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      Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominees Include Cher, Mariah Carey and More

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      Oasis and Sade will appear on the ballot for the first time, alongside Dave Matthews Band, A Tribe Called Quest, Mary J. Blige and others.Cher, Mariah Carey, Sinead O’Connor, Oasis and Sade are among the first-time nominees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s class of 2024, which were revealed Saturday.Other new names on the hall’s short list include Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & the Gang and Lenny Kravitz. Also on the list are Dave Matthews Band, Mary J. Blige, Jane’s Addiction, A Tribe Called Quest and Eric B. & Rakim, each of whom has been nominated at least once before. Ozzy Osbourne, who is already part of the pantheon as a member of Black Sabbath, has gotten the nod as a solo artist for the first time.“This remarkable list of nominees reflects the diverse artists and music that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame honors and celebrates,” John Sykes, the chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said in a statement. “Continuing in the true spirit of rock ’n’ roll, these artists have created their own sounds that have impacted generations and influenced countless others that have followed in their footsteps.”The 15 cited artists are the first batch of nominees since the abrupt departure last year of Jann Wenner, the Rolling Stone editor and co-founder of the Rock Hall, who had long held a powerful sway over the awards process.In September, Wenner was ejected from the hall’s governing board just one day after the publication of an interview in The New York Times in which he justified the subjects for his interview collection “The Masters” — all of them white and male — with comments that were widely condemned as racist and misogynistic. Female artists like Joni Mitchell, he said, were not “philosophers of rock,” and Black performers like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye “just didn’t articulate at that level.”It is also a little more than a year after Jon Landau, the former Rolling Stone critic who became Bruce Springsteen’s producer and manager, stepped down from his longtime perch as the chairman of the hall’s deliberately secretive nominating committee.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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      Sony Reaches Blockbuster Deal for Michael Jackson’s Catalog

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      The richest music catalog deal to date would give Sony half of Jackson’s recorded music and songwriting rights, valuing the total collection at $1.2 billion or more.Sony has agreed to acquire half of Michael Jackson’s catalog from the star’s estate, in what is likely the richest transaction ever for a single musician’s work, according to two people briefed on the agreement.The deal, which has been gossiped about in the music industry for months, is said to involve Sony purchasing a 50 percent stake in Jackson’s recorded music and songwriting catalogs. That includes not only the estate’s share of megahits like “Beat It” and “Bad,” but also the music publishing assets that are part of Jackson’s Mijac catalog, among them songs written by Sly Stone and tracks made famous by artists like Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis.The deal is said to value Jackson’s assets at $1.2 billion or more, according to the two people, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it. Even so, it leaves some of the estate’s interests in other lucrative Jackson-related businesses off the table, like the Broadway musical “MJ,” Cirque du Soleil’s Jackson-themed shows, and a biopic in the works that is set to star Jaafar Jackson, a son of Jackson’s brother Jermaine.The transaction is said to leave the estate a significant degree of control over the catalog. That contrasts with many other blockbuster catalog deals in recent years, like those with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon. While those sales sometimes include finely negotiated parameters over how an artist’s work can be used in the future — say, in commercials or political endorsements — they generally hand over management of songs to a buyer.Representatives of Sony and the Jackson estate declined to comment on the deal, which was first reported by Billboard. When asked about the news of the deal, John Branca, who was Jackson’s entertainment lawyer in life and has been the co-executor of Jackson’s estate, said: “As we have always maintained, we would never give up management or control of Michael Jackson’s assets.”Primary Wave, a music company that owns a minority stake in Jackson’s music publishing interests, was not a party to the transaction; a representative of Primary Wave declined to comment.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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      Listening to boygenius, Together and Apart

