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16 Nov 2022

Solange to Curate 2023 Spring Music Series for Brooklyn Academy of Music

Brooklyn Academy of Music announced on Wednesday (Nov. 16) that Solange is set to curate the lineup for the venue’s 2023 Spring Music Series.

Through her multidisciplinary creative collective Saint Heron, the When I Get Home auteur will be responsible for hand-selecting a lineup of concerts, films, performance art, dance and other theater pieces for the stages of BAM’s multi-theater campus “honoring the intergenerational and genre-spanning impact” of innovative musicians and artists.

“We’re excited to work with Solange and her Saint Heron collective for this incredible music series of genre-crossing artists presented in unprecedented ways,” said David Binder, BAM’s artistic director, in a statement. “Her experimental, global, and authentic approach consistently pushes the boundary of what performance can be and charts new pathways for audiences to connect. We can’t wait to see how this transpires on our stages.”

The complete lineup curated by Solange is expected to be announced soon with performances slated to begin this coming winter. The singer last worked with BAM nearly a decade ago when she headlined the 2013 Crossing Brooklyn Ferry music festival.

Her creative partnership with Brooklyn Academy of Music will follow Solange’s recent foray into composition. She wrote the score for Play Time for the New York City Ballet, which premiered at the end of September as part of the celebrated dance troupe’s Fall Fashion Gala. The premiere earned raves from Beyoncé, who sweetly shouted out her younger sister on social media by saying, “Might I suggest you don’t f–k with my sis” — a lyric from Renaissance fan favorite track “COZY.”

16 Nov 2022

Primary Wave Acquires Stake in Catalog of Whitney Houston Songwriters Boy Meets Girl

On the heels of their recent Billboard cover story, in which they detailed their acquisition of much of the Whitney Houston estate and catalog, Primary Wave Music has added to their collection of Whitney-related rights by acquiring an interest in much of the publishing catalog for Houston co-writers Boy Meets Girl. The duo, made up of Shannon Rubicam and George Merrill, played a hand in penning “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and “How Will I Know,” both of which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Included in the deal are the writer’s share of royalties from the two Houston cuts, as well as the duo’s successful self-released songs, including “Oh Girl” and “Waiting for A Star to Fall.” Under the agreement, Merrill and Rubicam will have access to Primary Wave’s marketing and branding teams, along with the company’s publishing infrastructure that includes licensing and synch opportunities.

The timing of the acquisition comes just ahead of the Dec. 21 release of the Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody, a major part of Primary Wave’s campaign to revitalize the Houston catalog. The company purchased a 50% stake in the singer’s publishing, master recording revenue, name, likeness and brand for an estimated $14 million in May 2019 and has been working on efforts to introduce or remind the public of Houston’s venerable legacy ever since, including with two new photo books, Funko! Pop dolls, Whitney-themed Peloton classes, a perfume line, a MAC makeup collection and more.

Rubicam and Merrill have worked as musical partners since the mid-1980s when both were hired to perform at a wedding. They subsequently formed Boy Meets Girl and released their first album in 1985, featuring the song “Oh Girl.” Soon after, the duo kickstarted their songwriting career by penning two of Houston’s biggest hits, earning them Grammys for song of the year in the process. The duo continued to release their own music as well, achieving top 5 success on the Hot 100 with “Waiting for a Star to Fall” in 1988 (a song originally written for Houston). By the 1990s, however, the duo was more focused on writing for others than for themselves, working on songs for OTT and Girlthing, among others. Since then, they have returned to releasing their own work as Boy Meets Girl, including the albums Wonderground (2003) and Five (2021).

“We are so pleased to have placed our songs into the capable and creative hands of the team at Primary Wave. If ever there was a perfect home for our songs at this time, without a doubt this is it. We are excited and honored to be a part of the Primary Wave family and look forward to seeing what else we might cook up together,” says Merrill and Rubicam in a statement.

