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For a short time, up to 100 Prince fans visiting the music superstar’s hometown will have a place to stay when the party’s over that will let them go crazy over his cultural legacy, a home featured in the film Purple Rain.
Although the white, two-story home with brown trim in Minneapolis looks unassuming from the outside, there’s plenty inside to make the late icon’s devotees delirious over this new, limited-time Airbnb rental. Upstairs, a big closet with paisley wallpaper and leopard-spotted floor displays iconic outfits worn by Prince behind glass and has other outfits available to make renters the beautiful ones.
“And then what guests will be able to do themselves is actually play around with a selection of really iconic ‘80s outfits and looks and styles that they can kind of engage their inner rock star themselves,” said Ali Killam, an Airbnb spokesperson.
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The rentals are within reach for fans who don’t own diamonds and pearls — just $7 a night per person for up to four guests. The price is based on Prince’s favorite number and there will be a total of 25 nightly stays available over seven weeks from Oct. 26 to Dec. 14.
The Airbnb rentals are a sign o’ the times — the 40th anniversary of the movie. It starred Prince as The Kid, a musician and band leader with a rocky life in the home featured on screen.
The film, along with the hit album of the same name, made Prince a superstar through songs like the title track, “Let’s Go Crazy” and “When Doves Cry.” Those followed other hits, such as “1999” and “Little Red Corvette,” and he sold more than 100 million records with a gender- and genre-defying blend of rock, funk and soul. He died April 21, 2016, of an accidental fentanyl overdose at age 57 at his Paisley Park estate in Chanhassen, Minnesota.
The rentals are hosted by Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin, two lifelong friends and musical collaborators of Prince’s, on behalf of Airbnb, the late musician’s estate and global media company Warner Bros. Discovery.
In the home’s basement, guests can sleep in a replica of The Kid’s bedroom from the film, down to the lavender pillows on the bed and even a 1980s-style cassette player. There’s also a lounge where guests can play guitar, drums or an upright piano. QR codes throughout the house link visitors to commentary from the hosts.
“It really is meant to immerse you in The Kid’s world,” Killam said.
And, of course, as a tribute to Prince, his career and influence, there’s plenty of his signature color, purple. There’s a large piece of wall art depicting purple bananas, which Killam said was a reference to “Let’s Go Crazy.”
If U would die 4 Prince, you can request a booking online on Airbnb here, starting at 6 a.m. PT on Oct. 2 and through 11:59 p.m. PT on Oct. 6. Airbnb says a pool of potential guests will be chosen at random, and the final invitations to rent will be based on fans’ answers for why they want to stay there.
Kelly Clarkson may be in league of her own as a vocalist, but even she’s nervous to follow in Céline Dion‘s footsteps. On Friday’s The Kelly Clarkson Show, the pop star-turned-host tackled one of the biggest hits of the 1990s as her Kellyoke cover: Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song from 1997’s […]
Tate McRae is proof that some pop stars are born this way. The Calgary, Alberta, native appears to have just exploded into our consciousness over the past year or so, but take a dive into the 21-year-old singer’s backstory, and you can see that she’s been laying the groundwork for her chart domination for more than half her life.
After starting dance lessons at 6 years old and focusing on her moves over vocals, McRae began entering a series of dance competitions in the U.S. At 13, she joined the cast of the 13th season of So You Think You Can Dance, coming in third place, making her the highest placing Canadian in the reality show’s history.
That led to some sweet follow-up gigs thanks to the dance-centric YouTube channel she launched in 2011, including dancing at a Calgary stop on fellow Canadian Justin Bieber’s 2016 Purpose world tour. Before pivoting to music, McCrea launched her “Create With Tate” video series in 2017, which morphed into focusing on original songs she’d written, including the sticky ballad “One Day,” which to date has racked up more than 40 million views.
Those videos helped McRae land a recording contract with RCA Records in 2019, which released her debut EP, All the Things I Never Said, in January 2020; the collection hit No. 16 on Billboard‘s Heatseekers albums chart and featured the lead single “Tear Myself Apart,” co-written by Billie Eilish and brother/producer Finneas.
