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      Tina Turner and Jay-Z Lead Rock Hall of Fame’s 2021 Inductees

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      Foo Fighters, the Go-Go’s, Carole King and Todd Rundgren were also voted in, meaning nearly half of the 15 individuals in this year’s class are women.For years, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has been pummeled by criticism that its inductees — the marble busts in the pantheon of rock — were too homogeneous, and that the secretive insiders who create the ballots showed a troubling pattern of excluding women.This year the voters seem to have listened: The class of 2021 features Jay-Z, Foo Fighters, the Go-Go’s, Carole King, Tina Turner and Todd Rundgren — a collection of 15 individuals that includes seven women.That ratio alone should lend a new energy to the 36th annual induction ceremony, planned for Oct. 30 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.In past years, when women have been inducted, they have been far outnumbered by men. In 2019, for example, Stevie Nicks and Janet Jackson may have stood triumphant, but their earnest speeches — Jackson: “Please induct more women” — did not seem to last as long as it took to name every male bass player of the rock bands that joined alongside them.Dave Grohl, center, and the members of Foo Fighters. Grohl is already in the hall as a member of Nirvana.Magdalena Wosinska for The New York TimesThe latest inductees show a balance of genre and generation that has come to be a feature of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s expanding tent. Foo Fighters, led by Dave Grohl, represent the cream of 1990s-vintage alternative rock. Jay-Z is rap incarnate. And the Go-Go’s stand for joyful, upbeat 1980s power-pop.Each of those acts was a first-time nominee, although the Go-Go’s — the first and only all-woman rock band to score a No. 1 album on Billboard’s chart — have been eligible since 2006. (Artists can be nominated 25 years after the release of their first recording.)The Go-Go’s in the early 1980s: from left, Kathy Valentine, Jane Wiedlin, Gina Schock, Charlotte Caffey and Belinda Carlisle.Paul Natkin/WireImageRundgren, the prolific producer and multi-instrumentalist, occupies the role of the auteur from classic rock’s flowering in the late 1960s and early ’70s; Turner is a force of nature whose career has stretched from old-school R&B to MTV-era pop; and King is the singer-songwriter and conscience who brings gravitas to the proceedings.Three of this year’s inductees were already in the hall: Grohl as a member of Nirvana, Turner with Ike and Tina Turner, and King as a nonperformer, with her songwriting partner and former husband Gerry Goffin.The story of the inductions is also told by who didn’t make the cut. The voters — a group of more than 1,000 artists, journalists and industry veterans — decided against the bands Iron Maiden, Devo, New York Dolls and Rage Against the Machine, as well as Kate Bush, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan and Dionne Warwick.The Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti would have been the first Black musician from Africa to join the hall, but was not voted in this year. Leni Sinclair/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesFela Kuti, the Nigerian-born pioneer of Afrobeat, had been the surprise nominee this year, and was one of the artists chosen in the Hall of Fame’s fan vote — an online public poll that creates a single official ballot — thanks in part to support from African stars like Burna Boy. Kuti would have been the first Black artist from Africa to join the hall, but he failed in his first time on the ballot. (Trevor Rabin of Yes is from South Africa, and Freddie Mercury of Queen was born in Zanzibar, now part of Tanzania; both bands are in the Hall of Fame.)And LL Cool J, a titan of hip-hop who also received high-profile support this year, lost after a sixth nomination. But he has been given a musical excellence award, for people “whose originality and influence creating music have had a dramatic impact on music.” This category was once known as the sidemen award, but it is also something of a consolation prize: The producer and guitarist Nile Rodgers won it in 2017 after Chic, his band, was passed over 11 times.The other musical excellence recipients this year include Billy Preston, the keyboardist who was a frequent collaborator of the Beatles, and Randy Rhoads, a guitarist with Ozzy Osbourne.Also this year, the Ahmet Ertegun Award, for nonperformers, will go to the record executive Clarence Avant, and “early influence” trophies will go to Gil Scott-Heron, Charley Patton and Kraftwerk, the German electronic pioneers who had been nominated for induction six times.The induction ceremony is to be broadcast later on HBO and streamed on HBO Max. More

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      Lloyd Price, ‘Personality’ Hitmaker, Is Dead at 88

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      His “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” was a rhythm-and-blues smash that hooked white listeners in 1952, anticipating the rise of rock ’n’ roll. Even bigger records would follow.Lloyd Price, who provided some of the seeds for what became rock ’n’ roll with his New Orleans rhythm-and-blues hit “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” in 1952 and later had major pop hits with “Personality” and “Stagger Lee,” died on Monday at an extended-care center in New Rochelle, N.Y. He was 88. The cause was complications of diabetes, said Jeffrey Madoff, the writer and producer of “Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical,” a stage show scheduled to open next year in Pennsylvania.Nicknamed Mr. Personality after his most recognizable hit, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart in 1959, Mr. Price found success with Black and white audiences alike. He was a prolific songwriter as well as a gifted singer — a combination that was relatively uncommon at the time — and his songs were covered by many others. Among the artists who recorded versions of “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” were Elvis Presley and Paul McCartney.He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.Mr. Price found success early: He was still in his teens when he recorded “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” its title an exclamation borrowed from a local disc jockey, for Specialty Records, an independent label founded by Art Rupe. On that session, recorded in New Orleans, he was accompanied by a band, led by the local musician and songwriter Dave Bartholomew, that included the pianist Fats Domino.