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      Taylor Swift’s New Old ‘Love Story,’ and 12 More Songs

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe PlaylistTaylor Swift’s New Old ‘Love Story,’ and 12 More SongsHear tracks by Dua Lipa, Nicky Jam and Romeo Santos, R+R=Now and others.Taylor Swift has released a new version of her 2008 hit “Love Story” as the first of the songs she is rerecording from her first six albums.Credit…Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Chris Pizzello/Invision/ApJon Pareles, Jon Caramanica, Giovanni Russonello and Feb. 12, 2021Updated 2:22 p.m. ETEvery 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.Taylor Swift, ‘Love Story (Taylor’s Version)’[embedded content]As the first official release of her rerecorded back catalog, “Love Story,” from Taylor Swift’s 2008 album, “Fearless,” is a savvy pick. Not only is it one of her most beloved hits, but it also means that the first new-old lyric we hear the 31-year-old Swift sing is, “We were both young when I first saw you” — an immediate invocation of the past that subtly reframes the recording as a kind of tender love song to her 18-year-old self. Swift is more interested in impressive note-for-note simulacrum than revisionism here, though sharp-eared Swifties will delight in noticing the tiniest differences (like the playful staccato hiccup she adds to “Rom-e-oh!” on the second pre-chorus.) When Swift first announced her intentions to rerecord her first six albums, skeptics wondered if the whole project was just an uncomfortably public display of personal animosity toward her former business partners, and the songs’ new owners. But Swift has so far brought a sense of triumph, grace and artistry to the endeavor, and in doing so has begun the process of retelling her story on her own terms. It’s better than revenge. LINDSAY ZOLADZRebecca Black featuring Dorian Electra, Big Freedia and 3OH!3, ‘Friday (Remix)’Let’s say you want to rewrite your past. Write it over, like an old hard drive. Take a thing that made you well known, and reclaim it. Send a message to the people who robbed that thing of the pleasure and satisfaction it brought you. Sure, you could do a note-for-note rerecording that serves primarily as a middle finger to equity investors. Or perhaps you could take the Rebecca Black route. It’s been around a decade since “Friday,” her debut single, made her an early casualty of social media cruelty. But Black has been releasing music steadily, and quietly, for the last few years, and recently she’s been inching back into the spotlight as a reliably charming presence on TikTok. Musically, she’s found her footing as an outré eccentric with sturdy savvy, an ideal approach for — and a natural position for — someone who’s been chewed to pulp by the internet. Hence, the reclaiming of “Friday,” with a chaotic, loopy, joyful, meta-hyperpop remix with Dorian Electra, Big Freedia and 3OH!3, all produced by Dylan Brady of 100 gecs. The original song became an ur-text of outcast misery. How wonderful to hold it tight all these years, and just wait for your band of misfits to come along. JON CARAMANICADua Lipa, ‘We’re Good’Dua Lipa is at her cheekiest on “We’re Good,” a bonus track from the new deluxe “Moonlight Edition” of her 2020 album, “Future Nostalgia”: “We’re not meant to be, like sleeping and cocaine,” she croons. OK then! The video is, similarly, full of irreverent, not-sure-it-all-quite-lands humor, as a tank of imperiled lobsters are saved from becoming dinner by … the Titanic sinking? Thankfully the song itself is pretty straightforward and fun — a sassy, slinky kiss-off that’s more reliably buoyant than that doomed luxury liner. ZOLADZNicky Jam and Romeo Santos, ‘Fan de Tus Fotos’“Fan de Tus Fotos” finds the smooth reggaeton star Nicky Jam and the bachata superstar Romeo Santos both longing for the same woman, crooning one come on after another. Santos, in particular, is vivid, singing (in Spanish), “I’m your fan looking for a ticket/for a concert with your body.” In the video, both are office drones obsessed with the same supervisor, who metes out two punishments for their workplace insubordination — she fires them (bad), then finds more direct ways to boss them around (ummmmm … not bad?). CARAMANICACherry Glazerr, ‘Big Bang’Clementine Creevy, the songwriter who leads Cherry Glazerr, has moved well beyond the lean, guitar-driven rock of her recent past. “Big Bang” is a negotiation with an ex who’s still in the picture: “I still call you when I need escaping,” she admits, only to insist, “I don’t wanna make you my lifeline.” Her mixed feelings play out over a stately march that rises to near-orchestral peaks. Is she arguing with her ex or with herself? JON PARELESDeath From Above 1979, ‘One + One’What happens when post-punks grow up? The guitar-and-drums duo Death From Above 1979 has one answer: a hard-riffing embrace of happy monogamy and proud fatherhood. “One plus one is three — that’s magic!” The drums still pound and skitter, and the guitar still bites, while the nuclear family is reaffirmed. PARELESR+R=Now, ‘How Much a Dollar Cost’The pianist Robert Glasper and the alto saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin played important roles in the making of Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly,” and they’re also at the nucleus of R+R=Now, a contemporary-jazz supergroup that works in conversation with hip-hop and R&B. (It also includes Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah on trumpet, Derrick Hodge on bass, Taylor McFerrin on synthesizer, and Justin Tyson on drums.) When the group performed at Glasper’s Blue Note residency in New York in 2018, Lamar’s “How Much a Dollar Cost” was part of the set. That show was released today as a live album; on the Lamar cover, without an M.C., the fiery interplay between Adjuah and Martin takes over storytelling duties. