Pop and Rock Music

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      Joni Mitchell Will Make a Rare Televised Appearance at the Grammys

      by

      The singer-songwriter, who has spoken in public infrequently since a 2015 aneurysm, will present an award live at the ceremony Sunday night in Las Vegas.Follow our live coverage of the 2022 Grammy Awards.When viewers tune in to the 64th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night, they will see some familiar celebrities at the microphone as presenters, including Megan Thee Stallion, Questlove, Dua Lipa, Lenny Kravitz and Jared Leto.And one surprising one: Joni Mitchell.It will be a rare public appearance for Mitchell, 78, the revered singer and composer from Canada who was one of the defining figures of the singer-songwriter movement of the 1960s and ’70s. Never one for the limelight, Mitchell has kept a very low public profile since she had an aneurysm in 2015, and spent subsequent years in gradual recovery.The last year or two has brought a wave of recognition for Mitchell. Her 1971 album “Blue,” which had little commercial impact upon its release but was long a connoisseur’s favorite, was widely celebrated last year, upon its 50th anniversary. In December, she was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor, and a sampling of her songs, like “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Both Sides Now,” were performed by Brandi Carlile, Brittany Howard and Norah Jones. In a speech during the White House reception for the event, she addressed her health, saying, “I’m hobbling along but I’m doing all right.” She even joked in an on-camera interview on the red carpet, “I’m old enough to have been honored before.”In a taped interview last year, for a virtual Grammy gala hosted by the music executive Clive Davis, she gave an overview of her career, saying that the folk music world of the mid-1960s was “territorial” about repertoire, and that she learned “the only way around this dilemma is to begin to write your own songs.” She also told Davis that she had only recently realized the breadth of her influence; for years, she said, “all I was aware of were bad reviews.”Mitchell last released an album of new songs in 2007. In January, she asked Spotify to remove her music after Neil Young did the same, as a protest against the streaming service over its role in giving a platform to Covid-19 vaccine misinformation.On Friday, Mitchell will also be the honoree in a gala for MusiCares, a Grammy-affiliated charity that helps needy musicians, with Cyndi Lauper, Stephen Stills, Herbie Hancock, Jon Batiste, Sara Bareilles, Beck, Carlile and others performing her music. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      Bill Fries, Singer Known for 1970s Trucking Ballad ‘Convoy,’ Dies at 93

      by

      Mr. Fries, who performed under the stage name C.W. McCall, was an ad executive before he scored a hit with “Convoy,” a CB radio-inspired ode to renegade truckers.Bill Fries, the deep-voiced country singer known as C.W. McCall, who turned an ad campaign for an Iowa bread company into the outlaw trucker anthem, “Convoy,” which reached No. 1 on the charts in 1976 and inspired a Sam Peckinpah movie, died on Friday at his home in Ouray, Colo. He was 93.His death was confirmed by his son, Bill Fries III, who said his father had been in hospice care for about six months.Mr. Fries was working as an ad executive at Bozell & Jacobs in Omaha in the 1970s, when he helped to create a series of television commercials for Metz Baking Company about a trucker named C.W. McCall hauling Old Home bread in an eighteen-wheeler and a gum-snapping waitress named Mavis at the Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep On A-Truckin’ Cafe.The ads — including one that ended with the tagline “Old Home is good buns” — became wildly popular and helped pump up Old Home bread sales as they told the story of a diesel-scented romance between Mavis and C.W., who spoke in a formidable twang voiced by Mr. Fries.“It was just amazing,” Mr. Fries once told Bozell. “Fan clubs were springing up and people were calling into TV and radio stations wanting to know when the spots were going to air.”In 1974, the ads were recognized by the Clio Awards as the nation’s best overall television advertising campaign.“When I accepted the award, I could see the shock and horror on the faces of all those New York advertising executives,” Mr. Fries told The Omaha World-Herald in 2001. “I remember saying, ‘I’ll bet y’all never thought something this good could come out of Omaha.’”Mr. Fries helped to spin the ads into a promotional record for Metz Baking Company, called “Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep On A-Truckin’ Cafe,” which sold about 30,000 copies, according to Bozell. Before long, MGM Records in Nashville was calling.With a record deal from MGM, Mr. Fries spawned a cultural phenomenon with “Convoy,” an ode to renegade truckers driving across the country, written with Chip Davis, who had also written the music for the Old Home bread ads and who went on to found the group Mannheim Steamroller, known for its Christmas music.Crackling with CB radio lingo, the song tells the story of the truckers Rubber Duck and Pig Pen who are “puttin’ the hammer down” as they thumb their noses at speed limits, industry rules and law enforcement officers — “bears” and “smokies” in CB parlance. Along the way, they end up leading 1,000 trucks and “11 longhaired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus.”Originally recorded merely as an album filler, “Convoy” tapped into the surging popularity of trucker culture and CB radio, which truckers used to communicate during long, lonely hours on the open road. It was part of a boom in trucking-themed country songs like “Roll On Big Mama” by Joe Stampley and “Willin’” by Little Feat.“Convoy” spent six weeks at the top of the country charts and crossed into the top of the pop charts for a week, according to The World-Herald. More than 20 million copies of the single have been sold, according to Bozell. In 1978, Mr. Peckinpah turned the song into a movie, “Convoy,” starring Kris Kristofferson as Rubber Duck.“It went farther than I would have ever dreamed,” Mr. Fries told The World-Herald. “I’ve got a whole scrapbook full of articles people have written through the years about ‘Convoy’ and the ‘Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep On A-Truckin’ Cafe.’”Billie Dale Fries was born on Nov. 15, 1928, in Audubon, Iowa, and later changed his name to William Dale Fries Jr. His father, Billie Fries, was a supervisor at a farm-equipment plant that manufactured hog pens. His mother, Margaret Fries, was a homemaker.After graduating from high school, Mr. Fries attended the University of Iowa for a year and then came back to Audubon and started a sign-painting business.In the late 1940s, he went to work for the NBC affiliate in Omaha as an art director, which led him into advertising and a job at Bozell & Jacobs.In addition to his son, Bill Fries III, he is survived by his wife of 70 years, Rena Fries, two other children, Mark Fries and Nancy Fries, four grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and a great-great-grandson.Mr. Fries said he got the idea for “Convoy” while sitting in his Jeep listening to CB radio chatter.“It sounds like a war going on out there,” he told Mr. Davis. “It might be an idea for the album.”Mr. Fries, who ultimately released nine albums, according to his son, retired to Ouray, a city about 300 miles southwest of Denver, in 1981. He was elected mayor in 1986 and served until 1992, his son said.Even after his country music career was over, Mr. Fries said the runaway success of “Convoy” remained an enduring source of pride.“It’s one of those things that can only happen in America,” he told The World-Herald. “CBs have all faded into the woodwork. Most young people won’t even know about CBs or truck convoys, but at the time it was the thing. That was pretty special.”Jack Begg More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Harry Styles Tries On Synth-Pop, and 13 More New Songs

