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      NYC Plans a Central Park Mega-Concert to Celebrate Reopening

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      The mayor’s office has asked the producer Clive Davis to sign up musical stars for an event on the Great Lawn in August.Brunch crowds are back. Rush-hour traffic is back. Tourists in horse-drawn carriages are back.But the best proof that New York City has returned to its full glory may be a mega-concert in the green expanse of Central Park.Seeking a grand symbol of New York’s revitalization after a brutal pandemic year, Mayor Bill de Blasio is planning a large-scale performance by multiple acts and has called on Clive Davis, the 89-year-old producer and music-industry eminence, to pull it together.The show, tentatively set for Aug. 21, is still coming together, with no artists confirmed, though Mr. Davis — whose five-decade career highlights have included working with Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Alicia Keys and Whitney Houston — said he is aiming for eight “iconic” stars to perform a three-hour show for 60,000 attendees and a worldwide television audience.Mr. de Blasio said in an interview that the concert was part of a “Homecoming Week” to show that New York City is coming back from the pandemic — a celebration for residents and those in the region who might not have visited in a while.“This concert is going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It’s going to be an amazing lineup. The whole week is going to be like nothing you’ve ever seen before in New York City.”The show would be the latest in a storied tradition of Central Park super-productions that tend to attract worldwide coverage and to paint New York as a peaceful, cosmopolitan haven for the arts. Many New Yorkers, especially the mayor, may welcome that view after the prevalence of pandemic-era images like a deserted Times Square and boarded-up storefronts amid last summer’s protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.Clive Davis, the producer, said he is aiming to recruit eight major stars to share the billing for the concert, set for Aug. 21.Bryan Derballa for The New York Times“I can’t think of a better place than the Great Lawn of Central Park to be the place where you say that New York is reopening,” Mr. Davis said in an interview.Mr. Davis said that Mr. de Blasio called him three weeks ago, around the time of Mr. Davis’s latest Grammy gala, which he has been hosting annually since 1976, and was divided into two parts this year. As Mr. Davis recalled, the mayor asked him to present a show in partnership with the city that would celebrate New York’s reopening and emphasize the need to vaccinate more young people. The event’s working title gives a sense of its intended gravity: “The Official NYC Homecoming Concert in Central Park.”“I was greatly honored,” said Mr. Davis, who grew up in Brooklyn.Mr. Davis said that he and his team, which includes his son Doug, a music industry lawyer, are still at work booking artists, and he declined to offer any names of those he has in mind. Sponsorship deals are also in the works, he said. The mayor’s office said it would announce a broadcast partner soon.But a number of details for the event have already been set. Live Nation, the global concert giant, is involved with the production, and the majority of tickets will be free, although there will be some V.I.P. seating, Mr. Davis said.The Great Lawn — a 13-acre oval in the center of the park near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Delacorte Theater and the reservoir — has long been the city’s most prestigious setting for outdoor concerts, telegraphing a sense of the very heart of New York.The Central Park Conservancy, which manages the park, has a reputation for being strict and judicious in doling out licenses for major performances there. The group’s website barely mentions concerts, noting that a renovation in 1997 “restored the lawn to balance both active sports use and quiet relaxation.” But the mayor’s office said the conservancy supports the idea.The Great Lawn has been the site of concerts and other major public events since the 1970s. Carole King serenaded 70,000 people there in 1973. Elton John played in 1980 — in a duck suit, among other outfits —  and the following year Simon & Garfunkel reunited for an estimated 400,000 people. Diana Ross performed in 1983, Luciano Pavarotti in 1993 and the Dave Matthews Band in 2003.The New York Philharmonic plays the Great Lawn as part of its tour of city parks each summer, and since 2012 the Global Citizen Festival has held regular events there with star-studded lineups including Beyoncé, Metallica, Neil Young and Coldplay. (Garth Brooks drew hundreds of thousands to the North Meadow, above 97th Street, in 1997.)But even as New York, dormant for a year, now races toward a reopening for entertainment venues — at a recent news conference with Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, James L. Dolan, the chief executive of Madison Square Garden Entertainment, promised a “blockbuster