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      in Theater

      With ‘Empire Records: The Musical,’ Zoe Sarnak Revives a ’90s Cult Classic

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      The composer is breaking the rules of musical theater and finding an increasingly warm welcome this year for her rock sound. Next up, “Empire Records: The Musical.”As a teenager in New Jersey, the composer and lyricist Zoe Sarnak was a star soccer player, earning her place in the Princeton High School Athletic Hall of Fame. Her position? “Center mid,” she said in a recent interview. “The one who runs the most.”In addition to displaying endurance, the center midfielder plays a crucial role in coordinating defense and attack, and controlling the game’s tempo. Experience that must have come in handy this year, when Sarnak, now 37, will have had multiple productions at prestigious institutions around the country.In May, Berkeley Repertory Theater premiered “Galileo,” a musical with a score by Sarnak and the composer Michael Weiner, in which science and religion duke it out. A few days later, a retooled version of “The Lonely Few,” a heated love story between two rockers, opened at MCC in New York.Now Sarnak is back in her hometown, Princeton, with “Empire Records: The Musical,” an adaptation of the 1995 grunge-adjacent teen film that begins previews at the McCarter theater on Sept. 6.“Maybe it’s from growing up playing sports and feeling like there’s something really gratifying about saying, ‘I can just run that extra wind sprint, I know I have it in me,’” she said during one of three conversations we shared over the summer — each at a different location attached to a different project.Lauren Patten, left, and Taylor Iman Jones in “The Lonely Few,” another Sarnak show set in a musical milieu — this one in a rock club.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Sabrina Carpenter Is Sly and Merciless on ‘Short n’ Sweet’

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      The pop singer and songwriter’s new album, “Short n’ Sweet,” lives up to her ubiquitous summer hits.In Sabrina Carpenter’s songs, young romance is all sexy fun and games — until it’s not. “Short n’ Sweet,” her sixth full-length album, is a smart, funny, cheerfully merciless catalog of bad boyfriend behavior and the deceptions and rationalizations that enable it. Carpenter mostly smiles and winks her way through songs that recognize the irrational power of lust, but deftly twist the knife on cheaters and hypocrites. “No one’s more amazing at turning loving into hatred,” she warns in “Good Graces.”Carpenter, 25, has triumphed in a career path that doesn’t always work out: spending her teens in show business. A contest entry for “The Next Miley Cyrus Project,” in 2011, led to Carpenter joining the Disney entertainment empire: signing to Disney’s Hollywood Records and gaining recognition with acting roles on the Disney Channel series “Girl Meets World” and in movies. Her Hollywood albums tried on teen-pop styles with middling results, gradually easing toward more adult material.But she gained full artistic control with a new label, Island, and her 2022 album, “Emails I Can’t Send,” made the leap into her grown-up persona: equal parts playful, vulnerable, amorous and calculating. The album mixed post-breakup plaints with flirtations like the hit “Nonsense,” a song about overpowering attraction that’s also about songwriting: “Woke up this morning, thought I’d write a pop hit,” she lilts.It also included “Because I Liked a Boy,” a ballad that seemingly addressed a celebrity romantic tangle and promoted everyone involved. Was Carpenter the “blond girl” who captured the ex-boyfriend that Olivia Rodrigo sang about in “Drivers License”? The internet thought so. “Now I’m a home wrecker, I’m a slut/I got death threats filling up semi trucks,” Carpenter sang, adding, “When everything went down we’d already broken up.”“Short n’ Sweet” arrives powered by two ubiquitous summer hits. One is “Espresso,” a retro disco-pop groove carrying the boast of a confident hottie: “He looks so good wrapped around my finger,” she coos. The other, “Please Please Please,” begs an unstable boyfriend not to embarrass her in public. “Whatever devil’s inside you, don’t let him out tonight,” she admonishes, then sings “Please, please, please, don’t prove I’m right,” in the sugariest of harmonies.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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      Beyoncé Rumors Briefly Took Center Stage. Kamala Harris Grabbed It Back.

