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Stevie Nicks has high hopes for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone published Thursday (Oct. 24), the 76-year-old rock legend gushed about her famous friend, whom Nicks thinks “has a good man” (aka a certain Kansas City Chiefs tight end). “She is really smart, but she also went through a lot before,” the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman told the publication of Swift. “She’s in a good place right now. … I hope they fall deeper and deeper in love and ride off into the sunset.”
“[Travis] does his thing and she does her thing, and then they come back together and get married and have babies if she wants that,” Nicks continued. “I just want all of that for her.”
The “Edge of Seventeen” singer previously hung out with Swift and Kelce after one of the pop star’s July Eras Tour shows in Dublin. Elsewhere in the interview, Nicks said she gifted the football player a blanket — “That is what I buy for my friends if there’s a special occasion,” she said — and the star recently recorded a collaboration with his older brother, Jason Kelce, for the upcoming Philly Specials Christmas project.
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Also in the interview, Nicks spoke about voting for Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election (“I never voted until I was 70 … It’s a big regret”), giving Lindsey Buckingham “300 million chances” before cutting him off for good, and toxic fan culture. While on the latter subject, she recalled Katy Perry once telling her “about the Internet armies of all the girl singers, and how cruel and rancid they were.”
“I said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t know because I’m not on the Internet,’” Nicks continued of their conversation. “She said, ‘So, who are your rivals?’ I just looked at her. It was my steely look. I said, ‘Katy, I don’t have rivals. I have friends. All the other women singers that I know are friends. Nobody’s competing. Get off the Internet and you won’t have rivals either.’”
Plus, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer shared her thoughts on Chappell Roan. “Evidently she likes my music a lot,” Nicks said of the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer. “Me and a friend of mine went and looked at her schedule, and it was outrageous — what she’s already done and then what she’s going into. It’s as bad as any schedule we ever did, and she’s new, and she’s young. I said, ‘They’ll burn her out if that’s what they want to do, because there’s always somebody to replace you.’”
Nicks is fresh off the release of a new single titled “The Lighthouse,” which she wrote after the Supreme Court turned over Roe v. Wade in 2022. The performer gave the song its live debut on Saturday Night Live earlier this month during the Ariana Grande-hosted episode.
Shortly before dropping the anthemic track in September, Nicks endorsed the Harris-Walz campaign with an Instagram post referencing Swift, who also spoke out in favor of the Democratic ticket that month. “As my friend @taylorswift so eloquently stated, now is the time to research and choose the candidate that speaks to you and your beliefs,” she wrote at the time. “Your vote in this election may be one of the most important things you ever do.”
Both Jennie and Rosé are currently rolling out their next solo eras, and to celebrate, the BLACKPINK stars individually sat down with Buzzfeed Celeb to play with adorable baby animals while they answered questions.
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First up, Jennie, who recently dropped her empowering new single “Mantra,” revealed that she’s currently in a “hardworking, no rest, Jennie mode,” adding, “Hopefully after this album comes out, I can have some fun in my era.”
While she played around with the sweetest group of kittens — who were a bit shy at first but eventually warmed up to the K-pop idol — Jennie shared that she hopes fans feel the “good energy of “Mantra,” and “how I’m just really talking about embracing yourself and having fun all the time.”
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She also revealed the BLACKPINK song she’d put in a time capsule for future generations. “I think ‘Whistle,’ because I love that song and I think it’s a timeless song,” she explained. “It’s already been eight years since that song came out and I still listen to it here and there.”
For her interview, Rosé answered the same question. “I would pick ‘Kill This Love.’ It’s a bada– song,” she revealed.
The singer, who happily tried to wrangle energetic puppies during her interview, opened up about working with Bruno Mars on her new song, “APT.” She shared, “I am so lucky to have him on the song. He’s helped so much. He has a vision for everything. It’s so good. I’ve had times where I was struggling with something and he really has helped me so much in wrapping up this album. I’m such a big fan.
The song is set to be featured on her upcoming solo album rosie, which Rosé described as “an album full of my most honest stories and it’s just a representation of all the thoughts running through my mind in the past year. It’s a very personal one so hopefully people feel closer to me through the album.”
As for her fellow BLACKPINK members embarking on solo journeys, Rosé beamed with support. “I think it’s amazing. I’m so excited for everyone,” she said. “I’m their biggest fan. I’m proud of all of these girls. It’s nice to have these sisters go through similar journeys with me.”
Watch Jennie’s kitten interview and Rosé’s puppy interview below.
With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to a close, Billboard is spending the next few months counting down our staff picks for the 25 greatest pop stars of the last 25 years. You can see the stars who have made our list so far here, and now we remember the century in Kanye West — whose career has featured near-unparalleled runs of artistic brilliance and pop cultural centrality, but whose legacy has grown more complicated by the year over the last decade.
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It’s funny now to think of a time when confusion over Kanye West’s first name was a common issue. Like NBA star Dwyane Wade (who, like West, also went pro in 2003-04), a lot of people who hadn’t seen or heard his name before – an Ethiopian-French name meaning “only one” – mentally jumbled the placement of the “y,” leading to a lot of first-time misspellings and mispronunciations when bracing it for the first time. The Netflix documentary jeen-yuhs includes an early-’00s scene of an unknowing receptionist referring to Kanye as “Cayenne,” and West himself even bemoaned the then-still-common cognition error in his 2005 hit “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”: “Now all I need is y’all to pronounce my name/ It’s Kanye, but some of my plaques, they still say ‘Kayne.’”
Flash forward to two decades later, and it’s damn near impossible to imagine a single person on the planet who doesn’t know Kanye’s name. For a solid 20 years now, the monocultural figure has been in headlines on a weekly basis – sometimes daily, sometimes hourly – for just about every reason an artist can be. He’s been attached to stories about every kind of commercial and critical achievement: chart-topping singles and albums, best-of year-end and decade-end list placements, award wins and losses – even ones that weren’t his own. He’s also been at the center of celebrity weddings, billion-dollar business dealings, friendships and feuds with plenty of the other most famous people of the 21st century; one sitting U.S. president publicly thanked him for his “very cool” service, another called him a jackass.
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And he’s also dominated the news for things no one should ever want to be known for – for ignorant comments and for allegations of terrible behavior, and for ensuing backlash that pushed him to the fringes of an industry he once lorded over from the absolute center. But even in 2024 – and even after he legally changed his name to the less scrambleable “Ye” – you can still never go too long without hearing the name Kanye. That’s how inextricable Mr. West was to American life in the first two decades of this century, that’s how brilliant his music and artistry were for the great majority of that period, that’s how blinding his sheer star power was throughout, and that’s how unshakeable he ultimately still remains in the culture today.
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But before Kanye was the Kanye that the whole world would know, he began the 21st century as a Chi-town college dropout still trying to make his name as a producer. In the late ‘90s, he’d gotten beats on albums by hitmakers like Jermaine Dupri, Foxy Brown and Goodie Mob, but in 2000 that he would land the placement that would jumpstart the next phase of his career: “This Can’t Be Life,” from Jay-Z’s The Dynasty: Roc La Familia. The beat exemplified Kanye’s signature early-career production style: a classic soul sample, pitched up to the heavens, laid over the knocking snare from Dr. Dre’s “Xxplosive.” The song wasn’t a single, but it was a highlight from Jay’s third straight No. 1 album, getting him in the good graces of the rapper (and his Roc-a-Fella label) who was about to become the most powerful in hip-hop.
