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Charli XCX could not have planned it better if she tried. After more than 15 years of writing and producing hit songs, the “360” singer was so convinced that fans were not going to like her Brat album that she purposely pinched pennies on the now-iconic cover art in order to shift funds to photo shoots and other promotional efforts.
“Where the actual first idea of doing a text cover came from was to save money,” Charli told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe by way of explaining how the lime green blurry imagery came to be. “I was like, ‘This album is not going to appeal to a lot of people.’” Thinking it didn’t make sense to do an elaborate cover shoot, but instead maybe spend money elsewhere, Charli decided to make the cover as basic as possible, never thinking it would become so influential that fashion houses would cop the color and style for their collections.
“I was like, ‘I think I will do a press shoot and then maybe we just save on the album cover,’” she told Lowe, noting that her manager, creative director and friends all though the lower case cover text was “the stupidest idea ever,” begging her “no! Not the text cover!” Charli being Charli, that only made her more adamant about seeing her vision through, which began with her mocking up the idea on her phone.
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“This actually is really good. It actually feels like it very much embodies the word ‘brat’ to kind of not be there because that is sort of less of the norm, I suppose, for female artists,” she said. “That felt punchy. The pixilation makes it looks like it’s kind of been done in this rush… you didn’t get the proper hi-res file… I knew it would generate this conversation. I knew that a lot of people would be sort of frustrated or disappointed by it. And I think for me, it’s like I would rather have those conversations, which actually in some cases became quite explosive, than a picture where people are like, ‘She looks good.’”
As for the shade, Charli said she and her team went round-and-round on the proper tint, wanting to go for the one that the most people in her inner circle had “the most adverse reaction to.” For the record, manager Brandon Creed weighed in with, “this is really hard to look at,” which made Charli think that she’d definitely nailed the “perfect” shade.
When Lowe described how “obsessed” people have become with the brat visual aesthetic, to the point that some have said she “claimed a color,” the singer laughed. Charli said she was at home when she came up with the concept, thinking that she’d been pictured on the covers of all her albums up to that point — except for her 2016 EP Vroom Vroom. “Actually it kind of punctuates the pattering in quite a nice way, but also, like, handy because it’s going to be a lower spend,” she said. Plus, she’s really enjoyed watching her fans writing think pieces about the cover and the marketing of the project.
The left-field idea has clearly worked, as Charli’s album spawned “Brat Summer,” as well as catching the eye of presidential hopeful Vice President Kamala Harris, who also copped the aesthetic for her social media feeds after the singer proclaimed “kamala IS brat.” She will double-down on success on the upcoming Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat (Oct. 11) which features remixes with Robyn, Yung Lean, Ariana Grande, Troye Sivan, Lorde, Tinashe, Billie Eilish and many more.
Check out Charli’s Lowe interview below.
Warning: This story contains mentions of suicide.
Lisa Marie Presley was so overcome with grief following the death of her son Benjamin Keough that she kept his body packed in dry ice in her home for two months. According to NBC, the shocking revelation is included in the new memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, which daughter, Daisy Jones & the Six star Riley Keough, completed after her mother’s death at 54 in January 2023.
“My mom had my brother in the house with us instead of keeping him at the morgue,” Keough wrote in the book. “They told us that if we could tend to the body, we could have him at home, so she kept him in our house for a while on dry ice.”
Keough said that it was important for her mother — the only child of late rock legend Elvis Presley — to have proper time to say goodbye to her son, who died by suicide in 2020. “The same way she’d done with her dad. And I would go and sit there with him,” she said, noting that California doesn’t have any laws that mandate exactly when a body needs to be buried or disposed of. Keough used archival tapes of her mother’s memories to help finish the book.
“My house has a separate casitas bedroom, and I kept Ben Ben in there for two months,” according to Presley, who had begun working on the memoir before her death; Presley died of a small bowel obstruction caused by complications from prior weight loss surgery. “There is no law in the state of California that you have to bury someone immediately. I found a very empathic funeral home owner,” Presley wrote. “I told her that having my dad in the house after he died was incredibly helpful because I could go and spend time with him and talk to him. She said, ‘We’ll bring Ben Ben [her nickname for her son] to you. You can have him there.’”
