song

GERMANY is pinning its Eurovision hopes on one of the country’s best-known entertainers.

Sarah Engels will fly the flag for the nation in the Grand Final with her empowerment anthem Fire.

Who is Germany’s Eurovision entrant Sarah Engels?

Sarah Engels, 33, is a German singer and TV personality of Italian descent who has been a household name in her homeland for more than a decade.

She first burst onto the scene in 2011 when she finished as runner-up on the eighth season of Deutschland sucht den Superstar (DSDS) – Germany’s equivalent of The X Factor.

Her debut single Call My Name reached number two in the German charts and earned her an Echo Award nomination.

Engels, who was previously known by her married name Sarah Lombardi, has carved out an incredibly successful career on German reality TV.

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She finished second on Let’s Dance – Germany’s answer to Strictly Come Dancing.

The multi-talented star went on to lift the trophy on Das große Promibacken – the German version of The Great Celebrity Bake Off – as well as The Masked Singer Germany and Dancing on Ice.

She also works as a presenter, actress and voice artist.

Since November 2025, Sarah has been playing the lead role of Satine in the Cologne production of hit musical Moulin Rouge!

In her personal life, Sarah married fellow DSDS star Pietro Lombardi – who won the show the same year she came second – in March 2013.

The couple welcomed son Alessio in 2015, but split a year later.

She later tied the knot with former footballer Julian Büscher in May 2021, with the groom taking her surname.

Their daughter Solea was born later that year.

What is her Eurovision song ‘Fire’ about?

On February 28, Sarah was crowned Germany’s Eurovision pick after winning the national final Berlin.

She pipped wavvyboi’s Black Glitter and Molly Sue’s Optimist (Ha Ha Ha), with 38.3% of the public vote.

Fire was written by Sarah alongside Dario Schürmann, Luisa Heinemann, Raphael Lott and Valentin Boes.

On the surface, it is a punchy synth-pop banger about a lying, two-faced ex.

In the lyrics, Sarah brands a former flame a “vampire” who only comes out at night, telling him to stop denying his deceit and saying: “Boy, I’m out of your league”.

But the song’s deeper message is one of empowerment, solidarity and self-determination.

These themes are close to Sarah’s heart thanks to her foundation Stiftung Starke Mädchen, or Strong Girls, which she set up to inspire young women.

Sarah said taking part in Eurovision was a chance to share her message, “which comes deep from my heart”.

She added: “My motto for Vienna is: I’m on fire. I truly have no fear at all – I’m just incredibly excited.”

As one of Eurovision’s Big Four, Germany has automatic qualification to Saturday’s Grand Final at Vienna’s Wiener Stadthalle.

The country has won the contest twice – in 1982 with Nicole’s Ein bißchen Frieden, and also in 2010 with Lena’s Satellite.

Clarence Carter, the blues and soul singer famous for songs including the raunchy hit “Strokin’” featured in Eddie Murphy’s “The Nutty Professor,” has died.

Fame Recording Studios in Carter’s native Alabama announced the singer-songwriter’s death Thursday morning. In a statement shared to Facebook, the studio said Carter “was more than an artist to us,” adding he “was family.” The post did not disclose additional details about Carter’s passing, including the cause of death. Carter was 90.

The Grammy-nominated musician, who was blind since age 1, was most popular in the late 1960s and early ’70s, with chart-busting hits including 1968’s romantic “Slip Away,” 1970’s “Patches” and the Christmas hit “Back Door Santa.” He released a steady stream of music through the ’90s — Carter released 22 studio albums over the course of his career — and earned two Grammy Award nominations.

Carter received his first nod in 1970 for composing ex-wife Candi Staton’s single “I’d Rather Be an Old Man’s Sweetheart,” which was nominated for the rhythm & blues song category. He received his own nomination in R&B vocal performance the following year for his story-driven “Patches,” about a young man fulfilling his father’s expectations.

Former Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn wrote in 1992: “Clarence Carter is one of the most overlooked soul stylists of the modern pop era.”

Among Carter’s musical talents was a knack for descriptive lyricism, which he channeled for unapologetically sexual songs “G Spot” and “Strokin’.” In these numbers, Carter spares no detail in his approach to lovemaking. “Strokin’,’” released in 1986, notably received play in 1996‘s “The Nutty Professor” as Murphy’s titular character drives over to a date.

Born in 1936 in Montgomery, Ala., Carter took an interest in music in his youth, enjoying the blues records his stepfather bought and learning to play the guitar. “I would lie in my bed and hear those bands playing and say to myself, ‘One of these days I’m going to play just like that,’” he told The Times in 1987.

He graduated from Alabama State College in 1960 with a bachelor’s in music and worked briefly as a schoolteacher before beginning his professional music career. Carter formed a duo with friend and singer Calvin Scott, but his collaborator was later seriously injured in an automobile accident. Carter then went solo and began recording music with producer Rick Hall and Fame in Muscle Shoals, amid the late-’60s soul boom.