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOMatt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, ‘Hall of Death’What could have been a country waltz becomes, instead, a hyperactive scramble of distorted Tuareg guitar riffs and three-against-two cross-rhythms. The weary voice and haunted lyrics of Will Oldham (Bonnie “Prince” Billy) are backed not only by Matt Sweeney but by the unstoppable Mdou Moctar Ensemble — which includes their songwriting collaborator Ahmoudou Madassane on guitar, from Niger. The track winds up, unexpectedly, as something like a love song. PARELESLil Tjay featuring 6lack, ‘Calling My Phone’Lightly resentful sad boy R&B from Lil Tjay and 6lack — Lil Tjay sounds depleted, while 6lack sounds like he never takes his sunglasses off when he looks you in the eye. CARAMANICAKaty Kirby, ‘Portals’Katy Kirby’s voice is modest and breathy, with a few unconcealed cracks, as she muses over a shaky relationship in metaphysical terms: “If we peel apart will we be stronger than before/we had formed ourselves together in a temporary whole?” She’s accompanied by calm, steady, basic piano chords in the foreground, while chamber-pop co-conspirators open up creaky mysteries around her. PARELESLucy Gooch, ‘Ash and Orange’The composer and singer Lucy Gooch layers her keyboards and vocals into enveloping reveries. “Ash and Orange” relies on organ-toned synthesizer chords, distant church bells and countless choirlike overdubbed harmonies for a song that evolves from meditation to an open-ended quasi-confession — despairing? forgiving? — from overlapping voices: “In my heart, in my head, I’ve tried.” PARELESMark Feldman, ‘As We Are’Fluidly spiraling up the violin’s neck, then dashing and plucking and scraping back down in a rough swarm: that’s the sound of Mark Feldman — unflinching and unconstrained as always — in a solo rendition of Sylvie Courvoisier’s “As We Are.” Later he lets the piece’s off-the-grid melody carry him into a stretch of intense improvising. This track opens Feldman’s engrossing new album, “Sounding Point,” his first solo violin LP in over 25 years. RUSSONELLOBrent Faiyaz featuring Purr, ‘Circles’In “Circles,” the producer and singer Brent Faiyaz ponders identity, purpose and eschatology: “Did I forget who I am? Chasing gold?/Only heaven knows if you can truly win in the midst of a world that’s gon’ end.” Nothing is reliable: not the computer-shifted pitch of his voice, not the loop of plinky tones behind him, not the beat that’s sometimes interrupted, not even whether it’s one song or two. For its last 47 seconds, the track changes completely, turning into retro soundtrack rock as, in the video, Faiyaz leaves the studio gloom, climbs into his sports car and drives off. PARELESAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Sorry, Britney’: Media Is Criticized for Past Coverage, and Some Own Up

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s Estate‘We’re Sorry, Britney’Justin Timberlake ApologizesWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Sorry, Britney’: Media Is Criticized for Past Coverage, and Some Own UpConversations about the relentless focus on the pop star’s mental health, mothering and sexuality have begun anew following The New York Times documentary “Framing Britney Spears.”Media outlets and fans are re-examining how Britney Spears was questioned and written about during the years leading up to her personal crises.Credit…Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 12, 2021Updated 1:50 p.m. ET“Help Me,” the cover of Us Weekly blared in all caps, below a photo of Britney Spears with her hair partly buzzed off. People Magazine promised to take readers “Inside Britney’s Breakdown,” teasing details of “wild partying, sobbing in public, shaving her head.” OK! Weekly tempted potential buyers with a firsthand account of an “emotional cry for help.”In 2007, the celebrity magazines stacked up in dentists’ waiting rooms or on the racks by supermarket checkout lines had a favorite cover story: the trials and tribulations of a 25-year-old Britney Spears. That breathless, wall-to-wall coverage of her travails by glossy magazines, supermarket tabloids, mainstream newspapers and television shows alike is now being re-examined in the wake of a new documentary about Spears and her troubles by The New York Times.Fourteen years after Spears’s most publicized crises, some see the hypercritical fixation on her mental health, mothering and sexuality as a broad public failing.“We’re sorry, Britney,” read a post on Glamour’s Instagram this week. “We are all to blame for what happened to Britney Spears.”Spears was a frequent cover star on celebrity weeklies in the mid-2000s.The tabloids had been obsessed with Spears since her days as a teenage bubble-gum pop sensation, but the coverage reached a new level of intensity during her mid-20s. There seemed to be a vicious cycle at play: The relentless paparazzi that followed Spears nearly everywhere left her exasperated and helped fuel public displays of frustration, which magazines then covered aggressively, interviewing a host of tangential characters, including the owner of the hair salon where she shaved her head and a psychologist who had never treated her.“Her story hit at a time when print magazines were hunting for the story of the week,” said Jen Peros, a former Us Weekly editor, “and when you found a celebrity — I hate to say it — spiraling or acting abnormally, that was the story. And we knew it would sell magazines.”A new episode of The New York Times Presents, on FX and Hulu, coming Friday, Feb. 5, at 10 p.m.CreditCredit…Ting-Li Wang/The New York TimesSome are now asking for direct apologies from people who made jokes at Spears’s expense or interviewed her in ways now viewed as insensitive, sexist or simply unfair. On social media, there have been calls for apologies from prominent media figures, including Diane Sawyer, who, in a 2003 interview grilled Spears on what she might have done to upset her ex, Justin Timberlake; Matt Lauer, who pointed to questions about whether she was a “bad mom”; and the comedian Sarah Silverman, who made off-color jokes about Spears at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.These demands are encapsulated in another phrase spreading on social media: “Apologize to Britney.”Silverman, who had joked on MTV that Spears’s children were “the most adorable mistakes,” did just that on an episode of her podcast that was released on Thursday, saying that, at the time, she had not understood that big-time celebrities could have their feelings hurt.