      by

      Hear tracks by Angel Olsen, Koffee, Barrie 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.Harry Styles, ‘As It Was’In “As It Was,” Harry Styles latches on to the kind of peppy electro-pop that the Weeknd updated from groups like a-ha. The song is from Styles’s third album, “Harry’s House,” due May 20, and its insistently upbeat production stokes the ambiguity of the lyrics. When he sings, “In this world, it’s just us/You know it’s not the same as it was,” it’s impossible to tell whether he’s pulling away or longing to reunite. JON PARELESBarrie, ‘Jersey’The Brooklyn musician and producer Barrie Lindsay makes music that sounds like the work of an introvert with a kaleidoscopically vivid inner world. Throughout her tuneful, gently melancholy new album “Barbara,” there’s a muttered, endearingly modest quality to her vocal delivery that’s contrasted with her colorful, adventurous production choices. That signature push and pull can be heard on the album’s lush opening song “Jersey,” where, atop an intricately layered track, Lindsay shrugs sweetly, “You didn’t dream so long, I’m just the girl that you got.” LINDSAY ZOLADZAngel Olsen, ‘All the Good Times’Angel Olsen’s forthcoming album “Big Time,” out June 3, was written during an emotionally tumultuous moment in her life: At age 34, she came out as queer to her family, only to lose both of her parents, in quick succession, to illness shortly afterward. Olsen certainly knows how to capture and exorcise melodramatic feelings in her music — see: “Lark,” the bombastic leadoff track from her great 2019 album “All Mirrors” — but the first single from “Big Time” is more of a slow burn, smoldering and occasionally sparking with sudden, cathartic surges. Pivoting from the luscious synth-scapes of “All Mirrors,” “All the Good Times” harkens back to Olsen’s twangy roots, and its melody has a laid-back confidence that occasionally brings Willie Nelson to mind. “I’ll be long gone, thanks for the songs, guess it’s time to wake up from the trip we’ve been on,” Olsen sings, as the instrumentation swells to meet her suddenly impassioned croon. ZOLADZJensen McRae, ‘Take It Easy’“I don’t wanna talk about it any more,” the Los Angeles songwriter Jensen McRae announces as she begins “Take It Easy,” from her debut album, “Are You Happy Now?” But of course she does. The tone is serene, two chords riding a gentle Caribbean lilt, even as she sings about grappling with burdens that seem to be both physical and emotional. She wonders, “Atlas, did your back get sore?,” but she finds a graceful equilibrium. PARELESThomas Rhett featuring Katy Perry, ‘Where We Started’What is country music right now? It’s a far cry from great pickers and singers collaborating in real time, as it was in honky-tonk history. Like the rest of pop, it’s a construction. Thomas Rhett, a country superstar, sings about a romance with a waitress who’s hoping for a musical career, played by Katy Perry, in “Where We Started,” the last song but the title track of his new album. “I’d be playing my guitar singing those covers in an empty room,” she faux-recalls. The beats are programmed drum-machine tones, like trap, with guitars that sound like loops, and the collaboration with Perry may well have been remote. It’s an artificial path toward a real feeling. PARELESIbeyi featuring Jorja Smith, ‘Lavender and Red Roses’Hand drums and echoey, hovering voices give “Lavender and Red Roses” the atmosphere of a ritual procession, as Ibeyi — the French, Afro-Cuban twins Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz — and the English singer Jorja Smith bemoan a self-destructive partner: “I’ve welcomed you with open arms baby/But you still walk towards the dark lately,” they sing, as hope fades. PARELESMichael Leonhart Orchestra featuring Elvis Costello, Joshua Redman and JSWISS, ‘Shut Him Down’The Grammy-winning Michael Leonhart Orchestra converts itself into a crack studio band on “Shut Him Down,” the guest star-fueled opener to its newest album, playing a groove infused with the bubbling patter of Nigerian juju music. Elvis Costello takes center stage, rattling off a few shifty-eyed verses from the point of view of a man fighting a charge. Then the rapper JSWISS drops his own bars, toying with wordplay and internal rhyme, before the tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman carries things to a close. Always an effusive improviser, he threatens to blow the lid off this medium-boiling track, but ultimately plays along with the chill, jammy vibe. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOJuanita Euka, ‘Motema’Over the interplay of two crinkly, echo-laden guitars, the Congolese-born vocalist Juanita Euka sings with an easy confidence on “Motema,” which means “heart” in Lingala. The track comes from “Mabanzo,” the debut album from this young heir apparent (her uncle, Franco Luambo Makiadi, was a rumba star in Congo), who grew up in Buenos Aires and has lately become a promising voice on the London music scene. RUSSONELLOKoffee, ‘Where I’m From’The Grammy-winning Jamaican singer Koffee (Mikayla Simpson) widely stretches the reggae idiom on her debut album, “Gifted,” pulling in dembow, Afrobeats and more. In “Where I’m From,” she sing-raps about tough beginnings and current success, with a scrubbing funk guitar that echoes “Shaft,” a heaving bass line, ominous piano interjections and wordless choir harmonies that are at once mournful and lofty. PARELESVince Staples, ‘Rose Street’“I don’t sing no love songs, ain’t never sang no love songs,” Vince Staples proclaims at the top of “Rose Street,” and the title of the upcoming album it’ll appear on is possibly an explanation: “Ramona Park Broke My Heart.” As he raps nimbly atop a bass-heavy, vaguely ghostly beat, though, he gradually lets his guard down and confesses the reasons he’s reluctant to commit to the girl who wants him to stick around. “I promise you, you don’t gotta stress, it’s gon’ be OK,” he assures her before admitting, “OK, I’m lying, living day by day.” ZOLADZPup, ‘Totally Fine’The Toronto band Pup has long made frenetic punk-pop with neat verse-chorus-bridge structures underlying Stefan Babcock’s raucously overwrought and fully self-aware lead vocals. “Totally Fine,” from the band’s fourth album, “The Unraveling of Puptheband,” cranks everything up: feedback, drums, high and low guitars, Babcock’s blurted admission that “I just couldn’t decide/Whether I’m at my worst or I’m totally fine.” And then it cranks up further, with a big, stadium-ready singalong. The video, a fine sendup of tech-bro vanity, is a bonus. PARELESsadie, ‘Nowhere’Anna Schwab, the Brooklyn songwriter and producer who records as sadie, uses the twitchy double time, the computer-warped vocals and the cheap-sounding presets of hyperpop as a digital native. Yet in “Nowhere,” she also conveys something more than games-playing: a sense of how hard it is to cope with the pressures of 21st-century romance. “Think I’ll get it all right/Then it’s over,” she sings with knowing resignation. PARELESFlume featuring Caroline Polachek, ‘Sirens’In her purest soprano, Caroline Polachek sings her most benevolent aspirations, written during a pandemic peak: “If I could I’d raise my arm/And wave a wand to end all harm.” The Australian electronic musician Flume and his co-producer, Danny L. Harle, give her ethereal support at first — tremulous string tones and echoey arpeggios — but then throw up all sorts of sonic obstacles: clattering, thudding, lurching, scraping, distorting, and even bringing back the sirens she wishes she never had to hear again. PARELESGerald Clayton featuring Charles Lloyd, ‘Peace Invocation’The coolly warbling saxophone sound of Charles Lloyd, 84, is unmistakable on “Peace Invocation,” a duet with the pianist Gerald Clayton that appears on the younger musician’s newest album, “Bells on Sand.” The influence of a couple of other legendary saxophonist-composers hangs over this track, too: There’s the open-ended, shadow-casting style of Wayne Shorter, and hints of John Coltrane’s classic “Naima” in the irresolution of Clayton’s bittersweet melody. RUSSONELLO More

