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Cue “Anytime You Need a Friend.” Mariah Carey was asked to give advice to younger artists like Chappell Roan, the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer who’s been grappling with the negative side of a sudden ascent into celebrity. The pop legend didn’t hesitate to commiserate and share what she’s learned.
Roan has been all over newsfeeds after drawing criticism for not endorsing a candidate in the 2024 election, and then canceling two festival performances in order to prioritize her health while things “have gotten overwhelming”; she also was the subject of the most talked-about SNL sketch last weekend. She continues to top charts with her The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess album.
The Associated Press turned to Carey for comment on adjusting to fame, from the perspective of someone who’s been through it.
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Carey didn’t address Roan specifically, but was kind enough to give general guidance to the new generation of pop stars in her response.
“Well, I have been through my share of dramas,” Carey said to the AP. “And it’s not fun because you grow up thinking, ‘I want to be famous.’”
She continued, “I mean, really with me, it was always, ‘I want to be a singer. I want to write songs.’”“But ‘I want to be famous’ was right there with it,” admitted Carey. “I feel like it was probably because I didn’t feel like I was good enough on my own because of the things I went through growing up. And that’s not a good way to feel, you know?”
“My advice would be try your hardest to go into this industry with a love of your talent or what’s really real for you,” said Carey.
“You know, if it’s like, ‘I want to be famous. I want to run around with those people, whoever they are, the famous people,’ then it’s probably not the best idea,” she added.
Chappell does seem to focus on her love for art and performance. But she’s made it known she finds some parts of fame unbearable, particularly the behavior of “superfans” who lack boundaries.
“I chose this career path because because I love music and art and honoring my inner child,” she said to in August. “I do not accept harassment of any kind because I chose this path, nor do I deserve it.”
She asked fans to “please stop touching me. Please stop being weird to my family and friends. Please stop assuming things about me. There is always more to the story. I am scared and tired.”
Roan returned to the road for the remainder of The Midwest Princess Tour following last weekend’s show cancelations. She’s scheduled to wrap the tour in Austin this week.
Jung Kook is still with us! Following the overwhelming popularity of the BTS superstar’s documentary, Jung Kook: I Am Still, Trafalgar Releasing and HYBE are releasing a new version of the film.
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The new trailer for Jung Kook: I Am Still – Party Edition shows Jung Kook performing “Standing Next to You,” complete with stylish outfits and impressive choreography. The updated version of the hit film includes the complete documentary with an additional 20 minutes of singalong videos for fans to enjoy.
The Junsoo Park-directed film captures the BTS star’s development as a solo artist, starting with the historic ascent of his single “Seven (feat. Latto)” to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 2023. Three months later, he dropped his debut album Golden, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
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“Delving into his creative process, unwavering work ethic and the unique challenges faced by a global superstar, the film presents exclusive, never-before-seen footage and interviews alongside electrifying concert performances,” reads the release. “This poignant portrait showcases Jung Kook’s unwavering dedication and artistic evolution.”
Marc Allenby, CEO of Trafalgar Releasing, added in a press statement, “We’re delighted with the phenomenal response to the opening of Jung Kook: I Am Still. This success is a testament to Jung Kook’s artistry and dedication, underscoring the power of shared cinema experiences for fans. We look forward to October 4th and bringing ‘The Party Edition’ to cinemas around the globe to give fans another opportunity to gather together, sing, and celebrate.”
Watch the Jung Kook: I Am Still – Party Edition trailer below. The film will be released on October 11 in select cinemas across the USA, Mexico, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong. Tickets are on sale now here. Details for South Korea and Japan will be announced separately.
It was a historic trip to the Grammy stage for Taylor Swift on Feb. 4, when she accepted her second and final award of the evening: album of the year, for her 2022 blockbuster set, Midnights. The win was her fourth in the category, breaking her out of a four-way tie and leaving her alone in the record books as the performing artist with the most album of the year wins in Grammy history. But by that point in the evening, Swift had already ensured that her fans were thinking more about the future — and perhaps AOTY trophy No. 5.
“I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the last two years — which is that my brand-new album comes out April 19,” Swift had revealed two hours earlier while accepting her first award of the night (best pop vocal album). “It’s called The Tortured Poets Department.”