“Britney, I am so sorry. I feel terribly if I hurt you,” Silverman said. “I could say I was just doing my job but that feels very Nuremberg Trial-y, and I am responsible for what comes out of my mouth.”And on Friday Timberlake issued an apology to Spears on Instagram, writing that he was “deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right.” (He also apologized to Janet Jackson, with whom he appeared in 2004 at the Super Bowl halftime show.) The new documentary, “Framing Britney Spears,” which premiered on Hulu and FX last Friday, traces the origins of Spears’s conservatorship, the legal arrangement that has mandated that other individuals — primarily her father — have had control over her personal life and finances for the past 13 years, following her 2008 hospitalization after a three-hour standoff involving her two toddler sons and her ex-husband Kevin Federline.It wasn’t just the paparazzi and the tabloids that reported — sometimes breathlessly — on Spears’s marriages, children, substance abuse issues and mental health challenges: So did The New York Times, as well as other newspapers, television news outlets and late-night comedy programs. Even the game show “Family Feud” found a way to work Spears in, asking contestants to list things that she had lost in the past year (“her hair,” “her husband”).In an interview, Samantha Barry, the editor in chief of Glamour, said of society’s treatment of Spears, “Hopefully we’re in a place where we won’t do that again, where we won’t lift up these celebrities — in particular women — and then proceed to rip them down.”Spears onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2016. In 2007, the comedian Sarah Silverman joked about the singer’s children at the awards show; this week, she apologized in a podcast.Credit…Charles Sykes/Invision, via Associated PressPeros, who started as a reporter for Us Weekly in 2006 and ultimately became editor in chief, believes that with a decade and a half of hindsight, the media would treat Spears differently now. Weekly magazines are “much more sensitive and handle stories like this more delicately,” she said, pointing to coverage of celebrities like Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato, who have spoken more openly about mental health and substance abuse. Part of the evolution stems from the fact that these subjects are less stigmatized, but it’s also the result of journalists and editors understanding that aggressive media coverage would inevitably receive backlash now, Peros said.Us Weekly was one of the magazines that poured resources into relentlessly covering Spears. In a March 2007 cover story that read like a play-by-play of a natural disaster and its aftermath, the magazine interviewed a diner at a sushi restaurant that Spears’s mother visited, a clubgoer at a karaoke party Spears dropped in on, and cited an anonymous source in Antigua, where Spears briefly checked into a rehab clinic.“That was a time when she was making so much money for these magazines that we had the money to send a reporter to Antigua,” Peros said.Back then, it was Peros’s job in New York to search for nuggets of insight into Spears’s life by interviewing dancers or lighting assistants on her tour, searching through the Yellow Pages for their contact information and typically granting them anonymity to share things that they probably shouldn’t. If the reporters had the same awareness about mental health that they have today, they might not have dug so aggressively, she said.The main difference between then and now is the rise of social media, which has diluted the power of weekly magazines as the primary way to learn about celebrities’ personal lives. In some ways, social media can give celebrities more control over what people see: For Spears, her Instagram account is a repository for improvisational dancing, photos of her and her boyfriend, silly skits and random curiosities — all blasted out to an audience of 27.7 million followers.There may be fewer professional photographers following celebrities like Spears around now, but at the same time, almost everyone is armed with a smartphone and has the potential to become an amateur paparazzi. Instead of sending a reporter to go to Antigua to find out what Spears was up to, Us Weekly would now be scouring social media for photos of her there walking around town or eating at restaurants.Dax Holt, who was a producer at TMZ for over a decade and now co-hosts a podcast about Hollywood, said that he doesn’t necessarily blame the media for Spears’s breakdown but rather an American public that had an incessant curiosity for all things Britney. Still, Holt, who used to sift through paparazzi photos of Spears in his time at TMZ, said it made him sad to watch the documentary and see all that Spears had to endure.“I can’t even imagine what it would be like being a focal point of the world’s attention for so many years,” he said. “One little misstep and the whole world is laughing at you.”So far, the public has heard little from Spears herself about the documentary and the reactions to it. On Tuesday, she seemed to indirectly address the film in social media posts when she wrote, “I’ll always love being on stage …. but I am taking the time to learn and be a normal person.”This time, more people seem to be accepting that she is one.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Control of Britney Spears’s Estate Debated at Court Hearing

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s Estate‘We’re Sorry, Britney’Justin Timberlake ApologizesWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyControl of Britney Spears’s Estate Debated at Court HearingLawyers for the pop star and her father, from whom she is estranged, discussed how he would share management of her finances with a corporate fiduciary.Fans of Britney Spears returned to a courthouse in Los Angeles on Thursday to argue in favor of ending the conservatorship that now directs her life and finances. Credit…Mike Blake/ReutersJoe Coscarelli and Published More