    • 50 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Charli XCX’s Ever-Evolving Pop

      by

      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherDoes Charli XCX want to be a big pop star? Do her fans want her to be one?The 29-year-old singer and songwriter, whose fifth studio album, “Crash,” came out earlier this month, has inspired a mountain of discourse since the release of her debut, “True Romance,” in 2013. Her prodigious output — which has encompassed dreamy pop, punky new wave, spiky and noisy electronic music and more conventional pop over a series of albums, EPs and mixtapes — can be seen as commentary on pop music itself, an experiment to push the boundaries of the major-label system, the result of a firm commitment to collaboration, or simply the bold wanderings of a curious and sometimes chaotic creative mind.A sub-narrative following her journey, however, has been the size of her stardom. Charli XCX has written on blockbuster hits for other artists. Does she choose to release the kind of music that will make her a superstar? “Crash,” the final album of her Atlantic Records deal, opened at No. 7 this week, a career high.On this week’s Popcast, The New York Times’s pop music editor Caryn Ganz sits in for Jon Caramanica, hosting a conversation about Charli XCX’s unconventional major label career, her sonic evolutions, her complex relationship with her listeners and the successes and missteps on “Crash.”Guests:Hazel Cills, an editor at NPR MusicShaad D’Souza, a writer who contributes to Pitchfork, The Fader, Paper and othersConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      For Grammy Nominee Rogét Chahayed, Pop Isn’t Far From Mozart

      by

      Up for producer of the year, non-classical, on Sunday, a conservatory-trained collaborator focuses on “finding the simplicity, finding that golden chord progression.”Two very different kinds of education went into the music that has brought Rogét Chahayed a 2022 Grammy nomination for producer of the year, non-classical. One was traditional music school: the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where Chahayed studied classical music and jazz and earned a degree in piano performance. The second was a studio apprenticeship of late nights and split-second decisions: playing keyboards and building beats for the Los Angeles hip-hop mogul Dr. Dre.“The real me is a blend of classical music, jazz harmony and technique, everything together,” Chahayed said, speaking via video from his home studio in Los Angeles, where rows of electronic keyboards filled a wall of shelves, “So you’ll hear the voicings of Debussy and Ravel and stuff like that, that I really love, in my left hand, but maybe in the right hand I might be trying some Art Tatum. I love to try and see the connection between everything.”Chahayed’s huge catalog includes Doja Cat’s “Kiss Me More”; Jessie Reyez’s “Far Away”; Halsey’s “Bad at Love”; Big Sean’s “ZTFO”; Miguel’s “Sky Walker”; Kali Uchis’s “I Want War (But I Need Peace)”; Nas’s “27 Summers”; and two Grammy-nominated songs from previous years, Drake’s “Laugh Now Cry Later” and Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode.” His nomination on Sunday is for songs with Kali Uchis, Doja Cat and Anderson .Paak, among others.Chahayed’s studio work draws on a store of music theory and music history along with instinct, attentiveness and luck. As a producer and songwriter, he can assemble complex harmonies and subtle multitracked orchestrations, reflecting his conservatory studies.But Chahayed can also come up with skeletal, arresting, earworm riffs that he often enriches, spatially and harmonically, as a track unfolds. He doesn’t mind repeating just two or three chords. “A lot of my composer and classical instrumentalist friends might look at that as like, ‘Oh, it’s so simple,’” he said. “Actually, producing music today reminds me a lot about the way Mozart would compose. Obviously a lot of Mozart’s music is very simple and very digestible, and it’s so open that if you make a mistake, you can hear everything. The difficulty is finding the simplicity, finding that golden chord progression.”Chahayed adeptly navigates the way songs are made in the 21st century: a process that’s at once musicianly, technological, intuitive and brutally Darwinist. Hooks and beats that were recorded in a few moments can sit for months on a hard drive, to be discovered, tweaked and augmented by collaborators who have never met. All that matters is whether someone hears that a track has potential, wants to finish it and finds something that works.“I enjoy working with the artists who let me cook from scratch,” Chahayed said.Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York Times“If I have a philosophy, it’s that I want to be able to execute the vision of the artist first,” Chahayed said. “But also to do it in a way that’s innovative, that’s always finding a way to push the boundaries sonically.”The Colombian American songwriter Kali Uchis has only released a few tracks with Chahayed’s production — including “Aguardiente y Limón,” cited in his Grammy nomination — but they live near each other in Los Angeles, and she often visits his studio to work on music.A Guide to the 2022 Grammy AwardsThe ceremony, originally scheduled for Jan. 31, was postponed for a second year in a row due to Covid and is now scheduled for April 3.Jon Batiste Leads the Way: The jazz pianist earned the most nominations with 11, including album and record of the year. Here’s his reaction.The Full List: Pop stars like Justin Bieber, Doja Cat and Billie Eilish were recognized in several categories. See all the nominees.Snubs and Surprises: From a big shock to smaller slights, The Times music team breaks it all down.Performers: Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, BTS and Lil Nas X are among the first performers announced for the April 3 show, which will be available on CBS and Paramount+.A Major Change: The awards will be the first since the Recording Academy ended its heavily criticized anonymous nominating committees.