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On “thanK you aIMee,” Taylor Swift seemingly predicts that Kim Kardashian will never be able to escape reminders of their feud. “And one day, your kid comes home singing a song that only us two is gonna know is about you,” she sings on the Tortured Poets Department track.
As it turns out, that same logic applies to friends’ kids, as well. On Wednesday (July 17), the Skims founder commented on Ivanka Trump’s birthday post on Instagram for her daughter Arabella, side-stepping the fact that the new 13-year-old had a Swift-themed cake.
“Happy Birthday Arabella 🤍🩷,” Kardashian simply wrote.
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Arabella is the oldest child of the former political advisor and Jared Kushner, who also share sons Joseph and Theodore. Her heart-shaped cake matched the one Swift tears into in her “Blank Space” music video, and featured lyrics written in icing: “Boys only want love if it’s torture.”
“Best cake for my favorite Swiftie,” Trump wrote over a photo of the dessert, which featured red icing on the inside to mimic the blood that came out of the pop star’s when she stabbed it in the 2014 video.
Kardashian’s comment comes three months after the release of “thanK you aIMee,” which was the last time Swift appeared to address her beef with the reality star. “When I picture my hometown/ There’s a bronze spray-tanned statue of you/ And a plaque underneath it/ That threatens to push me down the stairs at our school,” the 14-time Grammy winner sings on the track. “I can’t forgive the way you made me feel/ Screamed, ‘F–k you, Aimee’ to the night sky.”
A few months before that, Swift called out the shapewear mogul by name in her December TIME Person of the Year interview. “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar,” she reflected of their 2016 conflict, which involved Ye (formerly Kanye West) including disparaging lyrics about Swift in his song “Famous” that she claimed not to have approved, though he and his then-wife insisted she had on a call between the two artists.
“That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before,” she added at the time. “I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”
Two years after Avril Lavigne released her game-changing debut album Let Go, another pop-punk princess arrived on the scene and made quite a splash. Unlike her sister Jessica, who had emerged as a more traditional pop artist, Ashlee Simpson came with an edge: jet black hair, grunge style, and an affinity for rock music. In […]
Taylor Swift gave one of her older songs a sassy twist at her Eras Tour show in Gelsenkirchen, Germany Thursday (July 18). While performing “Hey Stephen” from 2008’s Fearless during the acoustic section, the pop star interjected a one-word update into her classic lyrics. “All those other girls, well they’re beautiful/ But would they write […]
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, Childish Gambino takes a bow, Stray Kids eat up their new material and Jimin continues to innovate. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Childish Gambino, Bando Stone and the New World
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Donald Glover will likely be present in popular culture for a long time, but his Childish Gambino alter ego takes a bow on Bando Stone and the New World, a bold, 17-song project with an ultra-hip guest list (Flo Milli, Jorja Smith, Yeat and Amaarae all stop by) and that makes sure a beloved hip-hop personality goes out with sound-bending gusto.
Stray Kids, ATE
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The K-pop group’s new mini-album continues to showcase the upward trajectory of their confidence as both hit-makers and studio technicians: the 8-song set, helmed by their in-house production team 3RACHA, brims with effortless cool, particularly on the electro-shock of “Chk Chk Boom.”
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Jimin, Muse
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Jimin may have dominated stadiums alongside his BTS brethren and scored a No. 1 solo hit last year with “Like Crazy,” but he’s not resting on his laurels, as sophomore solo project Muse offers meditations on love and creative inspiration while still serving up cross-continental potential hits like with snappy rhythmic pop track “Who.”
Various Artists, Twisters: The Album
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What’s more formidable than one Twister? Multiple Twisters — and a big-budget soundtrack to go along with the natural-disaster epic invading multiplexes this weekend, with superstars like Luke Combs, Thomas Rhett and Miranda Lambert headlining the country project (although Benson Boone also sneaking in, with the genre-straddling stomp-along “Death Wish Love”).
Glass Animals, I Love You So F***ing Much
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Following up a record-breaking smash like “Heat Waves” is no easy task, and on the charming new album I Love You So F***ing Much, Glass Animals shrug off chart expectations while still baking oversized hooks and harmonies into the 10 songs, particularly on the opening run of “Show Pony,” “whatthehellishappening?” and “Creatures in Heaven.”
