Pop
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“A talent to watch.”
In the Jan. 30, 1999, issue, Billboard reviewed Britney Spears’ debut album, …Baby One More Time, released on Jive Records. “The teenage heartthrob who cut through the fourth-quarter clutter with the pop/R&B single ‘…Baby One More Time’ delivers her debut album – a top 40-ready workout filled with hook-laden songs from the same bag as the title cut,” Billboard praised, noting that Spears “already tasted the limelight in a two-year run on Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club.”
“Blessed with a sweet voice and a wholesome, girl-next-door image,” the review continued, “Spears has hit a nerve among a teen fan base primed by the likes of Hanson, ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys.”
The same week, the album and its title cut concurrently hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100 charts, respectively.
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The coronations sparked Spears’ robust chart-topping history. To date, she boasts six No. 1s on the Billboard 200: …Baby One More Time, Oops!…I Did It Again (2000), Britney (2001), In the Zone (2003), Circus (2008) and Femme Fatale (2011). She banked her 10th and most recent top 10 with Glory (No. 3) in 2016.
Spears has scored five No. 1s on the Hot 100: “…Baby One More Time,” “Womanizer” (2008), “3” (2009) and two in 2011, “Hold It Against Me” and as featured on Rihanna’s “S&M.” Spears added her 14th and latest top 10 with “Hold Me Closer,” with Elton John, in September 2022.
Spears’ initial Hot 100 No. 1 likewise marked the first as both a writer and producer for Max Martin. With the chart-topping launch of Ariana Grande’s “Yes, And?” on the Jan. 27, 2024, survey, Martin passed George Martin for the most leaders among producers in the Hot 100’s history.
Spears’ memoir The Woman in Me arrived in October 2023. The book recaps Spears’ rise to fame, her relationship with Justin Timberlake and her life under a 13-year conservancy. According to the Associated Press, it sold 1.1 million copies in the U.S. in its first week.
“I’ve been involved with a lot of different projects over the years, and with Britney, we’ve got a real special artist here,” mused Jack Satter, then-Jive senior VP of pop promotion, in the Oct. 24, 1998, Billboard, issue. “I really feel that she’s like a young Madonna. Our goal is to make her into a huge pop-rhythm crossover artist. I think she’s got longevity.”
Jennifer Lopez dropped the summer-ready video for her remix of “Can’t Get Enough” on Monday (Jan. 29). The new visual cooked up by JLo and director Tanu Muiño for the bouncy first single from the singer/actress’ upcoming This Is Me… Now album features a guest verse from Latto, with both women taking it to the street in the dance-heavy clip.
In keeping with the narrative arc about love addiction in Lopez’s upcoming This Is Me… Now: A Love Story Amazon original film, the new video opens with Lopez getting harassed by a group of sharply dressed reporters bombarding her with probing questions. “’What are you chasing?’,” one asks, while another wonders, “‘What’s it all about?,’” and a third inquiring mind shouts, “‘Jennifer, what really matters to you?’”
Lopez’s answer, of course, is “Love.”
Cue the track and Lopez writhing in a gauzy white robe on a bed — with a killer view of the city through her giant picture windows — as she stares lustily into a mirror. The camera then follows Lopez outside, where she walks confidently onto a city street, loses her tan jacket and struts through the middle of traffic. This, naturally, leads to a Jenny on the block dance routine, with Lopez and an impromptu group of male dancers busting moves in an intersection.
Lopez then slips under a dinner table on a night out with her man, crawling across the floor sensually while also walking toward Latto on a soundstage, with both women dressed in deep red, body-hugging dresses. “Call the doctor, I don’t see nobody but you/ Do I still love you? Baby, is the sky blue?/ Spoil a b–ch down and he faithful to me too/ You know you the reason why they hatin’ on me, boo,” Latto raps as Lopez rubs up on her.
The rest of the video appears to compile footage from the short film, much of it consisting of Lopez in various thong-baring outfits, including a sure-to-be-GIFFed sequence in which she takes an outdoor shower in a black string bikini for an audience of shirtless hunks floating in a reflecting pool.
The original version of “Can’t Get Enough” dropped on Jan. 10 as the first taste of Lopez’s long-awaited ninth studio album, which will be released on Feb. 16. An accompanying film directed by Dave Meyers will hit Amazon Prime Video the same day.