“He just loves to just create, create, create,” she said by telephone from Los Angeles. “Just for the pure satisfaction of making things that are unique, and not for any type of ulterior capitalistic motives. If it so happens to end up being a big song, then great. But with me and Rogét, I’ve never gotten in the studio and felt any weird pressure to go in any direction. It was alway very organic, very natural and very, just, free.”After graduating from the conservatory in 2010, Chahayed moved back to Los Angeles, where he grew up; his mother is from Argentina, his father from Syria. He played jazz and chamber-music gigs and taught piano lessons; he also found a mentor: Melvin Bradford, better known as Mel-Man, one of Dr. Dre’s main producers since the 1990s.“I’d go to his house and make five to eight beats per day. From 1 p.m. all the way to sometimes 2, 3 or 4 in the morning,” he said. “We would send countless beats to Dre every day, just in hopes that maybe something would click.”He added, “It was definitely a big difference from sitting in a class learning about Bach chorales or ear training.”Chahayed also collaborated with others, including the producer Wesley Singerman. In 2013, they sold outright some tracks they had made; their music turned up, uncredited, on Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 album “To Pimp a Butterfly” in “For Sale?” and “U.”In 2014, Mel-Man surprised Chahayed one day by taking him to an unmarked building. It was Dr. Dre’s studio. “This door opens, and I just see a giant S.S.L. and Dre is sitting there turning knobs with his hands,” Chahayed said, referring to a Solid State Logic recording console. “He told me that he heard I was nice on the keys and he was going to put me to the test.”He passed muster and started working on Dre’s productions. “You have a responsibility to be the best you can be all the time and constantly portray musical excellence: technique, taste, flavor, rhythm,” he said. “I’ve had Dre right there, standing over everybody saying, ‘Hey, what you got?’ And when you have the biggest, most influential producer and rapper in the world telling you that, you’ve got to act.”One of Chahayed’s first blockbuster hits was “Broccoli” by Dram (who now goes by Shelley FKA Dram), featuring Lil Yachty, which has been streamed more than a billion times. Its steady-plinking piano chords, Chahayed said, were a happy accident. He had packed up his equipment after a session with Dram, only to receive a last-minute call that Lil Yachty was on his way to the studio. He unpacked and plugged in a keyboard, playing a few chords to test the connection; those chords became the song’s central loop.One of Chahayed’s first huge hits was “Broccoli” by Dram (who now goes by Shelley FKA Dram), featuring Lil Yachty.Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York Times“Where and how I find most of my success as a producer and songwriter is, you know, just showing up,” Chahayed said. “Finding a sound and coming up with the progression, or a riff, or something identifiable that catches people’s attention.”“Kiss Me More,” the hit by Doja Cat featuring SZA that is nominated for record of the year (the recorded track), song of the year (the composition) and as part of album of the year, could have ended up as one more stray computer file. Chahayed was working with Yeti Beats, Doja Cat’s longtime executive producer, at what he called “a beat cook-up session.” Yeti Beats suggested some “keywords” — “anime music” and “cuteness” — with Doja Cat in mind.“I grew up with four younger sisters, and we all bonded a lot over anime and video game stuff,” Chahayed said. “This cute jazzy vibe from a lot of games kind of seeped in. So I tapped back into that realm that specific day, and we made a few ideas.”He chose a guitar-like sound and recorded a twinkly little riff that “just kind of came naturally in the moment,” he said. “I knew there was something special about that track.” Yeti Beats repeatedly presented the riff to Doja Cat, and at one session, he sped it up; it clicked.As Chahayed’s reputation has grown, so has his control over his music. He sometimes turns down requests to use his beats for particular songs. And, whenever possible, he tries to work alongside the main artist in real time.“For most people, a general procedure is have tons of beats and melodies and ideas and things of that sort ready. A lot of artists have a different kind of attention span, and maybe react better to things that are ready-made. But I’ve adapted more to the spontaneity of just showing up with the instruments. I enjoy working with the artists who let me cook from scratch.”He’s also looking ahead. “I always have a five-to-10-year plan,” he said. “Thankfully, I have been able to hit my last five-year goal: You know, get No. 1s, get Grammy nominated, accumulate tons of record sales and charting stuff. And it’s cool, but it only fuels me to go further. My real passion is that I want to score movies. I want to do what John Williams, Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer and Bernard Herrmann do. Those guys are my true heroes.”He added, “I’ll never stop producing. I’ll never stop making beats. I’ll never stop working with artists. But I would love it if you’re watching a movie and seeing ‘Music by Rogét Chahayed.’ That’s my obsession.” More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in Music

