Dance
Page: 17
As three wildfires rage throughout Southern California, electronic music festival Nocturnal Wonderland has been canceled due to its proximity to the blazes.
Produced by Insomniac Events, the festival was set to take place this weekend (Sept. 14-15) at the Glen Helen Amphitheatre in San Bernardino, Calif. But producers announced Wednesday (Sept. 11), that the festival will not happen because of the Line Fire, which is burning near the venue.
“We are saddened to inform you that new fires in the San Bernardino area have ignited over the last 35 hours and are now approaching the Glen Helen Amphitheatre,” the festival announced on social media. “The health and safety of festival attendees and staff is our highest priority. After further discussions with local authorities, due to the impact of the fires surrounding the venue, we will be unable to proceed with Nocturnal Wonderland.”
The statement notes that ticketholders will receive an email regarding ticket refunds in the coming days, along with information about how ticketholders can support local firefighters and the residents of affected areas.
Trending on Billboard
The Line Fire has been burning in the San Bernardino National Forest since Sept. 5, and expanded to 34,659 acres burned as of Sept. 11. As reported by the San Bernardino Sun, local authorities announced on Wednesday that “the worst is getting behind us” in terms of getting the fire contained. Two other fires, the Airport Fire and the Bridge Fire, are currently also burning in Southern California, forcing evacuations and affecting air quality throughout the region.
These blazes continue on the tail end of a signficant heatwave, which gripped the region over the last week and brought temperatures up to 112-degrees in parts of the city. Amid this heatwave, the Hollywood Bowl lost power on Sept. 8 and was forced to cancel a show by singer-songwriter Vance Joy. The region also experienced a 4.7 magnitude earthquake at approximately 7:30 a.m. local time on Thursday (Sept. 12).
Nocturnal Wonderland is Insomniac Events’ longest running festival, with the 2024 iteration having scheduled featured performances by artists including Kaskade, RL Grime, Slander, Flosstradamus and other genre-spanning electronic acts.
In the comments section of the announcement, Insomniac Events Founder Pasquale Rotella wrote, “My thoughts and prayers go to all those affected by the fires. Heartbroken about the cancellation. Your support means the world. Can’t wait to celebrate together in the future.”
After 17 years in Ibiza, IMS is expanding to the Middle East.
The annual electronic music conference announced Thursday (Sept. 12) that it will host the debut edition of IMS Dubai on Nov. 14-15 at the W Dubai – Mina Seyahi.
The two-day event will feature MENA region-based speakers from YouTube, Warner Music Group, Anghami, Believe and more, along with artists and organizers of regional events including Morocco’s Oasis Festival, Dubai’s Soho Garden and Groove on the Grass, and Beirut’s Factory People.
Additionally, speakers from outside the Middle East will represent companies and brands including Tomorrowland, Defected Records, CAA, WME, He.She.They and the Association For Electronic Music.
An opening keynote will be delivered by Maha ElNabaw, managing editor of Billboard Arabia. Other speakers will include Aloki Batra, CEO of The Pacha Group and Five Hospitality; Janet Ashak, YouTube’s head of music in the region; and more. Artist participants include Iranian producer Deep Dish, and Saudi Arabian producer Cosmicat. As at the Ibiza event, IMS Dubai will be hosted by BBC Radio’s Pete Tong, who is also an IMS co-founder.
Trending on Billboard
The two-day conference will feature 13 panel discussions, with topics including navigating the music industry in the MENA region; a look at culture tourism focused on Ibiza and Dubai; MENA region investors; regional talent buyers; the growth of labels and streaming in the region; the underground scene in Dubai; a focus on the Egyptian market; MENA women in music; and more.
Passes for the event go on sale Sept. 19.
“For almost two decades, International Music Summit has united the global electronic music community annually in Ibiza to explore industry trends, innovations, and the challenges our diverse community faces,” the IMS founders said in a joint statement. “To make a global impact, IMS seeks to be where change is happening, which is why we’ve also hosted three editions of IMS Asia Pacific in Shanghai and one in Singapore, five IMS Engage events in Los Angeles, and three IMS College events in Malta. IMS Dubai will debut in the United Arab Emirates, marking a strategic expansion into the Middle East and North Africa.”