Watch the “Can’t Get Enough” remix video below.
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Forever No. 1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — by taking an extended look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club. Here, we honor Melanie, who died on Jan. 23 at age 76, by looking at the pop star’s lone No. 1 hit as a recording artist: the charming (but risqué for its time) “Brand New Key.”
Melanie’s sing-song pop smash “Brand New Key” seems pretty innocuous today, but when it was released in 1971, it was considered fairly risqué. “Skates” and “key” were pretty obvious sexual metaphors, and this stanza was rife with sexual innuendo: “Don’t go too fast, but I go pretty far/ For somebody who don’t drive/ I’ve been all around the world.”
You have to keep in mind that this was a full decade before Olivia Newton-John’s sexually provocative “Physical,” which the Grease star fretted was going too far practically until the moment it was released. In 1982, Madonna arrived, eventually bringing gender parity to the whole notion of songs about lust. “Brand New Key” might have been the first step down the road that took us to Anita Ward’s “Ring My Bell,” Cyndi Lauper’s “She Bop,” Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and countless more.
Melanie (whose full name was Melanie Safka) acknowledged the possibility of fans hearing sexual innuendo in the lyrics, but has denied that was her intent. The oldies site Superseventies.com quotes Melanie as saying that she wrote the song in about 15 minutes one night: “I thought it was cute; a kind of old [1930s] tune. I guess a key and a lock have always been Freudian symbols, and pretty obvious ones at that. There was no deep serious expression behind the song, but people read things into it.”
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In addition to helping to make top 40 radio safe for racier songs by female artists, “Brand New Key” changed Melanie’s image. Prior to “Brand New Key,” she had been seen as cool by contemporary pop and rock audiences. She was one of just three solo women on the bill at the Woodstock festival in 1969, along with Joan Baez and Janis Joplin (who was backed by the Kozmic Blues Band).
As it began to rain during her performance on the opening night of that epic, three-day festival, hundreds of candles suddenly appeared, which inspired Melanie’s breakthrough hit, “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).” In July 1970, that song became her first top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 6. The Edwin Hawkins Singers, best known for their 1969 hit “Oh Happy Day,” were featured on the record, giving it a gospel quality that balanced her folkie sound.
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In September 1970, Melanie made the top 40 on the Hot 100 with her follow-up, “Peace Will Come (According to Plan).” The following month, The New Seekers landed a top 15 hit on the Hot 100 with another Melanie song, “Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma.” (Melanie had recorded the song under the title “What Have They Done to My Song Ma” on her 1970 album Candles in the Rain.) The New Seekers followed that hit with their versions of two more Melanie songs, both of which also made the Hot 100 – the flower-power anthem “Beautiful People” (No. 67) and “Nickel Song” (No. 81), which Melanie would later have a No. 35 hit with.
Melanie performed at the Isle of Wight festival in August 1970 as well as the Glastonbury Festival (then dubbed Glastonbury Fayre) in June 1971. So, Melanie was a star even before the song that became her biggest hit.
People who just know Melanie from “Brand New Key” might be surprised to hear her other songs, which she sang in a husky voice and in an idiosyncratic style. “Brand New Key,” which Melanie wrote by herself, smoothed out the rough edges of her other records. It is more of a pure pop record, which is probably why it did so well.
The song, produced by Melanie’s husband Peter Schekeryk, was the first release on their own label, Neighborhood Records, following her departure from Buddah Records. The song (arranged by Roger Kellaway) opens with a simple piano intro, before Melanie lays out her predicament. She needs a key and she needs it bad. Her frustration is apparent as she sings, “It almost seems like you’re avoiding me/ I’m OK alone, but you’ve got something I need.” More than 40 years later, in “Call Me Maybe,” Carly Rae Jepsen would capture that same sense of frustration, pining for a disinterested guy.
The chorus of “Brand New Key” is very sing-songy, which some found charming and others found grating. The wordless bridge lends some interest, “Oh, yeah, yeah/ Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah…” And in the final repetition of the chorus, Melanie omits the lines “I’ve been looking around awhile/You’ve got something for me” and replaces them with “La-la’s.”
