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Jade Thirlwall had auditioned for The X-Factor twice as a teen and was just not feeling it when the third time came around in 2011. Luckily, her older brother pressed her to give it one more try, which led to the 31-year-old singer being grouped with her future Little Mix bandmates, launching her into global superstardom.
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“I couldn’t be bothered because I was with a crappy boyfriend, and I was like, ‘Oh, I just want to hang out with him.’ I just didn’t know if it was realistic anymore,” Thirlwall told People magazine about last shot at the Factor when she was 15. “I was going to do an art degree for theater production and stuff. Then, my older brother was like, ‘Just go one more time. You never know what’s going to happen. You’ve got nothing to lose.’ I was like, ‘Fine.’ I went, and then I got put in Little Mix, so thank God.”
It was in that season that she was teamed up with Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Perrie Edwards and Jesy Nelson, with Little Mix going on to become one of the most successful winners in the show’s history and landing five No. 1 singles on the UK charts along with 19 top tens. The group went on hiatus in 2022 so that the members of the Brit Award-winning act could pursue solo projects, and Thirlwall told the magazine that she if fully ready to present her new vision to the world.
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The singer — who goes by Jade for her solo work — is off to a good start after landing a top 10 hit in the U.K. with her propulsive dance pop debut solo single “Angel of My Dreams” this summer, followed by kink-celebrating disco track “Fantasy” and the electro grinder “Midnight Cowboy,” co-written by RAYE. All three songs will appear on Jade’s upcoming, as-yet-untitled debut solo album, which is due out net year.
“You can really hear through the tracks that I’m trying to find who I am as an artist on my own,” she said. “I wanted to let fans in on that experience because it’s the truth.” Thirlwall said the inspiration behind her new single “Fantasy” was simple: “sex, darling.” The original idea was to write a love song, but in her own unique way, which led to the track on which she sings, “Passion, pain/ Pleasure, no shame/ If you like it weird, I like it strange/ It’s a fantasy, babe.”
“I wanted this liberating concept of feeling like you’ve found the right person that you can explore all your sexual fantasies with, a safe space for whatever you’re into. I’ve not seen much of that, actually, especially from a woman,” she said of the song that “heavily references” her 1970s disco-era sheroes Diana Ross and Donna Summer, but reflected in her own unique disco ball fashion.
Feeling more liberated and able to lean into more overtly sexy themes than in the innuendo-trafficking Little Mix, Thirlwall went all-in on the song’s promotion, releasing a line of “kinky merchandise” that she expected her team to reject. “Thankfully everyone was onboard,” she said, noting that the line of edible underwear, lubricant and sex toys was also originally going to include condoms, before she worried that it was too risky if, for some reason, they failed during use.
Thirlwall said she wanted the three songs released so far to reflect the “chaos of the record,” explaining, “You would not expect each song to come after the next. That’s definitely the vibe. I just want to show everyone a little taste of each part of me before the album comes next year.” She described the full LP as “quite experimental,” saying you can hear her trying to find her solo artistic groove on them. “I wanted to let fans in on that experience because it’s the truth. I’ve spent three years writing an array of so many different kinds of songs, and I want the unexpected twists and turns along the way,” she said. “I only get one debut solo album. Why not just do whatever I want?”
While she’s still putting the finishing touches on the album, Thirlwall said she can’t wait for her fans to hear it. “I’ve lived with it for a long time, so it kills me when fans are asking online, ‘What’s this clip? I’ve heard this might be the title of a song.’ I just want to blurt it all out and tell everyone, but I can’t,” she said. At press time a release date had not yet been announced for the album.
Mariah Carey has a million reasons to be thankful this holiday season. In fact, the Queen of Christmas has 16 million reasons according to the RIAA, which recently announced that Carey’s yuletide classic single, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” has been certified 16x Platinum. The perennial holiday favorite — which was once again […]
The lineup for Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2025 has added a galaxy of stars to this year’s lineup. The West Coast portion of the show will include Alanis Morissette with special guest Reneé Rapp, as well as Dasha, DJ Cassidy’s “Pass the Mic Live!” with Ja Rule, Fat Joe, Slick […]
James Taylor is hitting the road next summer with his all-star band for an extensive 2025 North American tour. The 23-date outing will feature support from vocal harmony trio Tiny Habits, with a presale for the show slated to open today (Dec. 10) at 10 a.m. local time; a JamesTaylor.com account is required in order to participate in the presale.
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The tour is slated to kick off on May 5 with a show at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, AZ, followed by amphitheater gigs in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Milwaukee, Cincinnati and Toronto before winding down at the BankNH Pavilion in Gilford, N.H. on July 1. The outing will feature a few double-downs, including a pair of nights at the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park in San Diego, a pair at the Santa Barbara Bowl in Santa Barbara, CA, two at the Chateau St. Michelle Winery in Seattle, WA and a double-night run at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO.