Organizers note that the conference “will not receive government or cultural funding or incentives for this initiative.” Digital download platform Beatport acquired a majority stake in IMS in 2023, with support for the event also coming from AlphaTheta, the owner of Pioneer DJ.
“Our goal is to inspire continued growth, support, and investment while addressing the unique cultural challenges musicians and start-ups face,” the statement continues. “Electronic music culture is built on long standing principles of bringing people together from diverse backgrounds on the dancefloor. Music has the power to unify and we all have a part to play in creating safer spaces for all; a principle that IMS and Beatport proudly stand behind.”
The MENA region is indeed a current buzzy growth market for electronic music and more. The 2024 IFPI Global Report found that total MENA revenue rose by 14.4% in 2023 following a 26.8% jump in 2022. According to IFPI, streaming revenue accounted for 98.4% of the region’s market over the last year.
Australian breaker Rachael Gunn, or “b-girl Raygun,” holds the top spot in her sport’s latest world rankings despite Olympic performances that led to online ridicule. On Tuesday, the sport’s governing body issued a statement to “provide clarity” on why Raygun tops the rankings. Raygun, a 37-year-old university lecturer from Sydney, failed to score any points at […]
Michael Bibi‘s comeback story continues with the news that the English producer has donated money raised at his July comeback show to the London hospital where he underwent cancer treatment. “To everyone that was part of this show thank you for making this possible,” Bibi wrote on Instagram with a photo of himself presenting a […]
The closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Paralympics Games leaned fully into French electronic music, and with dazzling results. The ceremony, which happened at Paris’ Stade De France on Sept. 8, assembled not only athletes, but a legendary crew of French dance producers that included the pioneering Jean Michel Jarre, Ed Banger founder Busy P, […]
On the second day of September, Charli XCX tweeted, “goodbye forever brat summer” — but it looks like she’s still got one last remix featuring Troye Sivan in the tank.
After keeping fans suspended in anticipation for weeks, the British alt-pop star finally shared a snippet of a “Talk Talk” remix with her Sweat Tour mate. In a video posted to X Monday (Sept. 9), the two stars dance around in a backstage area while lip-syncing along to the reimagined song, with Charli passing the camera off to Sivan when it comes time for his verse.
“OK, here’s the plan, I wanna fly you out to Amsterdam,” he sing-raps before detailing how he wants to get down and dirty with his love interest.
Based on the snippet, it seems as though Sivan’s verse picks up right where the original “Talk Talk” leaves off, with the “Rush” singer coming in right after Charli’s outro, where the song usually ends. Dua Lipa is also expected to appear on the track, although her voice isn’t audible in the new snippet; a few days after Charli reportedly shared a voice note from the “Levitating” artist on her private Brat Instagram account, Sivan’s “Rush” producers Zhone and Styalz Fuego said that they worked on the remix and tagged Dua on their Stories.
“Remember how I told you we were so back?” Fuego wrote, reposting Charli and Sivan’s snippet.
The original version of “Talk Talk” appears on Brat, which the singer dropped in June to critical acclaim. The project later peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, Charli’s highest peak on the chart to date.
The musician has spent the summer boosting the album with a series of remixes, with the “Talk Talk” revamp following Brat collaborations with Addison Rae, Robyn, Yung Lean, Lorde and Billie Eilish. Teaming up with Sivan was only natural given their plans to embark on a joint tour this year, something the duo spoke about in a recent interview with i-D.
“Our shows at the moment are very different from each other and both speak to different elements of pop,” Sivan told the publication. “I think that the collision of it is going to be cool.”
Listen to a snippet of the “Talk Talk” remix below.
Following the recent announcement that DJ revenue sharing platform Aslice is closing, Richie Hawtin has shared his thoughts on the news.
In a 10-minute statement posted to YouTube and social media, the pioneering techno producer expressed his disappointment that many big-name DJs did not participate in Aslice, a donation-based platform launched by DJ Zak Khutoretsky in 2022 that allowed DJs to voluntarily share their set playlists and contribute part of their performance fee to the artists whose music they played.