In the week ending Oct. 30, 1971, “Brand New Key” entered the Hot 100 at No. 87. Eight weeks later, it dethroned Sly & the Family Stone’s “Family Affair” to become the No. 1 song in the land. It held the top spot for three weeks, bridging 1971 and 1972. Incredibly, it held Don McLean’s instant-classic “American Pie” to the No. 2 spot for two weeks before “Pie” was able to dislodge “Key.” And then “Key” stayed at No. 2 for three weeks, giving it a total of seven weeks in one of the top two positions – longer than any other song by a female solo artist in the first three years of the ’70s.
“Brand New Key” is a very short single — it runs just 2:26, shorter than any other No. 1 hit of 1971 or 1972. It’s ironic that “Key” was followed in the No. 1 spot by “American Pie,” which ran 8:37, which made it the longest No. 1 hit in Hot 100 history until recently. “Brand New Key” also reached No. 1 in Canada and Australia and climbed as high as No. 4 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart.
“Brand New Key” is easily Melanie’s best-remembered hit, but it was hardly the sum total of her chart impact that year. In the week ending Feb. 26, 1972, Melanie had three songs in the top 40 on the Hot 100: “Brand New Key” dropped from No. 14 to No. 24, “Ring the Living Bell” (the proper follow-up to “Key”) jumped from No. 39 to No. 34 and “Nickel Song” (which Melanie’s former label Buddah Records released to capitalize on her newfound success) leaped from No. 43 to No. 36. Melanie was just the second solo female to have three songs in the top 40 at one time (following Mary Wells in 1964), and the only woman to achieve the feat in the ’70s.
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Critic Paul Gambaccini led his Singles column in Rolling Stone (March 16, 1972) with a discussion of Melanie’s three simultaneous hits. Under the headline “Melanie laughs all the way to the bank,” Gambaccini wrote “It has long been fashionable for rock critics to knock the recorded efforts of Melanie, but the woman with the little girl’s voice now has the last laugh. While most artists consider themselves fortunate to have one hit single, she has three.”
In his weekly American Top 40 countdown for week in question, Casey Kasem made note of Melanie’s triple play and said words to the effect that “Last year was the year of Carole King. It looks like this year will be the year of Melanie.”
In one sense, Casey was right. On Billboard’s year-end charts for 1972, Melanie was No. 1 on the Top Singles Female Vocalists chart, ahead of three legends – Cher, Roberta Flack and Aretha Franklin, who held down the next three spots. But if Casey was suggesting that Melanie was moving up to superstardom, as it appeared at that moment, that didn’t come to pass. After those three early 1972 hits dropped off, Melanie logged just one more top 40 hit, “Bitter Bad,” which reached No. 35 in the spring of 1973.
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Some of Melanie’s original fans had disdain for the novelty-shaded pop direction of “Brand New Key,” while her newfound pop fans proved fickle. Widely read industry pundit Bob Lefsetz wrote an assessment following Melanie’s death in which he opined that he “had some respect for her” prior to “Brand New Key,” but lost it with that one song. “Melanie had been a deep thinker, anything but light,” he wrote. “And now she’s released this adolescent, no, strike that, kiddie song about roller skating.”
Melanie made her final Hot 100 appearance in the first week of 1974 with a fine cover version of Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” She made her final appearance on the Billboard 200 in her lifetime that June with Madrugada.
In 1990, “Brand New Key” appeared on Vol. 7 of Rhino Records’ 25-volume Have a Nice Day series, which collected pop songs from the 1970s. I wrote the liner notes for that entire series (as well as the Grammy-nominated 1998 box set Have a Nice Decade, on which “Brand New Key” also appeared.)
Here’s what I wrote in 1990 about “Brand New Key”: “Melanie, whose ‘Brand New Key’ hit #1 in December 1971, wasn’t a one-hit wonder. She is, however, Exhibit A in the case of artists whose careers were hurt more than they were helped by hit records that projected the wrong image. The whimsical, nostalgic nature of ‘Brand New Key’ gave Melanie a lightweight, novelty image which was at odds with the contemporary pop/rock persona she had cultivated with her 1970 hit, ‘Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).’ It didn’t help that the follow-ups ‘The Nickel Song’ and ‘Ring the Living Bell,’ were also very light. Still, one imagines that the coy innuendos of ‘Brand New Key’ resonated for, say, Madonna, in a way that Carole King or Roberta Flack never did. In fact, it’s a small step from the tongue-in-cheek sass of ‘Brand New Key’ to ‘Like a Virgin.’”