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      Justin Timberlake Apologizes to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s Estate‘We’re Sorry, Britney’Justin Timberlake ApologizesWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJustin Timberlake Apologizes to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson“I understand that I fell short,” he said on Instagram, adding that he “benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism.”A week after the release of a Britney Spears documentary, Justin Timberlake said he was “deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right.”Credit…Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressFeb. 12, 2021, 1:10 p.m. ETThe singer and actor Justin Timberlake apologized to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson on Friday in a vague but earnest Instagram post, a week after a New York Times documentary on Spears set off a wave of criticism of Timberlake for how he treated the pop star after their breakup.The apology to Jackson seemed to stem from the infamous Super Bowl halftime performance in 2004, when a closing duet between Timberlake and Jackson ended with Timberlake singing “Bet I’ll have you naked by the end of this song” as he tore away more of her costume than had been planned, to reveal — live and televised worldwide — her uncovered breast. In the aftermath, Jackson was the subject of most of the backlash, and Timberlake later conceded that he should have defended her more.Without specifying what exactly he was apologizing for, Timberlake wrote that he had seen all the messages, tags and comments on social media in recent days and that he was “deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right.”“I understand that I fell short in these moments and in many others and benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism,” he said in the post.The documentary, “Framing Britney Spears,” which premiered on Hulu and FX on Feb. 5, included a re-examination of the world’s reaction to Timberlake and Spears’s breakup, which was framed in the media as being Spears’s fault — partly because a music video by Timberlake implied that Spears had cheated on him. It included a clip from a radio interview with Timberlake in which he was asked whether he had sex with Spears and he replied, “OK, yeah, I did it,” evoking cheers.The documentary prompted calls on social media for direct apologies from many people who made jokes at Spears’s expense or interviewed her in ways now viewed as insensitive, sexist or simply unfair. But one of the most prominent apologies sought by fans was from Timberlake; others piped up to ask, “What about Janet Jackson?”The mea culpa eventually landed.“I specifically want to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson both individually, because I care for and respect these women and I know I failed,” the post from Timberlake said. “Because of my ignorance, I didn’t recognize it for all that it was while it was happening in my own life but I do not want to ever benefit from others being pulled down again.”In the aftermath of the Super Bowl halftime show, Timberlake apologized to the program’s audience as well as “anyone offended.” At the Grammy Awards, which that year followed the Super Bowl, he won two awards, while apologizing for the “unintentional” incident. Years later, he said in an interview with MTV, “There could have been ways that I could have gone about it, handled it better.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Taylor Swift’s Rerecorded Album Releases Begin With ‘Fearless’ in April

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTaylor Swift’s Rerecorded Album Releases Begin With ‘Fearless’ in AprilAfter her first six albums were sold to investors, Swift said she would record entirely new versions of her old songs that she would own.Taylor Swift onstage during her Fearless Tour at Madison Square Garden in New York. The singer is rereleasing a new version of the album, which first came out in 2008.Credit…Chad Batka for The New York TimesFeb. 11, 2021Following through on a threat that rattled the music business and kick-started industrywide conversations about artistic ownership, Taylor Swift announced on Thursday that she would release a newly recorded version of “Fearless,” her second and most successful album, as part of a long-term plan to control her old songs outright.“This process has been more fulfilling and emotional than I could’ve imagined and has made me ever more determined to re-record all of my music,” said the singer, 31, in a statement on social media. She added that the rollout of her rerecordings would begin at midnight with the release of a fresh take on the song “Love Story” — now called “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” — her first Billboard Top 10 single, just in time for Valentine’s Day.“Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” will be released April 9 and feature 26 songs total, including hits like “You Belong With Me” and “Fifteen,” along with six unreleased tracks written when Swift was a teenager. “‘Fearless’ was an album full of magic and curiosity, the bliss and devastation of youth,” Swift wrote.I’m thrilled to tell you that my new version of Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is done and will be with you soon. It has 26 songs including 6 never before released songs from the vault. Love Story (Taylor’s Version) will be out tonight. Pre-order now at https://t.co/NqBDS6cGFl 💛💛 pic.twitter.com/Vjyy2gA72O— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) February 11, 2021