“The closing of Aslice is a huge disappointment,” Hawtin says. “Perhaps the biggest disappointment that I felt in our community, our scene since I’ve been part of it.”
Last week, the company announced it was closing and released a lengthy report that cited reasons including industry skepticism (“despite outreach to over 2,000 professional DJs, many remained hesitant,” the report says), difficulties the platform faced in gaining widespread adoption, the company’s difficulty in achieving financial sustainability, mixed engagement among DJs, and limited adoption by the leading and most well-played DJs.
Trending on Billboard
The report notes that “only 4.7% (56) of the top 1,199 DJs on Resident Advisor [with more than five upcoming performances] participated in Aslice.”
Hawtin has a sharp critique for these non-participating DJs, writing in his Instagram caption that “Aslice was working, and the only problem was that not enough DJs, especially the successful ones, agreed to sign up and share back into the music eco-system that they have built their careers on. Aslice did not fail, the famous, most followed DJ’s of our scene failed us all.”
With its closing announcement, the Aslice team said that since launching, they’ve paid out $422,696 to musicians with money from DJs who participated in the platform. They add that all participating artists with remaining balances will be paid out by the end of 2024.
Hawtin shared that since 2021, he has personally paid out €88,950 (roughly $116,268) to the producers whose music he played during his sets, at the expense of what averaged out to be roughly $800 per gig.
Noting that he wasn’t an investor in Aslice, Hawtin explained that it “was a platform that was built to rebalance the economic inequalities that are a big part of our scene. The economic inequalities between how much a DJ or musician and a producer gets paid for the music they make and the money that goes into the pocket of us DJs when we perform playing other people’s music.”
Hawtin said that while most bands perform their own music and earn commensurate royalties, “in our own beautiful scene where we have the largest paid performers playing other people’s music, that system doesn’t work. And it’s only gotten worse as we moved into digital distribution and streaming.”
He added that he’s seen many talented producers stop making music because they couldn’t support themselves and their families by doing it, even though their music might have been getting played by famous DJs in their sets. He says the platform was “a way to recognize the musicians and support the actual foundation of our whole scene. Without music, there’s no DJs.”
Hear Hawtin’s complete statement below.
The Aslice report notes that the platform was an especially vital tool in the electronic music world, given that PROs’ “failure to support the electronic music scene is evident in several key areas,” including, the report says, their technological stagnation, a lack of proactive outreach and community building, complex registration processes, an inability to track unreleased music, outdated distribution models, low accuracy rates, and a lack of retroactive payments for producers who weren’t registered when their music was played.
[embedded content]
A dance classic of the late aughts has been pushed back onto the charts by a pair of recent plays.
On the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart dated Sept. 7, La Roux‘s 2009 hit “Bulletproof” sits at No. 13 amid its fifth week on the chart, down from a peak position at No. 10.
The 15-year old song arrived on this chart due to a recent streaming surge caused by two unrelated uses. The first was a February commercial for the allergy medication Allegra, in which a woman sings the song acapella in an ode to how it apparently makes her bulletproof against allergens.
Streaming then surged enough for the song to chart after July 21, when Kodak Black posted a TikTok of himself vibing (and also brushing his teeth) to the track in a viral video that’s since been liked more then three million times.
Trending on Billboard
This Tiktok caused a “Bulletproof” streaming jump from 707,000 to 1.8 million in the week ending July 25, and then to 3.5 million in the week ending Aug. 1, according to Luminate. The most recent comments on the 2010 “Bulletproof” music video on YouTube state that viewers arrived to the clip because of Black’s influence. (“The culture came back to this after Kodak Black,” one commenter wrote. “S–t was a banger back then.”)
While the bubbly, defiant song by the English duo was a hit on the Billboard Hot 100 upon its release on June 21, 2009, this current run marks its first appearance on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, which launched in 2013, four years after the track’s release.