summer” — the prospect of a large-scale public event may still pose complications for health and crowd control.While the state has promoted its vaccine passport Excelsior Pass as a way for restaurants, theater operators and others to confirm patrons’ vaccination status, the system is still new and has not been very widely adopted by either the public or many businesses. According to the state, about 1.1 million passes had been downloaded as of last week, representing only a fraction of the 9.1 million New Yorkers who have been vaccinated.The mayor’s office said there would be vaccinated and unvaccinated sections at the concert, and that about 70 percent of tickets would go to people who are vaccinated. The city has been working hard to vaccinate residents who are reluctant to get the shot.A successful event could be a political triumph for Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat in his last year in office who has repeatedly clashed with Mr. Cuomo. Mr. de Blasio’s popularity sank after his failed presidential run in 2019, and many parents were frustrated over the chaotic reopening of schools during the pandemic.But Mr. de Blasio has recently embraced his role as New York City’s cheerleader as millions of people have been vaccinated and the city has started to reopen. Several of the candidates who are running to succeed him as mayor say they want to hold a major celebration, including Andrew Yang who proposed a five-borough party hosted by his friend Dave Chappelle, the comedian.Mr. de Blasio said he was excited to have Mr. Davis on board and compared the event to a homecoming at a college, where alumni gather to reconnect. He said he wants to show that the city is ready for September, when many more workers are expected to return to offices in Manhattan.Mr. de Blasio said he had been to concerts on the Great Lawn, including seeing Stevie Wonder at the Global Citizen Festival several years ago.“It’s an absolutely stunning place for the concert,” he said. “It makes you feel a deep connection to New York City.”It could also be a late-career feather in the cap of Mr. Davis, who has spent more than 50 years as one of the reigning dons of the music industry.Mr. Davis said he viewed the central message of the event as a simple and optimistic one.“There’s a mental attitude that I think we are all looking forward to,” he said. “That the future is bright and healthy for this country, for the world and for New York City.” More

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      Foo Fighters Will Play First Concert Back at Madison Square Garden

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      The first full-capacity arena concert in New York since March 2020 will feature rock ’n’ roll — but only for fans who are fully vaccinated — on June 20.For the first time in more than 15 months, Madison Square Garden is gearing up to host a rock ’n’ roll concert without social distancing, masks or capacity caps.Foo Fighters will perform on June 20 — but only for fans who are fully vaccinated. It will be the first full-capacity concert in a New York arena since March 2020.“We’ve been waiting for this day for over a year,” Dave Grohl, the band’s frontman, said in a statement on Tuesday, telling fans to prepare for a long night “of screaming our heads off together to 26 years of Foos.”Audience members will be required to show proof of full Covid-19 vaccination along with their tickets to enter the venue, James L. Dolan, the executive chairman and chief executive of Madison Square Garden Entertainment, said in a statement. Tickets will go on sale on Friday at 10 a.m. at prices of $50 to $119.Full-capacity concerts represent the latest sign of a return to cultural life in Manhattan. On Monday, Bruce Springsteen announced that “Springsteen on Broadway,” the rock legend’s autobiographical show, would come back for a limited run that begins performances at the St. James Theater on June 26.Although most Broadway theaters and producers are still holding off on opening until after Labor Day, a drop in coronavirus cases and increasing vaccination rate in the United States have encouraged many producers and performers to accelerate their plans.Fans have been able to attend N.B.A. playoff games at the Garden, where the New York Knicks play, with separate sections for fully vaccinated and unvaccinated fans. (The Knicks were eliminated last week, paving the way for concerts.)The June show is part of a Foo Fighters tour that was meant to celebrate the band’s 25th anniversary, but was postponed a year because of the pandemic. The group last performed at the Garden in July 2018, when it sold out two nights on its Concrete and Gold Tour. During 2020, the band released its 10th studio album, “Medicine at Midnight,” and Grohl engaged in a playful drum battle with the then 10-year-old prodigy Nandi Bushell that delighted fans on social media.Foo Fighters will also be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in October — an honor they earned in their first year of eligibility.Other concerts booked for Madison Square Garden include Eagles in August, as well as the Mexican group Banda MS and the country duo Dan + Shay in September. Harry Styles will perform for five nights in October, and Billy Joel will resume his monthly residency in November. Concerts will return to Barclays Center in Brooklyn in September with Marc Anthony. More

