Beyond the Cuban diaspora, the genre known as reparto is overwhelmingly unknown. But on the streets of Havana and Hialeah, Miami, reparto is inescapable, pulsing from balconies and portable speakers on the beach.
Born in Cuba’s working-class neighborhoods — known colloquially as repartos — this hyperkinetic fusion of reggaetón, timba and Afro-Cuban rhythms has become the island’s score. In the mid-2000s, artists like Chocolate MC and Elvis Manuel built the genre’s sound on distorted synth stabs, shouted call-and-response hooks, and the distinct Cuban clave beat that makes your body move before your brain can even catch up.
It’s also become a platform for youth navigating scarcity, surveillance and dreams of escaping poverty. The lyrics, characteristically and unapologetically obscene, reflect the realities of life in marginalized communities. But alongside its rhythmic bravado, reparto’s explicit language often veers into the dehumanizing and misogynistic.
The music centers on women, but more often than not, as objects: the perra to conquer, the diabla to tame, the culo to catalog in explicit detail. And it’s no surprise: The genre’s blunt portrayal of women mirrors the machismo deeply embedded in everyday Cuban life.
It’s a refrain you’re bound to hear in any and every nightclub: “¿Donde están las mujeres?” But the next time 10 reparteros link up for a track, they probably won’t call a woman. Within a genre that revolves so heavily around their bodies, women’s voices still remain rare.
So, ¿dónde están las mujeres? Or, where are the women making reparto?
“Chocolate is the king, but who is the queen?” says Seidy Carrera, known artistically as Seidy La Niña. “There’s a space that needs to be filled with women. There’s no f—ing women!”
At the onset of reparto, early reparteras like Melissa and Claudia slipped brief female cameos into club anthems. More than a decade later, due to Cuba’s only recent, and still extremely limited, internet access, these artists and their collaborations have a seemingly untraceable digital footprint. Still, most playlists orbit male voices, and collaborations rarely invite women to the booth: “When reparteros come together on a track, they never call a woman,” she says.
Carrera, 32, was born in the reparto El Cotorro and raised in Miami since she was 6. The self-proclaimed queen of reparto, the paradox defines her career: She fights for space in a scene whose appeal lies in her raw neighborhood realism, but detractors question her authenticity as a gringa, or as they would call her, yuma.
“I feel resistance every day, every single day,” she says. In response, she reclaims the discriminatory language used against her; onstage, she chants “más perra que bonita,” flipping the curse-word from insult to empowerment.
“It’s empowering to say, I’m more perra than pretty. To me, being a perra is being a woman who’s exclusive, who makes her own money. In my case, … nobody opened the door for me, nobody gave me a hand.”
For Havana-based singer-composer Melanie Santiler, 24, the double standard hits her before she can even sing her first note: “I feel that I have to do twice as well. I have to put in double the thought, double the effort, double the talent, always having something more to say,” she says.
“It’s exhausting. It’s exhausting being a woman, having to get up and tell yourself, damn, I have to look pretty and put together. I spent my whole life in school with an onion bun because I didn’t want to do my hair,” Santiler says and laughs, messy bun flopping around her face.
Reaching almost 5 million YouTube views on her 2025 viral collab, “Todo se Supera” with Velito el Bufón, she’s broken into the reparto space as one of the genre’s most distinctive voices. Beside this rise, she’s faced a newfound pressure to dress a way she normally wouldn’t, a beauty standard her masculine counterparts don’t face.
Aliaisys Alvarez Hernández — better known as Ozunaje — says she doesn’t face the same criticism in the urban Cuban music scene, likely due to her sexuality and more masculine appearance. “Reparto is a genre for men, that’s how I see it,” she says. “I dress like a man, I practically live my life like a man, so what I write resembles what men are already saying. That also gave me an impulse, where I feel like more feminine artists, they have to work harder.”
A former rhythmic gymnast from La Habana, Hernández, 23, stumbled into music when friends recorded her singing a demo of “Cosas del Amor” in her living room. Someone uploaded the video, it went viral, and suddenly, she had a career. Since that start, Hernández refuses to only be compared with other reparteras.
Her goal has always been to be measured against men, since “that’s who people actually listen to.” Dressing in traditionally masculine clothing, paired with a deep, raspy delivery, helps her lyrics resonate with locals without the extra hurdle of hyper-sexualized expectations.
Hernández’s androgynous wardrobe and open queerness bring another layer of potential discrimination, but despite the rampant homophobia persistent in present-day Cuba, she doesn’t feel much resistance. “The worst word they throw at me is tortillera, but it doesn’t affect me,” she says, adding, “People like my style, they like that I dress like a guy. Everybody tells me, you have tremendo flow, I love your aguaje, so I haven’t faced any bullying. Never.”
Misogynistic currents in reparto mirror those in early reggaetón, reflecting the average street machismo. The genre’s marginal roots complicate blanket condemnations, since the same raunchy lyrics often encode critiques of class exclusion. Still, reaching bigger stages will require editing the most gratuitous slurs, if only to broaden the music’s export potential. At least, Ozunaje thinks so.
“Reparto came from people who were poor, who had nothing, who were desperate to get out. Nobody imagined it would get this big. Now it’s reaching the whole world, so the vocabulary has to evolve,” she says.
Santiler echoes this critique. “It’s become really repetitive. I think right now, everyone is talking about the same thing. It’s been really easy. Facilista,” she says, using the Spanish term for taking the easy way out. Santiler loves reparto’s swing, but calls most of it objectifying, pointing to Bad Bunny’s “Andrea” and “Neverita,” along with C. Tangana’s “El Madrileño,” as proof that urban music can expand beyond bedroom conquests.
“The street already says these things, and reparto just writes it. It’s an image of what’s happening. But I grew up with other types of music and other types of references, so I’d like to expand beyond that, to make something fresh.”
Santiler adds that the basis of reparto, both in her gratitude and her criticism, comes from pride.
“I love Cuba, I love my country. The current generation of Cuba doesn’t reject their identity — they’re doing the opposite. They want to create a new culture, to create a new movement, and they want the world to know Cuba again,” she says.
Matt Groening knows what a real theremin sounds like.
As a kid who grew up on the celluloid junk food of the 1950s and ’60s, “The Simpsons” creator heard the ghostly wail of that early electronic instrument in sci-fi film scores and in albums by his beloved Frank Zappa. Its cousin, the ondes martenot, was featured in one of Groening’s favorite classical pieces — the “Turangalîla-symphonie” by Olivier Messiaen — which would inspire the name for a lead character in “Futurama,” Turanga Leela.
So, when composer Alf Clausen was recruited in the sophomore season of Groening’s popular new show about a yellow nuclear family and answered a request to use theremin — a small lectern with two metal antennae sticking out, which a musician plays by moving their hand in the space between — in the inaugural “Treehouse of Horror” episode in October 1990, Groening immediately recognized it was a fake; it was bouncing around the scale in a way a real theremin can’t do.
“And [Clausen] admitted, yeah, it wasn’t a theremin; it was a keyboard,” Groening recalls. “And it took many years for us to get a real theremin. The downside of the theremin is that it can’t play all the notes — but it’s got a feel to it that is so great.”
Clausen quickly became a fixture of “The Simpsons,” scoring every episode from that first “Treehouse of Horror,” now an annual Halloween tradition, all the way through the end of the 28th season, which wrapped in 2017, as well as composing many unforgettably funny songs with the show’s writers. Groening often referred to Clausen as the show’s “secret weapon.”
A scene from “Treehouse of Horror XXXVI,” this year’s Halloween episode of “The Simpsons.”
(“The Simpsons” & 20th Television)
The show’s producers were always pushing to save money, Groening says, and to have the show scored with synthesizers and a drum machine — par for the course for TV music in the 1990s. But Groening felt differently. “I always thought that the music really helped the show in a way, because I thought the animation was kind of … primitive,” Groening punctuates the word with a laugh, “and I thought, man, though, if we have great orchestral music backing up these goofy drawings, it’ll mean: ‘Hey, we really meant it!’ And Alf got that right away.”
Groening was none too happy, then, when Clausen was fired by Fox in 2017. The official reason stated was the high cost of recording every episode with a live orchestra; but the veteran composer, who had previously scored TV series like “Moonlighting” and “ALF” (no relation), was 76 when he got the boot, later suing Disney and Fox over age discrimination. (Clausen died earlier this year at age 84.)
Enter Bleeding Fingers Music, a composer collective founded in 2014 by Hans Zimmer, Russell Emanuel and Steven Kofsky that has grown from its original six composers to a stable of 26. Zimmer had been a longtime go-to for “Simpsons” executive producer James L. Brooks, and he won over a skeptical Groening with his zany score for “The Simpsons Movie” in 2007.
With a composer void, Brooks approached Zimmer about taking over the series, and Zimmer proposed Bleeding Fingers — whose credits at that point included several entries in the “Planet Earth” series and various History Channel documentaries and reality shows.
Russell Emanuel of Bleeding Fingers.
(Kevin Shelburne)
“It took a long time for the decision to be made,” says Emanuel, a cheeky Brit who got his start making soundalike rock albums in the 1980s and co-formed Extreme Music in 1997, a music library company that produced EDM tracks for shows like “Top Gear.” Zimmer was an early contributor to Extreme Music, and in 2001 the company moved into his vast Remote Control Productions campus in Santa Monica.
“It was taken very seriously,” Emanuel adds. “The first I knew about it was Hans calling me into his room and going, ‘We’ve got “Simpsons.” Don’t f— it up.’”
It was an awkward arranged marriage for Groening — and a “baptism by fire” for Emanuel and his cohort. They had an ample three weeks to tackle their very first episode, a “Game of Thrones” parody titled “The Serfsons,” which featured some theremin solos. Groening asked if it was a live theremin. It was not, the new composers sheepishly replied.
“He could hear it immediately, and completely called us out on it,” says Emanuel. “We had to go back and redo that whole thing. There were two or three big issues for him — but, you know, that was part of us learning the language.”
On a recent Friday morning on the Fox scoring stage, just around the corner from Groening’s office of nearly four decades, the “Simpsons” creator was smiling as a live orchestra recorded the score for Sunday’s new “Treehouse of Horror” episode (streaming next day on Hulu). There was a woodwind virtuoso, Pedro Eustache, making wild and beautiful sounds in an isolated booth with his arsenal of flutes — and out on the stage there was a real, live theremin.
Running the session was Kara Talve, a young but dominant digit of Bleeding Fingers who has been the principal composer on “The Simpsons” since Season 30; this is her sixth “Treehouse of Horror” episode. After graduating from Berklee College of Music, she took an assistant job at Bleeding Fingers — mostly, she says, because she wanted to work on “The Simpsons.”
Kara Talve of Bleeding Fingers, who has been the principal composer of “The Simpsons” since Season 30.
(Sage Etters)
“But I had to convince Russell that I could do it,” Talve says, sitting in her studio next to her boss. “I don’t think he trusted me yet. But also: Why would he, because I was like 5 years old.”
It’s quickly apparent how self-deprecating and silly they both are — Emanuel recently got a tattoo of a Spotify code that, when scanned, triggers Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” — but also how seriously they take this job.
“The responsibility of working on a show like this, we don’t take it lightly,” Talve says. “And because I was so intrigued by the show, and I really, really wanted to work with Russell on ‘The Simpsons,’ I went back and I listened to those old episodes — because I want to honor the musical language that Alf left, and that Danny Elfman left.” (Elfman composed the iconic theme song, which Emanuel and Talve consider “the heart of the show.”)
