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      Eminem and LL Cool J Duel in Speedy Raps, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Sophie featuring Bibi Bourelly, Kim Deal, Tommy Richman and more.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.LL Cool J featuring Eminem, ‘Murdergram Deux’LL Cool J, 56, and Eminem, 51, show off old-school, high-speed, crisply articulated rhyme technique in “Murdergram Deux,” nominally a sequel to “Murdergram” from LL Cool J’s 1990 album “Mama Said Knock You Out.” It’s all boasts, threats, wordplay and similes — “’bout to finish you like polyurethane,” Eminem raps — set to a jaunty, changeable track produced by Eminem and none other than Q-Tip. Eminem has the slightly higher syllable count, while LL Cool J gets the last word, a cheerful callback to his commercial peak. JON PARELESSophie featuring Bibi Bourelly, ‘Exhilarate’The hyperpop visionary Sophie had mapped out a full album before she died in an accident in 2021; “Sophie,” completed by her brother and other collaborators, is due in September. “Exhilarate” takes the conventions of a big-room trance anthem — four chords, sumptuously reverberating synthesizer tones, a stately underlying beat — and warps them from the bottom up. Bibi Bourelly sings euphoric layered harmonies, proclaiming, “Got my foot on the gas/And I won’t stop for no one.” But the drumbeat leaves spaces instead of thumping four on the floor, while bass tones wriggle and melt and the midrange gets zapped with buzzy tones. The track’s entire last minute is a slow-motion collapse into entropy and silence. PARELESKim Deal, ‘Crystal Breath’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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      Basel Will Host Eurovision Song Contest (Unless Its Taxpayers Revolt)

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      Many in the Swiss city celebrated the announcement. But after a debate about the cost, a conservative party wants a referendum over whether the public should pay.Basel, a quaint riverside city in northern Switzerland, on Friday won the right to host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, the high-camp international singing competition.To many Basel residents, the news, which Eurovision’s organizers announced in a release, was a cause for celebration: Next May, the city would have a moment in the international spotlight.Yet some lawmakers in Switzerland had an altogether different reaction. To them, Eurovision is not a fun spectacle; it is a waste of money and “a celebration of evil” that has no place in their country.Members of the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland, a conservative Christian party, are campaigning for a referendum to stop Basel’s government contributing tens of millions of dollars toward Eurovision’s running costs.Samuel Kullmann, the lawmaker leading the campaign, said that Eurovision had a “cultural agenda” that threatened Christian values. That included, he added, allowing musicians to promote Satanism onstage.At this year’s Eurovision, Kullmann said, entrants included Bambie Thug, a heavy metal act representing Ireland, who sang standing in a pentagram. “People might say it’s metal or Gothic music, but they’re ignoring the obvious,” Kullmann said. “It was a celebration of evil.”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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      Dueling Ramones Heirs Fight Over the Punk Band’s Legacy

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      The brother of Joey Ramone and the widow of Johnny Ramone, who each control half of the band’s intellectual property rights, have filed lawsuits against each other.Years of disputes over control of the legacy of the Ramones escalated this month when the brother of Joey Ramone sued the widow of Johnny Ramone, accusing her of trademark infringement, trademark dilution and breach of contract.Joey Ramone’s brother, Mickey Leigh, and Johnny Ramone’s widow, Linda Cummings-Ramone, each control 50 percent of Ramones Productions, the company that holds the punk band’s intellectual property rights. Joey Ramone, its lead vocalist, died in 2001, and Johnny Ramone, the guitarist, in 2004.In the lawsuit, Mickey Leigh, whose legal name is Mitchel Hyman, accuses Ms. Cummings-Ramone of improperly exploiting the band’s legacy — often in sharply personal terms — and leveraging its intellectual property “for her own fame and vanity.”Ms. Cummings-Ramone had sued Mr. Hyman in January, accusing him of wrongfully developing a Ramones biopic without her approval. That case is pending.Representatives for Mr. Hyman and Ms. Cummings-Ramone did not respond to a request for comment.Alan Fisch, a veteran intellectual properties litigator, said Ms. Cummings-Ramone’s ownership stake in Ramones Productions did not necessarily grant her control over its intellectual assets.“Just because she owns half of the business doesn’t mean she has an unfettered right to use its intellectual property,” he said. “That each of the two shareholders have different views is part of the challenge that they’ve created for themselves in being 50 percent owners.”The rivalry between Mr. Hyman and Ms. Cummings-Ramone in some ways mirrors the famously chilly relationship between Joey and Johnny Ramone. Before she began dating Johnny Ramone, Ms. Cummings-Ramone, a philanthropist and model, was in a multiyear relationship with Joey Ramone.Mr. Hyman and Ms. Cummings-Ramone’s clash reached an inflection point in 2018, when he took her to arbitration over the usage of Ramones trademarks in an annual tribute event for Johnny Ramone. Mr. Hyman also objected to Ms. Cummings-Ramone’s adoption of the name “Linda Ramone,” which he said falsely portrayed her as the “keeper of the legacy” of the group. (The last name “Ramone” was a pseudonym and not the legal name of any member of the band.)When the arbitrator ruled on those disputes, he also expressed frustration with their frequent battles.“Mickey Hyman and Linda Cummings-Ramone have an almost sacred mission to be the caretakers for the band’s creative work, to protect their iconic brand and to educate new fans in order to grow their legend,” he wrote. “Instead, the parties have allowed their personal egos and their animus for one another to interfere with their joint obligations.” More