In one interview, also featured in that Superseventies.com piece, Melanie expressed some ambivalence about the song. “I used to love singing ‘Brand New Key,’ at first,” she said. “It had great shock value, dropped in the middle of one of my concerts. I’d be singing along about Suffering and the Trials of Man, and then suddenly, ‘I’ve got a brand-new pair of roller skates…’ It had a great effect. After it became a hit, though, the fun kind of wore off, at least for me. Some things, I think, are better left a surprise.”
While Melanie struggled commercially after “Brand New Key,” the song itself has had an afterlife. A parody version titled “Combine Harvester,” recorded by a comedy folk act dubbed The Wurzels, topped the Official U.K. Singles Chart for two weeks in June 1976. The song depicts two farmers with one saying to the other, “I’ve got a brand new Combine Harvester/ And I’ll give you the key.” (If “Brand New Key” is novelty-shaded, this loopy track goes all the way.)
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Melanie’s original recording was heard in the acclaimed 1997 film Boogie Nights, which was set in the 1970s. The song was used as an informal theme for Heather Graham’s Rollergirl character. (Roller skating became a genuine pop-culture fad during the disco era, long after Melanie’s song had run its course.) Country singer Deana Carter covered the song on her 1998 album Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, which went gold. The song has also been featured in the TV shows Family Guy and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Melanie’s legacy extends beyond “Brand New Key,” however: “Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma,” which she also wrote, was a much-admired and much-performed song of that era. The great Ray Charles recorded a marvelously funky and fresh version of the song that reached No. 65 on the Hot 100 in August 1972 and received a Grammy nod for best R&B vocal performance, male. In October 2012, Miley Cyrus released a video of an acoustic version of that song as part of her Backyard Sessions series. In 2015, Melanie joined her to duet on the song, in addition to “Peace Will Come.”
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Melanie had other successes. too. In 1989, she won a Primetime Emmy (in tandem with Lee Holdridge) for outstanding achievement in music and lyrics for the “The First Time I Loved Forever.” They wrote the ballad for the CBS series Beauty and the Beast (not to be confused with the later film of the same name).
In 2010 and 2011, Melanie performed at 40th anniversary editions of famous festivals she had performed at originally – Isle of Wight and Glastonbury, respectively. She also endured as an avatar for Woodstock, playing a big part in the informal revival of Woodstock ’89. According to Variety, Melanie was in the studio earlier this month working on her 32nd album, Second Hand Smoke, a collection of cover songs.
Melanie died on Jan. 23 at home in central Tennessee. She is survived by her three children, daughter Leilah (named after the Derek & The Dominos classic “Layla”), daughter Jeordie and son Beau Jarred. Schekeryk, her husband of 42 years, died in 2010.
“She was one of the most talented, strong and passionate women of the era and every word she wrote, every note she sang reflected that,” her kids posted on Facebook. “Our world is much dimmer, the colors of a dreary, rainy Tennessee pale with her absence today, but we know that she is still here, smiling down on all of us, on all of you, from the stars.”
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, David Letterman is going on record as a lover of love. The prodigious PDA love between Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, to be specific.
The late night legend hit his Instagram on Sunday as the Chiefs punched their ticket to Super Bowl LVIII for a video in which he told all the haters complaining that the pair’s romance is getting more attention than the action on the field to leave TNT alone. “Taylor Swift, I don’t think in the history of show business, in the history of popular culture, we’ve ever witnessed anything like this,” Letterman said in the minute-long video with the caption “Dave is Team Taylor.”
Seated in a living room and looking dead into the camera, the legendarily acerbic Letterman delivered his monologue on the power of love with clear-eyed, open-hearted passion. “We live in a world now where all we hear is nonsense and ugliness, and the nonsense can’t be more nonsensical and the ugliness, God hopes it can’t get any uglier, but that’s all we hear,” he said. “That’s all we hear. So now, here’s Taylor Swift, who is a glowing bright light of goodness in the world.”
