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Billy Joel earned “very cool dad points” after taking his daughters to see Taylor Swift in concert. The Piano Man opened up during an interview with People about attending the pop superstar’s Eras Tour in Tampa, Fla., on March 15 with his little pair of Swifties. “Oh, she’s great. She’s really very good,” Joel told […]
Jung Kook has teamed up with Justin Timberlake for a surprise remix of the BTS star’s hit song “3D.” The new remix, which arrived Friday (Nov. 24), finds the superstar singers showcasing their impressive harmonies over a slick production with a retro mid-2000s hip-hop/dance vibe. “Jung and JT on the main now/ You can still […]
Taylor Swift debuted “Now That We Don’t Talk” live at her first concert in São Paulo, Brazil, Friday night (Nov. 24). Swift surprised fans at the city’s Allianz Parque stadium with the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) vault track on acoustic guitar. “I’ve never performed this one live before,” she said. “Let’s see how I do with […]
Noah Kahan sprinkled some Guts into his debut performance at BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge. For his first-ever Live Lounge set, he of course performed “Stick Season,” and he also played an Olivia Rodrigo album track: the ballad “Lacy.” “Lacy, oh Lacy, skin like puff pastry/ Aren’t you the sweetest thing on this side of […]
One of the most multifaceted — and busy — artists working today, Jon Batiste sometimes seems like a superhuman — a seemingly inexhaustible bundle of exuberance, creativity and energy. The New Orleans-bred, Juilliard-trained pianist, singer, songwriter and composer. With his band Stay Human, he spent seven years gaining a huge audience as bandleader on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert; he’s led “love riots” through the streets of New York, playing melodica literally among the city’s inhabitants; he’s won an Oscar and a Golden Globe as co-composer of the score for Pixar’s Soul; and he’s of course won Grammys, five last year alone, including album of the year for his We Are.
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But as the moving new documentary American Symphony shows, Batiste, like so many artists, has a complex private life that his public rarely glimpses. Capturing an especially high-and-low-filled year in Batiste’s life, it interweaves Batiste’s experience as he composes the ambitious titular orchestral work for a Carnegie Hall debut, with the harrowing journey he and his partner, the author-artist Suleika Jaouad, find themselves on when, after a decade in remission, her cancer returns — all shortly before his astounding 11 Grammy nominations arrive.
Directed by Academy Award-winning director Matthew Heineman — who followed Batiste and Jaouad for seven months, filming over 1,500 hours of footage — and coproduced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions, American Symphony opens in select U.S. theaters today before arriving on Netflix Nov. 29 (the film features a poignant new song, “It Never Went Away,” which Batiste wrote with Grammy-winner Dan Wilson, out now on Verve Records/Interscope). On Feb. 4, he could potentially make another significant showing at the Grammys, where he has six nominations, before heading out on his Uneasy Tour: Purifying the Airwaves for the People Feb. 16, supporting his latest album World Music Radio.
In the days leading up to his film’s premiere, he spoke to Billboard about opening up his and Jaouad’s lives to Heineman’s cameras, the importance of artists’ mental health, and why at this point he has to “chuckle” at the Grammy chatter around him.
In the film, we see your composing process up close, and it looks much more collaborative than the usual symphony composer’s may be. Is that your typical process? I’m always composing, and it’s not so different actually with a large-form but also longform piece. It was more about thinking about the form, from point A, B, C, D all the way to Z before starting, and then composing into a form that could shift and change depending on what discoveries I made along the way. When I’m writing songs or instrumental music or just a tune, it can happen in the moment, it doesn’t have to happen before I start. [For a symphony] there’s a lot more pre-planning, and then figuring out symbolically with American Symphony how I wanted to use the music as an allegory for certain values, the philosophy that was underpinning it.
If you think about the term classical music — which I love and has probably the biggest influence on my artistry, besides American music and jazz and New Orleans — every composer that comes from that tradition was drawing on the folk musics and traditions they grew up with, the country and time they lived in. The core quest with American Symphony was: if the symphony orchestra and symphonic compositions were to address America today, if they were invented today and I was the inventor, what would I be drawing from, what would I see in my culture and in the American landscape and the milieu I come from? That was really exciting.
Growing up in the generation where streaming music became the norm, electronic music and all the different technological advancements that we’ve come to now see as the norm — all these different approaches to collaboration and music in general that didn’t even exist back when Beethoven was making the seventh symphony or when Duke Ellington was around, but we can still use the lessons of those compositions. Duke, who’s one of my heroes, if he knew a certain musician in the orchestra had a specific approach to playing high notes, or playing ballads, or leading a section, he’d lean into that and compose toward that, and that’s something I always have a voice for. There’s so much you can speak to that many composers before me were speaking to, but I had a unique opportunity here to do a lot.