“When Shannon’s and George’s songs are played – anywhere around the world – people will sing along the minute they begin,” added Justin Shukat, president of publishing at Primary Wave Music. “It’s rare for songwriters to not only see that type of response, but to write #1 hits for both themselves and for other artists. That’s what makes the two of them true songwriting legends. Their catalog of songs fit right at home at Primary Wave, the home of legends.”

16 Nov 2022

Lizzo Surprises Poet With Dress After Request for 2022 Emmys Gown on TikTok

Not many people can say pop star Lizzo gifted them a personal item from her wardrobe, but Aurielle Marie — writer of Gumbo Ya Ya, Georgia Author of the Year, Out 100 honoree and a major Lizzo fan — can.

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In an Oct. 27 TikTok posted to her account, Marie made a plea to Lizzo and asked to borrow her 2022 Emmys dress so she could have something wear to the Out 100 event, otherwise she would likely skip out on attending entirely.

“I know you know how it feels to be the biggest b—h in a room, and all of the scrutiny and hyper-visibility that comes along with that because I’ve watched you talk about it,” she said in the video, later adding, “I know you a girl for the girls, and I’m a girl and a girl, and I just need to know. I gotta ask. Can I please, please, please wear your dress from the 2022 Emmys?”

Though a few weeks went by without updates from Marie, a surprise showed up to her door on Tuesday (Nov. 15) — the author posted a video of her running downstairs to open a box from Lizzo. While the garment was not Lizzo’s 2022 Emmys dress, Marie promptly tried the gown from the box and burst into tears. (The dress Marie received was the stunning ruffled one Lizzo wore to the American Music Awards in 2019.)

“I might’ve gotten a few tears on your dress Lizzo, my bad babe. Words don’t suffice and thank you isn’t enough. But THANK YOU! I’m speechless,” Marie captioned the Nov. 15 video. “Ya’ll! A b—h is certified LIZZO-SIZED! And look at this gown! Out Magazine, here I come!”

Lizzo has yet to comment on Marie’s post, but she’s gearing up for an awards ceremony of her own — the singer was nominated for six awards at the 2023 Grammy Awards, including album of the year for Special and song and record of the year for “About Damn Time.”

Watch Marie’s TikTok videos below.

16 Nov 2022

The Walkmen Reuniting For First Shows in a Decade

The Walkmen are reuniting for their first shows in nearly a decade. The beloved New York band whose initial 13-year run ended in 2013 will play a pair of hometown shows at New York’s Webster Hall on April 26 and 27.

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“Back in 2013, an unnamed Walkmen band member (bassist Peter Bauer) announced to the Washington Post that we were going on an ‘extreme hiatus.’ I assumed that meant there would be a lot of monster energy drinks and maybe that red-headed snowboarder guy would be hanging around a lot,” wrote singer Hamilton Leithauser in a statement announcing the get-back by the band that also features drummer Matt Barrick, guitarist Paul Maroon and multi-instrumentalist Walter Martin.

“But none of that actually happened,” he continued. “Instead, in the ensuing years we’ve all worked on a ton of different projects in a ton of different places. Recently, someone sent us a clip of us playing at Irving Plaza from 2003, and it just looked very exciting. So, we’ve decided we’d like to play together again.”

The official presale for the is open now through 10 p.m. ET on Thursday (Nov. 17); click here to register. The general on-sale will begin on Friday (Nov. 18) at 11 a.m. ET.

The garage rock-inspired band — whose members grew up in the Washington, D.C. area — formed in 2000 after the break-up of the groups Jonathan Fire*Eater and The Recoys. They released their full-length debut, Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone, in 2002, followed by Bows + Arrows (2004), A Hundred Miles Off (2006), a 2006 covers collection, You & Me (2008) and Lisbon (2010) before dropping their final full-length, Heaven, in 2012.

Check out a trailer for the Webster Hall shows below.