After the success of his early hits in the ’70s, Carter struggled to find the same chart success amid disco’s popularity. “Nobody’s gonna keep a hit record all the time,” he told The Times. In the early ’80s, his “Working on a Love Building” was a moderate hit. Carter signed to Ichiban Records to record his 1986 album “Dr. C.C.,” which featured “Strokin’” among its tracks.

“By the time I finished doing that song and walked back up to the control room, [the engineer] was laughing so hard he hadn’t even turned the tape machine off,” he said a year after the hit’s release.

Carter released his final studio album, “Sing Along With Clarence Carter,” in 2011 but continued to release live albums and compilations until 2020. He also continued performing live through the 2010s.

The singer-songwriter was married to Staton from 1970 to 1973 and they share a son, Clarence Carter Jr. He married Joyce Jenkins in 2001 and has lived in DeKalb County, Ga., since 1983.

“Clarence Carter leaves behind a legacy of timeless music, unforgettable performances, and a friendship we will always cherish,” Fame Studios said in its statement. “We extend our love and prayers to his family, friends, and fans around the world.”

South Korean boy band BTS, U.S. pop culture icon Madonna and Latin music superstar Shakira will be performing at halftime during the World Cup final July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., FIFA announced Thursday morning.

The performance will support the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, which is looking to raise $100 million to assist children in accessing education and soccer.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino wrote on Instagram that the show “will be a truly special moment, bringing together music, football and a shared commitment to improving the lives of children around the world.”

The show is being curated by Coldplay leader Chris Martin and, if this event announcement video is to be believed, a bunch of Muppets.

“It’s a chance to show how amazing all different kinds of humans are,” Martin explains to Elmo in the video.

The three acts will bring a variety of cultures, musical styles and generations of fans to the Super Bowl-style concert, which will be the first of its kind for a World Cup final.

Madonna headlined the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show in 2012, and Shakira teamed with Jennifer Lopez to co-headline the Super Bowl LIV halftime show in 2020. Also, Coldplay headlined the Super Bowl 50 halftime show in 2016.

No duration time has been announced for the World Cup show, although soccer halftimes are not supposed to last more than 15 minutes. Bad Bunny’s halftime performance at Super Bowl LX in February lasted 13 minutes.

Among the three of them, Madonna, Shakira and BTS have compiled 20 No. 1 songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, 10 Grammys and 37 MTV Video Music Awards. Shakira is scheduled to release “Dai Dai” with Nigerian singer Burna Boy as the official song of the 2026 World Cup this month.

The 69th Grammy Awards will take place Feb. 7 at Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles, organizers said Tuesday during Disney’s annual upfront presentation to advertisers. The show will be the first to air on Disney’s ABC network (and stream on its Hulu and Disney+ platforms) since the Recording Academy ended its half-century-long partnership with Paramount’s CBS.

Nominations for the 2027 ceremony — which will recognize recordings released between Aug. 31, 2025 and Aug. 28, 2026 — are set to be announced Nov. 16. Final Grammys voting will open Dec. 10 and close Jan. 7.

A host for the show hasn’t been announced. Trevor Noah, who began hosting the Grammys in 2021, said his gig at February’s 68th ceremony would be his last.

Big winners at the 2026 Grammys included Bad Bunny, whose “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” was named album of the year; Kendrick Lamar and SZA, who won record of the year with “Luther”; Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, whose “Wildflower” took song of the year; and Olivia Dean, who was named best new artist.

Among the albums and songs already thought to be in contention for high-level nods next year are Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl,” Noah Kahan’s “The Great Divide,” Bruno Mars’ “The Romantic,” Rosalía’s “Lux,” Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” and Sienna Spiro’s “Die on This Hill.”

Clave Especial is finally taking a break.

In the last two months, the corrido tumbado band from Salinas, Calif., performed at the South by Southwest music festival in Texas—and made headlines by singing a narcocorrido; spoke to Latino students at Cornell University in upstate New York; and even embarked on a impromptu 10-hour road trip to show their support for Juan, a contestant from Mexico on one of MrBeast’s latest challenges who has become a viral sensation.

In fact, the trio— lead singer Alejandro Ahumada, guitarist Leonardo Lomeli and tololoche player Rogelio Gonzalez — felt so compelled to make the pilgrimage to the North Carolina grocery store where Juan has been sequestered for months, that they ditched all press events for their latest EP “Afterafter,” released on April 30, in order to meet and serenade him. The band even awarded a $5,000 scholarship to his son, Angel.

“Why? Because it felt so right,” said Ahumada. “His story connected with us, because we also come from hardworking parents that really gave it all for us.”