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      Bruce Springsteen Will Return to Broadway in June

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      “Springsteen on Broadway” opens on June 26 at the St. James Theater; audience members will be required to show proof of full Covid-19 vaccination to enter.Bruce Springsteen is returning to Broadway.“Springsteen on Broadway,” the rock legend’s autobiographical show, which ran for 236 performances, including seven previews, in 2017 and 2018, will open on June 26 at the St. James Theater, at 246 W. 44th Street, and have additional performances through Sept. 4, according to an announcement. As of now, the show will be the first to open on Broadway since the pandemic shut down performances in March 2020. While some Broadway productions have set return dates as early as Aug. 4, most have targeted mid-September for their reopenings.Tickets go on sale Thursday at noon Eastern time through SeatGeek, the show’s official ticket seller. SeatGeek, a challenger to Ticketmaster, has a deal with Jujamcyn Theaters, which operates the St. James as well as the Walter Kerr Theater, where “Springsteen on Broadway” had its initial run.Although Broadway theaters and producers have said they plan to reopen their full lineup of shows after Labor Day, the speed of vaccination, and promising downward trend of coronavirus cases in the United States, have encouraged many performers and producers throughout the entertainment industry to move forward quickly.According to the show’s announcement, audience members will be required to show proof of full Covid-19 vaccination along with their tickets to enter the theater. Entry times will be staggered, and attendees will be required to fill out a Covid-19 health screening within 24 hours of the show.“Springsteen on Broadway” — which had its genesis in a private performance at the White House in January 2017, in the closing days of the Obama administration — is a mostly solo show by Springsteen, drawing from his catalog of hits and his 2016 autobiography, “Born to Run.” The show weaves in stories from throughout Springsteen’s career, with insights into how he wrote songs like “Born in the U.S.A.” (His wife, Patti Scialfa, joined him in some songs.)The show was a blockbuster hit, selling $113 million in tickets and playing to a total of 223,585 fans. It was also filmed for a Netflix special of the same title, which went online shortly after the last performance in December 2018.Proceeds from the opening night of “Springsteen on Broadway” will be donated to a number of charities, including the Boys & Girls Clubs of Monmouth County in New Jersey, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and Food Bank for New York City. More

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      Taylor Swift’s ‘Evermore’ Vaults to No. 1 With a Vinyl Bump

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      Taking advantage of a Billboard chart tweak in how the sales of physical albums are counted, the singer-songwriter’s six-month-old album returned to the top.On the Friday before Memorial Day, Taylor Swift noted on social media that the vinyl version of her nearly six-month-old album “Evermore” was finally available. Pictured in her post lying in the grass with her LP, Swift informed her fans, “You can get it at your fav indie record store, Target, Walmart & Amazon.”To those following the ever-changing target that is Billboard’s chart rules, it was a signal to look out for the next No. 1.Indeed, “Evermore” returns to the top slot on the magazine’s latest chart, rising 73 spots to notch its fourth time at No. 1. In the most recent week, “Evermore” had the equivalent of 202,000 sales in the United States. Of those, 192,000 were for copies sold as a complete package, including 102,000 vinyl LPs, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm.It set a record for weekly vinyl sales — at least since 1991, when the charts first came to be informed by hard data (rather than record store surveys, which were fuzzy at best, and often manipulated). Over the last 30 years, the album with the best weekly vinyl sales was “Lazaretto” by Jack White, one of the format’s most zealous champions, which moved 40,000 copies in its opening week in 2014.How did Swift do it? The intimate, indie-folk-esque “Evermore” — Swift’s second surprise release during the pandemic — is certainly a hit, and marked an important moment in her career and creative development. (Her first quarantine release, “Folklore,” won the Grammy for album of the year.)But “Evermore” also benefited from a recent tweak to Billboard’s rules over how it counts the sale of vinyl records on its charts.Vinyl versions of new albums are often delayed by months, the result of production bottlenecks in