“And it’s a very specific palette,” she adds. “Like, not to get too nerdy about it, but there really is this harmonic language that’s only in Springfield.”
There are other, subtle ingredients to a good “Simpsons” score: For instance, the music should (usually) duck out of the way for the verbal or visual punchline. And the show has always overflowed with pop culture references and spoofs, which requires an almost bottomless well of musical knowledge. That’s one area where having two dozen other composers working in the same building comes in handy.
“There’s this adaptability that you have to have on this show,” says Talve, “and it’s every genre under the sun, and you kind of just have to figure out how to do that. And Russ was a big part in teaching me, because he’s the king of production music.” She adds that the composers in the collective also play a variety of instruments, so “I can just ask them to come in and play this line, because we can’t sell it to the showrunners if it sounds too fake.”
The average “Simpsons” episode has between five and 10 minutes of score — which might sound like easy street.
“The amount of starts is very challenging,” Talve says. “And it is deceiving. People go, ‘Five minutes? Oh, you’re just doing a bunch of stings’ or whatever. But I want to debunk this because it’s actually way harder, for me personally, to do 30 short cues for one episode than to have one long cue that’s five minutes because the amount of emotional turns that the music has to have, and that you have to hit all this stuff within 10 seconds — it’s actually really frickin’ hard.”
(In 2014, Clausen told me he always joked that “I can make you feel five ways in 13 seconds.”)
The Simpson family in a segment from this year’s “Treehouse of Horror.”
(“The Simpsons” & 20th Television)
Most episodes are recorded with small ensembles at the Bleeding Fingers facility, but the “Treehouse of Horror” chapters are special; they tend to have wall-to-wall music, and the producers splurge on a full orchestral session at Fox — just like the old days.
This year’s anthology spoofs “Jaws,” “Late Night With the Devil” and “Furiosa.” Talve’s score bobs and weaves accordingly, from big brassy horror to eerie synths to world percussion and a custom-made plastic flute.
Groening, who was full of praise for Talve’s “Treehouse” score, has gradually warmed to the Bleeding Fingers team approach — viewing it less like a factory churning out product and more like the way animators work.
“The nature of animation, with maybe two or three exceptions in the history of the medium — it’s all a collaboration,” Groening says. “We’ve got a lot of ‘Simpsons’ writers, we have a lot of voice actors, a lot of animators, a lot of musicians. I mean, one of the great things about that particular session was that these are some of the greatest musicians in Los Angeles, playing amazing music.”
He even wishes people could witness it in person.
“There should be live concerts of this music because it is so much fun to listen to,” he says.” And it gets a little constrained, you know, when it’s supporting goofy animation — but as music, it’s really fantastic.”
The popstar was absent from Mel’s happy day at St Paul’s Cathedral on Saturday, which saw Emma Bunton, 49, the sole other girl group member in attendance.
The Wannabe singer stunned in a gown adorned with dazzling pearl detail around the collar and sleeves and a long flowing veil as she stepped out of the iconic venue.
She uploaded a snap showing the happy couple together with the words: “So so happy for you both and beyond gutted I couldn’t be there.
“Excited to celebrate with you really soon. Yipee!”
In her next slide, Mel showcased a snap of her performing in Stockholm, Sweden.
She added the words: “Bit of a soggy one last night.”
Mel shows off her musclesCredit: ErotemeThe toned Spice Girl, 51, wore a leotard and red boots to help launch her new musicCredit: Unknown
Sam Rivers, the founding bassist of the band Limp Bizkit, has died at age 48, the band announced Saturday.
“Today we lost our brother. Our bandmate. Our heartbeat,” the band wrote in an Instagram post. “Sam Rivers wasn’t just our bass player — he was pure magic. The pulse beneath every song, the calm in the chaos, the soul in the sound.”
The post did not cite a cause of death.
Formed in Jacksonville, Fla., Limp Bizkit and lead singer Fred Durst rose to prominence in the late ’90s and early 2000s with its mix of rock and hip-hop.
Rivers also sang backup vocals for the band, which topped radio charts with songs including “Break Stuff,” “Nookie,” “Re-Arranged” and “My Way.”
“From the first note we ever played together, Sam brought a light and a rhythm that could never be replaced. His talent was effortless, his presence unforgettable, his heart enormous,” the band wrote in the post. “We shared so many moments — wild ones, quiet ones, beautiful ones — and every one of them meant more because Sam was there.”
The tribute was signed by Durst, along with band members Wes Borland, John Otto and DJ Lethal.
“He was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of human. A true legend of legends. And his spirit will live forever in every groove, every stage, every memory,” it said. “We love you, Sam. We’ll carry you with us, always. Rest easy, brother. Your music never ends.”
In a comment on the post, Leor Dimant — also known as DJ Lethal — asked people to “please respect the family’s privacy at this moment.” He added that fans can “give Sam his flowers” by playing his bass lines all day.
“Rest in power my brother,” Dimant wrote. “You will live on through your music and the lives you helped save with your music, charity work and friendships.”
Victoria Beckham is set to reunite with her former Spice Girls bandmates for a new animated project on the band, marking their first professional collaboration in a decade
Daniel Bird Assistant Celebrity and Entertainment Editor
18:34, 18 Oct 2025Updated 18:48, 18 Oct 2025
Lady Beckham is set to join her Spice Girls bandmates for an exciting project(Image: BANG Showbiz)
Victoria Beckham is gearing up to join forces with her old Spice Girls pals for a huge new project. The animated venture, simply named The Spice Girls, will be their first professional reunion since they rocked the stage at the 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony.
According to the official IMDb listing, The Spice Girls is currently in the early stages of production and will star all five original members: Geri Horner, Melanie Brown MBE, Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, and Lady Victoria, lending their voices.
The brief description reveals: “An animated project featuring the music group The Spice Girls as superheroes.” Details regarding the storyline, format, and release date are still hush-hush, with IMDb only revealing that the project will see the girls reprising their pop star alter egos, including Posh, Ginger, Scary, Sporty, and Baby Spice.
This exciting news broke as Victoria, 51, graced the premiere of her three-part Netflix docu-series Victoria Beckham at The Curzon Mayfair in London on 8 October. The fashion mogul and former pop sensation was accompanied by her husband, Sir David Beckham, 50, and their children, except for eldest son Brooklyn Beckham, who is reportedly caught up in a family dispute.
Her ex-bandmates Emma, Geri and Melanie Chisholm also showed up at the premiere to lend their support, striking a pose together on the red carpet. Melanie Brown, better known as Mel B, was the only member not present but sent Victoria a lovely bouquet of flowers ahead of the event.
Melanie had previous work commitments in the United States. Victoria hasn’t performed with the Spice Girls since their iconic Olympic appearance in London 12 years ago, despite the other four members reuniting for a UK and Ireland stadium tour in 2019.
Although Victoria opted out of that tour, she publicly expressed her support and has continued to honour the group’s legacy. The IMDb listing is the first official hint that the full lineup could once again collaborate on a professional project.
It remains unclear whether the animated production will be a feature film or a series. The Spice Girls became a worldwide sensation in the mid-1990s following the release of their debut single Wannabe in 1996. They went on to sell over 100 million records globally before Geri exited the band in 1998, leading to an official hiatus.
The band also reunited for a world tour in 2007 and again for their Olympic performance in 2012, which was widely hailed as one of the highlights of the Games. Since then, each member has embarked on individual ventures in music, television, fashion and business while maintaining a close personal bond.
But it seems that this isn’t the only Spice Girls project that Posh has in mind. During an interview with Andy Cohen, she admitted that she has been having several ideas about the chart-topping band, which will next year celebrate three decades of their debut single, “Wannabe.”
After saying she loved the idea of the band performing at the Sphere in Las Vegas, Victoria said: “It would be tempting. But could I take on a world tour? No, I can’t. I have a job… How good would the Spice Girls be at the Sphere! I love the idea of it. I mean, I don’t know if I could even still sing, I mean, I was never that great!” Host Andy soon interrupted saying: “You can sing, babe.”
The Mirror has approached Victoria’s spokesperson for comment.
IT’S hard to believe, but at the age of 68, Gloria Estefan, one of the biggest-selling and most-celebrated artists of all time, is marking her 50th year in music.
She has had a stellar career, racking up everything from a slew of Grammy awards to the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Gloria has recently released her album RaicesCredit: SuppliedThe star with The Sun’s HowellCredit: Supplied
But after her musician daughter Emily performed with Cyndi Lauper at Glastonbury last year, she now has one more thing she wants to strike off her bucket list – a major slot on the prestigious Pyramid Stage.
In an exclusive chat, she told Bizarre’s Howell: “It’s very exciting, big and complex from what I hear from Emily. Like, it was crazy. But that would be super exciting.
“If I’m still around, I would love to do that. Now, Glastonbury likes all kinds of artists.”
With hits like Rhythm Is Gonna Get You, Dr Beat and, of course, Conga, she would have plenty of songs to entertain Worthy Farm.
And she may soon be wowing even more viewers, with a big-budget biopic on the cards.
For the first time, she has confirmed Rachel Zegler, who shot to fame in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, Disney’s Snow White and recently in Evita on the West End, is set to play her.
She said: “I think she’s awesome. I think she’s incredible. I know she’s killed it in Evita.
“We’re still working on the green light because we’re figuring out where to do it, how to do it.
“This has been in the works for quite a few years now. And that’s how it is. You work, you work, you work, and then all of a sudden, boom, the trigger’s pulled and you’ve got to do it right away. But she’s lovely.”
But asked if she thinks Rachel will take the part, she continued: “I think she would. I just need to offer her an actual part. So we need to be greenlit completely and we’re almost there.
“I met her by Zoom. She’s got a beautiful singing voice and she’s a great actor. So absolutely.”
It was originally claimed the film will be an adaptation of her 2015 jukebox musical On Your Feet! although that idea has changed.
The star explained: “The movie’s not going to be the show. There’s a lot in there.”
Gloria was born in Cuba but her family fled to the US during the Cuban Revolution and she has now become one of Miami’s most famous residents.
And as one of the city’s stars, she has become pals with David and Victoria Beckham, who have a home there and have become key to the area with Becks’ football team Inter Miami CF.
But it’s clear they all move in the upper echelons when Stateside.
In a major name drop when quizzed on hanging out with them, she said: “I’ve been at their home. It’s lovely. David is such a lovely man – and Victoria.
“We actually went to a dinner at their home and President Obama was there, and the head of Reddit, and Jeff Bezos. It was really cool.
“It was small, but only the most powerful people in that room. It was great.
“They’re very kind people. And he’s done amazing things for soccer or football, as you call it here.”
Gloria pictured in 1989Credit: Alamy
And there have been more Brits in Miami, with Dua Lipa performing there last month, when she covered Gloria’s 1985 hit Conga.
“I was so sad that I wasn’t in town,” Gloria said.
“She had invited me to go and do that with her. And I love her. I’m a big fan of Dua Lipa. And that’s the sexiest conga you’re ever going to see, hands down.”
After such an illustrious career, she recently released her 30th album Raíces, which is largely Spanish-language escapism and the perfect soundtrack for a soiree or relaxing evening in.
And it was her husband of 47 years, producer Emilio, who made it happen.
Gloria, who was writing another musical at the time, explained how the salsa record poured out of him.
She added: “It’s got beautiful, romantic ballads. Emilio said, ‘I wrote you a love song’. I go, ‘Babe, you’re going to sing it?’.
He goes, ‘No, you’re going to sing it for me’.”
Charming.
And as for retirement after five decades in the game? Don’t count on it.
She giggled: “In ten years time, I hope to still be alive. That’s my first plan. Who knows?
