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“I treat Instagram like CVS,” Kristine Flaherty, better known by her stage name K.Flay, tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. “Like, I buy my makeup remover cloths and I pick up my migraine prescription, and I’m out.”
Most artists see social media as a lifeline that connects them directly to the world. The reasons the “Blood in the Cut” singer treats social media like a trip to a drug store says a lot about the 38-year-old singer/songwriter.
Flaherty acknowledges the practical value of social channels for communicating with her fans and providing updates about her music career. “It’s part of my work,” she says, which also includes her latest album, Mono, released in September 2023, and her most recent single, “Carsick,” released in January. “It’s part of how I communicate with my fans, and how I publicize what I’m up to.”
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But Flaherty wants to set up a “healthy” boundary and is wary of getting trapped in a never-ending quest to gain attention. It’s all too common for an artist to think they’ll be happy getting to a certain number of followers, she says. Reaching 100 followers leads them to think they need 1,000 followers, then 10,000 and then 100,000.
“If you buy into this kind of if then thinking, there will never be enough,” she says. “And you’re kind of in the trap. You’ll never extricate yourself. So you just have to self-extricate from that type of thinking, in my opinion. So I try to just not engage with with that.”
Flaherty’s comments come at a time social media is under attack from a spectrum of critics. Professor Jonathan Haidt has recently been on a media tour supporting his book, The Anxious Generation, that details how smartphones and social media have re-wired adolescents’ brains and led to spikes in psychiatric problems. In the political sphere, President Biden signed a law a TikTok ban — inserted by the U.S. Congress into a $95 foreign aid package — that will force the company out of the hands of its Chinese owner, Bytedance. Old-school flip phones and so-called “dumb phones,” cell phones purposefully stripped of most capabilities, are becoming popular with people seeking refuge from distractions.
Still, social media can be necessary to bring Flaherty’s music and performances to some fans. Although she covered much of the U.S. supporting Mono, and traveled to Australia for a string of performances in February, Flaherty naturally doesn’t travel to every corner of the globe. Social media helps her connect with people in cities where she hasn’t performed. “That’s the only way they’re ever going to get to interact with my live shows,” she says, “seeing a video online. And so that stuff matters to me. But I try not to try not to put too much time and energy into the the vicissitudes of the internet.” Plus, Flaherty adds, “I don’t really read comments.”
Listen to Behind the Setlist’s entire interview with K.Flay in the embedded player below or at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart or Amazon Music.
“Stop” what you’re doing right now: All five of the Spice Girls were back together Saturday night to celebrate Posh Spice’s birthday, and they even gave us a mini-performance. On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are talking all about how the legendary girl group — Victoria Beckham, Geri Halliwell-Turner, Emma Bunton, […]
While the headliners of Coachella 2024 are Lana Del Rey, Tyler, the Creator and Doja Cat, a pack of fellow A-listers also showed up on stages across the Empire Polo Ground over weekend one, with surprise performances from Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Justin Bieber, Shakira, A$AP Rocky, Lauryn Hill, 21 Savage, David Guetta, Childish Gambino […]
Billie Eilish is about to hit fans with her most sustainable release yet. On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are joined by Billboard deputy editor Lyndsey Havens, who has interviewed Eilish twice ahead of the announcement of her third full-length studio album Hit Me Hard and Soft, out May 17. Both […]
As Jay-Z pointed out at the Grammys in February, Beyoncé has been nominated for album of the year four times but has never won — despite the fact that she’s the awards show’s winningest artist of all time, taking home 32 trophies from 88 nominations. On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen below), Katie […]
Looking at the very top of the Billboard Hot 100, there’s a one-two punch of big-voiced breakout hits: Teddy Swims‘ “Lose Control” at No. 1 and Benson Boone‘s “Beautiful Things” at No. 2. On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are talking about where these two hits came from, whether we should […]
There’s a good reason listening to The Black Keys’ new album, Ohio Players, is like spending time with a well-curated collection of vintage vinyl singles. Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney spent part of 2023 taking their DJ gig, The Black Keys Record Hang, across North America and Europe, playing 7” vinyl singles in small clubs into the wee hours of the morning.
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The discerning taste required to keep the audience engaged proved valuable as the band worked on the songs that would eventually comprise the Nashville-based, Ohio-born band’s 12th studio album. “I think we started to get so picky with the records and we started to do the same when we were in the studio,” Auerbach tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. “We didn’t want to make songs that sound like old 45s, but we wanted to have the same spirit.”
The genre- and era-spanning setlists at those Record Hang events, documented by attendees in Spotify playlists, included such earworms as 1967’s “Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)” by Memphis garage band The Hombres, 1969’s “Love Buzz” by Dutch psychedelic rockers Shocking Blue (it was later covered by Nirvana for its 1989 debut album, Bleach) and 1970’s “Chocolate” by San Antonio funk band Mickey & The Soul Generation.
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Gauging the crowd’s reaction to those 45s proved to be valuable market research and helped Auerbach and Carney tighten up their songwriting. From the debut single, the Top Adult Alternative Airplay No. 1 “Beautiful People (Stay High)” or “I Forgot to Be Your Lover,” a cover of the 1968 recording by William Bell, Ohio Players has the efficiency of two-and-a-half minute Motown standards or radio-ready classic rock tracks.
“The way those classic 45s are,” says Carney, “it’s like there’s no wasted space.”
Auerbach and Carney had little room to spare when they wrote “On the Game” with Noel Gallagher (Oasis, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds) in a studio in London barely big enough for a drum kit and a few people. “We were in a circle in this tiny room,” says Auerbach. “That’s the sound you hear on the record. It was amazing watching Noel go through the process of writing and run through all the chords up and down the neck until he finds the one that he hears in his mind is just right. We were just kind of like sitting patiently, you know, letting him do his thing. It was it was really cool to to watch him go through his process.”
Listen to the entire interview with The Black Keys in the Spotify player embedded below or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart or Amazon Music.
*NSYNC fans got what they’d been begging for last week, when the blockbuster boy band reunited at Justin Timberlake‘s one-night-only show at The Wiltern in Los Angeles to play snippets of four of their hits and perform their new song “Paradise” for the very first time. So now that we’ve seen the quintet back together […]
Crowded House‘s new single, the perky “Oh Hi,” is an ode to the possibility in children, the band’s co-founder and leader, Neil Finn, tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast.
Finn’s lyrics — they begin with “Every child is a mystic, having visions of a new dawn” — were inspired by his experience with the nonprofit organization So They Can, which provides education for thousands of children in East Africa. “It’s sort of about the joy of observing children, being part of their story, creating a good environment for them, then actually getting a lot back [in return] from that,” he says.
The band released an official charity video for “Oh Hi” that features children from one of those schools, Aberdare Ranges School, dancing and singing along to the song. It’s one of 51 schools supported by So They Can in Kenya and Tanzania. The organization aims to support 500 schools and 400,000 students, the video’s YouTube page explains, and hopes to get 1 million people to donate $1 per month.
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“Oh Hi” also has a traditional, official video that’s quirky and equally joyous as the charity video. The video captures an anonymous child — with Finn’s singing head attached to his body — strutting and dancing around a New York City neighborhood. Finn got the idea watching his grandson’s “uncoordinated” dancing style. “It occurred to me that no adult would dance like that,” he says. “So there would be some good humor…to pop my head on [him].”
Because Crowded House members reside across the globe, “Oh Hi” and the rest of Gravity Stairs (out May 31 through BMG) was recorded over the last few years during sessions fit into the band’s touring schedule. Bass player Nick Seymour lives on the west coast of Ireland. Finn’s son Elroy, the band’s drummer, lives in London. Guitarist and other son Liam Finn and keyboardist Mitchell Froom live in Los Angeles. Finn himself resides in his home country of New Zealand. “We’re testing the theory of how far apart you can be in a band and still be really united,” he says.
In February, “Oh Hi” was transformed for a live performance, backed by an orchestra and background singers, on BBC 2’s Piano Room show. Rather than perform as a full band, only Finn and Seymour performed — with Finn on piano — to better complement the orchestra and the arrangement prepared by friend Victoria Kelly.
“It’s live and we only got to run through the thing with two rehearsals,” he says of the BBC 2 taping. “So you’re on the edge of your seat. But there was something really beautiful about it and I think it turned out well. Any song should be able to be redefined. That song is destined to be redefined quite a few times because I’m sure when we get on stage it’s going to be another transition.”
Listen to the entire interview with Neil in the embedded player below or listen at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart or Amazon Music.
On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith ventured to the final date of Madonna‘s five-night stint at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., for her Celebration Tour. It was Keith’s second time seeing the show, after attending opening night in London, and Katie’s first — and it was our second Pop Shop […]