That takeover kicked off in earnest on 2001’s The Blueprint, Jay-Z’s career-defining masterpiece, on which Kanye placed five beats (including, appropriately, Jay’s beef track “Takeover”). The most important song on the set for the producer was “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” a Jackson 5-lifting pop-rap singalong which gave the rapper his first Hot 100 top 10 hit as a lead artist, and gave the producer his first Hot 100 hit, period. From there, the floodgates opened for Kanye, and by the end of 2002, he’d scored Hot 100 hits with Scarface, Trina and Talib Kweli – as well as second Jay smash “03 Bonnie & Clyde,” this time with a newly solo Beyoncé riding shotgun – making him a rising star in a golden age of superproducers.
But Kanye wasn’t satisfied with superproducerdom, since he’d long harbored aspirations of being an MC as well. While by 2002, hip-hop producers grabbing the mic had become relatively common – Kanye’s production heroes Dr. Dre and Q-Tip had both found stardom doing so in the ‘90s, while Pharrell’s falsetto was becoming as ubiquitous in 2000s top 40 as his beats – Kanye found difficulty convincing labels to take him seriously as a rapper, partly because his middle-class image and rhymes largely conflicted with the street rap ruling radio at the time. Eventually, Roc-a-Fella signed him — in large part to keep his beatmaking talents in-house — but even they weren’t totally convinced yet.
His debut single would quickly validate their decision. While Kanye had been garnering notice with mixtapes like Get Well Soon and I’m Good, as well as for additional hit beats for Alicia Keys (“You Don’t Know My Name”) and Ludacris (“Stand Up,” his first Hot 100 No. 1 as a producer), “Through the Wire” was the song that brought Kanye to national renown. Inspired by a near-fatal 2002 car accident – he rapped the song (over a chipmunked sample from Chaka Khan’s ‘80s R&B hit “Through the Fire”) while his jaw was still wired shut, hence the title – “Wire” introduced Kanye as a clever, compelling and culturally omnivorous underdog, winning listeners over with both its triumphant message and its well-placed references to everything from Vanilla Sky to Making the Band. Helped by an MTV-conquering living-collage music video, the song reached No. 15 on the Hot 100, establishing Kanye’s two-way bonafides and building massive buzz for his debut album.
The College Dropout, released in Feb. 2004, lived up to the hype. Drawing rapturous reviews and debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 441,000 in first-week sales, the album spawned three more huge hits in “All Falls Down,” “Jesus Walks” and “Slow Jamz” (his first Hot 100 No. 1 as a recording artist, though the song was originally featured on fellow Chicago rapper Twista’s Kamikaze album with Kanye as a featured artist). The album made Kanye a cultural phenomenon and media darling, as his pink polos, popped collars and unique combination of arrogance and insecurity (“We all self-conscious, I’m just the first to admit it,” he boasted on “Falls”) made him an irresistible presence, and his oft-uplifting storytelling drew stark contrast with the crime tales and caddishness of the previous year’s breakout rapper, 50 Cent. (50 would later theorize that his own ubiquity directly led to Kanye’s subsequent success.)
In particular, “Jesus Walks” took Kanye into the center of public discourse for his grappling with his faith in a way that was extremely rare (and risky) for pop music at the time. The song only reached No. 11 on the Hot 100, lower than “Falls” and “Jamz,” but made its way to a lot of new fans outside of mainstream hip-hop, and drew the most critical acclaim of any of Dropout’s singles. “Jesus” nominated for two awards at the 2005 Grammys, where Ye’s attendance was a source of much discussion in the lead-up – since he’d previously crashed the stage at the 2004 American Music Awards to protest country hitmaker Gretchen Wilson beating him for best new artist. The awards outburst – certainly not the last of its kind for Ye – drew some backlash and ratcheted up Grammy night tension, which turned out to be for naught when he won best rap album for Dropout. “Everybody wanted to know what I would do if I didn’t win,” Kanye offered in his still-oft-referenced acceptance speech. “I guess we’ll never know.”
As successful as Kanye’s debut was, his sophomore album would prove it was just the beginning. Late Registration debuted at No. 1 in Aug. 2005 with nearly two times the first-week number of Dropout, and its second single – the Jamie Foxx-featuring “Gold Digger,” a comedic and absurdly catchy tribute to (and warning about) get-rich-quick female social climbers – became Kanye’s first No. 1 as a lead artist, and an immediate pop classic. The album’s expanded sonic palette, aided by co-producer (and regular Fiona Apple collaborator) Jon Brion, proved Ye was no one-trick wonder as a beatsmith, while songs like “Hey Mama” and “Heard ‘Em Say” plumbed new depths of personal and political subject matter lyrically. The latter side of Ye would also come into full focus that year on a televised benefit for those hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina, where his frustration over the then-President’s slow response in providing aid to the less-well-off victims of the incident boiled over into his second unforgettable quote of 2005: “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”
Kanye would spend much of 2006 touring – taking a brief pause for another stage-crashing incident at the ‘06 MTV EMAs, where he greeted news of his “Touch the Sky” losing best video to Justice vs. Simien’s “We Are Your Friends” with a loud “Oh, HELL no!” – and drawing inspiration for his next studio album, 2007’s “stadium status”-aspiring Graduation. Though the set was scheduled a week after rival 50 Cent’s Curtis album was due, Kanye later moved it up to the same day, starting a much-hyped sales battle that 50 would raise the stakes of by swearing he’d retire if he lost. Graduation ultimately soared past Curtis, selling 957,000 (still Kanye’s best first-week number) to Curtis’ 691,000, confirming Ye – who by then had also embraced electronic influences (particularly via Daft Punk-sampling lead single “Stronger,” another Hot 100 No. 1) and high fashion – as hip-hop’s present and future. Once again earning rave reviews, Graduation made Kanye 3-for-3, and very arguably the biggest artist in the world. (50 declined to retire as promised, but his career was never the same again.)
While Kanye was on top of the word artistically and commercially, he was about to hit a personal low. In late 2007, his mother Donda passed, and the next year, he broke off his engagement with long-time girlfriend Alexis Phifer – with both events inspiring the decidedly downbeat tone of his next album, 2008’s 808s and Heartbreak. Though Kanye had rarely sung on his records before, 808s mostly featured his Auto-Tuned warbling – with rapping kept to a minimum – of heart-on-sleeve lyrics over icy, synth-driven beats that felt a world away from the chipmunk soul he’d made his name on. The album became his third straight No. 1 and spawned a pair of top five Hot 100 hits in “Love Lockdown” and “Heartless,” but for the first time in his career, critics and fans were mixed on the new set. Time would largely prove Ye simply ahead of the curve, however, as the combination of chilly nu-wave sonics and hip-hop/R&B hybridized vocals (largely inspired by Kid Cudi, a signee to Ye’s GOOD Music imprint) ended up being profoundly influential on leading 2010s hitmakers like Travis Scott, Childish Gambino and Drake.
Though 808s wasn’t the unqualified success of Kanye’s first three albums, he was still one of pop music’s leading artists at the time of the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. That night would quickly prove infamous for Ye, as the megastar – seen with a bottle of Hennessy on the red carpet – would grab the mic during Taylor Swift’s best female video acceptance speech to claim that the award should have gone to fellow nominee Beyoncé instead. Though Ye’s stage-crashing antics were well-known by that point, none of them had ever occurred on this widely watched an event, or with co-stars as well known as Swift or Beyoncé – or during the social media era, as the then-rising app Twitter gave everyone watching the opportunity to express their disbelief and/or disapproval in unison. Kanye had received blowback for plenty of moments in his career to this point, but never backlash on this level; the public response was so immediate and so loud that he pulled out of his planned Fame Kills tour alongside Lady Gaga and essentially went into hiding in Hawaii for the rest of the year.
