Pop
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Billy Joel crashed his historic Madison Square Garden residency run to a close on Thursday (July 25) with a sold-out gig marking his record-setting 150th show at the storied New York arena. After serving up such classics as “New York State of Mind,” “The Entertainer,” “Allentown” and “The Downeaster Alexa,” Joel invited Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose out for a mini-set of covers and duets.
Wearing a Las Vegas-worthy sequin-covered sparkly sport coat, black jeans and shirt and dark shades, Rose came out mid-show to croon his iconic take on Wings’ James Bond theme “Live and Let Die,” with Joel tinkling the ivories as Rose stalked the stage, tossing off wailing high notes and stomping his foot to the song’s staccato stabs.
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Joel busted protocol and stepped up from his piano to strap on an electric guitar as the two also jammed on a cover of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell. Though it seems out of character, the cover was wholly appropriate since Rose filled-in for ailing AC/DC singer Brian Johnson on the hard rockers’ 2016 tour and Joel and Rose have collaborated on the song before, including at Billy’s 2017 Dodger Stadium show in Los Angeles.
After Joel, 75, rolled through a run of other classics — “Only the Good Die Young,” “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant,” “Piano Man,” “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” “Uptown Girl” and “Big Shot” — Rose was back for the big finale: a duet on Joel’s 1980s Glass Houses burner “You May Be Right.”
The epic MSG run, during which Joel has sold nearly two million tickets, began on Jan. 14, 2014 and was eased into the history books with some help from Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, who ran onstage to mark the moment when a blue banner reading “Billy Joel 150: Most Lifetime Performances by Any Artist” was unfurled in the rafters.
Joel — who released his first new pop song in 17 years, “Turn the Lights Back On” in February — is not nearly done, with stadiums shows in the UK, Cleveland, St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Antonio and Las Vegas keeping him on the road through November.
Watch fan video of the Rose and Joel performances below.
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Lady Gaga shouldn’t have to explain this to you, but when she’s on the big screen she’s not Lady Gaga, or even Stefani Germanotta. So, when you go see her in the upcoming Joker: Folie à Deux and notice that the singing voice of her character Harley Quinn is a bit off, it’s called acting, folks.
“People know me by my stage name, Lady Gaga, right? That’s me as that performer, but that is not what this movie is; I’m playing a character,” Gaga told Empire magazine. “So I worked a lot on the way that I sang to come from Lee and to not come from me as a performer.” Gaga, who has disappeared into roles before in A Star Is Born and House of Gucci, said the task of becoming the Joker’s fiendish foil was “unlike anything I’ve ever done before.”
In particular, that required Gaga to explore sides of her performance style that she’s never tapped before, including the bad singer one. “For me, there’s plenty of bum notes, actually, from Lee,” she said of her character’s singing in the second movie starring Joaquin Phoenix as the laughing madman. “I’m a trained singer, right? So even my breathing was different when I sang as Lee. When I breathe to sing on stage, I have this very controlled way to make sure that I’m on pitch and it’s sustained at the right rhythm and amount of time, but Lee would never know how to do any of that. So it’s like removing the technicality of the whole thing, removing my perceived art-form from it all and completely being inside of who she is.”
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The follow-up to 2019’s Oscar-winning Joker follows feckless comedian Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) meeting his lady love Harley Quinn (Gaga) while locked up at Arkham State Hospital. After he’s released, the two go on a series of murderous adventures.
Director Todd Philips told Empire that while Gaga retains some of the belovedly bonkers Quinn quirks from the Batman: The Animated Series comic books and her own animated show, the singer definitely made the character her own. “While there are some things that people would find familiar in her, it’s really Gaga’s own interpretation, and Scott [Silver, co-writer] and I’s interpretation,” said Phillips. “She became the way how [Charles] Manson had girls that idolized him. The way that sometimes these [imprisoned murderers] have people that look up to them. There are things about Harley in the movie that were taken from the comic books, but we took it and moulded it to the way we wanted it to be.” Prepare for a performance that’s totally Gaga.”
Joker: Folie à Deux is slated to open in theaters on Oct. 4; watch the new trailer here.
In the meantime, Gaga is set to perform at Friday’s (July 26) opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, alongside other rumored artists who are expected to help kick off the games, including Celine Dion, Dua Lipa, Ariana Grande, French singer Aya Nakamura and rockers Gojira, though at press time none of those acts had been confirmed.
Dua Lipa dropped a remix of her single “Illusion” featuring Creepy Nuts, Japan’s breakout hip-hop duo that made waves with its viral hit ”Bling-Bang-Bang-Born,” the No. 1 song on Billboard Japan’s mid-year tally for 2024.
“Illusion (Creepy Nuts Remix)” is the latest remix of the track off the “Houdini” artist’s latest album Radical Optimism, released in May. The original, a song about a character that breaks away from her formerly weak self and is now assertive when faced with another potentially toxic relationship, reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart and also reached the top 10 of the U.K. Official Singles Chart. The song has been streamed more than 250 million times worldwide, and the music video viewed more than 35 million times.
Why was Creepy Nuts tapped to collaborate with Lipa, a Grammy-winning star who recently headlined this year’s Glastonbury? It all started when Creepy Nuts’ “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” reached the top 10 on the Billboard Global 200 chart in March. The catchy hip-hop banger peaked at No. 8 and became the fourth song by a Japanese artist/act to break into the top 10 on this tally. The other three are “Glimpses of Us” by Japanese-Australian artist Joji (No. 2 in 2022), “Homura” by LiSA (No. 8 in 2020), and “Idol” by YOASOBI (No. 7 in 2023). “BBBB” also hit No. 3 on the Global 200 Excl. US chart that focuses on all territories outside the United States, and the track’s global breakthrough caught Dua’s attention.
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Lipa asked Creepy Nuts to do the remix via her team in Japan and the duo consisting of rapper R-shitei (“R-rated”) and DJ Matsunaga readily agreed to the offer, resulting in the exciting collaboration between two chart-topping global acts. The remix — surprisingly, it was the “Nidone” pair’s first collaboration with an artist from outside their home country — combines Matsunaga’s catchy track with R’s signature rapid-fire bars and lyrics paying homage to the “Levitating” singer’s past works by including their titles.
“The track turned out well, and it was a fresh challenge that brought out a new side of us as well,” says Matsunaga, while R notes, “I looked to the original lyrics of Dua Lipa’s ‘Illusion’ and participated in the world it depicted, letting the illusionist in me appear in the lyrics that I wrote.”
Dua Lipa is set to return to Japan for the first time in six years this November for two arena shows, which sold out on the day tickets went on sale. The “Dance the Night” songstress has been recognized by Spotify as “the first artist in history to hold five songs with over 2 billion streams” and “the 25th most listened-to artist of all time.” Her album “Radical Optimism” has been streamed over 2 billion times worldwide and topped the Official UK Albums chart, making her one of the world’s top artists in both name and reality.
Creepy Nuts’ “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” recently dominated Billboard Japan’s mid-year Japan Songs chart — a tally that tracks songs from Japan being listened to in countries around the world — by topping the lists for six countries. On July 20, the “Nobishiro” duo performed at the AFEELA Pregame Performance at Dodger Stadium Center Field in Los Angeles, performing live for the first time in the U.S. Creepy Nuts will hit the stage in Tokyo Dome for the first time for their LIVE at TOKYO DOME concert on Feb. 11, 2025.
“[The remix] is precisely us, and it’s also a new side of us that was brought out because the song was Dua Lipa’s ‘Illusion,’” say the duo. “It’s in both English and Japanese but turned out smooth; we hope you enjoy it.”
Dua adds: “Be sure to listen to the remix by these two amazing talents.”
Stream “Illusion (Creepy Nuts Remix)” here: http://dualipa.lnk.to/illusioncreepynuts
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Halsey’s so lucky, she’s a star! The singer dropped her latest single, “Lucky,” on Friday (July 26). The song interpolates Britney Spears’ 2000 hit, “Lucky,” an ode to the lonelier side of fame. “I’m so lucky, I’m a star/ But I cry, cry, cries in my lonely heart, thinking/ If there’s nothing missing in my […]
Ariana Grande has her fans on her mind! The pop superstar recently opened up about touring plans amid her busy schedule balancing music, filming Wicked and working on her makeup line, R.E.M. Beauty. “It’s something we are trying to figure out because I have to spread my focus quite thin these days but it’s something […]
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The Édith Piaf classic is one of the most famous songs ever to come out of France.
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Olivia Rodrigo had a surprise for fans during her Guts World Tour stop in Lexington, Ky., on Wednesday night (July 24), when she welcomed Tyler Childers to perform his Grammy-nominated single “All Your’n.” Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news During the show at Lexington’s Rupp Arena, the crowd […]
With her Hamburg fans, Taylor Swift would dance in a storm in her best dress, fearless. Following two nights at Volksparkstadion — one of which was complete with sheets of rain — the 34-year-old pop star is thanking her German crowds for showing up and showing out this week. Sharing a carousel of dynamic photos […]
Kacey Musgraves released her latest album, Deeper Well, in March, but she has more songs for fans. “We’re going deeper,” she said in announcing the expanded version, Deeper Into the Well, on Instagram Thursday (July 25). The expanded version includes seven new songs and will be released Aug. 2. Musgraves is previewing the expanded version […]
Karma takes all of Taylor Swift‘s friends to the summit — and one of the closest among them is Ice Spice, the rapper revealed.
In a new Rolling Stone cover story published Thursday (July 25), the 24-year-old hip-hop star gushed that the singer remains her “closest celebrity friend,” more than a year after their collaboration on “Karma” reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Taylor f–ks with me,” Ice told the publication. “She’s so funny. I think our personalities mesh really well.”
The “Munch” musician — whose debut album Y2K! arrives Friday (July 26) — also dismissed speculation that Swift was simply looking for clout when she tapped her for the “Karma” remix. “[It’s] so rude to me, [because] why would she not want to be my friend?” she said.
To Ice’s point, Swift raved about her pal in a comment to the publication, saying she loves how her past duet partner takes “a keen interest in not just the music, but the music industry and how it works.”
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“Seeing Ice lean into the strategic, financial and business aspects of her career is really exciting for me,” the 14-time Grammy winner continued. “The more artists learn about the inner workings of the music industry, the more power they can have in their creative world. I knew based on the questions she asked and the observations she made that she didn’t just want to be a passenger in her own career. She wanted to be the driver of it.”
Swift has long been one of Ice’s most vocal supporters, with the “Anti-Hero” singer asserting on more than one occasion that the rapper is the “one to watch.” Ice has proven that she’s a fierce defender of the pop star as well, sassily blowing kisses to a group of male fans who started booing when the rapper performed “Karma” at Rolling Loud earlier this month.
The Bronx native has also said that Swift often acts as a guiding light for her when it comes to her career, telling Billboard in the March 2024 issue, “When I was in the studio with Taylor, like, I’ll never forget that.”
Ice added, “She told me, ‘No matter what, just keep making music and everything’s going to be fine.’”