“Lawdy Miss Clawdy” topped the Billboard R&B chart for seven weeks and introduced Mr. Price’s emotionally direct vocal style and infectious New Orleans beat to white listeners years before the term “rock ’n’ roll” was in wide use. Mr. Rupe later recalled, “That was the first Black record that wasn’t intended to be a white record — it became a white record, versus the previous Black records which were designed for the white market.”Mr. Price’s career was interrupted by Army service, and by the mid-1950s other Black artists, among them Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Mr. Domino, were achieving comparable crossover success. Mr. Price made up for lost time with huge pop hits of his own.Mr. Price in concert at the Apollo Theater in Manhattan, probably in the mid-1960s.Don Paulsen/Michael Ochs Archives-Getty ImagesAlong with his successful music career, Mr. Price had an entrepreneurial streak: He founded record labels, managed other performers, owned nightclubs, promoted boxing matches, ventured into real estate and even promised to champion the sweet potato with his company Lloyd Price Icon Food Brands.But the songs came first. “Music brings my soul more joy than anything else does, or can,” he once said. “It makes my heart beat faster with excitement; and my love for music has never changed! If you love music, you know what I’m talking about.”Lloyd Price, a self-described “country boy,” was born on March 9, 1933, in Kenner, La., one of 11 children — eight boys and three girls — of Beatrice and Louis Price, who owned the Fish ’n’ Fry Restaurant. As a child, Lloyd sang in the gospel choir at his family’s church, picking up trumpet and piano along the way while also working at the family business.A high school dropout, Mr. Price started his first band, the Blue Boys, at age 18. To the dismay of his parents, he also got a job at a New Orleans nightclub, but he quit at their insistence to work construction.His breakout success with Specialty Records came to an end when he was drafted in 1953, leaving the label to focus instead on Little Richard and Larry Williams, Mr. Price’s onetime chauffeur.After returning to civilian life in 1954, Mr. Price founded his own record company, KRC, with two partners. The label did not make much of an impact, but one single he released on KRC, the ballad “Just Because,” was leased to ABC-Paramount Records and reached the Top 40 pop chart in 1957. Mr. Price was then signed directly to ABC-Paramount and soon had his greatest success with the song “Stagger Lee.” His upbeat take on a folk song that had been recorded numerous times since the 1920s, it reached No. 1 on both the pop and R&B charts in 1959.Mr. Price’s crossover success did not come without some compromise. Dick Clark, the producer and host of the immensely popular television show “American Bandstand,” decided that the lyrics of “Stagger Lee,” which involved gambling and ended with a fatal barroom shooting, were too violent for his show. Mr. Price, ever the savvy businessman, recorded a new version in which the song’s rivals are fighting over a woman and make up at the end: “Stagger Lee and Billy never fuss or fight no more.” (The cleaned-up version was not released commercially at the time, but it was included many years later on a compilation album.)That same year, “Personality” became almost as big a hit, certifying Mr. Price as a bona fide rock ’n’ roll star. In 1962, he set out on his own again, starting Double L Records with Harold Logan (who had also been a partner in his earlier label), with a roster that included a young Wilson Pickett. Mr. Price and Mr. Logan opened a nightclub, the Turntable, on the former site of the celebrated jazz club Birdland in Midtown Manhattan in 1968. Mr. Logan was murdered in 1969.Mr. Price reached the Top 40 for the last time with a version of the standard “Misty” in 1963, but by that time his star in the music world was fading. He wisely dipped into other arenas, including a partnership with Don King to help promote Muhammad Ali’s “Rumble in the Jungle” against George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, in 1974 and “Thrilla in Manila” against Joe Frazier in the Philippines the next year. Concurrently with the Zaire fight, he helped promote a music festival with a lineup that included James Brown and B.B. King. He lived in Nigeria from 1979 to 1983.Mr. Price is survived by his wife, Jackie Battle; three daughters, Lori Price, D’Juana Price and December Thompson; two sons, Lloyd Price Jr. and Paris Thompson; a sister, Rose Moore; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.In the 1980s, Mr. Price invested in real estate — he backed the construction of homes in the Bronx — and ran a limousine company. By 2007, at the age of 74, he was talking up his Miss Clawdy line of sweet-potato products to The Wall Street Journal. “It’s going to do things,” he said. “It’s going to bring attention back to the sweet potato.” His company also sold organic cereals and energy bars.There was always music in the background. Mr. Price helped organize oldies tours, on which he shared the bill with other early rhythm-and-blues acts like Little Richard and Ben E. King, throughout the ’90s and into the 21st century.Mr. Price released his last album, “This Is Rock and Roll,” in 2017. He published an autobiography, “Lawdy Miss Clawdy: The True King of the 50’s,” written with William E. Waller, in 2009, and a collection of essays, provocatively titled “sumdumhonky,” in 2015.Peter Keepnews contributed reporting. More