A year after that announcement, Swift may indeed end up making more treks to the Crypto.com Arena stage thanks to the record-breaking Poets. While Midnights bowed with a jaw-dropping 1.6 million first-week units upon its October 2022 release (according to Luminate) and topped the Billboard 200 for six weeks — setting off the historic, globe-trotting Year of Taylor that followed in 2023 — it paled in comparison with Poets, which debuted with over 2.6 million units and spent a whopping 15 weeks atop the Billboard 200. Given that Swift has secured AOTY nominations for each of her three brand-new albums released this decade (including two wins, for Midnights and 2020’s folklore, of her four career total), Poets seems a lock for one of the eight AOTY slots at the 2025 ceremony.
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Whether Swift will win, however, is another question entirely — in part because of a remarkably strong and high-profile slate of likely competitors, including one particularly legendary perennial AOTY bridesmaid. But perhaps the most interesting question of all: After four AOTY wins, already unmatched in Grammy history, how much more does Swift really have to gain by adding another such statue to her collection?
While Swift has already triumphed among some strong fields this decade, it’s likely that the category’s 2025 slate of nominees — with its expected mix of huge critical and commercial successes from veteran A-listers and emergent superstars — will be the most formidable she has faced yet. Alex Tear, vp of music programming at SiriusXM and Pandora, mentions Billie Eilish (Hit Me Hard and Soft), Chappell Roan (The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess) and Sabrina Carpenter (Short n’ Sweet) as strong contenders for the marquee award, calling Carpenter “a force” in particular. “It’s really going to be a highly competitive year,” he says.
Still, the narrative surrounding the AOTY race will likely boil down to two names: Swift and Beyoncé, whose Billboard 200-topping country and Americana pivot, Cowboy Carter, will almost certainly also vie for the prize. Cowboy did only a fraction of Poets’ flabbergasting first-week numbers — though at press time, it still had the year’s second-highest debut total, at 375,000 units — but it received widespread acclaim, as well as immense media attention for its genre explorations and for the music history Beyoncé illuminated on it.
And of course, Carter’s candidacy comes with extra intrigue, given that Beyoncé — one of the most celebrated album artists of her era — has still never won album of the year, despite her four career nods for it (and record 32 total Grammy wins).
One longtime Recording Academy member who considers both Swift’s and Beyoncé’s new albums worthy contenders calls the latter “the prohibitive favorite” due to her careerlong shutout in the category. “I think that there’s a feeling in the industry, which was certainly encouraged via last year’s Grammys” — when her husband, Jay-Z, called attention to her AOTY shutout in a televised speech — “that [Beyoncé] has been overlooked for too long,” the member says.
Swift may well have less at stake in this year’s AOTY race than her storied competitor. In fact, because Swift is at the overall height of her career success and exposure (and therefore at risk of generating a backlash), it’s worth considering whether she stands to lose more than she does to gain by netting a fifth trophy, especially over a competitor with such a strong case — and such a strong sentimental pull for so many.
And public perception about a potential Swift victory could be colored by her own philosophy about the Grammys and awards shows in general. “She looks at record-making as a competitive sport in a way that other artists don’t,” the academy member says. “Other artists are competitive and would like to win Grammys, but she really, like, thinks about that stuff going in [to recording her albums].”
Swift has admitted as much over the years. In 2015, she explained in a Grammy Pro interview that when her Red lost AOTY in 2014 (to Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories), it set in motion her plan to make a more cohesive pop album with 1989, which won the award two years later: “You have a few options when you don’t win an award — you can decide, ‘Oh, they’re wrong…’ [or] you can say, ‘Maybe they’re right,’ ” she said. Similarly, her 2020 documentary, Miss Americana, captured her reaction when her 1989 follow-up, 2017’s Reputation, failed to garner even a nomination in the category: “I just need to make a better record.” (Two albums later, she would win the category again in 2021 for the stylistic left turn folklore.)
Competitiveness, of course, doesn’t equate to outright making Grammy bait, Tear points out — noting that it seems to have inspired Swift to grow artistically, while at the same time, “we’ve grown into her evolving as a person and the choices that she wants to make as an artist… The projects of late are not chasing where the puck is going — it’s already there.”