the small network of pressing plants. When fans order LPs from an artist’s website, they are often sent a digital copy while waiting for the physical one to arrive. Until October, the first version to reach a fan — in those cases, the digital download — was what was counted on the chart. Now, the sale is counted when the version they ordered is shipped.When announced, that rule looked as though it might upset the marketing plans of artists who sell significant amounts of vinyl. But with “Evermore,” Swift was essentially able to amass nearly six months of pre-orders, which were counted in full once the LP was released.According to Billboard, about 71 percent of the current week’s album sales for “Evermore” came from “web-based sellers,” including Swift’s online store. In addition to the vinyl sales, 69,000 copies of “Evermore” were sold on CD, some newly autographed by Swift. (The album had just 12.4 million streams, the least for a No. 1 album since AC/DC’s “Power Up,” which opened in November with 7.8 million.)The return of “Evermore” to No. 1 robbed Olivia Rodrigo’s debut, “Sour,” of a second week at the top after a blockbuster opening. “Sour” had the equivalent of 186,000 sales, down just 37 percent from its first week, and lands in second place.Also this week, J. Cole’s “The Off-Season” is No. 3, Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is No. 4 and Moneybagg Yo’s “A Gangsta’s Pain” is No. 5.DMX’s posthumous release, “Exodus,” opened at No. 8. More

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      John Mayer’s Retro Moper, and 10 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Liz Phair, Billie Eilish, Sofia Rei 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.John Mayer, ‘Last Train Home’If the seamy synths and seamier guitar on John Mayer’s new moper “Last Train Home” — the first single from a forthcoming album, “Sob Rock” — are any indication, he may be just a few years away from making his version of “The End of the Innocence,” perhaps the leading post-sleaze, decaying-rock album of the 1980s. Strong approve. JON CARAMANICANoah Schnacky featuring Jimmie Allen, ‘Don’t You Wanna Know’The classic country boy seduction of the city girl, except in 2021 Nashville, the country boy sure does have the air of a city slicker. Noah Schnacky has a cinched-tight pop-friendly voice and a rhythmic approach to singing indebted to Sam Hunt, deployed here in service of smooth-talking a woman who’s left Los Angeles — and presumably thousands of men who sound just like this — behind. Jimmie Allen, one of country music’s few Black stars, arrives in the second verse and sings a few lovely and restrained bars, as if not to overwhelm. CARAMANICALiz Phair, ‘In There’On “Soberish,” Liz Phair’s first full album since 2010, she examines a divorce in all its bewilderment, ambivalence, resentment, nostalgia and tentative steps ahead. She also circles back to work with Brad Wood, who produced her three definitive 1990s albums. “In There” ticks along on electronic drums and pulsing keyboards, as Phair notes, “I can think of a thousand reasons why you and I don’t get along” but also admits, “I still see us in bed”; it’s not a clean breakup. JON PARELESWolf Alice, ‘Lipstick on the Glass’The British band Wolf Alice makes rock that’s sometimes dreamy, sometimes spiky. “Lipstick on the Glass,” from its third LP, “Blue Weekend,” falls on the woozier end of its spectrum. Over a wash of synths and an undulating riff, the singer and guitarist Ellie Rowsell sings about reconnecting with a partner who’s strayed. The bridge makes clear that it’s a road well traveled, as Rowsell lets her glowing soprano climb with each repetition of the section’s only lyrics: “Once more.” CARYN GANZBillie Eilish, ‘Lost Cause’Billie Eilish 3.0 is leaning into slowgaze R&B, croaky dismissals, modern burlesque, 1950s jazz, sentiments that smolder but don’t singe. She’s peering outward now, and her eyes are rolling: “I used to think you were shy/But maybe you just had nothing on your mind.” CARAMANICASofia Rei, ‘Un Mismo Cielo’The Argentine songwriter and singer Sofia Rei is also a professor at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute, where she created the course New Perspectives in Latin Music. “Un Mismo Cielo” — “The Same Sky” — is from her new album, “Umbral,” It’s thoroughly global world music, using looped vocals, jazzy clusters on piano, Andean panpipes, a funky bass line and a keyboard solo that hints at Ethiopian modes. Echoing the way she melds music, Rei sings about lovers who are separated, yet they still see the same sky. PARELESSeinabo Sey, ‘Sweet Dreams’In “Sweet Dreams,” a quiet gem from Seinabo Sey’s new EP, “Sweet Life,” she sings about “beautiful pain” and how she’s “longing for peace/but won’t see it soon.” Sey was born in Sweden and raised in both Sweden and Gambia, her father’s birthplace; her low voice radiates a serene melancholy with a backdrop of hovering keyboards and the barest inkling of a beat. She’s singing, perhaps, about a year of isolation and contemplation: “Maybe some things needed a break for people to change,” she muses. PARELESMndsgn, ‘3Hands / Divine Hand I’On his new album, “Rare Pleasure,” the producer, composer, keyboardist and vocalist Mndsgn enlisted a top-flight crew of L.A. improvisers, including Kiefer Shackelford on keys, Carlos Niño on percussion and Anna Wise on backing vocals. These tracks scan as a matte collage of Southern California radio moods from the past 50 years: 1970s spiritual jazz and fusion, smoother ’80s stuff, the soft rock that ran alongside all of it. But on “3Hands / Divine Hand I,” he’s mostly splitting the difference between Thundercat and Stereolab, singing affable absurdities in a distant falsetto: “Three hands is better than the two that you were born with.