Koe Wetzel, 9 Lives
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The country-leaning Texas singer-songwriter’s profile has been rapidly growing, and new album 9 Lives — featuring previous hits “High Road” with Jessie Murph and “Sweet Dreams,” as well as new standouts like “Hatchet” and “Depression & Obsession” — arrives at an opportune time and with a more mature version of his rootsy storytelling.
Khalid, “Ground”
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Khalid’s long-awaited third album, Sincere, gets another sumptuous jam, with “Ground” making the most of the singer-songwriter’s velvety tone and a hypnotic beat while leaning more toward traditional R&B; this is a head-knocker that you don’t want to end.
Alessia Cara, “Dead Man”
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“If you really care, then why am I feeling you slip right through my hands?” Alessia Cara asks on “Dead Man,” as the former best new artist Grammy winner kicks off a new era with some vibrant jazz-pop, complete with mournful trumpet blasts, that suits her voice and newfound perspective to a tee.
Joe Jonas, “Work It Out”
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A lifetime removed from his 2011 solo debut Fastlife, Joe Jonas sounds an refreshed on energetic new single “Work It Out” as Jonas Brothers did on their comeback single “Sucker,” addressing his issues with anxiety and intrusive thoughts over some kicky pop production for late-summer streaming.
Editor’s Pick: JADE, “Angel of My Dreams”
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“I didn’t want to do a safe first single, that was really important to me,” Jade Thirlwall of Little Mix says of her solo debut in a press release. No worries on that end: “Angel of My Dreams” is a shape-shifting, wholly thrilling first step that effervesces before collapsing then rising back up, and JADE handles all of his wild movements with veteran skill.
On Friday (July 19), the music world received something it hasn’t gotten often over the last 10 years: a new “Weird Al” Yankovic song.
“Polkamania!” is not a new parody, but a polka medley, the type of which he would often include on his full-lengths — a mash-up of pop smashes performed by Yankovic, with his accordion coursing through the different melody snippets. Since he hasn’t released an album since 2014’s Mandatory Fun, which made history as the first comedy album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, Yankovic had a decade’s worth of pop hits to select from, and created a pastiche of Hot 100 chart-toppers from across the past 10 years.
That list ranges from Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” to Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” to the Encanto smash “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” — to, rather improbably, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP.” And the new song was also given an eye-popping music video, which sews together different styles of animation from some of Yankovic’s favorite filmmakers and collaborators.
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Yankovic — who has kept busy over the past decade by touring, releasing a handful of remixes and scattered tracks, and working on the 2022 fictionalized biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which he co-wrote and co-produced — hopes that “Polkamania!” scratches an itch for longtime listeners, who have been waiting years for his new takes on popular music. “For some, I suppose it will be nostalgic,” the 64-year-old tells Billboard, “because it sounds very much like every other polka medley I’ve done, and they haven’t heard that in a while. And for some people, this will be a time capsule — if you’ve been out of touch and not listened to pop radio in the last 10 years, this is a good four-minute refresher course!”
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Below, Yankovic discusses his new song, his decision to move away from the album format, and the artist who immediately OK’ed his latest parody. (Note: this interview has been edited for clarity.)
When did the idea for “Polkamania!” start coming together?
A while ago, maybe even a year ago. It’s been in the back of my mind for a while — I figured that I wanted to do something to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Mandatory Fun. I wanted to come up with something new, so I’d have some new material to play next time I went out on the road. And a lot of years went by where I hadn’t done any parodies or polka medleys, and I just figured I had to kind of catch up — I had to do at least some commentary on the last decade in music. So this is my version of that.
Why was the 10th anniversary of Mandatory Fun important for you to commemorate?
Mandatory Fun is probably my last traditional “Weird Al” album. We released a double LP, the soundtrack to Weird, last year, and I’m sure there will be other projects like that. But in terms of actual “Weird Al” albums, I think that’s the last one, for a number of reasons.
But obviously I’m still trying to put out new material — it’s just that the album format for me has always felt a little restrictive, and not the best way for me to get my music out into the world. And I know that sounds a little ironic, because it’s not like I’ve exactly been prolific in terms of my recorded output in the last 10 years! But I still just feel like, I like the freedom of not having to release 12 songs all at once.