      First released in 2008 by the Nashville label Big Machine, “Fearless” represented Swift’s mainstream breakthrough outside of country music and won four Grammy Awards, including album of the year, on its way to selling more than 10 million copies in the United States. Like most artists, Swift did not then control the rights to her recordings, which belonged to the label, though she held some ownership, along with her songwriting collaborators, of the separate rights for her songs’ compositions, known as publishing.In 2019, not long after Swift signed a different contract with Universal Music Group that gave her the rights to her masters moving forward, the powerful music executive Scooter Braun purchased Big Machine — and with it, the master recordings to Swift’s first six multiplatinum albums — in a $300 million deal that included an investment from the private-equity firm Carlyle Group.At the time, Swift said that the deal “stripped me of my life’s work,” and put her catalog “in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.” (Braun, who represents artists like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, previously worked with Kanye West, a longtime rival of Swift’s; she accused Braun of “incessant, manipulative bullying,” which he denied.) Her fans reacted with a public pressure campaign on social media.Swift’s back catalog has since changed hands again: Braun’s company Ithaca Holdings sold the rights to Swift’s music — the albums “Taylor Swift,” “Fearless,” “Speak Now,” “Red,” “1989” and “Reputation” — to Shamrock Capital, an investment firm founded by Roy E. Disney, a nephew of Walt Disney, for more than $300 million. Swift said she declined an offer to partner with Shamrock, citing Braun’s continued financial involvement.But before the second sale, Swift had already indicated that she planned to create a new set of master recordings that closely matched the ones she did not own, thus potentially devaluing the original assets.The owner of a master recording controls its use, including selling albums or licensing songs for movies, television, advertisements or video games. While an artist may still earn royalties on those recordings, record companies have historically retained rights to masters in exchange for the financial risks they take in supporting and promoting an artist.By creating new master recordings of her older songs, Swift, one of the most powerful celebrities in music and beyond, cannot only urge her loyal legions of fans to stream and buy the versions she owns, but may also encourage brands, filmmakers and other potential corporate partners to avoid using the originals. In December, Swift previewed the new “Love Story” in an ad for the dating service Match.Swift is not the first artist to try such a maneuver, though she may be the highest profile and most dedicated to the project. Standard recording contracts typically include terms that bar artists from releasing rerecorded work for three to five years, or more, from its initial release — restrictions that became common after the Everly Brothers put out fresh versions of past hits on a new label in the early 1960s.Since then, the band Def Leppard released what it called “forgeries” of its biggest hits during a dispute with its label, while the pop singer Jojo put out newly recorded versions of her first two albums, which were not available on streaming services, in 2018, after her rerecording clauses ran out.Swift said on “Good Morning America” in 2019 that her contracts allowed for her to rerecord her first five albums beginning in November 2020. “I think that artists deserve to own their work,” she said. “I just feel very passionately about that.”Artists including Prince, Janet Jackson and Jay-Z had previously emphasized the importance of musicians owning their own masters; Swift’s public missives on the issue seemed to revitalize the conversation for a new generation. In 2018, upon leaving Big Machine, where she first signed at age 15, Swift announced a multi-album agreement with Universal Music Group and its subsidiary, Republic Records, where she would own her recordings.That deal covered “Lover,” from 2019, and Swift’s two pandemic albums from last year, “Folklore” and “Evermore.” The singer has six nominations at the Grammys next month, including album of the year for “Folklore” — her fourth career nod in that category and possibly her third win.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Jay-Z, Foo Fighters and Mary J. Blige Among Rock Hall Nominees

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJay-Z, Foo Fighters and Mary J. Blige Among Rock Hall NomineesSeven of this year’s 16 nominees are women, including the Go-Go’s, Dionne Warwick, Kate Bush, Carole King, Chaka Khan and Tina Turner.Jay-Z in concert. He’s on the list of nominees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame released Wednesday.Credit…Brian Ach/Getty Images North America, via (Credit Too Long, See Caption)Feb. 10, 2021Foo Fighters, Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, Iron Maiden and the Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti are all first-time nominees for the 36th annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, the hall announced on Wednesday.They lead a group of 16 nominees, including several who have received nods at least twice before: Devo, LL Cool J, New York Dolls, Rage Against the Machine and Todd Rundgren.After many complaints that the hall’s hundreds of inductees over the years have been overwhelmingly white and male, this year’s ballot is its most diverse yet. Seven of the 16 nominees are female acts, and nine feature artists of color.Women on the ballot include the Go-Go’s and Dionne Warwick — both receiving their first nods — along with Kate Bush, Carole King, Chaka Khan and Tina Turner.This year’s induction ceremony is planned for the fall in Cleveland, home of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.To some extent, the latest crop of nominees extends a pattern that has taken hold over the last half-decade or so, with a handful of alt-rock heroes and rap gods as all-but-guaranteed sure things; Foo Fighters and Jay-Z have just crossed the hall’s eligibility threshold of 25 years since the release of their