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      A New Generation Pushes Nashville to Address Racism in Its Ranks

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA New Generation Pushes Nashville to Address Racism in Its RanksA small contingent of country artists and industry players have been speaking up in a business that likes to shut down dissent.Mickey Guyton, the only Black female country singer signed to a major label, quickly tweeted a challenge to Nashville after the star Morgan Wallen was caught on video using a racial slur.Credit…Mark Humphrey/Associated PressFeb. 12, 2021Less than 30 minutes after TMZ posted a video of the country star Morgan Wallen using a racial slur on Feb. 2, Mickey Guyton, the only Black female country singer signed to a major label, tweeted her reaction: “The hate runs deep.”She added, “How many passes will you continue to give?” and “So what exactly are y’all going to do about it. Crickets won’t work this time.”A few other mainstream country artists commented about the incident on social media, but many figured Nashville would do as it has almost always done when one of its stars is under fire: circle the wagons and shut up. “It’s been the norm for country artists to stay silent and not use their platform for controversy,” said Leslie Fram, CMT’s senior vice president of music strategy.By the following day though, radio conglomerates including iHeartMedia, Cumulus and Entercom pulled Wallen’s songs from rotation at hundreds of stations, and major streaming services removed him from playlists. CMT stopped running his videos. The Academy of Country Music declared him ineligible for its upcoming awards. All this while Wallen’s second album, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” topped the Billboard 200 chart for the third straight week.While Guyton’s tweets alone weren’t responsible for the swift rebuke, she is one of a small contingent of mostly female artists — among them Cam, Maren Morris, Margo Price and Amanda Shires — and industry players whose advocacy has pushed the country music business to begin confronting issues of racism and diversity that go beyond one artist’s misdeeds.“I was really encouraged by how fast every group in the industry showed up,” said Cam, a Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter. “But I don’t think aha moments to call someone on something so ingrained in everyone is going to be the tide changer.”“I’d assume a lot of males aren’t speaking out because they’re comfortable in their places of power and money,” said Amanda Shires.Credit…Mark Zaleski/Associated PressThe work these women do isn’t easy to quantify. Much of it is about deliberately nudging the public conversation in Nashville toward uncomfortable questions about racial equity. That can mean using social media to trumpet a book like Layla F. Saad’s “Me and White Supremacy” or excoriate the band formerly known as Lady Antebellum for tangling with a Black artist over the name Lady A. Other times, it’s participating in diversity and inclusion task forces. In November, when Morris was named female vocalist of the year at the Country Music Association Awards, she used her acceptance speech to highlight the struggle of Black women in country music, including Guyton, Rissi Palmer, Yola and Brittney Spencer.That it’s often been a group of women who speak the loudest is perhaps unsurprising. Female artists have faced huge barriers in the industry themselves, from sexual harassment and objectification to unwritten rules limiting airplay for women.“In the female experience, you understand what it is to be the underdog, to come into a situation that’s mostly white-male-driven and try to assert yourself,” said Palmer, who hosts an Apple Music radio show called Color Me Country that spotlights the genre’s Black, Indigenous and Latino roots.Shires, a singer-songwriter who also performs alongside Morris in the Highwomen, put it bluntly: “I’d assume a lot of males aren’t speaking out because they’re comfortable in their places of power and money. Why would they want it to change?”The story of male artists’ dominance in country music is a long-running one. Between 2014 and 2018, 84 percent of artists on Billboard’s year-end country charts were men, according to a study by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California.The relative silence of many of country’s biggest stars, male and female, is partly habit but also partly economics. Whether stars and gatekeepers are indifferent to racism or not, they fear fans are.“If they’re worried they’re going to financially take a fall, they keep their mouths shut,” said Price. “They’d rather keep that rebel dollar.”“For three days, I was threatened, called a racist, a bigot, a nobody,” Rissi Palmer said of the consequences of speaking up online after Charley Pride’s death.Credit… Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesBut crediting these mostly white women for being country’s social conscience is itself indicative of the larger problem. “White women speaking up is a result of we don’t let Black women speak up,” said Cam. With a few frequently noted exceptions, in Nashville, she said, “Black people aren’t even allowed in the door, cannot be in writing rooms, cannot get signed, don’t have a Twitter following, so you never hear them.”Part of this work is amplifying those marginalized voices. Shires and Morris have worked with both Spencer and Yola. Morris, Cam and Guyton are part of a group text with Palmer and Andrea Williams, a Black journalist and author based in Nashville, where they share reading suggestions, relay personal experiences and strategize.“How is it that two white women even partially understand what the experience is like for Black people in country?” asked Cam. “It’s because we’re learning from Black women. We watched what’s going on with Mickey and talked to her.” Cam said she and Morris use their platforms to share what they’re learning more widely.Williams, a lively Twitter presence, hasn’t shied from needling the ideologically like-minded — including Morris, and Shires’ husband, Jason Isbell — when she feels they’ve fallen short in bids to be good allies. “I’d rather people not say anything than say the wrong thing,” she said. “Sometimes, you need to listen and learn.” She pointed out that two of the first artists to respond to the Wallen incident, Kelsea Ballerini and Cassadee Pope, posted that his behavior “does not represent” country music.