You spoke about moving away from the album model 10 years ago, when Mandatory Fun was released. Looking back on the past decade, do you feel like you made the right call?
Yeah, I think so. I don’t know if it makes sense in terms of a career or staying relevant, but those aren’t driving forces on my life — at this point in my life and career, I basically just want to do what feels right for me, what I enjoy doing. And I’ve taken a little bit of a break from recording, and have been focused on TV and film projects, and obviously a lot of touring as well. Recording is something that I would like to think will always be a part of my life and my career — it’s just that, now, I’m not beholden to a record label, I don’t owe anybody anything, and I just kind of work at my own pace.
Did “Polkamania!” come together like your previous polka medleys, in terms of the composition and squeezing the different melodies together?
Very much. I hadn’t done it in a few years, but it was kind of like riding a bike. I think this is my 13th or 14th polka medley, so it’s second nature to me. So the arrangement came together pretty quickly, once I had an approved list of songs that I could use.
Was it always going to be a smattering of different hits released over the past decade?
Yeah, that was always the idea. I think I actually even limited it to songs that had hit No. 1 on [the Billboard Hot 100], to have it narrowed down a little bit while looking at a decade’s worth of music. Then I made a little chart — like, how many weeks was this No. 1? Based on that, and based on my general feeling about how important each song was in the zeitgeist, I submitted my list to my manager, who then had the job of going out to all the artists and agents and managers and publishers and reps to see if we could actually get them cleared.
Did it take a while to get all the songs cleared, compared to previous songs or medleys?
It’s always about the same. Some people get back to your right away — I think [“Bruno” songwriter] Lin-Manuel Miranda took about 30 seconds. And some took a while, and I had to be more aggressive and track people down, see if I had any friends of friends that knew the artists, that kind of thing.
Listening to the medley for the first time and not knowing which songs are going to appear, I immediately recognized when you launched into “Shake It Off” or “Old Town Road,” but it took me a few seconds for “WAP,” and then I went, “Wait… is this…”
I have to say, that’s my favorite! Once we got the Taylor Swift song, I thought, “Okay, we’ve got a medley now” — but “WAP” was the one I was really, really hoping we would get, just because I thought that would be my personal favorite.
Who was behind the concept of the animated video?
A lot of people that I’ve worked with before, like Bill Plympton and Augenblick Studios and Ghostbot, and some people that I’ve been fans of for a long time – li-ke Cyriak, who’s a British animator who does these amazing surrealistic pieces, and Vivienne Medrano, who does Hazbin Hotel. It’s really an amazing list of talented animators, and I’m just thrilled with what they’ve come up with.
What’s it been like to prep a traditional song and video release like this again?
It’s fun! I mean, I haven’t had this kind of deadline and anxiety, everything that comes with a new release — the suspense of “How’s it going to do?,” and this kind of media blitz. We did a bit of that with the movie, but it feels a bit more personal when it’s your recorded work. So I’m very excited to be doing this project, and hopefully it’ll lead to more.
So what’s next? You’re always working on different projects…
I have five or six things that are in current stages of development, and I can’t speak of them, because some of them will probably happen and some of them probably won’t. So I’ve learned my lesson not to talk too much about things that might happen because, this town being what it is, oftentimes, things never work out. But hopefully a few things well! That’s what I’m counting on.
While the Queen City did not get the breathlessly hoped-for drop-in from pop royalty on Thursday night (July 18) at the world premiere of the Cincinnati Opera‘s take on Sir Paul McCartney‘s Liverpool Oratorio, they did get a very special message from the night’s absent guest of honor.
“Hello, Cincinnati! Good evening. I’m so excited to hear that the Cincinnati Opera is putting on my Liverpool Oratorio,” McCartney said in a pre-taped message that played for the capacity crowd in Cincinnati Music Hall’s 2,300-capacity Springer Auditorium before the opening night of the fresh take on his first classical composition.