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOYendry, ‘Ya’“I want it all,” Yendry raps matter-of-factly, in Spanish, as she begins “Ya” (“Already”). Yendry was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Italy, and “Ya” reflects musical tastes that encompass Radiohead alongside reggaeton. The beat is Caribbean; the slidey hook and puffy chords are electronic, and Yendry sings and raps about conquering fears, self-reliance and choosing to live as if she’s immortal. “Ya” is equal parts sultry and brash. PARELESCavetown, ‘Ur Gonna Wish U Believed Me’The ghostly, deliberate, double-tracked whisper and subdued acoustic guitar of Elliott Smith have been revived by Cavetown: the English songwriter Robin Skinner, who has also produced fellow bedroom-pop songwriters like mxmtoon and Chloe Moriondo. Like Smith, Cavetown cloaks self-doubt and depression in deceptive calm and hints of Beatles melody. In “Ur Gonna Wish U Believed Me,” he sings about “The fraying threads of recovery/Crushing me from above and underneath,” and eventually Cavetown makes the underlying tensions explode into noise. PARELESGerald Cleaver, ‘Galaxy Faruq (for Faruq Z. Bey)’The esteemed jazz drummer Gerald Cleaver was mostly alone when making “Griots,” an electronic album that he recorded last year during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. But he kept in close touch with his inspirations: Almost every track is titled for a mentor or collaborator. The sparse and pointillist “Galaxy Faruq (for Faruq Z. Bey)” is his dedication to a Detroit saxophonist who inspired Cleaver early in his life. But on this track and others, he’s reaching way beyond the jazz tribe, conversing with an off-the-beaten-path lineage of electronic musicians with roots in the Midwest: the D.J. Theo Parrish, the post-house musician Jlin, the pianist Craig Taborn’s Junk Magic project. RUSSONELLO More

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      Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Sour’ Breakthrough

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      For the past few years, there’s been something of a pop star vacuum — or at least, a pop-music star vacuum. By and large, performers making centrist, big-tent pop music have been relegated to the sidelines as hip-hop — and other genres borrowing heavily from it — took center stage.But Olivia Rodrigo, a Disney child star wielding a bad breakup and a tart voice, has made pop primal, and primary, again. “Sour,” her first album, just debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with the biggest sales week of the year.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Rodrigo’s meteoric year so far, the long arc of the mainstreaming of emo and the quickening of the maturing of Disney idols.Guests:Olivia Horn, who writes about music for Pitchfork, The New York Times and othersLindsay Zoladz, who writes about music for The New York Times and others More

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      Garbage’s Shirley Manson Thrives on Unapologetic Heroines

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      The musician chats about weeping to Patti Smith, getting goose bumps from Yoko Ono and freeing her mind via Louise Bourgeois as her band releases its seventh album.Back in the ’90s, Shirley Manson never expected Garbage would still be making music together nearly 30 years later, and she suspects no one else did, either. “We’re outliers,” the fiery Scottish frontwoman said, referring to bandmates Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker. “We don’t fit into any hip scene. We’ve always done our own thing. I think that’s really rare.”The band’s seventh album, “No Gods No Masters” (out June 11), is its most socially conscious statement, a thrumming mix of goth and orchestral pop partially inspired by the racial justice movement, #MeToo revelations and escalating political divisions. “All these things that happened over the last few years caught my attention, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I just let that fly,” Manson said via phone from the Los Angeles home she shares with her husband, the Garbage engineer Billy Bush, and their elderly rescue dog, Veela. “I didn’t want to make a party record. I wanted to make something that matters.”Manson, 54, has also found a megaphone via her podcast “The Jump,” for which she interviews fellow musicians like Angel Olsen and George Clinton. “I’ve been so inspired at a time in my life when I needed inspiration,” she said. Although, she added, the particularly personal track “Uncomfortably Me” was aided by what the band calls Mind Erasers — a mezcal cocktail featuring chile liqueur. “You can only have one,” she warned. “That song was written after two.”Manson enthusiastically shared what else has sustained and influenced her throughout her long career. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. A Pocket-Size New Testament BibleIt’s one of my most cherished possessions, given to me on the day of my baptism by my father. It’s got this beautiful, glossy cover with a picture of Jesus and some other folks on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, I think. My dad, strangely enough, is having struggles with his faith now at 84, but he was a devout believer, and he brought all of his children up in the church. I really took my studies seriously and, year after year, I won the religious education prize at school. Then the hormones kicked in and I started to notice the hypocrisy of organized religion. The slow eradication of my own faith broke my heart. I turned from perfect student to raging adolescent. I think I was furious at being hoodwinked.2. Margot FonteynShe was the first figure in the world that I crushed on. When I was 8, my dad took me to meet her at a local bookshop. And then I saw her dance with Rudolf Nureyev at a gala performance in Edinburgh. The ballet taught me what it meant to be artists and be disciplined and be serious, and also to work in partnership. Something about achieving things together taught me about how we have to pull each other up.Being a ballerina is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do in my life. Everything else that’s ever happened to me, I didn’t necessarily desire. But I had a terrible accident at church when I was 11 and I twisted my ankle badly. I could no longer sustain pointe. Now, instead of counting sheep to get myself to sleep, I imagine ballerinas running down a spiral staircase.3. Nina SimoneMy mother was a great music lover. She had a red leather Dansette record player, and she introduced me to Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee and Nina Simone. Listening to the records now reminds me of dancing with her in the kitchen.Nina Simone is probably my all time favorite singer — the sound of her voice, her phrasing, her cadences. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything as shocking and heartbreaking as “Strange Fruit” or “I Loves You, Porgy,” which I didn’t understand as a kid. Now the profundity of it hits me so hard. I’m attracted to her courage and her willingness not to be liked. She could be fierce and intimidating. It’s unusual enough now, but back then that was revolutionary.4. The Beatles and Yoko OnoI was in music class the morning we all found out that John Lennon had been killed. I had an amazing music teacher and she allowed us to sit and cry, and she wept with us.I pored over the news regarding Yoko Ono and her grief as a widow. I’d always had a lack of interest in Yoko, because I bought into the ways that she had been sidelined by misogyny. That is the tragedy. But over the years, I’m astounded by what a pioneer she is, not just in art but in gender and environmental politics. I was so lucky to be invited by Gxrlschool L.A. to perform a tribute to her at the Disney Concert Hall, and I got to sing “What a Bastard the World Is.” At the end of the performance I got a note that Yoko wanted to meet me. I’m giving myself goose bumps just talking about it.5. Pris From “Blade Runner”I’m always chasing Pris — in my dreams, in my stage performances, in my fantasies. I grew up in the ’70s in Scotland. There were topless models in the newspapers. To see someone that I knew most men would find freaky when I found her alluring and androgynous just freed me from believing that I had to play a certain game. Pris formed a taste in me for something outside of the typical male gaze. Suddenly, I was like [expletive] it. I don’t want to be a boring woman.6. Louise BourgeoisI was in London. Garbage had just been dropped by Interscope Records. My career was in the toilet. I was creeping up on 40 in an industry that’s not kind to women who are over 25. I was hanging out with the video director Sophie Muller and her old art-school teacher said to us, “Go to the Tate and see the retrospective on Louise Bourgeois.” We became groupies. At the time, Louise Bourgeois was 95, and she was still painting. And standing in the middle of the Tate reading up on her, a darkness broke out of me. I was like, you know what? I may no longer have a successful career, but I can still be an artist. I was overtaken with a determination to engineer my own life.7. Ken Burns’s “Jazz”During quarantine, I had my whole brain exploded by this series. I had always thought of jazz as something fusty and sort of conservative — it’s always been a closed door to me. “Jazz” really shook me up. It gave me a phenomenal basis in understanding contemporary American