As the rush of East Coast travel wore off, Clave Especial returned to Salinas to throw a huge homecoming bash. “It’s like a full-circle moment,” said Ahumada of their May 4 performance at the Salinas Sports Complex.

They joined a video call from their childhood bedrooms to discuss “Afterafter,” a five-track project set to a fiery tempo — 140 BPM to be exact — that is nostalgic for summer days and the never-ending after-parties they bring. The songs were selected from their vault, they said, which includes a long list of tracks that didn’t make the cut for “Mija No Te Asustes,” the band’s 2025 critically acclaimed debut that featured co-signs by Fuerza Regida, Edgardo Nuñez and Luis R Conquirez.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What was it like to perform back home in Salinas?

Alex: That’s actually the second time that we come back as Clave Especial. The first show was at the Fox Theater, which was a sold-out show. People were asking us, “Hey when are you guys coming back?” We decided to do it now at the Salinas Sports Complex.

Jumping to the EP, how did “Afterafter” come to be?

Alex: It was more like a fun concept that we kind of had in mind. We were actually working towards an album at a writers camp in Ensenada. It was at the beach. Then we jumped around to Miami, Puerto Vallarta. We caught ourselves jumping around beaches, a lot of parties. We want to give people like a summer EP, something they can slap during the summer when they’re partying.

If “Mija No Te Asustes” is an album about this confident boss man calling the shots, how would you characterize “Afterafter”?

Alex: I think it’s that same guy from the first album, he’s still living it up. In “Mija No Te Asustes” there’s some songs like “Como Capo” that introduce that vibe to this EP, so we just continued that wave. It was our biggest song yet. We knew that people liked us apart from the corridos like “Rápido Soy,” “No Son Doritos,” but I think with “Como Capo” we discovered that people like other sounds and lyrics. That’s what we tried to continue in “Afterafter.”

Musically, how would you describe the sound of this EP?

Leo: One thing about us, when we get in the studio, we play a lot in the tempo 6/8s, this upbeat speed. We always hit the BPM at 140 BPM — that’s the Clave Especial essence.

One of the songs that caught my interest was “Scary Movie,” because it reminded me of a corrido-inspired “Thriller” (by Michael Jackson). It also connects the past album because there’s a phrase where you say “Mija, no te asustes.” Tell me the backstory of that spooky song.

Alex: That’s funny, because I’m going to watch the Michael Jackson movie today. That song was actually composed by someone from Street Mob from Ensenada. I think that song was already in the vault.

Leo: That song was tailored for [the past] album. The [ad lib] was an Easter egg.

I saw that you were all recently in North Carolina at the grocery store where Mr. Beast is doing a challenge. There’s one Mexican dad named Juan competing for the million-dollar prize. You guys went to see him and also gave his son a scholarship. Why was it important for you guys to show up?

Alex: Basically we were in [New York] having dinner. We had some press the next day but we had to cancel on them. We commented on Mr. Beast’s video, and the comment got a lot of likes, we’re like “oh shoot, this is dope, this has a real impact on the Mexican community.” His son had swiped up on us, thanking us for supporting his dad.

We saw that Juan told his son to leave the competition ‘cause he wanted to keep going to school. I think we’re one of the few bands in the industry that went to school. I have my bachelor’s degree from Fresno State. It was something that really resonated with us. We had also just come off a panel there at Cornell University so everything just set the tone. We saw the map. It was 10 hours away, obviously a drive, but this opportunity’s never gonna come. We’re from Cali and this is on the other side of the country and we’re here now. Let’s show that the Mexican community is very powerful, united. Let’s go show some support to Juan and his kid. Hopefully he wins!

The last time we chatted was at the Rolling Stone showcase at SXSW. I didn’t get a chance to talk to y’all afterwards, during the end of your set, you sang a cover of Los Alegres del Barranco’s “El Del Palenque” which venerates the narco leader El Mencho, who was killed by Mexican forces just weeks prior. Why was it important for Clave to sing that song specifically?

Alex:  We just like the song. At the end of the day it’s just music. It’s storytelling. It’s corridos. That’s what corridos is all about, and that’s why I got into the music scene. We just like the song. We’re from Jalisco, from Michoacán. It always turns up the crowd, so we did it for the people. People want to hear corridos. We’ve been seeing the censorship going on, but at the end of the day I don’t think that’s the problem. It’s a lot deeper than that, and music is just music, we’re just storytelling, singing music, having fun on stage.  I don’t know if we had it in our set list or not, but I think we had just played a song prior to that that had the same tones. I was like, keep it going, let’s play this one next. Nothing deep.

So it wasn’t planned?

Alex: No, it wasn’t. Afterwards I was like, “Damn, I sang that.” But, eh, who cares?

Do you guys ever get worried when you sing corridos? Or is that something that you’re able to manage being from the U.S., which provides a layer of protection?