      Stray Kids, a K-Pop Octet, Debuts on the Chart at No. 1

      by

      The eight-member group sold more than 100,000 copies of its new mini-album, “Oddinary,” on CD, which came in an array of collectible versions.Stray Kids, a K-pop group formed through a reality-TV show, has made its first appearance on the Billboard 200 chart a big one, opening at No. 1.“Oddinary,” a seven-track EP with lyrics mostly in Korean, had the equivalent of 110,000 sales in the United States in its first week out. The vast majority of those sales were for CDs, as the eight-man group’s “Oddinary” came out in a variety of collectible versions including stickers, posters, trading cards and other goodies. The mini-album also had 10 million streams, according to Luminate, the tracking service formerly known as MRC Data (and, before that, Nielsen Music).Lil Durk’s “7220,” last week’s chart-topper, falls to No. 2 with the equivalent of 81,000 sales, mostly from streaming, a 33 percent drop. Disney’s “Encanto” soundtrack is No. 3, and Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is No. 4.“Fighting Demons,” the second posthumous album by Juice WRLD, the singer and rapper who died at age 21 in late 2019, jumped 30 spots to No. 5 after it was rereleased in a deluxe version and also came out on physical formats like CD and vinyl LP. “Fighting Demons” had opened at No. 2 in December.The Weeknd’s compilation “The Highlights” is in sixth place, and the British pop singer and songwriter Charli XCX opens at No. 7 with “Crash,” a career high.On the singles chart, Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves,” a nearly two-year-old song that has become newly hot at pop radio after it became a meme on TikTok, holds at No. 1 for a fourth straight week. More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      Wet Leg, the Indie-Rock Duo, Blew Up Fast. They Know It’s Weird.