music and an incredible perspective on systematic racism, colonialism and also great genius.8. “The Jump” PodcastI’m on my third season now and it causes me unbelievable amounts of stress. I feel like I’m not smart enough to be in the position that I’m in. However, it has been an extraordinarily rewarding experience. When you sit down with people for a couple of hours, you get their energy.I came away from the studio really loving on Liz Phair. My band was working on a track, and I wanted to write something that was a little scathing about the patriarchy, but I wanted it to be fun. And I went into the vocal booth and I deliberately pitched my voice low the way she does.9. Patrisse Cullors and Asha Bandele’s “When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir”It was one of the first books I read a couple of years ago when I suddenly had this naïve realization that, gun to the head, I wouldn’t be able to name you 10 Black movie directors. Ten Black novelists. I feel embarrassed to say this. I really needed to educate myself about what’s going on in this country and around the globe. “When They Call You a Terrorist” just set me on a whole journey of belated understanding of the struggle of Black, brown and Indigenous people. I then watched “The 13th,” an incredible documentary by Ava DuVernay. It’s really difficult for white people to admit to our own prejudice, our own privilege, our own conditioning. But you can get over your embarrassment, because people are actually suffering.10. Patti SmithWhenever she speaks, I just start crying. I went to see her perform at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2005 and I started to weep because she looked so powerful, like some kind of vision. She didn’t even seem human. And then I saw her speak just before lockdown to promote her book “Year of the Monkey,” and I wept all the way through that, too. I always think my relationship to her is singular, but I went to the bathroom and all the other ladies in there were crying, too. It was like a Backstreet Boys concert. I’ve seen a lot of my heroes age, and you watch them lose their confidence as they move through the world. You start to see them apologize for aging. With Patti Smith, there is no apology, and it’s such a potent message. More

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      Marina’s Music Was Caught Between Worlds. Now She’s Making Her Own.

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      The musician’s albums reveal an intriguing if uneasy dialogue with her own pop persona. Her fifth LP, “Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land,” is a firm statement of self.LOS ANGELES — Marina Diamandis moved from London to Los Angeles during the pandemic fall, but she has already discovered some of the city’s trendiest literary emissaries. “Eve Babitz didn’t get her due,” she said recently, scanning the shelves at West Hollywood’s Book Soup for the author’s “Slow Days, Fast Company,” a cult favorite of California-set vignettes. “Joan Didion kind of eclipsed her.” With a wry smirk, she added, “There’s only ever room for one woman.”The 35-year-old singer known as Marina (formerly Marina & the Diamonds) is fed up with this myth of scarcity on her fifth album, “Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land,” due on June 11. “I don’t want to live in a man’s world anymore,” she proclaims in her sterling soprano on its first single, “Man’s World.” The accompanying video, directed by Alexandra Gavillet, features women of various ages, sizes and ethnicities standing like placid warriors in Technicolor tunics.The music business is its own kind of man’s world, and Diamandis has been navigating its waters since her 2010 debut, “The Family Jewels,” a boisterous collection of piano ballads, synth-pop and theatrical hip checks. “Along with British songwriters like Lily Allen and Kate Nash, she’s redefining songs about coming of age, and the aftermath, with bluntness and crafty intelligence,” The New York Times’s chief pop critic, Jon Pareles, wrote just ahead of its release.Three more albums followed between 2012 and 2019 that saw Diamandis wrestling with embracing and rejecting the mandates of the industry — striving for mainstream acceptance then pulling back, making music with the flavor of an indie artist in a major label ecosystem. The ambitious “Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land” is another kind of calibration. “The way that we treat people is linked to our connection to the planet,” she said while discussing its second single, the propulsive “Purge the Poison.” (It also has a remix featuring Pussy Riot.) “It’s all tied to a degrading of femininity. Across this album, there’s such a yearning for a focus on the feminine.”In 2019, Diamandis put out a call on social media looking for female collaborators. Sifting through recommendations from fans and friends, she formed a team that included Gavillet, the photographer Coughs and the producer Jennifer Decilveo, who has worked with Beth Ditto and Bat for Lashes. Decilveo and Diamandis, who teamed on those first two singles, wrote music together at Diamandis’s West Hollywood home over Sunbasket meal-kit dishes that she had prepared.