Alex: There’s a famous dicho: El que nada debe, nada teme. Like at the end of the day we don’t owe anybody anything. We do music, we’re here by our own sacrifice. People that know our story know that.

Two-thousand, four-hundred and forty-eight miles. That was the span of Route 66 when highway officials stitched it together to link Chicago, Los Angeles and countless cities and towns in between. But as an enduring American symbol, this highway reaches much further than that, inspiring books, songs, movies and countless road trips.

It turns 100 this year, so with summer coming, we drove it all.

Across eight states, we scouted out vintage motels, new businesses, neon signs, friendly Muffler Men, road food, vivid characters and 20th century ruins. We also kept our eyes open for hints of the road’s evolution, from the Dust Bowl years, segregation and the postwar boom to the freeway-era slump and the reemergence of Route 66 as a long, winding and living historic landmark.

Now we’re taking you along for the ride. If you’ve ever daydreamed about covering some part of the famous roadway, hop on in and let’s get our kicks, shall we?

Route 66 was 20 years old and World War II had just ended when Bobby Troup, an aspiring songwriter from Pennsylvania, decided to go west. As it turned out, that drive in early 1946 did more than anyone could have imagined to establish the road as a symbol of footloose American freedom.

Stories, photos and travel recommendations from America’s Mother Road

Troup, 25 at the time, had already earned an economics degree from the University of Pennsylvania, written a hit song (1941’s “Daddy,” sung by Sammy Kaye), worked for bandleader Tommy Dorsey and served as a Marine through the war years. But to restart his career as a songwriter and actor, he believed that he needed to be in Los Angeles. So he and his wife, Cynthia, pointed their 1941 Buick toward California.

They started on U.S. 40, then picked up Route 66 in Illinois. Along the way, as Troup told author Michael Wallis in the book “Route 66: The Mother Road,” Cynthia came up with a phrase she thought was songworthy.

Bobby Troup, composer of the hit song “Route 66” and grand marshal of Duarte, Calif.’s Salute to Route 66 parade, rides in a 1948 Buick convertible and waves to fans in 1996.

(Louisa Gauerke / Associated Press)

“Get your kicks on Route 66,” she said.

Troup took it from there, creating “a kind of musical map of the highway.”

As Troup later recalled in an introduction to a Route 66 book by Tom Snyder, they heard Louis Armstrong play a club in St. Louis, stopped at Meramec Caverns in Missouri and found that “a good part of the highway was absolutely miserable — narrow, just two lanes, and very twisting through the Ozarks and Kansas.” Then came a snowstorm in Texas.

By the end of the drive, the up-tempo tune was half-done. Then, not quite a week after arrival, Troup landed a chance to pitch a few songs to Nat “King” Cole, who had already won fame with hits including “Sweet Lorraine” and “Straighten Up and Fly Right.”

They were sitting by a piano on stage — after Cole’s last set of the night at the Trocadero on Sunset Strip — when the nervous young songwriter decided to share his unfinished road song.

“I got up on the riser, pulled the piano bench back a little bit — and it went over the side and I fell over backwards,” Troup confessed in a later interview.

Still, Cole “loved it,” Troup recalled. “As a matter of fact, he got on the piano with me and played it.”

This was February. By mid-March, the song was done and Cole was recording it in a studio on Santa Monica Boulevard, part of Route 66.

The finished version name-checked a dozen cities along the route, including these words:

Now you go through Saint Looey

Joplin, Missouri,

And Oklahoma City is mighty pretty.

You see Amarillo,

Gallup, New Mexico,

Flagstaff, Arizona.

Don’t forget Winona,

Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino.

Won’t you get hip to this timely tip

When you make that California trip

Get your kicks on Route 66.

In April, Capitol Records released “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” and the tune quickly rose to #11 on the Billboard chart of top-selling singles. Before 1946 was out, it had been recorded again, this time by Bing Crosby with the Andrews Sisters. That version went to #14.

Musicians Nat “King” Cole, left, and Bing Crosby, circa 1945.

(NBC / NBCU Photo Bank / NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)

Coming just as postwar America was rediscovering leisure travel, the song was a big hit — and for many, a painful irony. Even with guidance from the Green Book used by many African American travelers in those days, it would have been deeply risky — and illegal in some places — for any Black man, Nat King Cole included, to eat and sleep on Route 66. This was a year before Jackie Robinson integrated baseball’s major leagues, two years before the U.S. Army was integrated.

As Candacy Taylor puts it in her 2020 book “Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America,” “the open road wasn’t open to all.” Into the 1950s, Taylor writes, “about 35% of the counties on Route 66 didn’t allow Black motorists after 6 p.m.” and six of the eight states on the route still had segregation laws. Cole may have helped sell Route 66, Taylor writes, but “the carefree adventure he was promoting was not meant for him.”