Creativity and creating art is clearly an important part of your relationship with Suleika, but at the premiere of American Symphony, it almost seems like a real surprise to her. When you’re at work on new music, do you play it for her?
She’ll hear pieces of things and I’ll play things for her typically in fragments, or in a state where the grandeur of what it will be isn’t obvious yet. As you saw in the film there’s a process of it coming to life that can only happen when I’m in the room with the other musicians. So it’s kind of hard to show that to Suleika in full before it happens, it just has to become what it is through a process of constant listening, refinement, composition. A piece like American Symphony is never meant to be completely finished, it’s meant to be a vehicle that evolves over many many years with different folks who can take ownership of all the themes of the piece, and the form and structure. Fifty years from now, if this is played in another part of the world by different musicians, it would be its own unique version.
Jon Batiste in “American Symphony.”
Courtesy of Netflix
We see a lot in the film how you have to constantly navigate between the public face you show the world and what you’re contending with privately, with Suleika’s illness. Especially when the public seems to expect you to be this joyful person at all times, that seems really challenging.
It’s really something that I’ve struggled with for awhile. And I value parts of it as well — the idea of being able to bring folks a sense of uplift-ment in dark times, as a performer, an entertainer, an artist is something I value. But in general it’s been a struggle to navigate the humanity of being all those things. A lot of times I think that’s the case, which is one of the reasons why such an invasive film like this, and the vulnerability required of our family to share what you see, is something we wanted to move forward with. Sometimes pulling the curtain back is an opportunity for us all to tap into our humanity and not only see me in a certain way and realize, “Wow, these are things we all go through.” We can all grow from seeing it and have a deepened respect for this person we admire.
Suleika Jaouad and Jon Batiste in “American Symphony.”
Courtesy of Netflix
You’re incredibly open in the film about therapy, and about the mental health aspect of being an artist on the level you are. What was behind your decision to be open about this?
I hope it’ll be a beacon for a lot of artists. I fear that when people are successful, especially in a public sense, it creates an illusion of ease. I don’t ever want to make anyone feel lesser, or any artist feel like because they’re struggling in this crazy business with their mental state and fortitude that they’re not just like everybody else. Especially folks who are successful, you never know what somebody has given up or decided to do to get to where they are. We’re all just human beings dealing with the same set of things. It’s better if we show it more, rather than hide it away in a curated social media presence.
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Your stunning performance of “Freedom” at the 2022 Grammys is in the film — contextualized with a very clear picture of what you and Suleika were going through at the time, which makes seeing its exuberance especially astounding. Watching it now, what do you see?
It’s tough to watch the film. I don’t have a good barometer because I’ve only seen it a handful of times over the course of the edits. I do have a sense of what the film is like, and living through those moments, the Grammys performance was very much a lot of catharsis, and also a lot of vindication. Just being present in the moment was a difficult thing for me to do given where Suleika was and how much I wanted to be there with her, but also knowing how much she wanted me to be in the moment I was in. So the performance was a great way of zeroing into the moment and, as it always is for me, just channeling and trying to lift the present to a place of transcendence to what we do on the stage. And that moment in particular was more like that than winning the awards we won — it was just a real manifestation of what I do, and what all those artists in there, what I imagine drives them: the performance, not the awards.
Jon Batiste accepts the album of the year award for “We Are” onstage during tat the 64th Annual Grammy Awards held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 3rd, 2022 in Las Vegas.
Christopher Polk for Variety
We hear in voiceover some of the detractors who were rather loud in the wake of your big Grammy wins. How aware were you of that narrative in the moment, and how did you approach including it in the film, which I assume wasn’t easy?
I’m at a point, to be frank, that I don’t really care. These are things I’ve gotten used to in terms of creating music and doing things that are speaking to the culture, doing things that are counterculture, things that are perceived to be one way when they’re completely the opposite of that. I’ve been perceived to be an institutionalist, and to be not institutional enough. To be a person who is too sophisticated, and to be someone who is dumbing down what they do too much. To be a person who is a part of a fix in the system, someone who comes out of nowhere, and also as the industry darling or the vet or the favored one, who’s constantly had privileges. What that tells me overall, since I’ve been doing this from the age of 15 in New Orleans, is just that I have longevity and I have impact.