“I only choose what I really, really want to give my time to. It’s just that. I had all these amazing opportunities. And they just converged this year.”
The singer has become pals with David and Victoria BeckhamCredit: Getty
Kristen chilled Water
Kristen Stewart showed off a stark fringe and bare legs as she left a screening of her new filmCredit: Splash
KRISTEN STEWART didn’t let the falling temperatures bother her as she headed out in this white mini-dress.
The Twilight actress showed off a stark fringe and bare legs as she left a screening of her new film The Chronology Of Water at the Curzon Mayfair on Thursday night.
It was part of the BFI London Film Festival and the movie, an adaptation of US writer Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir, is her directorial debut.
Lily ‘cheat’ pain
Singing star Lily Allen is about to make a return with her fifth albumCredit: Getty
LILY ALLEN has confirmed my story that she is about to make a return with her fifth album.
And on it, she seemingly accuses ex-husband David Harbour of cheating on her.
But things crumbled last year, with the relationship inspiring the latest record which is expected to be released imminently.
A new interview with Lily came out in Vogue magazine yesterday.
It features lyrics from two tracks that suggest David romanced other women while they were together and the pair then decided to “open” their marriage.
On one song, Sleepwalking, Lily sings: “You let me think it was me in my head, and nothing to do with them girls in your bed.”
On another, called Dallas Major, she reveals: “You know I used to be quite famous, that was way back in the day.
“I probably should explain how my marriage has been open since my husband went astray.”
And Lily didn’t hold back in her interview, either.
She told the magazine: “I’ve had real problems with my food over the past few years.
She added that during their break-up “it got really, really, really bad”.
Lily, who is sober, said: “The feelings of despair that I was experiencing were so strong.
“The last time I felt anything like that, drugs and alcohol were my way out, so it was excruciating to sit with those [feelings] and not use them.”
KYLIE JENNER says being a pop star is her lifelong dream – despite being mocked this week when she sang on Terror JR’s new song Fourth Strike.
Having just started singing under the name King Kylie, she said: “You know this is my dream. I’ve been talking about this since I came out of the womb… that like I wanted to be a pop star.
“I just never had the confidence or… I think turning 28 just does something to you. Like I’m going to be 30 soon and I don’t want to look back on life and have any regrets.
“This is something I’ve always wanted to try.”
JENNIFER LOPEZ is up for returning to the Super Bowl stage in February – six years after her stellar half-time show with Shakira.
The singer, whose parents are from Puerto Rico, waved the country’s flag during her performance and next year will see rapper Bad Bunny, who is from there, playing the show.
Quizzed on US TV whether they could do something together there, she said there had been “no talk” of a collaboration but that she would be open to it.
She said: “There’s no talk. I have not gotten any calls. So I just want to put the expectation down. But of course if he wanted me to do something, I would definitely do it.”
Crouchy Enter the Dragon
Abbey Clancy and Peter Crouch have been filling their home with pets, pictured with their four childrenCredit: instagram
ABBEY CLANCY and Peter Crouch are slowly turning their home into a zoo – and the next animal they are adding is a bearded dragon.
The couple, who live in Surrey with their four children, already own two dogs, cats and a horse but now they are adding reptiles to the menagerie.
Crouchy says they are getting the reptile, which is native to Australia, because their son is desperate for one as a pet.
As well as the lizard, Abbey wants to also get lambs and chickens.
Peter said: “The more animals the better, apparently. Bearded dragons are next on the horizon. My little boy has wanted one for years. They’re actually all right. I thought it would be a nightmare, but I’ve been down the shop and held them.
“We’re actually going to get one. They grow to be quite big but they’re quite chilled.”
Michael makes big money
MICHAEL McINTYRE’s firm raked in more than £3.2million last year – making him one of the biggest earners on TV.
He had another stellar year presenting Saturday-night series Michael McIntyre’s Big Show and quiz The Wheel.
The comedian’s TV production firm Hungry McBear paid £805,000 in corporation tax in its last financial year up to December 31.
Oct. 16 (UPI) — A Fulton County, Ga., grand jury has indicted Kelvin Lanier Evans for allegedly breaking into a vehicle rented by Beyonce‘s choreographer and stealing two suitcases during the summer.
Evans, 40, is accused of breaking into choreographer Christopher Grant’s rented 2024 Jeep Wagoneer on July 8 while Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter tour made a stop in Atlanta, CBS News reported.
Local prosecutors on Thursday confirmed that a grand jury indicted Evans on charges that accuse him of breaking a window to access the vehicle and stealing two suitcases.
One or both of the suitcases contained the hard drives on which unreleased music, plans for tour video footage and set lists for respective tour dates were stored.
They also contained jewelry, clothing and other valuables that have not been recovered.
Officers with the Atlanta Police Department arrested Evans on Aug. 26 and held him at the Fulton County Jail, according to Newsweek and local police records.
Evans has remained jailed in lieu of a $20,000 bond.
Grant reported the theft upon discovering the vehicle’s rear window was broken and the two suitcases were missing.
“They have my computers, and it’s really, really important information in there,” he said while reporting the theft to 911.
“I work with someone who’s of a high status,” he added. “I really need my computer and everything.”
The grand jury indicted Evans on Monday, and he is charged with criminal trespass and entering a vehicle with intent to commit theft, ABC News reported.
A preliminary hearing initially was scheduled for Thursday but was canceled after the grand jury indicted Evans.
Evans has a local arrest record dating to January 2002, with several more since, according to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.
His prior arrests include several for theft, armed robbery, assault, drug possession and other criminal violations.
Beyonce won a 2025 Grammy Award for Album of the Year for her Cowboy Carter release.
Grammy-winning R&B singer D’Angelo has passed away at age 51 following a “prolonged and courageous battle with cancer”, according to a statement from his family.
On Tuesday, his loved ones released a statement announcing his death. “The shining star of our family has dimmed his light for us in this life,” it read.
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“We are saddened that he can only leave dear memories with his family, but we are eternally grateful for the legacy of extraordinarily moving music he leaves behind.”
D’Angelo, whose real name was Michael Eugene Archer, was best known for his silky vocals during the 1990s and 2000s, with his record Voodoo earning him the 2001 Grammy for Best R&B album.
His hit single from that album, Untitled (How Does It Feel), not only won him another Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, but it also catapulted him into the mainstream spotlight with its steamy music video, featuring a shirtless D’Angelo singing directly to the camera.
The music publication Rolling Stone has ranked Voodoo as one of its best albums of all time.
News of his passing prompted an outpouring of remembrances from fans, including fellow musicians.
“I never met D’Angelo but I love him, respect him, admire his gift. This loss HURTS!!” singer-songwriter Jill Scott wrote on the social media platform X, adding: “R.I.P. GENIUS.”
Another musician, rapper Doja Cat, offered condolences to D’Angelo’s loved ones. She called him “a true voice of soul and inspiration to many brilliant artists of our generation and generations to come”.
D’Angelo performs at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana, on July 6, 2012 [Cheryl Gerber/Invision via AP Photo]
In his music, D’Angelo blended hip-hop grit, emphatic soul and gospel-rooted emotion into a sound that helped spearhead the neo-soul movement of the 1990s.
Earlier this year, the Virginia native celebrated the 30th anniversary of his debut studio album Brown Sugar, a platinum-selling offering that produced signature hits like Lady.
That 1995 album earned him multiple Grammy nominations and cemented him as one of R&B’s most original new voices.
D’Angelo’s sultry vocal style — a mix of raspy texture and church-bred fluidity — set him apart from his peers. That voice became inseparable from the striking visuals of the Untitled (How Does It Feel) music video.
Its minimalist aesthetic became a cultural touchstone, igniting conversations around artistry, sexuality and vulnerability in Black male representation.
Beyond his own catalogue, D’Angelo’s artistry shone in collaborations. He memorably duetted with Lauryn Hill on the soulful ballad Nothing Even Matters, a highlight of her landmark 1998 album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
He also contributed to The Roots’ 1996 album Illadelph Halflife and was part of the supergroup Black Men United, which yielded one song, U Will Know, for the film Jason’s Lyric in 1994. D’Angelo wrote and co-produced the single.
D’Angelo received multiple Grammy nominations and two wins for his album Voodoo [Charles Sykes/Invision via AP Photo]
D’Angelo was in a four-year relationship with Grammy-nominated R&B singer Angie Stone in the 1990s.
The pair met while he was finishing the album Brown Sugar and bonded over their similar backgrounds: Both are from the South and both grew up in the church. Stone worked on the album with D’Angelo, and the pair co-wrote the song Everyday for her 1999 debut album, Black Diamond.
Stone described D’Angelo as her “musical soul mate” in an interview with The Associated Press in 1999, adding that their working relationship was “like milk and cereal”.
“Musically, it was magic,” Stone said. “It’s something that I have not been able to do with any other producer or musician.”
They had a son together, the artist Swayvo Twain, born Michael Archer Jr. Stone died earlier this year in a car crash. She was 63.
D’Angelo also has a daughter, Imani Archer.
Among the tributes to D’Angelo’s artistry on Tuesday was a social media post from Tyler, the Creator, who reminisced about combing his local music store on his ninth birthday.
“I had $20 in birthday money and my eyes set on leaving with one thing. VOODOO by D’Angelo,” Tyler, the Creator, wrote on Instagram. “I had no idea that would help shape my musical dna.”
“I couldn’t understand how someone could write something so simple but personal but broad but genius,” he continued. “Thats how special he was.”
The actor and musician Jamie Foxx, meanwhile, offered his memories of seeing D’Angelo perform live at the concert venue House of Blues.
“Your voice was silky and flawless,” Foxx wrote on Instagram, addressing the late D’Angelo directly. “I was also in pure awe of your talents…. roaming around on each instrument, displaying your expertise in every note and every song.”
Foxx added that D’Angelo would be missed forever. “That’s why today real tears run down my face.”
Madonna’s “MDNA.” Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising.” Mariah Carey’s “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel.”
According to the Recording Industry Assn. of America, none of these albums — each the 12th studio LP by its respective maker — has sold 4 million copies in the United States in the decade or more since it was released.
Yet that’s what Taylor Swift just did in a single week with her 12th album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” which Billboard reported Monday had moved 4.002 million copies in the seven days between Oct. 3 and 9.
That figure, which combines sales and streaming numbers, represents the biggest opening week for an album in modern history, breaking the record set by Adele 10 years ago when her “25” moved 3.482 million units in its first week.
Swift marked the achievement on Instagram on Monday with a note to her 281 million followers.
“I’ll never forget how excited I was in 2006 when my first album sold 40,000 copies in its first week,” she wrote. “I was 16 and couldn’t even fathom that that many people would care enough about my music to invest their time and energy into it. Since then I’ve tried to meet and thank as many people as I could who have given me the chance to chase this insane dream. Here we are all these years later and a hundred times that many people showed up for me this week.
“I have 4 million thank you’s I want to send to the fans,” she added, “and 4 million reasons to feel even more proud of this album than I already was.”
The speed with which Swift hit the 4-million mark is undeniably impressive. Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem,” the biggest album of 2025 so far, has sold and streamed the equivalent of 4.2 million copies, according to the trade journal Hits. But “I’m the Problem” has been out since mid-May; “Showgirl” will almost certainly have surpassed Wallen’s LP by the end of this week (if it hasn’t already).
What’s more remarkable is where “Showgirl’s” blockbuster success comes in the arc of Swift’s career.
Madonna and Springsteen were both in their early 50s when they released their 12th LPs; Carey was 40 when “Imperfect Angel” came out. Swift, in contrast, is only 35 — one advantage of starting out professionally as a teenager.