She added, “I think it would scare the living f—ing p-ss out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me.” Lisa Marie was nine-years-old when Elvis died in 1977.
The room where Benjamin’s body was reportedly kept at 55 degrees and Presley and Keough got tattoos that matched Benjamin’s from an artist who came to their home. When asked if they had any photos of the piece they wanted to replicate, Lisa Marie told him, “no, but I can show you,” referring to ink Benjamin had on his collarbone with Keough’s name and another on his hand with Presley’s name; the mother and daughter got Benjamin’s name tattooed on the matching parts of their bodies.
Even by the unusual rules that the Presley’s lived by, Keough said the tattoo incident was one of the most bizarre ones she’d experienced. “Lisa Marie Presley had just asked this poor man to look at the body of her dead son, which happened to be right next to us in the casitas. I’ve had an extremely absurd life, but this moment is in the top five,” she wrote.
Shortly after that, one of Keough’s brothers made it clear he didn’t want the body in the home anymore and Keough, channeling her late sibling, imagined how he might have observed the scene. “‘Guys,’ he seemed to be saying, ‘this is getting weird.’ Even my mom said that she could feel him talking to her, saying, ‘This is insane, Mom, what are you doing? What the f—!,’” Keough said.
According to People, the book details how the family held a funeral service for Benjamin in Malibu and Keough placed a pair of her yellow Nikes that her brother had always loved in the casket. In a previous interview with People prior to the book’s release, Keough revealed, “My mom physically died from the after effects of her surgery, but we all knew she died of a broken heart.”
Both Presley and her son are buried at Graceland, where Elvis is also interred.
Wagakki Band shocked fans earlier this year when it announced that the group will be going on hiatus indefinitely after Dec. 31, 2024. The eight-member band has forged out a singular space in J-pop music through its unique ensemble including traditional Japanese instruments and featuring the distinctive singing style of frontwoman Yuko Suzuhana. After a decade of enjoying brilliant success both in its home country and abroad, the group has summed up its career so far in a best-of collection, called ALL TIME BEST ALBUM THANKS – Yasou no Oto -.
Wagakki Band members Suzuhana, Beni Ninagawa (Tsugaru-shamisen), Kurona (wadaiko, Japanese drums), Machiya (guitar & vocals), and Wasabi (drums) sat down with Billboard Japan and spoke candidly about why they chose to take a break on their anniversary year, and the process of producing the 18-track greatest hits album that also includes re-recorded versions of familiar hits and two new songs.
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The announcement that the band would be taking a break indefinitely took me by surprise when it came out in January. Could you tell us how you came to that decision?
Yuko Suzuhana: We formed Wagakki Band and made our debut in less than a year and spent an extremely busy ten years since. But at the time we first got started, all the members each had their own bands or were doing solo work. Wagakki Band suddenly attracted a lot of attention, so we stopped everything else we’d been doing until then and poured everything into this project. We’d been discussing for over a year about how it might be a good idea to stop the band for the time being and focus on our individual activities.
Beni Ninagawa: We figured we’d do our best until the end of our tenth year, then after that, we needed some time to reflect on ourselves and further improve our skills. It’s a positive decision that will allow us to get together again after we’ve improved and make even better music.
Suzuhana: The band wasn’t going downhill, so the timing of the announcement might have come as a surprise for some, but we said the hiatus would be indefinite simply because we haven’t set a time limit. This news is being inaccurately reported, especially outside of Japan, that we’re disbanding and I’ve received many inquiries from overseas.
Listening to this greatest hits album, I was touched by how it traces the history of your past ten years in a very dramatic way.
Machiya: We didn’t want to make a best-of album that just lined up our famous hits. Since it’s the tenth anniversary of our debut, we decided to re-record some of our early releases and make the collection into a retrospective of the ten years we’ve spent with our fans. It’s a pretty conceptual structure that allows you to trace our history by listening to the songs in release order.
Ninagawa: What’s more, the earlier songs that we re-recorded have a completely different sound quality compared to the original recordings, so that’s something for our fans to enjoy.
Wasabi: In particular, the original version of “Rokuchounen to Ichiya Monogatari” sounds quite light. There are parts where we should have made more solid, but it’s a fast-paced song and we weren’t able to express that at the time. But thanks to the things we’ve cultivated over the past decade, we’ve finally been able to give it shape, and I think you can feel the weight of our ten years in the sound.