The experience ended up leading to Kanye’s next album, 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Recorded in a free-flowing Hawaii studio setup with a rotating cast of high-profile collaborators, Fantasy featured Ye really leaning into playing the anti-hero (if not the outright villain) for the first time on cinematic hits like “Power,” “Monster” and “All of the Lights,” with newly growling, grimy, ‘70s rock-influenced production. He did still make room for contrition, however, particularly on the spellbinding album centerpiece “Runaway,” which he unveiled with an instantly iconic performance at – where else? – the 2010 VMAs. The album debuted at No. 1 with nearly 500,000 in first-week sales, and drew Ye’s most ecstatic reviews yet: Leading critical voice Pitchfork, which a decade earlier had been an indie rock-rooted publication that might not have even reviewed a rap blockbuster like Fantasy, gave the set its first 10.0 score for a new album since 2002 – a sign not only of Ye’s now-unanimous acclaim, but of how he’d helped shift the entire critical discourse over the course of his career.
For the next couple years, Ye was unquestionably back, and as entrenched in the mainstream as ever. In 2011, he teamed up with longtime collaborator, label head and big brother Jay-Z for the gaudy Watch the Throne, a purposeful exercise in hip-hop opulence and excess that nonetheless contained several classic moments: “N—as in Paris,” in particular, with its imminently quotable lyrics and earthquaking dubstep drop, proved a culture-moving moment, particularly when the duo started playing it double-digit times in a row on tour. The next year, his Cruel Summer quasi-compilation collected songs from then-rising GOOD Music artists like Big Sean, Teyana Taylor and newly solo Clipse rapper Pusha T – but the best and biggest songs were all headlined by Kanye, including the hit singles “Mercy” and “Clique.” Meanwhile, Ye had started to date reality TV superstar and budding entrepreneur Kim Kardashian, increasing his Q rating and pushing him to new corners of pop culture, as he also began premiering his “DW by Kanye West” lines of women’s clothing during Paris Fashion Week.
By summer 2013, it had been nearly three years since the last new Kanye solo album – the longest layover of his career to that point – and rumors of a dark and difficult set had long buzzed around hip-hop blogs and fan communities, many of which by this point (particularly the Kanye to The forum) were tracking Kanye’s happenings with singular diligence and worship. The rumors were true: after a ninth-inning edit job by legendary “reducer” Rick Rubin, Yeezus debuted as Ye’s most-abrasive and least-commercial set, equally influenced by 2010s Chicago drill rap and 1980s Chicago acid house, with largely aggressive, hedonistic lyrics that seemed to occasionally border on outright nihilism. Yeezus made Fantasy sound like “Through the Wire,” and not all listeners were down with the darkness – but the set generally drew song reviews and fan response, and became his sixth straight album to debut at No. 1.
Beginning with Yeezus, though, West’s output generally trended away from playing the pop crossover game. Just a couple years earlier, he had picked up his fourth Hot 100 No. 1 by appearing on the single version of top 40 megastar Katy Perry’s “E.T.”; such pop appearances would quickly be unthinkable for the post-Yeezus Kanye, who began reserving his guest appearances almost exclusively for fellow rappers and occasional R&B stars. Music videos also became rarer, as did award show performances and media interviews – and Yeezus notably contained no pre-release singles, though “Bound 2” eventually became a No. 12 hit following the release of its Kim Kardashian-co-starring, easily parodied music video.
In fact, West’s primary engagement with pop music and pop culture in the mid-’10s came through his continued back-and-forth with Swift – who, a half-decade after their initial VMAs conflict, was still linked to West in ways neither of them could really shake, with the latter apologizing for the incident but then later seemingly retracting his apology. At the 2015 VMAs, the two appeared to bury the hatchet, as Swift introduced West as the recipient of the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, with her speech even making joking reference to the ‘09 incident. But in early 2016, Kanye released “Famous,” which included the lyric “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why?/ I made that b–ch famous,” seemingly resetting the dormant beef in an instant. Swift appeared to respond to the song when accepting the album of the year Grammy just days later, warning the young women watching of “the people along the way who try to… take credit for your accomplishments and your fame.” (A video for the song, released months later, would further the acrimony by picturing a nude wax sculpture of Swift, along with similar sculptures of Ye and many other celebrities, sleeping together in a giant bed.)
“Famous” appeared on The Life of Pablo, Kanye’s first album since Yeezus, released in Feb. 2016 after several false starts and renamings. The album was less difficult than its predecessor, but far messier – particularly because West was still tinkering with the album by the time it was released as an exclusive on the new streaming service Tidal, of which he was a co-owner. Months into the album’s release, he was still reworking songs and fiddling with the tracklist – which, depending on who you asked, either made a profound statement on the permanent malleability of the album format in the streaming era or simply displayed Kanye’s increasing lack of artistic self-assuredness. Regardless, the set was mostly received well, giving Ye yet another No. 1 and spawning fan favorites like the two-part “Father Stretch My Hands,” the Kendrick Lamar teamup “No More Parties in LA” and the gospel-influenced, Chance the Rapper-spotlighting opener “Ultralight Beam.”
More notable than the actual music on Pablo might have been the event that premiered it: a live listening party at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the largest scale such an event had been conceived on to that point. In truth it was far larger than even a simple arena gig, because thanks to livestreaming, it also became a communal event on social media, with secondhand excitement over the quasi-live show extended to the album itself. The Pablo era was further helped by the successful and acclaimed Saint Pablo Tour that followed, and the soon-omnipresent merch from it that – along with his increasingly successful Adidas partnership – officially turned Kanye into a lifestyle brand. Perhaps best of all for Ye, Snapchat video released online by Kim Kardashian – then his wife, as the couple were married in 2014 – seemed to show Swift giving him her pre-release approval for the controversial “Famous” lyric, which flipped public sentiment back against the pop megastar and towards Kanye. He was just a couple months away from ending 2016 on a high note to rival any in his career to that point.
It was not to be that simple. West’s year was shaken first by wife Kardashian’s robbery at gunpoint in Paris that October, forcing him to cancel multiple Pablo dates. Then, after Donald Trump was elected president in November, Kanye expressed onstage that he didn’t vote in the election, but would have supported Trump if he had – kicking off a run of erratic on-stage behavior that also included his ranting about Beyoncé’s alleged politicking at the 2016 VMAs and how Jay-Z never called him after Kardashian’s robbery. He eventually pulled the plug on the rest of the tour, and was hospitalized that Thanksgiving for temporary psychosis – after which he had a controversial summit at Trump Tower with the then-president to discuss “multicultural issues,” much to the horror of many of his peers, including longtime collaborator John Legend. It was a brutal end to a once-triumphant year.
The rest of the decade was a rocky period for Kanye. He released two more albums, 2018’s introspective, seven-track Ye – part of a five-album “Wymoning Sessions” series all produced by Kanye, which also included his Kids See Ghosts teamup with longtime collaborator Kid Cudi – and 2019’s gospel-themed Jesus Is King, and again topped the Billboard 200 with both. But both sets drew mixed reviews, and as became increasingly the case with Kanye post-Pablo, got more attention for their bumpy releases and listening party premiere events than for most of the music actually contained therein. Meanwhile, he made further public appearances in support of then-President Trump, began to speak out against abortion and the Black Lives Matter movement, and most infamously, said to TMZ about Black slavery that “when you hear about slavery for 400 years … for 400 years? That sounds like a choice” – comments that earned swift, massive backlash from both fans and the media. (Later that year, he apologized for “how that slave comment made people feel.”) Even the Taylor Swift feud flipped back on Kanye, as 2020 saw the leak of a longer version of the infamous “Famous” approval conversation between the two stars, seemingly adding more context and validity to Swift’s claims that she never gave full approval to the “b–ch” lyric.