Even the fact of the symphony upon its performance at Carnegie Hall — which I unabashedly will say was a cultural moment, if not just for New York then for our country, for music — for there to be no critical review or discussion that was remotely intelligent discourse, with so many firsts [achieved with it that] I’ve lost count? I’m just so used to it. Twenty years in, you just kind of chuckle about it. Eventually, maybe, people will catch on, but I don’t really do it for that. Ultimately it’s just a matter of doing what I’m doing and doing what I love.
Even as the self-proclaimed Prince of Christmas, Matt Rogers is still baffled by how much a single holiday has consumed his year.
“I went to a pool party on the Fourth of July this year, and people kept asking me, ‘What are you working on?’” Rogers tells Billboard over a Zoom call from a London hotel. “And I had to say, ‘Actually, a Christmas album.’ So it turns out, when you do a Christmas album, you actually better love Christmas because it becomes your whole year.”
But the comedian’s hard work certainly paid off with the release of Have You Heard of Christmas?, Rogers’ debut album of satirical holiday tracks (released on Nov. 6 via Capitol Records) designed to both celebrate the monolithic holiday and skewer its cultural oversaturation. Spanning every genre of holiday song he could over the course of 12 songs, Rogers expertly puts Christmas under the microscope, playing out every last seasonal scenario with wit, charm and plenty of holiday cheer.
The album’s origins date back to 2017, when Rogers began a one-man show in New York City, making fun of the very concept of the celebrity Christmas album. As he honed his act over the next few years, Rogers eventually got the show greenlit as a special for Showtime, debuting in Dec. 2022 — a record deal with Capitol followed shortly thereafter.
It’s become clear that audiences everywhere are also buying into Rogers’ Christmas vision — one week after its release, Have You Heard of Christmas? made Rogers a Billboard-charting artist, as the LP debuted at No. 4 on the Comedy Albums chart. Meanwhile, the comedian still can’t get over that audiences are singing his songs along with him during his live shows. “I now get to be in that club of people that have had that experience, which is really cool,” he says with a smile.
Below, Rogers chats with Billboard about the album’s origin as a joke, the “bald capitalism” of the holiday season, his favorite celebrity Christmas album and why he thinks pop music ought to be funnier.
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It’s been a long road for you to release Have You Heard of Christmas? — what does it mean for you to actually have this album out that you’ve been talking about for years?
It’s pretty surreal, because it’s not just that thing where you work for a month or even a year on your album; I’ve had a lot of this for about six years. I started this in 2017 as a joke when I was doing it as a one man show in the West Village. The whole bit was, “Come see my show to hear a holiday album that is definitely, for sure, for real, absolutely, 100% coming out, no doubt about it. This is not a joke.” And of course it was a joke! Now, years later, these songs that I wrote half a decade ago are finally out, and people are actually singing them back to me, which is wild.
Let’s go back to the inception of that joke — what was it about the idea of a fake Christmas album that tickled you?
I think it was an interview I watched with Mariah Carey, where I feel like this interviewer kind of said the quiet part out loud: “Wow, so you get to make lots of money every year!” And I was like, “You just boldly called out the capitalism of it all. That is so funny.” I started to really think about Christmas as this last vestige of the monoculture, where if you have a Christmas album, you know it’s going to sell every year. It’s kind of a hack; if you create really good Christmas content, you then become part of that culture. I just thought it was so funny to say, “Let me sneak into the cultural consciousness by creating a fake Christmas album,” because I always think bald capitalism is so funny.
I love Christmas, and we all love Christmas because we are kind of forced to love Christmas. But it’s also something to drag for that reason; it is this thing that forces itself down our throat every year. Like, every pop girlie can’t love Christmas, but the record labels sure do, because it makes them lots of money. So it’s just funny to me that, in every young pop star’s life, there comes a time when you have to do two things: Go to Vegas, and do a Christmas album. I’m just starting a little early, that’s all.
Among the expansive list of celebrity Christmas albums, do you have a favorite?
I’m quite partial to Kelly Clarkson’s Wrapped in Red. Don’t get me wrong, When Christmas Comes Around… is also really good, but that first album is just fantastic. “Underneath the Tree,” I think, is the candidate to be the “All I Want For Christmas Is You” of our generation. Now, as a recording artist, I’m keeping my eye on the streams of it all, and the “Underneath the Tree” streams are very similar to Mariah’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” in that they seem to increase every year. It’s becoming this thing where you have these handful of songs that just sound like Christmas in the background.
I actually made one of those songs on my album, called “I Don’t Need It to Be Christmas at All.” There’s not a single joke in it, I thought it would be funny to have this whole album of hard comedy songs, and then go, “Hey, by the way, here’s an actual earnest effort on my part.” Lo and behold, it’s the one that’s doing the best now. Even in my attempt to satirize this whole thing, I ended up having an impact with the one genuine song.