Documentary photographer Candacy Taylor at the New Aster Motel in Los Angeles in 2016. In her book “Overground Railroad,” she writes about the discrimination Black travelers faced while driving on Route 66.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Two years after recording the song, when the increasingly wealthy Cole and his family bought a Hancock Park mansion and became the neighborhood’s first Black homeowners, many neighbors tried to keep him out, poisoned the family dog and burned racist insults into his lawn.

The Coles stayed put. The family was still in that home on South Muirfield Road in 1956, when Cole became the first African American to host a network television show, and in 1965, when Cole died of cancer at 45.

Troup, who later was divorced from Cynthia and married singer/actor Julie London, went on to record more than a dozen albums and had other songs recorded by Little Richard and Miles Davis. As an actor, Troup filled many guest-star roles on television, played Dr. Joe Early on the 1970s TV show “Emergency!” and had a small part in Robert Altman’s 1970 film “MASH.”

Meanwhile, the song kept rolling. As years passed, Perry Como, Sammy Davis Jr., Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, the Manhattan Transfer, Michael Martin Murphey, Asleep at the Wheel, Buckwheat Zydeco, Depeche Mode, Glenn Frey, the Brian Setzer Orchestra and John Mayer recorded versions. At different points in the 2006 movie “Cars,” you hear Berry’s and Mayer’s versions. Troup, who died in 1999, never forgot the difference the song made, both in his life and the way people think about the road.

“On the basis of that song, I was able to go out and buy a house and stay in California,” Troup told Wallis. “I never realized when I was putting it together that I was writing about the most famous highway in the world. I just thought I was writing about a road — not a legend.”

The Rolling Stones are among the countless musicians who have recorded versions of “Route 66.”

(David Redfern / Redferns via Getty Images)

Maya Hawke sits at a picnic table in Griffith Park with an iced tea and a small notebook and happily reports that she still likes her new record.

“Every other album cycle I’ve done, by the time I got to the point where the album came out, I hated it,” says the 27-year-old singer and actor. “I was just exhausted by the internet and by being public, and I wouldn’t want to post about it. So I kind of tried to build this rollout where it could be enjoyable. And it seems to be working.”

On this recent morning, she’s about a week and a half from releasing “Maitreya Corso,” a set of deep-thinking folk-pop songs about love and art and how the two intersect; to help drum up interest in the LP, Hawke’s fourth, she’s on tour playing intimate live gigs like the one she did last night at the Troubadour, where she was accompanied by Christian Lee Hutson, with whom she made the record.

Hutson, who’s known for his work with Phoebe Bridgers, is also Hawke’s husband: After collaborating on her 2022 album “Moss” and 2024’s “Chaos Angel,” the two were married this past Valentine’s Day in Hawke’s hometown of New York. (You may have seen the pictures in People magazine of the couple on the street with Hawke’s parents, Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, and her castmates from “Stranger Things.”)

As we talk, Hawke wears the same vintage Beastie Boys T-shirt she had on at the Troubadour; when we’re finished, she’s got a flight to catch to Denver for her and Hutson’s next show.

I was struck last night by the intense eye contact between you and your husband.
I’ve never played guitar before onstage, and so I think a lot of that is me being nervous and wanting to keep rhythm. I’m looking at his eyes but also at his hands. His chordal shapes are different than mine but I’m following the rhythm to make sure I’m staying in the pocket.

Why didn’t you play guitar before?
I’ve been playing since I was 11, but I reached a point where I was getting better a lot slower than my brother was or than other people in my life. You pick up the guitar to play and then a bunch of guys sit down next to you and they’re like, “Oh, can we jam?” And you’re like, “I don’t know if I can jam. I was trying to write a song and now you’re noodling all over me. You know what? I’ll just put it down.” Later, when I started making music professionally, I met all these extraordinary musicians, and I thought: Why would I play guitar when I’m not as good as you are? Then I really hated doing shows.

Because of that?
I’m not a dancer — I don’t want to be a pop star and do dance moves. I don’t have a big Adele voice. And standing up there and just singing — I was like, I should be at a poetry reading. So I made myself a promise that if I made another record I would have to play guitar and write songs that I can play.

It’s funny: You were both super locked-in during the songs, but then between them your banter was extremely loose.
I wanted to build a show that was a concert I would want to go see. I’m weird — I don’t love concerts, but I do I like it when people talk. I can hear the record at home — what I don’t get at home is a sense of the person.

Who would you say are some of music’s great between-song talkers?
Hmm.

I think Adele might be the best I’ve seen.
She’s really good. I saw her once when I was younger — I had a year where my dad took me to see all the biggest women of that year. I remember thinking: When I leave the theater, I’m filled only with joy and no jealousy because I could never do what she’s doing. That’s a gift from God, and I’m not in competition with that gift.