“That’s more hurtful than people who didn’t say anything because you’re diminishing the very real experiences of people who know for a fact this is actually indicative of the way this entire industry works,” she said.Cam stressed the importance of white artists listening to and learning from Black people before speaking out: “We watched what’s going on with Mickey and talked to her.”Credit…Frank Hoensch/Redfern, via Getty ImagesAccording to Williams, focusing on gender obscures country music’s “original sin”: “Country was created with the sole intent of marketing to a particular racial demographic. We divided Southern music into white hillbilly records and Black race records. This dividing line is as stark now as in the 1920s,” she said.This current reckoning traces to last summer’s nationwide Black Lives Matter protests. Just days after George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police, Guyton released the startlingly personal “Black Like Me” and country’s only mainstream male artists of color — Darius Rucker, Kane Brown and Jimmie Allen — spoke forthrightly about their own experiences, while the rest of the country music industry largely struggled to meet the moment. Other artists and executives were quick to share supportive hashtags but in a genre where mainstream Black performers can be counted on one hand and Black faces are hardly any more common behind the scenes, their efforts felt insubstantial.Lorie Liebig, a Nashville-based publicist and journalist, began compiling a Google Doc tracking what country artists had posted — or not posted — in support of Black Lives Matter. Shires was among the first to share the spreadsheet widely, but as it was disseminated, the harshest reactions often were aimed at Liebig herself.“There was a day when it first hit, my Twitter was just cascading with negative responses,” she said. “A lot were saying I was racist toward white people. I ended up being doxxed. They posted my parents’ address.”Many of these women have faced similar bile. “I’ve been called pretty much every name in the book,” said Price. “I’ve had people send me threatening DMs. I’m sure it’s cost me album and ticket sales.”After the Black country pioneer Charley Pride’s death in December, Palmer criticized eulogies that whitewashed his legacy. “For three days, I was threatened, called a racist, a bigot, a nobody,” she said. “I’ve been called a Nazi propagandist, which was my favorite.”But the steady pressure these women have been exerting seems to be starting to shift the conversation. While it remains to be seen whether the consequences Wallen has faced signal any enduring appetite for change — he returned for a fourth week at No. 1 after the incident, and was not roundly condemned by Nashville, where defenders and sympathetic voices spoke up on his behalf — there are signs the ground is moving. Four of the 10 acts chosen for CMT’s “Next Women of Country” this year are Black. The National Museum of African American Music recently opened in downtown Nashville — across the street from country music’s symbolic home, the Ryman Auditorium.“We’re a long way from seeing sweeping changes but every time the light bulb goes on for somebody else, we’re closer,” said Williams. “Because as we all come together, and we’re all firing texts back and forth at midnight in these group chats, we’re more powerful than any of us as individuals. All we need is more people to join the fight.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Gina Carano Is Off ‘Mandalorian’ Amid Backlash Over Instagram Post

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGina Carano Is Off ‘Mandalorian’ Amid Backlash Over Instagram PostLucasfilm’s statement came hours after a new backlash against the actress, who on Instagram compared “hating someone for their political views” to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.The actress Gina Carano as Cara Dune in the second season of “The Mandalorian,” Disney’s hit “Star Wars” spinoff series.Credit…Disney+Feb. 11, 2021Updated 4:56 p.m. ETThe actress Gina Carano, who starred as Cara Dune in the “Star Wars” spinoff series “The Mandalorian” on Disney+, on Wednesday compared “hating someone for their political views” to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust in an Instagram post, her latest social media post to create a fan backlash.Lucasfilm, the company within Disney that owns the show and the rest of the “Star Wars” franchise, condemned her comments and said in a statement that she was “not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future.”“Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable,” Lucasfilm said in a statement.Ms. Carano was also dropped by her agency, UTA, according to The Hollywood Reporter.The Instagram post, which re-shared an image from a different account, is no longer visible on her page. It led to thousands of complaints on social media, where many people used the hashtag #FireGinaCarano, not for the first time. (Some conservatives, who viewed her posts as a matter of free speech, countered with #CancelDisneyPlus.)In September, Ms. Carano added “beep/bop/boop” to her Twitter bio, which many saw as mockery of people who list their pronouns. She denied that accusation and said she was responding to people who asked her to list her pronouns, “exposing the bullying mentality of the mob that has taken over the voices of many genuine causes.”She said she talked with her “Mandalorian” co-star Pedro Pascal, who “helped me understand why people were putting them in their bios.” (Mr. Pascal would later publicly support his sister, Lux Pascal, an actress who came out as transgender this week.)Ms. Carano has also mocked the use of masks and the need for vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic, and embraced baseless claims of voter fraud after the presidential election.Before she shifted to acting, she was one of the world’s top female mixed-martial artists and performed for two years on “American Gladiator” under the stage name Crush. She appeared in seven episodes of “The Mandalorian” as a trusty ally of the protagonist, played by Mr. Pascal, and is otherwise known for roles in “Haywire,” “Deadpool” and “Fast & Furious 6.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      'Framing Britney Spears' Filmmakers Talk About Their Process

