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As natural disasters in Los Angeles go, a rain delay temporarily washing out a music festival is pretty low stakes. But fans had to scramble last week after a sudden thunderstorm made Tyler, the Creator’s flagship festival at Dodger Stadium soggy and unnavigable.

Now kicked forward a week, a few acts (Sombr, Tems, Clairo) dropped off the bill, a few (Kali Uchis) joined in their stead, and travelers with nonrefundable plane tickets had to find other ways to amuse themselves in L.A. for a week. But once the Dodger Stadium gates finally opened, everything was more or less smooth sailing. Here are the highlights of the weekend’s performances.

Timothée Chalamet’s ‘Marty Supreme’ blimp makes an appearance

Last week, actor Timothée Chalamet released a parody of a marketing meeting, for his upcoming film “Marty Supreme.” The 18-minute clip consisted of the Oscar nominee pitching the team outlandish advertising ideas like painting the Statue of Liberty orange. In the Zoom meeting, he says, “We should have the blimp go above Flog Gnaw and rain ping-pong balls, Marty Supreme-branded, rain ping-pong balls on everyone.”

Low and behold, right before Tyler, the Creator’s set, a bright orange blimp reading “Marty Supreme” began circling Dodger Stadium — just as Chalamet prophesied. People all around the festival could be seen stopping and pointing out the flying spectacle.

But thankfully, no raining ping-pong balls made an appearance. (Cerys Davies)

Geese fly high

If every generation deserves its own cool/sexy/mystifying rock band, then Gen Z’s (or maybe Gen Alpha’s) seems to be Geese. Led by the deep-voiced Cameron Winter, the group from New York appeared at Flog Gnaw less than 24 hours after a hometown gig at the Brooklyn Paramount on Friday night. “We finished a tour but we couldn’t stay away from the limelight, so we got on a plane just this morning,” Winter told the crowd. Geese plays skronky yet weirdly beautiful guitar music that inspires both swaying and moshing; it’s in a clear lineage of NYC acts that stretches back through the Strokes and Television to the Velvet Underground. But here at least you could detect a distinct L.A. presence in Emily Green’s John Frusciante-coded strums and in the doomed-heartthrob proclamations that made Winter sound a little like Jim Morrison. (Mikael Wood)

Happy 10th anniversary to Mac Miller’s “GO:OD AM”

In the sea of vendor pop-ups, Mac Miller’s yawning face, the cover of his 2015 release “GO:OD AM,” stood tall. In celebration of the album’s 10th anniversary, photographer Brick Stowell put on a small exhibition to honor the late Pittsburgh rapper. While standing in line, fans were chatting, sharing anecdotes of listening to Miller’s music or memories of when they saw him perform at Camp Flog Gnaw many years ago. Inside, the exhibition is simple, consisting of a few large-scale prints of photos Stowell selected. Some of the images focus on a smiling Miller or depict him playing the guitar or with friends. The record played softly in the space and a few people sat on the couches, with their eyes closed. In the midst of the music festival’s craziness, the tent was filled with a weighted, reverent energy. (C.D.)

Kali Uchis performs during Camp Flog Gnaw on Saturday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

Kali Uchis mixed red-hot seduction with ICE-cold activism

As a last-minute addition to the festival’s lineup, Kali Uchis might’ve been expected to put in a no-frills performance. Instead, the eternally vibey psychedelic-soul star sang the lovey-dovey “All I Can Say” from inside a giant teacup — “If you came with someone you like, you could kiss them,” she suggested — and did “Heaven Is a Home” on the back of a motorcycle driven by a woman in a lace bodysuit and shades. (There was also a giant bed with satiny pink sheets.) Uchis is among pop’s foremost fantasists; her music invites the listener to get lost in an expertly appointed dreamland. But here she also had the real world on her mind: She played a video in which she said that everyone in her Colombian American household worked three jobs when she was growing up and that “immigrants built this country and make it what it is today.” As she left the stage, Uchis said, “ICE is terrorizing our community” and called out “their violations against human rights.” (M.W.)

Tyler, the Creator’s heartfelt thank you

“We couldn’t let that rain stop us — no, no, no,” Tyler, the Creator said not long into his hour-long set, and indeed Flog Gnaw’s mastermind seemed just a bit more amped than usual as he presided over the festival that almost wasn’t. Dressed in a red leather suit à la Eddie Murphy in “Delirious,” Tyler came out punching with “Big Poe” and “Sugar on My Tongue,” which also open “Don’t Tap the Glass,” the high-energy hip-house album he dropped this past summer with very little warning. But he also performed stuff from last year’s “Chromakopia,” which just snagged a nomination for album of the year at February’s Grammy Awards. (“Don’t Tap the Glass,” amusingly, is up against LPs by the Cure and Wet Leg in the alternative music album category.)

Tyler’s stage was designed to resemble a New York City subway station complete with a train car that he climbed atop and herky-jerked his way across. For “Don’t You Worry Baby” he was joined by a female dancer on roller skates; for “Noid,” a couple of guys with cameras helped him act out his unhappy thoughts on paparazzi. As the set went on, Tyler started shortening each song, limiting himself to only a verse or a chorus to pack in more hits: “Earfquake,” “Wusyaname,” “See You Again.” He thanked the crowd for hanging with the festival’s postponement — “I know it wasn’t ideal,” he said — and for “rocking with us for 11 years” of Flog Gnaw. The connection he’s forged is real. (M.W.)

Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso’s roller coaster of a set

Fresh off 5 wins at the Latin Grammys earlier this month, Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso left the CFA crowd delightfully perplexed. The audience started off on the smaller side, as Tyler, the Creator was wrapping up his set. But as the Argentine rappers, decked out in Versace, plowed through their catchiest hits like “Dumbai” and “Sheesh,” a dancing stampede made its way over.

Less than a year after their viral NPR Tiny Desk, the notoriously kooky duo flexed their ability to slip between genres. One moment, a pulsating EDM beat, beaming lasers and intense fog machines took over the stage — emulating a rave. The next moment, Ca7riel is angrily screaming “F— you!” at the top of his lungs over an aggressive punky guitar solo. Finally, they act like their microphones have become dumbbells, and start to sing about their “#Tetas,” on their satirical, body positivity anthem. Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso will never let you know their next move. (C.D.)

Fans raise their phones as Kali Uchis performs during Camp Flog Gnaw.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

Clipse turn in a triumphant set

The Clipse have had a hell of a year. After releasing their first album together in 16 years, “Let God Sort Em Out,” the formidable Virginia rap duo of Pusha T and Malice embarked on a victory lap, which included a successful reunion tour and a flurry of hilariously entertaining interviews. In the midst of that, they also stopped by NPR’s Tiny Desk — a performance that had more than 3.5 million views as of November— and racked up four Grammy nominations including best rap album and album of the year. So it was only right that they were invited to perform at Camp Flog Gnaw once again. (They also performed at the festival in 2023.)

Fittingly, the Clipse opened their set with the menacing “Chains and Whips,” which is jam packed with lethal, high-level bars about why contemporary rappers simply can’t sit with them. Not wasting any time during their set, the veteran emcees went bar for bar, diving into more tracks from their latest album including “Birds Don’t Sing” (a dedication to their late parents) and “P.O.V.,” which Tyler, the Creator joined them for just in time following his own high-energy set.

Satisfying their day one fans, the Clipse also performed a handful of their classic records like “Mr. Me Too” and “What Happened to That Boy.” As they rapped the lyrics to one of their most recognizable tracks, “Grindin,” a montage of Black people doing step routines, dancing and recreating the Neptunes beat on lunch tables played on the massive stage screens.

Much like “Let God Sort Em Out,” the Clipse’s performance further solidified why they’ve been in the game for more than 20 years and why they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. — (Kailyn Brown)

Childish Gambino’s fast-paced, fan-voted retrospective

Childish Gambino’s set was a race against time. Prior to his set, the 42-year-old singer/rapper/actor (also known as Donald Glover) allowed fans to vote for his setlist. Playing anything from his biggest hits like “Redbone” and a very short snippet of “This is America” to his cover of Outkast’s “Prototype” and the 2011 release “Les,” Gambino made it clear he only had an hour and wanted to get to as many songs as possible. He often played the first verse of a track, allowing it to peak in the chorus and quickly brush past it — making the set feel like an invigorating sprint.

Halfway through the performance, Gambino, sparkling his glittery wifebeater, took a moment to get vulnerable with the crowd. This was his first performance since he had to abruptly cancel his world tour last year. He explained that he had a stroke unknowingly, on stage in Louisiana, and later found out that he had a hole in his heart and needed surgery. As he narrated his story, the sky lit up with a drone light show, depicting images of a heart and other dynamic patterns.

He said, during all of these health problems, the only things he could think of were “how many people I’m letting down” and “here I am still copying Jamie Foxx,” which got a laugh out of the crowd. Throughout the remainder of the show, he continued to exude a grateful energy, saying repeatedly, “I didn’t think I’d be able to [be here].” As he played the chosen songs, it was as if his only goal was to make the crowd as happy as possible.

The rapper left with a final message, “You have one life, so live your life as you want.” (C.D.)

Blood Orange puts CFG in a trance

Following Geezer’s (Kevin Abstract and Dominic Fike) endearing display of friendship, Blood Orange kept the cameraderie going on the fest’s main stage. Though the multi-piece band behind Dev Hynes’ musical moniker may sound melancholic, their energy was jolting. During tracks about grief and loneliness, like the cathartic “Charcoal Baby,” only Hynes could get the entire crowd to head bang.

After releasing his most recent album, “Essex Honey,” Blood Orange made his impromptu return to the fest — calling last year’s set “one of his favorite shows.” The British singer and his band trade instruments with a sense of ease — splitting their time among a cello, keyboards, synthesizers, a drum machine, electric and acoustic guitars. In this intricate display of instrumentalism, dark electronica and high-pitched vocals blend into feelgood jazz and ’80s synth pop without notice. With dense fog and transculent pink lights, the whole set started to fuse into a unifying dreamy moment. (C.D.)

Helicopters, a megaphone and pink hair curlers: ASAP Rocky keeps Flog Gnaw classic

Right before ASAP Rocky was meant to close out the festival, a helicopter started to circle the area, shining its light down on the crowd. A mock news livestream took over the stage’s screens in search of the Sunday headliner, accusing him of “never dropping the album.” On stage, the Harlem rapper descended on a floating helicopter of his own, megaphone in hand and pink curlers in his hair.

He made it clear he was there “to start a riot” (and he did consistently check in on the densely packed crowd too). The 37-year-old rapper was soon joined by a few dozen hooded figures, carrying upside-down American flags, who began to mosh while he continued to spit his ever-steady flow. Switching between his older stuff, like “L$D” and “Potato Salad” (which he was joined for by Tyler, the Creator) and more recent beloved singles like “Praise the Lord (Da Shine)” and “Sundress,” Rocky stuck to what he knows best — looking pretty and skillful rhymes. (C.D.)

A swing carousel at Camp Flog Gnaw.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

T-Pain knows your knees hurt

“I am old as f—,” T-Pain said as the R&B-rap crooner took a pause from his hit-studded set on Sunday night. “I was running out of time to do this. I saw the dimensions of the stage and my knees gave out.”

At 41, he is decently seasoned by Flog Gnaw standards (though still a surprisingly deft dancer). But his set was arguably one of the best-attended of the weekend, for good reasons.

Recent reappraisals from a mega-viral Tiny Desk concert and a boisterous Coachella set proved what close listeners have known all along: Pain is an absolute savant of melody and ear-tickling chord changes, with a gorgeous R&B voice whose famous digital treatments were artistically prescient rather than any sort of fix.