And though the Recording Academy member gives Beyoncé the edge in this particular race, it simply makes sense to them that the biggest pop star on the planet should be one of the favorites every time she’s in the mix.
“Look, [Swift] is the most popular recording artist on earth, and therefore she’s likely to win more often than not,” the member says, citing the famous Muhammad Ali quote, “It’s not bragging if you can back it up.” And Swift “can do it, God bless her. She should keep doing it. Maybe she’ll win album of the year several more times.”
This story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Selena Gomez got quadruple the amount of maternal love recently when the 32-year-old superstar stopped by the set of Glamour‘s Women of the Year cover shoot to greet the mothers of Travis Kelce, Beyoncé and Billie Eilish.
Posted Thursday (Oct. 3), the clip finds Gomez entering the shoot and walking directly to her own mom, Mandy Teefey — who posed on the front of Glamour‘s latest issue with Donna Kelce, Tina Knowles and Maggie Baird, the respective mothers of the aforementioned stars — and wrapping her in a big hug.
“Hi mom, good job!” says the Only Murders in the Building star and executive producer, dressed in head-to-toe black. “You look beautiful.”
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Gomez then moves on to give Donna — who’s already well acquainted with the Rare Beauty founder’s best friend, Taylor Swift — a hug as well. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says before embracing Knowles, whom Gomez tells, “You look beautiful.”
Finally, the “Lose You to Love Me” singer moves on to hug Baird. “It’s so good to see you,” she says, picking up a lock of the Support + Feed co-founder’s silver hair. “I love your hair.”
In the publication’s cover story featuring the four women, it is revealed that Gomez had been right next door at a nearby studio shooting a campaign for her beauty business. During their own shoot, Teefey, Donna, Knowles and Baird opened up about their experiences raising superstar children, with the Wondermind co-founder and Cécred chairwoman especially finding common ground when it came to making sure that Gomez and Bey didn’t become divas despite getting famous as teenagers.
While on the topic, Teefey recalled one particular moment during which she drew the line with Gomez. “She was getting out of the trailer, and there was an umbrella, and they were holding it for her, and then they were bringing her food and all this stuff,” the producer told the other three moms. “I was like, ‘She can hold her own umbrella.’ She needs to learn how to pump her own gas in her car. She needs to be a person first.”
Watch the moment Gomez met Donna Kelce, Knowles and Baird below.
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, Coldplay shoots for the moon, LISA nods to the ’90s and Rich Homie Quan is honored the right way. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Coldplay, Moon Music
For a stadium rock act, Coldplay takes more far-out chances than they’re given credit for: new album Moon Music features both an Afrobeats-tinged collaboration with Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyanna and TINI, as well as a six-minute instrumental with spoken-word Maya Angelou snippets, but the British quartet also tucks in plenty of alt-rock radio fare, like the lovely lead single “feelslikeimfallinginlove.”
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LISA, “Moonlit Floor”
As she forges ahead with her solo career, BLACKPINK star LISA has revived an indelible ‘90s hit, Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me,” for “Moonlit Floor,” which functions more like a modern pop jam than an alternative foray in spite of its interpolation.
Rich Homie Quan, Forever Goin In
At 100 minutes, Forever Goin In, the first posthumous Rich Homie Quan release following the rapper’s tragic passing last month, is knowingly uncut, offering fans an extended toast at his brilliant delivery and linguistic skills; across 35 songs, however, the project rarely feels overstuffed, a nod to his greatness.
Finneas, For Cryin’ Out Loud!
Although Finneas’ younger sister Billie Eilish has enjoyed record-setting success since her first album — he’s opening on her latest arena tour, after all — the songwriter and producer has also carved out a niche of his own, continuing the promise of 2021’s Optimist with more pop dynamism and a greater emphasis on live-band arrangements with this sophomore LP.
Various Artists, Joker: Folie à Deux Soundtrack
Can’t get enough Joker: Folie à Deux? One week after co-star Lady Gaga unveiled Harlequin as a project inspired by the blockbuster film, the official soundtrack boasts plenty of the spark between Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix that will be featured on the big screen.
Toosii, Jaded
Toosii continues morphing into one of hip-hop and R&B’s most promising rapper-crooners on Jaded, a breezy project on which he often shines on his own but is best showcased alongside other stars, like the head-knocking Gunna team-up “Champs Élysées” or the soulful Muni Long collaboration “I Do.”
