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Katy Perry raised some Katy Kats’ eyebrows on Monday (Nov. 7) when the singer posted a thumbs-up picture from the voting booth in California in which she is smiling after voting for longtime republican-turned-democrat Rick Caruso in the bruising race for Los Angeles mayor. “I am voting for a myriad of reasons (see the news) but in particular because Los Angeles is a hot mess atm,” Perry wrote in the caption, which featured a series of hashtags, including one hyping billionaire real estate developer Caruso while adding the lengthy “#doyoubutjustuseyourvoteok.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, Caruso cut into Rep. Karen Bass’ lead in the days leading up to Tuesday’s (Nov. 8) vote, after spending $26 million on attack ads that sowed doubt about the six-time congresswoman, who the paper said had garnered “overwhelming support” among the city’s strong liberal voting base; the Times noted that Caruso had spent nearly $100 million on the race to date.
Perry — who performed at democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton’s DNC gathering in 2016 — joined Kim Kardashian, Snoop Dogg, Gwyneth Paltrow, new Twitter boss Elon Musk and Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt in backing Caruso, a move that rubbed some commenters the wrong way given her past support for reproductive rights; Caruso has donated to anti-abortion organizations and politicians in the past and reportedly pledged $1 million to support abortion rights proposition, but has yet to donate any of those funds.
The businessman-turned-politicians has also been criticized for his time as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for USC during the time that gynecologist George Tyndall was allowed to leave the university in the face of dozens of accusations of sexual misconduct. The L.A. Times reported last month that investigators questioned Caruso in 2020 about what information the university had about Tyndall and that the candidate “refused to answer many questions, on the advice of USC’s legal team.”
Diplo headlined a Caruso-sponsored get out the vote campaign event on Friday at the El Rey Theatre along with Sofia Reyes; the event was put on by Billboard parent company Penske Media Corporation.
While Perry turned off comments on her socials, that didn’t stop a slew of unfavorable reactions to the post about Caruso, who changed his party affiliation a month before entering the race. A spokesperson for Perry had not returned requests for comment at press time.
“This just shows you just how bad things have gotten. That a celebrity would not only vote R — but then publicly post it is something else. You could say the energy is shifting,” read one reaction, with another commenter writing, “katy perry tweeting out a pro-choice video while voting for rick caruso would be objectively hilarious if it wasn’t painfully dumb.”
“As much as the right try to spin it, Katy Perry voting for Rick Caruso is not an indication of anything other than a rich white woman voting for a fake democrat who will ultimately have no effect on the quality of her life but will worsen the lives of many others,” read a fiery tweet. One person weighed in by focusing more on the candidates than Perry’s celebrity. “Katy Perry voting for Rick Caruso for LA Mayor is incredibly disappointing,” they wrote of the seeming missed opportunity to support the candidate who could be the city’s first female mayor. “Please vote Karen Bass a community oriented politician not a businessman with a redundant platform on homelessness and and a history of donating to anti-choice orgs and initiatives.”
Caruso went viral last month after a mayoral debate when he insisted he wasn’t white, but Italian, which he equated with being “Latin.” The odd answer came after an anchor from Telemundo noted that the city’s next mayor could be either “an African-American woman or a white man,” to which Caruso replied, “I’m Italian,” a statement that NBC news said drew “harsh reaction, from scorn to mockery.”
Some of the comments aimed at Perry got a bit personal, with a fan asking why the singer voted so “openly” for Caruso, besides her claim that L.A. is a “hot mess.” “You have a voice. You don’t owe it to anyone but I’ve followed you through all your political stands,” they said. “We marched in the same Women’s March together.. what’s the logic?”
Bass has also garnered support from some A-listers, including John Legend, Steven Spielberg, Ariana Grande and Donald Glover, among others.
Check out Perry’s voting photo and some of the reactions below.