Yet to Flog Gnaw’s young crowds, blissfully free from the AutoTune wars of the 2000s, Pain now represents an idyll and purity of party music in hip-hop, rising from the mire of the Great Recession and the aspirations of President Obama with witty, self-aware hit after hit that showed a musician in total command of his craft, writing songs that transcend today’s cynical bleakness.

This redemption arc is well earned — how can you not listen to “Bartender” and long for the easy, sweet camaraderie of sidling up to your favorite server (though today that cocktail will more likely be N/A)? Dispatches from a saner time of millennial life like “Up Down” and “Can’t Believe It” landed like an envelope of Instax photos from a half-remembered house party. For Gen Z, it was Unc Culture embodied in the best ways.

Other than a brief villain segment (where Pain sung his verses from collabs with Chris Brown, Kanye West and R. Kelly; more an indictment of the men of R&B, really), his set delivered hit after hit and re-framed them within R&B history. He did what the genre is best at — stirring up the old glow of past happiness, even if that was spilling tequila down your pinstriped business-casual wear at a Hollywood bottle club in 2008. (A.B.)

Tyler, the Creator performs during Camp Flog Gnaw.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

Doechii, the classroom disciplinarian of your dreams

Doechii framed her raucous Sunday night set as a stern classroom lecture on the craft of rapping. But in that case, she’s the kind of teacher that you bump into at the grocery store with a cart full of booze and a you-didn’t-see-this wink.

The Grammy favorite and new TDE superstar is so mercilessly good at rapping, so fully possessed of her gifts onstage, that her set made me wonder how all the backing-track reliant MC’s still get away with it. From the vicious opening lines of “Stanka Pooh” — “Let’s start the story backwards / I’m dead, she’s dead, just another Black Lives Matter” — to the joint-snapping house-music workout of “Alter Ego” and the horror-comedy sex romp of “Spooky Coochie,” she never settled for less than the full scope of her talents, deeply honed.

A gleefully bawdy and physically gifted dancer, with of sneaky comic timing and a low-key powerhouse singing voice, by the time she got to the deep cut “Boom Bap” and fan favorite “Catfish,” Doechii made an impeccable claim to being one of the best rappers working today.

She didn’t play the Grammy contender “Anxiety” — one sees how that song wouldn’t make sense in this relentlessly hard hitting context. But whatever worries keep on trying her, after Sunday night, she can definitively leave them behind. (A.B.)

Zack Fox brings us to the (f)unction with globetrotting set

Just 15 minutes into Zack Fox’s hour and a half DJ set on Sunday afternoon, which was dubbed Zack’s Big Nasty & Booty Shake, many audience members were already sweating and shedding the layers they wore in preparation for the evening cold.

Garbed in leather uncle sandals with white socks, an Atlanta Falcons apron and a grill for a DJ stand (because he was cooking, duh), the rapper, comedian and actor brought the crowd to the (f)unction. Fox, who’s become known for his high-energy performances, delivered a globetrotting set filled with genres including Brazil’s Baile funk, Chicago house, Baltimore club, Nola bounce, soul, gospel Detroit techno and of course Atlanta rap, which is where he’s from. “Dance music is Black music,” Fox told the crowd in between his gyrating and turning up. “Y’all gonna learn something today.” (He also had the crowd repeat back “Free Palestine” and “F— ICE.”)

But what’s a cookout without good company? Fox also brought along a crew of talented dancers, which included a church hat wearing grandmother (who unexpectedly broke out into a backflip) and popular ballroom dancer Pack Rat. As Fox masterfully weaved between tracks like Khia’s “Steer,” KW Griff’s “Bring in the Katz” and Frankie Beverly and Maze’s “Before I Let Go,” the dancers vogued, shuffled, line danced and twerked. Even his “Abbott Elementary” castmate Janelle James (a.k.a Principal Coleman) grooved alongside Fox during his set.

He closed out with a Black church anthem, Kurt Carr’s “We Lift Our Hands in the Sanctuary.” Each time the track seemed like it was about to end, he comically brought it back a few more times with the lyrics “Yes! Yes, Lord, for the rest of our days.” (K.B.)

Ying and yang rappers, Larry June and 2Chainz, show us the finer things in life

On paper, Larry June — the laid-back Bay Area rapper known for his straightforward rhymes about organic living and financial literacy — and 2Chainz — Atlanta’s trap elder known for witty tracks like “Birthday Song” — may seem like an unlikely match. But as the pair performed their collaborative album “Life is Beautiful,” they were in perfect stride. The large crowd was a testament to how rare the moment was as it was one of the few times that the pair has performed the opulent lifestyle rap album since it dropped in February.

Much like the vibe of “Life is Beautiful,” which feels like a luxurious vacation backed with jazz-infused serene beats by the Alchemist, swaying ocean waves and yachts served as the backdrop while they delivered tracks like “Colossal,” “Generation,” “I Been” and “Bad Choices.” (Unfortunately, the Alchemist is on tour with DJ Premier, and was not in attendance.)

The backgrounds changed to imagery that matched the rappers’ hometowns as they dove into their personal discography. In a casual windbreaking sweatsuit, Larry June performed smooth tracks like “Smoothies in 1991” and “Watering My Plants,” while 2Chainz, who was rocking a leather two-piece set, got the crowd hyped with songs like “I’m Different” and “Watch Out.”

Suitably, the duo closed out with tranquil, flute-based “Life is Beautiful,” reminding the audience to embrace the beauty of the grind and the small wins in life, and simply enjoy their time on this Earth. (K.B.)

TO the deafening screams of 60,000 fans in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Noel and Liam Gallagher took their final bow on the last night of their epic, 41-date Oasis reunion tour last night.

And now all us fans are talking about is what will come next for the brothers — with rumblings about possible shows at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester and Knebworth, Herts, along with ­whispers about a new greatest hits album.

Noel had previously put a record together featuring Oasis classics and B-sides from the band’s four albums released between 2000 and 2009.

But Liam put paid to his plans for the release, with Noel later admitting in 2023: “He wouldn’t have it in the end — I don’t know why.

“I gave up f***ing arguing.”

Insiders said reprising this project is among plans being floated behind the scenes.

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“This tour has gone better than anyone could have imagined,” my source tells me.

“Noel and Liam will both be taking a long break to compute the magnitude of this tour.

“Being back together on stage has been incredible for both of them, and to have guitarist ­Bonehead back with them for the last shows has been nothing short of phenomenal.

“They’re aware of what their fans want and know the demand would be there if they did decide to put out a new greatest hits album — or to play more shows.”

So far, five separate music insiders have told me about the proposed Etihad residency next summer, along with a slew of shows at Knebworth.

Offers have also been made to Oasis to play Coachella in the US and Benicassim in Spain.

My insider added: “Steven Knight’s film from behind the scenes of the tour will give fans something to look forward to while they wait for Noel and Liam to decide what is coming up next.

“The offers are theirs for the taking.”

Those close to the pair insist there are no plans on the table right now.

But given how quickly the ­initial reunion came to pass, I’d put nothing past Noel and Liam.

The latter is definitely keen to keep the momentum, posting on X last week: “We need to sit down and discuss these things.

“If it was all up to me then you know we’d be touring till the day we die as it’s the best thing in the world but unfortunately it’s not.”

Noel, you know what you have to do.

SZA AND SHABS’ SWEET MUSIC

HER two studio albums have been packed with songs about love, loss and everything in between, so I’m sure SZA will have plenty to write about on her next record, as she is dating again.

The Kill Bill singer, who headlined Glastonbury last year, is believed to be secretly seeing Shaboozey, who is best known for his No3 hit A Bar Song (Tipsy) which soared up the charts last summer.

While she previously dated rapper Drake, Shaboozey was linked to model Emily Ratajkowski last year.

And now they have grown close and are constantly liking each other’s posts on social media.

They attended a GQ Men of the Year party together in Los Angeles earlier this month, but made sure to maintain their distance, in a bid to keep their romance quiet.

However, they’ve both got eager fanbases who are over the moon about the prospect of these two becoming an item.

One thing’s for sure: if they make a song together, it will be fantastic.

KATY’S LIMB AND A STAIR

KATY PERRY prompted a few stairs from people as she fooled about on an escalator.

The singer did practically everything but stand politely to one side as she performed the splits both the right way up and upside down.

She then appeared to take a snooze on the handrail in snaps taken on the set of the video to her latest single Bandaids.

Katy, whose shoelace is seen getting stuck in the moving staircase in the promo, wrote on Instagram: “Doing all the things your mom said not to do on the escalator but also: myth-busting a childhood fear. You’re welcome.”

Myths busted or not, I think I’ll stick to using them as intended.

DENISE: I’LL SLAYYY TOP TEN

DESPITE five No1 albums, THE 1975 have never topped the singles chart.

Now frontman Matty Healy’s mum, actress Denise Welch, is aiming to rub their noses in it by trying for the Christmas No1.

Yes, you did read that right. Today she has surprised the nation with an unexpected festive hyperpop single titled Slayyy Bells.

Described as “part carol, part club classic”, the song is being released in collaboration with choccy brand Celebrations.

Loose Women star Denise, above, said: “I love Christmas, but sometimes I want to shake things up a bit.

“We don’t always have to have turkey, or do charades.

“We can celebrate this special holiday our way. This remix, apart from being cool, catchy and a sure-fire hit, is all about having fun.

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“So stay in your PJs, have your dinner at night if you like, and dance around the tree with a Celebrations box on your head.

“Once you’ve eaten them, that is.”

To get it out of the way: Yes, Tobias Jesso Jr. has heard about gooning.

“Somebody put me up on it and said it was about masturbation?” says the 40-year-old singer and songwriter, which is about half-right: As detailed in an essay in Harper’s that went viral last month, to goon — a term heretofore associated with Jesso thanks to his cult-fave 2015 album “Goon” — means in Gen Z parlance to masturbate at such great lengths that the act leads to a kind of trance state.

“Well, I’ve never done that,” Jesso says. “‘Goon’ I got from ‘The Goonies’ — it’s just a brilliant movie.” He laughs. “But I don’t care. If it sells more records, sure.”

That Jesso has a record to sell at all might take some by surprise. Though “Goon” thoroughly charmed critics and fellow musicians with its early-’70s-balladeer vibe — many said he evoked the glory days of Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson and beard-and-shearling-coat-era Paul McCartney — Jesso didn’t cotton to the life of a sort-of-famous performer and almost immediately walked away from his solo career to write songs for other singers instead.

He’s thrived in that role, penning hits for the likes of Adele, Niall Horan, Harry Styles and Dua Lipa. In 2023, he was named songwriter of the year at the Grammy Awards; this month he was nominated for that prize for a second time, with the Recording Academy citing his work with Justin Bieber (“Daisies”), Haim (“Relationships”) and Olivia Dean (“Man I Need”), among others.

Yet now he’s back with an unexpected follow-up to his debut called “Shine,” which came out Friday. Stripped back for the most part to just voice and piano, it’s an earnest work of introspection from a guy who knows how to make tenderness feel like strength.

Jesso, who grew up in Vancouver and lives in Los Angeles, announced the album just last week with a music video for his song “I Love You” that features the actors Riley Keough and Dakota Johnson, with whom he’s been close since he first touched down here around 2008.

“I hit them up and was like, ‘You girls think it’s about time I use your fame to get some extra clicks?’” he says on a recent morning at his place in Silver Lake. “The video opens up on them, then it pans away and it goes to me and you never see them again.”