Tucker Wetmore, Waves on a Sunset
Rising country star Tucker Wetmore has a warm, honest twang that trembles at the end of every line, and new EP Waves on a Sunset does a nice illustrating how he can someday join the genre’s elite, on songs like the hit “Wind Up Missin’ You” and the charming “When I Ain’t Lookin’.”
A$AP Ferg feat. Future & Mike WiLL Made-It, “Allure”
As Future once again tops the Billboard 200 chart, this time with his Mixtape Pluto project, A$AP Ferg has been on something of a hot streak himself, which he continues over a thunderous Mike WiLL Made-It beat on “Allure,” which begs to be blasted out of a car stereo at nighttime.
James Bay, Changes All the Time
It’s been 10 years since James Bay broke through with the still-potent hit “Let it Go,” and on Changes All the Time, the veteran singer-songwriter places his most earnest impulses front and center, scooping on positivity amidst sunny hooks and delicate guitar strums following the rousing opener “Up All Night,” featuring The Lumineers and Noah Kahan.
Editor’s Pick: Allie X, “Bon Voyage”
Setting aside the apt description “dark Fleetwood Mac” offered in the press release for Allie X’s new single “Bon Voyage,” the veteran pop auteur’s latest is a spellbinding collection of melodies and lingering space, leaning into the restlessness of Allie’s voice and captivating by refusing to find resolution.
“People call it Brat Summer — it should be called ‘artist development summer,’ ” Jack Antonoff jokes on a mid-September afternoon, sitting on the rooftop of New York’s Electric Lady Studios and reflecting on the past few months in pop music. Charli XCX, whose brat album helped define the season, is an old friend of Antonoff’s — they co-headlined a 2015 tour called Charli and Jack Do America — and he points out that her 2024 success speaks to a larger movement of artists creating their own mainstream niches instead of latching on to trends.
“Sabrina [Carpenter], Charli and Chappell Roan — the three of them have had this shared experience of artists who have been crystallizing, and that’s where you get gems,” Antonoff says of a trio of pop talents who have dominated recent cultural discourse. “And that’s the story of being an artist. That’s true artist development. And it doesn’t matter where we are in tech or streaming or anything — the only way to win is to create your own language.”
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This year, Antonoff has had a direct hand in abetting artistic evolution at different levels of stardom — helping a longtime collaborator, Taylor Swift, shape-shift while staying on top of the pop world, as well as a rising artist, Carpenter, secure her place on the A-list. For the latter, Antonoff produced and co-wrote four songs on Carpenter’s new album, Short n’ Sweet — including her first Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper, “Please Please Please” — allowing the pop singer’s sardonic tics to shine on her way to arena-headliner status.
“No one deserves it more,” Antonoff says of the former Disney Channel star, who has released six albums by the age of 25. “Sabrina’s been quietly growing, and her albums have been getting more awesome, and she’s been honing her sound and performances. It’s not like she just popped onto the scene — this has been a decade of grinding toward it.”
During the week that Short n’ Sweet was released in August, Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department — on which Antonoff contributed to 16 songs across both of its volumes — spent its 15th week atop the Billboard 200, the longest run at No. 1 of any Swift project. Swift announced The Tortured Poets Department on the night of the 2024 Grammys, where previous full-length Midnights was awarded album of the year and she set the record for the most career wins in the category.
Amy Lombard
This year, Antonoff’s work with Swift and Carpenter — along with the self-titled fourth album from his long-running band, Bleachers, which arrived in March — could help him notch his sixth consecutive Grammy nomination for a producer of the year, non-classical, a category that he has won the past three years. If Antonoff takes home the trophy at the 2025 ceremony, he would set a record as the only four-peat in the 50-year history of the award.
“It would be a really [nice] resolve to a really special period,” says Antonoff’s manager, Jamie Oborne. “If it’s based on the work alone and the broad spectrum of work, I can’t imagine anyone else winning.”
