got to practice medicine again, under supervision.”The association between the diagnosis of a severe mental disorder and a determination of incapacity troubles Dr. Swain, the Los Angeles psychologist.“Whatever they ended up diagnosing Britney Spears with, was it of such severity that she did not understand the decisions that she had to make, that she could not provide adequate self-care?” she asked. “Where do you draw that line? It’s a moving target.”Does the judge have to accept an evaluator’s findings?No, but judges usually do.What standard does a probate judge apply to reach a decision?In most states, when a judge approves a conservatorship, which constrains a person’s autonomy, the evidence has to be “clear and convincing,” a rigorous standard just below the standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”But when a conservatee wants those rights restored, many experts believe the standard should be more lenient.Some states indeed apply a lower standard to end a conservatorship. In California, a judge can do so by finding it is more likely than not (“preponderance of evidence”) that the conservatee has capacity. But some states say that the evidence to earn a ticket out still has to be “clear and convincing.”Most states do not even set a standard.“There’s an underlying assumption that if you can get the process right, everything would be fine and we wouldn’t be depriving people of rights,” said Jennifer Mathis, deputy legal director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. “Our take is that the process is fundamentally broken and that we shouldn’t be using guardianship in so many cases.”If someone is doing well, isn’t the conservatorship no longer necessary?Yes and no. “Judges are haunted by people they have had in front of them who have been released and disaster happens,” said Victoria Haneman, a trusts and estates law professor at Creighton University. “So they take a conservative approach to freedom.”Describing the Kafkaesque conundrum of conservatorship, Zoe Brennan-Krohn, a disabilities rights lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “If she’s doing great, the system is working and should continue. If she is making choices others disagree with, then she’s unreliable and she needs the system.”Or, as Kristin Booth Glen, a former New York State judge who oversaw such cases and now works to reform the system, put it, “Conservatorship and guardianship are like roach motels: you can check in but you can’t check out.”Can an evaluator recommend a less restrictive approach than a conservatorship?At times. Judge Glen once approved the termination of a guardianship of a young woman originally deemed to have the mental acuity of a 7-year-old. After three years of thoughtful interventions, the woman, since married and raising two children, had become able to participate fully in her life. She relied on a team for “supported decision making,” which Judge Glen called “a less restrictive alternate to the Draconian loss of liberty” of guardianship.A supported decision-making approach has been hailed by the Uniform Law Commission, which drafts model statutes. It has said judges should seek “the least restrictive alternative” to conservatorship.To date, only Washington and Maine have fully adopted the commission’s recommended model. More