But after she hits you with that, she’ll just freestyle for three or four minutes.
That’s what I want too — I want to see some humanity, especially these days when everybody is being force-fed so much perfection and so much unattainable grace.

There are a tremendous number of words on this record.
It’s very verbose.

Why?
I love words — lyrics are my favorite part of songs. One of the first songs that got written for this record was “Devil You Know,” which was like an experiment where I wrote this poem in free verse. I’ve been in a fight with my husband about free verse versus poetic form. He’s pro-free-verse, I’m anti-free-verse.

What’s your beef?
My beef is: Free verse is great — I wish you could have spent a little more time making it rhythmically sound.

To you it feels like —
Like a first draft. The confines of a structure make your brain work in a different way: How do I get this idea across in a sonnet or a villanelle? But I tried writing this free verse thing, and I really liked it and wanted to write more things like that. Normally, I love the arrow of a Willie Nelson lyric, which is: What’s the simplest way I can say the most complicated thing? And I have some of that on this record, like in “Bring Home My Man.” But I also was like, What’s the most complicated way I can say the simplest thing?

OK, speaking of that: I read the essay you had this philosopher Justin Smith-Ruiu write about the album. I understood probably 11% of it.
I’m obsessed with him. I read his Substack religiously — it’s called the Hinternet. He’s just a brilliant genius, and I was like, I don’t know what he’s gonna say, and I don’t know if it’ll make sense to anyone, but it’ll make sense to me.

Honestly, some of the songs might also have gone over my head. How important is it to you that the listener grasps everything that’s going on in your music?
Zero percent important. I want people to take from it what they take from it. One of the coolest things in my life has been putting out songs and having people form crazy personal attachments — sometimes communal attachments, where all the people think it’s about the same thing and they’re all wrong. That’s so much more interesting to me than if they just thought it was exactly what I thought it was.

How do you listen to the songs you love? Are you trying to figure out where they came from?
Yes, but I don’t care if I’m right. I’ve had many a debate about what [Elliott Smith’s] “Say Yes” is about — gone through the lyrics with friends and been like, “Wouldn’t you say that this supports my theory?” But it doesn’t matter to me what it is. It’s just fun to try to connect all the dots.

Maya Hawke and Christian Lee Hutson in New York in March.

(Ilya S. Savenok / Getty Images for Tibet House US)

Break down the chronology of your and Christian’s relationship. You made this record not as married people but —
As engaged people.

How did that compare to the previous album?
When we made “Chaos Angel” we were maybe in a slightly uncanny valley of being friends who were in love but not together at all. But our working dynamic has always been pretty amazing, even from when we met doing “Moss.” Christian was really the person who made me want to play guitar and write music. He was like, “What do you mean your music isn’t good enough? Why, because you didn’t go to jazz school? I didn’t go to jazz school.” That kind of belief really shaped my journey from “Moss” until this record.

Are you the type of person who needs a facilitator?
I really enjoy support and encouragement, and I often need permission.

I wonder why.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to someone, and I was like, I want to spend less time with this person, but I want them to want to spend less time with me. I don’t want to be the one to draw the boundary — I need their permission to draw a boundary between us. My therapist was like, “We can work on that.”

Is this classic child-actor people-pleasing stuff?
I wasn’t a child actor.

When did you start?
I did my first audition at 15 but I didn’t get the part. Then I didn’t end up working until I was 18.

I’d argue that at 18 the world still sees you —
As a young person, yeah.

But I take your point.
I don’t know what it has to do with. It’s not exactly people-pleasing. There’s definitely an oldest-sibling thing I have a bit. I’m very interested in sibling-order theory. I think it’s extremely influential to who people are — better than astrology, for sure.

You’re older?
I’m oldest of five. Generally, when I meet eldest siblings, there’s a kind of interesting energy of someone who both needs to be in charge and needs a lot of permission.

Has anything changed about the way you and Christian collaborate since you got married?
We’re really happy, and we’ve been really happy. It’s awesome that we were friends for a long time first. When I got into relationships in the past, I would kind of pick the person that liked me the least. I didn’t like myself very much, and I thought that someone who didn’t like me must be a genius and that I could overcome my inherent ineptitude by getting them to like me. And in order to get them to like me, I would transform myself into becoming a person that they would like. Then we’d have a very happy couple of months until I got bored of not being myself. What being friends with someone first did was that it made it very hard to trick them.

Some of these new songs seem very clearly to be about the two of you.
Totally. A lot of this record is about how much I learned about what love really is — what it could be and how to be good to another person. My ideas about those things really transformed in the last couple of years.