Katy Perry voting for Republican Rick Caruso for LA MayorThis just shows you just how bad things have gotten. That a celebrity would not only vote R — but then publicly post it is something else. You could say the energy is shifting. pic.twitter.com/CHhcVa1W1L— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) November 7, 2022
katy perry tweeting out a pro-choice video while voting for rick caruso would be objectively hilarious if it wasn’t painfully dumb. https://t.co/n6JehiZqpa— Kyler Bondura (@KyKobra) November 8, 2022
As much as the right try to spin it, Katy Perry voting for Rick Caruso is not an indication of anything other than a rich white woman voting for a fake democrat who will ultimately have no effect on the quality of her life but will worsen the lives of many others.— Travon (@Travon) November 8, 2022
Y’all, Katy Perry voting for Rick Caruso should be the least surprising thing that happens today. She grew up in Santa Barbara, her parents were local televangelists, she came from money and is a millionaire. What did you think she was gonna do?— Malynda Hale (@MalyndaHale) November 8, 2022
When Katy Perry, Chris Pratt, and other LA millionaires say they’re voting for Caruso because he’ll clean things up, they’re not talking about helping people or alleviating poverty. It’s about bleaching the existence of poor people from their sight lines by any means necessary.— Jesse Mechanic (@JMechanic) November 8, 2022
Katy Perry voting for Rick Caruso for LA Mayor is incredibly disappointing.Please vote Karen Bass a community oriented politician not a businessman with a redundant platform on homelessness and and a history of donating to anti-choice orgs and initiatives— Pat Lovelace (@patluvlace) November 8, 2022
don’t listen to the kardashians or katy perry— don’t vote for rick caruso— DO vote for karen bass any celeb you see propping up rick caruso is an alleged class solidarist, permitting a wolf in sheep’s clothing against actual progress to further warp our society’s current state.— PARODYGIRL (@BIBLEGIRL222) November 7, 2022
If there’s a short list of actresses who might play Britney Spears in a biopic someday, Millie Bobby Brown wants on it. In a Monday (Nov. 7) interview on The Drew Barrymore show, the 18-year-old actress confessed that her dream role is none other than the “Toxic” singer.
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“I want to play a real person,” she told Barrymore, who’d asked what was on the Enola Holmes star’s career bucket list. “I think for me … Britney, it would be Britney Spears.”
Brown was first launched into superstardom in 2016 when she debuted as fan-favorite character Eleven on Stranger Things, which is easily one of Netflix’s most successful original shows to date. That means she became internationally famous at just 12 years old, an experience she thinks would help inform her potential portrayal of Spears, who herself was just a teenager when debut single “Baby One More Time” blew up.
“I think her story, first of all, resonates with me,” the Emmy nominee told Barrymore, who is, of course, also familiar with the reality of being a child star. “Growing up in the public eye, watching her videos, watching interviews of her when she was young.”
“I mean, same thing with you, I see the scramble for words,” added Brown. “And I don’t know her, but when I look at pictures of her, I feel like I could tell her story in the right way — and hers only.”
If a Britney biopic doesn’t pan out, though, there is another pop star who’d love to be portrayed by the Godzilla actress. Earlier this year, Halsey gave MBB her stamp of approval during an appearance on The Tonight Show after Fallon pointed out how similar the two of them look.
“Millie would be great,” the “Without Me” singer said. “But I don’t really think I’m famous enough to cast Millie … It’s kind of uncanny how much we look alike. It’s like, ‘Oh no, we actually just look like sisters.’”
And while Halsey may not think they’re famous enough to book Brown, the Florence by Mills founder doesn’t seem to agree. Posting a clip of the Fallon interview on her Instagram story, she simply wrote: “Sooooo down.”
You can keep calling Jennifer Lopez by her birth name, but as far as “Jenny From the Block” is concerned, she’s Jennifer Lynn Affleck from now on, thank you very much. “People are still going to call me Jennifer Lopez. But my legal name will be Mrs. Affleck because we’re joined together. We’re husband and wife. I’m proud of that. I don’t think that’s a problem,” the actress/singer tells Vogue magazine in a Dec. cover story about her decision to take the last name of husband actor Ben Affleck after their wedding this summer.
When the writer joked that given her boss status as dancer-turned-singer-turned-actress-turned-mogul and female empowerment icon, wouldn’t it be more appropriate for Batffleck to take her name? “No! It’s not traditional. It doesn’t have any romance to it,” said Lopez, 53. “It feels like it’s a power move, you know what I mean? I’m very much in control of my own life and destiny and feel empowered as a woman and as a person. I can understand that people have their feelings about it, and that’s okay, too. But if you want to know how I feel about it, I just feel like it’s romantic. It still carries tradition and romance to me, and maybe I’m just that kind of girl.”
The news about Lopez’s name-change slipped out in a fly-by moment near the top of the profile, when the writer noted that on the set of her upcoming Netflix sci-fi drama, Atlas, they spotted a green neon sign in her on-set private tent that was a gift from the crew which read “Mrs. Affleck.”