After listening to the re-recorded version, I was struck by the magnitude of the wadaiko’s presence.
Kurona: Rock music can be made with just a guitar, bass and drums, so traditional Japanese instruments aren’t really necessary. But in this band, they can’t just be discreetly included; they have to become indispensable and the sounds should be there because they’re necessary. There were no precedents before Wagakki Band and we’re still the only ones that do this… We’re still in the process of trial and error.
The tracks “Rokuchounen to Ichiya Monogatari (Re-Recording)” and “Senbonzakura (Re-Recording)” were released digitally ahead of the album. My phrases and calls haven’t changed at all since (the original), but maybe because the way we recorded has changed, I’ve had people tell me that they think I’ve added more wadaiko phrases and calls. In that sense, I feel that my trials and the results of how to make Japanese instruments sound richer, including the significance of my own presence, are expressed in these re-recorded versions.
“GIFT” is a positive up-tempo new song credited to Yuko.
Suzuhana: I imagined what I’d be like, what kind of melody I’d like to be singing at the end of our tenth anniversary before the break. I came up with a positive, bright melody and tempo in a day or so, and wrote it on the piano. I named it “Gift” because this band was a gift to me. My life changed completely thanks to this band, and of course I hope that the music we eight members created will also be a gift to our fans. So this song is about how the existence of Wagakki Band has changed all of our lives for the better.
Ninagawa: Everything we want to convey is packed into this song, isn’t it?
Machiya: If you listen to this song after reading this interview, you might be able to see that our hiatus is a bit different from what those who interpreted it as a negative move thought it would be.
The other new song, “Yasou Emaki,” is credited to Wagakki Band.
Machiya: What’s different about this best-of album from previous ones is that we asked our fans which songs they wanted included. We made the selection based mainly on the top answers from the survey, but those songs are to be expected, right? Among the top 100, there were lots of tracks in the midrange that didn’t make the cut. We wanted to meet the expectations of our fans who voted for such songs, so we started working on this new track with the idea of mashing them up as much as possible. I was the one who did all the actual work, but we made it together in that it samples phrases that we all made, so we put it out under the name Wagakki Band for the first time.
I’ve forgotten how many I ended up using, but I took samples of over 80 songs. I exported all the melodies and chords in the same key, and then spent about two weeks extracting the words from them.
You’ll be touring from November to December with this album and wrapping up your decade of music for the time being. Can your fans expect the tour to be a joyful celebration?
Kurona: We know that our fans have bought tickets with some sadness and feeling of loss about our break in the corner of their minds, so we want to make sure that the shows will outlast those feelings for as long as possible. We want people who were feeling down to go home with a brighter outlook, saying things like, “I had a great time” and “I’m glad I came today.” To that end, we’ll put on an even cooler show than ever before.
“ALL TIME BEST ALBUM THANKS – Yasou no Oto -” is streaming now https://wgb.lnk.to/thanks_digital. Click here for information on tickets to “WAGAKKIBAND Japan Tour 2024 THANKS-YASO NO OTO-” Tokyo show on Dec. 10 for overseas residents https://wagakkiband.com/contents/857663.
—This interview by Tomokazu Nishibiro first appeared on Billboard Japan
Now that we know Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan are both eligible for best new artist at the 2025 Grammy Awards, who will win? Well, on the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are taking a closer look at the hotly contested Big Four category, thanks to Billboard awards editor Paul Grein’s breakdown […]
The mad villains have linked up once again. Madlib, the MF DOOM estate, Stones Throw Records, and Rhymesayers Entertainment have released “One Beer (Madlib Remix)” to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the late rapper and producer’s fifth solo album MM..FOOD. The version featured on the album is also produced by Madlib, but was credited to […]
Justin Timberlake was scheduled to bring his Forget Tomorrow World Tour to New Jersey’s Prudential Center on Tuesday night (Oct. 8). However, shortly before doors at the venue were scheduled to open, the star took to Instagram to announce that the show has been postponed. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest […]
Amazon Music is continuing the Amazon Music Live fun with three new episodes announced on Tuesday (Oct. 8). The livestreamed music series will now also feature performances from Big Sean, Halsey and J Balvin. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The show takes place after Thursday Night on […]
Lance Bass and Michael Turchin’s twin son and daughter celebrated their third birthday in style Tuesday (Oct. 8).