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      Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow’s Prison Break, and 13 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Remi Wolf, Camila Cabello, the War on Drugs 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.Lil Nas X featuring Jack Harlow, ‘Industry Baby’Lil Nas X continues his victory lap around a world of his own making on the triumphant “Industry Baby” with Jack Harlow, featuring appropriately brassy production from Take A Daytrip and Kanye West and a video in which the duo busts out of Montero State Prison. “Funny how you said it was the end, then I went and did it again,” he sings, his braggadocio packing extra bite since it’s directed not just at generic haters but pearl-clutching homophobes. (“I’m queer,” he proclaims proudly, in case there was any confusion there.) The wild video’s most talked-about set piece will probably be the joyous dance scene in the prison showers, but its most hilarious moment comes when Lil Nas X catches a guard enjoying the video for his previous single “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).” LINDSAY ZOLADZRemi Wolf, ‘Liquor Store’“Liquor Store” (and its “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” meets Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” music video) is a perfect introduction to the neon-Brite imagination of Remi Wolf, a charismatic 25-year-old pop singer from California. The song is a catchall repository of Wolf’s anxieties about sobriety and long-term commitment, but she tackles these subjects with such idiosyncratic playfulness that it all goes down smoothly. ZOLADZCamila Cabello, ‘Don’t Go Yet’Fifth Harmony’s original defector Camila Cabello returns with the fun, exuberant first single from her upcoming album, “Familia.” Cabello leans harder than ever into her Latin-pop roots here, but there’s also a sassy rasp to her vocals that brings Doja Cat to mind. “Baby don’t go yet ’cause I wore this dress for a little drama,” she sings, and the song’s bright, bold flair certainly matches that sartorial choice. ZOLADZAlewya, ‘Spirit_X’Alewya, a songwriter with Ethiopian and Egyptian roots who’s based in England, has been releasing singles that rely on a breathless momentum. “Spirit_X” has a defiant, positive message — “I won’t let me down” — expressed in terse lines that hint at African modal melodies, paced by looping synthesizers and a double time breakbeat. She makes a virtue of sounding driven. JON PARELESKamo Mphela, ‘Thula Thula’Amapiano music is sparse and fluid, representing the hypnotic elasticity that is baked into South African dance music, simmering the textures and drums of jazz, R&B and local dance styles like kwaito and Bacardi house into a slow, liquid groove. “Thula Thula,” a new single from the genre’s queen Kamo Mphela, captures the hushed energy of the genre: a shaker trembles alongside a sinister bass line and a rush of drums claps under the surface. Mphela offers a summertime invitation to the dance floor, but the track’s restrained tempo is a reminder that the return to nightlife is a marathon, not a sprint. ISABELIA HERRERALorde, ‘Stoned at the Nail Salon’Lorde has always been an old soul; when she first arrived as a precocious 16-year-old in 2013, there was even a popular internet conspiracy theory that she was only pretending to be a teenager. Although she’s still just 24, Lorde sounds prematurely weary on her new single “Stoned at the Nail Salon,” from her forthcoming third album “Solar Power.” “My hot blood’s been burning for so many summers now, it’s time to cool it down,” she sings atop a muted chord progression that bears a striking resemblance to Lana Del Rey’s “Wild at Heart,” another recent Jack Antonoff production. The mellifluous “Stoned” flirts with profundity but then suddenly hedges its bets — “maybe I’m just stoned at the nail salon,” she shrugs in each chorus — which gives the song a hesitant, meandering quality. But perhaps the most puzzling declaration she makes is how “all of the music you loved at 16 you’ll grow out of.” Is this perhaps a self-deprecating wink at her own past, or a gentle hint that her new album might be a departure from what her fans have been expecting? ZOLADZIlluminati Hotties, ‘U V V P’As Illuminati Hotties, Sarah Tudzin has been rolling out deliriously catchy, high-octane summer jams for the past few months, like the incredibly titled “Mmmoooaaaaayaya” and the effervescent “Pool Hopping.” Her latest preview of her forthcoming album “Let Me Do One More,” though, slows things down considerably. “Every time I hear a song, I think about you dancing,” she swoons on “U V V P,” buoyed by a beachy beat. Late in the song, a spoken-word contribution from Big Thief’s Buck Meek transforms the vibe from a ’60s girl-group throwback to a lonesome country ditty, as if the versatile Tudzin is proving there’s no genre she can’t make her own. ZOLADZIndigo De Souza, ‘Hold U’Sometimes a song only needs to communicate the most honest and heartfelt emotions to work. That is the spirit of Indigo de Souza’s “Hold U.” There’s a splatter of programmed drums; a jangly, soulful bass line; and the melted caramel of de Souza’s voice, which gushes with simple lyrics (“You are the best thing, and I’ve got it, I’ve got you”) and blooms into a falsetto, her sky-high oohs curling into the air. It is a love song, but it’s not just about romance — “Hold U” is about living fully with your emotions, and embracing the love that emerges from being in community, too. HERRERABrandi Carlile, ‘Right on Time’Piano ballad turns to power ballad in “Right on Time,” an apology that rises to a near-operatic peak as Brandi Carlile acknowledges, “It wasn’t right.” It’s clearly a successor to “The Joke,” but this time, she’s not helping someone else; she’s facing the consequences of her own mistakes. PARELESThe War on Drugs, ‘Living Proof’The War on Drugs reaches back to the late-1960s era when folk-rock, drone and psychedelia overlapped, when the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead weren’t that far apart. But it’s self-conscious retrospection, aware of what’s changed in a half-century. “Living Proof” lays bare that awareness. “I know the path/I know it’s changing,” Adam Granduciel sings, as he returns to an old neighborhood and finds it’s not what he remembered. “Maybe I’ve been gone too long,” he reflects. The song has two parts: feathery acoustic guitar strumming and piano chords and then, at the end, a subdued march, as Granduciel declares, “I’m rising, and I’m damaged.” PARELESJordyn Simone, ‘Burn’An old-fashioned soul song is at the core of “Burn”: an invitation to “stay the night” that escalates toward despair — “There’s no hope for people like me” — and fury, as Jordyn Simone declares, “I didn’t ask for no goddamn savior.” Simone, 21, was a strong enough singer to be a teenage contestant on “The Voice,” and in “Burn” her vocal builds from a velvety tremulousness to flashes of a bitter rasp. Meanwhile, the production’s lugubrious strings and club-level bass open up new chasms beneath her. PARELESWilliam Parker, ‘Painters Winter’ and ‘Mayan Space Station’The bassist, organizer and free-jazz eminence William Parker released two albums with separate trios on Friday: “Painters Winter,” featuring the drummer Hamid Drake and the saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter, and “Mayan Space Station,” a sizzling free-fusion workout, with the guitarist Ava Mendoza curling out surf-rock lines and conjuring spacey fuzz while the drummer Gerald Cleaver drives the group steadily on. Together the LPs give an inkling of how broad Parker’s creative footprint has been on New York jazz. For a fuller measure, look to the 25th annual Vision Festival, happening now through next week in Manhattan and Brooklyn; he helped found the festival a quarter-century ago with the dancer and organizer Patricia Nicholson Parker, his wife. At 69, he hasn’t slowed down: Parker is slated to perform in no fewer than five different ensembles over the course of this year’s festival. RUSSONELLOKippie Moeketsi and Hal Singer, ‘Blue Stompin’’The alto saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi was among the first to fit bebop’s musical language into South African jazz, but he didn’t import it whole cloth. He made the language sing rather than banter, and he played with a circular, spinning approach to rhythm — related to marabi and earlier South African styles — not the typical American sense of swing. On his unaccompanied intro to “Blue Stompin’,” Moeketsi leaps in with a sharp, bluesy cry, then nods toward a carnival-style rhythm before growling his way to the end of the cadenza. Then he locks into the main melody, playing in unison with the American tenor saxophonist Hal Singer, who wrote the tune. A former Duke Ellington Orchestra member who had scored some radio hits of his own as a jump-blues saxophonist, Singer was in South Africa in 1974 on a State Department tour when he recorded a few tracks with Moeketsi. Those became an album, originally released in South Africa in ’77; it has just been remastered and released digitally by the Canadian label We Are Busy Bodies. RUSSONELLO More