Now, Letterman being Letterman, when Dave went on to praise Swift dating Kelce, in his inimitable fashion he mistakenly-on-purpose referred to the ripped 34-year-old Chiefs star as 68-year-old Frasier star Kelsey Grammer. “No, that’s not true, Kelsey Grammer?” a woman’s voice off-camera said as Letterman doubled-down on his moniker muddle.
He then pantomimed how the Grammer fans are mad about the pop star infiltrating , while the Swifties (he was proud of himself for getting that one right) were saying, “oh we don’t want a footballer in here with Kelsey Grammer!”
But, in the end, Letterman argued, all you need is love.
“I say to both camps, ‘This is such a lovely thing. Shut up! It’s good for the footballers. It’s good for Taylor Swift, and it’s something positive and happy for the world,’” Letterman said. “Also, politically, Taylor Swift is a huge force, and I think just wants to see people do the right thing. So God bless Taylor Swift and Kelsey Grammer.”
Swift and Kelce have been a public couple since September, when the “Love Story” singer attended her first KC game. During a break between legs of her global Eras Tour, Swift has been a regular fixture in the Kelce family skybox at Chiefs games and on Sunday the couple shared a series of sweet moments — and their most public PDA to date — on the field after the Chiefs punched their ticket to Feb. 11’s Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
Super Bowl LVII will air on CBS and Nickelodeon and stream on Paramount+, with Usher performing the halftime show.
Watch Letterman’s video velow.
Stop trying to fight it. The next two weeks are going to be about the three teams playing in the Feb. 11 Super Bowl: the San Francisco 49ers, the Kansas City Chiefs and upstarts TNT (Travis N’ Taylor). Even typically unflappable KC coach Andy Reid couldn’t avoid getting roped into the romance that ate the NFL.
In fact, Reid popped into this week’s episode’s Let’s Go with Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald and Jim Gray podcast to discuss his team’s dominating victory in the AFC Championship game on Sunday, the endless pics of his signature horseshoe mustache freezing during the Miami game two weeks ago and the excellent play of QB Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce this weeked.
Oh, he also dropped the one Taylor Swift-related story no one has heard yet.
Asked what it’s like to be the “Beatles” — with so much attention on the team thanks to Swift’s romance with Kelce and the deluge of press scrambling to chronicle their every kiss and whispered sweet nothing — Reid said simply, “she’s been great.” In fact, in a story sure to result in some locker room ribbing for Kelce, Reid revealed that he actually knew the pop star before Travis did.
“I knew her before, from Philadelphia. Her dad [Scott Swift] played at [University of] Delaware and was a big fan and good guy,” Reid said. “So I had met him there and her. So that was the last thing Trav wanted to hear, that I knew her before him. She told him, ‘I know your coach,’” Reid recalled. And he went, ‘Oh, God, come on!’”
All jokes aside, Reid said Swift is a “good girl and I’m happy for Trav,” while assuring fans of the team headed to their fourth Super Bowl in five years, “there’s been no distraction at all. Travis handled it right, she’s handled it right and we just move forward.”
While the rest of the world is tying itself in knots trying to figure out how, or if, Swift will be able to jet from her show in at the Tokyo Dome in Japan on Feb. 10 to Las Vegas in time for the 6:30 p.m. ET kick-off of Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium, three-time Super Bowl champ Reid, as usual, is firmly focused on the X’s and O’s.
“Maybe you’re not the most talented. Maybe you’re not the fastest or the quickest or whatever,” he said in a press conference on Monday. “But let’s go maximize what we are and let the chips fall where they may.”
Super Bowl LVII will air on CBS and Nickelodeon and stream on Paramount+, with Usher performing the halftime show.
Listen to the episode below — Taylor talk begins at 24:30 mark.
Elton John and Bernie Taupin will receive the Library of Congress’s Gershwin Prize for Popular Song on March 20 at Washington, D.C.’s Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall. The invitation-only, all-star concert will premiere on PBS stations April 8.
The renowned songwriting duo is only the third pair to receive the prestigious award, following Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 2012, and Gloria and Emilio Estefan in 2019. Established in 2007, the Gershwin Prize honors artists whose creative works are collected and made accessible by the Library and acknowledges popular song’s vital role in society. The prize is named for another legendary songwriting team, George and Ira Gershwin, whose papers are held by the Library. (Elton performed two of the Gershwins’ most prized songs, “Our Love Is Here to Stay” and “Someone to Watch Over Me,” on the all-star 1994 album The Glory of Gershwin.)