Says Keough, a former girlfriend: “It was a very Tobias ask.”

So why return to the spotlight? According to Jesso, he wouldn’t have had it not been for a breakup that left him “the most depressed I’ve ever been in my life, by far.” We’re sitting in a cozy den that looks out over a lush hillside garden; a bowl of persimmons sits on a coffee table while a copy of “McCartney II” peeks out from a stack of LPs.

Jesso, whose mop of curly hair has begun ever so slightly to gray, says that when he enters a songwriting session with another artist, “I leave my worries and woes outside the door. I’m there to serve you — to write the song you want to write.” It’s an approach that’s endeared him to his star collaborators and yielded songs as deep as Adele’s “To Be Loved,” a stunning meditation on the costs of divorce from her 2021 album “30.”

But earlier this year, for the first time in Jesso’s decade of behind-the-scenes work, he found himself struggling to deliver. “I was feeling so in the dumps that I’d be choking on a line that I didn’t even want to say because if I say it, I’ll start crying,” he recalls.

He cleared six weeks from his busy schedule to process his emotions; the result was a set of songs for himself about heartache — “I can see the love leaving from your eyes in the form of a tear,” he sings in “Rain” — but also about his mom’s experience with dementia and about the young son he shares with his ex-wife.

To record the music, Jesso’s instinct was to go big. “I’m a dreamer, so I was like, ‘Imagine all the people I could have help me now that I didn’t have 10 years ago,’” he says. “I went from so-and-so to so-and-so, trying out studios, making promises I couldn’t keep. But all that stuff over the weeks just kind of flaked away.”

What remained was the beautifully mellow sound of a vintage Steinway piano he’d had restored after buying it on Craiglist for $800. He keeps the piano in a small, uncluttered studio upstairs from the den at his house; that’s where he cut “Shine,” singing live as he accompanied himself in real time.

A small handful of other players appear on the album, most prominently in “I Love You,” which erupts near the end with a wild drum fill performed by Jesso’s old pal Kane Ritchotte. The idea for the percussive outburst came to Jesso after he’d consumed “a s— ton of mushrooms,” he says. “I turned to my assistant at the time — I wonder if I have it — and I said, ‘Record me right now.’ She started recording me, and what came out was that fill.”

He picks up his phone and scrolls for a moment. “Look at this,” he says, turning the screen my way: There’s Jesso in the same room we’re in right now, staring wide-eyed into the camera as he mouths the drum sounds Ritchotte would later replicate exactly.

“That song is about somebody’s inner child being in the middle of a labyrinth, and you’re trying to find them so you can convince them that you’re in love,” Jesso tells me. “You can’t get there and you’re wishing that the whole labyrinth would just be destroyed. So when it gets to that part — ‘Shatter the cracks wide open / And say, “I love you”’ — the drums are the walls coming down. That’s the shattering.”

Tobias Jesso Jr. at the 65th Grammy Awards in 2023.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Drum theatrics aside, Jesso’s singing is the album’s clear focal point; his pleading, slightly unsteady tone gives the music an emotional intimacy that makes you feel as though you’re sitting right next to him on the piano bench.

Jesso describes his voice as something of a liability, which Keough says has been true since he was ducking the frontman’s job in the various bands he played in when he was in his early 20s. “I always loved his voice, and he just didn’t feel that way for whatever reason,” she recalls. “I don’t know if he felt a sort of shyness, which is really interesting because as a person he’s not shy whatsoever.”

Asked whether Jesso’s decision to follow up “Goon” surprised her, she says, “I was surprised he released ‘Goon’ to begin with.”

The way Jesso sees it, “My voice isn’t good enough for the songs I write, which is why I’ve chosen to work with all these other people.” What he’s comes to realize, though, is that “my voice is perfect for my songs.”

Which doesn’t mean it’s easy for him to hear it. Once he’d finished recording, Jesso asked his friend Shawn Everett to mix “Shine”; what he got back — with every imperfection of his voice under a virtual magnifying glass — terrified him. “It felt way, way, way too vulnerable,” Jesso says.

He texted Everett and said he was sorry but that he couldn’t put out the record like this. “I told him, ‘You just brought out more of me than I’m willing to share,’” he says now. “Then I got home, I smoked a big fat joint and I sat on the couch. I was like, I’m gonna wait until I’m high enough that I can press play and pretend this isn’t me.” He laughs. “I put on the headphones, and I have never in my life had such a profound experience with music.”

Who’d you imagine was singing?
I don’t know — like a 50-year-old dude or maybe a 20-year-old girl who’s got a low voice? It didn’t matter — it wasn’t me, so I wasn’t listening with judgmental ears.

The paradox is that “Shine” feels like the you-est possible album.
There’s no tricks. I didn’t auto-tune, I didn’t cut anything together, I didn’t do any of that. It’s me singing a take, and it’s the best take I got. Whereas with “Goon,” there were a lot of elements that maybe weren’t possible for me to do.

“Goon” was a little more elaborate — more players and producers.
Which was tortuous because I’m like, “How do I recreate this thing that I didn’t even fully make myself?”

Given the unhappiness of your experience after “Goon” came out, I wondered whether this time you’d put certain restrictions on what you’re willing to do.
I’ll say right off the bat: I’m not touring — no way. I’ve met enough artists who say, “I feel totally myself onstage,” to know that there’s a natural state in which people feel comfortable up there. And I’ve tried every which way — by which I mean drinking and not drinking — and I just can’t. It’s not me.

Maybe this is something I still need to work on in therapy, but by being onstage and singing, I’m basically saying, “I’m a singer,” and I’m not comfortable saying that. I’m comfortable saying, “I’m a songwriter.” So there’s this weird shame that comes in where I’m presenting myself beyond what I know my ability to be.

One of the benchmarks I needed to hit on this record was to be comfortable that I’m not misrepresenting myself, which is why I’m OK if there’s an out-of-tune note here and there or if it’s a little bit fast or slow. But even knowing that I can perform it exactly like it is on the record, there’s nothing drawing me to the stage. I don’t really want to have a relationship with fans in that way. I feel very privileged that this is not my main job.

Between “Goon” and now, songwriting became your main job.
So I don’t have to take this as seriously. The parts I do take seriously — the art — I’m willing to put in the work for.

But not for success per se.
Exactly. This is weird to say, but there were moments where I was toiling over this record — listening to Take No. 73 and being like, “Wait, what was the other one?” — and the thought would occur to me: I could go to work today instead of do this and potentially create much more wealth for myself than this album could ever do.

I mean, that’s almost certainly the case.
In comparison, “Shine” is meaningless in terms of success and potential. And yet I was still drawn to doing it, which made me feel like I was making the right choice for myself. But when it comes to the stuff I don’t think is important, just try to get me to do it. It ain’t happening.

I went back and looked at something I wrote about a show you played at South by Southwest in 2015 where you had to start your song “True Love” five times.
Oh God.

But it’s not like anybody in the crowd was mad about it. People thought it was cute.
I feel like if I was onstage now — and everything’s pointing to I probably should play a show or two — I’d be able to see the value in vulnerability. It’s human, and I like that about it. But at the time I wasn’t able to cope with the people who wouldn’t see it that way. Because I wasn’t seeing it that way. I was seeing it as: I’m trying to pretend I’m OK with this, but I’m actually forgetting my song because I’m such a s— performer. Yeah, the crowd loves it, but I go offstage and I’m not looking for the comments saying, “It was so funny.” I’m looking for the ones that are like, “This guy’s a joke.” And I’m like, f—, I knew it.

Keough shares Jesso’s assessment of what’s put him in a different position today versus 10 years ago.

“With ‘Goon,’ he would have put pressure on himself” to jump through the hoops required of a performer, she says. “He was a barista straight out of the coffee shop. ‘Shine’ is straight off all his Grammys and his big songwriting career. He’s able to be more free as an artist now because the stakes are lower.”

Yet not so long ago Jesso reckoned he might be close to burning out in the pop realm. “I was kind of getting ready to dip,” he says, “because I don’t like going into a room and saying, ‘Oh, this song is blowing up — let’s do the same thing.’”

Tobias Jesso Jr. at home in Silver Lake.

(Ian Spanier / For The Times)

He clarifies that he’s not talking about working with an artist like Dua Lipa, who recruited him as a writer for her 2024 “Radical Optimism” LP. “Dua was great,” he says. “I’m talking about going into pitch sessions and sitting with a bunch of writers and figuring out how to get a song pitched. That’s never really worked for me, and the higher you get with producers, the more into that formula you’re putting yourself.”

What he found with Bieber earlier this year was nothing like that. “It was balls to the wall, ideas just flying around,” Jesso says of the roving sessions for the pop superstar’s experimental “Swag” and “Swag II” albums, which took Jesso and the rest of Bieber’s crew to France and the Bahamas and Iceland before Jesso began work on “Shine.”

“I nearly wept on more than one occasion because of how moved I felt about what Justin was doing,” Jesso says. “It was raw emotion without any tricks, without any wordplay, without any of the stuff that I’d been so jaded by in the industry.” The experience, he adds, “reinvigorated my belief in pop music.”

Which makes it an interesting time to move to Australia, as Jesso plans to do soon in order to be close to his son, Ellsworth, who’s there with Jesso’s ex-wife, the Australian singer and songwriter Emma Louise.

“D-I-V-O-R-C-E, you know — it’s always give and take to meet each other’s needs,” he says. “And one of the things was Australia. She really wants Ellsworth to go to school there, which makes sense in one sense — and professionally makes no sense at all. But I committed to it, and I want to at least give it a try and see it through.

“This album coming out and moving to Australia within the same couple months — it feels like a big moment of change,” Jesso continues. “Maybe I’m letting go of some old things, like music being scary, and embracing some new scary things. I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do over there. Hopefully I get busy doing something. Otherwise I’ll be pitching the groundskeeper ideas for TV shows the whole time.”

Todd Snider, a singer and songwriter beloved in the Americana music scene for his funny yet empathetic portraits of people struggling to survive an uncaring world, died Friday. He was 59.

His death was announced in a post on his Instagram account, which didn’t state a cause or say where he died. An earlier post signed by “Todd’s Friends & Family” said that he’d been admitted to a hospital in Hendersonville, Tenn., after experiencing breathing problems and that he’d been diagnosed with pneumonia; before that, he called off a tour this month after telling fans that he’d been injured in a “violent assault” outside a hotel in Salt Lake City.

Frequently compared to the likes of John Prine and Kris Kristofferson — both of whom mentored him at various points — Snider wrote about “how poor people sometimes cope with pain and hardship,” he told the New York Times in 2009. “A little drugs here, a little sex here, a little denial there.”

In a prolific recording career that stretched three decades, Snider made albums for labels owned by Prine and by Jimmy Buffett and for his own company, Aimless Records. Yet to many he was best experienced onstage, where he’d thread his songs into a kind of running monologue about his rough-and-tumble life.

Among his best-known tunes were the rollicking “Beer Run”; “Can’t Complain,” about a guy with “nothing to lose ’cause there is nothing to gain”; and “Alright Guy,” which opens with a scene in which a friend catches him leafing through “that new book with pictures of Madonna naked.”

“Said she’d never pegged me for a scumbag before,” he sings, “She said she didn’t ever want to see me anymore / And I still don’t know why.”

In his 2014 memoir, Snider told a shaggy-dog story about the time Garth Brooks summoned him to a studio to help him record a cover of “Alright Guy” in the guise of his alter ego, Chris Gaines.