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Britney Spears’s Legal BattleControl of Spears’s EstateThe ‘Free Britney’ MovementWatch ‘Framing Britney Spears’ in the U.S.Making the DocumentaryAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTimes InsiderBehind the Making of ‘Framing Britney Spears’The director and a senior editor of the Times documentary answered viewer questions about the media response, the star’s mother and searching for clues on Instagram.A new documentary from The New York Times examines the so-called Free Britney movement made up of fans of the pop star Britney Spears.CreditCredit…G. Paul Burnett/The New York TimesFeb. 11, 2021Updated 2:22 p.m. ETTimes Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.The premiere last week of the film “Framing Britney Spears,” part of the TV documentary series “The New York Times Presents,” looked closely at Ms. Spears’s legal battle with her father, Jamie Spears, over control of her finances. For more than a decade, that control has been held largely by Mr. Spears in a conservatorship, a complex legal arrangement typically used for the sick or elderly.Since the film’s release on FX and Hulu, celebrities and fans have expressed their support for Ms. Spears on social media. The latest court hearing in the fight was scheduled for Thursday in Los Angeles. On Wednesday, Samantha Stark, the director, and Liz Day, a senior editor on the film, answered questions from readers in an “Ask Me Anything” session on the website Reddit. The following are edited excerpts.Were there any legal hurdles you faced in making the film?LIZ DAY We did not receive any direct legal threats while making the documentary. Reporting any investigative story requires extreme attention to factual accuracy and fairness, and this project was no different, though it was made even more difficult by an ongoing court case, attorney-client privilege, medical privacy, celebrity nondisclosure agreements, distrust of the press and other factors.What is the involvement of Lynne Spears, Britney’s mother, in all of this?SAMANTHA STARK So what we know about Lynne Spears is that she is not legally a part of Britney’s conservatorship team. We know she recently petitioned to be included to have access to more information and to be able to have her lawyer speak during the hearings, and that she filed as an “interested party” to do that.It’s unclear what involvement Lynne had related to the conservatorship up until recently. In a Nov. 10 hearing, Lynne said, through her lawyer (and I’m paraphrasing) that she thanked Jamie for the work he had been doing but that she wanted Britney to wake up to see brighter days. It’s very hard to understand what role Jamie, Lynne or a number of other people have played throughout the conservatorship because so many of the court records are sealed.What’s your view on the media response to the documentary? It feels as if many of the outlets that disparaged Britney years ago are now doing thinkpieces about how the media destroyed her.STARK There’s one thing I noticed in the past week doing interviews with media outlets that I never even thought of before the film came out. When Britney was being shamed for her sexuality as a teenager and stalked as a young adult, the gatekeepers to all these media outlets — the ones doing the shaming — were in their 30s, 40s, 50s. We as teenagers watched that happen. Now that my/our generation are a lot of the gatekeepers, we’re saying “no more.”How should those media outlets respond after playing a part in all the derision that Britney endured?STARK I think they should respond by not ever doing anything like it ever again. I think they should take a note from Britney’s book and be kindhearted, open and nonjudgmental.Did you contact any of Britney’s ex-husbands or boyfriends, like Jason Alexander, Kevin Federline, Jason Trawick or Charlie Ebersol, or some of her photographers/videographers, like David LaChappelle and Nigel Dick?DAY Yes, at the end of the doc we listed the members of Ms. Spears’s family who we requested on-camera interviews with but who did not respond or declined. But we reached out to a lot more people than just that list, including the ex-husbands/boyfriends mentioned. We spoke with Nigel Dick and reached out to David LaChappelle too. There were many people we spoke with on background who did not appear on camera. There were also a few people whose on-camera interviews we did not include because of time.Britney Spears hasn’t been able to fully control her career for 13 years under a court-sanctioned conservatorship. A New York Times documentary, now streaming on FX and Hulu, examines the pop star’s court battle with her father for control of her estate.CreditCredit…Ting-Li Wang/The New York TimesWhat are your thoughts on the obsessive Britney fans who question and dissect her social media posts?STARK There’s such a tight circle around Ms. Spears, seemingly enabled by the conservatorship, that it’s really hard to ask her how she is or what she thinks. We know that she hasn’t done interviews in a long time and that when she did for many years she was likely under very careful watch. So I honestly think it makes sense for people to look to her Instagram to try and parse how she might be doing. It’s the only place we’ve been able to see or hear from her for quite some time.Did you look at the financial records? Forbes has estimated her wealth at $60 million. Shouldn’t it be higher?DAY Excellent question. Britney’s true net worth is a mystery, and there’s speculation that there may be a lot more money beyond $60 million outside of her estate, in trusts or elsewhere as royalties, intellectual property and more. There are lots of companies set up as private LLCs, of which records are scant. One thing I would add is that often when you hear big Hollywood paychecks, you have to consider everyone who is taking a cut — managers, lawyers and government taxes, for example.Did you expect this film would result in a big resurgence of the #FreeBritney movement?STARK When making a film, I never know what parts of the piece will hit people in the emotional gut. I really had no idea this would happen.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Scenes From a Marriage, Patinkin-Style

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      Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody were mystified when some of the videos they made with their son while waiting out the pandemic in upstate New York were viewed more than a million times.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesThe Great ReadScenes From a Marriage, Patinkin-StyleMandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody’s charming, irreverent pandemic-era posts led to unlikely social media stardom. Will the vaccine end their run?Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody were mystified when some of the videos they made with their son while waiting out the pandemic in upstate New York were viewed more than a million times.