The story also touches on the walls Lopez has had to build around herself over the past quarter century after initially charging into the spotlight with a Jenny From the Bronx attitude that made her believe she could say or do anything. But after the torrent of racist and sexist blowback she endured during her first go-round with Affleck, 50 — which ended in 2004 with their broken-off engagement — Lopez said round two came with some well-earned wisdom.
“We were so young and so in love at that time, really very carefree, with no kids, no attachments. And we were just living our lives, being happy and out there,” she said of their two-year run from 2002-2004, which came after the end of her year-long second marriage to former back-up dancer Cris Judd. “It didn’t feel like we needed to hide from anybody or be real discreet. We were just living out loud, and it turned out to really bite us. There was a lot underneath the surface there, people not wanting us to be together, people thinking I wasn’t the right person for him.”
Because of the intense scrutiny, Lopez said she put up a kind of “force field” around herself, which caused her to become “very guarded because I realized that they will fillet you. I really wish I could say more. I used to be like that. I am like that. But I’ve also learned.” The reunion was not a surprise, certainly not to Lopez, who suggested to the writer that she’d always secretly kept a love light burning for the actor. Their second take seemingly kicked off when she got an email from Affleck shortly after her busted engagement to baseball player Alex Rodriguez was announced in March 2021 in which the Tender Bar star gave her a head’s up that he highly praised her in a quote for a magazine about his ex-love.
That reach-out began a slow-rolling back-and-forth that rekindled their relationship, in private, of course. “Obviously we weren’t trying to go out in public,” she said. “But I never shied away from the fact that for me, I always felt like there was a real love there, a true love there. People in my life know that he was a very, very special person in my life. When we reconnected, those feelings for me were still very real.”
Her 12-year trip back to Affleck had begun before the reach-out, though, following the 2012 dissolution of her 10-year marriage to singer Marc Anthony — with whom she shares twin children — when she released a few poorly selling albums and took a gig as a judge on American Idol to pay her bills. The job turned out to be a prescient move that helped revive her career, even as it made Lopez realize what she’d been missing.
“It was like, Oh! That’s all I had to do this whole time was be myself? Although it was a competition, it was a reality show,” she said of her first time keeping it real on TV. “Up until then we only had what the media was telling you about me. I loved meeting the kids because I so identified with their dreams — I just loved it. There were a lot of things that people saw through that show, but more than anything I think they saw my heart, that I was a cool, funny person, that I was a nice person. No matter how many awards shows you do or late-night talk show couches you sit on, people feel like you’re putting something on. With a reality show, you can’t hide behind a script or a four-minute interview. You’re out there.”
To be clear, Lopez wouldn’t recommend her twisted romantic path with Affleck for everyone. “Sometimes you outgrow each other, or you just grow differently. The two of us, we lost each other and found each other,” she explained of their unpredictable path. “Not to discredit anything in between that happened, because all those things were real too. All we’ve ever wanted was to kind of come to a place of peace in our lives where we really felt that type of love that you feel when you’re very young and wonder if you can have that again. Does it exist? Is it real? All those questions that I think everyone has. You go through all these relationships, and you’re searching and you’re connecting and you’re disconnecting with people, and you’re like, God, is this just what life is? Like a carousel, roller coaster, carnival ride? And then it settles. But the journey to that is the mystery for everybody.”
In a rare public statement, Affleck said that the way Lopez has stayed the same over the years is almost as important to him as how she’s changed and evolved in the past two decades. “There is something innately, magically kind and good and full of love at the heart of who Jennifer is. That’s exactly the person I remember from 20 years ago,” he said. “Maybe she sees all the changes she’s made, whereas when I see her, mostly I just see someone who has retained, against the odds, the thing about her that always made her the most incredible to me: a heart that seems boundless with love. She is my idea of the kind of person I want to be.”
The piece also notes that Lopez is working on her first new album in nearly a decade, an as-yet-untitled work that is described as a “kind of bookend to This is Me … Then,” the 2002 album she released during the early days of her first Affleck romance. The collection is described by Lopez as the “most honest” work she’s ever done, “kind of a culmination of who I am as a person and an artist. People think they know things about what happened to me along the way, the men I was with — but they really have no idea, and a lot of times they get it so wrong. There’s a part of me that was hiding a side of myself from everyone. And I feel like I’m at a place in my life, finally, where I have something to say about it.”