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Still, no matter how severe the fallout from any of his controversies, at the turn of the 2020s Kanye still clearly held the public’s interest whenever he released an album, or debuted a new shoe line, or held a high-profile concert – or engaged in a high-profile beef, as he did with 2010s rap kingpin Drake in the lead-up to his 2021 album Donda. After Ye held what was essentially a promotional residency at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, literally living in the stadium between promotional events as he attempted to finalize the set, the 27-track collection was belatedly released in June, and again entered at No. 1, with 309,000 units moved, the highest mark of the year to that point. The occasionally inspired but wildly overstuffed album had its supporters, and earned an album of the year Grammy nomination – but as Drake’s Certified Lover Boy album was released the next week to an even bigger first-week bow, and then the two rappers made up months later for the Free Larry Hoover concert, it was hard not to feel like the entire era was more sound than fury.
The next year would bring about new lows for Kanye, as Oct. 22 kicked off with him wearing an inflammatory “WHITE LIVES MATTER” t-shirt at a Yeezy SZN Paris fashion show, then making a post to Instagram calling Black Lives Matter “a scam.” Later in the month, West had his accounts locked on both Instagram and Twitter for comments perceived as anti-semitic, particularly a tweet that threatened to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” The rapper’s rhetoric continued, and eventually his business partners began to sever ties with him – including his CAA agency, his UMG parent label, and even his Adidas shoe partners, about whom Kanye had recently boasted, “I can say anti-semitic things and Adidas can’t drop me.” (In Dec. 2023, Kanye would apologize for his comments in an Instagram statement: “I sincerely apologize to the Jewish community for any unintended outburst caused by my words or actions.”)
And yet, even with seemingly all of his industry backing lost, Kanye remains majorly impactful in present day. His Instagram apology was followed in early 2024 with the independent release of his Ty Dolla $ign teamup Vultures 1 – again, after plenty of false starts, delays and listening-event hype, and again, with a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200. This time, the set was also able to do something no Kanye album had done since before Yeezus: spawn a major, long-lasting Hot 100 hit, with the soccer-chanting, No. 1-peaking “Carnival,” also featuring Playboi Carti and Rich the Kid. The song carried some of the red-eyed, goblin-mode spark of Ye’s best early-2010s work – though in calling back to some of those songs rather explicitly (including a mid-song sample of Fantasy’s “Hell of a Life”), it missed both the ingenuity and the shock of the new that made them so special.
When you tell the story of Kanye West’s career, you realize how few of the larger narratives about 21st century popular music could be related without him. The mixtape hip-hop era of the early 2000s, rap’s mainstream takeover in the mid-’00s and the blog era in the late deacde, the EDM breakthrough and pop star megaboom of the turn of the 2010s, the complete reinvention of music consumption throughout the social media and streaming ages of the ‘10s, the event-ification of pop music in the late ‘10s, and the outsized role of identity politics and post-#MeToo questions of cancelation (or at least accountability) within the industry that have hung over all of entertainment for the past eight years… Nearly every important sonic, cultural or technological trend in the last 25 years of popular music has been touched by Kanye, and none of these chapters of pop history could be written without extensive mention of him. Sometimes on the first page. Sometimes in the first sentence.
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It’s impossible to deny Kanye’s impact, or his greatness. But it’s equally impossible to deny the impact that his hurtful comments and bad behavior (allegations of which have continued in 2024) have had on his overall legacy. He’s hardly the only one: Rock, rap and even pop history are all full of critical figures whose problematic conduct threatens to overshadow or at least taint their seismic contributions to the genre. How much it impacts our own personal enjoyment or listening habits when it comes to their music – either going forward or looking back – is something every fan must figure out for themselves. But clearly, even with Kanye’s recent chart comeback, he’s been ostracized from too many corners of pop music and pop culture to ever be as central to either as he was at his near-decade-and-a-half peak – and now, for many, even memories from that peak have been regrettably shaded to the point where they will never quite feel the same again.
Still, it’s a testament to just how singular that peak run was, and how impactful it was on popular music and culture – in countless ways we can still feel the reverberations of today, and others we might not properly understand for decades yet to come – that so many still bother with Kanye at all. Perhaps no other artist since Prince has better matched the Purple One’s combination of mold-breaking creativity with record-breaking commercial success, of studio perfectionism and prolificity with spellbinding performance abilities and iconic visuals, of cultural innovation and technological wizardry with personal artistry and deep soulfulness. And like Prince, he can change his name to whatever he wants, but the world will still never, ever forget the name Kanye.
Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here — and be sure to check back Tuesday as we reveal our No. 6 artist!
THE LIST SO FAR:
Honorable Mentions
25. Katy Perry24. Ed Sheeran23. Bad Bunny22. One Direction21. Lil Wayne20. Bruno Mars19. BTS18. The Weeknd17. Shakira16. Jay-Z15. Miley Cyrus14. Justin Timberlake13. Nicki Minaj12. Eminem11. Usher10. Adele9. Ariana Grande8. Justin Bieber
Rihanna is a Billie Eilish fan! In an interview with an 11-year-old journalist at her recent launch event for her new Fenty x Puma collection this week, RiRi was asked who her dream musical collaborator would be. “If I could only do a song with Billie Eilish. She’s so good,” she shared. New music has […]
The hottest composer in musical theater right now may well be one of its most veteran legends. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sweeping scores have ruled Broadway for decades, and lately his shows have seemed irrresistible to theater’s most inventive directors — from the sensational Cats: The Jellicle Ball (taking the literal felines out of the picture and transferring the story to the ballroom scene) in downtown Manhattan, to a high-octane new Starlight Express in a specially-designed London theater far from the West End, to, most prominently, Jamie Lloyd’s starkly minimalist SUNSET BLVD. on Broadway, starring former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger in a monumental performance that’s already won her an Olivier award.
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SUNSET recently opened at the St. James Theatre to largely rave reviews, and now Lloyd Webber is hoping an even wider audience will hear the show precisely as he imagined it when, on October 25, The Other Songs (the indie entertainment company founded by his sons Billy and Alastair Webber) releases SUNSET BLVD: The Album. In a departure from original Broadway cast recording tradition, the album was recorded entirely live at the Savoy Theater in London without, Lloyd Webber proudly notes, any technical audio “enhancements” — his effort for any listener to experience the production precisely as they would in the theater.
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Ahead of the album release, Lloyd Webber — whose new musical adaptation of film The Illusionist is in the works — spoke to Billboard about the recording process, his abiding love of vinyl, Scherzinger’s performance and much more.
So many people worldwide have been introduced not only to your work, but to musical theater itself, through recordings of your musicals. What do you see as your responsibility when you record your shows?
Well, every case is different, isn’t it, really? I mean, Jesus Christ Superstar over 50 years ago was recorded as an album because nobody wanted to produce it in the theater, so the only way we could get it heard was to record it. [Today] you have Lin-Manuel Miranda who has just done his new show with The Warriors, recording it first. There’s no rule at all. But when you’ve got a production which is as good as the current SUNSET BLVD., it was pretty obvious that we should record that in the theater. This is the first time that I’ve ever recorded [a cast album] in the theater, because I thought that this was such an extraordinary experience for an audience that we should just do it, warts and all.