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      Bob Porter, Jazz Producer and Broadcaster, Dies at 80

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      Hundreds of albums bore his name, notably reissues of classic material. And he helped make WBGO the biggest jazz radio station in the New York area.Bob Porter, who as a record producer guided the reissue of vast swaths of the classic jazz canon, and who as a broadcaster helped build WBGO into the largest jazz radio station in the New York City area, died on April 10 at his home in Northvale, N.J. He was 80.The cause was complications of esophageal cancer, his wife, Linda Calandra Porter, said.Rock ’n’ roll had mostly eclipsed jazz in the public ear by the time Mr. Porter produced his first album for Prestige Records, the organist Charles Kynard’s “Professor Soul” (1968), for which he also wrote the liner notes. Mr. Porter began regularly producing sessions for the label, mostly in the soul-jazz style of the day, including outings by the saxophonists Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, the organists Jimmy McGriff and Charles Earland and the guitarist Pat Martino, among many others.He went on to take part in the creation of hundreds of albums as a producer and author of liner notes for a variety of labels. Much of that work was on boxed sets and reissues of archival material.He won a Grammy in 1978 for his liner notes to the five-disc “Charlie Parker: The Complete Savoy Studio Sessions,” which he also produced. He later won the best historical album Grammy in 1986, for producing the compilation “Atlantic Rhythm and Blues 1947-1974, Vols. 1-7.”Interviewed that year by Rolling Stone, Mr. Porter recalled putting together the Atlantic box alongside Ahmet Ertegun, the label’s famed co-founder. Some of Atlantic’s original master tapes had burned in a fire, so Mr. Porter drew upon his network of fellow vinyl collectors to track down original pressings. His main goal, he said, was accuracy and completeness.“We tried to list in copious detail everything we could about the original recording date — the singers, the bands, every piece of information we could unravel,” he said. “The most important thing in doing any work of this nature is that you get it right.”But he also wanted to make a historical point about how social history shapes genre. “We decided to stop in 1974 because that, in a sense, marked the end of an era,” he said. “When you get into disco and rap music, you’re really talking about something that’s very different. The conditions in the country were a lot different when this music was being made. I think that the demise of soul and R&B may ultimately be viewed as a casualty of integration.”In the 1980s, jazz’s commercial fortunes perked up, in thanks partly to the advent of compact discs, which led listeners to buy reissues of old albums. Working most often with Atlantic, Mr. Porter led the remastering process for CD reissues by the likes of Duke Ellington, Ray Charles and Lester Young.As soon as WBGO hit the airwaves at 88.3 FM in 1979, broadcasting out of Newark but reaching across New York City, Mr. Porter started volunteering as a host. Two years later he began a daily show, “Portraits in Blue,” which went on to be syndicated by NPR stations around the country and would continue for the next 40 years. He later hosted two additional shows: “Saturday Morning Function,” which focused on R&B and jump blues, and “Swing Party,” heard on Sunday mornings.On his own podcast earlier this month, Nate Chinen, the director of editorial content at WBGO, called Mr. Porter “a Mount Rushmore figure when it comes to Newark public radio — someone who was on the air, really, from Day 1.”Robert Sherwin Porter was born in Wellesley, Mass., on June 20, 1940, to David Porter, who ran the financial advisory firm David L. Babson & Company, and Constance (Kavanaugh) Porter, a homemaker. The eldest of four siblings, Bob attended Whittier College in California, where he studied English before serving in the Army, stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska.In addition to his wife, he is survived by his brothers, John and William Porter; a sister, Linda (Porter) Owens; a son from a previous marriage, David Porter; two stepsons, Michael and Rick Tombari; and a granddaughter.After his military service, he returned to Whittier to complete his degree. While still in school he began contributing to DownBeat magazine. His articles caught the attention of Bob Weinstock, the head of Prestige, who was impressed by Mr. Porter’s erudition and offered him a job with the label.Mr. Porter’s passion for the artistic and cultural history of African-American music stretched back to its earliest known recordings, and he was deeply knowledgeable about blues as well as jazz.He received awards from various music societies and foundations. In addition to his two Grammys, those included a 1986 W.C. Handy Award (now known as the Blues Music Award) from the Blues Foundation and a 2003 Community Service Award from the Bergen County chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. In 2009, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.Mr. Porter became a published author late in life, self-releasing “Soul Jazz: Jazz in the Black Community, 1945-1975” in 2016. That book gave a detailed history of the jazz musicians who were especially popular in Black communities just after World War II, but who at the time had rarely come under the gaze of white critics.A white writer himself, Mr. Porter felt compelled to redress the omission. “Black communities had their own heroes, and Black fans of jazz had their own way of responding to the music,” he wrote in the book’s preface. “I have helped dozens of researchers and writers through the years, and I always hoped that one of them would tackle this untold story. Nobody did, and now most of the greatest players are gone. Thus, I decided to do this myself.” More

