Letter from the editor: Highlights from our Music Issue
With our Dec. 4 edition, The Envelope combines its Grammys and Oscars song and score coverage into a single Music Issue, and one glance at the table of contents confirms that the old boundaries no longer apply.
This year, Karol G released both a nominated album and a Netflix documentary; “Golden,” a top Oscar contender, also nabbed a nod for song of the year; and filmmaker Oliver Laxe joined forces with French electronic music artist Kangding Ray for Spanish Oscar submission “Sirāt” — and that’s just the start of the crossover talents featured in this week’s Envelope.
Cover: Karol G
(Bexx Francois / For The Times)
With a Grammy-nominated album (“Tropicoqueta”), a Coachella headline slot and the launch of her new “200 Copas” tequila — about which she regaled me when she stopped by The Times newsroom recently — Karol G is a multihyphenate global superstar. But as August Brown writes in this week’s cover story, the Colombian artist is still introducing herself to new fans. And relishing the opportunity.
“For her, there’s still something tantalizing about topping a mixed-genre bill before an audience that may not have heard her music at all. Is it weird to be one of the biggest musicians on Earth and yet still, in some circles, be introducing herself?
‘I love that. If you are on tour, you know that the people there are waiting to see you, and they already know the songs,’ she said. ‘But festivals give you the opportunity to open doors for more people that don’t know your music, who don’t know nothing.’”
Digital cover: Huntr/x
(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)
I’d only just gotten the ultra-catchy tracks from “KPop Demon Hunters” out of my head when I spent Thanksgiving with some old friends and their 6-year-old son, who requested “Soda Pop” as soon as we got in the car after getting dressed for dinner — and swiftly landed a blockbuster’s worth of earworms right back in my brain. So it’s fitting that my own favorite, “Golden,” is the subject of this week’s digital cover, about the trio of K-pop artists lending their voices to the fictional band Huntr/x.
“It’s really wild and weird,” Audrey Nuna tells writer Laura Sirikul about the instant chemistry with groupmates Ejae and Rei Ami. “Honestly, the mesh of our voices just felt so intuitive. It was very organic and easy. The song is not easy, but the mesh and connecting were.”
How ‘Sirāt’ threw the year’s hottest rave
Speakers reverberate in the mountains during the rave in “Sirāt.”
(Neon)
My own party days ended around the same time as the second Bush administration, but the opening sequence of Oliver Laxe’s “Sirāt” — before the film descends into a mad journey through the remote reaches of the Moroccan desert — almost had me ready to dance through the night.
What makes “Sirāt’s” rave so convincing? Well, as Gregory Ellwood reports, it’s more or less a real rave: “In order to capture the true spirit of a contemporary rave, the production had already agreed to stage a three-day event essentially run by” the Trackers and Drop’In Caravan collectives.
“I have videos at the bar, which is not on the dance floor, and you can see the waves of the sound [in the drinks],” production designer Laia Ateca recalled to Ellwood. “The speakers were so loud, you don’t need anything else. It’s very, very powerful.”