“I was already starstruck before Garth walked up and introduced himself,” Snider wrote. “He said, ‘I thought you had red hair,’ because he’d seen me on the ‘Austin City Limits’ television show, and I’d dyed my hair red for that show. It wasn’t supposed to be red. It was supposed to be dark brown. My plan was to look like John Fogerty, but instead I ended up looking like the guy from the movie ‘Dumb and Dumber.’” (Brooks didn’t release the cover, though Snider said the country superstar sent him a check for $10,000 anyway.)

Todd Daniel Snider was born Oct. 11, 1966, and grew up in Oregon before making his way to Texas and then Nashville. His debut album, “Songs for the Daily Planet,” came out in 1994 via Buffett’s Margaritaville label; it closed with a motor-mouthed acoustic ditty called “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues” in which he lovingly lampooned the era’s alternative rock boom:

Now, to fit in fast, we wear flannel shirts

We turn our amps up until it hurts

We got bad attitudes, and what’s more

When we play, we stare straight down at the floor

A critics’ fave from the get-go, Snider earned rave reviews with 2004’s “East Nashville Skyline,” whose highlights include a characteristically wordy depiction of the culture wars then roiling America in the wake of 9/11 — “Conservative, Christian, Right Wing Republican, Straight, White, American Males,” it’s called — and “The Ballad of the Kingsmen,” in which he contemplates the meaning of the lyrics to “Louie Louie.”

Among the many other LPs he went on to release were 2009’s “The Excitement Plan,” which was produced by Don Was, and a 2012 collection of songs by Jerry Jeff Walker, the country-folk songwriter who’d served as a crucial influence on him. Snider’s most recent record, “High, Lonesome and Then Some,” came out in October.

Snider spoke openly throughout his life about his struggles with drugs and with chronic pain related to spinal stenosis. “I do a lot of things to try to help it, but I have to make peace with it, too,” he said of the condition in an interview last month with Rolling Stone. “Which hasn’t been easy.” Information about Snider’s survivors wasn’t immediately available.

Before FKA Twigs could discuss her upcoming album, “Afterglow,” she needed a matcha.

The British singer-songwriter had first answered a Zoom call from the backseat of a dimly lit car in New York, where she confessed to running on “2% personality.” She explained that she had flown in that morning from London and had spent the day promoting her upcoming movie, “The Carpenter’s Son,” a biblical horror co-starring Nicolas Cage.

Luckily, only a few minutes into the interview, the singer born Tahliah Debrett Barnett spotted a familiar matcha spot coming up on her route. In a split-second decision, she runs into the cafe, eager for a caffeine boost, and orders everything matcha she could get her hands on — a hot lavender matcha latte, a matcha soft serve and matcha-flavored pudding.

“Oh, we’re gonna be buzzing,” said Twigs, who laughs a bit about how she hasn’t eaten much that day and decided to exclusively consume matcha desserts. After making it back to the car and indulging in a few sips, she declares, “It feels like I have my personality back. That was quite an authentic experience.”

With a revived glint in her eyes, she was ready to debrief “Afterglow,” the unexpected continuation of her third studio album, “Eusexua.” The 37-year-old singer released “Eusexua” in January as both the namesake of her record and a term she coined to describe a transcendent state of being.

Now, less than a year later and set to be released the same day as “The Carpenter’s Son,” her latest album is meant to “beautifully unravel” the questions of humanity she presents on “Eusexua.”

From the start, she says, she knew that “Eusexua” was something bigger than a singular album — equating it to an era. Inspired by Prague’s underground rave culture, the record itself is centered around life’s purest experiences. Over tattered drum and bass patterns, retro-futuristic crescendos and ephemeral melodies, Twigs attempts to bottle the way dance music makes her feel. Lyrically, she embraces a childlike wonder, shares her vulnerabilities and indulges in sweet nothings — all with the intention of capturing what it means to be a person.

Where “Eusexua” is “the bird’s eye view of the human experience,” Twigs says, “Afterglow” is meant to capture humanity through a more direct lens, where feelings are unfiltered and instantaneous. Changing this viewpoint was something that came to her with ease.

“Sometimes when you’re creating something, it feels like you’re rubbing against something or you’re pushing something uphill. But with this project, it didn’t feel like that. It was flowing naturally,” said Twigs.

Most of “Afterglow” was made post-“Eusexua” from the comfort of her home studio in Hackney, London. Despite “Eusexua’s” successful release, she couldn’t shake the feeling of still having more to give.

“I can’t explain it. Sometimes you put out an album, and then it feels like you need to stop for a while,” said Twigs. “But with ‘Eusexua,’ it felt like it was still growing. The message was still spreading, and people still wanted a deeper understanding of what it was.”

For over a decade, Twigs has been known to cushion her albums with a few years between each release. Her debut, “LP1,” released in 2014, was followed by “Magdalene” in 2019 and “Eusexua” in 2025. She also released a mixtape, called “Caprisongs,” in 2022. On each project, she bears a new side to herself, often diving headfirst into the depths of her identity, love life and womanhood. Uncovering raw emotions, like loss, lust and jealousy, she’s able to capture their complexities through erratic rhythms, unorthodox mechanics and a trance-like ambiance.

FKA Twigs performs at Camp Flog Gnaw in November 2019.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Before becoming a musician, she found success at an early age as a professional dancer. In her late teens and early 20s, she appeared as a dancer in music videos for artists like Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and Kylie Minogue. To this day, she relies on dancing and bodily movement as an essential part of how she understands music.

“When you dance, it’s really good to know the rules and the fundamentals, like with ballet. But once you know ballet, then you can mess it up and let go. You can dance with more freedom,” said Twigs, in between bites of her matcha pudding. “That’s kind of what ‘Afterglow’ is. It’s ‘Eusexua,’ but it’s wild, sensual and irresistible. It’s meant to quench a thirst.”

Since she’d laid out the groundwork with her previous release, she approached its follow-up with a carefree sense of freedom. The 11-track album is meant to be a concept album of sorts, detailing the aftermath of a night out. From the feeling of fresh air after leaving a sweaty dance floor to the drunken temptations of texting an ex-lover and the inevitable rush of not wanting the night to end, Twigs proves she has the “afters” down to a formula.

Leaning into a slightly less alien soundscape than the one heard on “Eusexua,” the singer indulges in a masterful form of electronic edging — never going the predictable route. On songs like “Slushy” and “Predictable Girl,” she intertwines a menagerie of robotic, spacey sirens with tinges of Jersey club beats and ’90s-influenced R&B chords. While on equally hypnotic tracks like “Cheap Hotel” and “Sushi,” she commands the heavily-layered soundscape with an intoxicating sense of recklessness.

“Sometimes I go out to reset my brain a little bit. Obviously, I love what I do so much. I love being an artist. But sometimes, it just gets unnecessarily stressful,” explains Twigs, who touches on the complications of fame with the track “Wild and Alone,” alongside fellow British pop music innovator PinkPantheress.

“So when I go out, it makes me put everything into perspective and realize what’s really important in my life, who I want to be and who I want to be around.”

Powered by these realizations, she’ll continue to lose herself in foggy nightclub dance floors, masses of sweaty bodies and blinding strobe lights. But she says, when it comes to making art, there’s one thing she’ll never lose sight of.

The only thing that can affect her creative output, she says, is “whether you’re telling the truth or not, and how honest you’re being.”

HE’S a happily married dad of two but Olly Murs is still a lad at heart and he wanted his new album to reflect that fun part of his personality. 

And by laddish, the upbeat singer means a good old-fashioned knees up — the title of his eighth record. 

“There’s always a moment to be a lad, right?” he laughs. “And that’s what this album is about — I’m going back to my roots. 

“This was probably the kind of album that I wanted to launch my career with, but I didn’t.

“For a long time, I was making records for other people, my fans and what I thought they wanted to hear.

“This time I wanted to make an album for me.” 

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I meet the singer at his record label where he’s about to head into an afternoon of rehearsals.  

And, surprisingly, unlike most dads with newborn babies, he’s managed a full night’s sleep.  

“Albert — Alby — is a dream,” he says of his son, born in September. “I’ve had a really good time with him, it’s been lovely.

“I’ve been getting loads of time with him.”

“Cuddles, seeing him grow, that little smile. 

“He’s such a good baby and he sleeps, which is important because I need sleep.

“If sleeping was an Olympic sport, I’d be there. 

“Maybe he takes after me. 

“We’ve been blessed so far after ten weeks. 

“He’s giggling, he doesn’t really cry.  

“He had his vaccines this week which were horrible.

“I had to cancel work yesterday because [his wife] Amelia did it with [daughter] Madi and I never did, so I wanted to be there.  

“Bless him, he wasn’t in a good place, he was proper aggy.

“So, I cancelled a bit of work, which is unlike me, but family comes first.” 

For years, Murs put his career first and everything — and everyone — else came a distant second. 

“Now life is very different,” he tells me.

“Now Amelia and the kids are everything and my career is still there, but I have a different way of looking at life — and I love it.” 

He has no expectations for the new album, which makes the prospect of putting it out even more exciting. 

He says: “I’m out here doing my thing, and if people like it, great. If you don’t, it is what it is.  

“I’m just happy doing my thing. 

“I’ve got to a point where I want to try different things and musically this isn’t too far away from what I’ve done before – it feels authentic to me, and I’m enjoying it.  

“I’ve got to tell myself that more, because there is the other side of me that’s the ego.

“I want a number one, I want that trophy.

“I want that plaque on the wall. And I’ve got to keep that desire, otherwise, what’s the point?

“I want things to matter. Of course, I do. 

“My thing is that I don’t sit in one place.

“My unique selling point is that I can jump on radio or TV and present a show, and at the same time, I can release music and have success and also tour the country.  

Caroline was a good friend and she took her own life. The documentary has come out this week so it’s been difficult. It has brought things back.

Olly on Caroline Flack

“There is a uniqueness with me that I am proud of.” 

Knees Up draws heavily on the ska and pop influences of Madness and The Specials, the bands Murs adored as a kid. 

He says: “When I first started, I was asked to list all the songs I liked if I was to make the best album ever.  

“It was The Specials, Madness, a bit of Stevie Wonder, The Kooks who were my favourite band at the time, Robbie Williams and Paolo Nutini. 

“Save Me, the first song on the album is very Madness and that spearheaded which direction the music went in.

“I feel like it’s Madness meets The Streets, with a bit of Rizzle Kicks.

“This could be an album Heart Skips A Beat fits on.” 

There’s plenty of fun moments on the album.

Still Getting Used To The Ring is a mischievous song about settling into marriage.  

“That song is definitely the cheeky side of me,” laughs Murs.

“It came from a lyric I wrote on my phone.

“Sometimes when I’m writing songs, I will say to co-writers Ed Drewett and James New, ‘If I sing that the Mrs won’t be happy’, but then we’ll write it in a sense that I’m still getting used to being a husband, I’m still getting used to being dad.  

“So, I forget to do the little things and I might not be perfect, but I’m still getting used to the ring.” 

When it comes to choosing a favourite from Knees Up, Murs says Honest is the one he keeps coming back to. 

“Honest for me is every bloke’s nightmare,” he explains.

“It’s about when they walk in from a day at work and they just know that there’s a cloud upon the house. 

“There’s been times when I’ve got home and I just know that Amelia is annoyed about something I’ve done — but I don’t know what that is.  

“The song is about not knowing what you have done wrong.

“That song was fun to write.” 

Cut To The Chase, which Murs jokingly calls “my sexy song”, sees him tapping into a flirtier, more confident vibe. 