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      What’s the Deal With the Dare?

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      In the stairwell of Electric Lady Studios a few weeks ago, Harrison Patrick Smith, 28, was handed a coat hanger carrying an unassuming pair of pants and a T-shirt. “Oh, my street clothes!” he said and laughed, subtly pumping a low fist by his side. “Yes!”Smith, who records dance rock he characterized as “electroclash revival” with a “supersized attitude” as the Dare, isn’t always in his signature crisp black suit, and doesn’t always prefer it. But you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise, as he’s been spotted in it a lot lately: performing live, attending fashion shows, filming music videos, at parties.“All of my musical heroes typically commit to the bit, and are larger than life, and the music is never secondary,” Smith explained earlier that day. “The bit” — in this case, the suit — “furthers the story of the music, or piques the interest or the imagination of the listener even more.”He referenced David Bowie’s Thin White Duke persona. “If he was just wearing a T-shirt and jeans, would he be David Bowie? And would you even like the music as much?” Smith continued. “If there wasn’t that lore around the music, would you even like any of it?” he asked, not without earnestness.Harrison Patrick Smith, who records as the Dare, makes music that provokes a strong response.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesNearing the release of his debut album, “What’s Wrong With New York?” (out Sept. 6), mentioning the Dare to anyone with an opinion about him is sure to provoke a strong one.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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      Oasis Comeback: A Timeline of the Gallagher Brothers’ Feud

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      When Liam and Noel Gallagher get together, hide the tambourines.The Kinks, the Allman Brothers Band, the Jacksons: Every band of brothers occasionally bickered, even feuded.But no sibling rivalry reached the level of rancor found in Oasis, the Britpop band that improbably announced that it is reuniting after years of animosity, insults and at least one incident involving a cricket bat.Here’s a look at the roller coaster career of Liam and Noel Gallagher, two brothers who managed to produce the music of a generation while mostly despising each other.The sound of the ’90s had a taste of the ’60s.The members of Oasis in 1993, from left to right: Paul McGuigan, Noel Gallagher, Tony McCarroll, Paul Arthurs and Liam Gallagher. James Fry/Getty ImagesOasis was formed in 1991 in Manchester, England. There were various members, some of whom came and went. But the constants were the Gallagher brothers: Liam, the lead singer, and Noel, the lead guitarist and songwriter.They soon came to be the most prominent band in a ’90s movement called Britpop, joining groups like Blur and Pulp in producing catchy rock music with a ’60s influence.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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      9 Surprising Songs Sampled in Classic Hip-Hop Tracks