Wasting no time, McRae was back in March 2021 with a second EP, Too Young to Be Sad, which included her breakthrough single, the brooding “You Broke Me First.” The song spent 38 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at No. 17, marking McRae’s highest chart success to that point. In addition, Too Young to Be Sad was crowned the most streamed EP by a female artist on Spotify in 2021 and “You Broke Me First” was featured in more than one million TikTok videos. McRae was the youngest person included on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2021, where the then-17-year-old took her place among such 20something stars as Lil Baby, Melanie Martinez, Roddy Richh, Gabby Barrett and Doja Cat.
Though her star really began rising in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic when everyone was trapped at home, McRae kept the creative fires burning, releasing her debut full-length studio album, I Used to Think I Could Fly, in May 2022. The album peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart, with bubbly, jealousy-tinged single “She’s All I Wanna Be” spending 20 weeks on the Hot 100, where it ran up to No. 44.
Then things rocketed to a whole new level with the release of the lead single from McRae’s No. 4-charting sophomore album 2023’s Think Later, the angsty dance pop burner “Greedy.” The song was accompanied by a Great North-appropriate video featuring sexy ice rink dance routines and McRae cruising on the ice atop a Zamboni, which may have helped it race up to No. 3 on the Hot 100 tally.
Things kept humming along with the next single, the Bieber-esque pop kiss-off “Exes,” whose sultry, dance-heavy video paid homage to some of McRae’s inspirations, including Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera; the song topped out at No. 34 on the Hot 100. The beat went on with the third electro-pop single from the collection, “It’s OK I’m OK,” which grabbed attention for its skin-baring, street dancing music video.
Watch Billboard Explains: Tate McRae Rise to Pop Superstardom in the video above.
After the video, catch up on more Billboard Explains videos and learn about Peso Pluma and the Mexican music boom, the role record labels play, origins of hip-hop, how Beyoncé arrived at Renaissance, the evolution of girl groups, BBMAs, NFTs, SXSW, the magic of boy bands, American Music Awards, the Billboard Latin Music Awards, the Hot 100 chart, how R&B/hip-hop became the biggest genre in the U.S., how festivals book their lineups, Billie Eilish’s formula for success, the history of rap battles, nonbinary awareness in music, the Billboard Music Awards, the Free Britney movement, rise of K-pop in the U.S., why Taylor Swift is re-recording her first six albums, the boom of hit all-female collaborations, how Grammy nominees and winners are chosen, why songwriters are selling their publishing catalogs, how the Super Bowl halftime show is booked and more.
There’s nothing short about the numbers Sabrina Carpenter is pulling on her new album, but they sure are sweet. As of Friday (Sept. 27), the 25-year-old pop star’s sixth studio LP Short n’ Sweet has already been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. That means the 12-track project has moved more than […]
On this week’s (Sept. 6) episode of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century podcast, we take a look at a pair of Tennessee natives: Fictional pop superstar turned IRL pop superstar Miley Cyrus (No. 15) and *NSYNC spotlight-stealer-turned-solo game-changer Justin Timberlake (No. 14). Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and […]
Lady Gaga wasn’t quite ready to let her Joker: Folie à Deux character go, so she created an accompanying 13-track album titled Harlequin.
Joker: Folie à Deux follows Phoenix’s return as Arthur Fleck, a.k.a the Joker, who is now confined in Arkham Asylum. There, he meets Gaga’s Harleen “Lee” Quinzel, and they form a powerfully chaotic bond with the goal of causing mayhem across Gotham City. Unlike the first Joker film, the sequel includes a series of musical numbers, which is where fans see Gaga in her element.
“This idea of dual identities was always something that was a part of my music making,” Gaga shared in a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe of the inspiration behind Harlequin. “I was always creating characters in my music and when I made Lee for Joker, she just really had this profound effect on me. The film had so much music in it, so much music that I love, and I was able to discover the character through the story, through the music that we did live every day as well as dance and the costumes and the makeup. So I kind of had this deep experience with the character and she just didn’t really leave me creatively and I decided I wanted to make a whole album inspired by her.”
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She continued, “She’s a really complex woman and I think, particularly as a woman in music and a female producer, it was really fun to go, ‘This album will be and I will be what I want, when I decide, whenever I feel like it. If I want it to be blues, it’ll be blues. If I want it to be funk, it’ll be funk. If I want it to be soul, it’ll be soul.’”