Other past recipients include Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Lionel Richie and Garth Brooks.
“Elton John and Bernie Taupin have written some of the most memorable songs of our lives. Their careers stand out for the quality and broad appeal of their music and their influence on their fellow artists,” said Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, in a statement. “More than 50 years ago, they came from across the pond to win over Americans and audiences worldwide with their beautiful songs and rock anthems. We’re proud to honor Elton and Bernie with the Gershwin Prize for their incredible impact on generations of music lovers.”
The pair have penned such pop and rock classics as “Your Song,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Bennie & the Jets,” “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’,” “Tiny Dancer” and “Crocodile Rock,” which became their first of eight No. 1s as a songwriting team on the Billboard Hot 100.
“I’ve been writing songs with Bernie for 56 years, and we never thought that that one day this might be bestowed upon us,” John said in a statement. “It’s an incredible honor for two British guys to be recognized like this. I’m so honored.”
Taupin added, “To be in a house along with the great American songwriters, to even be in the same avenue, is humbling, and I am absolutely thrilled to accept.”
In making the selection, the Librarian of Congress consulted leading members of the music and entertainment communities, as well as curators from the Library’s music division, American Folklife Center and National Audio-Visual Conservation Center.
John is Billboard’s top solo male artist of all time with 59 songs in the Hot 100’s top 40. When his duet with Dua Lipa of “Cold Heart” cracked the top 40 in 2021, it marked his first top 40 hit in 22 years. The song peaked at No. 7, only to be surpassed by “Hold Me Closer,” his collaboration with Britney Spears, which reached No. 6 in 2022. He also holds the record for the biggest selling physical single of all time with Taupin’s rewritten lyrics for “Candle in the Wind 1997,” which sold more than 33 million copies.
On Jan. 15, John won an Emmy for his Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium special, making him only the 19th performer to reach EGOT status for winning an Emmy, Oscar, Tony and Grammy.
Taupin and John were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992. John entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, with Taupin following in 2023.
Elton John and Bernie Taupin: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song is a co-production of WETA Washington, D.C., Ken Ehrlich Productions and the Library of Congress. Performers will be announced closer to the event.
Benny Blanco only has eyes for Selena Gomez — heart eyes, that is. The Grammy-nominated producer set up shop in the comment section of his boo’s latest Instagram selfie, clearly too stunned for words. The “Single Soon” star shared a trio of fresh-faced selfies on her official Instagram page on Sunday (Jan. 28) with a […]
It’s not the fall that hurts, it’s when you hit the ground. That lesson is not lost on Ed Sheeran, who posted a video on Sunday (Jan. 28) of a close-call near-fall he had while making an entrance to the stage during a recent date on his Mathematics world tour. In the clip, Sheeran is […]
It’s been a few weeks since Lil Nas X made headlines for his controversial comeback single “J Christ,” and the singer is ready to talk frankly about the public’s reception of his latest track.
During his appearance on the podcast On Purpose with Jay Shetty, the rapper explained that he felt the messaging of his song was taken out of context. “[‘J Christ’] was this thing that artistically was just supposed to be like, I’m returning … I’m back like Him, you know what I mean?” he said. “It turned into this whole thing where it was me trying to dunk on Christians or something, and that was never what it was. Never.”
Lil Nas agreed with some of the backlash, saying that the anger over a video of him eating communion wafers “looks really bad on paper,” adding that he did properly apologize for releasing that video. “This [was a] thing that I thought was just like a little jokey fun video. I also had to think about how many of my family members are Christian, like my grandmothers and stuff, and like aunties and things like that,” he said. “And I’m like, ‘Wow, do they see this as that too?’ If they do, you know, that’s really messed up. And it makes me sad.”
But the rapper said the he did not apologize for the song or the music video because he stood by his intended messaging. “That message turned around and I didn’t know how to do anything with it. It wasn’t my chaos anymore. It was the world’s and anything anybody said was true because that’s who I am as a person,” he said. “I’m this troll and I want to make these people mad. And so everybody can run with that. And there’s nothing I can do about that. I can say as many things as I want, but knowing my history, they look right, I look wrong.”