Initially a hit in the United Kingdom, “Bulletproof” first reached a U.S. Billboard chart on Aug. 1, 2009, when it entered Dance Club Songs at No. 38, ultimately hitting No. 1 on the chart that September. The synth pop anthem also soared on the Hot 100, cracking the top 10 in March of 2010 when it reached No. 8. It went on to spend a whopping 27 weeks on the chart. The song was also a hit on Dance/Mix Show Airplay, where it spent 14 weeks in 2009/2010, peaking at No. 10.
The song came from the duo’s 2009 self-titled debut album, which also contained the hit “In It For the Kill.” This past June, La Roux’s Elly Jackson recently acknowledged the album’s 15-year anniversary, writing on Instagram that “this album is complex for me… without it life would be very different but it took a lot out of me that’s taken years to get back. Never thought it would take this long, so weird to think it’s fifteen years ago… I’m not even sure I can process that but here we are. Thank you to everyone that’s loved and still loves this record. My deep cuts are ‘quicksand’ and ‘colourless colour,’ let me know yours.”
This week in dance music: A new compilation of music of rare disco and funk from the former USSR was released via Ostinato Records, Charli XCX teased a new project, the DJ Awards announced that they’re coming back after a four year hiatus with an October ceremony in Ibiza and a sprawling pool of nominees, Kaytranada, Ravyn Lenae and Channel Tres performed on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and Clean Bandit and Zara Larsson’s “Symphony” spent a second week at No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
And, on a singularly busy release day, here are the best new dance projects of the week.
Trending on Billboard
Fred again.., Ten Days
[embedded content]
Before Fred again.. embarks on his North American tour, he’s shared his fourth studio album, ten days. A follow-up to his Grammy award-winning Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 23, 2022), the new LP is similarly diaristic, comprising “ten songs about ten days,” as he writes on Instagram. Fred shines in his ability to make his music feel infinitely emotional, simultaneously larger-than-life and intimate – where a song played to a stadium-sized crowd touches everyone on a personal level, as if it were made specifically for them. Where songs like “Fear Less” and “Just Saw You” offer a soft but powerful slow burn, others like “Places to Be” and “Glow” — a seven-and-a-half-minute joyride made with with old pals Skrillex and Four Tet, along British producer Duskus — are more outwardly energetic, a fast-pass to euphoria.
“There’s been a lot of biggg mad crazy moments in the last year but basically all of these are about really very small quiet intimate moments,” Fred writes. “Some of them are like the most intensely joyful things I have felt, and some of them are the other side of things. And some days i don’t want to speak about loads cos I’m not the only person it was an important day for it that makes sense.” — KRYSTAL RODRIGUEZ
Nero, The Unknown
[embedded content]
EDM era titans Nero return with their first album in nine years, Into the Unknown, a 13-track demonstration that the trio’s still got it. Via a coalescence of jungle, drum ‘n’ bass, UKG, bass and genres beyond, the sleek, pristinely produced album explores themes of apocalypse, global disconnection, the growing influence of technology and nothing less than the progression of humanity itself, a sizeable message for a sizable, powerful project. Coming nine years after their last album Between II Words, Into The Unknown completes a trilogy started with the group’s 2011 debut Welcome Reality, and longtime fans will certainly recognize the epic sound and style (and Alana Watson’s umistakable voice) that first brought Nero to the fore. — KATIE BAIN
The Chainsmokers with Kim Petras, “Don’t Lie”
[embedded content]
There’s something absolutely breezy about The Chainsmokers new Kim Petras collab, “Don’t Like,” with the duo shooting off a slinky, infectious production that trades big drops for a more tempered but very effective garage-y IDM vibe. Petras pulls her weight here as well, with her breathy vocals giving a classic Kylie vibe with the song’s earworm melody. And the video, about a deliciously messy renegade desert party (starring The Chains behind the deck and Petras as the mini-skirted star of the dancefloor), is just eye-candy fun. — K.B.
Aluna & Aqutie, “Ghostin“
[embedded content]
Hailing from the deluxe edition of Aqutie’s Coolest in the City EP, “Ghostin” has the feel of the city itself, with a siren going off over a scintillating beat that conjures a vibe of subway tunnels and dark alleyways. Vocals here are from Aluna, who’s also releasing the project on her Noir Fever label, with the the two artists recently taking part in the label’s first writing camp at Empire’s San Francisco headquarters. Of pairing up with Aluna, New York City based Aqutie advised that “when two queens link up honey, and the combos communicate, unstoppable.” Meanwhile, the next Noir Fever showcase will feature artists including Aluna and Coco & Breezy next month in Brooklyn.