first commercial recordings. Dave Grohl, the leader of Foo Fighters, is already in the pantheon as a member of Nirvana, class of 2014.From left, Chris Shiflett, Rami Jaffee, Taylor Hawkins, Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, and Pat Smear of Foo Fighters. The band only recently became eligible for induction.Credit…Kevin Winter/Getty Images for IheartmediaA few recycled names from previous years’ ballots give a sense of the advocacy projects among the Hall of Fame’s secretive nominating committee. Rundgren, the eclectic singer-songwriter and producer whose solo career goes back to the early 1970s, has been nominated in each of the last three years; Rage Against the Machine, the agitprop rap-metal band whose planned reunion tour last year was disrupted by the pandemic, has been nominated three times over the last four cycles. LL Cool J has now gotten a total of six nods.Iron Maiden, whose lightning guitar riffs and demonic imagery helped shape heavy metal in the 1980s, has been eligible since 2005.But this year’s nominations also include some surprises. Kuti, the Nigerian bandleader and activist who melded James Brown’s funk with African sounds to create the genre of Afrobeat — and was introduced to many Americans through the 2009 Broadway musical “Fela!” — would be the first West African honoree. (Trevor Rabin, a member of Yes, which was inducted in 2017, is from South Africa.)And the hall’s nominating committee — a group of journalists, broadcasters and industry insiders — has clearly made an effort to highlight some of pop music’s many deserving women. The pressure to do so has been mounting for years. In 2019, the critic and academic Evelyn McDonnell tallied the 888 people who had been inducted up to that point and found that just 7.7 percent were women.Mary J. Blige performing in New Orleans. She’s on the list of hall of fame nominees for the first time. Inductees will be announced in May.Credit…Amy Harris/Invision, via Associated PressWhen Janet Jackson and Stevie Nicks gave acceptance speeches that year, they called on the institution to diversify its ranks. “What I am doing is opening up the door for other women to go, like, ‘Hey man, I can do it,’” Nicks said.If chosen, King and Turner would join Nicks as the only female artists to be inducted twice; King was admitted in 1990 with her songwriting partner, Gerry Goffin, and Ike and Tina Turner joined in 1991.The nominations will be voted on by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals. The hall will once again enter a single “fan ballot” based on votes collected from members of the public on the hall’s website, rockhall.com. Inductees are to be announced in May.In December, the Hall of Fame and Museum announced plans for a $100 million expansion, which would increase the footprint of its museum by a third.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Britney Spears Conservatorship Case Heads Back to Court

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBritney Spears Conservatorship Case Heads Back to CourtAfter a new documentary about Spears by The New York Times was shown, calls to #FreeBritney were joined by a new message: “We are sorry, Britney.”Behind the scenes during the shoot for the “Lucky” music video in 2000. A moment captured by Britney’s assistant and friend Felicia Culotta.Credit…Courtesy of Felicia CulottaFeb. 9, 2021Updated 7:01 p.m. ETThe legal battle over who should control Britney Spears’s finances and personal life is scheduled to return to the courtroom later this week amid a renewed discussion of how she was treated during her meteoric rise as a teenage pop star and during her subsequent mental health struggles.The issue resurfaced in recent days after “Framing Britney Spears,” a documentary by The New York Times, premiered Friday on FX and Hulu. The film centers on the conflict over Spears’s conservatorship, a legal arrangement that has allowed other people — primarily her father — to manage her career, her personal life and her finances since 2008.In tracing back the origins of the current legal battle, the documentary tells a story of a gifted performer who for decades has been surrounded by people seeking to capitalize off her, and who was ultimately driven to desperation by an insidious celebrity culture and paparazzi who would not leave her alone.The film also explores the #FreeBritney movement, a campaign by fans that seeks to portray the conservatorship as a money-hungry means to exert control over Spears.Since the new documentary’s debut, these calls have multiplied, with several celebrities joining in and amplifying a movement that was once confined to a niche group of activists and superfans. In posts on Instagram and Twitter on Tuesday, Spears appeared to comment indirectly on the documentary by sharing a performance of hers from a few years ago and writing, “I’ll always love being on stage …. but I am taking the time to learn and be a normal person ….. I love simply enjoying the basics of every day life!!!!”“Remember, no matter what we think we know about a person’s life,” she wrote, “it is nothing compared to the actual person living behind the lens.”With a hearing scheduled on Thursday in Los Angeles, here is a breakdown of the conservatorship controversy.Dressed in a pink silk dress, Britney poses with her chaperone and friend, Felicia Culotta, in 2000.Credit…Courtesy of Felicia CulottaWhat is a conservatorship?Sometimes known as a guardianship, a conservatorship is a complex legal arrangement typically reserved for the old, ill or infirm. A representative is designated to manage the person’s affairs and estate if that person is deemed to be unable to take care of themselves or vulnerable to outside influence or manipulation.Spears has lived under a conservatorship since 2008, after a string of public meltdowns (which, the documentary notes, were aggressively captured by paparazzi who followed Spears nearly everywhere she went). For more than a decade, Spears’s father, James P. Spears, known as Jamie, has overseen much of his daughter’s financial and