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The project features covers of old classics — including reimagined showtunes like “Good Morning” (Singing in the Rain) and “If My Friends Could See Me Now” (Sweet Charity) — and “celebrates a figure who thrives on danger, who lives for the undefinable, and who embraces the beautiful chaos of her own dreams,” per a press release. Harlequin also features two original songs, the dramatic waltz “Folie à Deux” and the acoustic ballad “Happy Mistake.”
“BloodPop and I had written this together and then I kind of took it to the next place,” she said of “Happy Mistake,” before adding, “It was all in the image of the character, but also kind of at the very core of her soul, which is really just me. Every character I play, it just has me as the gravity. I am wrestling, on that record, with a lot of feelings about so much that I’ve been through as an artist, everything I went through growing up in the public eye, and the industry since I was a teenager.”
Ultimately, Gaga says filming the Joker film with Phoenix was a “really soulful experience” for her. “It’s like these two people find love in this really dark place and it brings them all the light,” she explained.
Watch Zane Lowe’s full interview with Lady Gaga below. Joker: Folie à Deux hits theaters on Oct. 4.
Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
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This week, Lady Gaga puts on her Joker makeup, The Weeknd joins forces with Playboi Carti and Stevie Nicks meets the moment. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Lady Gaga, Harlequin
Although Harlequin is not exactly a new Lady Gaga album — the 13-song project is largely a mix of covered show tunes and rearrangements that serves as a companion piece to next week’s big-budget film sequel Joker: Folie à Deux — the original track “Happy Mistake,” a breathtaking ballad in the same sonic universe as Gaga’s A Star is Born work, more than justifies this stopgap before the next official full-length.
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The Weeknd with Playboi Carti, “Timeless”
Two weeks after The Weeknd and Playboi Carti separately returned with highly anticipated solo tracks “Dancing in the Flames” and “All Red,” respectively, the pair of A-listers have linked up on “Timeless,” which will appear on The Weeknd’s upcoming album Hurry Up Tomorrow but pushes the superstar more towards Carti’s synth-heavy futuristic rap, courtesy in part of co-producer Pharrell Williams.
Stevie Nicks, “The Lighthouse”
Stevie Nicks wrote new single “The Lighthouse” following the overturning of Roe v. Wade last year, but the legendary singer’s voice resonates regardless of the historical context, as she sings, “I have my scars, you have yours / Don’t let them take your power.”
Tommy Richman, Coyote
Tommy Richman could have coasted on new-school R&B bangers like “Million Dollar Baby” and “Devil is a Lie” through the rest of 2024; instead, debut album Coyote (which stunningly contains neither of his first two hits on its track list) is decidedly a more bold affair, refracting funk, synth-pop, New Jack Swing and hip-hop through the lens of Richman’s singular croon.
Rosalía feat. Ralphie Choo, “Omega”
While a fair share of Rosalía’s fantastic 2022 project MOTOMAMI boasted combustible rhythms and dance hooks, “Omega,” a new team-up with Ralphie Choo, serves as a potent reminder of the singer’s vocal might, with handclaps floating her melisma here and each syllable of the chorus delivered with piercing emotion.
Luke Bryan, Mind of a Country Boy
A press release for Luke Bryan’s album describes Mind of a Country Boy as “the culmination of a career spent studying songs and living the hunting, fishing, and loving everyday lifestyle he sings about”; indeed, there’s an authenticity intrinsic to Bryan’s latest that separates the longtime star from his country brethren, particularly on tracks like “Kansas” and “Country On.”
The Cure, “Alone”
The Cure’s first new song in 16 years is essentially a best-case scenario for longtime fans of the all-time greats: “Alone” is a gorgeous, nearly 7-minute rock epic, with a sweepingly mournful arrangement and Robert Smith sounding like he never stepped away from the recording studio.
Linkin Park, “Heavy is the Crown”
If “The Emptiness Machine” reasserted Linkin Park’s rock-solid songwriting and introduced new co-vocalist Emily Armstrong into the mix, follow-up “Heavy is the Crown” fully unleashes the newly reformed band, recalling the bruising rap-rock of “Faint” and “Bleed It Out” while allowing Armstrong to unveil her own extended scream.