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      Hear nine standout songs by members of the Grammy-winning trio: Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus.The trio boygenius, from left: Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressDear listeners,It’s been a big week for boygenius, the singer-songwriter supergroup of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. On Sunday, the band won its first three Grammys: best rock song and best rock performance for the single “Not Strong Enough,” and best alternative album for its full-length debut, “The Record.” But last Friday, during a Los Angeles concert, boygenius also announced that the group was going on hiatus. “This is our last show,” Dacus told the crowd, “and we’re feeling it.”Is it weird to say I wasn’t mad about this news? No disrespect to boygenius, but I’m also a fan of the solo music made by all three artists, and I’d been wondering when, say, we’d be getting a follow-up to Bridgers’s 2020 breakout album, “Punisher,” which is nearing its fourth birthday. “The Record” itself had been an unexpected bonus, since boygenius initially seemed like a one-off project that wouldn’t last longer than a six-song EP and a subsequent tour. But the runaway success of “The Record” also means that some people are more familiar with boygenius than with the three accomplished solo artists who make up the group.Today’s Amplifier hopes to change that. It’s a celebration of both the individual work of Baker, Bridgers and Dacus (which sounds like a law firm that I would definitely hire) and also the magic that happens when they put their Captain Planet powers together and become boygenius.Although all three artists share a subgenre (lyrically vivid, passionately sung indie-rock), each also has a distinct personality and sonic sensibility that comes through in their solo music. Bridgers has a darkly comic perspective and a dreamy, mirror-fogging delivery most effectively employed on tracks like boygenius’s bittersweet “Me & My Dog” or on “Garden Song,” a droll reverie from “Punisher.” Dacus has a honeyed deadpan and has a short-story writer’s eye for humanizing detail, as heard on “Night Shift,” her 2018 chronicle of a breakup. And Baker is an artist who’s not afraid to plumb her darkest depths (as she does on the arresting “Appointments”) or belt to the rafters (see her anthemic 2021 song “Ringside”).I hope the members of boygenius once again join forces someday in the not too distant future — and I’m confident that they will. But I’m also excited for people to get more acquainted with their solo work, and hopefully get more of it soon.Somebody roll the windows down,LindsayWe 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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      New Songs by Kacey Musgraves, Maggie Rogers, girl in red and More

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      Hear tracks by Beth Gibbons, girl in red, Angélica Garcia and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes), and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Kacey Musgraves, ‘Deeper Well’Folky fingerpicking and new-agey thoughts about self-help make “Deeper Well” one of the gentlest but firmest rebuffs imaginable. After musing on astrology and negative energy, Kacey Musgraves notes, “I’m saying goodbye to the people I feel/are real good at wasting my time.” In the next verses, she leaves behind marijuana and rises above the limits of her upbringing. There’s no rancor, no gloating, just added shimmery reverberations as she grows up and moves on. A new album of the same name is due March 15. JON PARELESMaggie Rogers, ‘Don’t Forget Me’Maggie Rogers wants someone who will “wreck her Sundays” on “Don’t Forget Me,” the warm, yearning title track from her forthcoming third album, which she co-produced with Musgraves’s trusted collaborator Ian Fitchuk. Her friends’ relationships, she admits, don’t provide models for what she’s looking for: Sally’s getting married, Molly’s out partying every night. Rogers is after something more casual — but still lasting in its own way. “Love me til your next somebody,” she sings to whoever’s listening. “And promise me that when it’s time to leave, don’t forget me.” LINDSAY ZOLADZWe 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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      Welcome to Japan, Taylor Swift Fans. Please Remain Seated as You Cheer.

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      Some Japanese spectators are grumbling that foreign concertgoers visiting Tokyo don’t share their rather restrained local approach to taking in a show.Taylor mania has landed in Tokyo. But the enthusiasm of some of the Swifties arriving with her has clashed with local sensibilities.Thousands of visitors from across Asia and beyond have flooded into Japan’s capital as Taylor Swift performs at the Tokyo Dome for four nights this week. The problem, as some domestic concertgoers see it, is that these foreign fans don’t share the rather restrained Japanese approach to taking in a show.In a post on the platform X, a Japanese holder of a V.I.P. ticket wrote that even paying 130,000 yen — about $870 — and being seated in the third row didn’t guarantee a clear view, given that so many foreign fans had stood up.“It’s too sad,” the post said. “It’s crazy that, if you follow the rules, you won’t be able to watch it.”While Japanese are praised abroad for their pristine behavior at soccer matches and other sporting events, their exacting standards at home can make them hostile to visitors. Another post on X, accompanied by a short video of audience members hoisting up their cellphones to capture the scene onstage, complained that “there were many foreigners who couldn’t respect manners.”The grumbling is in some ways a microcosm of Japan’s mixed reception to the international tourists who have helped restore the country’s economy, the world’s third largest, after the pandemic. More than 25 million people visited Japan last year, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization, nearly 80 percent of the number who visited in 2019.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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      Paul McCartney Talks About His Beatles Photos Coming to the Brooklyn Museum