Instead of functioning as a victory lap for Swift, The Tortured Poets Department was emotionally unguarded and knowingly messy, dividing critics and inspiring immediate fan devotion on its way to the biggest first-week debut of her career. “The best bodies of work are when people drill into the most personal, the most if-you-know-you-know kind of stuff,” Antonoff says. “I think the depth of [Tortured Poets Department] was surprising to people because I think people are constantly surprised when artists continue to be artists. You see so many people take the wrong turn and pander and become terrified of what they could lose. That’s the recipe for all the worst music, and I can only relate to people who don’t give a f–k. That next body of work — it doesn’t matter how big your audience is, it either comes from the depths of you or it doesn’t. And I love that album so much because the whole thing is so remarkably vulnerable.”
That ethos helps explain why, in the midst of a record-setting run as a pop studio whiz, Antonoff keeps pushing his creativity into unfamiliar areas. After producing the April soundtrack to the Apple TV+ fashion drama The New Look, which included Antonoff pals like Lana Del Rey and The 1975 covering early-20th-century songs, he also signed on to provide original music for a Broadway revival of Romeo + Juliet, which began previews in late September. More recently, he unveiled early plans for his Public Studios initiative, which, with the help of The Ally Coalition, will build studios in LGBTQ+ youth shelters and create a network of engineers to help train those interested in production — free of charge.
Jack Antonoff photographed September 10, 2024 at Electric Lady Studios in New York.
Amy Lombard
Antonoff also deconstructed the first Bleachers album, 2014’s Strange Desire, for a 10th-anniversary rework dubbed A Stranger Desired, released in September. And amid all of the projects, he foremost describes 2024 as “a touring year,” having led Bleachers on a global trek that will culminate with a headlining gig at Madison Square Garden in New York on Oct. 4.
He admits that he gets asked about his schedule by the people around him — friends curious about his balancing act and why he hasn’t zeroed in on the more successful pieces of his artistry. “My hunger to make things hasn’t changed since I was like 14,” Antonoff says with a chuckle, “but the context for people has changed.” When asked about the idea of winning four consecutive Grammys for producer of the year, Antonoff returns to the idea of artist development — that even when he’s receiving what he describes as “a huge honor,” his priority remains “protecting that zone” that allows him to grow as an artist and person.
“I really don’t let anything get in the way of that,” Antonoff says. “I keep my head down and I go back to work.”
This story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.
A collaboration between Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga was always going to have lofty expectations, but when the two wrote and recorded “Die With a Smile” at the latter’s Los Angeles studio earlier this year, there was no talk of topping the charts. They only wanted to follow where the song was naturally taking them, remembers hit-making songwriter-producer Andrew Watt, who previously worked with Gaga on The Rolling Stones’ 2023 Hackey Diamonds track “Sweet Sounds of Heaven.”
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“This was a pure, organic thing that both these artists who respect each other so much wanted to do together,” says Watt, who helped with the hit alongside D’Mile and James Fauntleroy. “This was about the love of making great music.”
That desire led to a sweeping, cinematic duet that has spent multiple weeks atop the Billboard Global 200 and racked up 625 million on-demand official streams worldwide since its Aug. 16 release (through Sept. 26), according to Luminate.
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“Seeing people reacting positively to it and it hitting them in their soul… it’s special,” Watt says. “This is a ballad with all-live instruments made to the human heartbeat. It’s not a formulaic song.”
He adds that Gaga and Mars were in the studio together within 24 hours of agreeing to collaborate, with Mars bringing in the initial idea for the song’s haunting vibe. Gaga fleshed it out on piano with Mars on guitar — exactly as they appear in the song’s retro Western music video (minus the costumes) — and stayed overnight until it was perfect.
And while Watt says the session was a blur, he recalls a key component to that night: finding a melodic structure that let Mars and Gaga sound like co-lead vocalists rather than one person harmonizing with the other. “When Gaga put her voice on top of Bruno’s, that’s the moment I remember… hearing their two voices together, you get lost in it.”
It had the same effect on Mars’ concert crowd at L.A.’s Intuit Dome the night the song dropped in August. As Gaga stepped onstage for the duet’s live debut, Watt recalls watching the moment unfold: “It was this wow factor of ‘Holy crap, [they’re] like the Avengers of music.’ “
This story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.
For any fashion-friendly Swiftie, there’s only one place to go immediately after the pop star releases a music video, attends an award show, is snapped out and about, or supporting Travis Kelce at a Kansas City Chiefs Game: Taylor Swift Style, the fashion blog and popular Instagram account of writer Sarah Chapelle.