He says: “It is about how sometimes in life we are busy and with kids we don’t get any intimacy or moments together.  

“It’s about the cut to the chase which really resonated with me as we are always crossing paths.  

“It is also a fun song to sing and when I played it to Amelia she loved it.  

“She also thinks my fans will love that one, because it’s ‘big bandy’. 

“It’s got the brass and is very old school London with ukulele and banjo in it.  

“Like music from an old gentlemen’s club, or a cool bar with fancy tables. 

“It’s got a very classic feel to it.

“Classic AND classy — you’d never know it was about sex.” 

I’ve done a lot of tours in the last three years and I’ve got married. I’m now on Heart radio station every Saturday with Wrighty [Mark Wright], I’ve written an album and I just think I need a bit of time for me.

Olly on why he might not be doing many gigs for a while

Chin Up, the song that closes the album, carries a more serious tone.  

Murs says: “That’s about mental health and to do with what I went through with some friends in the last year.  

“It’s been a tough year for a lot of my friends who have reached out to me to chat and that song came from that. 

‘Her feelgood vibe’ 

“That song is about encouraging men to speak out and talk. And when we were writing it, we felt it was important to keep your chin up and everything is going to be fine. 

“I went to a charity dads’ club recently for a TV show — it was a Sunday club at a school where all the dads can turn up with their kids once a month and they play games and have a couple of hours together.  

“It’s important, because a lot of dads go to work in the week as of course woman do too, but it’s important for dads to come along and meet other dads and feel like they’ve got a group.  

“One guy was telling me about the positives but also that they’d lost one guy to suicide.

“A dad had taken his own life. And it really hit me.  

“So I’m glad I’ve written that song and hopefully it can help someone.” 

The subject is clearly a personal one for Murs, and it leads him to think about a loss closer to home, that of TV presenter Caroline Flack, who died in 2020.

The documentary Search For The Truth by her mum Christine premiered on Disney+ this week. 

“Caroline was a good friend and she took her own life. The documentary has come out this week so it’s been difficult,” he says, the emotion clear.  

“It has brought things back.

“I try and always remember the positive things with Caz.  

“I don’t try and think too much about the negative stuff, because if I do, I go down a rabbit hole of emotions, and unfortunately, it’s not going to bring her back.

“I just remember her laugh, her jokes and her feelgood vibe.

“I wish she was still here, of course, and it hurts to watch her old shows.” 

A different loss felt by Murs is that of his estranged twin brother Ben, who cut himself off from Murs and his parents when the singer missed Ben’s wedding in 2009 to perform in the live semi-finals of The X Factor. 

‘Always on the go’ 

Murs says: “I’m proud of Ben.

“I don’t see him, but I’m proud of him.  

“There isn’t any bitterness or anger there. 

“I’m just really proud of where my career is, and from what I hear, Ben’s doing great too, and that’s all I care about.  

“We’re older men now, we’re in our 40s, so I’m sure at some point we’ll figure it out.” 

Next month Murs plays a London show to celebrate the new album and he is excited about what might be his only gig in a while. 

He says: “The truth is I don’t even know what I’m doing next year.

“I don’t even know if I’m ever going to tour this album properly.  

“I’m doing this show at Kentish Town Forum and it might even be the only one I do for this album.  

“I’ve done a lot of tours in the last three years and I’ve got married.

“I’m now on Heart radio station every Saturday with Wrighty [Mark Wright], I’ve written an album and I just think I need a bit of time for me.”

“But then I’m always on the go and I like that.

“I don’t know what I’m doing next — I’ve got plans and ideas but I’m just going to see what happens. 

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“I’m going to roll with it.” 

• Knees Up is out on November 21. Olly Murs headlines Kentish Town Forum on December 8. 

KNEES UP  

Olly Murs 

★★★★☆

Destin Conrad didn’t expect to release a jazz project so early in his career — let alone just a few months after dropping his debut album, “Love on Digital.”

The 25-year-old singer-songwriter, who first made millions of people laugh on Vine when he was a preteen, entered the music industry as a fresh-faced R&B artist, following in the footsteps of the artists he grew up listening to such as Brandy, Musiq Soulchild and Usher. His first official EP “Colorway” (2021) and the slew of bite-size projects that followed were melodic and honest meditations on love, lust, queer identity and simply having a good time.

But during the summer, Conrad found himself gravitating to jazz, the genre he was introduced to in high school when he was enrolled in jazz choir. He was inspired by all of the greats and contemporary work by artists like Vanisha Gould, and decided that it was time for a slight departure in his own sound.

“I feel like it’s always kind of been in me,” Conrad says over Zoom during an off day from his second headlining tour in support of “Love on Digital.” “It’s always been a tool that I never really got to exercise that I knew I really wanted to.”

After a two-week whirlwind in L.A. filled with studio sessions with some of his bucket list collaborators like Gould, trumpeter Keyon Harrold and beloved L.A. saxophonist Terrace Martin, Conrad unveiled “Whimsy,” an 11-track alternative jazz detour. Rich with songwriting tinged with sensual winks, live instrumentation (piano, horn section and drums) and a spoken word interlude by Bay Davis (that is reminiscent of Meshell Ndegeocello), “Whimsy” is a masterclass in following your own intuition and creating freely — a testament to his Cancer sun.

“I think it’s some of my best work actually,” Conrad says, adding that it was the most fun to make, which is evident on tracks like “Whip,” a cheeky double entendre about trading places in the bedroom and “A Lonely Detective,” which explores the life of a man living a double life. “Things that I’ve spent more time on, I don’t feel as connected to, but I really love “Whimsy.”

Conrad, who performs at the Wiltern on Nov. 14, phoned in the day before Grammy nominations were announced to talk about why he was nervous to release “Whimsy,” why he thinks jazz deserves more attention and what he’s still learning about being an artist in the digital age. Little did he know that by the next morning, he’d receive his first solo Grammy nod for progressive R&B album.

Now that your debut album, “Love on Digital,” has been in the world for a few months and you’ve experienced fans singing it back to you at shows, how does it feel to look back on the journey of releasing it?

It’s been amazing. I think it’s made me look forward to putting more music out. I feel like this tour taught me a lot. While making this album, I had touring in the back of my mind, so I’m really excited that it’s being received well. Also, it’s kind of wild that I put out another project a [few] months later but I’m glad I have such cool fans that receive me in a good way.

Speaking of that, you turned around and released “Whimsy” in August. Can you talk about how that all came together and how your single “Wash U Away” inspired it?

I made the majority of it in a two-week span. “Wash U Away” and “Whip” I had, but they weren’t jazz songs. So I had “Wash U Away” in the tuck for years — I think I made it in like 2021 — but we had it replayed by actual musicians because before, it was just a very bare beat. Then the rest of it I made within those two weeks. I also had “The W” with James Fauntleroy and Joyce Wrice already, but same thing — it wasn’t a jazz song. I knew I wanted to make a jazz album. I didn’t know I was going to do it so soon after my debut album, but I was kind of on a wild one and was like “Why not?” But I’m really glad I did it because I feel like my fans really like that album and I really like that album as well. I think it’s some of my best work actually. Things that I spent more time on, I don’t feel as connected to but it’s something that I’m really proud of.

Take me back to those two weeks in L.A. when you starting working on this project. Was it summer time?

It was summertime, yeah. I live in Brooklyn now, so I was like “I’m going to fly to L.A. and stay there for two weeks to knock this project out.” I told my managers, “Get me in with everybody. Here’s my list of people I want to work with. Let’s figure it out.” We flew out Vanisha Gould, who’s one of my favorite jazz musicians. I was so ecstatic that she was down. She’s such a jazz head. She was kind of like “What the f— am I doing? Are they going to kidnap me? I’m just flying out here to work with this random ass R&B singer.” But I’m so glad she came and we low-key became besties. Same with Terrace Martin. I’ve been a fan forever. He’s the G.O.A.T. James [Fauntleroy]. All these people who I was very adamant about working with. And eventually I want to do another jazz [project]. Maybe a “Whimsy 2” and just keep that world alive because I feel like jazz is such a special genre that gets overlooked and it’s something that I really feel passionate about. Especially because I was in jazz choir in high school and it kind of taught me more about soul music and the origins and how there’s so many synchronicities within other genres like gospel, and how R&B and all of them just tie into each other. I think it’s just really cool.

What was going on in your world when you started making “Whimsy?” Were you listening to a lot of jazz at the time?

Yeah, I was listening to a lot of jazz music. I was listening to a lot of Vanisha Gould and I was like, “I need to do this jazz album.” I thought I was just going to start it and be like “I’m not done.” But I was like “No, I’m done. This is it. This is what I have to say.” But yeah, I always listen to jazz. As I said, I was in jazz choir in high school. My jazz instructor Mr. O put me onto hella jazz. He showed me Frank Sinatra and all these jazz standards. I have videos that I’ll eventually show the world of me performing at my jazz Christmas show. I feel like it’s always been within me. It’s always been a tool that I never really got to exercise but I knew I really wanted to. But like I said, I didn’t know I’d make it in two weeks and that it’d be such a quick thing. It was so fun to make. It’s probably one of the most fun projects I’ve made.

You can definitely hear how much fun you were having on tracks like “Boredom” and “Lonely Detective.” I feel like jazz was once viewed as a genre that older people listened to, but that’s been changing within the last few years. It feels like it’s becoming more popular with younger audiences. What do you think about this?

Personally, I don’t think it’s becoming more popular. I would love to be part of some sort of push of making it more of a thing and I feel like a lot of my fans are younger. I’d like to say in my head that I’m helping push the genre forward.

It’s just not super prominent. There’s not a lot of new jazz artists. If you look at the jazz charts, a lot of what’s still charting is like Frank Sinatra [and] Miles Davis. Laufey is one of the newer faces of jazz that I feel like is pushing it aside from like Robert Glasper. But I don’t know. I feel like a lot of the jazz even that I listen to is the older stuff. There’s a very select few of newer jazz artists that I’m like “Yes.” Like Vanisha Gould, a perfect example. I’m obsessed with her. I think she’s one of the most talented musicians that I know, period.

How did you feel about dropping “Whimsy”? Were you nervous about how people would receive it?

Umm I thought about it [but] what I really thought about were the jazz heads. I thought the real, super crazy into jazz people were gonna be like, “This s— ain’t f— jazz” because I do consider it an alternative jazz album. I remember talking to Terrace [Martin] about that because he’s a jazz head and he’s also older than me and he’s been in it for longer. I was telling him [that] I feel like people are going to have s— to say about it because it’s not traditional and I’m not a trained musician. I don’t know how to read music. I just go with my [gut], and he was like, “That’s why it’s so fire. That’s what makes people feel it.” He was like, “I can tell that you’re young and when I listen to this, I hear a 25-year-old,” and I’m like, “Tight.”

You’ve essentially grown up online and in the public eye. How has that evolution shaped the way you see yourself as an artist, and what have you learned about navigating visibility over the years?”

I feel like it’s an advantage. I always talk about that especially with my artist homies. I was an internet baby so I kind of have just a slight advantage because I knew really early how it worked. I feel like I’m still learning how to promote my music because I know how to get on the internet and be an idiot all day. I can do that literally in my sleep, but being an idiot who knows how to promote his music is different. [laughs] So yeah, I’m still learning that. I used to think it harmed me because I was so scared that people wouldn’t take my music seriously. But no, I use it to my advantage for sure.

We’re at a time in music where it’s common for artists to be open and proud about their identity and sexuality without feeling like they need to use coded language. I think of artists like Frank Ocean, Steve Lacy and Durand Bernarr. Can you talk about why talking about your queerness is important to you?