Ninajirachi & MGNA Crrrta, girl EDM
[embedded content]
Australian producer Ninajirachi releases her full length project girl EDM (disc 1), a 10-track package on which she synthesizes the 2000s and 2010s electronic music that influenced her and puts it through her own crunchy, ephemeral, but also quirky and also hyperpop influenced filter. To that end, standout “Angel Music” is the 2024 female equivalent to Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites-era Skrillex, with Ninajirachi taking the pummeling vibe of that era, updating it and making it her own. — K.B.
Alan Walker, Joe Jonas & Julia Michaels, “Thick of It All”
[embedded content]
Sometimes you just want to get lost in a big, hooky, feel-good, tearjerky anthem — which Joe Jonas, Julia Michaels and Norwegian electronic giant Alan Walker deftly deliver on “Thick of it All.” Walker laces the pop-forward singalong with a light drum ‘n’ bass influence, a foundation for Jonas and Michaels to belt globally relatable lyrics like “One, there’s no one to blame/ Two hearts don’t break the same way/ I know we’re in the thick of it all,” which swell to a climax of pretty harmonies. The song is out now on Monstercat. — K.B.
Microfilm, Futureproof
[embedded content]
Portland electronic music duo Microfilm achieve a major milestone with the release of their tenth studio album Chimeraz. Packing 11 songs into just over a half-hour, it’s an exploration of what the pair call “mutant pop,” trekking across frenetic soundscapes that touch upon styles like footwork, electro and techno. “The impetus was to make a collection of tracks something like ‘George Michael on Warp Records’ or ‘Modeselektor producing the Pet Shop Boys,’” says member Matt Keppel. On songs like “Quaaludes,” “Collabz” and “Shade,” brash beats meet prismatic melodies and vocals like bubblegum pop thrown in a blender, while “Rabbitholez” gleams with the ominous atmosphere of a full moon on Halloween. Chimeraz’ many textures and layers make it a brain-tickler in the best way. — K.R.
Yunè Pinku, “Half Alive”
[embedded content]
In the leadup to her Scarlet Lamb EP, yunè pinku shares her latest single “Half Alive.” It’s a bittersweet affair, where dense breakbeats cast a shadow against the lightness of dreamy synths above. pinku’s falsetto floats even higher overhead; her reflections on experiences with anxiety and depression imparting a deep wistfulness. The Billboard 2023 emerging dance artist has been expanding her sonic universe on this project, with her previous offering “Believe” leaning into something more alternative-indie. Scarlet Lamb is due out on October 4 via Method 808. Following its release, pinku will join Caribou on a North American tour, which includes stops in L.A., Brooklyn, and Toronto. — K.R.
Mat Zo, “Disco Boy”
[embedded content]
Skinny jeans, EDC in L.A., EDM’s infancy and all things neon: Mat Zo’s latest single is an instant portal to the late 2000s in all their maximal glory. Marking the London-based producer’s return to deadmau5’s mau5trap label, “Disco Boy” is a raucous shape-shifter of a track, moving from frayed-out electro-house to shimmering disco with Animorphs ease. The groove is gritty and head-thrashing, peaking with a hoovering build that threatens to suck out your soul and leave you whirling into the night. (And, if you listen to it three times in a row, Cobrasnake shows up to snap your photo.) — K.R.
On a warm Friday August afternoon, in an Italianate mansion in the hilliest (read: gatedest) part of Beverly Hills, Paris Hilton breezes into the room. The assembled label reps and journalists were politely asked to take our shoes off in the marble-floored foyer of the estate that serves as the office of Hilton’s 11:11 Media, a content company for brands and creators. Upstairs in this white carpeted room, the lady of the house wears stilettos.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The occasion for this gathering is Hilton’s new album, Infinite Icon, out today (Sept. 6), 18 years after the release of her self-titled debut. The album is a dance–pop hybrid that finds Hilton in full pop mode, with a group of collaborators that includes Meghan Thee Stallion, Rina Sawayama, Sia and Meghan Trainor. Paris set a precedent for success with its “Stars Are Blind,” which spent 12 weeks on the Hot 100 in 2006, peaked at No. 18 — and, to this day, bangs.