As a child of divorce, were you ambivalent about marriage?
I think if anything it was the reverse. I wanted to get married twice in my life. Once was when I was 18 years old, and it was definitely mental illness: I want the nuclear family that I didn’t have, and I want it now. Then I was kind of neutral on whether or not I would get married. Then I met Christian, and I was like, “I don’t know if I’m ready to be in this kind of relationship, but you’re my person.” And we stayed in each other’s lives until it ended up being the right time.

Plenty of people find their person without wanting to have a wedding.
Are you a romantic?

I’m not sure I know.
When I was younger, I imagined myself in a sort of French marriage where we both cheated on each other but didn’t talk about it and had a lot of mutual respect. But I didn’t find a French marriage — I found my best friend. You know what a piece of s— I am and you still love me? I wake up every morning still happy to see you? That’s a miracle — we gotta have a party.

Last thing: Did finishing “Stranger Things,” which had defined the structure of your life for so long — did that change the way you think about making music?
It’s changed the way I think about everything. Basically, from about four months before the show wrapped until a year after that, I was pretty freaked out.

Because you knew a big change was coming?
Because I didn’t know how I would be reborn out of it. Even when I was resentful of being like, “I’m booked, and I can’t do this other thing that I want to do,” the show was so grounding. I was really lost without it. I’m not freaked out about it anymore, but I’m in a renegotiation of the structure of what I want my life to look like.

Do you feel some kinship with your former castmates on that?
Everyone freaked out in different amounts and at different times and to different degrees of wanting to talk about it. But we all collectively had a very, very intense time moving through the last season.

You’ve got upcoming acting projects —
I didn’t actually die like I thought I was going to.

But did the end of that job create space for music to play a bigger role in your life?
In some ways, it could become smaller. I had an ensemble part in a show that takes a year to film, which creates a tremendous amount of waiting-around time. I think that’s why so many “Stranger Things” actors have musical projects: You can’t film anything else but you can sit in your house with your keyboard. What I’ve really been feeling since the show ended was an invigorated desire to double down on acting. I’ll never not make music, but the music industry is difficult for me. I don’t know if it’s just that I was raised in the acting industry and I understand the things that are f— up about it better.

The music biz feels more opaque to you?
I struggle with some of the things that one should do in that industry to grow their project. When you’re promoting a movie, you’re on a team promoting an external item. When you promote a record, you’re doing self-promotion: “Buy my stuff. Do my thing. Put me on your chest.” It feels a little too “Look at me,” which isn’t my comfort zone.

Better start making those TikToks.
Yeah, I can’t. I really can’t.

EUROVISION 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most controversial editions of the contest in its 70-year history.

Five countries have confirmed they are not sending entries to Vienna, and some won’t even be airing the show on national TV.

Why is the Eurovision 2026 boycott happening?

The Eurovision walkouts followed the European Broadcasting Union’s (EBU) general assembly in Geneva on December 4, 2025.

EBU members voted on new rules to tighten voting and promotion guidelines, but did not put Israel’s participation itself to a separate vote – meaning Israeli broadcaster KAN was cleared to compete.

Within hours, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Slovenia all announced their withdrawals. On December 10, 2025, Iceland followed suit.

The song contest will still be aired in Iceland and the Netherlands – but will not be broadcast in the other three nations.

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The boycotters have cited the war in Gaza and concerns over the integrity of recent contests.

Which countries are boycotting Eurovision 2026?

Spain was the first of the contest’s Big Five broadcasters – the five biggest financial contributors – to officially confirm it was boycotting Eurovision.

Secretary general of Spanish national broadcaster RTVE, Alfonso Morales, said: “We would like to express our serious doubts about the participation of Israeli broadcaster KAN in Eurovision 2026.

“The situation in Gaza, despite the ceasefire and the approval of the peace process, and Israel’s use of the contest for political purposes, make it increasingly difficult to maintain Eurovision as a neutral cultural event.”

A statement from Ireland’s national broadcaster RTÉ added: “RTÉ feels that Ireland’s participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk.”

Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS, in a statement from director general Taco Zimmerman, said: “Culture connects, but not at any cost. What has happened over the past year touches on our boundaries.

“Universal values such as humanity and freedom of the press have been seriously violated and are non-negotiable for us.”

Slovenian broadcaster RTVSLO’s chair Natalija Gorščak said: “For the third year in a row, the public has demanded that we say no to the participation of any country that attacks another country.

“We must follow European standards for peace and understanding.”

Iceland’s RÚV became the fifth country to confirm a boycott, with the broadcaster saying in a press release: “Given the public debate in this country and the reactions to the decision of the EBU that was taken last week, it is clear that neither joy nor peace will prevail regarding the participation of RÚV in Eurovision.”

What has Israel said about the boycott?

Israeli broadcaster KAN has defended its right to participate.

Addressing EBU members during the general assembly in Geneva, KAN CEO Golan Yochpaz said: “The attempt to remove KAN from the contest can only be understood as a cultural boycott.