“This is going to sound taboo, but I was drawn to the fact that Marina’s a woman, and I’m one of the only female producers in the business, and we spoke each other’s language,” Decilveo said in a phone interview. “She’s the real deal and, in this strange pop market, it’s refreshing to have somebody with lyrics that are going against the grain.”With a singsong rhythm punctuated by snare drums, Diamandis impersonates Mother Nature avenging human failures on “Purge the Poison,” including capitalism, racism, pollution, Harvey Weinstein and the treatment of her beloved Britney Spears. “On ‘Purge,’ I wasn’t trying to be nice,” Decilveo added. “I knew it needed to be a sock in the face.”The second half of “Ancient Dreams” is more inward-focused — a breakup album —  including “Highly Emotional People,” a delicate ballad interrogating male stoicism, and the plangent closer, “Goodbye.” During the pandemic, Diamandis split from her longtime boyfriend, Jack Patterson of the British electro-pop band Clean Bandit, with whom she shared a house and several cats.“On ‘Goodbye’ I was crying so hard as I was writing it that I actually couldn’t record the demo properly,” she said during a stroll near her home. Her candy-striped sundress accommodated the stifling April weather, and she covered her inky black hair with a straw hat. “Songwriting is the best cure,” she added.Growing up in a small town in Wales, Diamandis said she never demonstrated any aptitude for music, except for singing Oasis’s “Wonderwall” once when she was 9 “by the fireplace like a little Victorian child.” As a teenager, she moved to her father’s native Greece and recalled returning with “a burning, raging urge to be a singer.” She began writing and releasing music on Myspace.Over the years, Diamandis’s albums have revealed an intriguing if uneasy dialogue with her own pop persona, beginning with “The Family Jewels,” which showcased her impressive vocal range and heralded a confident, unpredictable new artist.“She was ahead of the curve,” said Derek Davies, her longtime friend and A&R representative, and a co-founder of Neon Gold Records, which released her first singles in the United States. “At the time, it was all about huge melodies and Max Martin. Marina was writing these deeply personal lyrics, which probably impeded her commercial radio viability.”“Across this album, there’s such a yearning for a focus on the feminine,” Diamandis said.Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesFor her 2012 follow-up, “Electra Heart,” Diamandis said she felt pressured by her major label to work with au courant hitmakers like Diplo and Stargate. The experiment yielded the gold-certified single “Primadonna,” written with a team including Dr. Luke, which bore the influence of Diamandis’s tour dates opening for Katy Perry, but flattened her idiosyncratic style.“Post ‘Electra Heart,’ I felt kind of ashamed, like this isn’t really who I am,” Diamandis said. She pulled out her phone and unearthed a nasty review of that album that left a mark. But the intervening years have changed her mind: “Now I think it was a really cool, dark, subversive pop record that was using the American system to elevate myself as an artist. I wouldn’t do it again, but it kind of changed my life.”Diamandis wrested back songwriting control for her 2015 album, “Froot,” which became her highest-charting LP in the United States. “‘Froot’ mellowed that quite aggressive need for validation,” she said, but it raised a fresh concern: “Did that mean that I don’t have any ambition and I shouldn’t be an artist?” Diamandis was living in London with Patterson, but felt she had been more warmly embraced in America. She went on hiatus, pursuing everything from psychology to falconry. “That was probably the worst period of my adult life,” she said.Four years later, Diamandis dropped the Diamonds from her moniker, and returned with “Love + Fear.” She once again relied on cowriters, including OzGo (Pink) and Joel Little (Lorde, Taylor Swift), and as a result achieved “a more commercial sound,” she said. It armed her with both the confidence to finally leave her British management and switch to Atlantic’s U.S. division, and to revert to writing solo on “Ancient Dreams,” which she considers her best album.“It’s the closest cousin in the discography to that first record,” Davies said. “It’s her most indie, alternative record yet.”It’s also her strongest political statement, and for that she partly credits this strange and terrifying past year. “I would hope people don’t hear it as preaching,” she said. “The pandemic allowed a lot of us to step back and look at what kind of lives we’re living, and nothing feels sustainable.”Diamandis already noticed pushback online to some of her positions on current issues. “I like seeing comments like, ‘She used capitalism to get where she is,’ because it does make me think about my own place,” she continued. “But we’re all allowed to challenge the system that we’re in.” More