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A video for “Now and Then,” which has been described as the “last Beatles song,” is scheduled to premiere on Friday (Nov. 3) at 10 a.m. ET., 24 hours after the track’s release on Thursday (Nov. 2). The clip was directed by Peter Jackson and is described in a release as a “poignant and humorous” visual that “invites viewers to celebrate The Beatles’ timeless and enduring love for one another with John, Paul, George and Ringo as they create the last Beatles song; the video will premiere on the Beatles YouTube channel.
“Now and Then,” which will be released by Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe, is the final song written by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and it was finished by living members McCartney and Starr more than 40 years after the group began work on it. The double A-side single will also include a touching throwback with the inclusion of the band’s 1962 debut single, “Love Me Do,” featuring the original cover art shot by Ed Ruscha. Both songs have been mixed in stereo and Dolby Atmos.
The “Now and Then” video is Jackson’s first foray into music video production and in a statement, the director behind the acclaimed 2021 The Beatles: Get Back miniseries said when Apple first approached him with the gig he was initially reluctant to say yes. “I thought my next few months would be a hell of a lot more fun if that tricky task was somebody else’s problem, and I could be like any other Beatles fan, enjoying the night-before-Christmas anticipation as the release of a new Beatles song and music video approached – in 1995, l loved the childlike excitement I felt as the release of ‘Free As A Bird’ was inching closer,” he said of the 1995 Beatles song that began as a 1977 Lennon home demo that was completed by McCartney, Harrison and Starr.
“I could have that experience once again – all I had to do was say no to The Beatles. To be honest, just thinking about the responsibility of having to make a music video worthy of the last song The Beatles will ever release produced a collection of anxieties almost too overwhelming to deal with,” the director continued. “My lifelong love of The Beatles collided into a wall of sheer terror at the thought of letting everyone down. This created intense insecurity in me because I’d never made a music video before, and was not able to imagine how I could even begin to create one for a band that broke up over 50 years ago, had never actually performed the song, and had half of its members no longer with us.”
But, as Jackson kept trying to think of new reasons to turn down the gig — to this day, he said, he still has never, technically, agreed to the job — he told Apple that the lack of “suitable footage” was worrisome because the project would require tapping into rare and unseen film of the Fab Four, not much of which is out there.
“Nothing at all seemed to exist showing Paul, George and Ringo working on ‘Now And Then’ in 1995 … There’s not much footage of John in the mid-seventies when he wrote the demo … I grizzled about the lack of unseen Beatles footage from the ’60s … And they didn’t even shoot any footage showing Paul and Ringo working on the song last year,” he said of his tortured thought process.
“A Beatles music video must have great Beatles footage at its core. There’s no way actors or CGI Beatles should be used,” Jackson continued. “Every shot of The Beatles needed to be genuine. By now I really had no idea how anyone could make a ‘Now And Then’ music video if they didn’t have decent footage to work with, and this was far from being a lame excuse. My fear and insecurity now had solid reasons why they should prevail and allow me to say no without looking too much like a chicken.”
But Jackson also knew the Beatles don’t take no for an answer once they set their minds to something, which might explain why they didn’t wait for him to decline before forging ahead. Jackson said he found himself “swept along” as McCartney and Starr addressed his worries and shot some footage of themselves that they sent to him. In addition, Apple dug up more than 14 hours of long-forgotten film shot during the 1995 sessions, including several hours of McCartney, Harrison and Starr working on the last song.
In addition, Lennon’s son, Sean Ono Lennon, and Harrison’s widow, Olivia, found some “great unseen home movie footage” that they shared with him. “To cap things off, a few precious seconds of The Beatles performing in their leather suits, the earliest known film of The Beatles and never seen before, was kindly supplied by Pete Best,” Jackson revealed of the contribution from the band’s original drummer. “Watching this footage completely changed the situation – I could see how a music video could be made. Actually, I found it far easier if I thought of it as making a short movie, so that’s what I did… My lack of confidence with music videos didn’t matter anymore if I wasn’t making one. Even so, I still had no solid vision for what this short film should be – so I turned to the song for guidance.”
Jackson described separating Lennon’s voice on the demo tape a year ago, with producer Giles Martin cooking up an early mix of the single last year that the director loved and which he’s listened to more than 50 times since. After doing a deep-dive into the song looking for ideas and inspiration for the short film, Jackson said the more he listened the more the shape of the visual began to take form, “without any conscious effort from me.”
Working with his Get Back editor, Jabez Olssen, Jackson started pulling together “little fragments, sliding pictures and music around in different ways until things began to click in.” The idea, he said, was to create a short film that would “bring a few tears to the eye,” though he began to realize that generating emotion using only archival footage was “tricky” at best.