“A boycott may begin today with Israel, but no one knows where it will end or who else it may harm.

“Are EBU members willing to be part of a step that harms freedom of creation and freedom of expression?”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog welcomed the EBU’s decision in a post on X, writing: “Israel deserves to be represented on every stage around the world, a cause to which I am fully and actively committed.

“I am pleased that Israel will once again participate in the Eurovision Song Contest, and I hope that the competition will remain one that champions culture, music, friendship between nations, and cross-border cultural understanding.

“Thank you to all our friends who stood up for Israel’s right to continue to contribute and compete at Eurovision.

“This decision demonstrates solidarity, fellowship, and cooperation, and reinforces the spirit of affinity between nations through culture and music.”

Israel is being represented at Eurovision 2026 by Noam Bettan with the song Michelle.

The Eurovision 2026 semi-finals are scheduled for Tuesday, May 12 and Thursday, May 14, while the Grand Final is set to take place on Saturday, May 16.

LAS VEGAS — “You know, I was thinking,” Gwen Stefani said, looking out at the crowd before her on Wednesday night at Sphere. The singer was maybe an hour and a half into the first show of No Doubt’s monthlong residency at the dome-shaped venue just off the Las Vegas Strip, and now the moment had come for the hit that changed everything for this once-scrappy ska-punk band from Orange County.

“I was thinking about this next song, and I was thinking about Anaheim,” she continued. “Do you know where Anaheim is?”

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The song, of course, was “Just a Girl,” which Stefani said she wrote “out of pure innocence in a time where I was just becoming aware of myself and my surroundings.” She added that she’d always assumed she’d outgrow the song — that someday it would feel disconnected from the life of a woman who went on to become a pop star with a clothing line and a gig on TV. Here she was, though, about to do “Just a Girl” for 20,000 or so fans eager to sing along.

“You tell me if you think it’s still relevant,” she said.

In a built-to-please town where old hits are welcome on any stage — not least Sphere’s, which these days also hosts the Eagles and the Backstreet Boys — the crowd’s verdict was no surprise. Yet this was a more committed look back than might have been expected, with a loose narrative arc tracing No Doubt’s ascent (rather than its peak) and a set list filled with deep cuts well beyond the catchy singles that once blanketed KROQ and MTV.

Beneath a massive wraparound screen that flickered with vintage camcorder-style footage from the early 1990s, the group played “Excuse Me Mr.” and “New” and “Total Hate ’95”; Stefani and her bandmates — guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal and drummer Adrian Young — did “Trapped in a Box,” “End It on This” and “The Climb,” which No Doubt heads on the internet say they hadn’t performed live in nearly three decades.

Then again, for one of those decades, No Doubt wasn’t performing at all. The band made its ballyhooed comeback in 2024 at Coachella, where it delivered a punchy, compact set of hits and brought out Olivia Rodrigo for a guest spot that demonstrated Stefani’s influence — musical, attitudinal, sartorial — on the generation of female pop stars that came after her. (At Sphere, Stefani’s taste in plaids and animal prints was clearly still casting a spell among her admirers.)

No Doubt’s Sphere residency is scheduled to run through mid-June.

(John Shearer)

The takeaway from Coachella was that the band had worked itself back into fighting shape; Stefani, in particular, seemed eager to prove that her years doling out niceties on “The Voice” and dabbling in country music with her husband, Blake Shelton, hadn’t dulled her edge. Here, the band went further, using Sphere’s state-of-the-art environs to imagine itself back in a dingy club or student union.

There were big visual moments, including a simulated trip through a crumbling amusement park — the “Tragic Kingdom” of the group’s breakout 1995 LP — and a bit with a stories-tall cartoon Stefani towering over the room in her fishnets and combat boots. And even with all of the obscurities, it’s not as though No Doubt skipped its best-known songs: “Bathwater” and “Spiderwebs” were bouncy yet propulsive, while “Underneath It All” and “Hella Good” showcased the players’ nimble rhythmic interplay. Stefani’s voice was at its pleading best in “Don’t Speak,” one of the great pop ballads of the last 30 years, and “Simple Kind of Life,” which was accompanied by a video starring Stefani and Kanal acting out some episode from their ancient romance.

Before “Ex-Girlfriend,” which Stefani wrote amid her doomed marriage to Gavin Rossdale of Bush, the singer said, “It gives me — what is it? The PTSD. But because I absolutely adore you guys, I’m gonna suffer.”

Yet this was the chapter of No Doubt’s story — basically the apex of its popularity — that the band seemed least interested in exploring on Wednesday. The impression you got was that Stefani and her pals hadn’t come to Vegas to cruise or to gloat or even to soak up the easy adulation that’s always on offer here; weirdly, they’d come to remember the struggle.