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      Hear where moments of Kraftwerk, Enya, Herb Alpert and more ended up in producers’ deft hands.Kraftwerk.Cyril Zingaro/Keystone, via Associated PressDear listeners,Today’s playlist is a celebration of a tried-and-true method of discovering new-to-you music: identifying the samples in hip-hop songs.In his recently released book “Hip-Hop Is History,” Questlove recalls a story from his childhood that speaks to this experience. When he couldn’t fall asleep, he’d listen to the radio in the middle of the night, when D.J.s were free to play the most outré sounds. “During those years,” he writes, “I heard a song that was bizarre synth music, completely compelling, pure hypnosis on the airwaves.” He tried to tape it but could never correctly anticipate when it would come on. Several years passed and he still hadn’t figured out what that elusive song was, but then one day he heard it — or something like it — at a roller rink birthday party. When he asked about it, the D.J. was so taken with his curiosity, he gifted him the 12-inch single. “It was ‘Planet Rock,’” he writes, referencing the legendary track by Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force. “It sampled the Kraftwerk song I had heard, which I learned was called ‘Trans-Europe Express.’ That party and that 12-inch made my day, my year and part of my life.”These days it’s much easier to track down the source of a sample, thanks to Google searches, apps like Shazam and websites like the invaluable database WhoSampled.com. But samples are still powerful portals between genres, cultures and music’s past and present. Sampling is the reason Dr. Dre is one degree of separation from the Scottish composer David McCallum, and why we know that Enya is a fan of the Fugees — and vice versa.There are so many great and unexpected samples in classic hip-hop songs that today’s playlist should be considered only a brief introduction. (Perhaps a sequel will arrive in a future Amplifier, too.) If you’re a true hip-hop head, listen to the playlist before reading the descriptions below and see how many tracks you can name from hearing the source material of their samples. And if you’re more familiar with the originals than the songs that sampled them, make sure you also check out the hip-hop classics linked in the descriptions below.We so tight that you get our styles tangled,LindsayListen along while you read.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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      Is This Massive Attack Concert the Gold Standard for a Green Gig?

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      Coldplay and Billie Eilish have tried to drive down carbon emissions while touring, but the British band Massive Attack has tried to take the efforts even further.When the British band Massive Attack was halfway through a West Coast tour in 2019, flying from show to show, the rapper and singer Robert Del Naja had a moment of crisis. Given all the carbon emitted by moving the band and its equipment around, he recalled wondering: Can I justify this anymore?Not long afterward, the band made a decision. It would work with climate scientists to develop a model for touring that made as little climate impact as possible.On Sunday, Massive Attack staged a daylong 35,000-person festival in the band’s home city of Bristol, England, to showcase the carbon-cutting measures it has developed with the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, a British organization, and A Greener Future, a nonprofit focused on lowering the music industry’s emissions.The concert on Sunday was powered by batteries charged from wind and solar energy.Sandra Mickiewicz for The New York TimesFans were encouraged to travel to the show by walking, cycling or using public transportation.Sandra Mickiewicz for The New York TimesWhereas other bands, including Coldplay, have staged attention-grabbing stunts to draw awareness to the industry’s climate impacts, they have sometimes ignored the main sources of emissions from gigs, such as audience travel and venues’ power supplies. With its show on Sunday, Massive Attack wanted to show how to tackle all of the polluting parts of a show.In an interview a few days before the event, Del Naja said that previous music industry efforts to cut emissions had not been in line with the United Nations-agreed goal to stop average temperatures rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 Fahrenheit.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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      Oasis Announces Reunion Tour After 15 Years of Brotherly War

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      Liam and Noel Gallagher’s 1990s Britpop band will play dates in Britain and Ireland in 2025.In the list of rock bands considered least likely to bury their hatchets long enough to successfully reunite, the British group Oasis has always been near the very top.At its peak in the 1990s, Oasis — led by the brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher — exemplified the soaring appeal of Britpop, with anthemic hits like “Wonderwall,” “Live Forever” and “Champagne Supernova” that could produce mass singalongs in any pub or arena. In 1994, the group’s debut, “Definitely Maybe,” rocketed to the top of the British pop chart and became a zeitgeist-defining moment for a new wave of English rock.But the band kept crashing down to earth, largely through the fisticuffs — verbal and physical — of the Gallagher brothers. In 1995, a 14-minute unofficial CD was released of Noel and Liam getting sidetracked during a journalist’s interview to bicker with each other, loudly and ruthlessly if not quite comprehensibly.The band split up in 2009 — “I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer,” Noel said at the time — and over the years the Gallaghers have continued to lob public insults at each other.Now they seem to have reconciled sufficiently to announce a comeback tour in summer 2025, which is to include shows throughout Britain and Ireland, including at least four nights at Wembley Stadium in London. The band announced the tour on its website. In a statement, the band said plans were underway for dates on “other continents outside of Europe later next year.”“The great wait is over,” the statement added: “Come see.” The announcement was no surprise. Over the weekend, Oasis posted Tuesday’s date on its website and social media accounts, after days of gossip on social media and detailed reporting from anonymous “industry insiders” in the British news media about an imminent tour announcement. Liam Gallagher himself boosted those rumors. When one fan said he was “scared” about the news to come, Liam answered, “Your scared how do you think I feel.” Streams of the band’s catalog spiked in anticipation.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