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      Unsubstantiated rumors that the star would appear at the Democratic National Convention, perhaps alongside Taylor Swift, created a daylong frenzy. Then the headliner took control.The report was published around 7 p.m. on Thursday, in all caps. TMZ announced that Beyoncé would be “PERFORMING AT DNC’S FINAL NIGHT!!!” After days of increasingly frenzied rumors that she would make an appearance at the Democratic National Convention, this report set the United Center in Chicago abuzz. But TMZ was wrong. So was Mitt Romney. So were the betting markets. So was basically all of social media.Instead, Vice President Kamala Harris ended the convention by advising attendees to take seriously the task of preserving democracy and not to celebrate prematurely.It was a sobering end to a day of celebrity-centered anticipation. Since the Harris campaign chose Beyoncé’s “Freedom” as its campaign theme song, I had heard intense speculation that the singer would be a special guest on the night of Harris’s acceptance speech to become the party’s presidential nominee. On the convention’s first day, Harris released her new campaign ad, featuring “Freedom.” There was the precedent set by past conventions, with Stevie Wonder performing in 2008 for Barack Obama, and Katy Perry in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. There was the footage of a marching band rehearsing Beyoncé’s songs in the arena.As I entered the United Center, I heard the rumor that Beyoncé and Jay-Z had been in Chicago for several days. Before I settled in at the arena, she had been “sighted” at O’Hare airport. Similar stories were ricocheting across the arena.There was the national anthem sung by the Chicks, with whom Beyoncé performed at the Country Music Association Awards in 2016. Their presence seemed only to reinforce the inevitability of her grand entrance. By 9 p.m., things had reached a fever pitch: I was told by a friend of a friend I was sitting next to that Beyoncé and Taylor Swift were expected to appear onstage together in a mark of feminist solidarity, and stand with the thousands of delegates dressed in suffragist white clothing. The specificity of the rumor was astounding.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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      Sabrina Carpenter Slices Up Her Sunny Image, and 7 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Yaeji, Amythyst Kiah featuring Billy Strings, Broadcast 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.Sabrina Carpenter, ‘Taste’Sabrina Carpenter’s winning streak of singles continues on “Taste,” the lilting, deceptively chirpy opening track from her hook-filled new album, “Short ’n’ Sweet.” A bright, buoyantly delivered blend of ’80s pop gloss and ’90s country sass, Carpenter lets a paramour’s on-again-off-again ex know exactly whose bed his boots have been under lately: “I heard you’re back together, and if that’s true,” Carpenter taunts, “you’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissing you.” The music video, which stars the “Wednesday” actress Jenna Ortega, makes the lyrics’ queer subtext clear as day, while also indulging in some surprisingly gory Tarantino-esque violence that subverts Carpenter’s sunshiny image. Not that she’s taking any of it too seriously. “Singin’ ’bout it don’t mean I care,” she coos on the bridge, issuing another giggling wink at that image: “Yeah, I know I’ve been known to share.” LINDSAY ZOLADZAmythyst Kiah featuring Billy Strings, ‘I Will Not Go Down’“I’m the only one to ease my soul/I’m the only one that’s in control,” Amythyst Kiah vows in “I Will Not Go Down.” It’s a fierce, foot-stomping song laced with backup vocals and bluegrass virtuosity — on multiple instruments — from Billy Strings. The song’s stark declarations arrive fully armored in musicianship. JON PARELESGeordie Greep, ‘Holy, Holy’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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      8 Correct Answers to ‘What Was the Song of the Summer?’

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      Revisit contenders from Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar and Billie Eilish.Sabrina Carpenter has the top contender for song of the summer.Amy Harris/Invision, via Associated PressDear listeners,I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but the end of the summer is approaching. Every year around this time, music fans’ favorite unwinnable debate reaches an apex: What was the song of the summer?At the risk of breaking even more bad news, I’ll say that for the most part, the Song of the Summer is a fictitious and even pointless construction, generally immeasurable and usually difficult to agree on unanimously. Sure, every so often a single tune becomes so ubiquitous during those sweltering, school’s out months that it rightfully earns the title. Think of Lil Nas X’s chart-dominant “Old Town Road” in 2019; the viral glee of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” in 2012; or, if you can remember that far back, the Bayside Boys remix of Los Del Rio’s “Macarena” in 1996 (Ay!).But more often than not, the Song of the Summer is up for debate. And given that I believe a true S.o.t.S. must be monocultural and undeniable, most contenders do not truly reach that status.Around Memorial Day, it did seem like we had a prime candidate: the rising pop star Sabrina Carpenter’s fun, flirty “Espresso.” It had all the makings of a summer smash, including a well-timed release date, a beach-themed music video and several goofy, endlessly quotable lyrics that just begged to be printed on novelty boardwalk T-shirts. Case closed, right?But as the summer continued, “Espresso” faced some formidable challengers. The Drake-vs.-Kendrick Lamar beef produced a bona fide anthem in “Not Like Us,” by most measures the biggest hit of Lamar’s career. The rise of the Midwest princess Chappell Roan became one of the year’s most captivating narratives, and her wrenching synth-pop single “Good Luck, Babe!” climbed the Hot 100 accordingly. Even Carpenter herself gave “Espresso” a run for its money with its irresistible follow-up single, “Please Please Please,” which achieved a feat that her previous hit did not: It went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.So, which was the Song of the Summer? Today’s playlist contains 8 different and entirely acceptable answers to the question. If I had to pick just one, I’d still go with “Espresso,” but I’d argue this summer contained too many unexpected plot twists for there to be a unanimous winner. Maybe it’s just one of those years where you need a collection of different tunes to tell the full story of the season. So let this playlist be a time capsule that you can return to in subsequent years when you want to conjure up the sound of summer ’24 — or in a couple of months, when the autumn chill makes you long for these endless sunny days.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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      Taylor Swift Says She Felt ‘Fear’ and ‘Guilt’ After Canceled Vienna Shows