So essentially, you recorded a live performance as it was?
It is recorded as it was performed. It was completely, completely live. We [recorded] five performances, but basically we took one which was the best. Nothing was done in post-production, other than mix it. I decided that I wanted to produce it like I did Jesus Christ Superstar years ago, as a kind of musical radio play, [where] there wouldn’t be anything other than what you heard if you were actually in the building itself. Because I’m very proud of the sound that we have on SUNSET BLVD. I’m the first person in theater history to have introduced a sound desk into a theater back with Jesus Christ Superstar, and sound, to me, is incredibly important.
Have certain advances in audio recording technology made this kind of album possible?
Absolutely, because the radio microphones now are so directional that they’re not picking up outside sounds, and so you don’t get lots of extraneous noise. One of the great things in the show that’s now becoming kind of famous — the walk-around [outside] in the beginning of the second act where [actor Tom Francis] goes out into the street — I mean, the sound is exactly the same as it would be in the theater. Fundamentally, when you’re making a recording of a piece of work, you really want it to be as authentic as you possibly can make it.
And this is exactly as it was in the theater. I’m very proud of the fact that we didn’t do any enhancement at all. I mean, a lot of people would talk about how you compress a vocal; I’ve never done that in my career. I’ve always felt that if you’re mixing a show, you ride the vocal rather than compress it, and on this album, there’s no compression at all. We recorded a little bit of atmosphere in the theater as it was happening, which meant that we didn’t have to put reverb or anything on any of the vocals, because I just felt that it was essential that we had a little bit of the feeling of the theater itself.
Knowing now that you can record a show in this way, is it something you would want to see applied more widely?
Certainly, there are some shows where I think it works probably better than others. Some of the cast albums that I’ve had over the years, which I haven’t necessarily produced [myself] of course, I find that some of them are great, but they don’t quite have that energy that happens when something is being done live and it’s with you. But at the same time, what you don’t necessarily want to have on a live album is masses of applause. The way I’ve written [SUNSET], applause points are kept to the minimum, because I always feel that what you really want to do is lead an audience through, and then allow them to applaud at certain points.
So in SUNSET, there is no applause point at all until you get to the end of “With One Look” which is 35 minutes into the show, and Phantom of the Opera is exactly the same — I don’t allow anybody to applaud until the end of “The Music of the Night,” because I want people to concentrate on the music. You don’t want the whole thing to get derailed by, you know, masses of applause. I try and through-compose as much as I can. So I think the SUNSET album allowed us to do exactly what I was hoping for: if you listen to it, I hope it’s not like listening to a live album in one sense, where you’ve got lots of applause all the way through, because there are only very few moments, but it’s also very much like listening to it as you would have heard it in the theater — pure, I think, is the word I would like to use.
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Nicole Scherzinger and Jamie Lloyd.
Marc J Franklin
You posted a little behind the scenes video on Instagram of the vinyl-making process at Abbey Road Studios. Can you tell us a bit about that process?
Well, that’s not a difficult one for me to talk about. Because of course, when I started out, vinyl was everything, and I learned very early on that how an album was cut was absolutely vital to the sound. The louder the music is, the wider the groove has to be, so if you’re dealing with a show like — I mean, the most difficult vinyl cut I have ever had to do was the third side of Evita, which was basically 29 minutes and also contained “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina,” “Rainbow High” and a lot of the big bits, and I think we certainly did seven passes on the cut of that, because to compress that amount of sound into one side of an album was incredibly difficult. I would literally sit over the guy who was cutting the record and just say “we need to expand the groove here, and then we could contract it here,” because if the volume is not great at one point, you can then earn a bit of a right to expand the groove. It’s a very technical process.
Of course, I was incredibly cool 10 years ago, because my kids said, “Dad, you’ve got this fantastic vinyl collection, and you’ve got this incredible turntable, you’ve got turntables in all the houses.” And I said, absolutely, yes. “You’re so ahead of the curve, Dad!” Absolutely, absolutely. [Laughs.] There’s something extraordinary about vinyl. It always struck me that it was inevitable that vinyl would come back, and all I can say is the quality of the vinyl recording of [SUNSET] is just extraordinary.
What is your turntable of choice?
D’you know, I don’t know! But it’s the same one I’ve had for years and years and years and I’ve got them in all the houses. Apparently it’s incredibly wonderful. It sounds fine to me!
SUNSET is the latest of a few Andrew Lloyd Webber shows that’s gotten a true reimagining recently. Cats: The Jellice Ball recently was a sensation here in New York – I’m hoping it will see an extended life somehow…
We would love The Jellicle Ball to have a new home. I mean, obviously it can’t just be shoehorned into a Broadway theater. But there’s a very interesting thing that’s happening now. It seems to me that what’s opening up is the possibility, the inevitability, of the fact that people don’t necessarily want to go into Times Square — you know, the hassle and everything, and then it’s not all that nice there, necessarily. I think we’re seeing the possibility that people will go to see live entertainment and theater, really, where it’s happening, and not necessarily feel that they have to be made to go to some conventional theater, which I think is incredibly exciting.
It’s refreshing to see how you’re willing to give someone else’s new vision a chance with your work – it seems like you’re not terribly precious about creative control.
Yeah I mean, with The Jellicle Ball, I had a bit of a hand, and my music team was kind of over[seeing] what they were going to do with the music, which actually they got absolutely right, and so long as the music’s fine, then my work can breathe. You know, I don’t want somebody taking my music and altering it. With The Jellicle Ball, they kept the music and they kept the essence of what T. S. Eliot wrote, but gave it a new interpretation, a new production, and I think that’s thrilling. Why would I want to stop that? I’m excited whenever that happens.
Jamie Lloyd is doing a version of Evita in London this coming summer, and working with a director like Jamie, for me, is a wonderful thing, because he can talk from a different perspective than I do. The consequence of that with SUNSET BLVD., for example, is that we took the score a lot darker, in a lot more dangerous way than the original. But that is the joy. I’m a collaborator. The most important thing to remember about musical theater is it’s all about collaboration.
SUNSET BLVD.
Marc Brenner
When Jamie first spoke to you about his ideas for the show, how did he describe his concept to you?
Well, he didn’t, really. He just said that he was very keen to have Nicole Scherzinger star in it. And I said, well, if you get Nicole to agree to do it, I’m more than happy, because I’ve known Nicole for 15 years now, more actually. She did a wonderful performance of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” on a TV program, and I think many people thought, literally, she’s the most exciting performer, and I got her to do Cats in London. But the thing about Nicole is that she’s always had this other career, being on The Masked Singer and doing X Factor and all these things as a panelist. So when Jamie said that she’d love to do it, I said, well, if she’ll do it, it’ll be the best thing that ever happened. Get her on stage, and I’m with you.
One thing about Nicole is that once she’s committed to something, she is the most incredible company member and leader of any performer I know. And do you know what? I suppose something that hasn’t been said, and I suppose I could say, is that of course she mentored Liam [Payne], from One Direction. On the Wednesday when he died, she was still texting him that day, and [that evening] the reviewers came in [to SUNSET], she’d just heard that he died. And the fact that she even did the show at all is extraordinary. I mean she is an amazing, amazing woman. She is without any question one of the finest performers I’ve ever worked with.
For so many people, her performance in SUNSET is a total revelation. But as you said, you’ve been a Nicole believer for over a decade now.