I feel like I’m a pretty honest person in general. I try not to lie and I feel like all I can do really is just keep it a bean. Most of the time, I try to write about my personal experiences and I deal with men, so that’s just my truth [laughs]. I do also write from other perspectives like things that my friends or my homegirls tell me. I don’t always write from my point of view, but when I do, it’s about a man and that’s all I can really do.

Among the nominees for the 68th Grammy Awards announced Friday morning were a slate of Latinx artists, with Bad Bunny leading the way with six and making Grammys history in the process.

The Puerto Rican singer became the first Spanish-language artist to earn nominations in several top categories for his critically acclaimed album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” including record of the year, album of the year and song of the year.

The 31-year-old is also up for música urbana album, global music performance (“EoO”) and album cover — a new category.

To date, Bad Bunny has won three Grammys out of 10 nominations. He also leads the 2025 Latin Grammy Awards nominations with 12, including record of the year, album of the year and song of the year. The Latin Grammys will take place Nov. 13 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

The not-so-new band the Marías — led by singer María Zardoya — were nominated in the ever-perplexing new artist category. This marked the long-present L.A. indie group’s first ever Grammy nomination.

Global girl group Katseye — which features Venezuelan Cuban American dancer/singer Daniela Avanzini — also picked up a nomination in the new artist category, as well as a nod in the pop duo/group performance category for the track “Gabriela.”

Colombian hitmaker Karol G’s “Tropicoqueta” received a Latin pop album nomination.

Recording Academy darling Edgar Barrera nabbed his third consecutive songwriter of the year (non-classical) nomination for his work with Karol G, Juanes, Shakira, Fuerza Regida, Grupo Frontera, Young Miko, Marco Antonio Solís, Manuel Turizo and Carlos Santana.

Kooky Argentine duo Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso received their first ever Grammy nomination under Latin rock or alternative album for their nine-track EP, “Papota.” If they win, they will be the second Argentine group to win in that category; Los Fabulosos Cadillacs won back in 1998 when the category first appeared.

The boisterous San Bernardino band Fuerza Regida are also first-time nominees, receiving a música mexicana album nomination for their joint EP with Grupo Frontera, “Mala Mía.” The Texas norteño group is also up in the same category for their album “Y Lo Que Viene.”

Sacramento alt-metal group Deftones nabbed a rock album nomination for “Private Music,” the band’s fourth overall Grammy nod and first in this category.

On Tuesday, the Recording Academy announced that voting members of the Latin Recording Academy had been invited to join the Recording Academy as part of its 2025 new member class.

“This year’s class reflects the vibrancy of today’s diverse music landscape,” said Harvey Mason Jr., chief executive of the Recording Academy. “The addition of many Latin Recording Academy voting members underscores that music has no borders and that our mission to serve music people, regardless of where they are from, is stronger than ever.”

The Grammy Awards will take place on Feb. 1 at L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena. The awards show will broadcast live on CBS and stream on Paramount+ starting at 5 p.m. PT.

The Latin Recording Academy has added even more names to its already star-studded lineup of artists slated to perform at the 26th Latin Grammy Awards, which will be held Nov. 13.

Among the acts announced are album of the year nominee Bad Bunny, breakout Argentine duo Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso, song of the year nominee Karol G and San Bernardino-based música mexicana powerhouse group Fuerza Regida

Also added to the performers list was Mexican musical icon Marco Antonio Solís and Puerto Rican band Chuwi, who was featured on Bad Bunny’s latest album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos.”

Next week’s show will mark the first time Bad Bunny has performed on the Latin Grammy stage since 2021, when he sang “Maldita Pobreza” from his 2020 album “El Último Tour Del Mundo.” It also will be the first time that Fuerza Regida and Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso perform on the Latin Grammy stage.

Album of the year nominee Rauw Alejandro, legendary rocker Carlos Santana, ranchero/mariachi album nominee Christian Nodal and country darling Kacey Musgraves were among the acts previously announced as performers at the Las Vegas awards show.

Other artists slated to take the stage at the show’s 26th iteration include 22-time Latin Grammy winner Alejandro Sanz; the Argentine singer Nathy Peluso; Tejano band Grupo Frontera; former best new artist winner Joaquina and Venezuelan singer-songwriter Elena Rose.

Additional artists set to perform at the MGM Grand Garden Arena are música Mexicana acts Carín León, Pepe Aguilar and Los Tigres del Norte; sad sierreño singer-songwriters Iván Cornejo and DannyLux; Latin pop icon Gloria Estefan and Colombian rock band Morat.

This year’s list of top nominees include Bad Bunny (12), Edgar Barrera (10), Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso (10), Rafa Arcaute (eight), Natalia Lafourcade (eight) and Federico Vindver (eight).

Bad Bunny’s 12 nominations this year will bring his total career nods to 52. With her eight nominations this year, Lafourcade looks to bolster her collection of 18 trophies from the awards show — the most wins for any female artist.

Nabbing eight more nominations, Edgar Barrera continues to pad his stats as the awards show’s most nominated person of all time with 72 nods, along with 24 wins. Spanish artist Alejandro Sanz received four nods this year, which brings his career total to 51.

This month’s show will be the debut of the new Visual Media field and its new category, Music For Visual Media, which will honor scores for film and television. Also added to this year’s awards is the category for best roots song.

HER sixth album Brat topped the charts and won her five Brit Awards, but Charli XCX feared her label was going to drop her over it because it is so out there.

In a new interview, she explained: “I think when I was making it, I wasn’t thinking about the response at all.

“I actually made this record being like, ‘OK, I’m just going to do this one for me.

“And maybe I’m going to get dropped by my label and that’s fine’.

“That was kind of the headspace that I was in.

“There’s a lot of luck with timing and the way that culture is moving.

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“I think when I released this record, it’s like people were wanting something that felt very real and messy.

“And I think that’s just the way that culture was swinging.”

Charli previously suggested she was going to have a lengthy break from music following the success of the record, released in June last year, but she has now teased that she’s working on “inherently different” tracks.

The Guess singer continued: “I’m really interested to see what comes next in pop culture, especially in the music space, what people are ­craving.

“I really like to work in contrast. I think whatever I do next will just inherently be different to Brat because that’s what feels natural.

“I’m exploring a lot of stuff with strings at the moment, which I’m really enjoying and I haven’t really worked in that space before.”

And with a series of movies on the way — including Faces Of Death and I Want Your Sex, Charli said she is committed to becoming an actress.

Speaking to Gwyneth Paltrow on her Goop podcast, she said: “I’ve been making music since I was 14.

“And don’t get me wrong, I love making music, but I think there was just a point where I was kind of like, OK, I really need to exercise my creativity in a different way.

“I don’t actually really listen to that much music ever. I never really have.

“But what I am doing is I’m always watching films.”

And Charli also reflected on the prospect of starting a family, having mused on her indecision about ­becoming a mother on her song I Think About It All The Time, which was on the Brat album.

The Brit, who wed The 1975 drummer George Daniel in July, said: “There is, I think, still a bit of stigma perhaps around women who don’t really want to have ­children, you know, and I think for me it’s like I’m always swinging between the two.

“Right now, I’m on the side of, like, actually I’m not sure that that is for me, but that could go back.”

BENSON BACK

BENSON BOONE shook off illness and returned to the stage for a killer sold-out show at London’s O2 Arena.

The American singer had to cancel his gig in Birmingham on Saturday after struggling with his voice but he was on song on Monday when he sailed through tracks including Sorry I’m Here For Someone Else, Young American Heart and Mr Electric Blue along with a cover of Coldplay‘s Sparks.

Welcoming out his friend and photographer McLean Long to the stage armed with a T-shirt cannon, Benson said: “Every night I sing one song that is a cover song.

“I love this song very much, so we’re going to have a friend come out and help us figure out which song we’re singing.”

Another poignant moment in the evening came when Benson performed In The Stars, which he wrote as a tribute to his great-grandmother who died aged 96.

Benson said: “I think the loveliest thing about this song is this is a song about me, about my life.

“My experiences, somebody that I know, something I felt, something I went through, but when you listen to it it’s no longer about me, it’s about you.”

RITA’S A PINK LADY

THERE was no missing Rita Ora in this pink dress at the Music Industry Trusts Awards, but it was Jessie J who stole the show with an amazing rendition of Whitney Houston‘s I Have Nothing.

Speaking at the ceremony on Monday night, Jessie referenced her breast cancer diagnosis and said: “This is one of my favourite songs to sing. There is no hiding in this song. It’s very exposing.

“This year has changed my whole world – my perspective, what battles I’m going to pick.

“You know, death comes knocking at your door and you kind of dance and f***ing kick it away.

“It just changes everything.

““I will say this, I don’t care how old you are or how long you have been doing this, enjoy your f***ing life.

“Be kind to each other.”

Ashley Tabor-King, founder of Global Media, whose radio stations include Heart and Capital, was honoured on the night, with video messages from Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift.

Rita flew in especially from Los Angeles to perform, and Olly Murs was there for a night out after becoming a dad for a second time.

“Albert is nine weeks old now,” Olly said.

“Another one next year? We are happy with two at the moment.

“Who knows, in a few years’ time we will see.

“I have got time next year to spend a bit more time with the family.

“It has been a busy few years.”

KATY HAS A POP AT BLOOM

KATY PERRY is returning with a new single tomorrow and it sounds as though it will hint heavily at her split from Orlando Bloom.

The Roar singer announced the track Bandaids last night, following a tricky year which saw her break-up with the English actor after almost a decade, and start dating ex-Canadian PM Justin Trudeau.

Insiders have claimed she worked on it with top writer and producer Cirkut, who worked on her No1s Part Of Me and Roar, as well as Greg Kurstin, who co-wrote Adele’s heartbreak singles Hello and Easy On Me.

Last night, Katy played the latest show on her Lifetimes tour in Paris, ahead of the end of the 91-show jaunt next month.

I’M imploring the BBC to put cash behind another series of Daisy May Cooper‘s brilliant TV series This Country.

Daisy told Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast: “It’s difficult and we get asked all the time.

“If we got paid enough to do another series, we’d f***ing do it but that’s all it comes down to.”

Tim Davie, sort it out.

OASIS GET ONE OVER TOUTS DOWN UNDER

OASIS have scored another victory over the vile ticket touts – this time in Australia.

Thanks to the Major Events law in Victoria, ­scalpers were shut out of their three sold-out shows there.

The rules in the Australian state means that anyone flogging tickets for more than ten per cent above face value at an event ­protected by the Major Events Act faces a fine of up to £270,000.

In a statement, Noel and Liam Gallagher‘s management team told me: “It’s great to see Victoria’s Major Events declaration doing exactly what it’s meant to – Viagogo can’t list our Melbourne shows – and that’s a huge win for real fans.

“When government and the live industry work together, we can stop large-scale scalping in its tracks.

“We’d love to see other states follow Victoria’s lead so fans everywhere get a fair go.”

The success of the law means that the 180,000 tickets sold for the shows in Victoria went to genuine fans for the right price.

The brothers will play two more shows in Australia this week, with back-to-back sold-out gigs in Sydney on Friday and Saturday, before they take their Oasis Live 25 tour to South America.

COLDPLAY OFF TO CHURCH

IF you missed out on Coldplay tickets earlier this summer then fear not.

The band’s Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland have announced a one-off, intimate show on Wednesday, December 3, in aid of War Child and Crisis.

But it will be even harder to get in than catching one of their ten nights at Wembley, as it will take place at Hackney Church in East London, with a public ballot for 150 pairs of tickets is now open online.