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      Jack Antonoff Doesn’t Want to Just Take Up Space

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      As he prepares to release his third album with Bleachers, the musician and producer explores how his cultural must-haves intersect with his creative impulses.To the outside observer, Jack Antonoff might seem like something of a workaholic.A widely trusted collaborator whose fingerprints are all over contemporary pop, Antonoff has already worked on a number of this year’s notable releases by Lana Del Rey, Clairo and Lorde. “Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night,” the third studio album from Antonoff’s band Bleachers, is due July 30, lest anyone forget he also makes music of his own.But the portrait of Jack Antonoff, ubiquitous workhorse, isn’t familiar to Antonoff himself. “I don’t see myself doing anything different than any of the people I know,” he said. “I’ve actually put an amazing importance the past couple years on my own time and my family. And I’ve realized that sitting in the studio all night is kind of a hoax. You might be better off going to dinner with your friends.”Antonoff, 37, has been splitting his time between New York and his home state of New Jersey. Both places are woven into “Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night,” an album Antonoff wrote around the idea of falling in love and taking a new partner back home, “as a metaphor for showing them your truest self.” In promoting the record, Antonoff has made this passage extremely literal, performing his new songs while crossing state lines on a moving bus; while perched inside the Holland Tunnel; and, in the case of the single “Chinatown,” while in a car with one of his influences, Bruce Springsteen (who also lends vocals to the track).Calling from his Brooklyn apartment, Antonoff shared 10 of his much-loved cultural items — and tried to keep it honest. “When people make these lists, it always seems like they’re punching one notch above what they actually feel,” he noted. “I just jotted down a bunch of things I really like.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “Martha” by Tom WaitsI’ve never heard more longing in a song. There are plenty of songs about love and regret, and there are plenty of sad chords. And then every once in a while, you hear something that is so much bigger than the sum of its parts. In high school, I had this girlfriend, and she would put on “Foreign Affairs” and we would make out. This song isn’t on that album, but I fell in love with his voice and when that relationship ended, I took Tom Waits with me.2. John F. Kennedy MemorabiliaI have a lot of it around my house. Growing up, we had this J.F.K. bust; I don’t know where my dad got it. Then I started collecting J.F.K. busts, and all these great J.F.K. speech compilation LPs. There’s just such a heavy cultural context that comes along with it that makes you think of so many hopeful, tragic, bizarre elements of what it is to be an American. He’s become a really interesting symbol to me, in his complication.3. “The Ben Stiller Show”It was a sketch show on MTV with Ben Stiller, Andy Dick, Bob Odenkirk and Janeane Garofalo that was so incredibly far ahead of its time. I see it as kind of the architecture for a lot of more bizarre comedy that has gotten really popular in the past 10 years. And it just isn’t culturally recognized in the way that you can throw it into a conversation the same way you can “Kids in the Hall” or Upright Citizens Brigade or even “The State” — those things people have a context for.4. Martín RamírezHe was part of a field of outsider artists. There’s a great book called “American Self-Taught” that highlights a lot of this stuff: Henry Darger, Bill Traylor, William Hawkins. All these artists mean a great deal to me, because there’s something really incredible about seeing work that nobody asked anyone to make. It just comes from the desire to make it. Martín Ramírez had some real mental health issues; I don’t have much in common with him or his story, but when I look at his work, it really feels like the inside of his brain.5. Magic: The GatheringA couple of years ago, my manager and I were walking by this comic shop. When I was growing up, everyone bought Magic cards — it was a big deal, at least in my corner of Jewish New Jersey. We went in and started talking to this guy behind the counter, who was talking about Magic in this really beautiful way. So we bought some cards and started playing and got obsessed with it. There’s such an art of putting together your deck. It’s a crazy meditation on your life: You make these choices, and you put all these theories and road maps into it, but then you shuffle your deck and hope one of them will pan out. It’s just a beautiful game that requires so much of your intellect and soul. And I’ve only scratched the surface. But it’s fun to be a part of something that you could never get to the end of. That’s a bit how I feel about music: The goal is not to master this thing, the goal is to be a part of it.6. Afghan HoundsI’m enamored with them. I’ve never had one, and I’ve only met a few. But there’s a version of my life where I just need to be around one. This one is a little bit more of a free association: I thought I’d throw something in that’s entirely unexamined and coming from some deep place. I just fantasize about Afghan Hounds being around.7. @NJGov on TwitterThere’s this whole culture of brands having a snarky Twitter, and sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s kind of cooked, but this is just right on. If I go on social media and look around, that doesn’t necessarily feel like a cozy place to me, but when I see New Jersey government tweets, I feel a joy and a calmness. It’s just a job well done — that’s not as common as we act like it is. It’s so infectious when someone’s just killing it. Such a part of making records is sort of like, “Why are we doing this? We should only do this if we’re all in, not just to take up space.” The New Jersey government Twitter does not take up space.8. Sam DewHe’s an artist, someone I collaborate with a lot, a friend. He might have the best voice in the world. Every once in a while, you’re in the presence of someone who was just dropped on this earth with an ability that nobody else has. That’s not even something that I usually gravitate toward; sometimes I’m more interested in all the messy things that people can put together that make something very beautiful in the end. But if you can ever be in a room and watch him sing, it’s a life-changing experience.9. Not SpeakingHere’s how I feel about not speaking: I forget to think sometimes, and everything good in my life has come from thinking. The concept of being alone can’t be a catchall for thinking. Everyone’s like, “Spend time alone, get to know yourself,” and, like, what the [expletive] does that mean? Just because you’re alone, it doesn’t mean you’re thinking. I love being in public or around people I know and not speaking, because if you can crest past that feeling of needing to be entertaining or keep some sort of vibe going, you do real thinking when you’re around people but not speaking. Probably part of why I love the city is the ability to be around people and not speak.10. John Darnielle’s LyricsHe’s our Dylan. It’s amazing when you hear a beautiful [Mountain Goats] song about loss or love, and it makes you think of the person that you lost or loved. That’s magical. But every once in a while, you’ll hear something that pulls at a part of you that you don’t even know where it is, you just know it’s there because it’s being pulled. That’s the highest form of this work, when you’re connecting in a way that is truly beyond words, beyond anecdotes, beyond “this song makes me think of this summer with this person.” It’s just on a whole other plane. More