“Fortunately, the simple power of this beautiful song did a lot of the work for us, and we finished the first 30 or 40 secs of the film fairly quickly,” Jackson said, admitting that finding an appropriate ending that could “adequately sum up the enormity of The Beatles’ legacy” proved daunting. If not impossible.
“Their contribution to the world is too immense, and their wondrous gift of music has become part of our DNA and now defies description,” he said. “I realised we needed the imagination of every viewer to do what we couldn’t, and have each viewer create their own personal moment of farewell to The Beatles – but we had to gently steer everyone to that place. I had some vague ideas, but didn’t really know how to achieve this.”
Jackson said he got lucky because Harrison’s son, musician Dhani Harrison, happened to be visiting Jackson’s home country of New Zealand at the time, and after discussing the proposed ending with him, “his [Harrison’s] eyes immediately filled with tears — so that is the way we went.”
The middle section aimed to capture the band’s legendarily silly side using a collection of unseen outtakes where the Beatles are “relaxed, funny and rather candid.”
The video will be accompanied by a 12-minute Now and Then — The Last Beatles Song documentary written by Oliver Murray, due out on Wednesday (Nov. 1). The doc will tell the story behind the track and feature exclusive footage and commentary from McCartney, Starr and Harrison, as well as Sean Ono Lennon and director Jackson.
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As one of Hip-Hop’s greatest talents, Jay-Z hasn’t always batted 100% when it comes to his videos. He admits it is hard for him to watch some of his older visuals.
HipHopDX is reporting that the Brooklyn, New York, native recently spoke to Complex about Hype Williams’ indelible contribution to the culture as a legendary music director. The music site spoke to many of Hype’s most noted collaborators including Missy Elliot, DJ Khaled and Jay-Z. Hov detailed some of his memorable shoots with the film producer. While recalling all their great work the “Dead Presidents” rapper went on to admit that he wasn’t the easiest rapper to work with when it came to bringing his songs to life.
“Hype definitely has a vision for what he wants to see. So he’d be like, ‘Yo, blow the smoke right here and this is gonna be crazy, it’s going to be bananas!’ he explained. “But I don’t know if I was coachable as far as a performance at that time. I don’t know if anyone could coach me, you know, because I was so guarded. I think about the early videos that I have and I listen to myself talking and it’s kind of hard for me to watch. That’s not even how I speak.”
Jay-Z also discussed “Sunshine,” a video that his core fanbase at the time deemed a crossover attempt to grab some of Bad Boy Entertainment’s light. He said the original idea for the shoot was even more grand than the final product. “And then he said the number, and I think it was, like, $1.8 million or something. And I was like, ‘Hype, come on, bro.’ Like I got mad at him. Like are you trying to play me? You think I’m dumb?” he recalled.
“So to fit the budget we stripped the idea down. And I learned a valuable lesson from that. Either I’m going to trust Hype’s vision or I’m going to go with another idea,” he added. “I remember receiving criticism from that video, but I think because of Reasonable Doubt, everyone had this different sort of expectation for me. I’m not going to say it was great. It’s a good song and I just think people didn’t want that from me at the time.”
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You can read the rest of Jay-Z’s interview where he denied he was originally supposed to have DMX’s role in Belly and more here.
Blink-182 go full method in the video for their One More Time… (Oct. 20) single “Dance With Me” that dropped on Thursday (Oct. 5). The latest single from the pop-punk trio’s reunion album finds Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker dressing up in their finest Ramones cosplay outfits to channel the spirit of the punk godfathers in a clip directed by the Malloys that mostly recreates the brudders’ classic visual for their song “I Wanna Be Sedated.”
“The video serves as a love letter to the Ramones and finds the guys paying homage to one of their favorite iconic bands that came before them,” reads a description of the visual that opens with a clueless interviewer introducing the band and then asking, “what the hell is punk? And is it punk that I said hell?”
Channeling the Forest Hills, Queens-bred eff you attitude of their favorite band — while wearing Ramones-appropriate shag wigs, sunglasses and leather jackets — the guys offer sincerely annoyed answers before busting into a Ramones cosplay in which they recreate the band’s chaotic “Sedated” video.
As in the Ramones clip, the “Dance With Me” video finds the trio sitting glumly at a kitchen table as a whirlwind of crazy action swirls around them, with dozens of random dancers, brides, construction workers, doctors, cheerleaders, little kids and random weirdos running in and out of frame.
