Music
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The Lincoln Project has spent the better part of five years warning Americans about what they see as the danger of second Donald Trump administration. The political action committee made up of moderate conservatives and former GOP members — including George Conway, ex-husband of Trump’s former senior counselor, Kellyanne Conway — will release its latest broadside against twice-impeached, convicted felon Trump on Thursday morning (Sept. 18).
And in keeping with the raft of headlines over the past few weeks, it involves Taylor Swift. Specifically, the minute-long “Bad Blood” spot — which Billboard is exclusively previewing today — paints Trump’s recent rant against the pop star as being in line with what the group says is Trump’s long-running contempt for successful women.
The ad — whose landing page features the all caps subtitle: “THE MISOGYNISTIC PRESIDENTS’ DEPARTMENT” in a nod to the title of Swift’s most recent studio album — is titled “Bad Blood,” a reference to Swift’s 1989 single of the same. It opens with a shot of Swift accepting an award at last week’s 2024 MTV VMAs as a voiceover notes, “Taylor Swift isn’t the first successful woman Donald Trump has attacked… she’s just the most recent.” The screen then fills with a shot of a post from Trump’s Truth Social account from Sunday in which he said in all caps: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
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The rest of the spot is a super-cut of Trump’s most well-known put-downs of famous and prominent women over the years, including his reference to what he called comedian Rosie O’Donnell’s “fat, ugly face. The narrator continues, “Trump has a problem with women… disrespectful…insulting…even violence,” over images of Trump during his contentious 2016 presidential debate with former Senator and Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, in which he referred to her as “the devil.” It also includes the time the reality TV host insulted Celebrity Apprentice contestant Brande Roderick with the crude oral sex reference, “must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.”
“It’s ugly,” the female narrator says over footage of a smiling Trump telling ABC reporter Cecilia Vega, “I know you’re not thinking, you never do.”
“It’s cruel,” the narrator adds as the subject turns to a 2016 MSNBC interview in which then-candidate Trump said “there has to be some form of punishment [for women],” for having an abortion; the Supreme Court reversed the half-century-long constitutional right to abortion two years ago after Trump’s appointment of three conservative justices, a ruling he called “the biggest win for life in a generation.”
“One thing he’s proven is that he’ll never change,” the narrator says over footage of Trump signing a document on the back of a bent-over woman as well as putting his signature on the upper half of a female supporter’s dress. It also includes the infamous leaked Access Hollywood tape in which Trump bragged that when you’re a celebrity women allow you to “grab ’em by the p–sy,” which surfaced before election day in 2016.
“Is this how you would want a man to treat your daughter?” the narrator asks over Trump’s crude description of former Fox News anchor and 2016 debate moderator Megyn Kelly having “blood coming out of her whatever” after she pressed him on his past history of referring to women as “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.”
“You know the answer, you know the truth,” the ad concludes as Swift fills the screen again, along with audio from a recent Fox News segment in which Trump said he was never a fan of the billionaire pop star and predicted that her endorsement of rival Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris will find her “pay[ing] a price for it” in the marketplace.
“He says he hates Taylor… but the truth is he hates all of us.”
Watch the Lincoln Project’s “Bad Blood” ad below.
British singer Yola has signed with S-Curve Records and returns with her first new music in three years today (Sept. 19) with “Future Enemies.”
The song, the live video of which premieres below, is a spiky tale, delivered in Yola’s inimitably rich vocals, about a relationship that she pre-emptively calls quits on before it can turn sour. Expanding beyond her rootsy, groove-laden past songs like “I Don’t Wanna Lie,” “Diamond Studded Shoes” and “Faraway Look,” “Future Enemies” combines synth-driven electronica with R&B and dance vibes and signals a new musical direction for the six-time Grammy nominee. Yola wrote and produced the song with Sean Douglas and Zach Skelton.
“There is a moment when you realize you’re not going to get on with someone. They haven’t noticed yet, so you have a unique opportunity to disappear from their lives before they ever realize you were destined to be enemies. It’s a luxury to not have an endless supply of negative memories about someone ‘cause you never made them,” Yola says in a statement about the song. “I choose to save my time for situations, spaces and people that have no ticking timer of inevitable doom because they don’t see me or center a reality that does not serve me or my wellbeing. Of course, when you’re a woman, culturally black (as well as physically black), dark skinned (and feminine in energy), plus size (and willfully main character in energy), from a whole different continent and living in the West, let’s say you’re going to have to be both vigilant and choosy in life, in love [and] in work.”