I’ve known that she’s one of a kind. I don’t think there’s any singer I know who can interpret and act through music in the way that she can. I mean, I’ve known some very, very great ones, but she’s absolutely extraordinary.
Certainly in terms of her beginnings in the music industry, it’s perhaps not what any of us would have expected!
No, but you’ve got to remember, people start, you know, somewhere where they have to get a job, don’t they? Look at Harry Styles.
When I walked out of the show, I wondered if we’ll see Nicole do more theater, or if this is a kind of lightning-in-a-bottle, once-in-a-lifetime role kind of thing. Have you two spoken about what comes after this for her?
I don’t know, you’d have to ask her that. But all I could say is, I would love to work with her again. It’s always got to be the right role, the right thing. And I think she’s completely made this role her own.
Pharrell Williams dropped the video for the title track to his animated biopic, Piece By Piece, on Thursday morning (Oct. 24). And like the Morgan Neville-directed film that’s in theaters now, the brightly colored, high-energy visual directed by Neville renders the singer/producer/rapper/fashionista in LEGO blocks, borrowing some scenes from the unique, blocky big screen trip […]
In 2024, the average merchandise campaign consists of 50 pieces of artwork that can easily be adapted for use on varied tour and direct-to-consumer items, says Matt Young, president of Bravado, Universal Music Group’s merch and brand management company. But for Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS campaign, he says, “I think we’ve done at least 375 unique pieces of art.”Rodrigo’s singular vision for her first arena tour extended to the products sold at its kiosks. As the album rollout and tour details came together last year, the pop star coordinated with management, Bravado and label partners to ensure that each piece of merch “felt cohesive to the greater GUTS world,” says Michelle An, Interscope Geffen A&M president/head of creative strategy.
The number of items kept ballooning as Rodrigo leaned into the creative process, with a literally hands-on approach to identifying opportunities — from concocting mood boards to helping create color palettes to touching fabrics to ensure T-shirt quality. “This was Olivia saying, ‘I think this could be more. How do we do it?’ ” Young recalls.
Some highlights of Rodrigo’s GUTS merch line include unique jewelry (silver crescent moon rings and star necklaces, a nod to the tour’s set design), a butterfly design on tote bags and pool floats, an elastic bandage tin to store “vampire”-ready Band-Aids and, ahead of Netflix’s Oct. 29 release of her tour film, a set of five GUTS popcorn boxes, perfect for a premiere-night group hang. Along with the souvenirs that are now widely available at Rodrigo’s online shop, Young also points out that her various retail partners, ranging from global fashion chains to suburban Targets, also featured their own exclusive items: “The Zara in Europe has to have something different than the Hot Topic in the U.S.”
And just as Rodrigo ended each show sporting a tank top with a cheeky message customized for each city, every GUTS tour stop with multiple shows offered customized merch, including city-specific T-shirts and unique concert artwork designed in conjunction with local female artists. Rodrigo and Bravado approached the posters (shown below) as the ultimate collectible item — and once word got out about them early in the live run, fans started arriving to shows hours early to hit the merch booth.
“Is it logistically challenging? Sometimes, yes,” Young admits. “But it’s offset by the passion. You’re helping build a relationship with a fan in a way that they can’t really get anywhere else.”
This story appears in the Oct. 26, 2024, issue of Billboard.
After recently scoring with her hit collab with Rosalía, “New Woman,” BLACKPINK’s LISA has already set her sights on her next potential woman power duet. In a chat with Audacy about her solo ventures, the 27-year-old rapper/singer said there were a “lot” of artists she would like to team up with on her future solo […]
Jimmy Fallon is ready to ring in the most wonderful time of the year, and the Tonight Show host will accompany his upcoming festive album with a television special. Jimmy Fallon’s Holiday Seasoning Spectacular will feature a star-studded lineup of guest appearances, including Cara Delevingne, Dolly Parton, J.B. Smoove, Jonas Brothers, Justin Timberlake, LL COOL […]
At most huge pop tours, there’s a moment when shrieking fans reach a true fever pitch — when the lights dim right before the show begins, or when the intro to the artist’s biggest hit kicks in, or during the break before the encore. All of those happened at Olivia Rodrigo’s first arena tour — but her favorite part of the show was when those eardrum-rattling cries were, in fact, mad as hell.
“When we play ‘all-american bitch,’ ” Rodrigo tells Billboard, “there’s a part at the end of the song where I ask the audience to think about something that pisses them off and then tell them to scream about it when the lights go off.” On the opener to her 2023 album, GUTS, Rodrigo juxtaposes folksy, facetious calm in the verses with enraged pop-punk in the refrain as she lays out society’s double standards for young women before unleashing a piercing wail. For nearly a hundred nights this year, the singer-songwriter has closed her main set by adding her own scream to an arena already full of them. “It’s definitely cathartic for me,” she says, “and I hope it is for the audience as well.”
The same could be said of the entire GUTS tour, where Rodrigo’s fans worldwide found the space to release their pent-up energy, as well as their excitement about one of the decade’s biggest new superstars. After bursting into the spotlight in 2021 with her debut album, Sour, and its No. 1 smashes “drivers license” and “good 4 u,” the former Disney+ TV star won the Grammy Award for best new artist in 2022 and quickly ascended to pop’s A-list. Yet the 2022 tour supporting Sour primarily played theaters, had to navigate lingering COVID-19 concerns and catered to a limited number of international markets, as Rodrigo, then 19, found her sea legs as a live performer.
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Two years later, the rock-fueled GUTS became another commercial triumph: Lead single “vampire” also topped the Billboard Hot 100, and the album scored one of 2023’s 10 biggest debut weeks. And this time, Rodrigo was prepared for arena audiences. The GUTS tour featured more than double the number of dates as her Sour trek while traveling to four continents (South America will become the fifth in March 2025) and grossed $186.6 million, according to Billboard Boxscore — even with its 1.4 million tickets sold at an average price of $128.81, in line with price-conscious acts like Coldplay and P!nk, and less than that of several major pop arena shows.
As for the show itself, “I actually made GUTS with the concert in mind,” Rodrigo says. “It’s so much fun to play songs that are more driving and heavy. I had a great time performing that aspect of the show every night.” Here’s how it all went down.
In her dressing room backstage.
Sami Drasin
‘She Knew Exactly What It Was That She Wanted’
As GUTS came together, so did plans for an accompanying tour that amplified every aspect of Rodrigo’s previous live run — bigger venues, more countries — all guided by a more defined point of view from the superstar at its center.
Aleen Keshishian (co-manager, Lighthouse Management + Media founder/CEO): Olivia had creative tour ideas when she was still writing GUTS, even before we had signed a deal with Live Nation or hired anyone for the tour. She already had visual references, voice notes, images.
Zack Morgenroth (co-manager, Lighthouse Management + Media partner): That gave us a lot of time to plan, and put together the right team, and get the show right.
Jason Danter (tour production manager): I connected with Zack and Aleen in March 2023; at that point, I was deep into getting the Beyoncé [Renaissance] tour up and running. I met Olivia when she came to the Beyoncé show at SoFi Stadium [in Inglewood, Calif.].
Tarik Mikou (creative director, Moment Factory): We’ve been working with Olivia for a while — we did her first live TV performance [on Saturday Night Live] and did the Sour tour, so I was really happy to get a call back for the GUTS tour.
Melissa Garcia (choreographer): They called me in for the Sour tour, and Olivia and I really meshed. A trusting environment [and] being able to have back-and-forth conversations is so important, especially when it comes to movement and putting artists in vulnerable situations.