16 Nov 2022

Bette Midler Reacts to Trump’s 2024 Presidential Campaign Announcement: ‘May He Rot’

As expected, former president Donald Trump announced another bid for the presidency on Tuesday (Nov. 15), and Bette Midler had more than a few reactions to the news.

Watching the one-term president give his speech at Mar-A-Lago, the actress didn’t exactly mince words while live-tweeting her thoughts, starting with, “Ugh. Piggy is speaking.”

“That’s #Trumpto you. He’s giving the same speech he gave in 2016. After a two year pandemic, and a million American lives lost, the rest of us have moved on. He is ossified. May he rot,” the Hocus Pocus 2 star continued, adding minutes later, “Excuse me. I’m going to be sick.”

After Trump finished his hour-long announcement, Midler gave her assessment of the remarks, writing, “He just handed us two more years of his #delusions and #drivel. #unbearable.” She also poked fun at the twice-impeached president’s new campaign slogan “Make America Glorious and Great Again,” tweeting, “IT’S OFFICIAL! The new name for its campaign is #MAGAGA! Congratulations to whoever got there first, let’s take it all the way!! #MAGAGA.”

Midler has long been an outspoken liberal and critic of Trump, but even she found herself in hot water this summer over making what some perceived as anti-trans comments on Twitter in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. At the time, the controversy ignited a discussion around the importance of using inclusive language, and the Tony winner insisted there was “no intention of anything exclusionary or transphobic” in her sentiments.

Read Midler’s tweetstorm about Trump below.

16 Nov 2022

Halle Bailey Says She ‘Doesn’t Feel Pressure Anymore’ Over Starring in ‘The Little Mermaid’

Assuming the role of Ariel in the live-action remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid is Halle Bailey‘s biggest acting look to date. But despite the apprehension — and at times, backlash — that comes with portraying such an iconic character in the Disney franchise, the “Do It” singer insists she’s cool as a cucumber leading up to the film’s May 2023 release.

“I don’t feel any pressure anymore,” Bailey told E! News on Tuesday (Nov. 15) when asked about playing the titular character. “I think that before I started filming, I did feel some nerves naturally because the film is so important to so many people.” The 22-year-old added that leaning on her close friends and family, including big sister Chloe, helped her overcome any fears she had.

Perhaps the most “touching” part about getting to play Ariel, the actress revealed, was getting to see the reaction little girls had to her performance of “Part of Your World” when it was released in September.

“It just makes me cry,” she shared. “The fact that all these little Black and Brown babies are going to be able to feel like they’re being represented is really special to me. I know that if I had that when I was younger, it would have changed a whole lot for me and my perspective on who I am as an individual.”

In addition to feeling “super honored” to play a Disney princess, the star added, “I’m just really grateful to kind of be in this position and I just hope everybody really enjoys the film.”

The Little Mermaid live action remake will be released on May 26, 2023. Revisit the trailer — in which Bailey sings “Part of Your World” — below.

16 Nov 2022

K-Pop Soloist Wonho Confirms Military Enlistment to Fans: ‘We’ve Made So Many Memories Together’

Wonho is officially bound to enlist in the South Korean military next month, but that doesn’t mean you’ve heard the last of him. In Wednesday (Nov. 16) statements from his agency and the K-Pop soloist himself, it was confirmed that he’ll be carrying out his mandatory eighteen months minimum as a public service worker starting Dec. 5 — but not before he prepares a few projects for his fans to enjoy while he’s away.

“Wonho will enlist as a public service worker on December 5th 2022 to fulfill his duty as a Korean citizen,” read the statement from Wonho’s reps at Highline Entertainment, posted to his Daum Café page. “We ask for your warm love and support until the day he finished his service and returns in good health.” 

The 29-year-old performer posted a letter of his own on the website, addressed to his fanbase WENEE.