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Yola’s new direction draws from her past as part of London’s Broken Beats scene that extended from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s and of which she was a part as a member of electronic collective Bugz in the Attic. It’s reflected in “Future Enemies” and her new EP, My Way, out Nov. 15. The EP also draws on her love of various R&B eras, including ‘70s soulful pop and ‘90s neo soul, while thematically exploring creative autonomy and even historic movements, including the Windrush Generation of immigrants who came from Caribbean countries to the U.K. after WWII through 1973.
“I’ve been purposefully hinting about this direction for years. From covering Soul II Soul for Apple Music to my covers on tour and reworkings of my songs, the broad church of soul music through the ages has always been the narrative,” she says. “I’ve covered Yarborough and Peoples’ ‘Don’t Stop the Music’ as a throwback nod to my time with Bugz In The Attic (we used to cover that song).
“This time I’m exploring my love of soul music through influences like Chaka Kahn, Janet Jackson, Sade, Prince, Minnie Riperton and various luminaries of rare groove and progressive RnB,” She continues. “Layering programming and synths with organic instrumentation is at the core of the sonic landscape, and as usual I have metabolized these elements into a concoction very much of my own.”
“For the past few years, Yola has been one of my favorite contemporary artists,” said Steve Greenberg, founder/CEO of S-Curve Records, in a statement. “So, when I learned she’d fulfilled her previous recording commitments [with Easy Eye Records], we jumped at the opportunity to sign her to S-Curve. The music she’s been recording for this new project is classic Yola, yet she expands her musical palette by incorporating funk and late 80’s R&B influences in a very natural way. It’s an exciting evolution and I think her new music will delight Yola’s long-time fans, while simultaneously bringing lots of new listeners into the fold. We’re ready to do everything we can to help Yola build this next phase of her career.”
Yola, who is currently starring in Hadestown on Broadway as Persephone through mid-October, is managed by Range Media Partners and booked by Wasserman.
For years in her 20s, Lady Gaga says she was constantly asked if she was a man. A strange question, to be sure, but one the singer, 38, says she faced with certainty and a sense of humor. In the second episode of the new Netflix series What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates, the singer explained to the billionaire Microsoft co-founder that she never bothered to refute the rumors.
“When I was in my early 20s there was a rumor that I was a man,” Gaga told Gates. “I went all over the world. I traveled for tours and for promoting my records and almost every interview I sat in — there was this imagery on the internet that had been doctored — they were like, ‘There’s rumors that you’re a man. What do you have to say about that?’”
The explanation tells you everything you need to know about Gaga and why she’s been such an ally to the LGBTQ+ community for her entire career, as well as a beacon for Little Monsters who don’t fit into society’s preconceived notions. “The reason why I didn’t answer the question is because I didn’t feel like a victim with that lie and I thought: What about a kid who is being accused of that who would think that a public figure like me would feel shame?,” Gaga said.
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“I’ve been in situations where fixing a rumor was not in the best interest of the well being of other people. In that case, I tried to be thought provoking and disruptive in another way. I tried to use the misinformation to create another disruptive point,” she explained.
The singer who stars as Harley Quinn in the upcoming Joker sequel Joker: Folie à Deux (Oct. 4) brushed off a question about the rumor in an 2011 interview with Anderson Cooper in 2011, telling the anchor, “Why the hell am I going to waste my time and give a press release about whether or not I have a penis? My fans don’t care and neither do I.”
To be fair, Gaga said she got used to “lies being printed about me since I was 20-years-old. I’m a performer. I think it’s kind of funny.” This, you might recall, is the chin-up style of the same artist who recently responded to an old Facebook group titled “Stafani Germanotta, you will never be famous,” created by some ex-classmates from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts who mocked her dreams of stardom a few years ago.
The 13-time Grammy winner and Oscar winner got the last laugh, of course, commenting on the hate she endured early in her career: “Some people I went to college [with] made this way back when. This is why you can’t give up when people doubt you or put you down — gotta keep going.”