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On TSS, Chapelle documents with astonishing detail (and speed) the source and pricing of Swift’s ensembles (down to each ring on her fingers), but also provides insightful, in-depth critical analysis, illuminating how Swift’s fashion choices are often as revealing — and intentional — as her lyrics. “We’re very familiar with these confessional, emotional songs that she gives us about her life, but I always felt that her style is the other half of that story,” Chapelle tells Billboard. “It’s the visual half that icon-ifies her eras, and it creates these memorable moments that stick out in your brain. I think she’s always, in some form, used fashion as a way of carving out identity and saying something about herself.”
Sarah Chapelle
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On Oct. 8, Chapelle’s already devoted audience (over 300,000 strong on her @taylorswiftstyled Insta) will likely get even bigger when she releases Taylor Swift Style: Fashion Through the Eras (St. Martin’s Griffin), a book encompassing Swift’s career to date as viewed through Chapelle’s “critically-kind” and highly personal perspective. With essays along with commentary on over 200 photographs capturing Swift’s evolution in the public eye, Taylor Swift Style will certainly be catnip for fans – but it also proves to be a fascinating, often surprising lens into this additional layer of Swift’s creativity for anyone watching the artist’s continuing evolution.
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Chapelle spoke to Billboard ahead of her book’s publication about Swift’s style eras, fashion Easter eggs, and why she should always wear more green. When you were starting what would become Taylor Swift Style, how, if at all, was the fashion press treating Taylor? So I have been a fan of Taylor since around 2006, and I’ve been documenting her fashion since 2011. At that time, the social media landscape was certainly not what it is right now, and the celebrity fashion landscape and press coverage of it was also not as hyper-focused, and certainly not on Taylor, as it is now. When I created the blog, I was studying in university to become a journalist, and I was trying to figure out my own identity and navigate, you know, how do I express myself and figure out who I am? And one way that a lot of us would do that is through our clothes. The blog just kind of became an intersection of all of my interests — like a niche within a niche of the fandom — to offer a resource for all of her fashion to other fans who I hoped might feel the same way and have this highly specific interest that I did. I talk about it in the book, and Taylor has talked about it as well, how there was a certain period when her art just wasn’t really taken very seriously or was sort of brushed off as like a teenage girl thing. And now I think we take her art and her power and her business through her artistry, and also, by extension, through her fashion, so, so, so seriously. It’s been an amazing evolution and journey to witness and also document. As you note in the book, at the start of her career, Taylor’s stylist was her label head, Scott Borchetta’s wife. Her current stylist, Joseph Cassell, has now been working with her for many years. Do you see a parallel between how Taylor’s ownership over her creativity and over how she presents herself have evolved? One thing that has always resonated with me about how Taylor seems to approach her business is that it’s, in a sense, always seemed kind of personal — she retains staff and people around her for very long periods of time, obviously a reflection of the mutual understanding she has with the people around her and the level of trust she has in them to help execute her vision and bring her ideas to life. I think one kind of fascinating example of her taking an incredible amount of creative control over her image was in the folklore and evermore era when, due to the circumstances of the pandemic, she self-styled because she didn’t want to inconvenience or endanger her team. So the folklore and evermore eras’ [imagery is] a very undiluted look into her creative process of translating what was going on in her mind into the physical, into the visual of how she wanted that era to look and to feel. And I think that’s especially resonant when you consider how the folklore photo shoot feels like its music — you’re kind of traipsing through this imaginary, wooded place as she’s trying to escape the realities of life. It felt right for that era, for that time, for that music. How did your “critically-kind” ethos come about? I can’t remember exactly when it started, but I didn’t always write commentary. I used to feel that, oh, people don’t want to hear from you, they just want the information — they just want to know where the clothes are from and where they can get it, and you should kind of be like this invisible admin force, like “don’t look behind the curtain!” type of energy. And a few years in, people would just start being like, “You should write more. You should write longer captions.” It almost felt like taking a page out of Taylor’s book, of when you choose to be vulnerable and a little bit more open people resonate with that humanity, and that resonance is the entire reason why there’s a book in the first place. It’s very easy to fall into the internet pit of defaulting to [saying] unkind or cruel things, and that just never felt like the tone that I wanted to hit or the ethos that I wanted to drive conversation with. I think that there are a lot of people who crave the original intention of the internet, which is to connect with other people — and when you carve out an intentional space for those kinds of conversations to happen in a way that’s thoughtful and nuanced and kind, people will come. You are well known for your love of Taylor wearing green. Please explain! When people ask me this I feel like I’m almost disappointing with like, a very boring and underwhelming answer — which is, I just think she looks really pretty! (Laughs) I just think that she looks great in that color, and every time I see it, it makes my heart really happy. Luckily for me, she’s had quite a number of amazing moments in green; there’s like an entire sidebar dedicated to some of my favorite Taylor in green moments in the book. The most relevant from this year was the peridot green Gucci gown from the Golden Globes, which was fantastic.