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      Dawn Richard Will Find a Way to Be Heard

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      Dawn Richard is accustomed to being by herself. During the pandemic, she got used to being unable to seek inspiration in the typically vibrant streets of New Orleans — no catching a last-minute show at Preservation Hall, no detouring to pick up dessert at Pandora’s Snowballs. Instead, she went for long solo drives at night, where she’d listen to her favorite classical composers — Debussy, Chopin — and sit with the city’s emptiness.In the early days of the singer, songwriter and producer’s career, all of her waking (and, actually, sleeping) moments were captured by the camera crew on “Making the Band 3,” the MTV reality show that brought her to national fame as a member of the Diddy-created R&B-pop girl group Danity Kane in 2005. It was a wild time, filled with cutthroat singing and dancing competitions, screaming matches in the studio, and the inherent drama of housing multiple people under the same roof and telling them, “Try to be famous.”So it’s not a big surprise that she prefers a little peace and quiet now. She likes to record without anyone else in the studio. For much of the last decade, she has worked as an independent musician with few of the resources afforded to more connected artists. And as a result she has had one of the most unconventional, eccentric R&B careers in recent memory.This didn’t happen as a point of principle, but as a necessity. “I didn’t wake up one day like, ‘Yeah, I want to be independent. Screw the industry,’” Richard, 37, said in a recent interview. “I was in the mainstream. I liked that money. I liked that help. It just didn’t believe in me. So I picked myself up, and I got really good at picking myself up.”That’s changed — sort of. Adding another unexpected twist to a career full of them, Richard’s sixth solo album, “Second Line,” will be released April 30 on the storied North Carolina indie label Merge Records. Merge, founded in 1989 by members of the punk band Superchunk, is more typically associated with earnest and outré guitar bands like Arcade Fire, Neutral Milk Hotel and Waxahatchee.“I was kind of like, ‘I don’t see a lot of Black on the roster,’” she said.But she was convinced after meeting with the label at her manager’s suggestion, and realizing how many of its artists (Caribou, Destroyer) she loved. And the adventurousness of the broader Merge lineup syncs up nicely with “Second Line,” which channels R&B, electronic, house and bounce into a loose narrative about a synthetic android named King Creole navigating her way through art, love and the music industry.Speaking over two video interviews from Los Angeles in the middle of a full-time relocation to New Orleans, Richard was enthusiastic when talking about her music — she illustrated several songs by spontaneously beatboxing the rhythm — and candid about the many ups and downs of her career.“I have literally been rejected by everybody in this industry,” she said with a warm laugh, her bejeweled heart-shaped earrings flashing as she shook her head. “But those failures have really created this beast in me. I really don’t take no for an answer anymore.” Growing up, music hadn’t seemed like a career option — she won a college scholarship playing softball, and studied marine biology. Now she’s been a professional musician for nearly half her life, with no plans to slow down anytime soon.“I’ve always known what I wanted — who I wanted to be,” Richard said.Myles Loftin for The New York TimesThe new album is named for the New Orleans tradition in which the leading section of a funeral parade — the first line — is followed by musicians and dancers improvising off the beat. “In New Orleans, when you hear a second line, you can walk outside and join in,” she said. “You don’t even know the person you’re celebrating; you’re just dancing because it feels like their legacy is big enough. That’s what this album is.”Born in New Orleans, Richard grew up around the arts: Her mother was a dance instructor, and her father was the lead singer of the funk band Chocolate Milk. “Making the Band 3” culminated in the formation of Danity Kane, named after a drawing Richard made of an invented anime superhero. With hits like “Damaged,” its first two albums topped the Billboard charts, but the group’s creative output was heavily regimented, from the songs the members were told to sing to the outfits they were instructed to wear. It was also subject to the conventions of ’00s reality television, when explicit abuse and exploitation were rarely challenged by the broader culture.“Now, you can’t just tell a woman on national television that she’s fat,” she said. “But that was what was said back then. And then when you don’t have a team or someone behind you, you have to tread very carefully.”After Sean Combs decided to disband Danity Kane — a process that also largely played out on television — Richard remained signed to his Bad Boy Records label, and moved to Baltimore, where her family had relocated in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. With nothing to do, she convinced Combs to let her record at his Manhattan studio, and started commuting by train to New York. Those songwriting efforts were eventually noticed, resulting in the formation of a new group with her boss and the singer Kalenna Harper: Diddy-Dirty Money, which released a single album, “Last Train to Paris.”Richard in Danity Kane, second from right. “I was a grown person who had never been able to say ‘I want to wear what I want to wear,’” she said. After leaving the group, “I just started doing what felt good.”Peter Kramer/Getty ImagesIn 2012, after gradually losing interest, Combs broke up the group over email, and Richard successfully requested a release from her contract. (She and Combs remain in touch.) She met with multiple major labels, which all passed. Undeterred, she committed to going independent, and began working on a trilogy of concept albums with experimental electronic producers such as Andrew “Druski” Scott, Noisecastle III and Machinedrum.