A Live Nation presale for select dates will kick off on Wednesday (Dec. 11) at 10 a.m. local time here (use code JOY). The general onsale will begin on Friday (Dec. 13) at 10 a.m. local time through Ticketmaster. According to Taylor’s announcement, more dates will be announced soon.
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The 76-year-old James is headed back on the road after a busy 2024, which found him hitting amphitheaters across the U.S. and playing a benefit Concert for Carolina in October to raise funds for North Carolinians impacted by Hurricane Helene, as well as performing at the DNC and at a Kamala Harris/Tim Walz rally in October.
See James Taylor’s 2025 U.S. summer tour dates below:
May 5 — Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint CenterMay 7 — Palm Desert, CA @ Acrisure ArenaMay 8 — Highland, CA @ Yaamava TheaterMay 10 — San Diego, CA @ Rady ShellMay 11 — San Diego, CA @ Rady ShellMay 13 — Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara BowlMay 14 — Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara BowlMay 16 — Stanford, CA @ Frost AmphitheaterMay 17 — Lincoln, CA @ The Venue at Thunder ValleyMay 19 — Bend, OR @ Hayden Homes AmphitheatreMay 21 — Nampa, ID @ Ford AmphitheaterMay 23 — Ridgefield, WA @ RV Inn Style Resorts AmphitheatreMay 25 — Seattle, WA @ Chateau St. Michelle WineryMay 26 — Seattle, WA @ Chateau St. Michelle WineryJune 13 — Morrison, CO @ Red RocksJune 14 — Morrison, CO @ Red RocksJune 17 — St. Paul, MN @ Xcel CenterJune 19 — Highland Park, IL @ RaviniaJune 21 — Milwaukee, WI @ SummerfestJune 23 — Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend AmphitheaterJune 24 — Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music CenterJune 27 — Toronto, ON @ Budweiser StageJune 29 — Canandaigua, NY @ CMACJuly 1 — Gilford, NH @ BankNH Pavilion
Lana Del Rey may have a lot to thank Jack Antonoff for when it comes to music, but in a speech at the Variety Hitmakers ceremony over the weekend, the 39-year-old pop star revealed that she’s actually most grateful for the way the producer inspired her to get married to husband Jeremy Dufrene. While presenting […]
Composer/producer Charlie Calello knew he was in the presence of something special when he began working on the landmark Eli and the Thirteenth Confession album with Laura Nyro early in 1968.
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“I first heard it in the studio; she played me the entire record…and I was dumbfounded,” Calello, who co-produced the album with Nyro, tells Billboard. “I’d never heard anything like it and still haven’t heard anything as good. There was never a record that was actually written by a composer who displayed her emotions and her feelings the way she did.”
Nyro’s musical legacy, complex and underappreciated, is being celebrated with the recent release of Hear My Song: The Collection 1966-1995, a limited-edition box set from Britain’s Madfish Records. It includes Nyro’s 10 studio albums, along with six live albums (two previously unreleased), the 1966 demo tape that landed her first recording contract at the age of 18 and a Live & Rarities disc including more demos, alternative versions, outtakes and live tracks. The collection also comes with a coffee-table sized book of liner notes by Vivien Goldman, a foreword by Elton John and remembrances from Calello, Jackson Browne, Clive Davis, Lou Adler, John Sebastian and others.
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The Bronx-born Nyro possessed a three-octave voice and was best known for songs such as “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “And When I Die” and “Stoney End” — which were turned into hits when covered by the Fifth Dimension, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Barbra Streisand. In addition to music Nyro was an avid feminist and animal rights activist. She passed away April 8, 1997 from ovarian cancer at the age of 49 (her mother died of the same disease, at the same age 22 years earlier) and was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2010) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2012).
In his foreword, John calls Nyro “one of my all time idols. She wrote songs that had no kind of fixed compass point, they had different sections, codas and various tempo changes. They remain as unique and absolutely spellbinding to this day as when I first heard them in the ‘60s…. She was a giant of a songwriter who sadly didn’t have the legacy and recognition she deserved during the years she was with us.”
Calello, who also co-produced Nyro’s 1976 album Smile, echoes John’s praise about Nyro’s fusion of pop, jazz, R&B and gospel. “The whole thing did not glue together from a pop standpoint,” he explains, “but yet when you collectively put it together, it was its own thing. It had all of those elements — it had the R&B, it had that jazz, all of it — and it also had the honesty she looked for. And also she would rein it in when things seemed to be getting out of control. It was really an amazing experience seeing her arrive at those conclusions.”
For Nyro’s son Gil Bianchini, Hear My Song is a welcome chronicle of his mother’s artistry. “I think it’s a great reminder of a real talent,” says Bianchini, a rapper who records under the moniker Gil-T. He’s also an associate producer of an upcoming documentary that’s in production with director Lisa D’Apolito (Love, Gilda), with no release date yet. “For people who sit down and really listen to the music…it’s not just a melody or a hook or whatever. I just think it’s a great collection of something that’s real and positive, but also something that’s reality-based and can really inspire. It’s a beautiful thing.”