Taylor Swift at the 81st Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Gilbert Flores/Golden Globes 2024
I was very into that long-sleeved crushed velvet green dress she wore out that everyone was very sure was Rep-coded… The Little Lies dress from January, yeah. Here’s the thing: I strongly believe that that outfit was an Easter egg, but it was an intentional misdirect, because — stay with me — [as part of] the Tortured Poets rollout, there was coding in the backend of her website that [when unscrambled] said “red herring.” She’s now comfortable enough playing with fashion, not only as a tool to reflect what’s coming next or her state of mind or her emotions or a vibe about a project, but also to intentionally mislead, because she’s aware that people will pick up on things.
And I believe that she had intentionally been using Reputation (Taylor’s Version) as a red herring, so that nobody would suspect that the bait-and-switch would be a new album, The Tortured Poets Department. Because how much more obvious can you get, wearing a green velvet dress and pairing it with Giuseppe Zanotti boots that have snakes on them? For once, I didn’t think that was a leap — I was like, “I think we are correctly interpreting what we are seeing with our eyes!” (Laughs) She just wanted us to be wrong, which is her right! It’s interesting to see how your readers react to different looks of hers. I noticed that there were very divided reactions to her wearing obvious logos on the recent weekend in New York when she and Travis were photographed together a lot. Why do you think that was? A logo-covered item [a Gucci shift dress Swift wore out] stuck out to my eye, because it’s not typical of her to go for something so ostentatiously branded, so I think it was just surprising to see her, you know, fully Gucci-fied for that particular outing. Especially because one signature of Taylor’s fashion is the high-low — she loves pairing like, a Reformation dress with, say, Louis Vuitton or Christian Louboutin heels, creating this balanced mix of aspirational and attainable, while still looking overall very relatable. So to wear something so obviously luxury-branded stuck out to a lot of people’s eyes. Are there particular eras when you think Taylor’s music and fashion aesthetics have matched especially well – and, conversely, when they’ve felt more incongruous with each other? I think that debut made perfect sense. Folklore and evermore make perfect sense to me. It’s hard for 1989; I look at it and I’m like, yeah, that makes perfect sense — it was her major breakthrough into pop music and so she had this, like, pop girl uniform of crop top and skirt — but also she briefly kind of introduced 1989 as, like, this ’80s album, which it’s not…. so debut and folklore feel more cohesive to me. I really loved how the Reputation fashion captured the duality of the album: I talk about it in the book, but obviously she kind of beats you over the head up front with a lot of leather and snakeskin and camo and combat boots, it’s very clearly a bombastic, quote-unquote revenge album, but then she accompanies it with softer sequins and rainbows and sparkles, kind of the signature Taylor Swift soft feminine aesthetic, which is appropriate for Reputation too, because underneath all of that, it is a falling in love album. For a lot of people, the most incongruous is probably Midnights — a lot of people were confused by this ‘70s aesthetic, like this smoky, hazy, wood scratched floors and vinyl and patchouli scented air…..and then this huge kind of return to shiny pop. Though I think I’ve come around to making sense of it I really like the Midnights album photo shoot visuals quite a lot. A big part of seeing Taylor publicly these days is seeing her with Travis — someone who’s intentional about dressing in maybe a very different way — and of course seeing their individual styles juxtaposed. Do you feel they’re complementary, or even rubbing off on each other in interesting ways? So that’s interesting…do you think that Travis dresses intentionally, or do you think that Travis just thinks fashion is fun?