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 3, 2021Updated 1:27 p.m. ETMandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody have been together since their first date nearly 43 years ago, a giddy daylong romp through Greenwich Village that began with brunch and ended with them making out on a street corner. “I’m going to marry you,” he declared. “You’re going to get hurt, because I’m not going to marry anyone,” she replied.Their wedding was two years later, in 1980. But like many long-term couples, their partnership has thrived in part because they are away from each other so much. Grody, 74, is an Obie Award-winning actress and writer; Patinkin, 68, finished the final season of “Homeland” last year and spent the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 on a 30-city concert tour.In March, they left Manhattan for their cabin in upstate New York and embarked, like so many of us, on something radically different: months of uninterrupted time together. The result is a matter of public record, because scenes from their marriage — in all its talky, squabbly, emotional, affectionate glory — are all over social media, courtesy of their son Gideon, 34, who started recording them for fun and then realized that there was a vast demand for Patinkin-related content.Patinkin said that “being with my family holed up for 11 months has been one of the true gifts of my life.” Grody urged their son Gideon, who made their videos, not to portray them simply as an “adorable older couple” but to “get some of our annoyance in there.”Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesFor months, people have scrolled through Twitter, Instagram and TikTok to watch Grody and Patinkin debate, declaim, snuggle, bicker, horse around, play with their dog, Becky, obsess about politics and display their (lack of) knowledge about such topics as text-speak and the New York pizza rat. More recently, the world has followed along as they got their first doses of the vaccine (“one of the few benefits of being old,” Patinkin wrote).Now, as they near the first anniversary of all that togetherness, they say that except for desperately missing their older son, Isaac, who lives in Colorado and recently got married, they feel lucky to be together. “There’s no question,” Patinkin said. “Being with my family holed up for 11 months has been one of the true gifts of my life.”As this phase of the pandemic nears its end, do they plan to turn their unlikely social-media fame into a family sitcom or reality TV show? No, says Gideon, although they have gotten endless inquiries. For one thing, his parents can barely operate the video functions on their phones, and eventually he will again have to leave them to their own devices. “Once the world is vaccinated and living life is back in vogue, I might have to teach them how to do selfie videos,” he said. “That should be something.”After the first few videos last spring, Grody exhorted Gideon not to portray them simply as an “adorable older couple,” she said. “You have to get some of our annoyance in there,” she told him.What annoyance? In dueling interviews, the couple outlined the many ways they irritate each other. Patinkin hates the way his wife amasses old newspapers, like a hoarder. Grody hates how, when she fails to answer her husband’s calls, he redials incessantly — three, four, five times — until she picks up. She likes podcasts; he likes rewiring the house. She is a “social maniac,” Patinkin said; he “likes humanity in general, but very few specific people,” Grody said.In one video, they tell Gideon how they celebrated their anniversary the day before.“It began lovely, and turned into an absolute fight,” Patinkin says. “Both of us lost.”“I apologized and that made dad cry,” Grody says. “We’ve always connected through weeping.”The response was so positive, with people posting that the couple reminded them of themselves or their parents or just brought joy at a dark time, that Gideon now advises other young adults confined at home to embark on similar projects. “I became astonished at how much I could get out of them,” he said.Their efforts expanded this summer and through the election. Patinkin has long volunteered for the International Rescue Committee, a nonprofit humanitarian organization, and Gideon encouraged his parents to use their growing social media base — now 250,000-plus on Twitter, 155,000-plus on Instagram, 940,000-plus on TikTok — to work for Democratic candidates in the presidential and Senate elections.The couple took part in virtual fund-raisers; did endless phone banking; danced, sang, cooked and goofed around. Enlisting the services of the writer and director Ewen Wright, they recorded TikTok campaign spots, like one in which Patinkin tells young people to get their parents and grandparents to vote, and then twerks to a remix of the song “Stand By Me.” Mystifyingly to them, some of their videos have been viewed more than a million times.Will the show go on? After their cameraman — one of their sons, Gideon — is vaccinated and returns to his daily life, Patinkin and Grody will be left to their own devices, literally.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York Times“I don’t understand this stuff,” said Grody, who on one video can be seen trying to explain what she thinks TikTok is: “a communication tool” that encourages “young people to meet various kinds of other young people.”All the while, Gideon kept filming, adding new nuances to what has turned into a portrait of a complex marriage.It has not been without its adversities. (“They are an exquisite mess, but theirs is a deeply rich joy,” is how Gideon put it.) For one thing, there is Patinkin’s self-proclaimed moodiness. Once, he related, he was so unpleasant in the car en route to visit a relative that Gideon, then a teenager, said, ‘Dad, if you can’t get it together, don’t come in.” (He didn’t come in.) Another time, he felt so trapped and sulky before Thanksgiving — a difficult time of the year for him — that he decided to fly to New Orleans to spare his family, only to change his mind and demand, successfully, to exit the plane before it took off.“Everyone in the family knows I’m a (synonym for jerk),” Patinkin said. “But they know me and they love me and they forgive me, and that’s why I feel safe. The word ‘safe’ is such an operative word at this moment.”By that he meant the pandemic, and how lucky it is to be with someone who makes you feel secure in a time of insecurity.“There have been times during this whole period — sometimes I don’t even know what triggered them — there are times when I wake up and I find myself weeping, and she holds me and no words are spoken,” Patinkin said of his wife.“I married a woman who knew a guy was nuts, and she has loved me and stood by me and educated me and politicized me,” he continued. Or, as Grody said: “I used to say that I was supposed to marry a rock so I could be the lunatic, but instead I married a lunatic and I’ve had to be the rock.”They have separated twice in the course of their marriage, once for six months, the other for eight months.“We spoke to each other every day; we saw each other every day,” Patinkin said. “We couldn’t be apart.”“It was ridiculous, to tell you the truth,” Grody said. “I would say, ‘Don’t you know we’re supposed to be separated?’ As difficult as our problems were, it was far more difficult to be without each other.”They love describing how they met. They told the story in separate interviews, each observing that the other would focus on totally different details.Her version includes noticing her future husband in a 7Up commercial, circa 1970, a full eight years before they met. She then noticed him again in 1975, in his debut theater performance — the premiere of “Trelawny of the Wells,” which also starred Meryl Streep, Mary Beth Hurt and John Lithgow. She found the young Patinkin so appealing from afar that she turned to her then-boyfriend and said, “He’s my type — what am I doing with you?”Patinkin’s version includes how he went to her house for dinner soon after their fateful initial brunch and found that, living in a tiny walk-up in Little Italy, she stored her sweaters in the oven. Mis-following a recipe, she served him chicken covered in raw bacon.“I felt that I had lost my mind,” he said. “I was knocked out by her.”“When I look at Mandy, I see all of the Mandys I’ve ever known, from the person he was then to the person he is now,” Grody said.Credit…Daniel Arnold for The New York TimesPatinkin brought up “The Princess Bride,” in which he played Inigo Montoya, a swordsman trying to avenge his father’s death — and which at heart is about the search for true love.“I have found true love,” he said, “and first and foremost, I have it with my wife.”Grody feels the same way.“When I look at Mandy, I see all of the Mandys I’ve ever known, from the person he was then to the person he is now,” she said. “I’m still in love with his face.”In November, the couple appeared together in a video for the Jewish Democratic Council of America. They toasted the election results, exhorted everyone to stay safe. And then he sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in Yiddish, as his wife wept quietly beside him.“To have known somebody all these years, and to have lived this life together, and to have weathered the brutalities of intimacy — it’s a daring thing,” she said. “It’s an astonishing thing.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Drivers License’ Hit No. 1 in a Week. Here’s How.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOlivia Rodrigo’s ‘Drivers License’ Hit No. 1 in a Week. Here’s How.The debut single from the 17-year-old Disney actress became a TikTok smash, broke Spotify records and topped the Billboard chart thanks to a “perfect storm” of quality, gossip and marketing.“Drivers License” by Olivia Rodrigo debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart following a record-breaking first week across streaming services.Credit…Erica HernandezJan. 19, 2021Updated 3:14 p.m. ETThe music industry’s first runaway hit single of the year is at once a time-tested model — a Disney actress pivoting to pop with a catchy and confessional breakup ballad — and also an unprecedented TikTok-era smash by a teenager.“Drivers License” by Olivia Rodrigo, 17, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on Tuesday, following a record-breaking first week across streaming services like Spotify and Amazon Music. Along the way, the autobiographical song kicked up tabloid and social media speculation as listeners tried to piece together its real-life parallels as if it were a track by Rodrigo’s hero, Taylor Swift. TikTok videos led to blog posts, which led to streams, which led to news articles, and back around again. The feedback loop made it unbeatable.“It’s been the absolute craziest week of my life,” Rodrigo, who really did get her driver’s license last year, said in an interview. “My entire life just, like, shifted in an instant.”At a shaky and uncertain time for the music business, amid the pandemic and civil unrest, “Drivers License” was released across platforms and with a broody music video on Jan. 8 by Geffen Records. The song was then streamed more than 76.1 million times in the United States for the week, according to Billboard, the highest total since “WAP,” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, in August (93 million). On Spotify, “Drivers License” set a daily record for global streams for a non-holiday song on Jan. 11, and then beat its own number the next day, eventually setting the service’s record for most streams in a week worldwide.The track reached No. 1 in 48 countries on Apple Music, 31 countries on Spotify and 14 countries on YouTube, Rodrigo’s label said. It also sold 38,000 downloads in the United States, the most for the week, and earned 8.1 million radio airplay audience impressions, Billboard reported.“We definitely had no idea how big it was going to be,” said Jeremy Erlich, the co-head of music at Spotify. “It just ballooned into this monster, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. And I think unlike anything anyone’s seen before.”The company, which accounted for more than 60 percent of the song’s global streams in its first week, responded to initial interest by increasing its promotion of the track, which now sits on 150 official Spotify playlists. “It’s definitely not slowing down,” Erlich said. “It’s the topic around the company and around the industry.”The song, written by Rodrigo and produced by Dan Nigro, starts straightforward enough: “I got my driver’s license last week,” Rodrigo sings over a basic piano part, “just like we always talked about.” But by the end of the first verse, she’s “crying in the suburbs,” and the music swells until a cathartic bridge that hits with a type-breaking curse word. The song “successfully balances dark yet crisp melodrama with bold tunefulness, softly pointed singing with sharp imagery,” the critic Jon Caramanica wrote. “It is, in every way, a modern and successful pop song.”“Drivers License” may represent Rodrigo’s proper debut as a solo artist, but she came with a built-in audience thanks to her Disney roles. Born and raised in Southern California, she became a belting talent-show regular by the age of 8 and was cast first on “Bizaardvark,” which ran for three seasons on the Disney Channel between 2016 and 2019. Rodrigo, who learned to play guitar for the role, starred as Paige Olvera, a teenager who makes songs and videos for an online content studio.She currently stars as Nini Salazar-Roberts on the Disney+ series “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.” Last year, a song written by Rodrigo, “All I Want,” became the show’s most successful track so far.But like Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato before her — and Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera before them — Rodrigo took her experiences within the Disney machine and attempted to translate them for a broader, more adult audience. Fans have speculated that “Drivers License” is about Rodigro’s “High School Musical” co-star Joshua Bassett, who released his own single — and car-centric video — on Friday.Erlich, the Spotify executive, said that there was “a ton of X-factor that made this the perfect storm” for Rodrigo, including the gossip, the quality of her song, the marketing plan prepared in advance by her label and support from celebrities like Swift. “It did align perfectly and quicker than anything we’ve ever seen,” he said. “We’ve seen alignment like that, but typically it’s spread over three to six months — this happened in a day and a half.”Rodrigo called the song “a little time capsule” of a monumental six months she experienced last year. Acknowledging the “archetype” of the Disney star-turned-pop star, she said that she had been nervous about the collision of reactions from “people who have never heard my name before and people who have kind of grown up with me on TV.” But she was thrilled to find both groups interested.