Still, Swift has been a star for nearly two decades, a point at which many pop musicians have shifted the focus of their work to touring even as they continue to make new records generally ignored by all but their most devoted fans. In 2024, according to Pollstar, Madonna’s and Springsteen’s latest road shows — each drawn from a catalog packed with hit songs — were among the year’s 10 highest-grossing tours.
And indeed Swift has been amply rewarded on the road: At No. 1 on Pollstar’s list was her Eras tour, which sold more than $2 billion in tickets across 149 dates on five continents.
Yet unlike virtually every other veteran act in music, Swift’s recording business is growing along with her live business.
“Everything that’s happening here is historic and unprecedented,” said Hits’ editor in chief, Lenny Beer. “Maybe if the Beatles had stayed together, we’d have seen something like it.”
Also worth considering: Nobody seems to think “The Life of a Showgirl” is Swift’s best album. Reviews have been mixed, and even some fans have expressed disappointment with the record on social media — a once-unthinkable development among the fiercely loyal Swifties.
So how did the singer pull off such a feat?
First, a little math: Of “Showgirl’s” 4 million units, approximately 3.5 million were sales of either digital or physical versions of the album (including CDs, cassettes and vinyl LPs); the remaining half-million came from streams of the album’s songs on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, which the data firm Luminate counts toward what it calls streaming equivalent albums.
“Showgirl’s” 12 songs racked up 681 million streams in all, Billboard said — the fourth-biggest streaming week of all time, behind Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” and Drake’s “Scorpion” and “Certified Lover Boy.” But the album’s sales number is the largest ever recorded since Luminate started tracking sales electronically in 1991.
Among Swift’s strategies to get to that number was selling more than three dozen editions of the album, each with its own artwork and bonus material designed to lure collectors. On vinyl alone, “Showgirl” came out in eight so-called variants, which helped drive the album’s first-week vinyl sales to a modern record of 1.3 million copies.
Offering something for sale doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will buy it, of course. Yet Swift was positioning “The Life of a Showgirl” as a juggernaut from the moment she announced it. Appearing with her fiancé, the NFL player Travis Kelce, on his “New Heights” podcast in August, the singer described the album as a return to the hit-making ways of albums like “Red” and “1989” after the relatively experimental “Folklore” and “Tortured Poets Department.”
To make “Showgirl,” she reteamed with the Swedish producers Max Martin and Shellback, with whom she’d collaborated on some of her biggest singles, including “Blank Space,” “Bad Blood” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” On “New Heights” she and Kelce talked about the new album as a “180” from the moody confessions of “Tortured Poets,” whetting appetites for the kind of crisply hooky Taylor Swift songs that blanketed Top 40 radio in the mid-2010s.
Promised the football star: “12 bangers.”
Fans visit an activation for Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” at the Westfield Century City mall on Oct. 4.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Once “Showgirl” was out, Swift jumped into the promotional fray with more gusto than she’d summoned in years, sitting for numerous radio interviews and putting in appearances on Graham Norton’s, Jimmy Fallon’s and Seth Meyers’ late-night shows; the weekend after the album’s release, a glorified sizzle reel called “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl” played in AMC movie theaters across the country.
On Monday, Swift kept the conversation going with the announcement that two Eras-related projects are headed to Disney+ in December: a six-part behind-the-scenes docuseries and a concert film of the tour’s finale in Vancouver.
“One of the hardest parts of ensuring you have a record-setting first week is making sure that everyone who could possibly be interested in your album knows about it,” said Bill Werde, director of the Bandier Program for Recording and Entertainment Industries at Syracuse University. “I’m not sure anyone has ever covered that need the way Taylor did with this album cycle.”
Yet “The Life of a Showgirl” has not been greeted as enthusiastically as some of Swift’s earlier work.
Pitchfork said “her music’s never been less compelling,” while The Guardian called the album “dull razzle-dazzle from a star who seems frazzled.” Fans on TikTok have complained that Swift’s lyrics — which take up her romance with Kelce, the burdens of fame and an apparent beef with Charli XCX — are unusually shallow; some have even formulated a kind of tradwife critique of “Showgirl” in which Swift is seen as upholding regressive ideas about marriage and domesticity.
The album has also attracted criticism from people who say Swift’s songs recycle familiar elements from other pop tunes without giving credit: the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” in “Wood,” for instance, and the Jonas Brothers’ “Cool” in the LP’s closing title track.
“When every song is a derivative of another song, that’s an issue,” said one hit songwriter who asked not to be named in order to speak freely. “That one song is the Jonas Brothers song — the exact same melody. And here’s how lazy that is: It’s the same key and the same tempo.”
In Werde’s view, Swift’s place atop the pop hierarchy makes such carping inevitable. “Anytime an artist gets this big, there’s going to be backlash,” he said — a take with which Swift would likely agree.
“I welcome the chaos,” she said in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “The rule of show business is: If it’s the first week of my album release and you are saying either my name or my album title, you’re helping.”
Even so, the polarized reaction to “Showgirl” — Swift’s 15th album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — raises questions about the breadth of Swift’s popularity as compared to its depth. Should the album’s gargantuan numbers be taken as a sign that she appeals to a wide spectrum of pop music lovers or to a committed group of hardcore Swifties willing to spend untold amounts of money to demonstrate their loyalty?
“Showgirl’s” second-week stats should provide the beginnings of an answer, given that they won’t be shaped by one-time sales of all those limited-edition variants.
Then again, another unprecedented chart achievement from the album’s first week is already shedding some light on the matter: “The Fate of Ophelia,” the album’s lead single, is the first song ever to debut inside the top 10 of Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart — an indication of the heavy Top 40 radio play it’s getting along with the millions of daily streams that have kept it atop Spotify’s U.S. Top 50 tally since the song came out.
That’s one banger certified, with more perhaps to come.
For L.A.-based musician, composer and artist San Cha, the Spanish language is a creative gold mine. “One of my favorite Spanish words is ‘embriágame,’ which I think the direct translation is ‘make me drunk’ or ‘intoxicate me,’” she says. “I love that word. I think there’s a song by Thalía that has that word, it’s called ‘Piel Morena,’ and every time she said that, I’m like — ‘That’s it!’”
San Cha is speaking of her latest work, “Inebria me,” ahead of its Los Angeles premiere Thursday at REDCAT, inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. “Inebria me” is a 90-minute experimental opera that expands on her critically acclaimed 2019 ranchera fusion album, “La Luz de la Esperanza.” San Cha stars as Dolores, a humble bride to the much wealthier Salvador, whose jealousy turns deadly; enter Esperanza, a genderless spirit of empowerment, who helps light Dolores’ path to freedom.
Having gone from singing rancheras in the restaurants of Mexico City to experimenting in underground drag scenes in the Bay Area, San Cha has developed a knack for synthesizing disparate influences that result in visually arresting and thought-provoking work. Born Lizette Gutierrez in San Jose to Mexican immigrant parents, San Cha grew up offsetting her intense Bible study by binging on telenovelas after school. It shows in “Inebria me,” where she employs the classic narrative structure of the telenovela, but with a queer twist. “I wanted to hold [onto] the queerness of [the story] and the religious aspects of it,” she says.
The opera is the latest of San Cha’s collaborative efforts. She’s previously linked up with an array of artists — including La Doña, Rafa Esparza, Yesika Salgado and even country singer Kacey Musgraves, who featured San Cha in a pivotal moment from her 2021 visual album, “Star-Crossed.” Darian Donovan Thomas also stars in “Inebria me,” alongside Stefa Marin Alarcon, Lu Coy, Kyle Kidd, Carolina Oliveros and Phong Tran.
In our latest interview, she discusses developing her music for the stage and what it took to build the confidence to advocate for her original vision on her own.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
San Cha performs with Darian Donovan Thomas on Sept. 5 at the Winningstad Theatre in Portland, Ore.
(Jingzi Zhao)
When did the idea to adapt “La Luz de la Esperanza” come to you? It actually came to me in 2023 or 2024 when I partnered with the National Performance Network for this grant. I started talking with the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, which was already on board, and the Performance Space New York. Like, what would I do to adapt this work?
Did you have experience in traditional theater growing up? No, I didn’t. And I also didn’t watch too many movies. I missed out on a lot of those very American experiences. People would be like, “Do you know this movie?’ And “It’s like a classic,” and it’s like “No.” I was really sheltered, you know, “I’m over here in Bible study” kind of s—.
Has anyone in your family seen this piece? If so, what was their feedback? My parents saw a trial version of this piece in San Jose, my hometown. They saw the PG-13 version, which is what I’d like to say, and my mom was confused; I don’t even know how my dad felt. My mom’s one comment was, “You didn’t sing rancheras. Everyone wants you to sing rancheras.” And I was like, “Oh, my God.” So they also came to the closing night with a big group, and I sang the rancheras for them at the end.
How would you relate “Inebria me” to what’s considered a “traditional” opera? I would say it has a very clear narrative … everything is sung, except for the parts [where] the Man [is] talking or speaking.
I sing rancheras [and] that kind of blends into operas. I didn’t grow up being an opera singer, or wanting to be an opera singer, but somehow it developed in that direction. In this, we get to be all the things: a little hardcore, a little pop, a little mix with opera.
Where did the idea to bring in telenovelas come from? I wanted to make a telenovela set to music. And because I’d never seen a queer telenovela … I just was like, I want to make the telenovela and set it to disco music … something electronic, glamorous. It [speaks to] the illusion of glamour, underneath everything is ugly and twisted.
What was your first memory of watching a telenovela? There are so many. I’d watch the kid telenovelas. But there’s one in particular … it’s one where Lucero, a big pop star in Mexico, plays three versions of herself, so she’s a triplet. And there’s one [version] that is so evil. I still remember, [the characters] would get very BDSM … like locking people up! As a kid, I was feeling like … “Why am I watching this? I’m a child!”
“I didn’t grow up wanting to be an opera singer, but somehow it developed in that direction,” says San Cha of “Inebria me.”
(Jingzi Zhao)
You’ve talked about how drag queens were instrumental, especially early in your career. Queer and drag culture have come into mainstream pop and youth culture on the one hand, but remain demonized on the other. How do you reconcile those two extremes in your work? I guess visibility doesn’t always mean safety or acceptance. I remember being in San Francisco and seeing drag that wasn’t as polished and more on the fringe side of it.
I was … kind of hating it when I got to L.A. and how polished everyone was. But when I saw “RuPaul’s Drag Race” reruns on VH1, I was like, “This is literally life-changing.” And how cool that this is becoming mainstream!
In a previous interview, you discussed sin and guilt as the themes of this work. Many artists have explored this theme in various ways across different cultures and times. Why do you think ideas around guilt and sin hold such power over us? You’re made to do what you don’t want to do by [people] making you feel shame for the ways you act. And in [“Inebria me”], the sisters each have a confession, and I wanted to make that a focal point — with the nun, the religious person.
In telenovelas, there’s always a priest [they] talk to when they have troubles, you know? And I think in the [Catholic practice of] confession, it is important to relieve yourself of the shame and guilt. But it’s almost like you relieve yourself and then you feel shame, you know? And that’s the part that stops growth, evolution and freedom.
For someone whose first impression of “Inebria me” is that it’s not for them, what do you think they would be surprised to discover or an element they would enjoy? Everyone in this piece is a star, everyone’s a diva. I think they all really shine on their own, and they really bring it with the acting. Their voices are all incredible, and their stage presence. Maybe they could be into the scene design by Anthony Robles — it’s super minimal, but it does so much for the space in creating this oppressive world. I think there is something for everyone. It’s a story that can relate to a lot of people.