“Each and every day that I’ve spent together with WENEE up until now, we’ve made so many memories together that if I just spent one day thinking back on each one of those days, it would already be time for us to meet again,” it reads, translated from Korean to English, according to Soompi.

Wonho first found stardom as a member of the boy band Monsta X, with whom he released several albums and EPs before departing the group in late 2019. Since then, he’s released four EPs as a solo artist and dropped a two-song project titled Bittersweet just over a month ago.

“I’ll prepare lots of things so that WENEE won’t get bored,” his letter continues. “And I hope WENEE will spend that time happily, freely catching up on the things that you haven’t been able to do up until now while waiting for the day that we’ll meet again!”

16 Nov 2022

Adele & Beyonce Are Headed for a Grammy Rematch: Here Are Other Artists Who Faced Off for Album of the Year Multiple Times

Adele and Beyoncé are headed for a rematch. At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 12, 2017, the two singers went head-to-head in four categories, including the Big Three (album, record and song of the year). Adele won all four of these contests.

In the nominations for the 65th annual Grammy Awards, which were announced on Tuesday (Nov. 15), Bey and Adele are again competing in each of the Big Three categories. Adele’s 30 is vying with Bey’s Renaissance for album of the year. Adele’s “Easy on Me” is competing with Bey’s “Break My Soul” for both record and song of the year.

This isn’t the first time two artists have competed multiple times for album of the year as lead artists. Two pairs of all-time greats went head-to-head for album of the year three times.

With the number of album of the year nominees having jumped from five to eight in 2018 and then from eight to 10 in 2021, we’ll likely see more such recurring matchups. But it will be hard to top the rivalry between Adele and Beyoncé, who are both world-class artists as well as, by all accounts, friends and mutual admirers.

In her 2017 acceptance speech for the final award of the night, album of the year, a highly emotional Adele all but handed the Grammy to Beyoncé, who was standing in the front row with her husband, Jay-Z, as the audience rose to its feet to celebrate Adele’s win. Adele’s speech stands as one of the most selfless and gracious in awards show history.

After some introductory thanks, Adele addressed the issue of competing with a friend and an artist she greatly admires. “I can’t possibly accept this award and I’m very humbled and I’m very grateful and gracious, but my artist of my life is Beyoncé and this album to me – the Lemonade album – was so monumental.”

Addressing the singer directly, she continued: “Beyoncé, it was just so monumental and so well thought-out and so beautiful and soul-baring and we all got to see another side to you that you don’t always let us see, and we appreciate that. And all us artists here, we fu—ing adore you. You are our light. And the way that you make me and my friends feel – the way you make my Black friends feel – is empowering. And you make them stand up for themselves and I love you. I always have and I always will.”

Beyoncé didn’t go home empty-handed that night. She won two Grammys – best urban contemporary album for Lemonade and best music video for “Formation.” And she has won seven more Grammys since that night.

Take a look at all artists who have, as lead artists, competed against each other for album of the year two or more times.  We start with the pairs who competed three times, followed by the pairs who vied twice.

16 Nov 2022

Harry Styles Hit in the Eye With Skittles During Los Angeles Concert

Harry Styles can’t seem to catch a break during his live shows. Continuing what seems to be an unfortunate fan tradition, Styles — while performing “Kiwi” from his self-titled debut LP at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on Monday night (Nov. 14) — got an eyeful’s worth of Skittles thrown at his face, and as a result covered his eyes.

A disgruntled fan who caught the moment on camera took to Twitter and wrote, “whoever the f–k threw a solid object at his eye, u literally ruined kiwi bc he wouldn’t open his eye for the whole song.” Another worried fan, who shared video of the moment slowed down, wrote, “like are you joking?? look how hard he recoils hope your eye is okay @Harry_Styles.”

Thankfully, Styles appears to be okay — not only did he continue with the rest of his concert, Styles’ backing bandmate Pauli the PSM shared an update about his condition during an Instagram Live DJ set later in the evening. “H came through, confirming his eye is okay,” Pauli said, adding, “But do me a favor, don’t throw no more Skittles on stage.”