The interview comes after Lil Nas X spoke publicly about the release of “J Christ” in a video posted to his Instagram. In the original clip, the rapper explained that those online claiming that he was insulting Christianity with his song were mistaken. “I knew there would be some upset people simply because religion is a very sensitive topic for a lot of people,” he said. “But I also didn’t mean to mock — this wasn’t a f— you to the Christians. It was literally me saying I’m back like Jesus.”
Elsewhere in his interview on On Purpose, Lil Nas said that he’s now reflecting on what his future releases will look like, where his music will go in the future. “You’ve been so focused and zoned in on what you’re doing, and you push your art out into the world and it’s kind of received negatively by the majority … but then also understanding why, you know, and having to see it through,” he said. “So I guess that’s where I’m at right now and my next move, you know, the things that I’m planning on right now, I feel like somewhere in here that’s gonna be this magical moment that I can’t even take credit for.”
Check out the full episode of On Purpose featuring Lil Nas X below:
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Just days after her fan army attempted to block Justin Timberlake‘s new single, “Selfish,” from topping iTunes pop charts around the world by pushing Britney Spears‘ 2011 deep cut of the same name up the tallies, Spears extended an live branch to her long-ago ex.
“I am so in love with Justin Timberlake’s new song ‘Selfish,’” Spears wrote on her Instagram feed — which is now set to private — about the first single from Timberlake’s upcoming sixth album, Everything I Thought It Was. Tacking on a heart emoji, Spears also wrote, “It is soo good and how come every time I see Justin and Jimmy together I laugh so hard ???”
Timberlake appeared on The Tonight Show on Thursday to goof around with longtime friend and comedy foil host Jimmy Fallon, and then the two were reunited again for a run through their famous “Barry Gibb Talk Show” bit on Saturday Night Live this weekend. In addition to playing the mellow “Selfish,” Timberlake debuted the new gospel-tinged burner “Sanctified” alongside Houston rapper Tobe Nwigwe in his first SNL performance of the night.
Spears appeared to love that one as well.
“Ps ‘Sanctified’ is wow [star eyes emoji] too,” Britney added about the second song that’s been revealed so far from the JT album due out on March 15.
The “Selfish” upvote frenzy appeared to come strictly from Spears’ devoted fans and Spears has not publicly weighed in on the effort to resurface the deep cut Femme Fatale bonus track. Thanks to the fan attention, Britney’s “Selfish” hit the top of a number of iTunes pop charts across the world on Friday, either displacing or landing just beneath Timberlake’s single of the same name.
Britney’s Monday (Jan. 29) Instagram post featured another surprise: a blanket mea culpa for anyone whose feelings were hurt by things she revealed in her 2023 tell-all memoir. “I wanna apologize for some of the things I wrote about in my book. If I offended any of the people I genuinely care about I am deeply sorry,” Spears wrote without naming names. While Spears did not elaborate on who she was apologizing to about the many headline-grabbing revelations in her best-selling memoir, The Woman In Me, one of the people who came in for particularly harsh criticism after the book’s release last year was Timberlake.
The couple dated from 1999 to 2002, and in the book Spears revealed that she got unexpectedly pregnant during that time and that she had an abortion because Timberlake “definitely wasn’t happy about pregnancy“; she also wrote that though she could never have imagined choosing an abortion, she agreed to not have the child. “Given the circumstances, that is what we did,” she said about the procedure they kept secret.
Timberlake didn’t respond to the allegations in the book about his alleged behavior during their relationship, but he did turn off comments on his Instagram after it was flooded with angry comments from Britney’s supporters at the time.
He did, however, appear to allude to the firestorm during a Las Vegas show in December, where he told a crowd he meant “no disrespect” before playing his 2002 solo hit “Cry Me a River,” widely seen as a commentary on the couple’s March 2002 split after three years together.
The couple’s brief teenage romance has spurred years of headlines, repeatedly stoking the fires of anger against JT from the Britney Army. In the book, however, Spears wrote that her love for her former boy band flame was eternal. “After that, I was messed up for a while, especially because I still love Justin so much,” she wrote. “It was insane how much I loved him, and for me, it was unfortunate.”