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      What Song Did You Discover, or Rediscover, in 2024?

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      We want to know why it resonated with you.In a recent edition of The Amplifier newsletter, Lindsay Zoladz shared the music that shaped her year. She rediscovered a classic from the Smiths thanks to a karaoke party, dug into Neil Young’s back catalog after seeing him in concert, and revisited a Frank Sinatra standard because it reminded her of a cherished trip to Vermont.As she pointed out, not all of the music that will remind us of this year actually came out in 2024. Maybe your favorite song this year was an old tune you fell back in love with, a new-to-you discovery or a piece of music linked with an important event in your life. With that in mind, we’re asking readers: What song explains your 2024? Why did it resonate with you this year?If you’d like to share your story with us, fill out the form below. We may publish your response in an upcoming newsletter. We won’t publish any part of your submission without reaching out and hearing back from you first. More

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      in Theater

      36 Things That Stuck With Us in 2024

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      The movie scenes, TV episodes, song lyrics and other moments that reporters, critics, editors and visual journalists in Culture couldn’t stop thinking about this year.The Last Scene in a Film‘Challengers’Mike Faist in “Challengers.”MGMReal tennis, like real dancing, happens when the body is rapt and alive, where visceral sensation takes over and the only thing left is the crystallization of every nerve and muscle, both aligned and on edge. That last match was a dance.— More

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      in Music

      Hear the Best Albums and Songs of 2024

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      A playlist of 103 songs from our three critics’ lists to experience however you wish.Mk.gee, a new type of guitar hero, made some of our critics’ favorite music of the year.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesDear listeners,Here at The Amplifier, we like to keep our playlists relatively brief, like bite-sized musical snacks you can nosh on when you have some downtime. But each December, when the critics are publishing our best-of lists, we like to offer up a much heartier feast. Well, I hope your ears are hungry (is that how it works?) because today is the day. It’s time for our annual playlist of the year’s best music — more than six hours and slightly over 100 tracks of it.These songs are culled from our critics’ year-end lists, featuring what Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and I have chosen as the year’s best albums and songs. There are obvious areas where we all overlap: All three of us, for example, appreciated the bawdy humor of Sabrina Carpenter’s 2024 hits and the towering ambition of Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter.” But what makes this playlist such a fun listening experience is the fact that there are many, many places where our tastes, opinions and preferences diverge.Some cases in point: I just cannot buy Addison Rae as a convincing pop star, while Caramanica put her breathy single “Diet Pepsi” as his No. 4 song of the year. The flip side, though, is that I seem to be the only one on staff who appreciates the former Little Mix star Jade’s frenzied debut solo single “Angel of My Dreams,” or Father John Misty’s epic “Mahashmashana,” both of which made my Top 10. Caramanica’s list reminds me that I need to spend some more time with Mk.gee’s “Two Star & the Dream Police” and Claire Rousay’s “Sentiment,” two albums I enjoyed on first listen but have not returned to much since. Pareles’s list, as always, has some unfamiliar names I’m looking forward to checking out, like the ambient jazz artist Nala Sinephro and British producer Djrum. And both of the Jons’ lists remind me that I have been meaning to check out the debut album from the throwback girl group Flo — whose recently released “Access All Areas” they both recommend.If you’d like to read more about each track, you can follow along with our lists of the year’s best albums and songs, in order. But I personally think the best way to experience this massive playlist is to put it on shuffle and experience the chaotic swirl of all of our different recommendations. May it lead you toward discovering (or rediscovering) some of your own favorite music of this wild, waning year.Listen to the playlist on Spotify.Listen to the playlist on Apple Music.The ceiling fan is so nice,Lindsay More

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      in Movies

      It’s Ariana Grande vs. Selena Gomez at the Oscars (in Fans’ Minds)