      by

      The group’s droll single “Chaise Longue” racked up playlist spots and star endorsements. Its debut album has more springy bass lines, jabbing guitars and sharp, observational lyrics.“Hi, we’re Wet Leg. I guess you guys know that, because you bought tickets,” Rhian Teasdale said to the sold-out crowd at Mercury Lounge, a small club on the lip of New York’s Lower East Side, one evening in December. Teasdale, who mostly sings lead vocals and plays rhythm guitar, looked over her right shoulder at Hester Chambers, who mostly sings backup and plays lead guitar. The two chuckled as they shared their latest moment of astonishment. “It’s so weird,” Teasdale said to the audience.In the last year, lots of things have been weird for Wet Leg, a band from Isle of Wight, England, that has ascended as quickly and unexpectedly as any in recent pop history. It was weird when a well-known London manager signed them in May 2020, even though they hadn’t released any music, and it was weird when Domino Records, home to alternative rock stars including Cat Power and Arctic Monkeys, made a deal with them six months later, despite having heard only four songs on a private SoundCloud.The duo’s droll and instantly catchy first song, “Chaise Longue,” arrived in June 2021, and weird things happened: Streaming services added it to prominent playlists, Elton John played it on his Apple Music radio show and Dave Grohl raved about it in an interview, saying, “There are nights when we just play that song on repeat.”“Chaise Longue” has the feel of an epochal one-off, something unrepeatable, like “Louie Louie” or “Because I Got High.” But on their self-titled album due April 8, Teasdale, 29, and Chambers, 28, deliver more smart, frisky neo-new wave songs about the challenges of being a middle-class woman in her late 20s. The lyrics are full of modern references, including wokeness, Instagram, dating apps, sexting and late-night scrolling. Work is boring, boyfriends are fickle and deserve to be mocked, as they are in “Wet Dream” and “Loving You.” Though the lyrics sometimes linger over a feeling of being adrift (“I’m almost 28, still getting off my stupid face,” Teasdale sings in “I Don’t Wanna Go Out”), the Wet Leg album is a thrashing good time.“We didn’t aspire to get signed. We thought it would not be in the cards,” Chambers said a few days after their New York debut, sitting in the lobby of the band’s Brooklyn hotel. “We just wanted to play some silly songs.”Their pessimism about success was understandable. First of all, they lived on the Isle of Wight, which can be reached most easily by boat, and, with a population of about 141,000, is hardly known as a launching pad of global talent. The bucolic island is distinguished by its chalky white cliffs and Victorian cottages, and being there is “like going back in time,” said Martin Hall, Wet Leg’s manager. “It’s very English.”In addition, Teasdale and Chambers, who met as music students at the Isle of Wight College, had been performing separately for years, with little traction. Teasdale recorded under the name Rhain from 2016 to 2018, and sang askew, fanciful songs that call to mind Björk or Perfume Genius. Chambers fronted Hester and Red Squirrel, specializing in soft-focus songs about star-crossed lovers, like Nick Drake but with lots of water imagery. “I’ve played to literally no one before. That was fun,” Chambers said dryly of her history onstage.At one show, Teasdale had a near meltdown. She’d driven four hours for a solo gig, and everyone in the festival tent where she played was eating. After two songs, “I started crying hysterically,” she said. “I’d been playing music for five years, just because it becomes so intertwined in your identity.” She decided to ask Chambers to back her up onstage, so she’d feel less lonely.Chambers, similarly, was crying and having panic attacks before her shows, and had begun apprenticing in her parents’ jewelry business. “I felt like, OK, maybe making music isn’t in my stars,” she said. “And I was pretty gutted.”Once Teasdale and Chambers discovered they had similar stories, they resolved to start a new band that felt fun, with no goal beyond maybe, if they were lucky, playing at a local festival or two. They chose the name Wet Leg, Teasdale has explained, because it’s “such a dumb name,” and serves as a reminder not to take themselves seriously.“That’s why it’s so weird,” Teasdale added, “because the moment we stopped trying to make anyone else happy and did a band for the joy of playing and hanging out, that’s when …” Her voice trailed off, but the point was clear.