Taylor Swift arrives at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium prior to a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 15, 2024 in Kansas City, Missouri.
Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Hmm, interesting question. I guess there’s a difference. I do think he finds it fun… I think that there’s a clear difference between somebody who thinks that fashion is a fun thing to play with and to experiment with, and somebody who’s intentionally using fashion as an extension of their artistry and messaging and communication. And I think Travis falls into the fashion is fun [camp]. Having somebody around who obviously injects what she said about him at the VMAs — like, magic and happiness and rainbows and puppies — having that sense of lightness in her life is obviously fun to see, as a fan. But I think watching her show up to Chiefs games has been a fascinating extension of her style, in that it’s the first time that I am analyzing her fashion and her choices not through the lens of “what does this say about her” but in her playing entirely a supporting role. And that’s her choosing Kansas City based businesses, women-owned businesses, choosing vintage — all of those careful, thoughtful, intentional choices kind of create this foundation of “I’m here as a supporting person. I am here to ‘Woooo!’” And I love how she’s made that clear. To me it’s a very clear delineation in her style that still feels very Taylor — like, cute little plaid skirt, little vintage Chiefs sweatshirt? That feels like a very Taylor outfit! It’s very clearly a “I am not the main character” outfit, but the core of the outfit is very recognizably Taylor. She still retains this semblance of recognizability, and I think that that’s one thing that she does incredibly well in all aspects of her branding and her fashion: even as she evolves as an artist, as a person, you can still see her as a human.
On this week’s (Sept. 6) episode of the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century podcast, we take a look at a pair of rap savants: mixtape phenom turned Queen of Rap Nicki Minaj, and polarizing superstar turned reliable veteran hitmaker Eminem. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news First, host […]
As he continues on his trek around North America with Charli XCX, Troye Sivan stopped by Billboard News on Friday (Oct. 4) to take a look back at his latest musical era.
In the interview, Sivan reflects on his time creating and releasing Something to Give Each Other, his third studio album that arrived on Oct. 13, 2023. The project’s first single “Rush” gave Sivan his highest-charting solo release since 2015’s “Youth,” reaching No. 77 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated July 29, 2023.
“I’m so used to releasing music to this group of people that I love that have been with me for like 10-plus years at this point, and then all of a sudden, this was so much wider than that,” he says. “I didn’t expect that. I hoped for it, always, but it was really, really cool.”
But with attention came some criticism — upon its release, the “Rush” music video came under fire for its failure to include diverse body types. But, as Sivan points out, he had learned how to handle online critics thanks to a decade of his career already spent on the Internet.
“I think one of the perks of being chronically online since I was 10, basically, is that I kind of understand how the online conversation moves and changes,” he explains. “[I know] when to listen, when to not listen — because it’s important to protect your sanity. Listening, learning and engaging in conversation, while also knowing when something is just somebody sitting in their basement and trolling just to troll … having an understanding of how to navigate that has been really helpful.”
Sivan also spoke about filming the music video for the album’s other breakout hit “One of Your Girls,” in which the star dressed up in full drag while giving Austin & Ally star Ross Lynch a steamy lap dance. Describing the single as his “favorite song on the album,” Sivan says he wanted the track to serve as the “centerpiece” of Something to Give Each Other with an eye-catching video.
“I didn’t even really think about it as me doing drag; I thought about it as me being a woman,” he says with a laugh. “It was a crazy experience, and I think the biggest risk was, ‘What if I look super busted?’ I’d never done drag before, I’d never worn makeup like that or had a wig like that. So, we did a test the day before … and by the end of the test, I felt good about it.”
After having a groundbreaking 2023, Sivan is now bringing the album to U.S. audiences on the Sweat Tour with Charli XCX. Speaking about his longtime friend and collaborator, Sivan says that he’s proud to share the stage with someone who is actively shifting the culture of pop music in real time.
“Seeing her win has just been one of the greatest pleasures of the last year for me, especially seeing her win at something where it’s Charli at her most Charli,” he says. “She’s always had that power in her, and always had that vision — [she’s] just been waiting for culture to catch up to her. It’s been so rewarding to watch.”
Check out Troye Sivan’s full interview with Billboard News above.