“Ole, ole, ole, ole, yeah we’re doin’ in it all night long/ Ole, ole, ole, ole, yeah we’re doing it all night long,” they sing on the raucous pop-punk tune’s chorus. The second set-up re-creates the legendarily grimy interior of the Ramones’ musical mecca, New York’s late lamented CBGB punk club, with drummer Travis Barker smashing his kit in front of a wall of graffiti and band posters while wearing a “Disco Sucks” t-shirt.
Guitarist/singer Tom DeLonge plays the hybrid part of lanky singer Joey Ramone and guitarist Johnny, while Mark Hoppus performs a more sedate take on bombastic bassist Dee Dee as a crowd of bespoke punks dance along to the galloping track. The trio also recreate the iconic low-budge brick wall album cover photo from the Ramones’ 1976 self-titled debut in the video.
Blink’s first album by the core trio in 11 years is due out on Oct. 20. The 17-song effort, produced by Barker, has already been advanced by the singles “Edging,” “More Than You Know” and the wistful title track ballad.
Watch the “Dance With Me” video below.
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Amy Winehouse has finally reached the YouTube billion views club. The Grammy-winning late soul/R&B star who tragically died at 27 of alcohol poisoning in 2011 is now part of that elite society thanks to her 2007 “Back to Black” visual crossing the nine zero mark. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest […]
The calendar says September, but Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B are clearly not ready to give up their Hot Girl Summer in the new video for their latest joint single, “Bongos.” The Technicolor extravaganza that dropped on Friday (Sept. 8) is filled to bursting with a rainbow of high-fashion looks, shoes so impossibly stacked that even Lady Gaga would have trouble balancing in them and, of course, lyrics that will keep censors working overtime.
For their first collab since 2020’s Billboard Hot 200 No. 1 smash “WAP,” the pair tapped Ukrainian director Tanu Muino (Lil Nas X, Lizzo, Harry Styles), who kicks things off with a shot from behind of dancers in brightly colored bathing suits bouncing along to the song’s hypnotic “bong, bong, bong” refrain as they balance on beachside chaise lounges on geometrically shaped high heels.
After a quick glimpse of Cardi laying in the sand in a purple and pink bikini with a gigantic furry matching hat, the “Jealousy” rapper struts her stuff in Carnival-like blue, pink and yellow flamingo headdresses and matching bathing suits for a mansion full of men in bikinis as she busts out the song’s provocative first verse. “N—a eats this a– like a plum/ This p—y tight like a nun/ Better chew it up like it’s gum/ Then wipe your mouth when you’re done,” she raps over the song’s insistent beat.
“I’m hot like Nevada/ P—y get popped, piñata/ B–ch, I look like money/ You could print my face on a dollar,” Cardi adds before the “Beat it up (bong bong bong bong)” refrain comes around and Cardi twerks in front of an open fridge while rocking a burgundy string bikini and matching cascading braids.
Cardi warned fans in a preview DJ Whoo Kid interview that fans shouldn’t expect the “Bongos” video to serve up the same energy she and Meg brought in the eye-popping “WAP” clip, but the two definitely share a similar high-fashion, all-the-colors-of-the-rainbow aesthetic, minus the latter’s celeb (and big cat) cameos, of course.
Cardi kicks off the second “Bongos” verse modeling one of her wildest outfits ever, a body-hugging paisley bodysuit that matches the pattern on a couch she grinds her hips on while dissing unnamed “dusty-a– hoes.” After Cardi’s surfside hip-swiveling routine with a half dozen dancers, Megan gets her spot, entering the action in a provocative green monokini and matching headdress while posing on a diving board.
“This a– sit like the stallion/ All these wannabes my lil’ ponies/ These hoes camped out in the comments/ Always talkin’ like they know me/ Thick b—hes in the black truck, packed in,” Meg raps before busting out her own routine on a swim-up platform in front of a massive mansion while bragging about a purse so big “had to treat it like a person.”
And while Cardi promised Whoo Kid the video was “intricate [and] beautiful” and that it had a “different theme” than the “WAP” visual, don’t worry, there are still plenty of be-thonged butts shaking throughout, as well as a Bollywood-style section where Cardi, Megan and their dancers rock the sand in bright, gauzy outfits featuring billowing material on their hips fanned out like wings.
Along the way the pair pose provocatively on a strip-club-worthy oceanside jungle gym before Cardi steals the show with a final, over-the-top look that includes a flowing curly copper wig, enormous orange and purple earrings and foot-high chunky heels that would make an acrobat topple over.
Watch the “Bongos” video below.