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      Leon Bridges Brings Southern Soul Into the 21st Century

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      The Texas songwriter finds his groove in vulnerability on his third album, “Gold-Diggers Sound.”Tenacity is baked into Southern soul. It’s there in the grain and determination of the singing, in the patiently rolling grooves, in how its down-to-earth stories unfold. It’s there in the way the music holds on to blues and gospel roots connected to deeper African ancestry. And it’s there in the way the sound persists and adapts through decades, finding new rhythms but still testifying from the heart.“Gold-Diggers Sound,” the third album by the Texas songwriter Leon Bridges, offers his personalized survival strategy for Southern soul. Bridges sings about its classic topics in songs that take their time and revel in natural, unvarnished singing. He pledges sensual romance in “Magnolias,” does some cheating (with duet vocals from Atia “Ink” Boggs) in “Don’t Worry About Me” and affirms his faith in “Born Again.” Around him, the music uses synthetic textures, programmed beats and surreal layering to carry a decades-old tradition into the 21st century.“Sweeter,” which Bridges released in June 2020 after the police murder of George Floyd, draws grace from mourning. The narrator is a dead man with his mother, sisters and brothers weeping over him. “I thought we moved on from the darker days,” Bridges sings, over a pattering trap beat and Terrace Martin’s measured electric-piano chords; he adds, “Someone should hand you a felony/Because you stole from me my chance to be.”“I cannot and will not be silent any longer,” Bridges said in a statement at the time. “Just as Abel’s blood was crying out to God, George Floyd is crying out to me.”Bridges, 32, has worked his way forward through soul-music history. His first album, “Coming Home” in 2015, introduced a singer who harked back to an era well before he was born. His voice recalled the suavity of Sam Cooke and the grit of Otis Redding, and his music was unabashedly revivalist 1960s soul. Bridges moved the timeline forward with “Good Thing” in 2018, invoking 1980s “quiet storm” R&B and 1990s neo-soul. Both albums reached the Billboard Top 10, but they left the impression that Bridges was still doing genre studies, trying on established styles.“Gold-Diggers Sound” — named after the Los Angeles studio where the album was made — is more confidently single-minded. All of its songs are midtempo or slower, often verging on languid. Gently coiling, reverb-laden electric-guitar vamps, from Nate Mercereau, turn many of the songs into meditations, and all of the tracks, no matter how much is going on under the surface, defer to Bridges’s voice. Although the writing credits are full of collaborations — including pop song doctors like Dan Wilson and Justin Tranter — the songs present Bridges as a lonely figure in a desolate space, pleading and promising.Bridges and his producers, Ricky Reed and Mercereau, have clearly heard the slow grooves of D’Angelo, Prince, R. Kelly, Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson. But there’s a different, melancholy side to Bridges’s songs and his voice: less assurance, more ache.He’s still a sweet talker, offering his lovers not only pleasure but also deeper empathy. In “Motorbike,” over a calmly plinking, African-tinged groove, he insists, “Don’t mean no pressure/I just wanna make you feel right.” A guitar vamps serenely in “Details” as he worries about a partner finding someone else; he reminds her how closely he’s paid attention to “How you look in the car when I’m driving a lil fast/How you pause when you talk when you’re trying not to laugh.”Throughout the album, Bridges dares to admit how needy he is. “Why Don’t You Touch Me” has the kind of ticking, undulating backdrop that another singer might use for an understated come-on. But Bridges’s song sees the passion ebbing out of his relationship, wonders what he might have done wrong and ends up begging: “Girl, make me feel wanted/Don’t leave me out here unfulfilled.” And Bridges ends the album not with romantic bliss, but with “Blue Mesas,” which confesses to a lingering depression that hasn’t been changed by success. It’s a contemporary choice — unexpectedly in line with the brooding sing-rap of songwriters like Polo G and Rod Wave. For Bridges, soul’s history is still unfolding.Leon Bridges“Gold-Diggers Sound”(Columbia) More