The house/office is decorated to remind onlookers of what Hilton has accomplished. There are posters on the wall for her show The Simple Life, a Y2K-era ratings juggernaut that helped make Hilton and co-star Nicole Richie household names. Her 2021 reality program Paris in Love tracked her wedding to now-husband Carter Reum, who welcomes us into the house and offers Diet Coke and a tour of the “Sliving Spa,” a collection of amenities that includes hyperbaric and cryotherapy chambers set up in what used to be the garage. There’s a display of pink purses and a neon wall sign proclaiming “That’s Hot,” the catchphrase Hilton trademarked in 2004, long before “very demure” became the patent-pending slogan of the summer.
Trending on Billboard
As an assistant leads up upstairs, we pass racks (and racks) of clothing (bright, bedazzled, feathery) pulled for, among other things, an upcoming music video shoot for Infinite Icon‘s “Bad Bitch Academy.” A mood board for the video, among other very fierce, very empowering imagery, has a picture of the famous 2006 photo of Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan that the New York Post published with the headline “Bimbo Summit,” which on the moodboard has been swapped for “Bad Bitch Summit.”
But much of the clothing will not ultimately appear in the video; it will instead be incinerated in an RV fire that will happen outside the L.A. video set a week from now. An accident triggered by what Hilton assumes was an electrical issue, the fire started just after they shot the first scene and destroyed nearly everything inside the RV, among it Hilton’s clothes, shoes, hair extensions, 300 pairs of sunglasses, and other more irreplaceable ephemera.
“With my ADHD, I have notepads where I have like, thousands of notes, and all of that burned along with all my journals,” Hilton tells Billboard in the wake of the fire. “It’s just been heartbreaking, really.”
But even with the tamed blaze still smoldering, Hilton and the team carried on with the shoot. “A lot of people thought it was going to be over,” she says. ” I’m like, ‘No, no, we’re powering through.’” You can genuinely say that actual fire can’t stop Paris Hilton from her pop star dreams.
Certainly a second album laden with hooks and household names guests might help her get there. But in a way, with the fame, the wealth , the outfits and the pre-existing Hot 100 hit, Hilton has always been a kind of pop queen — now she just has more music to go with it. “I’ve always had that attitude and vibe and feel,” she agrees. “Even when I go to my perfume line [release] signings and all of these things around the world, my products, my books, I feel like a pop star all the time. So this is just the next level, with this album.”
The project finds her in what’s always seemed to be her comfort zone: surrounded by a gaggle of gal pals. Infinite Icon was executive produced by Sia, a turn of events that happened after Hilton appeared with the singer and Miley Cyrus to perform “Stars Are Blind” on Cyrus’ on NBC’s 2022 Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party special. The day after, Hilton flew home with Sia on the latter’s private jet and divulged her dream of making more pop music, which Sia encouraged into existence with sessions at her house.
“The first time I sang in front of her, I was, like, freaking out,” says Hilton. “I’m like this is the greatest songwriter, singer of our time, and I’m singing in front of her — and I’m so shy, but she literally brought out something in me that I didn’t even know I had. Before I was more in the baby voice and being very breathy and kind of like, Marilyn [Monroe] vibes. And then with this album, I just felt like a woman.”
Infinite Icon was recorded at Sia’s place, L.A.’s Sunset Studios and the studios Hilton had built in this house and her other house not far from here.
The general vibe is that everyone who worked on it is a bff. Sia is “my guardian angel, my fairy godmother. I love her so much.” Meghan Trainor — “such a sweetheart. I love her. She is my sis for life” — wrote two Infinite Icon songs, which she also sings on. Co-producer Jesse Shatkin, who produced Sia’s “Chandelier” among many other things is “amazing,” while music video director Hannah Lux Davis is “such a badass.” The album takes inspiration from pop stars that made the mold — “I’ve always looked up to Madonna” — including those Hilton has been actual friends with: “I always loved Britney.”