More than two decades after their peak, the music of Yellowcard is a pop punk message in a bottle. The note that washed ashore from a simpler time describes the image of a young, sharply-dressed band full of aspirations, thrashing on their instruments — violin included — in the echoey tomb of an underground parking garage in the music video for “Ocean Avenue” as the chorus kicks into overdrive.
“If I could find you now, things would get better, we could leave this town and run forever, let your waves crash down on me and take me away,” frontman Ryan Key sang ecstatically at the top of his lungs.
That hit song, the title track of 2003’s “Ocean Avenue,” created a tidal wave of success that changed the course of their career from struggling artists to a world-touring headliner and darlings of MTV’s Total Request Live.
“The first time it happened, we were really young,” Key said, gingerly grasping a spoon with his heavily tattooed hand while stirring a cup of hot tea. “We were quite literally a garage band one minute, and then we were playing on the MTV Video Music Awards and David Letterman and whatever else the next minute.”
It’s a moment that hasn’t escaped his memory 22 years later. Now, he and his bandmates — violinist Sean Mackin, bassist Josh Portman and guitarist Ryan Mendez — are far from the ocean but not too far from water as they look out at a sparkling pool from the window from a suite at the Yaamava’ Resort and Casino in Highland. A couple hours from now, the band will play a splashy pool party gig for 98.7 ALT FM. The set will include a raft of all the old hits, including “Ocean Avenue” of course, as well as their first new songs in almost a decade.
Before the release of the first singles for the new album, “Better Days,” it might’ve been easy to write off their 11th album as another release destined to be overshadowed by their early catalog. However, with the right amount of internal inspiration and outside help from Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, who produced and played all the drums on the album, the result was a batch of new songs that haven’t simply been washed out to sea. Quite the opposite, actually.
Prior to the album’s release, the title track “Better Days” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart. This achievement came after a 22-year wait since their first appearance on the chart with the “Ocean Avenue” single “Way Away.” Key also notes that it’s the first time fans are using the band’s new music for their TikTok videos instead of “Ocean Avenue.”
“That’s crazy,” Key said. “Everyone is using ‘Better Days.’ I don’t think we’re alone in that. I think for bands in our scene, new music is getting a lot of love and a lot of attention again, and it’s amazing to see.”
It’s been about three years since the band reemerged to play a reunion set at RiotFest in Chicago, following their 2017 farewell show at the House of Blues in Anaheim. At the point they were ready to call it quits, the band was struggling to sell enough tickets to their shows to keep the dream alive. For Mackin, fatherhood forced him to also consider his family’s financial stability, prompting him to enter the corporate workforce as a sales rep and eventually becoming a service director for Toyota. At one point, he was responsible for managing 120 employees. “I just thought that was going to be what I was going to do to take care of my family for the next 20 years,” Mackin said.
After Yellowcard’s hiatus, Key continued playing music in several projects that distanced themselves from the pop punk sound — including recording solo work under his full name William Ryan Key, touring with bassist Portman at his side. Key also produced a post-rock electronic-heavy project called Jedha with Mendez, and the pair also does a lot of TV and film scoring work. For a long time, Key and his bandmates mourned the loss of what they had with Yellowcard. It was the most important thing in Key’s life, though he said he didn’t realize how much the band truly shaped him until it was over.
During their hiatus, band members took day jobs. One member managed 120 Toyota employees before the 2022 Riot Fest reunion reignited their passion.
(Joe Brady)
“Ungrateful is not the word to use about how I felt back then. It’s more like I didn’t have the tools to appreciate it, to feel gratitude and really let things happen and and stay in the moment and stay focused. Because I was so young, I was so insecure about my place, my role in all of it,” Key said.
But after some time away, the raucous 2022 Riot Fest reunion show relit the band’s fire in a way they hadn’t expected. They followed up with a 2023 EP “Childhood Eyes” that pushed the band to take things further with a new full album. Along with these plans came the stunning news that Barker would sign on to produce and play drums for them on the project. For a band that grew up idolizing Blink 182 and Barker specifically as the band’s red-hot engine behind the kit who spent the last 20 years evolving into a music mogul, it was a surreal experience.
“We look at him like a general. It was never lost that the best drummer of our generation is playing drums with us,” Mackin said. “We know him as Travis now, but man, this guy is just oozing talent — he’s doing all these amazing things and he doesn’t seem overrun by it, not distracted one bit. While we were recording, he was right there with us.”
Key says he was initially intimidated singing in front of Barker in the studio and had a few moments where negative, self-conscious thoughts were getting the better of him in the vocal booth during recording. Instead of getting annoyed, he says Barker helped ease his anxiety with a few simple words.
“Travis came into the booth, closed the door, put his hand on my shoulder, and he said, ‘You’re gonna do this as many times as you need to do it. I’m gonna be here the whole time.’” Barker was truly speaking from experience. He told Key at the time that he’d just recorded 87 rough takes of his parts on “Lonely Road,” his hit song with Jelly Roll and MGK. “That was a real crossroads for me,” Key said.
The aspect of the album that feels most akin to “Ocean Avenue” was that Barker never really allowed them to overthink anything when it came to songwriting, a skill the band had unwittingly mastered as kids back in the “Ocean Avenue” days by writing songs on the fly in the studio with little time to care about how a song might end up before they recorded it.
“There’s something about the way we did this record with Travis, where we would walk in and did it in a way we haven’t done in 20 plus years with him saying ‘We’re gonna write and record a song today,’” Key said. “ It was a return to that style of songwriting where you have to kind of get out of your comfort zone and just throw and go.”
The final product moves swiftly over 10 songs, the track list starts with a flurry of energy from the bombastic opening drums of “Better Days” that propel a song on inner reflection on the past. It moves on to the high-energy heartbreak of “Love Letters,” featuring Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio. Avril Lavigne lends her soaring vocals to the unrequited love song “You Broke Me Too.” Songs like “City of Angels” and “Bedroom Posters” track episodes in Key’s life where his band’s hiatus took a negative toll on his outlook on life but also about looking for a way back to rediscovering himself. The album wraps with the acoustic lullaby “Big Blue Eyes,” which Keys wrote as a tribute to his son.
Though the songs on “Better Days” frequently wrestle with self-doubt and uncertainty, the response from fans has been surprisingly supportive, Key said.
“I cannot recall seeing this level of overwhelming positive feedback. People are just flipping out over these songs,” the frontman said. “The recording was such a whirlwind. When I listen to it, it’s still kind of like ‘When did I write that song?’ It happened so fast, and we made the record so fast, but I’m glad we just did it.” Despite the success, Key is hesitant to label the band comeback kids, “probably because we are officially passed kids label,” he said.
“Maybe it’s the return of the gentlemen?” Mackin joked.
Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker produced the album, helping the band recapture the spontaneous energy that defined their 2003 breakthrough “Ocean Avenue.”
(Joe Brady)
Whatever they call themselves, coming back to the band after so many years of different experiences has made Yellowcard’s second shot at a career feel all the more rewarding.
“Because you feel like you know you’re capable of something other than being in this band, capable of connecting with your family in a way that you couldn’t when you were on the road all the time,” Mackin said. “There’s things that happened in that break that set us up for success as human beings, not just as creative people.”
For Key, it’s about taking all the lessons they’ve learned as a band and applying them to their future, realizing that the album’s title refers not just to the past behind them, but what lies ahead.
“This record needed to be the ultimate revival, the ultimate redemption song for our band,” Key said. “And so far it’s, it’s proven to be that.”
A Grammy Award for best new artist. Four top 10 hits since September 2024. Sold-out gigs packed with admirers in pink cowgirl hats wherever she goes.
At 27, Chappell Roan has unquestionably become one of pop’s new queens. But let it never be said that this powerhouse singer and songwriter rules without mercy.
As her band vamped on the intro to her song “Hot to Go!” on Friday night, Roan surveyed the tens of thousands spread across the leafy grounds surrounding the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
“We’re gonna teach you a dance,” she said, though few in the audience probably needed the lesson at this point in Roan’s ascent. For more than a year, social media has been awash in video clips of Roan’s fans doing a “Y.M.C.A.”-like routine in time to the frenzied chorus of “Hot to Go!”
But wait a minute: “There’s a dad in the crowd that’s not doing it,” Roan reported with practiced disbelief. The band stopped playing. “There’s a dad that’s not doing it,” she repeated — less incredulous than reproving now.
“But he looks really, really nice, so I’m not gonna do anything about it.”
Roan’s show Friday was the first of two in Pasadena to wrap a brief U.S. tour.
(Brian Feinzimer/For The Times)
Friday’s show, which Roan said was the biggest headlining date she’d ever played, was the first of two at Brookside at the Rose Bowl to conclude a brief run of U.S. concerts she’s calling Visions of Damsels & Other Dangerous Things. The performances in New York, Kansas City and Pasadena can be seen as something of a victory lap after the slow-building success of her 2023 debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” which beyond “Hot to Go!” has spun off numerous other hits including “My Kink Is Karma” and the inescapable “Pink Pony Club.”
That last song, which has more than a billion streams on Spotify and YouTube, documents a young queer woman’s sexual awakening at a West Hollywood gay club; Roan’s music sets thoughts of pleasure, heartache and self-discovery against a gloriously theatrical blend of synth-pop, disco, glam rock and old-fashioned torch balladry.
Having spent this past summer on the European festival circuit, she’s said that Visions of Damsels represents “the chance to do something special before going away to write the next album”; the mini-tour also keeps her in the conversation as nominations are being decided for next year’s Grammys, where she’s likely to vie for record and song of the year with “The Subway,” one of a handful of singles she’s released since “Midwest Princess.”
Yet as clearly as it showcased her natural star quality — the stage was designed like a gothic castle with various staircases for Roan to descend dramatically — this was really a demonstration of the intimate bond she’s forged with her fans, many of whom came to the show dressed in one of the singer’s signature looks: harlequin, majorette, prom queen, construction worker.
An hour or so into her 90-minute set, Roan sat in a giant throne with a toy creature she called her tour pet and recalled her move to Los Angeles nearly a decade ago from small-town Missouri.
“I had a really, really tough time the first five years,” she said, adding that she’d lived in Altadena when she first arrived. (In a bit of now-infamous Chappell Roan lore, she was dropped by Atlantic Records in 2020 after the label decided “Pink Pony Club” was not a hit.) She talked about how much she loves this city — “F— ICE forever,” she said at one point to huge applause — but bemoaned the “weird professionalism” she can feel when she’s onstage in L.A.
“I know there’s a lot of people in the music and film industry here, and I don’t want you to think about that,” she said. “Don’t f—ing talk about it. Don’t talk about work here. I just want you to feel like you did when you were a kid — when you were 13 and free.” She laughed.
“I’m just gonna shut up — I’m so dumb,” she said. Then she sang the lovelorn “Coffee” like someone confessing her greatest fear.
Roan said Friday’s show was the biggest headlining date she’d ever played.
(Brian Feinzimer/For The Times)
Though the castle set was impressively detailed, Roan’s production was relatively low-key by modern pop standards; she had no dancers and no special guests and wore just one costume that she kept removing pieces from to end up in a kind of two-piece dragon-skin bikini.
But that’s because at a Chappell Roan show, Chappell Roan is the show: a fearsomely talented purveyor of feeling and attitude whose campy sense of humor only heightens the exquisite melancholy of her music.
Her singing was immaculate yet hot-blooded, bolstered by a killer band that remade songs like “Good Luck, Babe!” and “Red Wine Supernova” as slashing ’80s-style rock; Roan covered Heart’s “Barracuda” with enough strutting imperiousness to compete with Nancy Wilson’s iconic guitar riff.