The tracks on the album, whose release date has not yet been revealed, are described as “plaintive, confessional songs, reflections on the trials of her past, upbeat jams celebrating love and sex.”
Check out the Vogue cover below.
Jennifer Lopez on the cover of Vogue.
Annie Leibovitz/Vogue
As of right now, Taylor Swift isn’t going to be making a cameo in the next Deadpool movie — but never say never. Ryan Reynolds, who stars in the franchise’s titular role, gushed about the pop star in a Tuesday (Nov. 8) interview and said that the door is always open for her to join the cast.
“Are you kidding me?” the actor told Entertainment Tonight at a red carpet event for his new film Spirited when asked whether he’d consider casting Swift. “I would do anything for that woman. She’s a genius.”
Reynolds and Blake Lively, his wife and fellow Hollywood superstar, have been friends with the 11-time Grammy winner for years. Swift famously included each of the names of the couple’s three daughters — James, Inez and Betty — in her Folklore single “Betty,” and featured an audio clip of James’ voice in her Reputation track “Gorgeous.”
Last year, the “Anti-Hero” singer even went trick-or-treating with the Reynolds-Lively clan dressed up as a squirrel. And in 2016, she borrowed Reynolds’ actual Deadpool suit for her Halloween costume.
With Swift being such a close family friend, it’s basically a given that the Free Guy star, Lively and their three children (soon to be four!) are loving Midnights just as much as the rest of the world. Reynolds told ET that they’re “obsessed” with Swift’s newest record, which has sold nearly 2 million album units and has set unprecedented chart records since dropping Oct. 21.
“Oh my God, yes,” Reynolds said. “All of us, whole house, I’m not kidding. I love it so much. I do, Blake does, my daughters. We love it. Obsessed.”
He’d also spoken about his family’s love for Swift with SiriusXM’s Jess Cagle a day prior, confessing that he’d be joining Lively and the kids for a “Midnights dance party” on the porch right after the interview concluded. “That’s like a religion in our house,” he shared.
“I think what’s most exciting for them is that for the longest time, they just thought Taylor’s like an aunt, like a friend of Mommy and Daddy that’s very, very close, almost family,” Reynolds added. “And then they went to a concert one day and were like, ‘Oh, oh this isn’t a hobby.’”
Check out Ryan Reynolds’ SiriusXM interview below.
If you’ve seen a musical — or, well, anything involving music onstage or onscreen — in the past decade or so, chances are high that Tom Kitt had something to do with it.
The composer, lyricist, musical director, music supervisor, arranger and orchestrator has inhabited one or more of those roles for projects as diverse as Grease: Live!, the Pitch Perfect films (yes, you have him to thank for the “riff-off”), the musical adaptations of Bring It On, SpongeBob SquarePants, Jagged Little Pill and American Idiot. In 2009, he won a Tony Award for his score for the musical Next to Normal, which in 2010 also won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and though he’s comfortable writing in any number of idioms, he’s become especially well known since then for his keen understanding of how to organically integrate pop and rock sounds into a theater setting.
Right now, Kitt is, as usual, juggling multiple high-profile projects. Most notably, he wrote the score and, with Cameron Crowe, co-wrote the lyrics for the new musical adaptation of Crowe’s beloved film Almost Famous, which just opened on Broadway. He’s brought his vocal arranging expertise to the buzzy new dance musical Only Gold (playing off-Broadway at MCC Theater through Nov. 27) featuring the music of singer-songwriter Kate Nash. And in between, he managed to write a showstopper for a true icon — Elmo — in the new off-Broadway Sesame Street the Musical.
Kitt describes juggling his myriad projects with trademark calm. “Theater is the ultimate collaborative art form,” he says. “You’re always serving many other visions — it’s just a question of what you’re bringing to the project. As long as you’re in an exciting creative world, these [different] things can feed one another, and I don’t feel overwhelmed in any way.” Having worked on shows that have run the gamut of Broadway success, he has a healthy sense of the business’ realities, and has learned how to keep his creative priorities straight. “What’s most important is I’m expressing myself in ways that feel profound and exciting to me,” Kitt says. “I came into this art form so inspired by all the people currently writing, the legends who wrote for the theater. I wanted to be part of that history and hopefully have people say that Tom Kitt musicals have been a part of their life in important ways.”
Casey Likes and Solea Pfeiffer in Almost Famous.