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      One of China’s Biggest Stars, Kris Wu, Faces a #MeToo Storm

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      An 18-year-old said the singer Kris Wu enticed young women like herself with career promises, then pressured them into having sex. He has denied the accusations.Several major luxury brands have severed ties with Kris Wu, a Chinese Canadian singer with a huge following, after an 18-year-old accused him of targeting and pressuring her and other young women for sex.The accusations, which Mr. Wu denied in multiple statements, have triggered widespread public outrage and thrown his career into tumult. At least 11 companies including Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Porsche and L’Oréal suspended or terminated contracts with Mr. Wu this week, after his accuser spoke out during an interview with an online Chinese news outlet on Sunday.Mr. Wu, 30, rose to fame as a member of the K-pop band EXO before embarking on a solo career as a model, actor and singer, drawing more than 50 million fans online as well as lucrative endorsement deals. Known in China as Wu Yifan, he is one of the country’s most popular celebrities to face #MeToo accusations.Mr. Wu’s accuser is Du Meizhu, a university student in Beijing who said she first met him when she was 17. She said she had been invited to Mr. Wu’s home by his agent with the suggestion that he could help her acting career, according to her social media posts and the interview with Netease, an online portal. Once there, she was pressured to drink cocktails until she lost consciousness, she said, and later found herself in his bed.Ms. Du said she believed that this was a tactic he used to draw other young women. She accused Mr. Wu of regarding women as though they were all concubines in a harem. “You look at a lot of pictures of girls at drinking parties and select them like merchandise,” she wrote in one social media post, addressing him directly.Mr. Wu has denied the accusations, through his lawyer, Zhai Jiayu, and public statements. On Monday, Mr. Wu said that he had only met Ms. Du once in December of last year.“I declare that there has never been any ‘selecting a concubine’!” he wrote on the social media platform Weibo, referring to Ms. Du’s harem comment. He denied having ever seduced, drugged or raped anyone. “If there was such behavior, please don’t worry, I will go to jail by myself!”His lawyer has vowed to file a lawsuit against Ms. Du and report her to the police for defamation. Ms. Du has also said that she reported her accusations to the police.Ms. Du and Mr. Wu did not respond to emailed requests to comment.Ms. Du’s account has been met with an outpouring of support, a sign of the growing strength of the country’s small Me Too movement. One of her posts on Weibo has been liked by more than 10 million users. Hashtags such as #girlshelpgirls and others calling for Mr. Wu to quit show business have been viewed by millions.Ms. Du’s supporters flooded the social media pages of several brands with threats of boycotts if they did not terminate their endorsement deals with Mr. Wu. One by one, the brands moved to distance themselves from him.“This incident shows that nowadays people will no longer swallow insults and humiliation and be afraid of slut shaming,” said Feng Yuan, a feminist scholar and activist. “People increasingly want to speak up and make themselves heard.”#MeToo activism can be challenging in China, where the ruling Communist Party imposes strict constraints on dissent and public debate. Some women who have come forward with accounts of abuse have faced a public and legal backlash. The authorities often discourage women from reporting rape and other sex crimes.Mr. Wu walking the runway during a Louis Vuitton show in Shanghai last year. Several major luxury brands suspended or terminated contracts with him this week.Lintao Zhang/Getty ImagesIt was unclear how the authorities were planning to respond to the allegations against Mr. Wu, but at least three groups affiliated with the government put out statements calling for an investigation.“Everyone is equal before the law, and celebrities with huge followings are no exception,” China Women’s News, the newspaper of a state-run women’s group, wrote on its social media page. “Believe that the law will not wrong a good person, nor will it let a wicked one go.”Ms. Du first started speaking out on July 8, when she released screenshots of conversations between her and Mr. Wu, as well as people she said worked for him. She accused them of enticing young women by dangling opportunities in show business.In one screenshot, dated July of last year, a person reaching out to Ms. Du on Weibo asked her if she would be interested in working in the movie industry. The person then added her contact on WeChat, a chat app, and asked if she had just completed her college entrance examination, saying that he worked for Mr. Wu’s studio and they were looking for new talent.Ms. Du said she felt helpless when she learned that Mr. Wu specifically targeted young women like her. “Indeed, we are all softhearted when we see your innocent expression, but that does not mean that we want to become playthings whom you can deceive!” she wrote in a post on Weibo.She said soon after that, another associate of Mr. Wu’s contacted her on WeChat to offer what she considered hush money to take down the post. When she demanded a public apology from Mr. Wu, the associate said they were considering legal action against her, according to screenshots of the chat she posted online. She said that 500,000 yuan, or nearly $80,000, was later transferred to her bank account, though she had not given her consent.A store displaying an advertisement featuring Mr. Wu. His accuser, Du Meizhu, has been a target of cyberbullying since going public.Tingshu Wang/ReutersIn the Netease interview on Sunday, Ms. Du said that she had started to return the money in batches and that she was gearing up for a legal fight.In detailing her first encounter with Mr. Wu, Ms. Du said that she had been told that she would be going to discuss potential jobs. She said that she tried to leave, but that his staff took away her phone and warned that if Mr. Wu did not have a good time, it could be detrimental to her future as an actor.Pressured into drinking heavily, she said, she ended up sleeping with Mr. Wu. They dated until March, according to her account of the events, when he stopped responding to her calls and messages.Since then, she said, she had heard from seven other women who had been similarly treated. She said she wanted to fight for their interests as well. She did not identify the other people, and the accusations could not be immediately corroborated.Since going public, Ms. Du said she has been a target of cyberbullying and death threats, and that she had been diagnosed with depression. Mr. Wu’s international fan club said in a post on Weibo: “It’s a pity to see a groundless internet drama turn into an evil carnival that violates the truth and laws.”But several other people on social media this week posted messages of support, including screenshots of chats that they said indicated Mr. Wu or his staff inappropriately targeted young women.“Girls, please protect yourself,” Zhang Dansan, a former member of a girl band, wrote on Weibo on Monday, after sharing screenshots of conversations that she said showed how Mr. Wu had asked her if she was a virgin. “I want to be loved too, but don’t be fooled.” More