“The Giver” was a stomping glitter-country hoedown, “Naked in Manhattan” a naughty electro-pop romp. For “Picture You,” which is about longing to know a lover’s secrets, Roan serenaded a blond wig plopped atop a mic stand — a bit of absurdist theater she played completely straight.
The heart of the concert was the stunning one-two punch of “Casual” into “The Subway,” Roan’s most grandly emotional ballads, in which her voice soared with what seemed like total effortlessness.
After that is when the singer noticed that kindly dad shirking his duties in “Hot to Go!” Maybe the poor guy was just too dazzled to take part.
Tuesday, Oct. 14, would have been the 32nd birthday of Charlie Kirk, the right-wing political influencer murdered last summer. It is a birthday shared by George Floyd, Jr., asphyxiated by arresting police in 2020 and who would have been 52. The horror of these tragedies has roiled a divisive society, but must they now demand a political battleground of opposing memorials?/
The concept of a civic memorial has long and often been, in Western culture, the privilege of classical music. Music may be permitted to speak not of specifics but the essence of grief, a collective cherishing of existence.
There happens to be another anniversary, Tuesday, to acknowledge. Leonard Bernstein, a great gatherer of differences in his music, died Oct. 14, 1990, at 72. And all around us, as we approach the 35th anniversary of his death, are reminders of Bernstein as the megastar memorializer of the 35th president of the United States, and what those tributes to John F. Kennedy might mean for us today.
The must-see Los Angeles Opera production of “West Side Story,” which closes Sunday, is by Francesca Zambello, who heads Washington National Opera at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and where she is slated to mount her production of Bernstein’s classic musical in May. Saturday night at the Soraya in Northridge, Martha Graham Dance Company gave the world premiere of “En Masse,” which is based on Bernstein’s “MASS,” written to open the Kennedy Center, where “En Masse,” too, is headed in the spring.
Along with all that, Gustavo Dudamel caps his three fall weeks leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic this weekend with four performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Bernstein chose this epic score, known as the “Resurrection,” to memorialize Kennedy two days after his assassination in 1963. A large New York Philharmonic, vocal soloists and chorus assembled on a CBS sound stage for a live national television broadcast.
It was a Sunday and untold millions (there were no Nielsen ratings) gathered in their homes to watch a somber Bernstein begin Mahler’s symphony with gut-wrenching intensity and end it with an overwhelming sense of triumph 90 minutes later. As a legendary act of national healing, the broadcast riveted a shocked nation.
It still does. The following year, Bernstein channeled that Kennedy spirit into a famous performance of Mahler’s symphony at London’s Ely Cathedral that was televised in Britain and released on commercial video. It is that Mahler Second performance that Bradley Cooper chose as the musical centerpiece of his Bernstein 2023 biopic, “Maestro.”
Bernstein further memorialized JFK in the dedication of his Third Symphony, “Kaddish.” And then there was the Kennedy Center opening in 1971, with Bernstein doing the shocking. At the time and for the occasion, “MASS” seemed a bizarre mashup of pop, schlock, jazz, 12-tone, electronics, grand symphonic utterances, hippie currency, mysticism, traditional Catholic Mass, Jewish Sabbath service, anti-Mass climaxing with a psychotic and psychedelic breakdown of Mass’ celebrant and Vietnam War protest.
The general reaction to “MASS” was that of appall, no matter whether you worshipped Bernstein or couldn’t bear him, whatever your political or cultural orientation. President Nixon — who as vice president in the 1950s had attended a Bernstein festival of American music at the Hollywood Bowl and had accompanied Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic on a cultural tour to South America — stayed home.
In fact, “MASS,” after years of puzzled neglect, ultimately came to be heralded as a Bernstein masterpiece, a work that freed contemporary music of genre-fication. It gives permission not for anything goes but for anything goes together if you can find the right context. A slow awareness of the score’s genius has empowered a new generation, such as the conductor and composer Christopher Rountree, who made the new arrangement of parts of “MASS” for his genre-breaking orchestra, Wild Up.
The Graham company based “En Messe” on a flimsy premise, the discovery of a page or two of sketches that Bernstein made for a proposed score he meant to write for Graham in 1988. The discovery is minor. Bernstein and Graham knew and admired each other, but she was a footnote in his career.
In the end, Rountree wrote a short series on variations on two themes he extracted from the sketches that serve as an epilogue to the “MASS” suite. The themes are hard to discern and don’t matter. Rather, Rountree makes a gripping case in his variations for a way forward from Bernsteiniana to today.
The intent of “En Messe” was meant to cap a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Graham company, the oldest dance company in America. Graham 100 began a year ago with a revival of “Appalachian Spring,” Graham’s most famous piece, which also gave us Aaron Copland’s iconic score (the popularity of which was greatly helped by Bernstein’s recording).
The company has also revived another of Graham’s most important (and severe) dances, “Night Journey,” based around the last moments of the life of Jocasta (the mother of Oedipus in the Greek tragedy). The revival with Anne Souder as an imposing Jocasta, Lloyd Knight, an enthralling Oedipus, and Ethan Palma, a haunted Tiresias (the seer), retained all the work’s stunning power. William Schuman’s mostly forgotten score received a revelatory performance by Rountree and Wild Up.
“En Messe,” itself, did not serve its purpose to cap a centennial closer to the work of a seminal choreographer. It accomplished something more important by heralding a path forward. The company can’t live forever reviving Graham’s work or doing showy new dances such as “We the People” (also on the program).
Instead, Hope Boykin’s choreography added a dark intensity to Bernstein’s brightness. The stage was dim. Each dance featured a soloist in seeming personal meditation with the music, its rhythms and its spirit, and with the company’s other dancers, who appear ghostly figures in the misty distance.
Movement didn’t match music but brought you into it, while the music seemed to demand movement. It began with the score’s hit, “A Simple Song,” Bernstein at his most tuneful, even saccharine. Jodie Landau didn’t buy into its surface simplicity but sang with a fresh, cool, contemporary edge that immediately told you we were headed into unknown territory. Every discovery that followed proved her right on.
“En Messe” will tour the country and beyond over the next year with, unfortunately, a recording of Wild Up, not live performance. If the company gets over its overamplification, which cheapens everything it presents, that need not disastrously lessen the impact.
Will “En Messe,” or “West Side Story,” actually reach the Kennedy Center, which the federal government is attempting to turn it into who-knows-what, this spring? Both Bernstein works are exactly what the new overseers say they want — more populist art, inspirational attempts to make American art great. But they are also works that make us look inside ourselves, discover what matters beyond self-interest. That’s become a hard sell.
Taylor Swift is “shockingly” offended by the idea that “The Life of a Showgirl” could be — given her recent engagement to Travis Kelce — her final album.
“It is not the last album. That’s not why people get married,” the singer told BBC Radio 2 on Monday.
“They love to panic sometimes,” she said, talking about conspiracy theorists in the Swifty-verse, “but it’s like, I love the person I am with because he loves what I do and he loves how much I am fulfilled by making art and making music.”
Rumors started to make their rounds after the couple announced their engagement in August through a joint Instagram post. Fans speculated that after she said “I do,” she would have children and move on from music — or so BBC host Scott Mills had informed his guest.
Wait, mothers can’t have careers? Swift called that a “shockingly offensive thing to say.”
Weeks earlier, the Grammy-winning singer announced the impending arrival of her 12th album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” on her now-fiancé’s podcast hosted along with brother Jason Kelce. Since the release last week, the rumors grew louder and louder, with some fans predicting this album would be it for the pop artist.
To which Swift pushed back:
“That’s the coolest thing about Travis, he is so passionate about what he does that me being passionate about what I do, it connects us,” Swift said.
Their passions in life aren’t so different, according to the singer.
“We both, as a living, as a job, as a passion, perform for 3½ hours in NFL stadiums,” the showgirl said. “We both do 3½-hour shows to entertain people.”
When she’s touring, she gets a dressing room, Swift said, but when he’s playing in the same space, they call it a locker room.
“It’s a very similar thing and we’re both competitive in fun ways, not in ways that eat away at us,” she added.
Over the weekend, while Kelce prepared for the Kansas City Chiefs’ “Monday Night Football” game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the future Mrs. Tight End released “Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl” in theaters. The experience earned $33 million over the weekend, topping the box office, according to Box Office Mojo.
The music video for the album’s opening track, “The Fate of Ophelia,” premiered along with the release-party movie. Swift wrote and directed it.
“[The music video] is very, like, big and glitzy and it’s so fun and it’s supposed to be like the day in the life of a showgirl,” she said.
Multitasking has become a norm for the “Cruel Summer” singer, who juggled her last tour with the recording of the album.
Swift said she flew to Sweden on multiple occasions during the Eras Tour to record the album. Her loyal inner circle did not leak any information.
“My friends don’t rat, they do not rat and you can tell by the amount of stories about me that are out there that are absolutely not true,” she said.
OK, Swifties, you can breathe now. You can stop looking for clues into whether this is it for Tay-tay’s music career. Shake it off until her next release.
The famed hip-hop mogul told the court that his actions were ‘disgusting’ and ‘shameful’ in a plea for leniency.
Published On 3 Oct 20253 Oct 2025
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Musician and producer Sean “Diddy” Combs has been sentenced to four years and two months in prison for transporting people across state lines for sexual encounters.
His sentencing hearing on Friday capped a federal case that featured harrowing testimony and ended in a forceful reckoning for one of the most popular figures in hip-hop. Combs, 55, was also fined half a million dollars.
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Since Combs has served a year in jail already, he is expected to be released in about three years. His lawyers wanted him freed immediately and said the time behind bars has already forced him to embrace remorse and sobriety.
He was convicted in July of flying his girlfriends and male sex workers around the country to engage in drug-fuelled sexual encounters, a practice that happened over many years and in different locations. However, he was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering charges that could have put him behind bars for life.
“Why did it happen so long?” US District Judge Arun Subramanian asked as he handed down the sentence. “Because you had the power and the resources to keep it going, and because you weren’t caught.”
Combs showed no visible change of emotion as he learned his sentence, sitting in his chair and looking straight ahead as the judge spoke. He remained subdued afterwards and appeared dejected, with none of the enthusiasm and smiles that accompanied his interactions with lawyers and his family earlier in the day.
In a final word before sentencing, Combs told the judge his years of behaviour were “disgusting, shameful” and apologised to the people he had hurt physically and mentally. He said his acts of domestic violence were a burden he would have to carry for the rest of his life.
His defence lawyers played an 11-minute video in court portraying Combs’ family life, career and philanthropy. At one point during the video, Combs put a hand on his face and began to cry.
His nearly two-month trial in a federal court in Manhattan featured testimony from women who said Combs had beaten, threatened, sexually assaulted and blackmailed them. Prosecutor Christy Slavik told the judge that sparing Combs serious prison time would excuse years of violence.
“It’s a case about a man who did horrible things to real people to satisfy his own sexual gratification,” she said. “He didn’t need the money. His currency was control.”
Combs was convicted under the Mann Act, which bans transporting people across state lines for prostitution. Defence lawyer Jason Driscoll argued the law was misapplied.
During testimony at the trial, former girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura told jurors that Combs ordered her to have “disgusting” sex with strangers hundreds of times during their decade-long relationship. Jurors saw video of him dragging and beating her in a Los Angeles hotel hallway.
Another woman, identified as “Jane”, testified she was pressured into sex with male workers during drug-fuelled “hotel nights” while Combs watched and sometimes filmed.