In photos shared to the *NSYNC alum’s Instagram, the family of four got a jump start on the toddlers’ birthday festivities — they don’t actually turn 3 until Oct. 13 — by serving up Tile Town-themed cakes opening presents and posing in front of a wall of balloons. While daughter Violet blew out the candle on her very own Tiffany-blue cake decorated with small animals, Alexander enjoyed a custom Paw Patrol-inspired cake.
Meanwhile, Bass and the actor — who have been married since 2014 — pose with frosting on their noses and feed their little ones bits of cake. “It’s gonna be THRAYYY!!!” the “Bye Bye Bye” singer captioned the snaps on Instagram, a play on his former boy band’s 2000 smash “It’s Gonna Be Me.”
“The birthday fun is in full swing,” he added. “Tile Town, cake, and two happy toddlers—what more could you ask for?”
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Bass and Turchin welcomed Alexander and Violet via surrogate in 2021. “The baby dragons have arrived!!” the musician wrote on Instagram at the time. “I can not express how much love I feel right now. Thank you for all the kind wishes. It meant a lot. Now, how do you change a diaper??!”
The family’s wholesome party comes less than a week ahead of the presidential election, throughout which Bass has been vocal in his support for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. In July, he filmed a video with the VP, “Hey Kamala, what are we gonna say to Donald Trump in November?”
“Bye bye bye,” she quipped in response.
A few months later, Bass appeared on Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live. While on the show, the performer shared a story about Sean “Diddy” Combs, whose name has been all over the news of late as he awaits trial for charges of sex trafficking and racketeering.
“It’s kinda horrible, but never kinda liked him,” Bass said on the show of Diddy, who opened for *NSYNC on the band’s 2002 tour. “The very last show in Orlando, I overheard him talking to Justin [Timberlake] being like, ‘You need to drop these… effers! You need to go solo! And I was like, ‘I don’t like you anymore Diddy.’ I’m like, ‘At my own show? What the hell?’”
Celine Dion‘s heart will definitely go on for Kelly Clarkson. Following the Kelly Clarkson Show host’s powerful Kellyoke cover of the icon’s classic Titanic ballad “My Heart Will Go On,” Dion shared a tearful reaction to the tribute in a video posted to social media on Tuesday (Oct. 8). “I just saw you singing ‘My […]
Since Taylor Swift became a major part of Kansas City Chiefs games, a couple of announcers have tripped up when referring to her during game day broadcasts — but Joe Buck doesn’t plan to fall into that trap.
After co-announcer Troy Aikman mistakenly referred to the pop star as Travis Kelce’s “Mrs.” during the Chiefs vs. New Orleans Saints match on Monday, Buck revealed that such missteps wouldn’t fly in his house. “My daughters have warned me multiple times today: ‘Dad, I know you think you’re funny, don’t make any jokes,’” Buck told the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback on air.
Moments before that, cameras had panned to Swift’s reaction to one of Kelce’s second-quarter plays. As the “Anti-Hero” singer cheered and applauded her boyfriend, Aikman said: “The Mrs. likes it.”
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“You know they’re not married?” Buck corrected him at the time, to which Aikman replied, “I’m sure I’m in trouble for saying that.”
“I mean, it happens,” added Buck.
Aikman’s slip-up comes about 10 months after Tony Romo made headlines for a similar reason. During a Chiefs game in the 2023-24 season — which later saw Kansas City win the Super Bowl — Romo accidentally said during his broadcast, “As you see Kelce’s wife, Taylor Swift, in the audience … I’m sorry, girlfriend.”
Currently on a break from her global Eras Tour, Swift has attended several Chiefs games so far this season to cheer Kelce on. At her most recent outing to Arrowhead Stadium, the 14-time Grammy winner sported a plaid dress, platform boots and eye-catching glitter freckles on her cheeks.
After the game ended with a Chiefs victory 26-13, the tight end joined Swift in her box suite and leaned in for a PDA-filled moment, as captured on camera by a fan. The team remains undefeated with a 5-0 record, and will next face off against their 2024 Super Bowl opponents, the San Francisco 49ers, on Oct. 20.