“It’s rare to find a band that, from the off, sounds unique, individual and identifiable,” Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches, the Scottish band that chose Wet Leg as an opening act on some December dates, wrote in an email. “Lyrically, they can be wry, but their music feels very honest and joyful. I also think it’s rare for women to be allowed to have a sense of humor in their music, which is just another thing to love about them.”On record, the two musicians boldly sing about sex (Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” was an inspiration). But in conversation, they are so soft-spoken that when a woman walked by talking loudly on her cellphone, I could barely hear their voices. They said they were still as unconfident as when they started, but as a duo, they gathered strength from one another, and from a motto that keeps them going: “Feel the fear, but do it anyway.”“We didn’t aspire to get signed,” Chambers said. “We just wanted to play some silly songs.”Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesLast August, they booked a set at the Green Man festival in Wales, and were startled to see dozens of fans waiting for them to play. Surely, they thought, all those people had come to see them by mistake. “Once we’d soundchecked our instruments,” Teasdale said, “we had a few minutes to …”“Have a nervous wee,” Chambers interjected.“The whole tent was full of expectant people who’d heard only one song at that point,” Teasdale continued. “It’s been really weird, playing to big audiences.”The effect of “Chaise Longue” was that immediate. By the time they started writing the song, Teasdale had moved to London and was working as a stylist on commercials. She came back to Isle of Wight to stay with Chambers and her partner Joshua Mobaraki, who tours with Wet Leg as a synth player and guitarist. Teasdale’s makeshift bed was a lumpy chaise longue that had belonged to Chambers’s grandparents, which inspired the three of them to write the song while taking part of the lyrics (“Is your muffin buttered?”) from a scene in “Mean Girls.”Michael Champion of the band Champs, who played bass on the song, liked it enough to contact Hall, who asked to meet them, much to their disbelief. “It’s kind of my sweet spot — the new wave indie guitar music I grew up loving,” Hall said. “They are quiet and shy people, and somewhat bemused by the success,” he added, “but there’s also a quiet ambition about them.”The video Wet Leg made themselves for “Chaise Longue” also helped fuel the phenomenon, thanks to Teasdale’s deadpan demeanor, and attire (straw sun hats, floor-length white frocks) that makes them look like 1890s frontierswomen. They’ve since made self-directed videos for “Wet Dream” and “Oh No.” “I trust their instincts,” Hall said. “They’ve got it right so far.”Older listeners might hear echoes of bands from an earlier generation, like Delta 5, Elastica or Art Brut. But Teasdale and Chambers aren’t familiar with any of those groups. Their closest compatriots are Dry Cleaning, Yard Act and Sports Team, young British bands who, despite having been born after new wave’s popularity crested, emulate the music’s springy bass lines, resolute drums and jabbing guitars as they limn the ruins of consumer culture, talk-singing in unmistakably British cadences. These bands share an ability to muster ecstatic objections out of their disgust.The camaraderie between Teasdale and Chambers feels like a pact, almost at the level of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It becomes evident when I ask them to describe one another.Chambers: “Rhian is funny and ethereal. This sounds cheesy, but when we met at uni, I knew you were going to do something really wild. You’re just a star. And you’re pretty.”Teasdale: “I’m blushing. Hester is kind and generous. You’re very quiet, and you have the smallest handwriting I’ve ever seen.”Chambers: “Thank you. That means a lot.”Teasdale: “You’re very strong, even though you think you’re not. Now I’m getting very emotional.”Chambers: “Thanks, mom.”Underneath their talk about feeling overwhelmed and overcoming fear, there’s also a resolve about how to present themselves. “A lot of the internet is saturated with images that make you feel like you’re not enough, or you don’t have enough,” Teasdale said. “I don’t want to be in a band that makes people, young girls in particular, feel like [expletive] about themselves.”True to their island background, the two offered a nautical simile that sums up the voyage so far. “We’re like two little seals surfing the wave,” Chambers said. “Two seal pups surfing along,” Teasdale responded, and the two friends laughed. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Music