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      Anyone who follows the Oscar race knows it can get nasty. Over the long arc of awards season, films can fall in and out of favor, villains can emerge, and campaigns can be ferocious in their pursuit of gold statues. But movie fans aren’t used to the vitriol that comes along with pop music. Now, they are getting a taste.This year two major pop stars have big roles in notable movies, both of which happen to be musicals. Ariana Grande is the pink-clad mean girl Glinda in “Wicked,” and Selena Gomez plays a cartel boss’s wife in “Emilia Pérez.” While these women have been nothing but nice to one another in the press, their stans, or armies of supporters, have been going to war and drawing unsuspecting bystanders into the battle.Pop music fans are notoriously ruthless — far more so than movie lovers. Their loyalty is unwavering to the point that they take aim at anyone who dare criticize their beloved stars. Perceived slights have resulted in threats and doxxing. And now they have a stake in the Oscars. It’s causing chaos.It’s not as if pop stars have never competed for movie prizes. Cher and Barbra Streisand might have something to say about that. More recently Lady Gaga was nominated in 2019 for her role in “A Star Is Born.” But rarely have two pop idols gone head to head in the way Grande and Gomez are. The notion of a rivalry gained even more fuel this week when they both landed in the same supporting actress category in the Golden Globe nominations.Not that Grande and Gomez seem to have any personal beef. In an October red carpet interview, Gomez said she was “just excited to see Ariana’s movie.” Grande then posted on Instagram: “and we cannot wait for Emilia Perez,” adding a message to Gomez, “I just adore you.”But you would not know that these lovely words had been exchanged if you look at how their fans are acting on X.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      At the Kennedy Center, a Send-Off to Biden and Questions About the Future

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      A bipartisan crowd honored Francis Ford Coppola, the Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval and the Apollo Theater. Some wondered if Donald J. Trump would attend next year.The arrival of the president to the center box is typically a pro forma affair each year at the Kennedy Center Honors. But President Biden’s arrival on Sunday night carried the tinge of a Washington on the verge of change.President-elect Donald J. Trump did not attend any of the honors events during his first term, in a sharp break with tradition. So the question of whether Sunday night might be the last time the commander in chief attends for the next four years was front and center as celebrities, artists and officials gathered to pay tribute to the arts.“I was talking to people backstage, and they’re going to try to get as many of these Honors in place now before the inauguration,” David Letterman joked as the audience roared with laughter.This year the center honored the filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, the beloved rock band the Grateful Dead, the Cuban American jazz trumpeter and composer Arturo Sandoval, the singer and songwriter Bonnie Raitt and the landmark Apollo Theater, in Harlem.Queen Latifah, hosting the celebration, said, “We find hope in heartache and hard times, and now more than ever, we need artists to help us uncover our shared truths, one story, one rhythm, one lyric at a time.”Bonnie CashThe host, Queen Latifah, told the crowd that artists “find hope in heartache and hard times, and now more than ever, we need artists to help us uncover our shared truths, one story, one rhythm, one lyric at a time.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Made a Record $2 Billion of Ticket Sales

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      Over 21 months, the pop superstar’s culture-dominating stage show doubled the gross of its closest competitor, according to ticket sales figures confirmed for the first time.For the last 21 months, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has been the biggest thing in music — a phenomenon that has engulfed pop culture, dominated news coverage and boosted local economies around the world.Now we know exactly how big.Through its 149th and final show, which took place in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Sunday, Swift’s tour sold a total of $2,077,618,725 in tickets. That’s two billion and change — double the gross ticket sales of any other concert tour in history and an extraordinary new benchmark for a white-hot international concert business.Those figures were confirmed to The New York Times for the first time by Taylor Swift Touring, the singer’s production company. While the financial details of the Eras Tour have been a subject of constant industry speculation since tickets were first offered more than two years ago — through a presale so in-demand it crashed Ticketmaster’s system — Swift has never authorized disclosure of the tour’s numbers until now.The official results are not far from the estimates that trade journalists and industry analysts have been crunching for months. But they solidify the enormous scale of Swift’s accomplishment. Just a few months ago, Billboard magazine reported that Coldplay had set an industry record with $1 billion in ticket sales for its 156-date Music of the Spheres World Tour — a figure that is just half of Swift’s total for a similar stretch of shows in stadiums and arenas.Every date on the Eras Tour was sold out, and spare tickets were scalped at eye-popping prices — or traded within the protective Swiftie fan community, often at face value.According to Swift’s touring company, a total of 10,168,008 people attended the concerts, which means that, on average, each seat went for about $204. That is well above the industry average of $131 for the top 100 tours around the world in 2023, according to Pollstar, a trade publication.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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      Best Songs of 2024