“The cool thing about ‘Drivers License’ is I’ve seen so many videos of people being like, ‘I have no idea who this girl is, but I really love this song,’ which has been really interesting for me, because for so long I’ve really just been attached to projects and to characters, and that’s how people know me,” she said. “It’s really cool to be introduced to people for the first time through a song that I feel really passionate about.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Will Averno Become a 'Marvel Universe' for Musicals?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA ‘Marvel Universe’ for Musicals? Meet the Makers of AvernoThe shows have not been staged, but three concept albums are at the center of a sprawling fictional world created largely by teenagers.“If this was just 150 unrelated artists working together, it would just be a cool collage without internal integrity or structure,” said Morgan Smith, who oversees the Averno storylines.Credit…Caroline Tompkins for The New York TimesJan. 15, 2021The start of the musical partnership between Morgan Smith and Sushi Soucy may not have been very Rodgers and Hammerstein, or even Pasek and Paul, but it certainly was very 2020.“This past summer, Morgan and I became mutuals on Instagram and TikTok,” Soucy, 18, said in a video conversation from Savannah, Ga. Direct messages followed, then an invitation from Smith, 21, to collaborate on a show. An outline was hashed out via Google Docs.Just a few months later, Broadway Records on Friday released the resulting concept album, “Over and Out,” about the relationship between Nova and Solar, college students who first connect by walkie-talkie, then must navigate the pressure of meeting face to face.It’s no secret that shows like “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Hadestown,” “Be More Chill” and, of course, “Hamilton” have developed passionate online followings. But for new musicals like “Over and Out,” fandom and social media are not an aftereffect — they are baked in.“Over and Out” is part of a series of musicals set in the fictional township of Averno and follows last year’s “Willow,” which Smith wrote with 16-year-old August Greenwood. That story deals head-on with acceptance and mortality as it tracks the parallel trajectories of two couples — Cassia and Grace, Adelaide and Beatrice.In a few months, the label plans to add a third recording, “Bittersummer,” to its catalog, where the Averno releases — concept albums of shows that have yet to be produced — will sit next to cast recordings from Tony-winning productions.“Obviously, they’re early stage, which you don’t normally get,” said Van Dean, the label’s president and co-founder. “But I think it’s interesting for people to see the process, because maybe in a few years there’s a next iteration that shows you how far it’s come. It’s easier to do that in a digital paradigm.”A map of the fictional town of Averno, the center of a trio of concept albums by young creators.Credit…Alicia SelkirkIf you are not a teen, or the parents of one, chances are good you have not heard of Averno, the setting of a sprawling, cross-platform universe over TikTok (125,000 followers), Instagram (47,000 followers), Spotify (1.4 million streams), YouTube, Twitter and Tumblr.It encompasses podcasts, livestreams, novels and short stories, TV and film scripts, an extensive alternate-reality game and, yes, musicals — all at different stages of completion.Smith (who, like most people quoted in this article, uses they/them pronouns, reflecting the project’s queer and nonbinary inclusiveness) came up with what would turn out to be the roots of Averno at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop in 2018. The multiverse fully metastasized in 2020, when people were at home with time on their hands.The general vibe is drenched in the supernatural. The Averno logo, for example, is a ram’s skull, which at first seems a bit grim but makes conceptual and aesthetic sense when Smith, a New York University senior, starts listing such influences as the novels “We’ve Always Lived in the Castle” and “American Gods.”The mood: “Very like Stephen King/‘Welcome to Night Vale’/‘Twin Peaks’/‘Bridge to Terabithia.’”Fan art is abundant and volunteers help with organizing, but Smith sets the world’s parameters. “The running rule is, if I didn’t make it or decide on it, it’s not canon,” they said. “Just because I have a very specific set of aesthetics and questions and themes — it’s what makes Averno feel cohesive. If this was just 150 unrelated artists working together, it would just be a cool collage without internal integrity or structure.”Artists and animators contribute to the project, as in this image of the characters Solar and Nova, on separate rooftops, from the show “Over and Out.”Credit…Melissa van Dijk-Allen“Willow” and “Over and Out” are not Smith’s first foray into musical theater. With the composer Mhairi Cameron, they wrote “Oceanborn” and presented it at the 2019 Rave Theater Festival — The New York Times called the show “confident” and “sweeping,” with a “gorgeous score.”Smith pitched “Bittersummer” to Broadway Records last spring, but pandemic logistics delayed its release, so “Willow” and “Over and Out” ended up coming out first.“I became quite fond of the work that Morgan and their team were doing,” said Dean, who mentioned he is looking into potential physical stagings in the future. “One of the things that attracted me is that nobody’s ever tried to create a Marvel Universe for theater, for musicals. Each piece may have its own trajectory but it’s all kind of tied together.”Music is a major component of Averno, but Smith tends to see it as serving a bigger goal. “I’m not really interested in musicals,” they said, “I’m interested in telling stories that use music to further an emotion. I’m not trying to write the perfect Broadway standard — I’m trying to tell the best story I can.”There are connections to the mainstream and Broadway, however, besides a record label or Christy Altomare, from “Anastasia,” performing a reprise of “How to Let Go” on the “Willow” album.When they worked on that project, for example, Greenwood, a resident of Charleston, S.C., who cites William Finn as their favorite composer, recalls that Smith would say: “We need an opening, we need an ‘I want song’ sung by this character, we need all the different types of Broadway songs.