The Hear My Song box set was produced by James Batsford, pulling together catalogs primarily from Sony Music and Concord/Craft, as well as from the Nyro Estate. It’s an outgrowth from a 2020 vinyl box set of Nyro’s Columbia Records recordings, and Batsford says that the CD package “gave us more room to be expansive and tell her story. It wasn’t a completest mentality; it’s more, ‘What are the touchstones of her career, and how can we bring it in an interesting way and include the best possible material out there?’ It’s not just, ‘What can we get our hands on?’ but ‘What’s the best we can get our hands on?’ and bring them together in one place.”
And when it comes to Nyro, Batsford adds, there’s quite a bit that can be considered best-possible.
“I’ve gotten deeper and deeper into her over the years from working on these records, and it astounds me how my favorite record changes from month to month,” he says. “She’s just such a great (artist). Your taste evolves with listening to her records. She’s just timeless.”
Producer Calello says he’s particularly happy Hear My Music includes a wealth of live material, including a pair of previously unreleased concerts from San Francisco in 1994, while Nyro was touring to promote her final album, 1993’s Walk The Dog & Light The Light. “You see the growth of her as a performer,” he says. “When I made Eli she didn’t want to tour; she was really afraid of the audience. But by the ‘80s she had gotten to the point where she loved performing and there was an energy. You could hear the growth and joy, and the performances are simply amazing.”
The 2013 release Live at Carnegie Hall: The Classic 1976 Radio Broadcast was not included, however, due to rights issues.
Batsford, meanwhile, says there’s more coming from the Nyro vaults. He’s planning a vinyl reissue of 2001’s posthumous Angel in the Dark during April on his own New Land Records. Looking ahead, Batsford promises that “there are some bits and pieces I can’t talk about yet. I’m aware of some rarities that exist that I’d love to help to bring to the public at some point. There is still stuff out there that wasn’t possible this time around but are things that will excite people down the line.”
Normani’s years-in-the-making debut album arrived with Dopamine earlier this year, but the 28-year-old revealed she’s not planning to make fans wait that long again with her sophomore LP. In an interview with Rolling Stone at Spotify’s Wrapped party, Normani opened up about her plans to release another album in 2025. “Putting lots more music out, […]
Following the final show of the Eras tour, a comparison between its opening and closing, and how Swift’s biggest live show evolved over time.
Gracie Abrams isn’t done yet. Just one day after wrapping her stint as an opener on Taylor Swift‘s blockbuster Eras Tour in Vancouver Sunday (Dec. 8), the 25-year-old pop star announced a new run of North American headlining tour dates slated for 2025 in support of her The Secret of Us deluxe edition. In an […]
She’s just kidding — but really. Sabrina Carpenter recently made a surprise appearance on vocal coach Eric Vetro’s BBC Maestro course Sing Like the Stars and opened up about the inspiration behind her smash hit “Please Please Please,” which she said is very much non-fiction.
While talking about her approach to songwriting with Vetro, the 25-year-old pop star shared that she, “was so excited when I wrote that song, because it felt like a fraction of me that I had been waiting to not only write, but to put out and then perform.”
“Then it just it [made] me so excited for the rest of the project, because it feels very aligned with all the music I grew up listening to that I love, but also very much myself,” she continued. “And that song was obviously based on real-life events.”
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The discussion of the song came just days after reports emerged that Carpenter and boyfriend actor Barry Keoghan have split after about a year of dating. The Saltburn star deactivated his Instagram account before posting a statement on X Saturday (Dec. 7), explaining that he “can no longer let this stuff distract me from my family and work.”
“My name has been dragged across the internet in ways I usually don’t respond [to],” added Keoghan, who is a father to a young son named Brando. “I have to respond now because it’s gettin to a place where there are too many lines being crossed … Absolute lies, hatred, disgusting commentary about my appearance, character, how I am as a parent and every other inhumane thing you can imagine.”
Many fans believe Carpenter penned “Please Please Please” about the Banshees of Inisherin actor, especially after he starred alongside his then-girlfriend in the Short n’ Sweet track’s music video. The Jack-Antonoff-produced Billboard Hot 100-topper finds the Tall Girl actress literally pleading with a love interest to act respectably, singing, “Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another/ I beg you, don’t embarrass me, motherf–ker.”
“Please Please Please” is also one of the closing numbers on Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet Tour, which wrapped its North American leg in November. The star — whose holiday special A Nonsense Christmas dropped on Netflix Dec. 6 — will hit the road again in Europe in March.
Watch Carpenter reflect on writing “Please Please Please” below.
Exclusive: #SabrinaCarpenter makes a surprise appearance on singing coach Eric Vetro’s ‘BBC Maestro’ course, talking about writing the viral hit “Please Please Please” from her latest album ‘Short n’ Sweet’.”That song was obviously based on real-life events.” pic.twitter.com/QpEvaj4UXe— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 9, 2024