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Was it at all strange to go from making fun of the concept of recording a Christmas album to actually recording and releasing one of your own?
To be honest with you, everything I’ve ever gotten to do successfully is because I was making fun of doing that exact thing. Like, if I wanted to become a singer, I made fun of good singing, and all of a sudden people were like, “You’re a singer.” I just kind of faked my way into it. Now, I don’t want to say that this is a fake Christmas album, because it’s fully realized by great producers and great writers and an amazing label at Capitol Records. But I could not have dreamed that it would get here, because a certain point came where I was just used to making fun of myself and being like, “There’s no way.” When it became real, I was like, “Oh, I guess I have to find a different way to frame this.”
Another thing I’ve started thinking about now that I’ve gotten to this place is this idea of, “Who says that pop music can’t have funny lyrics?” I think that we have this idea of pop songs that are about love, or heartbreak, or partying. Who says that they can’t be about all sorts of different things?
I’m so glad that you brought that up, because I’ve noticed that pop music has been getting progressively funnier over the last couple years, especially with artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Reneé Rapp and Chappell Roan bringing a lot of humor to their songs.
Yes, completely! The thing about all those girls —well, I don’t think we’ve seen this from Chappell yet, but certainly with Olivia and Reneé — is that they’re actresses. What they want to do is to embody their song, and they’re very good at that. I would be very surprised if Chappell couldn’t deliver on screen.
I come at this as a comedian and an actor myself. So what I think is so great about the record and one of the things I’m proudest of is that I can have a song like “Everything You Want,” which is like me doing this lovelorn, sad girl pop record, and then it goes right into “RUM PUM PUM,” which is my trappy, filthy club song. I really wanted the opportunity to play different characters, and I am in a unique position to bring my skills to this as a character performer. So yeah, I’m really happy that idea is coming back in pop music.
You got to work with a number of artists on this project, including Katie Gavin from MUNA, VINCINT, Bowen Yang and Leland, who both appears on and executive produced the album. What was it like to work with these very talented, and also very queer artists on a Christmas project?
I am just so proud that they all are queer artists, and I’m also really proud that they’re all queer artists who have had a major impact. You know, VINCINT’s songs were inescapable during Pride, and MUNA is just becoming more and more important to not just queer culture, but our generation. I genuinely do believe that Katie Gavin is one of the voices that we will still be listening to in 30 years — I believe she’s a Stevie Nicks-level singer.
Leland is such a great artist in his own right and such an amazing producer; the vibe that he creates creatively is so open and very collaborative. He’s also a real go-getter, because we wrote the song “Everything You Want” as a solo song for me, and he realized we were writing a MUNA song. He said, “We’re gonna call them right now,” and we just asked, and Katie said yes. Also, Leland is Troye Sivan’s [songwriting partner], and Troye was around the whole time I was recording. He would be listening to first cuts, and with “RUM PUM PUM,” he’s the one who called it “diabolical” and then asked if he could help vocal produce it. This was the week that “Rush” was coming out. He was about to have this nasty little pop boy moment, and here he was helping me with mine.
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You’ve mentioned all of the different flavors of holiday song we get on this album — why was that an important step in making this a successful satire on the pop Christmas album format?
I came up through my 20’s doing sketch comedy, and the similarity between writing a good comedy sketch and writing a good pop song is way more synergistic than people think. Let’s take “Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson as an example. In verse one, we get the premise; “I’m not with you anymore.” The game is now about this idea of “I don’t care, I’m better off without you.” In the second verse, we explore the reality; “Here’s the things in the relationship that happened, which were actually pathetic.” The bridge is this big f–king kiss off is where she comes to the conclusion that, “We will never ever, ever get back together,” to quote another artist. And then there is this little taste at the end with her vocal that maybe she isn’t super over it. All of this essentially is three beats of a sketch: introducing a comedic idea, exploring that idea, and then seeing the idea out to its fullest potential.
I feel like the best way to really heighten a specific comedic idea in song is to just match it to a genre that can help you do that. So, if I’m writing a sketch about being in the club, meeting someone and wanting to bring them home on Christmas, obviously that should be a club song. If I’m feeling a genre first, I think about what funny idea would fit.
It also helps that you are a naturally gifted singer — was singing something you always knew you were very good at?