Styles appeared to also have a good sense of humor about his injury. Tuning into Pauli’s Live, he commented, “See you tomorrow AVEC eye patch.”

This is far from the first time the “Watermelon Sugar” singer has had objects thrown at him while performing. During an August show of Styles’ Madison Square Garden residency, a fan threw multiple chicken nuggets on stage, and in October, a fan threw an unidentified object that hit him in the groin area.

See the tweets regarding Styles’ Skittles-induced eye injury below.

16 Nov 2022

Neil Young Explains Spotify Beef to Howard Stern: ‘Why Would I Keep it on There When It Sounds Like a Pixilated Movie?’

Neil Young got candid about why he asked that his music be removed from Spotify earlier this year on a Wednesday morning (Nov. 16) interview with SiriusXm’s Howard Stern. The rock icon who has staked his reputation on doing things his way explained to Stern that his objection to being on the streamer was two-fold: the famously exacting guitarist/singer thinks Spotify audio quality is not up to his standard, and he was angered by the COVID conspiracy theories spouted by Spotify’s allegedly $100 million podcast star Joe Rogan.

“I woke up one morning and I heard somebody saying there was some scientists saying something about COVID, or some doctors and they were saying something about COVID and how many people were dying in hospitals and misinformation,” Young said, adding that he immediately thought about the nurses and medical professionals who were “distressed” by what they’d heard on Spotify; Young never specifically mentioned Rogan by name in his comments.

“And I listened to it and they were saying he purposely is saying this stuff that he knows isn’t true about COVID and people were dying,” he said of the misinformation on Rogan’s show about medically dubious COVID therapies. “I just called up my management and said, ‘We’re out of there. Get me off.’ And we’ll be fine, and it was a little shocking because they know all the [streaming] numbers. Who cares? You know, who cares? What’s his name? [Spotify CEO] Daniel Ek? He cares about money.”

Young said he knew Ek initially had good intentions with his service, because they’d met and he [Ek] seemed to be “coming from a good place. But then it just turned into money, money, money, money,” he said. When Stern asked how much money Young left on the table by yanking his tunes from Spotify, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer said he didn’t know and didn’t care.

“I knew I was gonna do fine. There’s Amazon, there’s Apple, there QoBuz, those are three streaming services that play hi-res,” said Young, who has long fought against what he considers the low-quality fidelity of everything from CDs to digital files. “I think in the digital age we should be able to listen to great stuff, the best that we can get out of digital… Because you’re living off the music, why not pay it some respect and make it sound as great as it does.”

Young said he wasn’t surprised that more artists didn’t join his crusade against Spotify. After Young requested that his catalog be removed from Spotify in January — citing the spread of vaccine misinformation on the Joe Rogan Experience — he wasn’t entirely alone. A handful of artists including India.Arie, Nils Lofgren, Failure, his former CSNY bandmates Graham Nash, David Crosby and Stephen Stills and Joni Mitchell eventually joined his leave-taking.

“The way I look at it, that just turned me off and I made an instant decision — I didn’t think about it at all — just take my music off, we don’t need it. We’ve got all these other places,” Young said of his request. “And it sounds better at the other places. Why would I want to keep it on Spotify when it sounds like a pixilated movie?”

When it came down to it, Young said, he made it very clear: you can have “that guy” or you can have me. “So they chose to have that guy because they’re making millions of dollars off of him and they’ve just given him a whole bunch of money and that I would just eventually roll over and be back,” he said of what he suspected the streamers’ fiscal calculus was. At press time Young’s music was not available on Spotify and he told Stern he’s “never going back there, or anywhere else like it. I don’t have to, I don’t want to. I don’t crave the airplay like that. I don’t really need it, I don’t want it.”

A spokesperson for Spotify had not returned a request for comment at press time.