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      Rick Laird, Bassist at the Forefront of Fusion, Dies at 80

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      He played with jazz greats and helped make music history with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. But he gave it up in his 40s to become a photographer.Rick Laird, a bassist who played a central role in the jazz-rock fusion boom as a founding member of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, then retired from music to pursue a career in photography, died on July 4 in New City, N.Y. He was 80.His daughter, Sophie Rose Laird, said the cause was lung cancer.The guitarist John McLaughlin called Mr. Laird in 1971 with an invitation to join a group he was forming with the goal of uniting the jazz-rock aesthetic — which Mr. McLaughlin had helped establish as a member of Miles Davis and Tony Williams’s earliest electric bands — with Indian classical music and European experimentalism.The new ensemble, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, which also featured the drummer Billy Cobham, the keyboardist Jan Hammer and the violinist Jerry Goodman, became one of the most popular instrumental bands of its time. It released a pair of studio albums now regarded as classics for Columbia Records, “The Inner Mounting Flame” (1971) and “Birds of Fire” (1973), and one live album, “Between Nothingness & Eternity” (1973).Mr. Laird had already begun to prove himself in the jazz world as a promising upright bassist, but with Mahavishnu he switched to playing electric exclusively. The group ranged from simmering interplay over odd time signatures to thrashing, high-altitude improvisation. It was all dependent on Mr. Laird’s steady hand, and on his knack for balancing power with restraint.“Someone had to say one” — that is, make clear where each measure began — “and that was me,” Mr. Laird said in a 1999 interview with Bass Player magazine.On the day of Mr. Laird’s death, Mr. Cobham posted a tribute on Facebook calling him “the most dependable person in that band.” Mr. Laird, he said, “played what was necessary to keep the rest of us from going off our musical rails.”“He was my rock,” Mr. Cobham added, “and allowed me to play and explore musical regions that I would not have been able to navigate without him having my back!”All of Mr. McLaughlin’s bandmates left Mahavishnu in the mid-1970s amid disagreements over money, creative control and the role of religion in the group. (Mr. McLaughlin was a devoted follower of the spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy and wanted the band to express his teachings directly.) He would continue the band for years, using different lineups.Mr. Laird spent the rest of the decade as a bassist-for-hire with some of the most esteemed names in jazz, touring the United States and the world with the saxophonists Joe Henderson and Stan Getz, among others. In the late 1970s he spent a brief stint in a band led by the keyboardist Chick Corea.Mr. Laird released one album of his own, “Soft Focus,” recorded in 1976, which featured Mr. Henderson.But in 1982, fearing that a musician’s lifestyle would prove unstable as he grew older, Mr. Laird embraced his other passion: photography. He had bought cameras and equipment on a tour of Japan and started doing photo shoots for fellow musicians. He soon made taking pictures his full-time job, shooting portraits for law firms and doing stock photography for agencies.But he also composed and recorded frequently throughout his retirement, although these projects have not been officially released.In addition to his daughter, Mr. Laird is survived by his sister, Tanya Laird; his brother, David; and his partner, Jane Meryll. His two marriages ended in divorce.Mr. Laird in 1967. He had begun to prove himself in the jazz world as a promising upright bassist before joining Mahavishnu and switching to electric.via Sophie LairdRichard Quentin Laird was born in Dublin on Feb. 5, 1941. His father, William Desmond Laird, a building contractor, was Protestant, and his mother, Margaret Muriel (Le Gear) Laird, a homemaker, was Roman Catholic; although neither parent was particularly religious, their families weren’t on speaking terms. Eventually, the couple split up.At 16, Rick was sent to live on a sheep farm in New Zealand. Hoping to pursue a career in music, he eventually moved to Sydney, Australia, where he gained a reputation on the jazz scene before moving to London.There he became the house bassist at Ronnie Scott’s, a top jazz club that often hosted musicians on international tours, and met some of the world’s most famous jazz talent. He played with the likes of the guitarist Wes Montgomery and the trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, and engagements with the saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Ben Webster led to albums with them.It was a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston that first took Mr. Laird to the United States, in 1966. He moved to Los Angeles without graduating and joined the drummer Buddy Rich’s band for a year before relocating to New York. In the early 2000s, he moved to New City, just north of New York City, where he lived until his death. He died in a hospice facility.In an interview for Guitar Player magazine in 1980, Mr. Laird reflected on a career as a side musician.“If you play a supportive role, instead of soloing constantly, the chances of becoming well known by the average audience are very slim,” he said. “The more I’ve refined my skills, the less I get noticed.“It’s a paradox, but I don’t mind. I don’t think I need my ego stroked like that.” More