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      Listen to 68 tracks that made major statements, boosted big beefs, propelled up-and-comers and soundtracked the party this year.Jon Pareles | Jon Caramanica | Lindsay ZoladzJon ParelesA Little Strife, a Lot of RhythmHere’s a dipperful of worthwhile tracks from the ocean of music released this year. The top of my list is big-statement songs, ones that had repercussions beyond how they sound. Below those, it’s not a ranking but a playlist, a more-or-less guided cruise through what 2024 sounded like for one avid listener. I didn’t include any songs from my list of top albums, which are worth hearing from start to finish. But in the multiverse of streaming music, there are plenty of other possibilities.1. Kendrick Lamar, ‘Not Like Us’Belligerent, accusatory and as tribalistic as its title, “Not Like Us” wasn’t an attack ad from the 2024 election. It was the coup de gras of Kendrick Lamar’s beef with Drake, a rapid-fire, sneering assault on multiple fronts. Its spirit dovetailed with a bitterly contentious 2024.2. Beyoncé, ‘Texas Hold ’Em’“Texas Hold ’Em” isn’t just an invocation of Beyoncé’s home state. It’s a toe-tapping taunt at the racial and musical assumptions behind country music as defined by record labels and radio stations. Rhiannon Giddens picks an oh-so-traditional claw-hammer banjo intro and Beyoncé — raised in Texas — promises “a real-life boogie and a real-life hoedown,” singing about drinking and dancing and daring gatekeepers to hold her back.3. Sabrina Carpenter, ‘Please Please Please’Sabrina Carpenter delivers a sharp message on the slick “Please Please Please.”Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesComedy is tricky in a straight-faced song, but Sabrina Carpenter’s eye-roll comes clearly through the shiny pop of “Please Please Please.” The singer tries to placate and possibly tame a boyfriend who sounds more obnoxious in every verse. “I beg you, don’t embarrass me,” she coos; eventually she reaches a breaking point.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      For Taylor Swift, It’s the End of the ‘Eras’

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      Anyone with an ear tuned to the world of pop music knew the Eras Tour was going to be a big one.It was Taylor Swift’s first tour in almost five years, the longest gap of her career. And Swift, long the biggest star in pop music, had become even bigger, transcending the Top 40 to become a cultural phenomenon.Moreover, this tour would include extensive music, not just from her most recent album, “Midnights,” but from her entire career, from the country of “Fearless” to the pop of “1989” to the indie pop of “Folklore.”The first concert came in March 2023 in Glendale, Ariz., and it was even bigger than anyone imagined: three hours, 15 minutes without intermission and more than 40 songs.And the excitement just kept building, with frenzied anticipation in every city, attendance records broken and vast economic impacts in regions and even entire countries.Tickets vanished in seconds, then quickly popped up on the secondary market at 10 times the price. Fans who couldn’t obtain or afford tickets came to the venues anyway, content to commune with others like them and sing along with the amplified music coming from inside.Now, almost two years later, the tour is coming to an end on Sunday night in Vancouver, Canada.The atmosphere outside the concert venue on Saturday night was friendly and bubbly.Alana Paterson for The New York TimesHayley Pallin from Oregon came with her family to watch the concert.Alana Paterson for 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