The only accuser scheduled to speak Friday, a former assistant known as “Mia”, withdrew after defence objections. She has accused Combs of raping her in 2010 and asked the judge for a sentence that reflects “the ongoing danger my abuser poses”.
OZZY Osbourne joked that his final days may have been agonising but “at least I wasn’t Sting”.
The Black Sabbath rocker made the dig in his new documentary, set to be released nearly three months after he died aged 76 in July.
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The new Ozzy Osbourne documentary will show his battle with his health before his deathCredit: PA
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Ozzy said that despite his health battle, he was grateful for being able to perform until he was 70Credit: Ross Halfin
Throughout their careers, Ozzy and The Police’s Sting, 74, were embroiled in a war of words.
During the filming of his hit reality series The Osbourne’s, Ozzy was filmed making a number of insults about the singer.
And at the Grammys in 2003, Sting asked to speak to Ozzy’s daughter, Kelly, to patch things up.
At the time, wife Sharon said: “We all bumped into each other on the red carpet and we all said how ridiculous it was and how words can hurt so many people.
READ MORE ON OZZY OSBOURNE
“We’re all adults and all apologised and it was great.”
In the new doc, Ozzy speaks about his health, including battling sepsis and cracked vertebrae.
He said: “I am really f***ed up with this body of mine and as soon as I want to do anything.
“I went to the doctor and there’s a blood clot. My leg is about to fall off.
“But I can’t complain. I was actually rocking until I was 70 and then a trap door opened.
“I didn’t think I was going to live past 40.
Ozzy Osbourne’s cause of death revealed as Black Sabbath legend is given brilliant job title on official certificate
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Ozzy took one last dig at long time music rival Sting, during the documentaryCredit: Getty
“But if my life’s coming to an end, I really can’t complain, I’ve had a great life.
“But, hey, it could have been worse. I could be Sting.”
Despite being in pain, he travelled from LA for his final show on July 5 at Aston Villa’s stadium, in Birmingham.
Ozzy said: “The problem now is getting to England. But I’ve got to be there.
I used to take pills for fun. Now I take them to stay alive
“As I am getting on, it’s worse. It’s crippling me. I can’t walk, I can’t bend down. I’ll be sitting in a chair.”
“That’s the thing about getting older, I used to take pills for fun. Now I take them to stay alive.”
In a separate documentary for the BBC, called Ozzy Osbourne: Coming Home, the rocker posed with Sharon and his dogs.
He said: “LA is one thing but the English summer is fantastic.
“It’s a new thing for us both. I’m looking forward to getting this gig over, hanging my mic up and spending some time with you.”
Sharon added: “I just want to live a life. Find a little bubble somewhere and just live out our life together.”
Ozzy died on July 22, just weeks after his farewell gig.
Ozzy Osbourne: No Escape From Now, will be released on Paramount+ on October 7.
Showgirl breaks Spotify records as Taylor Swift’s most pre-saved album, highlighting her enduring popularity.
Published On 3 Oct 20253 Oct 2025
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Taylor Swift has dropped her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, and already, it is the most pre-saved album ever on the Spotify streaming platform.
Showgirl even broke the record set last year by none other than Swift’s last album, The Tortured Poets Department.
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The 35-year-old artist reunited with Swedish hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback for her hotly anticipated collection of bouncy pop songs.
“Tonight all these lives converge here, the mosaics of laughter and cocktails of tears … I can’t tell you how proud I am to share this with you, an album that just feels so right,” Swift posted on Instagram after the album’s release, along with photos of her in showgirl outfits.
The megastar described the album as a “self-portrait” and thanked Martin and Shellback, adding: “If you thought the big show was wild, perhaps you should come and take a look behind the curtain,” referring to her record-shattering Eras Tour.
The 12 tracks reveal a lighter, happier Swift – in love with her NFL Super Bowl champion fiance, Travis Kelce, and happy to have bought back her music catalogue.
Ahead of release, Swift said the new album “comes from the most infectiously joyful, wild, dramatic place I was in in my life”.
Fans will be combing through the lyrics and liner notes for “Easter eggs” – coded words and phrases that could reveal things about Swift’s life or future projects.
That’s one way to understand Taylor Swift’s new album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” on which music’s biggest star offers up a dozen precision-cut pop songs just 18 months removed from last year’s sprawling and emotionally unstable “The Tortured Poets Department.”
That earlier LP, which contained 16 tracks before Swift expanded it with 15 more, was perhaps the most divisive of the singer’s two-decade-long career; it racked up bonkers sales and streaming numbers, of course — at this point, she’s truly too big to fail — but its mixed reception among tastemakers and even some fans seemed to rattle Swift, who for all her alertness to the brutality of being a woman in the public eye has become accustomed to a certain level of idolatry.
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So here’s “Showgirl,” her 12th studio LP, for which she stepped away from her longtime creative partner Jack Antonoff to reteam with Max Martin and Shellback, the two hit-making Swedish producer-songwriters who helped her transition cleanly from country to pop in the mid-2010s with blockbuster albums like “Red” and “1989.” Swift has said she made the new album while roaming around Europe in the summer of 2024 on her record-obliterating Eras tour, which explains the title even as it begs all sorts of questions about her psychotic work ethic.
And let’s be clear: These three can craft a hook as neatly and as skillfully — as deviously, really — as anyone in the business. In contrast with the bleary “Tortured Poets,” which yielded only one pop-radio monster in the Hot 100-topping “Fortnight,” “Showgirl” is likely to spin off several, not least the album’s lead single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” which rides an irresistible new wave groove that evokes the veteran hookmeisters of Eurythmics. (Look ’em up, kids.)
As a piece of psychological portraiture, though — the framework, for better or for worse, by which Swift has trained us to interpret her music — this collection of expertly tailored bops falls well short of its predecessor; “Showgirl” feels like a retreat from the vivid bloodletting of “Tortured Poets,” which captured a woman whose one-of-one success had emboldened her to speak certain toxic truths.
Is that because she’s ended up in a healthy romantic relationship with Travis Kelce, the NFL star whom she’s engaged to marry? One hates to indulge hoary ideas about happiness being bad for songwriters. Yet there’s no denying that Swift’s lyrics about love here lack the kind of depth she’s mined in tunes thought to have been inspired by the dastardly likes of John Mayer and Matty Healy.
“Please, God, bring me a best friend who I think is hot,” she sings, somehow, in the electro-trappy “Wish List,” which recounts all the hoping and dreaming she did before she finally met Mr. Right; “Wood,” a kind of kiddie-disco number that sounds like Martin was aiming it for the “Trolls” movie franchise, exults in the erotic thrill of a guy brandishing “new heights of manhood.” (In case you missed it, I’m sorry to say that’s a reference to Kelce’s podcast, on which Swift recently appeared and dropped a bar about her fiancé — “He may not have read ‘Hamlet,’ but I explained it to him” — that she really should have saved for “The Fate of Ophelia.”)
Elsewhere, she makes familiar complaints about the punishing experience of celebrity, as in “Elizabeth Taylor” — “Oftentimes, it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me” — and “Cancelled!,” which feels like a goth-Nirvana redo of “Look What You Made Me Do,” from 2017’s genuinely startling “Reputation.”
And then there’s the acidic “Actually Romantic,” which seems to be a response to Charli XCX’s “Sympathy Is a Knife,” in which Charli expressed her anxieties about being compared to Taylor in a zero-sum pop scene; Swift gets off some funny lines about chihuahuas and cocaine but totally forgoes the sense of empathy that made her such an icon to every pop songwriter who’s come up behind her.
What’s good on “Showgirl”? “Opalite” is a gorgeous soft-rock tune about overcoming old instincts — “I had a bad habit of missing lovers past / My brother used to call it ‘eating out of the trash’” — while “Ruin the Friendship” looks back at a shoulda-woulda high-school dalliance with the pin-prick precision that Swift has always mustered when writing about her adolescence. Both songs ride coolly laidback Fleetwood Mac-style grooves that feel new for Martin and Shellback, who throughout the album rely more than you’d expect on live instrumentation. (Hang with “Wish List,” if you can, for a killer bass line that shows up in the second verse.)
Swift sings more than once about legacy and inheritance on this album: “Father Figure,” which interpolates George Michael’s late-’80s classic of the same name, is narrated by a mentor who’s betrayed by his protégé; the Broadway-ish title track, which closes the album with a feature from Sabrina Carpenter, tracks the aspirations of a showbiz hopeful from fresh-faced naivete to all-knowing cynicism.
Maybe those songs are Swift’s way of telling us that she knows “The Life of a Showgirl” isn’t as sharp as it could’ve been. We’ll see if it’s as tidy as it needed to be.
Barpeta/Guwahati, Assam, India– For more than 15 years, truck driver Imam Hussain found solace in singer Zubeen Garg’s voice and music as he drove his vehicle on quiet and lonely nights along the Himalayan hills and plains of the northeastern Indian state of Assam.
It was a period in which Bengali-speaking Muslims – the community 42-year-old Hussein belongs to – increasingly came under attack in Assam. They’ve been accused of being outsiders – even infiltrators – in their own home.
Amid soaring Hindu-Muslim tensions, the music of Garg – a Hindu – served as a rare unifier. “His music was my inner peace,” said Hussain.
Hussain says Garg’s songs gave him inner peace amid communal divide in Assam [Arshad Ahmed/Al Jazeera]
On September 19, Garg died by drowning near Lazarus Island in Singapore, where he was scheduled to perform at the Northeast India Festival, an event that celebrates the art and culture of the Indian region.
The sudden death of the 52-year-old artist, who enjoyed a cult-like status among millions of his fans in and outside Assam, triggered a massive outpouring of grief that further cemented his stature as a public figure whose appeal spanned divisions that have otherwise fractured the state. The singer’s wife, Garima Saikia Garg, issued a statement, saying her husband “suffered a seizure attack” while swimming in the sea.
While Hussain was mourning Garg’s death, so was Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is accused by critics of fanning Hindu-Muslim divisions nationally and in Assam.
“He will be remembered for his rich contribution to music,” Modi said in a condolence message. “His renditions were very popular among people across all walks of life.”
Thousands gather to have a last glimpse of singer Zubeen Garg in Guwahati, Assam [Zakir Hussain/Al Jazeera]
Assam’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who belongs to Modi’s party, said the state “lost one of its favourite sons”.
“Zubeen’s voice had an unmatched ability to energise people, and his music spoke directly to our minds and souls. He has left a void that will never be filled,” Sarma said.
The Assam government declared four days of state mourning as Sarma flew to the capital, New Delhi, to receive Garg’s body when it returned from Singapore.
A polarised backdrop
Two days later, on September 21, tens of thousands of Garg’s fans gathered outside the main airport in Guwahati, Assam’s biggest city. They waited as state officials received Garg’s body after it landed.
Then, they marched behind a convoy carrying the body to a stadium some 30 kilometres (19 miles) away for public viewing, singing some of his most famous songs in unison. Some held his posters, while others walked teary-eyed with candles in their hands. After four days of state mourning, Garg was cremated on September 23 with full state honours and a 21-gun salute.
Those scenes of unity were a break from the religious and linguistic fractures that have deepened in Assam in recent years.
Grieving fans gather for the last rites of singer Zubeen Garg in Guwahati, Assam [Zakir Hussain/Al Jazeera]
The fault lines between the Indigenous Assamese-speaking and the mostly migrant Bengali-speaking communities in Assam aren’t new: They go back nearly two centuries, when the British brought large numbers of Bengali-speaking Hindus from Bengal to run the colonial bureaucracy, creating resentment among the Indigenous Assamese who feared the outsiders would take their jobs and occupy lands.