personal life as one of the conservators. The appointed conservators have control over everything from Spears’s mental health care to where and when she can travel; the setup means that Spears’s conservators are required to submit detailed accounts of her purchases to the court — even minor charges like $5 purchases at Sonic Drive-In or Target.Conservatorships are always portrayed as being for a person’s protection. Representatives for Jamie Spears have said that his stewardship over her career likely saved her from financial ruin. He said in court filings that his “sole motivation has been his unconditional love for his daughter and a fierce desire to protect her from those trying to take advantage of her.”Jamie Spears stepped back from his role as his daughter’s personal conservator in 2019, citing health problems; a professional conservator took his place temporarily. The current court battle revolves around control over Spears’s estate.A new documentary from The New York Times examines the so-called Free Britney movement made up of fans of the pop star Britney Spears.CreditCredit…G. Paul Burnett/The New York TimesWhere does the issue stand in court?Last summer, the contours of the case changed drastically when Spears’s court-appointed lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, said in a court filing for the first time that his client “strongly opposed” her father as conservator. In requesting that Spears’s temporary personal conservator, Jodi Montgomery, a professional in the field, be made permanent, Ingham left open the possibility that Spears might one day seek to terminate the conservatorship fully.“Without in any way waiving her right to seek termination of this conservatorship in the future,” Ingham wrote, “Britney would like Ms. Montgomery’s appointment as conservator of her person to be made permanent.”In November, a judge declined to immediately remove Jamie Spears as head of his daughter’s estate; at the same time, the judge added a corporate fiduciary, Bessemer Trust, as co-conservator, as the singer requested.In December, the judge extended Montgomery’s temporary role as personal conservator until September of this year.The hearing on Thursday in Los Angeles will likely include a discussion of the roles that Jamie Spears and Bessemer Trust will play in managing the estate. A lawyer for Jamie Spears did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Britney poses with a rose on her head during a photo shoot in 2000. Rose imagery recurs throughout Britney’s career — today roses are woven throughout her Instagram feed.Credit…Courtesy of Felicia CulottaWhat does Britney Spears want?What has become clear in recent months through her lawyer, according to court filings, is that Britney Spears no longer wants her father to serve as her conservator.At a court hearing in November, the singer’s lawyer said that “she is afraid of her father,” whom she has not spoken to in a long time, and that she will not perform again if her father maintains control over her career, The Associated Press reported.For years, Spears had largely ignored the calls from fans to #FreeBritney, but more recently, she signaled some approval when her lawyer wrote in a court filing that his client “welcomes and appreciates the informed support of her many fans.”(Her father has referred to #FreeBritney activists as “conspiracy theorists.”)What is less clear is whether Britney Spears intends to try to terminate the conservatorship in the near future. Her initial aversion to the arrangement was clear in 2008, when, in an interview with MTV, Spears compared her circumstances to a jail sentence with no end.In her social media posts on Tuesday, Spears wrote, “Each person has their story and their take on other people’s stories.”Her current boyfriend, Sam Asghari, came out earlier Tuesday with a blunt criticism of Jamie Spears, writing in an Instagram story that he has “zero respect for someone trying to control our relationship and constantly throwing obstacles in our way.”Who else has spoken up?The #FreeBritney movement has gotten attention from celebrities before, such as when Miley Cyrus shouted out the phrase during a concert in 2019. But the film has amplified the support — and sparked a reckoning from journalists and others around how they may have played into the hypercritical Britney obsession of the aughts.In the days after the documentary dropped, celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler and Andy Cohen tweeted out the hashtag. Calling the documentary a “gut punch,” the actress Valerie Bertinelli tweeted a list of men who she believed to have harmed Spears throughout her career. The singer Hayley Williams wrote that “no artist today” would have to endure what Spears did.In the days after the documentary’s debut, another message, which was popularized by celebrities including the singer Courtney Love, began trending: “We Are Sorry, Britney.” It was a sorrowful admission that the intrusions into Spears’s private life, the fixation on her sexuality and the relentless focus on her mistakes rested on the shoulders of many.Joe Coscarelli contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Weeknd Emerges From the Shadows at the Super Bowl Halftime Show