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      Olivia Rodrigo Stays No. 1 With ‘Sour’ After White House Trip

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      The 18-year-old singer earned her fourth week atop the Billboard album chart, following a visit with President Biden.Last week, the singer Olivia Rodrigo walked into the White House with the No. 1 album in the country. This week, having made her pitch to get young people vaccinated, she is still on top.“Sour,” the debut album by the 18-year-old pop star and actress, earned its fourth week at No. 1 since its release in May — and its first back-to-back performance atop the Billboard 200 — thanks in part to a slow week of releases. No new album appears in the Top 10 for the first time in two months, according to Billboard, after a flurry of major releases seemed to signal a return for the music business following a year and a half of pandemic strictures.The numbers for “Sour” were down slightly from last week, with the equivalent of 83,000 in sales — including 102 million streams — according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. A first album by a woman has not topped the chart for four weeks since “I Dreamed a Dream” by Susan Boyle of “Britain’s Got Talent” in 2009 and 2010, Billboard said.Outside of her chart dominance, Rodrigo reached a different audience on Wednesday, when she attended a White House briefing, toured the West Wing with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, and made a series of educational videos with President Biden — all to the befuddlement of some culturally incurious members of the political press.The rest of the Billboard Top 5 is made up of familiar faces: Doja Cat’s “Planet Her” remains at No. 2, where it has sat for the three weeks since its release, with 61,000 equivalent albums; Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album,” which spent 10 weeks at No. 1, is No. 3; “The Voice of the Heroes,” a one-time chart-topper by Lil Baby and Lil Durk is No. 4; and Polo G’s “Hall of Fame,” another former No. 1, is currently No. 5.On the singles chart, the Hot 100, the K-pop group BTS replaced itself at No. 1 with a new song, “Permission to Dance” (written in part by Ed Sheeran), after seven straight weeks on top with “Butter.” That swap let Rodrigo hang on to the longest run at No. 1 so far this year, as “Drivers License” spent eight weeks there from January to March. More

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      When Pop Music Trolls Grow Up

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      Over the past month, the Top 5 of the Billboard 200 featured debuts by Tyler, the Creator and Doja Cat, two artists who, early in their careers, sometimes functioned as trolls. They are children of the internet with a taste for friction — Tyler as the leader of the raucous, parent-unsettling Odd Future crew, and Doja as an absurdist with a reckless streak.Now they’re at the center of pop, and their new albums represent different ways of maturing in the spotlight. Doja is a musical centrist, but imbues her songs with sexual friskiness and light camp. Tyler, eager to show off his gift for straight-ahead hip-hop (a world he’s still somewhat excluded from), has moved on from trolling outsiders to trolling insiders.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about how these two musicians have navigated paths from the margins to the center, and about whether, in order to be an effective 2020s pop star, you need to have a little bit of troll in you after all.Guest:Justin Charity, staff writer at The Ringer and co-host of the “Sound Only” podcast More

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      For U.K. Bands, Touring Europe Is Now a Highway to Brexit Hell