“This work is really special for me because it was the first large scale thing like this that I’d done, and it’s largely based on a lot of events from my childhood. The school I went to… the teacher, Miss Inkley, who was the only female teacher in a school of a thousand boys. So it’s really true, as it says in the opera, where she says, ‘Hello, boys. You can call me, ‘Sir,’” McCartney continued. “Well, as 11-year-olds, it’s a little difficult to make sense of that. But anyway, I love the piece, and I love that you’re doing it there in Cincinnati. So I hope you have a great evening. Thank you very much for putting it on. I wish I was there with you, but I can’t be there. So I’m here. So have a great one. Thank you.”
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In a Cincinnati Opera season featuring such standards as Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, the debut of the operatic take on the composition featuring music and lyrics by McCartney and collaborator composer Carl Davis is a refreshing anomaly. McCartney’s fist classical composition had its world premiere on June 28, 1991 at the Liverpool Cathedral as a commissioned piece to celebrate the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s 150th anniversary.
And though the 82-year-old Beatle wasn’t on hand to see the Opera’s high-energy take on his eight-movement homage to his hometown, in the weeks leading up to the debut the city was blanketed with a blizzard of posters, social media messages and memes encouraging locals to help “Get Paul to the Hall.”
The effort was intended to spur interest $1.3 million original production that over the course of 90 minutes tells the story a “war baby” named Shanty, who, like McCartney, comes into a fiery world engulfed in the air raid blitz of WWII. At Tuesday night’s (July 16) final dress rehearsal, the cast was dialed in to the tale that mixes hope, tragedy, redemption and joy into a joyous spectacle that unfolds on a massive map of Liverpool.
At the outset, the sets designed by Leslie Travers and stage director Caroline Clegg brought home the horrors of war as characters in period dress streamed in through the aisles to take their place in a bomb shelter bisected on the floor by the map of the River Mersey. It was a poignant watery metaphor for life’s journey that Queen City residents could surely relate to thanks to the city’s place along the Ohio River.
The massive map that curled up at the top and then spilled off the stage into the orchestra pit set up the war-time birth of main character Shanty (Andrew Owens). Shuttling the corrugated metal walls to the side, the cast doubled as crew, setting up classroom desks and chairs as the wistful, melancholy score gave way to an amusing, kicky Spanish-language song from teacher Miss Inkley (Kayleigh Decker) about three rabbits in a tree.
In the Playbill, Clegg explained that the first words uttered in the performance, McCartney’s school motto (Non nobis solum, Sed toti mundo, nati. Toti mundo nat — “Not for ourselves, but for the whole world, we were born”) — and repeated throughout are a reminder of the “timeless testament to the power of music to move hearts and minds and effect change.”
Following the first movement, “War,” the second, “School,” found the restless tween Shanty skipping class to take a nap on gravestones and dream about the ghosts of his future and past. The high-kicking, balletic church dance in (“Crypt”) made way for the somber “Father,” in which Shanty laments the death of his dad.
The mood quickly lightened, though, when the cast rolled out a miniature house on wheels covered with more maps of Liverpool for the wedding of Shanty and fiancée Mary Dee (Jacqueline Echols McCarley), as the elegant soprano was serenaded by an angelic children’s choir during the pair’s nuptials. Spinning the house around to unveil its spare interior, the couple settled into their work routine, with Mary sitting high above a typing pool as she dictated orders to her twirling all-female staff.
A pregnancy and nearly fatal car crash interrupts the couple’s marital strife as the piece crashed to a celebratory, joyous ending in the thundering “Peace,” in which the stage filled with busy Liverpudlians of all stripes celebrating the birth of the couple’s child as they sang “live in peace together” in unison and the couple pledged their eternal love.
After its debut more than 30 years ago, the piece written for orchestra and vocalists has not been performed very often, but the energy and spirit of the Cincinnati Opera’s refreshing version seems destined to give the Liverpool Oratorio a second life.
Check out more photos from the Liverpool Oratorio below.
Lady Gaga appeared to push the hands on the clock ticking down to LG7 a few spots forward on Thursday (July 18) when she gave her Little Monsters the latest, most exciting update on her long-awaited follow-up to 2020’s Chromatica.