      Taylor Hawkins, Foo Fighters’ Drummer, Dies at 50

      by

      Hard-hitting and charismatic, he was direct about his hopes for the group’s future, even after two decades. “I want to be the biggest band in the world,” he said.Taylor Hawkins, the hard-hitting, charismatic drummer for Foo Fighters, the enduring Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band that has won 12 Grammys and released seven platinum albums, has died at 50.A statement posted to the band’s social media late Friday and sent by its representative confirmed the death. According to the attorney general’s office of Colombia, Mr. Hawkins had been staying in a hotel in northern Bogotá, where the band had been scheduled to play a show Friday night. The office said that preliminary tests showed Mr. Hawkins had several substances in his system, including opioids, marijuana and benzodiazepines; the cause of death was still under investigation.pic.twitter.com/ffPHhUKRT4— Foo Fighters (@foofighters) March 26, 2022
      Recognizable for his flailing limbs, surfer’s good looks and wide, childlike grin, Mr. Hawkins became a member of the band led by Dave Grohl for its third album, “There Is Nothing Left to Lose,” released in 1999, and played on the group’s subsequent seven albums. He drew on two distinct styles: the fundamentals of Roger Taylor from Queen and the intricacy of Stewart Copeland from the Police. He added the muscle of punk and metal, the precision of drum machines and a gift for explosive momentum.Foo Fighters’ most recent album, “Medicine at Midnight,” arrived last year as the group was celebrating its 25th anniversary, and in an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Hawkins was direct about his hopes for its future. “I want to be the biggest band in the world,” he said.Mr. Hawkins was born in Fort Worth on Feb. 17, 1972, and raised in Southern California. He started to play drums at age 10, and said that his mother gave him the confidence to dream big: “When I first got drums, she was the one who would watch me play. She was a big supporter and told me I’d make it,” he said in an interview last year.Attending a Queen show in 1982 confirmed that music was his passion. “After that concert, I don’t think I slept for three days,” he said in a 2021 interview with the metal magazine Kerrang. “It changed everything, and I was never the same because of it. It was the beginning of my obsession with rock ’n’ roll, and I knew that I wanted to be in a huge rock band.”After Mr. Hawkins played in a local California band called Sylvia and backing the Canadian rock vocalist Sass Jordan, his first mainstream break came in 1995, when he joined Alanis Morissette’s band as she toured behind her blockbuster album “Jagged Little Pill.” (He appeared in the video for her breakout hit “You Oughta Know,” flipping his blond mane behind the drum kit.)Foo Fighters in performance in New York last year.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMr. Grohl, then still primarily known for his role as the drummer for Nirvana, recalled meeting Mr. Hawkins backstage at a radio station concert in the 1990s and feeling an immediate kinship.“I was like, ‘Wow, you’re either my twin or my spirit animal or my best friend,’” Mr. Grohl said in an interview last year. “When it was time to look for a drummer, I kind of wished that he would do it, but I didn’t imagine he would leave Alanis Morissette, because at the time she was the biggest artist in the world.”But when Mr. Grohl called him later looking for a drummer, he recalled, Mr. Hawkins said, “I’m your guy.”“I think it had more to do with our personal relationship than anything musical,” he added. “To be honest, it still does. Our musical relationship — the foundation of that is our friendship, and that’s why when we jump up onstage and play, we’re so connected, because we’re like best friends.”Mr. Grohl, Foo Fighters’ lead singer and one of its songwriters and guitarists, had played drums on the band’s first album in 1995, and he took over again for its second, “The Colour and the Shape,” when a replacement failed to stick. In joining the band, Mr. Hawkins was charged with assuming the seat of one of contemporary rock’s most distinct, powerful and beloved drummers. His colorful flair and good humor helped him carve out his own place in the band, and he adapted to Mr. Grohl’s creative process: “He writes in rhythms, not only in melodies but in rhythms, so I have to meet him there,” Mr. Hawkins said.Recorded in a Virginia basement, far from the prying eyes of a record label, “There Is Nothing Left to Lose” went on to win the band’s first Grammy, for best rock album.Foo Fighters were scheduled to perform at this year’s Grammys, to be held on April 3. “Medicine at Midnight” is nominated for three awards, including best rock performance (for the song “Making a Fire”), best rock song (“Waiting on a War”) and best rock album.Foo Fighters were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year, recognized for their “rock authenticity with infectious hooks, in-your-face guitar riffs, monster drums and boundless energy.” At the induction ceremony, Mr. Hawkins told Mr. Grohl, “Thank you for letting me be in your band.”Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters spoke when the group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in October. Paul McCartney, who gave the induction speech, was behind Mr. Grohl, and Mr. Hawklns was next to Mr. McCartney.David Richard/Associated PressOn songs like “Times Like These,” the 2003 hit that has become an anthem of perseverance and renewal, Mr. Hawkins is a hard-driving force, punctuating the verses with rat-a-tat fills. On “Best of You,” another fist-pumping, heartstring-tugging signature song, his snare pounds provide the chorus’s steadily building drama. And on “Rope,” a single from the band’s 2011 album, “Wasting Light,” Mr. Hawkins’s precisely syncopated work on the verses gives way to eruptions of fills.In addition to his drumming, Mr. Hawkins went on to contribute as a songwriter to Foo Fighters albums, even singing lead vocals on occasion. Beginning in 2006, he released three albums with a side project, the cheekily named Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders. He also played in a cover band called Chevy Metal and a prog-rock band called the Birds of Satan. Last year he teamed with the guitarist Dave Navarro and the bassist Chris Chaney to form a band called NHC; the group’s debut EP, “Intakes & Outtakes,” was released in February.On recent Foo Fighters tours, Mr. Hawkins would swap places with Mr. Grohl to sing a cover of Queen’s 1981 hit with David Bowie, “Under Pressure,” or Queen’s “Somebody to Love,” emerging from behind the kit in his signature shorts to pay homage to the act that set him on his path. He’d also take the spotlight for drum solos that stretched several minutes, smiling as he became a whirl of limbs atop his riser, smashing his cymbals and bashing a timpani.Although he has been referred to as “a sideman with a frontman’s flair,” Mr. Hawkins admitted over the years to feeling some self-doubt about filling Mr. Grohl’s seat behind the drum kit. “A lot of my insecurities — which led to a lot of my drug use — had to do with me not feeling like I was good enough to be in this band, to play drums with Dave,” he told Spin in 2002.In 2001, he overdosed in London and was briefly comatose. “Everyone has their own path, and I took it too far,” Mr. Hawkins told Kerrang, adding that he once believed the “myth of live hard and fast, die young.”He added, “I’m not here to preach about not doing drugs, because I loved doing drugs, but I just got out of control for a while and it almost got me.”In a 2018 conversation with the online radio station Beats 1, Mr. Hawkins said, “There’s no happy ending with hard drugs.” But he declined to explain how he stayed sober: “I don’t really discuss how I live my life in that regard. I have my system that works for me.”Mr. Hawkins is survived by his wife, Alison, whom he married in 2005, and their three children, Oliver, Annabelle and Everleigh.Jon Pareles More