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Christina Ricci knows a thing or two about spooking people thanks to her iconic role as Wednesday Addams in a pair of Addams Family movies. But the actress has the tables turned on her in the video for Doja Cat‘s single “Demons,” which dropped on Friday (Sept. 1). In the terrifying visual for the latest […]
For years, musicians pretty much had just one artistic outlet for dissing their enemies: through song. That would all change for good circa 1981, however, when the modern music video was born — bringing with it a whole new way for singers and rappers to creatively dunk on their haters, exes, backstabbers, copycats and everyone […]
Olivia Rodrigo is giving fans a glimpse at all the good ideas that went into filming the “Bad Idea Right?” music video, as well as a closer look at some of the Easter eggs they might have missed (or so it seems). In a recent behind-the-scenes video, Rodrigo is working closely with director Petra Collins […]
Brent Faiyaz officially launched his own creative agency, ISO Supremacy, on Wednesday (Aug. 16).
Billboard announced back in May that the R&B star and UnitedMasters had struck an unprecedented partnership to start the agency. “Brent Faiyaz is one of the most prolific independent artists today, and we are extremely excited to embark on this new partnership with him,” said UnitedMasters founder/CEO Steve Stoute in an exclusive statement at the time. “It’s been inspiring to watch his journey as an artist over the years, and with this partnership we look to further amplify his creative vision and support his entrepreneurial ambitions.”
ISO Supremacy, which stands for In Search of Supremacy, is a creative network with the mission of executing visual and sonic art. Faiyaz leads as CEO, with Darren Xu as COO, Ashani Allick as head of A&R, Michael Alexander as project manager and Zac Matias as art director.
In other news, Faiyaz released the official video for “Jackie Brown,” which comes from his sophomore album Wasteland that he released on July 8, 2022, via Lost Kids, Venice Music and Stem. The set had an impressive start for the independent artist, debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
Partly inspired by the 1997 Quentin Tarantino crime drama of the same name, the “Jackie Brown” visual opens with Faiyaz on a plane, cruising and snoozing through the clouds. Even if “life moves fast” for him, as his famous falsetto heard all throughout TikTok indicates, it’s filled with the finer things, from yacht rides with a woman on either side of him to custom-tailored suits to endless glasses of champagne, and wealth that can’t buy his leading lady.
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“Jackie Brown was one of the movies I was watching during COVID on repeat. Besides the fact that Pam Grier was fine as sh-t in that movie, I also liked the fact that they stay by the beach in L.A., and I stay in Venice,” he told Variety in an interview last year. “Cinematically, I liked the shots and I liked the colors. For whatever reason, when I watch Tarantino films, it just makes me want to make music. Something about the images just puts sounds in my head. Tarantino’s the GOAT. Cold as f–k.”
Faiyaz is currently on his F*ck the World, It’s a Wasteland Tour; the U.S. portion wraps on Sept. 15 in L.A., while the entire jaunt ends on Nov. 20 in London.
Usher and Keke Palmer can’t stop stirring the pot. After teasing the collaboration 24 hours ago, the two stars have debuted the music video for the R&B legend’s new song “Boyfriend,” following some drama with the actress’ alleged ex-boyfriend, Darius Jackson.
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The Wednesday (Aug. 16) visual stars a glowing Palmer having a night out with her friends and hanging with Usher, who taunts in the song’s lyrics: “Somebody said that your boyfriend is looking for me, that’s cool/ He should know I’m pretty easy to find/ Just look for me wherever he sees you.”
Midway through, the video pauses to show the Nope star and her gal pals listening to Usher’s 2001 hit “U Remind Me” in an elevator, during which she exclaims, “I love this song… do you remember where you were when you first heard this?”
After a suave dance break in a casino led by Palmer, who lights up onscreen, the video cuts to her waking up in bed to answer a FaceTime call from (guess who?) Usher. That’s where she drops in the biggest diss toward Jackson: “S–t, I’m so tired… I am a mother, after all,” she says, winking at the camera.
The cheeky line pokes fun at Jackson, with whom Palmer shares a six-month-old son. Last month, Jackson took to Twitter to call out Palmer for a sheer outfit she wore to Usher’s Las Vegas concert, lamenting: “We live in a generation where a man of the family doesn’t want the wife & mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others & he gets told how much of a hater he is. This is my family & my representation. I have standards & morals to what I believe. I rest my case.”
Reposting a clip of Usher dancing with a swooning Palmer during the show, Jackson also wrote in a now-deleted tweet: “It’s the outfit tho.. you a mom.”
Neither Palmer nor Jackson have commented on the status of their relationship since. Regardless, Palmer seems to be living her best life, taking to Instagram following the music video’s release to thank Usher for “encouraging me and seeing me as the entertainer I am.”
“I know I’m a gUrL but when I watched your videos, I never wanted to be the girl in them, I wanted to be YOU,” she added in her post. “Thank you for making a dream come true.”
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