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      The three stops in Austria on the pop star’s Eras Tour were canceled after the authorities discovered a terrorist plot targeting the concerts.Taylor Swift said Wednesday that she was devastated by the cancellation of her Eras Tour concerts in Vienna, adding that the terrorist plot that had targeted her shows there had filled her “with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming.”In an Instagram post celebrating the end of the European leg of her tour, Ms. Swift offered her first public comments about the three derailed shows, which were called off after officials in Austria said they had arrested two men accused of plotting a terrorist attack. One of the men, they said, had recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State online and had focused on the Eras Tour as a potential target.Nearly 200,000 people had been expected to attend the Vienna concerts, which were to start on Aug. 8.In her social media post published on Wednesday, Ms. Swift said she was grateful to the authorities, “because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”“I decided that all of my energy had to go toward helping to protect the nearly half a million people I had coming to see the shows in London,” she said of the next stop on her tour. “My team and I worked hand in hand with stadium staff and British authorities every day in pursuit of that goal, and I want to thank them for everything they did for us.”“Let me be very clear: I am not going to speak about something publicly if I think doing so might provoke those who would want to harm the fans who come to my shows,” she continued. “In cases like this one, ‘silence’ is actually showing restraint, and waiting to express yourself at a time when it’s right to. My priority was finishing our European tour safely, and it is with great relief that I can say we did that.”Thousands of fans who had been eager to spend a few hours with Ms. Swift in Vienna — including many who traveled great distances to see her — shed tears over the canceled concerts. Many others who had planned to see her the following week in London endured anxious days, worrying both about their personal safety and about whether the highlight of their summer would also be called off.But Ms. Swift’s shows went on as planned, a fact that she celebrated in her Instagram post.“All five crowds at Wembley Stadium were bursting with passion, joy, and exuberance,” she said. “The energy in that stadium was like the most giant bear hug from 92,000 people each night, and it brought me back to a place of carefree calm up there.” More

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      in Music

      Charles R. Cross, Biographer of Cobain and Hendrix, Dies at 67

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      He tracked the rise of grunge as the editor of the Seattle music magazine The Rocket. He also wrote acclaimed books about two of the city’s most celebrated rock luminaries.Charles R. Cross, a Seattle music writer who edited The Rocket, a local rock bible, during the city’s grunge-era flowering in the 1990s, and who wrote acclaimed biographies of two of the city’s most venerated musical figures, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain, died on Aug. 9 at his home in Shoreline, Wash., He was 67.His death was announced in a statement from his family. No cause was given.Mr. Cross was the editor of The Rocket, a biweekly magazine, from 1986 through 2000, a period when Seattle bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam redefined rock. It was considered a must-read for musicians looking to join the wave.It would be “impossible to imagine the music or community of Seattle in the 80s and 90s without charles r. cross,” Chris Walla, a former member of Death Cab for Cutie, the critically acclaimed alternative rock band from Bellingham, Wash., wrote on social media.Mr. Cross was also a well-known sage to fans of Bruce Springsteen: He turned his self-produced fanzine into Backstreets Magazine, a trove of Springsteen arcana that was well known to the artist himself.At a concert in Pittsburgh on Sunday, Mr. Springsteen paid tribute to Mr. Cross, telling the audience that his “help in communicating between our band and our fans will be sorely missed” before launching into his song “Backstreets.”Mr. Cross published the first of his nine books, “Backstreets: Springsteen, the Man and His Music,” in 1989, followed two years later by “Led Zeppelin: Heaven and Hell,” an illustrated history that he wrote with Erik Flannigan, with photographs by Neal Preston.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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      7 New Collaborations You Should Hear Now

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      Hear music from pairings that include Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, and Post Malone and Chris Stapleton.Post MaloneThea Traff for The New York TimesDear listeners,It’s time once again for your monthly digest of recommended new music, culled from the Friday Playlists that Jon Pareles and I compile each week. This month’s collection has a twist: It’s composed entirely of collaborations.I try to keep these new music compilations relatively brief, so you can stay up-to-date on recent releases without investing too much time. Consider today’s playlist especially efficient. Over just 7 tracks, you’ll get to hear 14 different artists.Some pairings are like peanut butter and jelly, in that they make perfect sense: Of course Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars sound good together. Chloe and Anderson .Paak? I can absolutely hear that in my head before I even press play. But I’d categorize a few of these collaborations as peanut butter and bacon: Unexpected, a bit of a head-scratcher on paper, but surprisingly enjoyable in execution. I never thought I’d hear, say, the rapper ASAP Rocky and the folk singer Jessica Pratt on a song together, but now I have and you know what? That’s a tasty sandwich.You wanna guess if we’re serious about this song,LindsayListen along while you read.1. Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars: “Die With a Smile”Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars each have the sort of highly adaptable talent that transcends genre and trend; they also pride themselves on professionalism sprinkled with a healthy dose of pizazz. (For what it’s worth, they’re also the exact same age: 38.) Each brings the appropriate amount of firepower to “Die With a Smile,” a romantic torch song accentuated by dreamy guitars. It’s likely a one-off, but Gaga did reference a forthcoming seventh album when she announced this single. Little Monsters, you’ve been warned.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe 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