The project is also influenced by Hilton’s longtime love of dance music, a relationship cultivated by attending many of the world’s greatest parties over the years. (“All my friends are like, begging me to go [to Burning Man], and I’m like, ‘Guys, I have an album coming out next week. I cannot be there,” she says when we speak during Burning Man week.) She is also, of course, a longtime DJ herself.
“My DJ career has definitely had a massive influence on me and my life and making this album,” she says. “Performing all around the world at music festivals, for thousands of people and being on stage and just really paying attention to what makes people move and how to create those unforgettable dancefloor moments — I wanted to bring that same energy into the album.” To that end, Infinite Icon‘s “Infinity” is pure fist-pumping Tomorrowland fare.
Other songs traverse more nuanced topics like her ADHD diagnosis, bad relationships, the love she says she’s now found with Reum and their two young children (son Phoenix is 19 months, daughter London will be one in November) the emptiness of fame and even death. These themes further the expansion of Hilton’s public image that started in 2020 with the release of her documentary, This Is Paris.
In it, she disclosed her experiences at Provo Canyon School, an involuntary residential center for young people where she was taken against her will in 1997, when she was 16. The mental and physical abuse she experienced there was revealed in the doc, which has been viewed 80 million times on YouTube alone. The film fell squarely into the broader public reassessment of the misogynistic and often abusive treatment many female celebrities (Britney Spears, Pamela Anderson, Janet Jackson, etc.) received from the media and culture at large in the Perez Hlton era.
Hilton went deeper into her story in her 2023 memoir, which an assistant hands out copies of after the mansion office album listening session. The book details adventures like the time she and photographer David LaChapelle snuck into her grandparents’ house for an impromptu photo shoot (the grandparents were asleep upstairs) — and thornier subjects, like how the release of a private sex tape against her will by an ex-partner derailed her rising career when she was 19 years old. (One might, for example, read the first half in one sitting on a Friday night in August.)
“That was just such a therapeutic experience,” Hilton says of the documentary, “delving into my life and really taking that time just to reflect on my life and everything I’d been through, and just seeing how strong I am, and resilient, and just what I’ve had to endure. Then with the book, it took it to the next level, where I even started going even deeper, and then through the music. So, yeah, I don’t think the album would have been as deep as it is if it wasn’t for doing the documentary and then that book.”
She’s got a few live shows behind the album lined up and says while her main focus is her family and her business empire she’d love to play Coachella (“that would be iconic”) and make music with Charli XCX. “I’m the original brat,” she says matter of factly.
“Every time I’ve spoken with [Charli],” she continues, “she’s like, ‘You’ve always been such an inspiration to my music.’ So I just think it just makes so much sense for us to do a song together.” Luckily, the few things that didn’t burn up in the fire included a notebook with ideas for her third album.
All in all, the impression one gets is that Paris Hilton is indeed — in a phrase she trademarked in 2022 — “sliving.” Given the intoxicating but also often toxic realm of celebrity that she emerged from, it’s easy to see how things could have gone differently for her. Instead, she’s got her family, a global business, and now, the album she’s spent nearly 20 years dreaming about. She’s sweet, and she seems happy.
“Being the blueprint for modern celebrity, and really redefining what it means and pioneering a new kind of celebrity, and being someone that blends fashion and media and business and pop culture into a powerful personal brand — I feel proud of that,” she says. “I love seeing so many people now who can follow in my footsteps and take that blueprint and be able to create their own brands and their own businesses and create a beautiful life to support themselves.”
It’s perhaps not the future even she’d dreamed for herself back when “Stars are Blind” was on the charts.
“It just makes me happy anytime I meet someone who says like, ‘Thank you so much. You’re the reason that I do what I do,’” she says. “Or, ‘If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.’ Or, ‘Thank you so much for always being my role model.’ Growing up as a teenager and everything I went through, I never thought I would ever hear that. So it’s just been very validating to me.”