Last year Chris and Jonny’s Hackney Church performance raised £350,000 for charity.

I’m sure kind-hearted fans will dig deep again this year.

ED-ING WHERE IT BEGAN

ED SHEERAN headed back to Dublin for a special ­concert to celebrate his songs which had clocked up more than one billion streams.

And he had plenty to pick from, with the star performing hits including Thinking Out Loud, Castle On The Hill, I See Fire and Galway Girl.

The gig saw the 2,000 fans packed into Industries Hall at the Royal Society Dublin going wild – and I got to join them after my lovely friends at Spotify flew me out on Monday.

Speaking at his Billions Club Live set, Ed said: “The reason I wanted to do it in Dublin is this is the place where I decided I wanted to be a singer- songwriter when I was a kid.

“It’s a special place for me with my family but it’s also a ­special place for me musically.

“I feel like this is where it all began.”

Ed also used his time on stage to remind the crowd that he last headlined Glastonbury back in 2017, which makes me think he’s a sure-fire bet to return to Worthy Farm in 2027 to ­mark ten years.

Watch this space.

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ARIANA GRANDE was forced to miss the world premiere of Wicked: For Good in Brazil last night after a safety issue with her private jet.

She was on board her plane to fly to Sao Paulo yesterday but had to get off when a fault was found, leaving her “beyond devastated” because there was no other way to make the journey in time.

Rapper RBX has sued Spotify, alleging that the Swedish audio company has failed to stop the artificial inflation of music streams for artists like Drake and is hurting the revenue other rights holders receive through the platform.

RBX, whose real name is Eric Dwayne Collins, is seeking a class-action status and damages and restitution from Spotify. RBX, along with other rights holders, receive payment based on how often their music is streamed on Spotify, according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in L.A. on Sunday.

Spotify pays rights holders a percentage of revenue based on the total streams attributed to them compared with total volume of streams for all songs, the lawsuit said.

The Long Beach-based rapper said that rights holders are losing money on Spotify because streams of some artists are being artificially inflated through bots powered by automated software, even though the use of such bots is prohibited on the platform, according to the lawsuit.

For example, the lawsuit notes that over a four-day period in 2024 there were at least 250,000 streams of Drake’s “No Face” song that appeared to originate in Turkey, but “were falsely geomapped through the coordinated use of VPNs to the United Kingdom in attempt to obscure their origins.”

Spotify knew or should have known “with reasonable diligence, that fraudulent activities were occurring on its platform,” states the lawsuit, describing the streamer’s policies to root out fraud as “window dressing.”

Spotify declined to comment on the pending litigation but said it “in no way benefits from the industry-wide challenge of artificial streaming.”

“We heavily invest in always-improving, best-in-class systems to combat it and safeguard artist payouts with strong protections like removing fake streams, withholding royalties, and charging penalties,” Spotify said in a statement.

Last year, a U.S. producer was accused of stealing $10 million from streaming services and Spotify said it was able to limit the theft on its platform to $60,000, touting it as evidence that its systems are working.

The platform is also making efforts to push back against AI-generated music that is made without artists’ permission. In September, Spotify announced it had removed more than 75 million AI-generated “spammy” music tracks from its platform over the last 12 months.

A representative for Drake did not immediately return a request for comment.

RBX is known for his work on Dr. Dre’s 1992 album “The Chronic” and Snoop Dogg’s 1993 album “Doggystyle.” He has multiple solo albums and has collaborated with artists including on Eminem’s “The Marshall Mathers LP” and Kris Kross’ “Da Bomb.” RBX is Snoop Dogg’s cousin.

Artificial intelligence continues to change the way that the entertainment industry operates, affecting everything from film and TV production to music. In the music industry, companies have sued AI startups, accusing the businesses of taking copyrighted music to train AI models.

At the same time, some music artists have embraced AI, using the technology to test bold ideas in music videos and in their songs.

There’s no shortage of bands commemorating their glory days as decade anniversaries of albums fly by. Yet few landmark releases feel not only fresh but forward-thinking 20 years after they were recorded. My Morning Jacket stumbled onto this kind of brilliance in October 2004 when it released its fourth studio album “Z.” Across 10 tracks of lush, euphoria-driven rock ‘n’ roll, the band captured a notable tone shift in its sound that melded Southern rock, haunting folk, psychedelic soul laced with jam band energy. It’s a set of songs that still make up a huge chunk of the bands live show. In September the band performed the album in its entirety to a sold-out Hollywood Palladium for its 20th anniversary.

“We still play these songs all the time,” said frontman and principal songwriter Jim James in a recent conversation. “So it’s not like we broke up after we released ‘Z’ and then we got back together 20 years later to play these songs, and it’s such a trip. We’ve been playing them nonstop for 20 years.”

Shortly after the release of its 10th studio album “is,” the band put out a deluxe reissue of “Z” that includes four B-sides and a whole album’s worth of demo versions of songs like “Wordless Chorus,” “Off the Record” and Dodante. Recently James spoke to The Times about the enduring power of “Z” and the joy of going back to the beginning of the album’s origins to give himself and his fans a new appreciation for the groundbreaking sound the band created.

The rerelease of “Z” was prefaced earlier this year with a full-album show at the Palladium. What was it like revisiting the album on stage first before it came out (again) on vinyl and streaming?

This is our fourth album now to hit the 20-year mark. So we’ve got some experience now doing these album shows. And it’s funny because some of the earlier albums we don’t play all the songs from them so we had to go back and relearn a lot of songs. But the songs from “Z” we pretty much play all the songs all the time. So it’s pretty hilarious how it involved no effort. It just involved playing them in that order of the sequence of the album. But we kind of laughed about that. We’re like, man, we don’t really even have to do any research or anything. We were all kind of reflecting just on how grateful we are that we like playing all the songs still. It’s such a great feeling to play songs for 20 years and never really get tired of them. People still want to hear them and there’s still excitement there, and they still feel fresh. It’s really a beautiful thing.

This was your first album using an outside producer. What was that like for you as the songwriter to step in the studio with John Leckie to help you realize your vision with “Z”?

It was so great, because I really needed somebody who could work with me and not let our egos clash too much. John was just really great about coming in and respecting what I wanted to do, but also voicing his opinion and what he liked and what he didn’t like and when he thought we could do better. And it was just really so refreshing and so good for us to have him there. I mean, his track record speaks for itself, he’s somebody who you can trust right off the bat, just because of all the things they’ve done in the past. He’s such a soft-spoken gentleman but he also has this hilarious, brutal honesty about him, which was always really great.

Your lineup had also changed between the previous album “It Still Moves” and “Z” — adding keyboard player Bo Koster and guitarist Carl Broemel who are still in the band today. So was that like stepping in the studio with the “new guys” for the first time?

It was really nerve-racking and really exciting all at once. We had some touring experience under our belt with Bo and Carl, so we kind of knew that it was working out on that level, but we’d never really recorded before, so it was a real test for all of us. And I think we all knew that. So everybody brought their A game to the session and we took it really seriously, but we also had a lot of fun and just really kind of got to know each other. That was good to do that out in the middle of nowhere, out there in the Catskills, up at the studio. It gave us some time to really bond without a lot of the real-world stuff coming in or other people coming in. So I think that was really important, that we did it that way.

Do you remember what song came out of the sessions first?

“It Beats 4 U” was the first one, because that was one we had already played live before we started recording. So I think that was the first song that we started messing with. But I think they all were kind of coming to life around the same time. So by the time we got in there to start unpacking them, I had already written them and kind of made the demos of them and stuff.

It’s great that you included so many demo versions of your songs on this rerelease. What was the process like of locating these, sifting through and sequencing which ones you wanted to put on the album?

Well, I love demos for a lot of my favorite bands — I love it when I get to hear the demos from the albums. So I’m always saving all that stuff; with my own stuff I’m always compiling all the demos, because that’s half the fun to me. Because sometimes you get this just like a beautiful glimpse into the song. Quite often, I end up liking the demo more than I like the actual album, song because you get a whole, whole new view of it. It’s also interesting when you’re sequencing for vinyl, because you don’t have unlimited time so you kind of got to pick and choose, and that kind of forces you to just choose the best. There’s a whole other round of band demos and then there were my demos, so there were a lot of things to choose from. But it kind of helps me to look at it in vinyl format. There’s still something about the vinyl time limit that helps with quality control. Just kind of pick the ones that I feel are most effective and then try and make a fun sequence so that hopefully, if somebody’s into them, it’s kind of like you get a bonus album that you can listen to.

We had four true songs, B-sides, that we really love too, that weren’t demos. So that was really nice to finally get those out, because those had been on different soundtracks. And then one wasn’t even released. So I don’t think that those weren’t even on streaming or anything for years and years. So it’s really cool to have those out kind of everywhere now, because I’ve always liked all those songs and been proud of those songs too. And I think most bands know the feeling of you know when you make a record. Sometimes songs just don’t fit the record, even if you still love the songs.

MMJ during the “Z” era.

(Sam Erickson)

Were you playing any of those live at the point where you released the album the first round, or did you shelve them for later?

We’ve always played “Where to Begin” live — off and on. We’ve also tried “Chills” a couple times, and I think we did “How Could I Know” a couple times. We’ve never played “The Devil’s Peanut Butter,” we kinda forgot that one existed until this whole [album rerelease] process started, and I found that song again. So we’ll probably play that one somewhere out on the next leg.

Was this process something that you enjoy doing, like, in terms of your how to, sort of like, reexamine an album?

I really love it because I just feel so grateful that anybody even gives a s–, you know? I mean, so there’s that part of me that’s just so grateful to even still be in the game, talking about this. But beyond that, it’s really cool for me because it’s like jumping in a time machine and going back and looking at that point in my life and getting perspective on where I am now, and seeing how I’ve grown and asking “where have I changed? Where have I not changed?” I look back and with all of these albums as they come up to this 20-year mark, and I see I’ve always been really mean and hard on myself, on Jim, but I know that Jim was doing the best he could at each time. That’s the one thing I’ve always kind of been able to see, to get myself through, to not be too hard on myself. I know I was giving it everything I had, so whether I would change things about it as I am today or not — we all look back on the past, and maybe there’s things we’d do differently, but it gives me a lot of comfort to know that I was trying as hard as I could, and all the guys in the band were trying as hard as they could. It really makes me feel proud of us for just putting in the time and effort.

It isn’t crazy: Carly Rae Jepsen is expecting her first child with husband Cole M.G.N.

The Canadian singer-songwriter announced her pregnancy Monday in an Instagram post, sharing a few black-and-white photos of the couple and Jepsen’s baby bump that hint there may be some kicking going on.

“Oh hi baby,” Jepsen, 39, wrote in the caption along with a heart emoji. Her 40-year-old husband, whose full name is Cole Marsden Greif-Neill, is feeling so much love and excitement that he has been rendered speechless, if the multiple heart-eyes emojis are any indication.

According to the couple’s wedding spread in Vogue, Jepsen and the Grammy Award-winning producer tied the knot in October, and the couple had been trying to get pregnant while planning their New York wedding. The musicians first met as colleagues in 2021 and started dating in 2022 before getting getting engaged in September of last year.

In 2023, Jepsen told People that their first collaboration, the song “So Right” from her album “The Loveliest Time,” was in essence the couple’s “meet-cute.”

“This is our first little baby out in the world,” Jepsen told the outlet at the time. “I think you’ll see a lot more of our collaboration together for future projects.”