“I’m very imagery-based,” Greenwood continued, “so Morgan would be, like, ‘It needs to feel like a summer day’ and it would click in my brain and I would go off and write the lyrics and the music together.”Soucy’s experience reflects a similar, refreshing lack of hand-wringing. “When I was around 12, I decided that I was going to write a song in the shower, and I did,” said Soucy (favorite composer: Stephen Sondheim; favorite show: “Sweeney Todd”) from their home in Savannah. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘This is easier than people make it out to be.’ And so I just started writing musicals. There’s a large community of friends who casually write musicals on the weekends,” they added with a laugh.A summer 2020 gathering of Averno creators, from left: August Greenwood, Nalah Palmer, Janeen Garcia, Richard Eyler, Rachael Chau, Jasmine Aurora and Morgan Smith.Credit…Shepherd SmithOn both concept albums, lyrics set against intimate folk-pop arrangements capture with understated efficiency the angst of feeling alone and misunderstood when you are trying to find yourself: “The rest of the world/got a manual guide/to being the way that they are,” Janeen Garcia sings in “Ketchup” from “Over and Out.”Not having a manual guide, however, can make you resourceful. “I really like how they are independent with it,” Bug Curtis-Monro, a 13-year-old fan in Liverpool, England, said of the Averno creators. “A lot of people would have to seek out … I know this sounds bad, but, like, more professional help.”Smith displays a FaceTime screenshot that shows fellow Averno creators.Credit…Caroline Tompkins for The New York TimesWhile wunderkinds are not new in pop — Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish are just some of the latest examples — young people speaking to and for each other is a fairly recent phenomenon in musical theater. And it is essential to Averno.“The fact that we are basically the same people means that we’re able to connect,” said Elodie Prigent, a 17-year-old who has followed Smith’s work since “Oceanborn” and now helps out with Averno’s social-media channels. “We know how they feel because we are them.”Such self-sufficiency may partly be in response to being asked to jump through hoops, or risk being ignored for who you are. Gatekeepers — largely, let’s face it, middle-aged white men — have been known to dismiss the teen girls or nonbinary folks who happen to form the core audience and creative teams of Averno.“I’m 21 but people still have trouble taking me seriously sometimes, which I get,” Smith said. “I’m really hoping in the upcoming year that producers and publishers start seeing the market. Clearly we have a standing audience, and our merch sales are growing excellently.”Greenwood senses a change in the musical-theater establishment’s receptiveness to the virtual realm — and is glad it’s happening.“For a while nobody really listened to people who were super-young and were just going on about their musicals online,” they said. “But now I think producers see that these can be successful. They are finally, in quarantine, realizing that it’s a really good way to get new work.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Playboi Carti’s Quiet Christmas Release Is His First No. 1

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe ChartsPlayboi Carti’s Quiet Christmas Release Is His First No. 1The rapper’s “Whole Lotta Red” was largely unreviewed by the music press (though it led to a Twitter hubbub), and was streamed 126 million times in its opening week.The rapper Playboi Carti’s “Whole Lotta Red” had the equivalent of 100,000 albums sold.Credit…Amy Harris/Invision, via Associated PressJan. 4, 2021, 1:06 p.m. ETYou could be forgiven if you didn’t know about “Whole Lotta Red.”The latest album by the Atlanta rapper Playboi Carti came out on Christmas Day, while streaming playlists were practically overheating with seasonal tinsel by Mariah Carey, Brenda Lee and Andy Williams. And “Whole Lotta Red” apparently went unreviewed by the music media.Yet for a streaming star like Playboi Carti, all of that mattered less than the arrival of new content, although some controversy on social media may also have helped. “Whole Lotta Red” became the rapper’s first No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart, with the equivalent of 100,000 sales in the United States, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. The album, which features appearances by Kanye West, Kid Cudi and Future, was streamed 126 million times in its opening week.“Whole Lotta Red” received some extra attention when the rapper Iggy Azalea complained on Twitter that Playboi Carti had ignored her and their young son, Onyx, on Christmas. In the days following, celebrity-watching social media roiled and Playboi Carti posted videos of him with his son in a studio.Also this week, Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” fell to No. 2 after two turns at the top. The Chicago rapper Lil Durk’s “The Voice” is No. 3, Pop Smoke’s “Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon” is No. 4 in its 26th week out and Ariana Grande’s “Positions” is in fifth place.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘Ratatouille,’ the Musical: How This TikTok Creation Came Together

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Ratatouille,’ the Musical: How This TikTok Creation Came TogetherWe talked to the Broadway stars behind a virtual performance of the animated film. Inspiration started with quirky TikTok segments circulating this fall.A screenshot of “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical,” from left: Joy Woods; Tituss Burgess as Remy the rat; and J.J. Niemann.Credit…“Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical”Dec. 31, 2020, 12:37 p.m. ETBeginning in October, thousands of TikTok creators who were bored at home and missing Broadway created elements of a show that didn’t exist yet: a musical based on Disney Pixar’s “Ratatouille,” an animated film about a rat with culinary aspirations.In 60-second increments, people contributed their own songs, dances, makeup looks, set designs, puppets and Playbill programs inspired by the 2007 movie. Without any leadership, the virtual show materialized organically from a crowdsourced jumble of content.It was a musical conceived like no other. Many creators thought it was a