Moving right along, after the upcoming release of the anticipated second turn by Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker, Gaga will be gearing up to release the first single from her untitled seventh album. She recently revealed that the album is due out in February, with the untitled first listen due out in October.
In the meantime, Gaga recently scored a third week at No. 1 on the Billboard Global Charts with her Bruno Mars collab “Die With a Smile.”
Watch Gaga on What’s Next here.
Missy Higgins left no stone unturned in the creation of The Second Act, the Australian singer and songwriter’s sixth studio album.
Released 20 years after her breakthrough debut The Sound of White, The Second Act (via Eleven/EMI) finds Higgins in an altogether different, and vulnerable, stage of life.
Higgins explored the pain of a breakup, and channeled it into the album which, she explains, was recorded in a back room at her house.
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“The songs came out in desperation. Really, desperation to figure out the way forward,” she says during a Zoom call from outside of her home. “And because songs have always been that for me, they’ve always been very, very cathartic and therapeutic, they’ve always been a way for me to figure out stuff.”Australian audiences have connected with the album, too. The Second Act opened at No. 1 on the ARIA Chart on Friday, Sept. 13, for her fourth leader.
“There aren’t that many albums written from the perspective of parents, particularly single parents,” she explains. The Second Act does, and it captures “the kind of grief that comes with that, and the sense of responsibility and guilt.”
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Higgins has had her hands full this year, not just with parenting duties and her new LP. The Melbourne artist has toured through the year, supporting the 20th anniversary of The Sound of White. When her 40 dates sold out in minutes, Frontier Touring added an “encore” run in the lead-up to Christmas. For Higgins, Christmas will come early. On Nov. 20, she’ll be elevated into the ARIA Hall of Fame, during a segment of the ARIA Awards in Sydney.
Higgins’ career got off to the brightest of starts with The Sound Of White, which dominated the ARIA Chart for seven non-consecutive cycles and collected a bunch of ARIAs.
Her sophomore set On A Clear Night (from 2007) and third collection The Ol’ Razzle Dazzle (2012) also led the chart, while Oz (2014), Solastalgia (2018) and Total Control (2022) all cracked the top 3.
The United States called, and Higgins lived for a time in Nashville, New York and Los Angeles. She even counts best-selling author Harlan Coben among her fans and supporters (the pair made several in-store appearances together in 2009).
Another U.S. tour may have to wait. “I wanted to go to America this year but it’s too hard with the kids. I don’t really want to just leave them for two weeks. I’d have to take a nanny, or there’d be late nights. It’s just too difficult. I think I’m just going to have to wait until they’re a little bit older. And make it a big thing.”
Good things, it is often said, come to those who wait. Until then, fans can live with a record that is as raw and human as any released this year. “With every album, it’s a snapshot of my life. The Sound of White was a snapshot of my, my teenage angsty years and this is a new chapter, this transition into the second act. I’m glad I have it.”
As the Americana Music Association celebrates 25 years as a trade organization committed to honoring, supporting and advocating for a myriad of roots-oriented music, the organization held its 23rd annual Americana Honors & Awards at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Wednesday evening (Sept. 18).
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The historic building, which has been home to generations of performers, was appropriate for the ceremony, as the evening was a revelry of Americana music’s roots and branches, winding through and meshing together rock n’ roll, Gospel, folk, country, blues, R&B and more.
Sierra Ferrell was the evening’s biggest winner, taking home the coveted artist of the year honor as well as album of the year (for Trail of Flowers). “Wondering Why” hitmakers The Red Clay Strays were named emerging artist of the year.
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Duane Betts opened the show with a tribute to his late father Dickey Betts by performing a relaxed, rollicking rendition of The Allman Brothers Band’s “Blue Sky” (from The Allman Brothers Band’s 1972 album Eat a Peach), punctuated by Betts’ note-perfect guitar skills and relaxed-yet-commanding guitar acumen.
“That one’s for you, Dad. We love you,” Betts said, honoring his father, Dickey, who died in April.
The Milk Carton Kids welcomed the audience watching both in-person at the Ryman as well as those watching at home. Buddy Miller continued his reign as band leader, leading the 2024 house band with Don Was, The McCrary Sisters, Bryan Owings, Jerry Pentecost, Jen Gunderman, Jim Hoke and Larry Campbell.