I think I’ve started to be comfortable calling myself a singer since I started doing the show five years ago. What I didn’t know was how good of a recording artist I was going to be, because I really think those are two different things. To me, what sets recording artists apart is having that special tone and that ability to landscape your vocals. Like, Selena Gomez is a fantastic recording artist. I don’t know that she could go up there and sing the house down like Audra McDonald, and I also don’t know if Audra would consider herself a great recording artist, right? They’re both very, very good at what they do.
When they gave me this record deal, I knew I could sing, but I didn’t know if I was a recording artist. Luckily, Leland was very encouraging about me using this like part of my voice that recalls the origins of when I started listening to music — this very JC Chasez, R&B-pop tone. What really helped, it turns out, was podcasting for all these years. That has weirdly prepared me to use a mic in this way in the studio.
Was there anything you learned in this process that further differentiated being a singer from a being a recording artist?
Listen, as a gay guy who has had a podcast for years talking about pop culture, I’ve had certain opinions about who’s “a great singer” and who’s not. Now, I have so much more respect for anyone who creates a hit and has a distinct sound where, when you hear it, you’re like, “Oh, that is unquestionably Ariana Grande, or Rihanna, or Kesha, or Selena Gomez.”
Finding out what my sound is has ben one of the most fun parts of this. It’s something that I’m really interested in exploring going forward, because I do have a sound that I think if I were to pinpoint what sounds the most like me on this album, it probably is “Everything You Want.” I think that it’s where I’m the most myself. But being able to explore all these genres is exciting, where every single day I was recording was like going to Disney World.
Have you thought about what a follow-up to this album would look like?
I don’t want to give anything away. But what I’ll say is, if I can do another album, I will go in the exact opposite direction of this. I think I would present something that was … let’s call it “seasonally opposite.” Leland and I may have even already written down some stuff. So, who knows?
Take That welcomes fans to This Life, the British pop favorites’ ninth and latest studio album.
Arriving at the stroke of midnight, This Life represents the third incarnation of Take That, now recording and performing as the trio of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen.
The new, 12-track set includes the first release “Windows,” and is embedded with “that feeling of spreading your wings, letting out the old and bringing in the new,” says Donald.
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The sessions for This Life began early this year at Nashville’s historic RCA Studios A, with nine-time Grammy Award winner Dave Cobb behind the desk. Along the way, This Life evolved at studios in New York, Los Angeles, London and Barcelona, with additional production from Jennifer Decilveo (Hozier, Miley Cyrus).
“There’s a sense of togetherness with this record, whether that’s us coming back together as a band or people wanting connection in their own lives,” says Owen in a statement introducing the new collection.
Formed in 1989 as a five-piece — Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Mark Owen, Jason Orange and Robbie Williams — Take That was one of the most popular acts of its generation, certainly in the U.K., where few acts can challenge their chart superiority.
Former bandmate Williams embarked on a glittering solo career a quarter century ago, and is currently on tour in Australia. Orange announced his departure from Take That in September 2014.
This Life is the followup to 2017’s Wonderland, which peaked at No. 2 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart.
Until now, the group has racked up 12 U.K. No. 1 singles, and eight U.K. No. 1 albums, and a lengthy list of career highlights. The Brits had only one top 10 hit in the U.S., 1995’s “Back for Good,” which peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Cutting an LP of new material was about “that feeling of getting back together as a band, and heading back out into the world again,” explains Barlow.
Take That is also a proven box-office juggernaut. Their record-breaking 2011 Progress tour (for which Williams returned to the fold) sold over 1 million tickets in less than 24 hours; the following year the lads performed at the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics; and they hold the record for the most performances at London’s The O2, with 34 headline shows.
There are more concerts to come.
In 2024, Take That will embark on a tour in support of the new LP, spanning 41 dates across 15 cities in the U.K. and Ireland, with Olly Murs in support. Also, a run of pan-European outdoor dates, under the title This Life Under the Stars, are booked in June and July 2024.
Stream This Life below.
Beyonce gave the Beyhive something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving morning (Nov. 23): a new and final trailer for her upcoming concert documentary, Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce. The two-minute teaser kicks off with a sideways home video before Queen Bey reveals who the cameraperson is when she addresses them: “Rumi, now can I […]
Girls Aloud is back! The pop girl group announced on Wednesday (Nov. 22) that their 11-year break has come to an end, and they’ll be heading out on a reunion tour in the new year. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Nadine Coyle, Kimberley Walsh, Nicole Roberts […]
Jung Kook is preparing to enlist in the South Korean military, and took to Weverse on Wednesday (Nov. 22) to send a sweet message to the ARMY. “In December, I will start a new journey I’m leaving you for a while to serve in the military,” he wrote . “As I share this news, I […]