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      Sixty years after the Beatles appeared live on “Ed Sullivan,” McCartney reflects on his photos capturing those halcyon days. The Brooklyn Museum will exhibit them, and some will be for sale later.They are now a collector’s trove — Paul McCartney’s own photos, shot 60 years ago, when the Beatles took Europe and America by storm: images of screaming fans (one carrying a live monkey); a girl in a yellow bikini; airport workers playing air guitar, and unguarded moments grabbed from trains, planes and automobiles.McCartney, now 81, doesn’t like to sit still and reminisce about the past, so he chatted while driving home from his recording studio in Sussex, England. ‘‘My American friends call these small, one-way lanes ‘gun barrels,’ ’’ he said, warning his interviewer that at any moment the signal might die (it did). In the end, it took two days to complete a coherent conversation about the breakthrough period when the Beatles went viral, captured in the traveling exhibition ‘‘Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-1964: Eyes of the Storm,’’ which features 250 of his shots. Currently it’s at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va., and comes to the Brooklyn Museum May 3-August 18. (Don’t be surprised if the artist shows up for the opening.)It was McCartney’s archivist, Sarah Brown, who found 1,000 photographs the musician had taken over 12 weeks — from Dec. 7, 1963, to Feb. 21, 1964, — in the artist’s library.“I thought the photos were lost,’’ he said. ‘‘In the ’60s it was pretty easy. Often doors were left open. We’d invite fans in.” Even the recording studio wasn’t a safe space. “I was taking my daughter Mary to the British Library to show her where to research for her exams, and in one display case I saw the lyric sheet for ‘Yesterday,’” he said. A sticky fingered biographer had swiped the original from their studio.Rosie Broadley, a senior curator at the National Portrait Gallery in London, where the show was inaugurated, said, “His photographs show us what it was like to look through his eyes while the Beatles conquered the world.’’McCartney won an art prize at school and practiced photography with his brother, Mike (who later became a professional photographer). He graduated to a 35 mm SLR Pentax camera when the Beatles hit it big.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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      Usher’s Biggest Songs and Career Highlights: A Super Bowl Guide

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      The singer will perform at halftime of the N.F.L.’s championship game in Las Vegas on the heels of his popular career-spanning residency and the release of a new album.Usher’s “My Way” residency, which began in 2021 in Las Vegas (the town where Frank Sinatra himself once gallivanted), had the R&B singer courting celebrities and viral social media moments for 100 consecutive sold-out shows. The staging was energetic, replete with roller skates and stripper poles.But spectacle wasn’t the only draw. Usher, 45, used the retrospective to showcase the hallmarks of his 30-year music career: pristine vocals, polished but effortless dance moves and heart-melting charm in the tradition of his idols Sammy Davis Jr. and Ben Vereen, his godfather. It’s appropriate, then, that on Feb. 11 the eight-time Grammy winner will perform the halftime show at Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas, days after he’s slated to release his ninth studio album “Coming Home,” which he called a “love letter to the legacy of my career.” Here are the eras that have defined Usher’s career.1988-1994New Jack Swing BeginningsAfter starting out in his church choir, Usher began singing professionally at age 10 with an R&B group in his hometown, Chattanooga, Tenn. A solo performance on “Star Search” in 1991 landed him an audition with the LaFace Records co-founder L.A. Reid, who signed him to the label based in Atlanta. Usher moved there at age 12 and worked under the tutelage of producer Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, who had developed Jodeci and Mary J. Blige. More

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      Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Timeline

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      All the Times That People Have Hyperventilated About Taylor and TravisThe planet’s biggest pop star met America’s biggest sport, and heads collectively exploded. Here are the moments people got happy, sad, angry or annoyed.Emmanuel Morgan and Way back in July, Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs’ star tight end, publicly offered himself as a potential suitor for Taylor Swift, whose Eras Tour had catapulted her beyond her already stratospheric fame.Few could have imagined that on the eve of the Super Bowl, we’d all be here.During the six months between Travis’s metaphorical Hail Mary and Sunday’s very real sports contest, most of America — and much of the world — has been horse-collared into their romance. There is a relentless, inescapable and, sometimes fatiguing quality to this Swift-Kelce monocultural vortex. Boy met girl, football fans met Swifties and each new development became a cause for hyperventilation.Now, as kickoff approaches, we look back at some of the key meetings and the extreme emotions those meetings have engendered.♥ ♥ ♥Sept. 24 and Oct. 1Taylor meets footballTaylor Swift at Arrowhead Stadium for the first of many games this season. Jason Hanna/Getty ImagesSurprise! Taylor shows up at Arrowhead Stadium for a Chiefs Game. Yay for Travis! Taylor and Travis leave together after the game in a “Getaway Car.” A “seemingly Ranch” frenzy ensues.Taylor shows up again in New Jersey the following week for Sunday Night Football. She brings her friends and meets the parents.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