Known for her earworm 2012 hit “Call Me Maybe,” Jepsen most recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of the release of “Emotion” with a sold-out show at the Troubadour, where she performed the entirety of the 2015 album.

“‘Emotion’ was like an introduction to my authentic version of what pop music was,” Jepsen said of the LP in 2020. “I was itching to share something different, because I knew that ‘Call Me Maybe’ wasn’t the only color of what I had to offer.”

Damon Albarn has opened up about his emotional journey while recording Gorillaz’ upcoming album.

The singer and his bandmate Jamie Hewlett poured the grief of losing their dads into their ninth record, The Mountain, and Damon revealed he scattered his father’s ashes in India while making the collection.

“Both Jamie and I lost our fathers,” Damon said.

“We did two quite amazing, magical trips to India.

“India is a very interesting place to carry grief, because they have a very positive outlook on death.

“England is just really bad at dealing with death.

“In a way, I think this record is in that tradition of celebrating their lives.

“I did things I’d never done before. I swam in the Ganges in Varanasi.

“I watched the bodies being burnt on the banks of the Ganges.

“In England when we cremate a body we don’t even look at the bodies, it’s covered up immediately and then it’s put in the fire, the little curtains close and that’s it.

“On the banks of the Ganges, every family is there with the body wrapped in a shroud and they’re burnt, and it’s going on everywhere. It goes on 24 hours a day and it’s been going on for thousands of years.

“I took my dad’s ashes there and I cast them in the river. It was very beautiful.”

Indian culture helped shape the record — which will be released in March — with the album’s cover art featuring the title in Devanagari, a script used to write the Indian Sanskrit language.

And this time around the pair will not make their famous, animated music videos and instead are creating a one-off production.

Damon added: “We’re making a full eight-minute thing.

“This is why there are no videos at the moment, because it’s serious stuff. It’s really great that Jamie is concentrating on doing one animated thing.

“It’s a big amount of work, any animation. It’s kind of our Achilles’ heel because no other band has to spend that kind of time just to produce one small thing.

“So let’s make it a piece of art in itself and not really rely on it for the promotional aspect of things and let it breathe in its own way.

“I think fans are going to love every aspect of this record.”

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Personally, I cannot wait.

Jen’s perfect pairing

Jennifer Lawrence put on her poshest frock to party in the Big Apple after promoting her new film, Die My Love.

The Hunger Games star appears alongside Robert Pattinson in the black comedy, out this Friday.

And the pair coordinated their outfits for the New York premiere at the AMC Lincoln Square Theater.

J-Law then changed into a blue gown before heading out for a night on the town with her pals.

The actress has a busy few months coming up. She is starring in and producing upcoming murder-mystery movie The Wives, before kicking off a new project with legendary director Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Jen and Leo are set to play the leads in a terrifying film adaptation of Peter Cameron’s ghost story, What Happens at Night.

She did the chart double last month but Olivia Dean is keeping her feet firmly on the ground.

The singer scored No1s with her album The Art of Loving and single Man I Need, becoming the first British solo female artist to top both charts simultaneously since Adele in 2021.

Asked whether she’s let her success go to her head, she said: “I don’t think so. I feel like I try really hard and think all the time about not becoming a p***k. That would just be horrible.

“I’ve met some and it’s just like, ‘Oh no, it got to you’.”

On how success depends on the people around you, Olivia continued: “A lot of people work really, really hard. It’s really important to recognise that yes, you’ve worked on your skill or your craft, but all the people around you had to believe in it and be there to make it happen as well.

“It takes a village of people to make an album or do a campaign. There’s a lot that people don’t see.”

It sounds like Olivia has a lot of goals in the future, though – including headlining Glastonbury and releasing an album of standards.

On the And The Writer Is… with Ross Golan podcast, Olivia was also asked if she had written a musical yet.

She said: “No, but I would like to in the future. It’s definitely on the bucket list for me.”

Time to say ’ello to Eli

Hot prospect Eli released debut album Stage Girl at the weekend, jam-packed with infectious melodies.

It looks like her label, RCA Records – also home to Britney Spears, P!nk and Shakira – has unearthed another gem.

But her collection of tunes also features references to a battle with her identity, which the American singer has now overcome.

In an exclusive interview, Eli, who is a trans woman, said of her album: “It was made in a flow state.

“But that was after a year or two of complete wits’ end, last straw, end of the rope, repressing everything under the sun as a human being for 20 years of my life.

“I was just like, ‘I need this joy and I need this super-extravagant pop’.”

Part of her journey of discovery is related to listeners in album highlights Girl of Your Dreams and Falsetto, and Eli now hopes that her music will help people to accept those in the queer community.

She explained: “I like the idea that this is going to play in Walmart in Kansas, for the lady who thinks I’m the spawn of Satan.

“And she’s going to be like, ‘Wow, this song is so good’.

“I feel like there is a sort of trickle-down effect of awareness of my humanity and trans humanity in general.”

Eli is already feeling the love following her album release – Mark Ronson, Demi Lovato and Zara Larsson have all voiced their support and her fan base is growing and growing.

Eli added: “I feel so excited by the community I’m existing in in LA right now.

“I feel like everyone is so supportive of each other.

“And it’s so refreshing and so cool.”

Dazzled by Doja

Doja Cat looked a true member of the glitterati as she joined A-listers for a night out.

The rapper sported a sparkly orange dress at the LACMA Art+Film Gala in Los Angeles and completed the ensemble with a curly blonde wig in a nod to Marilyn Monroe.

This is not the first time she has gained inspiration from the Hollywood legend. At the 2022 Grammys, she wore a custom-made crystal Versace gown – which took 475 hours to make.

Doja attended the fundraising bash alongside a host of stars, including actresses Demi Moore, Salma Hayek and Cynthia Erivo all of whom dazzled in their ’fits.

Keep sparkling, ladies.

Robyn’s return so sexi

Singer Robyn is planning to drop a new single in the next few weeks, then her ninth album in 2026.

It is seven years since the Swedish-born star put out her last collection, Honey, and an industry insider tells me the new one, with alluring title Sexistential, promises to be bigger and better than ever before.

They said: “Robyn has spent years working on this music and has been really inspired by loads of up-and-coming artists.

“She has worked with some very cool people and all the stops are being pulled out for this to be her biggest record in decades.”

Robyn has joined Gracie Abrams and Charli XCX on stage for surprise performances over the past year.

But by the sounds of it, next year she will likely be performing plenty of big gigs of her own.

Cat Burns opens up about losing her grandad and breaking up with a long-time girlfriend on her new album How to Be Human.

The singer and Celebrity Traitors star told The Sunday Times’ Style mag: “While grieving, a quote that stood out to me was: ‘Grief is just love with no place to go’. That helped guide the message of the album.”

A Brum deal for Benson

Benson Boone is due back on stage tonight at London’s O2 Arena after he was forced to cancel his Birmingham show on Saturday.

The Beautiful Things singer, who is on his American Heart World Tour, told fans he wouldn’t have been able to put on the show at the Utilita Arena due to problems with his voice.

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In a statement, he told fans: “Birmingham I am so so sorry but I will not be able to perform. I have tried everything I can to revive my voice, but I cannot give you the show I’d like to be able to give you with the condition of my throat right now.

“I’m working with my team to find a date to reschedule as soon as possible. I promise I will do everything in my power to make it up to you. I love you guys so much.”

We’re sending you our best, Benson, and we hope you can make the show tonight.

STRANGER Things star David Harbour admitted he has “made mistakes” over the last 10 years just WEEKS before ex-wife Lily Allen released her bombshell album.

The couple, who split after a five year marriage in February this year, have had their relationship thrust into the spotlight after Lily’s blistering attack on her marriage on new album, West End Girl.

The 14-track album was dropped last week, but shortly before the release, Harbour briefly spoke about ‘regrets’ while promoting the upcoming final season of Stranger Things.

Talking to Esquire Spain, Harbour was asked to reflect on the past decade of his life in line with how long he has played burly cop Jim Hopper on the show.

He responded by calling it a “hard question” and, while not addressing Lily specifically, he said: “I would change either everything or nothing. 

“You either accept your path completely and realise that even the pain and the slip-ups and the mistakes are all part of the journey, and that there’s truth and growth, wisdom and deeper empathy and connection in all that.”

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“It’s kind of like a house of cards,” he added. “The minute you try to change one thing you kind of have to change it all.”

Ultimately he said he’d change “everything” and “just make his life happy and silly”, though it would “suck” not to be an actor.

West End Girl

On West End Girl, Lily chronicles her relationship with Harbour, starting with their whirlwind relationship after meeting on Raya in 2019 and setting up their life together in New York.

However, she notes things began to unravel after she landed a part in a West End production of 2:22 A Ghost Story, which required her to come back to London.

She then accuses him of getting close to a woman she names “Madeline”, despite them having an “arrangement” for him to sleep with other people.

Mentioning her on the track ‘Tennis’, fans were abuzz with the question: “Who the f**k is Madeline?”

While Lily has said the album, which features alleged dates and supposed voice notes, is a mixture of fact and fiction, the the real life “Madeline” has spoken out, with New Orleans based costume designer Natalie Tippett, 34, claiming to have been involved in the fling.

David and Natalie reportedly began an affair while working on 2021 film We Have A Ghost, despite marrying Lily the previous year in Las Vegas.

He later allegedly flew Natalie to his home in Atlanta, Georgia.

Since the album has been released, Harbour has not commented on the claims on the songs – which took Lily 10 days to make and record.

It’s also unclear where the line between fact and fiction stands on the album.

Despite this, Lily made another dig at her ex – dressing up as cartoon character Madeline for Halloween as she partied with friends in Los Angeles.

The marriage between Arcade Fire’s indie-rocker spouses Win Butler and Régine Chassagne has flamed out.

The longtime collaborators and romantic partners split “after a long and loving marriage,” the Canadian “Reflektor” group announced Thursday in a statement shared on social media. Butler, 45, and Chassagne, 49, married in 2003 and will “continue to love, admire and support each other as they co-parent their son,” the band said.

The Grammy-winning rock group, founded in 2001 and known for songs “The Suburbs” and “Wake Up,” announced the singers’ separation years after several people accused frontman Butler of sexual misconduct in 2022.

Four people came forward about their alleged experiences with Butler in a report published by Pitchfork in August 2022. Three women alleged they were subjected to sexual misconduct between 2016 and 2022 when they were between the ages of 18 and 23. The fourth, gender-fluid accuser alleged Butler sexually assaulted them in 2015 when they were 21 and he was 34.

Amid Pitchfork’s report, Butler denied the misconduct allegations in a statement and said he “had consensual relationships outside my marriage.” Chassagne, who gave birth to her son with Butler in 2013, remained firm in her support for her now-estranged husband in 2022. The “Sprawl II” singer said, “I know what is in his heart, and I know he has never, and would never, touch a woman without her consent and I am certain he never did.”

She added at the time: “He has lost his way and he has found his way back. I love him and love the life we have created together.”

Arcade Fire rose to prominence in the 2000s for its anthemic rock, cementing its place in the Montreal indie scene with its Grammy-winning 2010 album “The Suburbs.” The group has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards and has played some of music’s biggest stages including the Coachella and Lollapalooza music festivals. The group released its seventh album, “Pink Elephant,” in May.

Thursday’s statement clarified that Butler and Chassagne’s “bond as creative soulmates will endure, as will Arcade Fire.” The estranged spouses will also continue their charity work in addition to caring for their child.

“The band send their love and look forward to seeing you all on tour soon,” the statement said.

Times staff writer Stacy Perman contributed to this report.