Jared Braverman (senior vp of touring, Live Nation): It was very clear from initial conversations that the goal of this tour was to be global — to get to markets that Olivia had never been to and continue to grow by not just focusing on major cities. [Olivia] is massive everywhere. That’s a challenging thing to navigate — making time and space for all of these markets.
Morgenroth: The Sour tour was her first time out on the road and was a huge underplay, given the success of the album.
Dave Tamaroff (partner, WME): Her last tour could have been in arenas, based on everything she had going on.
Michelle An (president/head of creative strategy, Interscope Geffen A&M): There were a lot of conversations about [arenas] on the last tour, and ultimately, Olivia was the final decision-maker — she felt like she needed to do the theater run to get to know the fans in a more intimate way.
Sami Drasin
Morgenroth: There was so much demand from fans this time around that Live Nation said to us that arenas now felt like an underplay — we probably could have done stadiums everywhere. That being said, there was so much preparation for an arena tour: choosing each venue, making sure we had a good cadence for her. We tended to do only four shows in a week and never three shows in a row.
Tamaroff: We were surgical in our approach to the routing.
Morgenroth: Olivia cares so deeply about the fan experience, and that was also so key in the pricing of the tickets, which could have been priced for so much more. Everything, from having the Silver Star program — where fans could get a limited number of tickets everywhere around the arena for something like $20 — to looking at the landscape of touring artists and trying to price our tickets somewhere in the middle of them, was very intentional.
Keshishian: [Silver Star] was something that Coldplay had first done with Live Nation. Jared Braverman suggested it and Olivia loved it.
Braverman: [Pricing] takes a level of restraint, where you look at what you can do versus what you should do. You’ve got a young audience that’s very connected to Olivia, and we wanted to make this tour accessible for them.
Keshishian: We spent a lot of money on this tour, [but] we were incredibly judicious, going over every single line item in the budget to make sure we were spending money on the things that mattered to Olivia.
Garcia: Olivia is the captain of the ship — right from the very beginning, she knew exactly what it was that she wanted.
Mikou: We had like, 15 meetings, in Zoom and in person. She had reference boards on Pinterest. She would show us an image and be like, “I would love something like that in the show,” and give us these leads.
An: We definitely wanted fans to get to know the album. It wasn’t straight from the album release [in September 2023] into the tour [which began in February 2024].
Heather Picchiottino (costume designer): Olivia’s songwriting progression from Sour to GUTS felt very raw and up-front, so we wove punk rock through [the tour’s production].
Olivia Rodrigo: I tried to make the concert feel like my own spin on a rock show. My dream was for people to jump and scream and be all sweaty by the end.
Mikou: When you get to the dress rehearsals and start seeing the ideas pushed forward — we knew we had something special with this show.
The band.
Sami Drasin
Sami Drasin
‘It’s So Much Bigger in Every Way’
When the GUTS tour kicked off at Acrisure Arena in Palm Springs, Calif., on Feb. 23, Rodrigo unveiled a multi-act, visually striking stage show with dancing, wailing guitars and even a giant, suspended crescent moon for her to sit on while circling the audience.
Daisy Spencer (touring guitarist): We rehearsed so much leading up to the kickoff. We were so ready and eager to finally perform the show in front of people who were hearing it for the first time.
Garcia: Instead of reaching a few thousand people, she was in a much larger environment — which puts a lot more pressure on her.
Keshishian: There’s no comparison between theaters and arenas, in terms of prep.
Spencer: It’s so much bigger in every way. The energy on the Sour tour was palpable, like we were beginning something very exciting and everyone in the room could feel it. But I couldn’t have ever imagined what the GUTS tour would be like.
Rodrigo: An arena feels wildly different than a theater to me.
Garcia: One of the big notes that I would say [to Olivia] was “Invite the audience in”: Open your chest up, allow them in. And she absolutely did that. Between the Sour tour and this tour, she is absolutely way more comfortable in her skin.
Picchiottino: Olivia had so many iconic looks on the Sour tour, and some of the detailing in them were bows or little ruffles or tulle fabric. We really contrasted that with GUTS, with references to punk rock through clean, ’90s, minimal silhouettes, made out of fabrics that were metal mesh jewelry as opposed to a tissue fabric.
Mikou: We worked on creating four acts in the show. We start really strong with an energetic vibe, but we also go into her vocal range early on with “vampire” and “drivers license.” And then in the second act, we embark on a visual journey with dancers.
The dancers.
Sami Drasin
Keshishian: In terms of choreography, she didn’t want it to feel like a traditional pop show where the dancers can sometimes overpower the music. I think the dancers are only in six numbers.
Danter: It’s primarily a younger audience that wants to see her and hear her, so it doesn’t have to be overly complicated visually.
Garcia: We wanted to create a visceral reaction from her fans, and for Olivia, a rock approach was extremely important, so she wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to use dancers. We came up with utilizing the dancers in a very unique way to match her creative intention.
Mikou: And then in the third act, she’s flying on the moon.
Keshishian: From the very first conversation we had with her, she said, “I’d love to fly on a moon over my audience.”
Mikou: We had about 60 stars all around to create this immersive vibe in the arena, and the moon was on a 260-foot linear flying track and was a light box as well.
Garcia: Riding around the venue on the moon — that was another way for her to feel like she really gave every single person her time.
Mikou: That act has these big visual moments, but it’s also really simple and elegant at times, like “making the bed,” where’s she rising alone on a lift, surrounded by fans and their iPhone lights.
Keshishian: And then you have these beautiful acoustic moments where she’s just with Daisy [who’s playing] guitar at the edge of the thrust, and it’s just about the lyrics and her voice.
Spencer: That was all Olivia’s idea, and I feel so honored to sit next to her while we all have a giant group therapy session together on “happier” and “favorite crime.” I’m almost on the verge of tears when we finish that section because it’s such a beautiful feeling to hear everyone singing along with us.
Mikou: We ended with the punk-rock vibe in the fourth act, exploding everything at the end with the full band and fire on the screens.
Picchiottino: I think my favorite moment is the start of act four, when the chaos comes into the show. Olivia enters in this red romper in this foil fabric, and with the color of the lighting, it just signals this incredible energy.
Mikou: My personal favorite moment is probably “obsessed.” She gets on the plexiglass and starts to look at her audience, but with the camera below [the stage, feeding into the arena screens], it’s just such a strong image. That’s Olivia 2.0: so rock’n’roll, so much guitar, so much attitude.
Danter: Olivia turned 21 a couple of days before opening night, and as somebody with such short touring experience, she’s very, very professional.
Sami Drasin
Sami Drasin
Keshishian: She gets to the venue every single day six hours early. She practices the piano, she does vocal warmups, she does cardio. She does her sound check before literally every show, even on multiple nights in the same venue, which very few artists do.
Danter: Most artists don’t get that discipline until they’ve got a number of tours under their belt. But by [the opener in] Palm Springs, we were all like, “We’ve got nothing to worry about here.”
Rodrigo: The first dozen shows or so, it was a big adjustment for me, energywise. I had to really learn how to look up and take in the space. You definitely perform differently when you’re performing to that many people.
Danter: And now she’s an arena headliner, and it’s as if she’s been doing it for a long, long time.
‘These Gatherings Have Become Like a Ritual’
As Rodrigo traveled North America in early spring, Europe before summer, North America (again) in July and August, and Asia in early fall, fans around the world learned about the tour’s unofficial dress code, viral moments, philanthropic goals — and the superstar-in-waiting who opened its first leg.