long-shot before it could coalesce in real life. But on Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern time, “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical” will take shape as a virtual benefit performance, with Tituss Burgess starring as Remy the rat. About 80,000 tickets have already been sold for the pre-filmed show, put on by Seaview Productions to raise money for the Actors Fund. It will be available to stream for three days.The musical follows, more or less, the plot of the movie: Remy, who’s blessed with a refined palate, teaches the lowly kitchen worker Alfredo Linguini how to cook by hiding under his chef’s hat. Linguini rises to the top of his restaurant in Paris, only to be judged by the imperious critic Anton Ego.We spoke to its creators about the challenges of making a virtual show adapted from TikTok segments adapted from film. These conversations have been edited for clarity and condensed.Andrew Barth FeldmanThe actor, who was in “Dear Evan Hansen,” playing Alfredo Linguini.How did you get involved?My friend Nathan asked me to sing one of the songs on TikTok. People have been telling me that I looked like this character for years. I love the movie, and I always felt that this character resonated with me. I think we’re both generally anxious people with an undying optimism. He’s clumsy in a cartoony way, and he’s so unabashed in what he does. He has a passion for wanting to do right by everyone. The nervousness paired with the optimism feels very me.How long have you been rehearsing?This is the quickest turnaround for a Broadway show that I’ve ever seen in my life. That first conversation had to have been three weeks ago. This has all moved so, so quickly. It’s all one big romp of a time.What’s one challenge to presenting a show online?It’s funny because we’re doing this remotely. I’m not looking at any of these people. There was one point where it was the end of the day, and I was having trouble. I found this stuffed animal of Remy I have and put him off camera to film the scene — to feel the stakes of the story and remember it’s about a rat whose controlling a hat.André De Shields recording his part as the restaurant critic.Credit…Emily MarshallAndré De ShieldsThe actor, who was in “The Wiz,” playing Anton Ego.Any similarities between you and Anton?There was no time to do any research, so I had to trust the casting director who said, “This is for you. We want you to do this.” I haven’t seen the film, but in terms of playing Anton Ego, who is this snooty food critic, you learn he has turned his nose up at the ratatouille that’s served to him in the restaurant. You learn that’s how he grew up. That’s what his mother gave him as a child. When he tastes the ratatouille, he regresses to his childhood. You see he’s been wearing a mask all his life, and all he needed was a reminder of how happy he was as an ordinary kid.How is this show different from live ones performed onstage?We don’t improvise very much in the theater because there’s a script for us to run, and everyone’s expecting you to say what’s in the written thing. In terms of the distance between all of the collaborative people involved, if something didn’t come out exactly right, than we made use of that spontaneous inspiration. There’s no mistake in jazz. You say, “That’s what I intended to do, now the rest of you follow along.” That’s what “Ratatouille” is all about.Lucy MossThe director, who previously co-directed and co-wrote “Six: The Musical.”What was your vision for the show?The thing that’s really interesting about the original TikTok materials and submissions is that the aspiration for it was so broad. Despite being on a format on the cutting edge of tech and the most Gen-Z thing in the world, people were aspiring to be like a classic musical. The challenge of doing that in the least theatrical space ever — online — was trying to remain true to that aspiration. The aim is a Zoom reading or an online concert that drank 20 Red Bulls and spit on the screen.A screenshot of a ProTools session around 3 a.m. on Christmas Day, from top: the orchestrator Macy Schmidt; the music supervisor and arranger Daniel Mertzlufft; the sound mixer Angie Teo; and the music director Emily Marshall.Credit…Daniel MertzlufftDaniel MertzlufftThe music supervisor and arranger, who wrote some of the “Ratatouille” songs.Tell me about your role on the show.Basically my job was to take the nine songs we were pulling from TikTok and create some kind of story and a full cohesive score. That was the challenge because some of the songs we’re only a minute long, and we had to expand them. We had to write new songs to fill in some spots. We wrote part of a new opening number and an “I want song,” where the character sings what they want and hopefully they get it.What’s been your biggest challenge?I had my first meeting Dec. 4 with the folks at Seaview. They gave me a call and said, “Hey, we have this crazy idea. Disney has given us the allowance to do a benefit for the Actors Fund of ‘Ratatouille.’” They said, “Yeah, we’d like to do this on Jan. 1,” and I took a deep breath and said, “Yeah, that’s possible.”All of us were working 24/7 the first few weeks of December trying to finish all this. It was a return to normalcy for theater and the collaboration. Although the deadline was insane, of course I said yes. Who else can make insane deadlines like that happen besides theater people? I would do a song a day. This is months, if not years, of work that we did in two weeks. Even though it was a challenge, I loved being up until 3 a.m. Christmas morning mixing songs. We’ve all missed the feeling.“Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical” in a shoe-box set created by Christopher Routh.Credit…Christopher RouthChristopher RouthThe set designer, who works as a photographer.Tell me about your shoe-box set models.“Ratatouille” takes place in Paris, so how can I create a Paris backdrop for an actual stage? How can I create different drops for different scenes?The very first “Ratatouille” set model that I posted [on TikTok] and designed a set for, I got the idea from a picture from Pinterest. It was just a silhouette of Linguini with a chef’s hat, and it had a shadow of Remy. I took that, cut that out, lit it up using projections. Then I made sure that the hat was transparent so Remy could come from the back of it, and that’s when the whole set building started. It’s crazy to look at these TikToks again and see where I was and where I am now.This event really highlights a lot of the TikTok creators, and we’re very happy we got this recognition. We can take our content and do something good with it, not only raise money for the show but make sure that Broadway comes back stronger than ever.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More