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      It’s not just that musicians need visas. Band merchandise is now a complicated export, and most tour vans are only allowed to make three stops.LONDON — When the British rock band Two Door Cinema Club began playing shows across Europe a decade ago, the group’s three members would jump in a van, throw their instruments in the back and drive from their then hometown, Belfast, Northern Ireland, to sweaty clubs in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Paris.“We did that hundreds of times,” Kevin Baird, the group’s bassist, said recently by phone. “Everything was at a moment’s notice,” he added.Now, it’s not so simple for Two Door Cinema Club — or any British act — to tour Europe. Last Friday, the band headlined the Cruïlla music festival in Barcelona, Spain, playing to an audience of 25,000 screaming fans. But because of Britain’s 2020 departure from the European Union, known as Brexit, the band spent weeks beforehand applying for visas and immersing themselves in complicated new rules around trucking and exporting merchandise like T-shirts.Visas and travel within Britain to apply for them cost 7,500 pounds, about $10,400, for the band, two extra musicians, and an eight-person crew, Baird said. New rules mean that a British tour van carrying audio and lighting equipment, or merchandise, can only make three stops in mainland Europe before it must return home.Before Britain left the E.U., Two Door Cinema Club would head off on tour at a moment’s notice. Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“It’s proved a headache when there was never a headache before,” Baird said. “If we were a band starting out, we wouldn’t have done it,” he added.For much of this year, Brexit has been an even bigger talking point in Britain’s music industry than the coronavirus pandemic. Since Jan. 1, when a trade deal between Britain and the European Union came into force, hundreds of British musicians — including Dua Lipa and Radiohead — have complained that the deal makes touring the continent more costly for stadium acts, and almost impossible for new bands.The new rules are “a looming catastrophe” for young musicians, Elton John wrote on Instagram in June. “This is about whether one of the U.K.’s most successful industries, worth £111 billion a year, is allowed to prosper and contribute hugely to both our cultural and economic wealth, or crash and burn,” he added.Even musicians who supported Brexit have complained. Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of Iron Maiden, told a TV interviewer in June that, although he welcomed Britain’s departure from the European Union, he found the new rules unreasonable. He then addressed Britain’s government: “Get your act together,” he said.The furor over the regulations has led to a blame game between Britain’s government and the European Union over which side is responsible for the new barriers, and who made viable offers when negotiating the trade deal.Regardless of who is responsible, the issue has become an embarrassment for the British government. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said his government is working “flat out” on the issue. “We must fix this,” he told lawmakers in March.Yet so far, there hasn’t been enough progress to appease musicians. In June, Britain agreed to new trade deals that the government said would allow musicians to tour easily in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. This was met with disdain: “Ah those infamous tours of mountainous Liechtenstein with its total lack of airport,” Simone Marie of the band Primal Scream wrote on Twitter.“We’re all becoming increasingly despondent,” said Annabella Coldrick, the chief executive of the Music Managers Forum, a trade body. In June, she helped launch Let the Music Move, a campaign for the government to compensate artists for the new extra costs and renegotiate the tour rules.Rebecca Swann drove her truck from Britain to Spain, carrying the band’s equipment.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesThe band’s equipment, which now can make only three stops in mainland Europe before it must return home.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“The problems are only just starting to become clear,” as the coronavirus pandemic eases and bands start booking tours, Coldrick said. The biggest sticking point was the regulation that vans and trucks can only stop three times before they must return to Britain, she added.Several British music trucking businesses have already moved some of their operations to Ireland to get around the rules. But Coldrick said this was not a viable solution: Trucks would also have to make longer journeys to pick bands up, increasing costs. It also seemed like a poor outcome for Britain, she said, because the country was losing companies and workers.For Two Door Cinema Club, the main issue was visas, said Colin Schaverien, the band’s manager. In June, a member of the band’s crew was rejected for a visa on a technicality related to his job title, so he had to reapply. Another band member, based in Belfast, was told they had to fly to Scotland for a visa appointment.Despite the band’s problems before traveling to Spain, Two Door Cinema Club’s show last Friday went off without a hitch.“All the things we were worried about didn’t materialize,” said Baird, the bassist. The band’s equipment, traveling in a truck from London, cleared customs on the British side in 25 minutes; checks at the border in France took only 10. The band, whose members flew to Barcelona, had no problems at the airport.Once in, the group was so excited to be playing a show after months sitting at home during the coronavirus pandemic, they took selfies of every moment, Baird said.Fans, mostly in face masks, enjoying Two Door Cinema Club’s show at the music festival.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesThe crowd was equally excited, said Marc Loan, 36, a fan who was in the audience. “I made sure I didn’t drink much, so I didn’t have to miss anything,” he added.“It was amazing,” Baird said of the night.Brexit was the last thing on his mind during the gig, Baird added, but it reared its head the next day when the band and crew headed to the airport to fly home. Members of the group with Irish passports, which everyone born in Northern Ireland can hold as well as a British one, breezed through passport control; those with British passports were stuck in line for only an hour.The band was pleased with the trip but Baird was worried about how a more complicated schedule would work. “We’re all well aware this was a one-off concert,” he said. “What we’re apprehensive about is next year when we’re playing three different countries in three days. I expect that will be a lot harder.” More