Editor’s Pick: SOPHIE, SOPHIE
In her too-brief time in the spotlight, SOPHIE reconstructed the very fabric of dance and electronic music with a singular verve and boundless talent; SOPHIE, a bittersweet posthumous album which her family helped cross the finish line, honors her brilliance with wondrous moments that recall her career peaks, and glimpses of what could have been.
As their third album arrives, New York collective MICHELLE is leaning into boy bands and girl groups for inspiration.
It’s not that their latest, Songs About You Specifically out today via Transgressive Records, particularly sounds like One Direction, Spice Girls or Fifth Harmony, but examples of modern pop with four lead vocalists are hard to come by outside those groups.
“When you’re trying to learn vocal arrangements and trying to reference music that also has this many vocals, the only music you can find are these girl bands,” says Julian Kaufman, who, along with Charlie Kilgore, handles much of the production in the band. “There are girl bands like The Shirelles from the ‘50s and ‘60s that are a singing a little more vintage pop and that’s great. But in the last 30 years, all you really get is the *NSYNCs and the Fifth Harmonies of the world.”
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On Songs About You Specifically, tapping into those inspirations has led to all the voices of MICHELLE singing out in crisp clarity on songs collectively written in the small town of Ojai, Calif. outside of Los Angeles.
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Unlike their previous releases (2018’s HEATWAVE and 2022’s After Dinner We Talk Dreams), their third studio album does not divvy up songs by each singer and features multiple vocalists on each track, which adds a richness to the sextet’s unique brand of indie pop.
“We try very hard to make sure everybody sounds different,” says Kaufman, adding they have the vocalists (Sofia D’Angelo, Layla Ku, Emma Lee, and Jamee Lockard) sing on different mics and took inspiration from mid 2010’s hip-hop where features took on extremely different resonances when they were recorded separately and stitched together in a studio. “[We were] making sure that each singer has a slightly different sense of harmony. The first verse of ‘The Dropout’ and the second verse of the song have the same melody, but one is sung by Layla and one is sung by Jamee and the harmony stacks they sing are different… Can you hear any of this stuff? No, but it all adds up to subtle things in your brain.”
While some contemporary artists might scoff at the bubblegum pop comparisons, D’Angelo loves it. “Wait, so when you listen to MICHELLE, are you like, ‘Oh my god, that’s Emma. Oh my god, that’s Jamee. Oh my god, that’s Layla. Oh my god, that’s Sofia’? Hell yeah,” she says. “I’m freaking out about this, because this is what I would do with One Direction.”
MICHELLE is also leaning into the stage presence of the major pop acts. While a MICHELLE show has never lacked energy, Ku says people can expect more elaborate choreography. “Shout out to overlord Lee. She choreographs everything with great intent,” Ku says. “We’ve been putting so much work into this dancing element of our performance. It’s become very visually pleasing. I see videos of us dancing and I’m like, ‘Yeah, we ate that up.’”
Audiences can also expect live drums, coordinated outfits (not matching just yet, but they tease the possibility) and lots of hairography.
“The last two shows we did [on the Still Woozy tour] we had wind machines or fans at the edge of the stage. Oh boy, did that make a difference,” says Lee. “You’re like, this is just where I stand to sing and then you see a video and…it’s life changing.”
“Those experiences when the fan was in my hair made me realize this is what I’ve always wanted to do for my whole life. This is what I would do with the hair dryer in my bathroom when I was a kid singing Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears or Beyoncé or whatever,” says D’Angelo. “The hair is really the fifth vocalist, the fifth dancer in the band.”
When the group was recording the new record in Ojai, they would split up into writing groups of two or three and whichever group finished their track first would make dinner for everyone else. Having six writers, all from varying backgrounds, genders, sexualities and styles gives MICHELLE the rare ability to create honest music from many perspectives.
“It’s so exciting that we can write about queer relationships or maybe an experience that only two of the members have had, but we can present it under [MICHELLE],” says Lee. “We have this vessel to constantly be tons of different things that are true to different parts of the group.”