Keshishian: Tour support is something that we talked about very early on. The Sour tour had Gracie Abrams opening, and then Chappell Roan opened in San Francisco on the last Sour date in North America.
Remi Wolf (opener, GUTS European leg): I was told that Olivia very carefully curated the openers for the show, so it was a major deal when we got the original call.
Keshishian: Olivia has this incredible knowledge of and reverence for female artists, in particular people who paved the way for her, like Alanis Morissette and Sheryl Crow and Bikini Kill. Her mom introduced her to a lot of these artists, including The Breeders. I went with her to see them play at the Wiltern [in October 2023] and was so excited to meet Kim and Kelley [Deal] backstage, and they agreed to open for her in New York and L.A.
Kim Deal (singer-guitarist, The Breeders): [Olivia] has talked about how, you know, “The Breeders broke my mind — there was pre-‘Cannonball’ and there was post-‘Cannonball.’ ” And I think she likes loud guitars — in this day and age! She finds loud guitars exciting and wants to be around them.
Sami Drasin
Tamaroff: She did four shows [with The Breeders] in New York and six in Los Angeles, and she really could have done a dozen more, based on demand.
Morgenroth: [The openers] are, in part, a tribute to Olivia’s ear. She’s known Chappell for a while. She’s always thought she was an incredible artist.
Rodrigo: Having her on the first leg of the GUTS tour was so much fun. I’m inspired by her so much as an artist, but she’s also been such a good friend to me over the years and she really helped me through some of the more stressful parts of the tour.
Braverman: We all knew what a talented artist and great performer [Chappell] is and hoped that fans would be as excited as we all were for her to be joining on these shows. The initial response was positive, but it wasn’t until the tour got underway that we started to see a shift that literally grew more each and every show.
Keshishian: Chappell was a surprise guest in L.A. [in August, after opening for the tour in February and March]. People asked us if we were going to have guest performers at all six shows in L.A., and we didn’t feel that we needed surprises just for the sake of it. But having Chappell come back and seeing her perform in front of Olivia’s audience after all this time, after so much had happened [in her own career]? It was really fun.
Rodrigo: It’s been incredible to watch her get the recognition she so rightfully deserves. She’s just further proof that being unapologetically yourself always pays off.
Morgenroth: From the moment people arrived at the show, we wanted them to have a great experience, and that’s everything from the merch, where things were customized for each city, to activations outside on the [concourse] and outside of the venue, like the interactive tour bus that we put together with Interscope and partners like American Express.
An: As we continued putting out singles and videos from the album [before the tour], fans got a better idea of what to wear and how to style themselves, and then they all connected by the time the tour came.
Keshishian: It became a really fun night for fans to get dressed up in creative outfits that Olivia inspired.
Garcia: Olivia has created a very unique vocabulary, and I think that’s why songs like “love is embarrassing” became so large on social media, with people trying to learn the dance from the show.
Keshishian: Her “love is embarrassing” dance went viral, and all these kids were doing the dance with the little “L” on the forehead.
Morgenroth: There was this viral TikTok trend, “Am I Too Old To Be Here?,” that would be used at the shows because there were so many people of different ages attending. And then we have this “Dad Idea, Right?” moment, where the kids get a kick out of how many dads are enjoying the show.
Keshishian: In every city, she wore a different tank top [during the encore] that had these cheeky jokes about the city, like “Phuket, It’s Fine” in Bangkok or “Bad Idea, Innit?” in London.
Picchiottino: That was Olivia’s idea: “How fun would it be to have a new slogan for each city and make each show feel special?”
An: I think for the Livies, these gatherings have become like a ritual. They can scream at the top of their lungs about what’s bothering them and be a little more alternative or punk, but at the same time be feminine and girlie. You just see everything that Olivia stands for being celebrated.
Fans turn out in their GUTS best.
Sami Drasin
Sami Drasin
Keshishian: Before the tour began, it was important to Olivia to add a charitable component and do something that would have a lasting impact after the tour was over. That became the Fund 4 Good, and it was focused on what is important to her, which is helping women and girls. We vetted each organization in every country that Olivia toured in, and we wanted to have a very localized impact because obviously women in different countries have different needs.
Rodrigo: Being on tour [so soon] after Roe v. Wade got overturned made activism very important — especially considering I performed in many states that currently have abortion bans in place, I wanted to do everything I could to support organizations in each territory that are doing essential work in providing access to health care and other human rights.
Morgenroth: We’ve tied it beyond the tour already — she did an Erewhon smoothie, and all of the proceeds from her side were given to the fund. This is something that is going to be part of everything from here on out.
Keshishian: Olivia performed in the Philippines for the first time in October — which was a dream of hers, as a Filipino American — and she wanted to do it as a gift, so all net proceeds will go to a local charity [women’s health care organization Jhpiego] through the Fund 4 Good.
Rodrigo: Through the fund, I’ve met lots of incredible people who are making such positive changes in the world, and I’ve learned so much. I look forward to learning more and continuing to champion causes I care about.
‘She’s Revealing Another Side of Herself’
As Rodrigo wrapped the GUTS 2024 run and prepares for the Oct. 29 release of its Netflix tour film, she has snapped into focus as a new-school arena rock performer with a fastidious streak.
Danter: When you get to rehearsals and everything starts to fall into place, a lot of artists and managers go, “OK, this is the show.” As we got closer to opening night, we were still getting notes from Olivia, Zack and Aleen. It’s that search for perfection, which is refreshing.
Garcia: There was that younger vibe about her on the Sour tour, a little sillier, and on the GUTS tour, she definitely is thinking more and every detail matters more, no matter how microscopic.
Picchiottino: I’ve really enjoyed the process of refining and refining, being so specific about the tour visuals. I think I have over 60 sketches on my iPad, for five looks.
An: You could really feel that she was more confident this go-round because she understood how things worked and knew what conversations to have. She was the boss of this.
Mikou: The evolution from the last tour, it’s almost like she’s revealing another side of herself.
Sami Drasin
Braverman: In a lot of ways, it’s like a throwback rock show. I don’t think a lot of these fans had experienced anything like that.
Keshishian: Most of the band was on the Sour tour, and every member is female or nonbinary. So for all these people watching, to see them rocking out in an arena, I think it’s really powerful.
Deal: She’s very respectful of the younger members of her audience — she knows they’re there, she’s very sweet with them, and she does not talk down to them at all. There are some cusswords and there are some loud guitars, and she expects them to be where she is. And I thought that was very cool.
Keshishian: Regarding the film, there are tens of millions of people that did not get tickets to this show, and we wanted to make sure that all of Olivia’s fans had the ability to see it. So we set up 22 cameras for the last two L.A. shows, and we chose Netflix to be our partner because they have the largest global reach.
Tamaroff: Watching her prove who she is as a global superstar… she’s one of the most talented singer-songwriters on the planet already, but being able to showcase her talent as a performer, hearing people say that this was one of the best nights of their lives, that’s why we all do what we do.
Garcia: With age comes a little bit more pressure, and I think it’s coming from herself: to be better, to figure out the next challenge for herself, to see where she can break through next. She just keeps growing.
Rodrigo: I wanted to make sure that I could still connect with the audience, even in a venue as big as an arena.
Rodrigo will be honored as 2024 Touring Artist of the Year at the Billboard Live Music Summit & Awards in Los Angeles on Nov. 14.
This story appears in the Oct. 26, 2024, issue of Billboard.