“I was instantly taken aback by how talented she was, and how she gravitated towards the stranger beats,” Machinedrum said in an interview. “A lot of artists these days are sucked into social media; they seem like they’re not all there. But you could tell that she’s there to work.”After nearly a decade of having her creativity dictated by others, tapping into this freedom was like uncorking a bottle. “I was a grown person who had never been able to say ‘I want to wear what I want to wear,’” she said. “So I just started doing what felt good. I had been rejected so much, I didn’t care if people got it. I just needed to get it out.”While she received critical acclaim, there was a slight backhanded element to the praise for her post-girl group career. “It made me feel like maybe Danity Kane was a joke — like everything that I had done before had been seen as some bubble gum thing, and now I’m a legitimate artist,” she said. “I was mind boggled by that because I hadn’t changed anything; I just literally got an opportunity to write more.”Over the next few years she worked incessantly on full-length records, loose singles, feature appearances, remixes and ornate music videos — most of it self-funded, which made it even more disappointing if it didn’t make the impact she had hoped for. Drained, Richard decamped to New Orleans for an extended period for the first time since she’d moved away. There, she reacquainted herself with the city’s creative rhythms, which had changed dramatically post-Katrina, and settled on translating that into her music. (Instead of dialing down her production values, she covertly audited a finance class at the University of New Orleans to better manage her funds.)“You can take people outside of New Orleans, but you can’t take New Orleans out of them; no matter where we are, the culture lives inside of us,” said the jazz musician Trombone Shorty, who’s known Richard since childhood. “She wanted to add her taste and her style to what we already have here and move it forward, while at the same time respecting the culture and where it comes from.”“In New Orleans, when you hear a second line, you can walk outside and join in,” Richard said. “You don’t even know the person you’re celebrating; you’re just dancing because it feels like their legacy is big enough. That’s what this album is.”Myles Loftin for The New York TimesThe summation of that work fed into her 2019 album “New Breed,” which she laced with samples from her father’s old band. For “Second Line,” she wanted to shift the focus to her mother, who underwent a knee surgery at the start of 2020. After Richard moved back home to help take care of her, the pandemic struck, and Richard suddenly found herself occupying a guest room in her parents’ home with an album that still needed to be finished.But she adjusted, as she tends to do, linking up with local engineer Eric Heigle to complete the record while accepting the responsibilities that come with living with your parents. (Folding clothes and towels, which she recounted with relatable exasperation.) And her extended proximity to her family flowed back into the album: Her mother appears throughout as a kind of narrator, and Richard said their relationship reached a new, adult level through their many conversations for those recordings.“Second Line” was made in close collaboration with the Los Angeles producer Ila Orbis, who performs much of the music. (“Sometimes you have to tone it down a bit” when working with other artists, he said, “but she allowed me to experiment as much as I wanted to.”) It also bears Richard’s first solo production credits, and her synth playing can be heard across the album.“It took so long to get to production as a producer, because I had other things to figure out — how to build a set, pay the workers, master the album, get the clothes and the outfits, learn the eight-count, get the choreographer to teach the eight-count,” Richard said.Her interests stretch outside music: She owns and oversees Papa Ted’s, a vegan food truck in New Orleans that she plans to expand into a brick-and-mortar restaurant; still an anime fan, she consults for Adult Swim; she acts, from time to time. Speaking about the future, Richard brought up the possibility of starting her own animation production studio, or even an awards show geared at independent artists. She also held out hope of fully reuniting Danity Kane.“I just wanted to be seen as an artist — less ambitious, and more celebrated for the fact that as a Black woman, I was pushing something that wasn’t being pushed, at that time,” she said about the early reactions to her solo career. But ambition was not something she shied away from. “Radio Free,” the first song she recorded with Ila Orbis, opens with a dramatic synthesizer barrage before Richard begins singing tenderly to an artist who’s being swallowed up by the music industry’s predations. “Where do you go when the radio’s down?” she asks. “Who are you now, when no one’s around?”Richard agreed that the song was partially directed at her younger self. She had played by the rules, and done what was asked of her, and it hadn’t worked out — twice, she emphasized. Asked what she wished she’d known at the onset, she was unequivocal: “I’m going to be frank with you: I’ve always known what I wanted — who I wanted to be. I think the only thing I would tell myself is ‘Commit to it.’ I would have found my freedom earlier and attacked it harder.”“‘Second Line,’ to me, is that freedom,” she continued. “And I want to have that conversation because maybe somebody doesn’t relate to it through the music industry — they relate to it through their queerness, or they’re stifled in their job. They feel like the world has turned them off. But just because the radio doesn’t play, it doesn’t mean you can’t be heard.” More

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      Justin Bieber, Still Seeking a Sound