A second wave of migration of Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims to Assam started in 1947 with India’s independence and the formation of Pakistan, which included the territory that in 1971 declared itself the independent nation of Bangladesh. Millions of people migrated from Bangladesh to Assam in these years, triggering backlash from the Indigenous Assamese, which often turned violent.
Those ethnic and religious tensions continue to dominate Assam’s politics even today as suspicions over the identity and citizenship of mainly Bengali-speaking Muslims – pejoratively called “miya” – deepen, with thousands of them declared “Bangladeshi infiltrators” and many of them sent to detention camps or forced to cross over to Bangladesh by Indian security forces.
Garg was composing his music against this polarised backdrop, responding to the communal fissures with his verses and voice.
On many occasions, the singer described himself as an atheist and a “social leftist” as he distanced himself from the state’s mainstream parties, the centrist Congress and the right-wing BJP.
He was also a vocal critic of India’s deeply entrenched caste system.
In an undated video now viral after his death, a person on stage is seen teasing Garg for not wearing the sacred thread worn by other Brahmins, who sit at the top of Hinduism’s complex caste hierarchy.
Garg shot back, saying, “I am just a human. I have no caste, no religion, and no God.”
In another instance, Garg in 2018 encouraged famous female Assamese Olympian, Hima Das, to consume beef in order to “gain strength” to compete in international and national sports events. Many Hindus belonging to privileged castes revere the cow, and its slaughter and consumption are banned in several Indian states. It is unclear whether Das accepted Garg’s advice.
He was also at the forefront of a 2019 campaign against India’s controversial new citizenship law, which made religion a basis for expediting citizenship for immigrants from neighbouring nations, excluding Muslims. The law led to nationwide protests against Modi’s government, while the United Nations called it “fundamentally discriminatory” and urged a review.
Assamese social media creator Dr Medusssa told Al Jazeera that as anti-Muslim hate permeated Assamese society, Garg’s public positions stood out, turning him into an emblem of Hindu-Muslim harmony.
“It is precisely because of Zubeen’s persona of being inclusive, and how he represented marginalised communities through his songs, that his legacy is being claimed by all,” said Medusssa, who requested to be identified by her social media name.
“He refused to belong to any particular community. He was for all.”
For Akhil Ranjan Dutta, a political scientist at Gauhati University in Assam, the celebration of Garg by Modi and Sarma – despite the dissident artist’s opposition to Hindu majoritarianism – is partly due to the way the singer approached the politics of dissent.
“While he [Garg] would openly criticise the policies and the actions of the federal and state-level BJP governments, he would seldom attack BJP leaders [personally],” Dutta told Al Jazeera. “This makes it easier for the BJP to appropriate his legacy as not mourning him would otherwise put them under public scrutiny.”
Another political commentator who did not wish to be named – fearing reprisal from the government – was more blunt in his view of Garg’s ability to bridge political divisions.
While Garg was dismissive about the BJP as a political party, “he would not rattle their nerves by criticising their anti-Muslim policies or the attacks on Muslims very openly”, the commentator said. “That way, the Hindu nationalist party never feel too alienated by him.”
‘Artistic tour de force’
Born in 1972 to Assamese writer Mohini Mohan Borthakur and singer Ily Borhakur in Assam’s Jorhat town, Garg began singing at the age of three and was soon regarded as a child prodigy by his teachers. He moved to Guwahati to build his career as a singer and got his first major breakthrough in 1992 with the release of his debut Assamese album, Anamika.
It was the beginning of an illustrious career that saw Garg singing more than 38,000 songs in dozens of languages and dialects. He also sang several songs for Bollywood films, bursting into the national scene in 2006 with his Hindi hit, Ya Ali, for the film Gangster: A Love Story.
The next year, Garg won the national award for composing songs for the non-feature film, Echoes of Silence. Affectionately known as Zubeen Da among other sobriquets, he later ventured into acting and direction.
But more than Garg’s body of work, says Angshuman Choudhury, a joint doctoral candidate at the National University of Singapore and King’s College London, what made him a musical phenomenon was his refusal to conform to the archetype of a “tamed” and “cultured Assamese artist”.
The state’s popular culture, for the most part, according to Choudhury, was shaped until the 1990s by artists like musician Bhupen Hazarika and singer Janyata Hazarika, who “respected norms of social civility, never deviated from the script, and lacked the audacity to be that iconoclast that Garg was”.
“Garg, on the other hand, was an artistic tour de force in Assam. He disrupted and distorted the very image of a public performer and artist,” says Choudhury, whose doctoral research focuses on the ethnicity and politics of northeast India.
“He would use verbal expletives while on stage, sing under intoxication, and on many occasions, show overt defiance against established norms and culture.”
For instance, he once refused to perform at an event to mark Bihu – arguably Assam’s most important festival – after the organisers said that he could not sing in Hindi.
Prithiraj Borah, a sociologist from Assam who teaches at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research in Hyderabad, said that Garg’s art also touched deeper, emotional and philosophical questions.
“Zubeen’s songs did not merely entertain,” he told Al Jazeera. “They also addressed the depths of what it means to be human, to love, to suffer, and to find meaning in an often-absurd world.”
Borah cites Garg’s song, Pakhi Pakhi Ei Mon (My heart is like a feather), in which he explored themes of freedom and captivity.
“The feather becomes a metaphor for the human condition, caught between the desire for liberty and the reality of various constraints,” Borah said.
Accessible to all
Abrar Nadim, a health officer in Assam’s Barpeta district, says he has memorised most of Garg’s songs since he was four.
“His song, Aei Mayar Dhorat [In this world of earthly pleasures] brought me closure to spirituality,” said Nadim, 30, as he stood next to a garlanded poster of Garg, while wearing black in mourning.
“The song describes temporary happiness in this world where corrupt people enjoy even after committing acts of injustice, corruption, and oppression, but little remains in the end.”
Abrar Nadim is a Bengali-speaking Muslim and a die-hard Garg fan [Kazi Sharowar Hussain/Al Jazeera]
Maitrayee Patar, a prominent Assamese songwriter and poet, who had collaborated with the singer, including as recently as in 2023, said Garg, as an artist, “exuded a humanitarian side that was raw and relatable to all”.
“He disregarded political correctness and refused to align himself with majoritarian politics or any political parties, which made [him] come across as an artist loved by all,” Patar told Al Jazeera.
As clips from Garg’s songs and old interviews flood Assam’s social media, Hussain, the Bengali-Muslim truck driver in Guwahati, says his staunch rejection of hate politics and his humility in treating everyone as equal made him accessible to all.
Garg was Hindu. But after his death, students in madrasas – Islamic schools – were seen playing his songs, while Muslim leaders held prayers in his honour and recited the Quran before his photos – grieving practices not typically allowed by Islamic tenets.
“He [Garg] sang jikir – devotional folk songs sung by the Assamese-speaking Muslim community – to honour us,” Nadim said. “So there is nothing wrong if we pray for him by singing his songs.”
Back in Guwahati, truck driver Hussain recalled how Garg “never vilified” Bengali-speaking Muslims, as he wore a T-shirt bearing Garg’s photo.
Hussain hummed Garg’s iconic 2007 hit, Maya (Illusion) – a song in which the singer likens chasing a love interest to an illusion. The soothing melody, Hussein said, reminded him of the void left by the Garg’s death.
In Garg’s music, the idea of an Assam for Hindus and Muslims, Assamese speakers and Bengali speakers alike, was not an illusion.
The NFL announced the musical headliner for Super Bowl LX’s halftime show, and — much to MAGA’s chagrin — it’s not Kid Rock.
Music’s most lucrative spot went to a relevant artist who actually sells albums: Bad Bunny. Letting the Puerto Rican rapper and singer turned global megastar perform 2026’s halftime show gifts right-wing influencers with a fresh conduit for the old grievance that woke culture has permeated every crevice of American culture, especially the Super Bowl.
Their proof: The NFL chose a predominantly Spanish-language artist who is known to wear women’s dresses, who endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024, and who has decried this year’s immigration sweeps. Clearly, this decision was designed to irk them rather than serve Bad Bunny’s millions and millions of fans.
“The NFL is self-destructing year after year,” conservative commentator Benny Johnson wrote on X. He said of Bad Bunny: “Massive Trump hater. Anti-ICE activist. No songs in English.”
Other critics accused the reggaeton artist of flip-flopping, particularly following Bad Bunny’s statements earlier this month that he would not include any mainland U.S. dates on his Debí Tirar Más Fotos world tour out of concern that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents might target and detain his fans.
“There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the U.S., and none of them were out of hate — I’ve performed there many times,” he said to I-D magazine. “But there was the issue of — like, f—ing ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”
The artist, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, explained his decision to join the long list of Super Bowl halftime notables in a short statement following the NFL’s announcement Sunday.
“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” he said. “It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown … this is for my people, my culture and our history. Ve y dile a tu abuela, que seremos el HALFTIME SHOW DEL SUPER BOWL.”
Bad Bunny in glasses, not a dress.
(Jordan Strauss / Invision / AP)
The year-after-year decision to cast top-ranking pop artists and music legends in the featured Super Bowl halftime spot is hardly a mystery. They are stars that sell or performers that appeal to millions. But that dull reality hasn’t stopped the characterizations that the Bad Bunny decision is a deep state conspiracy, designed to rot American households from the inside out.
“Barack Obama’s best friend Jay-Z runs the Super Bowl selection process through his company Roc Nation which has an exclusive contract with the NFL. This is who chooses the halftime show, the most-watched musical performance in America,” wrote alt-right figure Jack Posobiec.
The NFL in 2019 partnered with rapper Jay Z’s entertainment and sports company, Roc Nation, to produce its Super Bowl halftime shows. The first show under the new partnership featured 2020’s Latin music in performances by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. Since then the institution’s halftime performances have largely featured hip-hop artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna and the OG trio of Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Eminem.
Lamar’s 2025 politically charged performance was the source of condemnation from the right. Clad in red, white and blue, his predominantly Black dance crew assembled in an American flag formation. And guest star Samuel L. Jackson, dressed as Uncle Sam, called out the nation’s systemic racism. Lamar had already rankled the right with 2017’s “The Heart Part 4,” where he referred to Trump as a “chump.”
Kendrick Lamar performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 59.
(Frank Franklin II / AP)
It’s one of many moments over the last decade that have galvanized conservative factions around calls to boycott the Super Bowl, or at least publicly bash the event. Beyoncé’s 2016 Super Bowl halftime show was once such flash point, where she performed “Formation” featuring dancers in Black Panther-inspired outfits and paid tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement.
At least those complaints were rooted in a performance that actually happened, as opposed to claims that the NFL was manipulating games for the Kansas City Chiefs to enable tight end Travis Kelce and his then-girlfriend (now fiancée) Taylor Swift to endorse Joe Biden. Sure, totally feasible.
Yet there should be no secret around why the Super Bowl hasn’t featured wildly popular, globally celebrated MAGA-promoting performers: There aren’t any. It’s no wonder Kid Rock and Lee Greenwood always seem to be the entertainment of choice for Trump rallies.
Bad Bunny is the most-streamed male artist on Spotify, running just behind the platform’s most-streamed artist of all time, Swift. As of Sunday, his release “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” became the first album of 2025 to surpass 7 billion streams on Spotify. And the 31-year-old artist just finished a sold-out, month-long residency at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Though the Super Bowl is still five months away, those who aren’t among the haters can enjoy an early kick off: Bad Bunny is scheduled to host the new season opener of “SNL” this weekend.