From there, Oklahoma native and emerging artist of the year nominee Kaitlin Butts performed a roaring rendition of the witty, fiddle laden “You Ain’t Gotta Die (to Be Dead to Me).” The first accolade of the evening, instrumentalist of the year, was awarded to 18-year-old guitarist/singer phenom Grace Bowers, who in August released her debut album, Wine on Venus. Bowers was on the road and could not be in attendance.
Waxahatchee performed her song of the year-nominated “Right Back To It,” from her album Tigers Blood. Charles Wesley Godwin, his voice golden and burnished, performed the banjo-inflected love song “All Again.”
The evening rolled on with performances from the agile-voiced Jobi Riccio, as well as Wyatt Flores, who previewed the title track from his upcoming project Welcome to the Plains.
The Milk Carton Kids dedicated their performance of “When You’re Gone” to sound engineer Mark Richards. Also stunning the audience were performances from sibling duo Larkin Poe, Red Dirt country-rockers Turnpike Troubadours, and the octave-scaling, peerless vocal dynamo The War and Treaty (who drew an instant, rowdy standing ovation). Also on the bill were engaging performances from Sarah Jarosz, Brandy Clark accompanied by SistaStrings, and a masterful performance of “American Dreaming” from Ferrell. Noah Kahan also performed his smash hit “Dial Drunk.”
Throughout the evening, powerful performances were punctuated by more awards winners, including Larkin Poe (duo/group of the year), Grace Bowers (instrumentalist of the year) and Brandy Clark (song of the year, for “Dear Insecurity,” featuring Brandi Carlile).
“I have struggled most of my career with where my music fits and you guys have made me feel at home,” Clark said in accepting the song of the year honor. “I remember I was at a low time of not fittin’ in and [Americana Music Association executive director] Jed Hilly invited me to play AmericanaFest.” Clark also thanked several of her music industry champions, including Gail Gellman, Tracy Gershon, CMT’s Leslie Fram, as well as the musicians on Clark’s self-titled album and Carlile, who not only sang on the song, but produced the album.
The Americana Music Association also honored several artists and musicians with the lifetime achievement award, including the gospel group The Blind Boys of Alabama, who performed an ovation-drawing rendition of “Work Until My Days are Done.” Fellow lifetime achievement honorees included Dave Alvin (known for his work as an artist, writer and member of The Blasters, X and The Knitters), Rev. Gary Davis, Shelby Lynne, Dwight Yoakam and musician/producer Don Was (known for working with a slate of artists including Bonnie Raitt, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Elton John, John Mayer, Ziggy Marley, Lucinda Williams, Ringo Starr, Delbert McClinton, Hootie & the Blowfish, The Black Crowes and Martina McBride (who introduced Was during the evening’s celebration).
“Go where the love is,” Alvin advised those listening. “Surround yourself with people who love music the same way that you do, no matter what passing tastes or fads might be, and always surround yourselves with musicians who are better than you are.”
The Americana Music Association has for the past five years teamed with the National Museum of African American Music, and was instrumental Wednesday evening in honoring Davis with the legacy of americana award, with Fantastic Negrito performing “Samson and Delilah.”
Singer-songwriter Allison Moorer celebrated her big sister and Wednesday evening’s lifetime achievement honoree Shelby Lynne, calling Lynne “my personal trailblazer.”
“I am proud to be a part of Americana. If I was ever to fit in anywhere, it was with the misfits, storytellers, outlaws and truth-tellers, the heartbreakers, the hippies,” Lynne said, before she was joined by Moorer in singing “Gotta Get Back,” from Lynne’s landmark album I Am Shelby Lynne.
Versatile musician, writer and actor Yoakam was also feted by Clark with a lifetime achievement award. He earned a standing ovation as he took the stage, first paying tribute to Alvin, saying, “Without Dave Alvin coming into my life, I don’t know where my journey would have taken me. The twists and turns that lay ahead of me at that point wouldn’t have turned corners into bright sunlight without Dave championing me…I owe him a debt of gratitude along with [guitarist/producer] Pete Anderson.”