MICHELLE has successfully avoided being pigeonholed as just a queer band or just a pop group over the past six years, as their sound has evolved and changed. For their latest, direct inspiration is extremely difficult to pinpoint. There are the ‘90s R&B sounds on “Akira” and the beachy breeziness of “Cathy.” There are traces of late 2000s and early 2010s indie like Phantogram and Phoenix, alongside consistently strong basslines and danceable drumbeats.
“Sonically, it is not very clear what genre this [album] is. That is something we were going for,” says Kaufman. “We were trying to have that thing where you put on this album and it’s not exactly just another pop album. This is MICHELLE. That’s the intention.”
“When we went into writing we wanted to experience catharsis and really express ourselves,” says D’Angelo. “With this record, it was anything goes in terms of what we were bringing into the room. The focus was just crafting great music, helping each other. If someone had an idea, being there for them.”
The group has always billed themselves as a predominantly queer collective and, as the culture embraces LGBTQIA+ artists like Chappell Roan, MUNA, Reneé Rapp, Janelle Monáe and more, MICHELLE sees this as a turning point for queer representation.
“Queer people aren’t going anywhere. Lesbians aren’t going anywhere,” says Lockard. “We finally reached a moment in pop culture where queer people feel comfortable sharing who they are and it’s being well received. It’s just going to continue to grow as younger queer listeners are hearing these artists and writing their own stories.”
“The only element of this moment that I’m looking forward to ending….” Ku adds — pausing while her bandmates laugh, in order to reassure, “Everyone’s going to be like, ‘I feel that’ at the end of my sentence. Don’t worry.
“Whenever there’s rumblings of a cultural shift with young people, there is a quick [instinct to] vulture, to prey, swarm, that companies hop on,” she continues. “The music industry is a huge perpetrator of that — and I look forward to when the commodification of queer aesthetic and art comes to a close. So many of our queer musical predecessors did it in anonymity for so long, and I look forward to when it’s just music and stories being told by these people are accepted and understood to be regular rather than something to profit off of.”
Lana Dey Rey finally got to wear that white dress she sang about on Chemtrails Over the Country Club. This time it was of the wedding variety, though. People confirmed that the 39-year-old singer born Elizabeth Grant married Louisiana-born alligator tour guide Jeremy Dufrene on Thursday (Sept. 26) after a brief romance that began earlier […]
With the mystery of “LG 6.5” officially solved, Lady Gaga is ready to let fans in on the making of her newest album, Harlequin.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Gaga explained that the idea for her new album of jazz and pop classics came to her after she finished filming Joker: Folie à Deux. After performing for so long as her character Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn), Gaga felt that she still had more to say. “I had such a deep relationship with Lee,” she said. “And when I was done filming the movie, I wasn’t done with her.”
As for why she teased the album as “LG 6.5,” the singer explained that she didn’t want fans to see this only as her next album. “It is my record. It’s a Lady Gaga record, but it’s also inspired by my character and my vision of what a woman can be,” she said. “It’s why the album does not adhere to one genre … it’s not my next studio album that’s a pop record, but it is somewhere in between, and it’s blurring the lines of pop music.”
The new project sees Gaga taking on a series of jazz standards — such as “Get Happy,” “World on a String” and “That’s Life” — much like she did in her Tony Bennett duet albums Cheek to Cheek and Love for Sale. While Gaga says she struggled with not having her friend and collaborator in the studio with her following his death in 2023, she thinks he would have appreciated Harlequin for its shapeshifting nature.
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“If I had put rock n’ roll chords over production in a record that I did with Tony years ago, I don’t know how he would’ve felt about that. Tony didn’t love rock n’ roll, but he would’ve said, ‘Wow, that’s amazing,’” she explained. “He was somebody who loved how risk-taking and different I am, and I always thought that was so cool. He was 60 years older than me, and he would flinch less than young people that I would meet … He was just a really compassionate, inclusive person. So he was definitely with us [in the studio], but he was mostly inside of me.”
As for fans still eager to hear what her long-awaited seventh studio album will sound like, Gaga remained tight-lipped, but offered a small hint. “The pop album is nothing like Chromatica. It’s a completely different record,” she said. “It’s meant to be ingested as a time in my life. And I’m also really excited about this idea that I don’t have to adhere to an era if I don’t want to. I can have a few going at once.”