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“Just me in the studio — happy as ever making music,” Gaga wrote in an Instagram post in which she was spotted wearing an all-black out fit accented by black shades as she tossed up the metal hand sign while standing behind a microphone in a recording studio. The series of three pics included another one in which Gaga seemed to be singing and one of her sitting behind the mixing console deep in thought.
Following a string of emoji — black heart, black shades, lips, music notes — Gaga’s post added, “Feel so grateful, heart is peaceful. It’s like meditation. I can’t wait for you to hear what I’m working on.” The post got an immediate, enthusiastic reaction from Kesha, who commented, “Feed us mother!!!!,” with Gaga responding with a shout-out to her fellow pop star’s new single, writing, “Just looking for a joyride 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤.”
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Gaga has been amping up anticipation for her seventh album since February, when she posted some similar studio snaps along with the clarification, “No I’m not making a rock album.” That denial came alongside a pic of Gaga sitting on a day bed in front of a window strumming an electric guitar, with a vocal mic in front of her. A week before, she posted pictures in which she was working hard playing a keyboard in the studio, as well as ones in January of her recoding vocals, which may have sparked that fan speculation that she’s leaning into her rock side.
The curtain was pulled back a bit more in June when Gaga told Drag Race star Sasha Velour that she’s been focusing on music lately in a chat about Gaga’s Gaga Chromatica Ball concert doc. “I have just been in the studio all the time, and I’m making a lot of music,” Gaga told Velour in the since-deleted post. “It’s just this incredibly vast experience that I just feel so lucky that I get to have. I’m excited for Monsters to hear where I am now, and to be connecting on that level again.” The Chromatic Ball film also dropped what felt like a mega-teaser in the message that flashed at the end of the film: “LG7 GAGA RETURNS.”
Gaga — who recently wrapped her Las Vegas Jazz & Piano residency — has not made any formal announcement about a release date for her next album so far, but the one thing we do know for sure is that she’ll appear as Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie à Deux alongside Joaquin Phoenix when that sequel hits theaters on October 4.
Check out Gaga’s post below.
K-pop stars Stray Kids have unveiled their latest single “Chk Chk Boom,” featuring a star-studded music video with Hollywood heavyweights Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds.
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The track, released on Friday, July 19, serves as the lead single for the group’s new mini-album ATE.
The video opens with Jackman and Reynolds reprising their Marvel roles as Wolverine and Deadpool, co-anchoring a fictional news program. Between these comedic segments, Stray Kids deliver a high-energy performance of the bombastic track across rooftop sets and city streets.
“Boom, vamos, I know that you want it / Boom, lobos, we cannot stop hunting / Boom, ratatata, I’mma make it / Boom, boom, chk chk boom,” the group chants in the chorus.
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ATE marks Stray Kids’ second release of 2024, following their English single “Lose My Breath” featuring Charlie Puth.
On a recent episode of Apple Music’s All About Stray Kids Radio, Bang Chan and Felix opened up about the new project. Felix revealed that ATE’s overall concept is “something we haven’t done.” Bang Chan agreed, adding that not only is the title track single fresh but “a lot of the other songs [are] as well, it’s all very different… what we recorded, it’s just showing a different side of Stray Kids.”
The K-pop octet’s chart dominance continues to grow, with their previous four projects all debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. This achievement makes Stray Kids the first act to send their first four charting albums to the top spot since Alicia Keys’ run from 2001 to 2007.
Stray Kids have also announced the dominATE world tour, set to kick off later this year and run through 2025. The tour will see the group perform across Asia, Europe, and North America.
In addition to their own project, Stray Kids are contributing an original song titled “Slash” to the upcoming Marvel film, Deadpool & Wolverine. The soundtrack, which drops later this month, also features hits from *NSYNC, Fergie, and the Goo Goo Dolls.
ATE is now available on all major streaming platforms. Check out “Chk Chk Boom” music video below.
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Joe Jonas is gearing up to release his first solo album in 13 years, and he has officially began the journey with the release of “Work It Out” on Friday (July 19). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Jonas announced the single earlier this month via Instagram. […]
Stray Kids are back with a brand new mini-album, ATE, which arrived on Friday (July 19). The eight-member K-pop group — consisting of Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N. — dropped the project two months after the arrival of their Charlie Puth-assisted single, “Lose My Breath,” marking the group’s third […]