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      His sixth album, “Justice,” tries out several production styles, but never nails a mood.It is with some awkwardness — confusion? — that I must inform you that the first voice you hear on the new Justin Bieber album, “Justice,” is Martin Luther King Jr.’s.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” King returns mid-album, on an interlude that samples a speech about how a life without conviction and passion is no life at all, which is absolutely true.King’s calls to action are, indisputably, powerful — they should be heard widely. And yet, as a framing device for an album by the 27-year-old pop star, they feel unanchored: a Big Gesture in search of equivalently ambitious commitment — political, spiritual, emotional, even musical — to bolster it.It only calls attention to the persistent underlying conundrum with all things Bieber, which is that despite some indelible hits, his fame vastly outpaces his catalog, and that throughout his career — in ways overt or reluctant, destructive or self-protective — he has never rested in one place for very long, nor sought to make a case for his own particularity.That’s why his last album, “Changes,” full of medium-stakes R&B well-suited to his lightly silky voice, was one of his most successful. It wasn’t a runaway triumph, but it was coherent and soothing, and notably free of baggage. It was also a reminder that perhaps Justin Bieber the musician and performer isn’t actively interested in — or an especially good fit for — the scale of song ordinarily mandated for someone as popular as Justin Bieber the celebrity.The disorganized, only sporadically strong “Justice,” though, feels like a slap on the wrist to “Changes,” or the version of Bieber it nurtured. Rather than settle for one groove, this album shuttles between several: quasi new wave, Christian pop, acoustic soul, and many more. Bieber’s sixth studio album, “Justice” is full of songs that feel like production exercises lightly spritzed with some Eau de Bieber, the musical equivalent of merchandise.A host of guest features serve as opportunities to try on different guises, with varying levels of success. The production of “Love You Different,” with the dancehall rapper Beam, nods wanly to the Caribbean, but nowhere near as effectively as Bieber’s 2015 smash “Sorry.” The Nigerian star Burna Boy appears on “Loved by You,” but Bieber doesn’t match his guest’s casual gravitas.“Die for You” is perhaps the most ambitious stylistic collision here. An up-tempo, synthetic duet with the upstart pop slacker Dominic Fike, it harks back to the mid-1980s, but Bieber isn’t the sort of power singer who can outperform the flamboyance of the production. The same is true on “Unstable,” with the Kid Laroi, the Australian singer-rapper who’s adept at a post-Juice WRLD whine — Bieber sings earnestly and plainly, while his partner leans into the anguish.Of the collaborations, by far the most successful is “Peaches,” a sun-dappled and slinky R&B number — featuring the rising stars Daniel Caesar and Giveon — that finds Bieber at his most vocally flexible (though he was in even better form when he debuted this song, solo, on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert).More often, though, “Justice” attempts to impose big-tent pop onto Bieber — the John Hughes movie chords on “Hold On,” or the runway-walk bop of “Somebody.” In places, like on “Ghost,” those impulses are at least leavened with acoustic guitar, and the shift in his singing is notable — he goes from accent piece to main character.Lyrically, “Justice” focuses on songs about triumph over regrettable behavior, about preaching devotion to a more powerful entity — a wife, a God — who didn’t abandon you in a time of need. “You prayed for me when I was out of faith/You believed in me when ain’t nobody else did/It’s a miracle you didn’t run away,” he sings, pointedly, on “As I Am.”At the end of the album is “Lonely,” the moving piano ballad he released last October that felt like the cleanest break with his former self that he’d ever committed to song. These songs are Bieber at his most self-referential, his least cluttered and also his strongest — they book end a steady, intimate sentiment running through an album that does everything it can to distract from it.Justin Bieber“Justice”(Def Jam) More

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      Beyoncé Makes History With 28 Grammy Wins

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Grammy AwardsGrammys: What HappenedWinners ListBest and Worst MomentsBeyoncé Breaks RecordRed CarpetAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyBeyoncé Breaks Grammy Record; Top Prizes for Billie Eilish and Taylor SwiftBeyoncé not only came to the Grammys, she won four and made history.March 14, 2021, 11:20 p.m. ETMarch 14, 2021, 11:20 p.m. ETBeyoncé had a record-breaking night and now holds the most Grammy wins by a female artist.Credit…CBSBeyoncé not only showed up at the Grammys (surprise!) — she won four, broke a record, and then got onstage to offer gracious remarks on a night when she was nominated nine times but did not perform.By the end of the night, Beyoncé had become the female artist with the most ever Grammy wins (28), a record previously held by Alison Krauss.More than two hours into the telecast, viewers were surprised to see a camera show Beyoncé seated at the award ceremony. Minutes later she would win best rap song with Megan Thee Stallion, who gushed about her collaborator in her acceptance speech.“I definitely want to say thank you to Beyoncé,” she said. “If you know me, you have to know that ever since I was little, I was like, ‘You know what, one day I’m going to grow up, I’m going to be like the rap Beyoncé.’ That was definitely my goal.”Then Beyoncé herself won another Grammy for best R&B performance for “Black Parade” and gave her own acceptance speech.“It’s been such a difficult time, so I wanted to uplift, encourage, celebrate all of the beautiful Black queens and kings that continue to inspire me and inspire the whole world,” she said. “This is so overwhelming. I’ve been working my whole life — since 9 years old — and I can’t believe this happened.”With those two awards under her belt, plus the awards for best rap song (again for “Savage”) and best music video that she earned before the broadcast, Beyoncé broke the record for most Grammy wins ever by a female artist, previously held by Alison Krauss.“History!” the host, Trevor Noah, exclaimed. “Give it up for Beyoncé. This is history right now!”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      St. Vincent’s Synth-Funk ‘Pain,’ and 9 More New Songs