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyReviewThe Weeknd Emerges From the Shadows at the Super Bowl Halftime ShowIn a year shaped by the coronavirus, a pop star with an affection for the grandeur and sheen of the biggest 1980s pop found a way to make a large affair small.The Weeknd performed a career-spanning set at the Super Bowl halftime show, but he was mostly confined to the stands.Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesFeb. 7, 2021For almost all of his decade-long career, the Weeknd has been finding ever more ornate ways to duck the spotlight, becoming immeasurably famous and popular while maintaining a cool, skeptical and effective remove from the harsh, sometimes goofy spotlight of fame.Out on the stage at the Super Bowl halftime show, though, there isn’t much one can do to hide. It is a locale that flattens nuance, sandpapers intent. It’s live and heavily vetted. For someone whose songs often dive deep into traumatic and provocative subject matter, but gleam so brightly and convincingly that it’s easy to miss the brittle soul within, it is an unlikely, almost vulnerable place to find yourself.Which probably explains why, at Super Bowl LV at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., the Weeknd rejiggered the terms of the performance. What would ordinarily be a hyperchoreographed spectacle with countless moving parts was instead something more focused and, at times, unnervingly intimate. Even though his music tends toward the maximalist, the Weeknd found several ways to make the performance appear small, a kind of secret whispered in front of an audience that tops 100 million.In a performance clearly designed for at-home consumption, he focused intently on the cameras. Behind him was a band and a choir interspersed among a neon cityscape, and often he was surrounded by dancers — their faces bandaged, in keeping with the fame-skeptic iconography of his recent music videos — but often, the Weeknd stood alone. His eye contact was intense. When he danced, he mostly did so in isolation. In the midst of a pyrotechnic affair, there he was, keeping his own time.That was also partly the result of the unique circumstances of the event this year: a grand-scaled affair reimagined with pandemic restrictions in mind. Rather than the usual stage setup — assembled at midfield, then rapidly disassembled after the show — the Weeknd performed largely from the stands, only descending to the field for the final few minutes of his set.Wearing a glittery red blazer and spectator shoes with an all-black ensemble, he sometimes appeared like a cabaret mayor, a master of ceremony for a space-age function. He stuck to the biggest of his many big hits. “Starboy” was vibrant, and “The Hills” had a majestic sweep.After “The Hills,” he pivoted to something more peculiar, walking into an overlit labyrinth and performing “Can’t Feel My Face” amid a scrum of face-bandaged look-alikes. The camera was hand-held and unsteady, communicating a glamorous mayhem that this event usually doesn’t dabble in.Afterward, he tempered the mood with some of his biggest-tent hits: the sunshiny “I Feel It Coming,” the oversized “Save Your Tears” and then “Earned It,” his theatrical ballad from the “Fifty Shades of Grey” soundtrack.The Weeknd took the field only for the finale, “Blinding Lights.”Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesThere could perhaps be no more fitting moment for the Weeknd to be headlining the halftime show: After almost a year of avoiding other people, who better to set the terms of public engagement than pop music’s greatest hermit? That said, it was jarring this week to watch him poke his head out from the shadows, engaging in a terse, not wholly comfortable news conference, and yuk-yuking in a comedy sketch with James Corden.There are some responsibilities of this level of fame that aren’t negotiable. Asked at the news conference whether he would temper his songs or performance in any way, given how lurid and graphic his recent videos have been, the Weeknd insisted, “We’ll keep it PG for the families, definitely.”Which is to say, there was no mischief injected onto one of pop music’s grandest, most-viewed and most scrutinized stages — take, for example, the raw carnal provocations of Prince’s 2007 rain-shellacked performance, or the fire-eyed political radicalism of Beyoncé’s takeover of Coldplay’s tepid set in 2016, or M.I.A.’s middle finger in 2012.Mostly, as promised, he kept it PG, though he did toss in a sly grin and a tiny sashay of the hip during “I Feel It Coming,” and the scattered mayhem during “Can’t Feel My Face” suggested far more sinister things than could be represented. His recent music videos have focused on the grotesquerie of celebrity worship, but that narrative was nodded to but largely sidelined.This is the second halftime show produced in part by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, in an arrangement struck while the league was trying to address fallout from its handling of Colin Kaepernick’s racial justice protests. In recent years, the N.F.L. has seemingly perpetually been in crisis-response mode. This season was consistently challenged by the impact of the coronavirus.Before the game, the rock-soul singer H.E.R. performed “America the Beautiful,” injecting some Prince-minded guitar filigree. And the national anthem was a duet between the phenomenally gifted soul singer Jazmine Sullivan and the country stoic Eric Church, wearing a purple moto-esque jacket as if to overemphasize the political and cultural middle ground the performance — sturdy, sometimes impressive — was so clearly striving for.In the Weeknd, the N.F.L. opted for one of the few unimpeachable pop stars of the past decade, a consistent hitmaker with an ear for contemporary production and an affection for the grandeur and sheen of the biggest 1980s pop.Only during the last couple of minutes, when he finally emerged onto the field, did he acknowledge just how far he had come. Playing at that moment was a snippet of “House of Balloons,” the murky title song from his extremely murky debut mixtape, released a decade ago. At that point, the Weeknd was a total cipher, a Toronto miscreant with an ethereal voice and zero interest in sharing himself with the rest of the world.This nod to his past was quick — a wink for longtime fans — and it gave way to “Blinding Lights,” his exuberant smash from 2019, which topped the Hot 100 for four weeks. It’s a sterling song that evokes both an idyllic future and triggers aural sense memories of mega-pop’s glory years. On the field, he was surrounded by hundreds of Weeknd-alike dancers. In the beginning, he moved with them in lock step. But as the song swelled, and the dancers began to swarm in odd patterns, the Weeknd moved in his own rhythm, holding the camera’s gaze, alone amid the chaos.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More