“That was truly an independent record,” Yoakam said of Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., which Yoakam originally released as a six-song indie record in 1984, before it was picked up by Warner’s Reprise Records and re-released with additional songs in 1986. The project would become the first of three consecutive Yoakam albums to hit No. 1 on Billboard’s top country albums chart. On Wednesday evening, Yoakam also said that original indie project was part of, “…why the spirit of the Americana Music Association felt at home to me…Thanks for the reminder every year when the AMA allows me to participate in anything they are doing. They always make room for us to come down… Every decade or so there is another generation that rediscovers the enormous impact of early country music, blues, rock and roll, soul, all of it can have on their peers and a brand new audience. The only place I ever won an artist of the year award was the Americana Awards [in 2013],” he noted. From there, fastening his guitar strap, Yoakam plunged the audience into his Bakersfield-meets-rockabilly groove of his 1993 hit “Fast as You.”
During the evening, Elizabeth Cook also took a moment to honor Jeremy Tepper, executive and program director of SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country station, who passed away in June.
“Jeremy was a key part of this community,” Cook said. “He was a musician first-off, and a label owner, a really clever guy who recognized that truck stops still had jukeboxes…and thus was born Diesel Only Records….he was an early and ardent supporter of the Americana Music Association.”
The star-studded evening closed with Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell offering a version of the Gram Parsons song “Return of the Grievous Angel.”
See the full list of this year’s Americana Music Honors & Awards honorees below:
Instrumentalist of the year: Grace Bowers
Album of the year: Trail of Flowers, Sierra Ferrell (produced by Eddie Spear and Gary Paczosa)
Duo/Group of the year: Larkin Poe
Emerging act of the year: The Red Clay Strays
Song of the year: “Dear Insecurity,” by Brandy Clark (feat. Brandi Carlile) (written by Clark and Michael Pollack)
Artist of the year: Sierra Ferrell
After backlash to a spicy tweet about Ye and Taylor Swift, Zach Bryan has deactivated his X account.
On Wednesday (Sept. 18), the country star shared a hot take that might have proven to be too hot for social media. “eagles > chiefs,” his message started, followed by, “Kanye > Taylor.” He concluded: “who’s with me” — and the answer to that question appears to have driven him off the site formerly known as Twitter.
Swifties quickly came to Taylor’s defense, given Bryan’s message was a twofold offense against both Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. “He knew not to mess with the Swifties,” one commenter wrote on a Pop Crave post about the tweet, with another writing: “got all brave just to wimp out and deactivate.”
According to Bryan’s Instagram (which is still active), he’s been on a Kanye kick lately. The first four of his current Instagram Stories, as of press time, feature four older songs by Ye (formerly Kanye West): “Good Life,” featuring T-Pain, from 2007’s Graduation and “I Thought About Killing You,” “All Mine” and “Ghost Town,” featuring PARTYNEXTDOOR, from 2018’s Ye.
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The Eagles and Chiefs football rivalry has heated up over the past few years, with Travis Kelce facing off against his now-retired brother Jason Kelce and the Philly squad in the 2023 Super Bowl, with Kansas City emerging victorious.
But the much more heated rivalry has been between Swift and Ye, whose story began when West interrupted Taylor’s 2009 VMAs acceptance speech to declare Beyoncé should have won instead. They reconciled after that and even formed an unlikely friendship, before Ye put some questionable lyrics about Swift in his “Famous” song and his then-wife Kim Kardashian released a recording of a private phone call between the two musicians that set their rocky relationship ablaze.
The pair have made references to their famous feud as recently as last month, with Ye rapping about Swift’s relationship with Kelce on his Vultures 2 album and Swift restyling a Tortured Poets Department song’s title to capitalize YE: “thank You aimEe.”
See the tweet from Bryan’s now-deleted account below:
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TDE’s newest rising star sat down with Apple Music’s Ebro Darden for a conversation about her young career and her critically-acclaimed mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal. Doechii credited her love of golden era rap music as a major influence on the direction she decided to take. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See […]
The music of the late Mexican superstar Juan Gabriel will resonate in Mexico City’s Zócalo on Sunday (September 22), when his concert Mis 40 en Bellas Artes is projected at a free event organized by the capital’s Secretary of Culture. “After the cancellation of the second screening at the Cineteca Nacional scheduled for September 14, […]
TDE’s Punch has been the face of the label’s front office on social media, with an emphasis on X. He engages with fans and is fine being their punching bag when it pertains to the company’s notorious album release schedule — or lack thereof. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts […]