Pop
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When Billie Eilish called Lana Del Rey “the reason for half of you b—-es existence, including mine” during her surprise appearance at the “Summertime Sadness” singer’s Coachella set over the weekend, she wasn’t kidding. While reflecting on the festival’s opening weekend on Instagram Stories Thursday (April 18), the 22-year-old pop star revealed that her debut […]
K-pop group SEVENTEEN finally released the full tracklist for their anticipated greatest hits album on Thursday (April 18), revealing that the 33-track 17 Is Right Here will not only include some of their most beloved singles, but also four new songs.
One of those fresh tracks, “MAESTRO,” will be the collection’s first single, followed by the hip-hop team’s “LALALI,” the performance team’s “Spell” and the vocal team’s “Cheers to youth.” The album from the 13-man South Korean boy band is due out on April 29.
In addition to helping to compose all 20 previously released singles on the album, member Woozi also led the composition and writing of “MAESTRO,” “Spell” and “Cheers to youth,” and contributed to writing lyrics for “LALALI” with the four members of the hip-hop team: S. Coups, Wonwoo, Mingyu and Vernon.
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The first of the two-CD set features the new songs and Korean versions of the eight lead singles from past Japanese releases, while the second disc features the 20 lead singles from past Korean releases.
The collection was first teased after the band played two stadium shows at South Korea’s Asiad Main Stadium in Incheon on their Follow Again Tour on March 30-31. Soon after, a colorful animated teaser video created by artist Max Dalton (The Grand Budapest Hotel) recreated and animated images from the band’s previous releases. A second, 16-second video featured of images of the group in dark clothes and futuristic settings separated into their hip-hop, performance and vocal units. Three different version of the collection will be available, entitled “Here,” “Hear” and “Dear.”
The group — which also features Jeonghan, Jun, DK, Joshua, Hoshi, Dino, The8 and Seungkwan — also recently launched an interactive website with a variety of photos, lyrics and other keepsakes for their CARAT fan group.
Check out the full track list below:
CD1
“MAESTRO”
“LALALI”
“Spell”
“Cheers to youth”
“CALL CALL CALL!” (Korean version)
“Happy Ending” (Korean version)
“Fallin’ Flower” (Korean version)
“24H (Korean version)
“Not Alone” (Korean version)
“Power of Love” (Korean version)
“DREAM” (Korean version)
“Ima – Even if the world ends tomorrow” (Korean version)
CD2
“Adore U”
“Mansae”
“Pretty U”
“VERY NICE”
“BOOMBOOM”
“Don’t Wanna Cry”
“CLAP”
“THANKS”
“Oh My!”
“Home”
“Fear”
“Left & Right”
“HOME;RUN”
“Ready to love”
“Rock with you”
“HOT”
“_WORLD”
“F*ck My Life”
“Super”
“God of Music”
“Adore U” (instrumental)
Taylor Swift‘s The Tortured Poets Department is already breaking Spotify records, and it hasn’t even dropped yet. The streaming service announced Thursday (April 18) that the album’s countdown page has broken its record for most pre-saves, one day ahead of the project’s midnight release. The news follows the countdown page’s launch on March 28, which […]
We are just a few weeks away from the release of Dua Lipa‘s 11-track album Radical Optimism album and in a new Elle magazine cover story the 28 year-old pop superstar pulls the curtain back further on the long creative process of assembling the songs.
Dua worked on Radical Optimism with an A-list group of co-songwriters and producers, including longtime collaborator songwriter Caroline Ailin, as well as Tobias Jesso Jr. (Adele, Harry Styles), Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, Danny L Harle (Dux Content). Parker said they referred to the assembled crew of hitmakers as “The Band,” explaining, “Not an old-school band, but a spiritual band. Each morning going into the studio, I felt like I was in the Beatles!”
The result, the the magazine says, is a mix of live and electronic instruments that create a “global groove” on a “cosmopolitan dance-pop record with a 1970s flair, and a vibrant, resounding affirmation of life.”
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“Dua had this focus on finding this sound, which was so elusive,” Parker said. “But it was nice to be in the engine room of the creative process, rather than worry about being the face of it. It was the experience that I’ve been waiting for.” He described the origins of the first single, the bouncy “Houdini,” as starting with a bass line he plunked out weeks before their session that he realized could work once the singer added a “moody,” post-disco melody.
“She started singing, and it just immediately made sense,” Parker said. “This feeling of early-’80s sleaze, in some strange, dark, sweaty club. Gloriously suffocating. Hypnotic.”
Ailin, who has worked with Dua since before her 2017 breakthrough hit “New Rules,” described their process as beginning with “a little yap about what’s going on,” which, then somehow turns into a pop song. “That’s her superpower,” Ailin said “It’s hard not to feel like you’re the strongest person next to her. I think she lends a little bit of that to all of us sometimes.”
The singer also told Elle that her single “Training Season” was written in Nov. 2022 as a reflection on both her long-term relationships with men including models Bella and Gigi Hadid’s brother Anwar Hadid and French director Romain Gavras, as well as run of dates she went on. “As long as everyone knows where they stand, then you’re good,” she said about her dating life, which most recently linked her to British actor Callum Turner.
The magazine said Dua is coy about what her current dating situation, preferring to offer coded hints through her songs. “I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to write down what I want,” she explained about the “Training Season” sessions. “The power of manifestation and writing things into existence with the power of words. When you know your worth, you know what you want and what you don’t want.”
Describing a recent convo with one of her dancers who was going through a breakup, Dua said that when she was single she didn’t pine for a relationship. “I didn’t wish it away. You learn so much about yourself, you know, whether it’s going on a date or spending that time alone,” she said. “In the silence, you figure out who you really are. In the grand scheme of things, I was doing research.”
Dua Lipa will serve as both host and musical guest for the May 4 episode of Saturday Night Live.
At some point we might need a map to chart all the twists and turns of R9. While journalists, fans and pretty much everyone else has been asking Rihanna when we can expect the long-awaited follow-up to her smash 2016 album Anti, the singer continues to give vague, sometimes contradictory answers about the in-progress project. […]
Lil Nas X keeps talking about the backlog of songs he’s sitting on, so Wednesday night (April 17) the MC snuck out a track that has been floating around for several years in snippet form, the punchy “Lean On My Body.”
“I know I’m 10 years late but I’m dropping lean on my body in a couple minutes,” he tweeted around dinnertime in a post that also included the original minute-long March 2022 in which Montero rapped a verse from the song while walking on a treadmill.
“You know I love you, so I say this s–t with love/ But please tell your fans they need to shut the f–k up/ I’m doin’ real s–t, some never-worry-’bout-a-bill s–t/ Some build a house on the hill, s–t/ The money’s gravy, it’s coming crazy,” he raps, adding the swaggy lines, “My big sis just had another baby, popped ’em out the labia/ My other nephew sittin’ in the class with a broken knuckle/ He had to beat a ni–a ass for talkin’ ’bout his uncle.”
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Now, Lil Nas continues, he doesn’t condone that kind of violent behavior, then quickly changes his mind, counseling, “F–k it, yeah, I said it, I condone thats–t/ Choke that ni–a out/ Go corona on that b–ch/ Walk that ni–a like a dog, nephew own that b–ch.” The chorus leans into a gospel vibe with a heavenly choir of Monteros singing, “Lean on my body, Lord (Amen, amen, amen) Bring blessings on my soul (Amen, amen, amen)/ And when the war is over (Thank you)/ See it’s time to tell the world the war is won.”
Lil Nas has been teasing that his upcoming mixtape, Nasarati 2, is just around the corner, but at press time there was no firm release date for the follow-up to the 2018 original. Last week he posted the hard-hitting “Right There,” which he first previewed in an Instagram Story in February.
Lil Nas has been candid about the struggle to choose songs for the tape amid concerns over his fans’ perceptions of his music. Earlier this year, he wrote on Instagram, “Been hoarding music for years smh i hate my relationship with fear of my songs not doing well and perception. i wish i could just release music and not give af.” That said, he has also dumped a handful of snippets on fans to see what their reaction is in an apparent effort to aid in his track-picking.
After posting “Lean,” a fan named Mya commented, “these songs are literally hits it’s insane he’s not putting them on all streaming platforms…,” to which Lil Nas responded, “I just want yall to enjoy the music for now. We gone get to that!”
Listen to the full “Lean On My Body” and watch the rebooted teaser below.
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A BTS pop-up shop is headed to a number of cities in Asia and to Los Angeles beginning later this month. The K-pop supergroup’s label Big Hit Music announced on Wednesday (April 17) that “Monochrome” will debut in the on-hiatus group’s hometown of Seoul, South Korea beginning on April 26 through May 12. The event […]
Taylor Swift will always have Shania Twain in her corner. In a new interview, the “You’re Still the One” singer opened up about passing the country–pop torch to artists like the 14-time Grammy winner, whom Twain commended for “working her butt off.”
“She is living an exhausting existence, but she’s dedicated and committed to herself, to her art, and her work,” the Canadian singer-songwriter said in a Haute Living cover story, published Wednesday (April 17). “It isn’t even about ambition, though I’m sure that most people would call her ambitious.”
“She’s an extremely hard worker, and I’m sure she’s got giant goals,” Twain added. “But it’s not all about ambition: It’s about passion and committing yourself to your passion.”
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The “Man!…I Feel Like a Woman!” singer’s comments come in stark contrast to what another music icon recently said about Swift. Courtney Love took shots at the “Anti-Hero” artist while speaking to The Standard earlier this week, calling her “not important” and “not interesting as an artist.”
Twain, however, has long been a friend and fan of Swift’s, and vice versa. The pair performed together at the 2019 American Music Awards, and in a 2021 TikTok, the Eras Tour star commended the “That Don’t Impress Me Much” musician for disproving the notion that “country girls can’t go pop” over the course of her career.
On the subject of paving the way for genre-bending artists such as Swift, Twain said, “it wasn’t like I intended on being a trailblazer or anything.”
“I was just trying to be original, my authentic self, and to do it with conviction,” she continued. “I’m an expressive person, and I put that into my music. I was saying it with attitude and with confidence because I meant it. Yes, I see it as a great compliment when someone calls me a trailblazer, but it’s not like I set out to do so. I was just being myself, and I think that’s served me very well.”
04/17/2024
After multiple “songs ranked” instant reactions, it’s time to reflect on my biggest regrets, and champion the songs that were stronger than their initial rankings.
04/17/2024
Justin Timberlake isn’t being selfish with sneak peeks from his upcoming Forget Tomorrow World Tour. As the pop star gears up to hit the road again, he took a moment to share a carousel of photos from his recent rehearsals with followers via Instagram on Wednesday (April 17). The photos find the “Mirrors” singer standing […]