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe PlaylistSt. Vincent’s Synth-Funk ‘Pain,’ and 9 More New SongsHear tracks by Drake featuring Rick Ross, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, Bebe Rexha and others.St. Vincent previews a new album called “Daddy’s Home” with the squelchy “Pay Your Way in Pain.”Credit…Zackery MichaelJon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and March 5, 2021Updated 4:08 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.St. Vincent, ‘Pay Your Way in Pain’[embedded content]St. Vincent (Annie Clark) piles artifice on artifice on the way to a digitized primal scream in “Pay Your Way in Pain,” from a new album, “Daddy’s Home,” due in May. A throwaway music-hall piano introduction cuts to fat, squelchy 1980s synthesizer tones as she sings, archly but with mounting desperation, about rejection on every front, surrounded by multiples of her own voice processed into gasping, tittering onlookers; they join her to harmonize on the words “pain” and “shame” like decades-later echoes of David Bowie singing “Fame.” It’s droll until it isn’t; at the end, she proclaims, “I want to be loved,” and that last word stretches for a rasping, breathless 17 seconds. JON PARELESNo Rome featuring Charli XCX and the 1975, ‘Spinning’Pros recognize pros. It’s telling that Charli XCX (the Id Girl of hyperpop) and Matty Healy of the 1975 (the most self-conscious yet ambitious arena-rock deconstructionist) both chose to collaborate with No Rome, a Filipino songwriter and producer who melds introversion, melody and electronics. The song ends up on Charli XCX’s turf: teasing, danceable and unstable, flaunting its pitch-shifting and digital edits. But it’s also thoroughly danceable and flirtatious: full of mindless motion. PARELESBruno Mars, Anderson .Paak, Silk Sonic, ‘Leave the Door Open’Both Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars are diligent students of R&B history, especially devoted to its most opulent, funky and idealistic moments in the pre-disco 1970s. So it’s no surprise that their collaboration — Silk Sonic, though they also keep their own search-optimizing names in the billing — harks back, in “Leave the Door Open,” to the close-harmony seductions of groups like the Spinners, the Manhattans and the Stylistics; yes, kids, that’s an analog tape deck rolling as the video begins. The descending guitar glissando, the glockenspiel, the showy key changes, the contrast of grainy lead and perfectionist backup vocals, the detailed erotic invitation of the lyrics — “Come on over, I’ll adore you” — are all good things to revive. PARELESDrake featuring Rick Ross, ‘Lemon Pepper Freestyle’What’s a palate cleanse for Drake is, for most rappers, out of the reach of their ambition and skill. In between albums, he tosses off songs that focus on his tougher side, leaning in to wordy verses largely bereft of melody. “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” — from his new “Scary Hours 2” EP — is a relaxed classic of the form, full of sly rhymes delivered so offhandedly it almost obscures the technical audacity within. The song features frequent mischief buddy Rick Ross, but promptly dispenses with him so that Drake can embark upon a four-plus minute verse touching on his notary public, some wild times in Vegas, smooth co-parenting (“I send her the child support/She send me the heart emoji”), the deadening effects of too much fame, the overpriced accouterments of too much fame and the usual confession/braggadocio nexus that even after more than a decade still stings: “To be real, man, I never did one crime/But none of my brothers can caption that line.” JON CARAMANICABebe Rexha, ‘Sacrifice’New year, nü-disco. Bebe Rexha turns whispering diva on “Sacrifice” — “Wanna be the air every time you breathe/running through your veins, and the spaces in between” — on an elegant track that includes the faintest nod to Real McCoy’s mid-90s ultra-bouncey “Another Night.” CARAMANICATank, ‘Can’t Let It Show’Tank pours out his regrets and begs for reconciliation on “Can’t Let It Show”: “I should’ve been everything I promised,” he croons in an aching tenor, going on to confess, “I’ve been stupid, heartless/I’ve been useless, thoughtless.” Then, in falsetto, he answers with what’s supposed to be her side of the dialogue: a repurposed Kate Bush chorus — “I should be crying but I just can’t let it show” — that makes him think he still stands a chance because she cares. Or is it all just his wishful thinking? PARELESMaroon 5 featuring Megan Thee Stallion, ‘Beautiful Mistakes’An awkward night out in a thankless marriage between a partner barely trying to save face and a partner trying very hard to do just enough so that observers might not notice how poorly suited the pair are to each other. CARAMANICAAshe and Finneas, ‘Til Forever Falls Apart’Perhaps Finneas is a little frustrated — though well-compensated — while he keeps things quiet (but deeply ominous) when he collaborates with his sister, Billie Eilish, whose vocals tend to be melodic whispers. He goes full-scale, orchestral Wall of Sound, appropriately, to share big crescendos with Ashe on “Til Forever Falls Apart,” which starts as a vow of fidelity but turns into visions of California apocalypse. PARELESOmar Sosa, ‘Shibinda’When the prolific Cuban pianist and composer Omar Sosa toured East Africa with his trio in 2009, he brought along a small recording setup, and captured himself playing with leading musicians in every country he visited. Afterward, he overdubbed additional layers of percussion and piano atop the original recordings; now he has finally released these recordings as an album, “An East African Journey.” In Zambia, Sosa met Abel Ntalasha, a multi-instrumentalist and dancer, whose song “Shibinda” tells of a young man growing into adulthood and preparing to marry. Ntalasha plays the kalumbu, a single-stringed instrument, and sings the song’s central incantation. Sosa gets involved gradually, contributing vocals and percussion and rhythmic spritzes high up on the piano. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOHafez Modirzadeh, ‘Facet Sorey’[embedded content]To make his new album, “Facets,” the saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh brought three leading jazz pianists into the studio. But before they arrived, he retuned many of the piano’s strings to reflect an old Persian technique of finding notes in the spaces between the tempered scale. On “Facet Sorey,” Modirzadeh doesn’t play a lick of sax; instead, the multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey handles the piece alone, conjuring up conflicted clouds of harmony, letting the piano’s slightly sour tuning create a feeling of rich uncertainty. RUSSONELLOAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Dawn Richard Honors New Orleans Second Lines, and 7 More New Songs

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe PlaylistDawn Richard Honors New Orleans Second Lines, and 7 More New SongsHear tracks by 24kGoldn, Amythyst Kiah, Lil Yachty and others.Dawn Richard’s new single “Bussifame” is a preview of her April album “Second Line.” Credit…Alexander Le’JoJon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and Feb. 19, 2021, 10:53 a.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.Dawn Richard, ‘Bussifame’[embedded content]Dawn Richard gives “Bussifame” four syllables — as in “Bust it for me” — when she chants it in her new single, a preview of her April album “Second Line.” The video, released on Mardi Gras, opens with someone dancing to a (sadly uncredited) New Orleans brass band’s second-line beat. Then the track itself begins, with Richard and her dancers wearing pointy, futuristic costumes outside the giant graffiti on a derelict former Holiday Inn. “Feet move with the beat/Bussifame, second line,” she chants, huskily, in an electronic track that’s closer to house than to second line, but just keeps adding levels of perky syncopation. JON PARELESAmythyst Kiah, ‘Black Myself’“Black Myself” starts out as a blunt catalog of stereotyping and discrimination — “You better lock the doors as I walk by/’Cause I’m Black myself — before affirming Black solidarity and self-determination in its final verse. The song was already a bluesy stomp when Amythyst Kiah first recorded it with the folky all-star alliance Our Native Daughters; now she revisits it with a fuller studio production, reinforcing its distorted guitar with more effects, more layers and a bigger beat, adding extra clout. PARELESMichael Wimberly, featuring Theresa Thomason, ‘Madiba’Over a stuttering bass line, plinking balafon and wah-wah-drenched guitar, the gospel vocalist Theresa Thomason offers an unflinching tribute to Nelson Mandela, lingering on the struggles he endured and vowing to carry his legacy forward. “Always looking left, always looking right/Always defending the people’s truth/We’ll never forget you,” she sings. The song comes from “Afrofuturism,” the latest album by the percussionist and multi-instrumentalist Michael Wimberly, who recorded it with a diverse group of musicians from across the world. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO24kGoldn, ‘3, 2, 1’24kGoldn’s version of hip-hop is, in essence, pop-punk coated with just the faintest layer of R&B — which is to say, exceedingly pop. His latest single, which arrives while “Mood,” his recent No. 1 with Iann Dior, is still at No. 5 on the Hot 100, is taut, angsty and extremely efficient, a fait accompli of hybrid pop. JON CARAMANICALil Yachty featuring Kodak Black, ‘Hit Bout It’Lil Yachty, KrispyLife Kidd, RMC Mike, Babyface Ray, Rio Da Yung OG, DC2Trill and Icewear Vezzo, ‘Royal Rumble’Three or so years ago, you would not have pegged Lil Yachty as destined to be one of hip-hop’s more versatile talents. And yet here he is, fast rapping over a nervous beat on “Hit Bout It,” a strong duet with the fresh-out-of-jail Kodak Black. That comes less than two weeks after “Royal Rumble,” a posse cut of (mostly) great Michigan rappers full of the non sequitur tough talk that’s been defining that scene for the last couple of years, and which Yachty has an affinity (if not quite aptitude) for. Focus instead on great verses from the stalwart Icewear Vezzo and the up-and-comer Babyface Ray. CARAMANICAMahalia featuring Rico Nasty, ‘Jealous’A sample of flamenco guitar curls through the insinuating, two-chord track of “Jealous” as the English singer Mahalia and the Maryland rapper-singer Rico Nasty casually demolish male pride. “Im’a do what I want to baby/I won’t be stuck without you baby,” they nonchalantly explain, as Mahalia flaunts her wardrobe, her car, her “crew” and her indifference. “Unless you got that heart then you can’t come my way,” she sings, staccato and unconcerned. PARELESChris Pattishall, ‘Taurus’For his debut album, the rising pianist Chris Pattishall reached back 75 years to revisit Mary Lou Williams’s 12-part “Zodiac Suite.” The result is neither overly nostalgic nor newfangled and gimmicky. Pattishall’s “Zodiac” is a startling achievement precisely because of how deeply — and personally — this old material seems to resonate with him. Pattishall has said that he is particularly drawn to Williams because of the way she seemed to hopscotch between atmospheres and registers within individual compositions, without sacrificing a sense of narrative. That’s borne out on his album’s very first track, “Taurus” (Williams’s own star sign), which starts with a passage of ruminative piano before a quick acceleration, with Pattishall leading his quintet into a swirling, bluesy refrain. RUSSONELLOAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More