Matt Murphy
Almost Famous
Though Kitt studied economics in college he dreamed of becoming a singer-songwriter and was heavily influenced by classic 1970s albums like Born to Run, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Piano Man —touchstones that came in handy for the moment in which Almost Famous takes place. “I get to now live in that sensibility as a composer and arranger,” Kitt says. The Almost Famous score is mostly Kitt’s original music but does incorporate iconic songs from the movie like Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” and Kitt’s job, in part, was “to make it feel like one voice, one score.”
While it may be Crowe’s first time as a Broadway lyricist, Kitt describes him as a natural. “Cameron already is a poet, a lyricist, just in terms of what he’s put into the world,” Kitt says, adding that the lines from Crowe’s movies are themselves “earworms.” As a writing team, “we found our groove right away,” Kitt continues. Crowe would send Kitt the starting thoughts for a song in various forms, and Kitt would start composing from there, with the two “batting it back and forth ‘til we both felt like we were saying what we wanted to say.”
Starting with Next to Normal, and in the years since, Kitt says, he’s learned that while pop music often adheres to a defined form, in theater a pop song needs to serve the plot above all, providing the audience with new information. “It’s about really keeping yourself honest and not just saying, ‘I’m gonna write a pop song and It’s gonna adhere to this form,’ so we feel like we’re building something and don’t stay in the same place, or get there too early.”
Only Gold
Choreographer and director Andy Blankenbuehler is a longtime friend of Kitt’s; the two collaborated on Bring it On: The Musical (a now cult-favorite that opened on Broadway in 2012). This past summer, Blankenbuehler asked Kitt’s recommendation on a vocal arranger for Only Gold, and he volunteered his own services. “Kate Nash is a brilliant writer,” Kitt says. “Her songs are filled with visceral energy and beauty, and you can see how they’re going to be theatrical.” His duties for the show mostly happened before he got into rehearsal with Almost Famous. Blankenbuehler broke down the show by song, filling Kitt in on who would be available to sing each and what kind of tonality he wanted from the vocal arrangements. “I had great guidance going in, and then you hear it in the room and discover new things,” Kitt says.
Jacob Guzman, Ahmad Simmons, Ryan VanDenBoom, Voltaire Wade-Greene, Hannah Cruz, and Reed Luplau in MCC Theater’s 2022 Production of ONLY GOLD
Daniel J. Vasquez
Sesame Street the Musical
In recent years, Kitt has composed for Sesame Street: he wrote a song for Cookie Monster called “If Me Had a Magic Wand,” and a spoof of a famous song from Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sunday in the Park With George called “Look I Made a Splat.” The call for Sesame Street the Musical came through his agent, and it was fairly simple. “They said, ‘We want to craft a big 11 o’clock-style number for Elmo,” Kitt recalls, “and I knew it was a song about imagination.” He thought about the sensibility of classic Sesame Street songs like “Sing,” and asked himself, “What’s something expressive in that world for me to write?” The end product channels the sweetly melodic, anthemic feel of the classics Kitt wanted to channel, but he didn’t hear Elmo sing it until opening night of the show, “and it was everything I hoped it would be. I mean, who doesn’t want to write a song for Elmo? I jumped at the chance.”
Friendship never ends! Four of the Spice Girls reunited over the weekend to celebrate Geri Halliwell’s belated 50th birthday.
In a video captured by David Beckham, his wife Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton and Mel C hit the dance floor with Ginger Spice as they all groove and sing along to their 1996 No. 1 hit “Say You’ll Be There.”
“Special celebrating Ginger this weekend and even more special to capture this moment of the girls…A friendship for Life,” the soccer star captioned the sweet video before giving a shout-out to the one missing member of the iconic girl group by adding, “@officialmelb you were missed” with a red heart emoji.
While Ginger Spice technically turned 50 back in early August, the pioneering pop stars’ get-together just so happened to coincide with the 25th anniversary of their sophomore album Spiceworld, which was originally released Nov. 3, 1997.
Ahead of the milestone, the girl group unveiled a new version of their iconic “Say You’ll Be There” music video complete with never-before-seen footage and an entirely new aesthetic.
And while the other Spice Girls are always working on convincing Victoria to join them on a reunion tour, Posh Spice did recently prove that the girl group’s discography remains her go-to for karaoke with an impromptu performance of “Stop” while on vacation over the summer.
Watch Ginger, Baby, Sporty and Posh get down to “Say You’ll Be There” below.
Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff took their history of musical collaboration to a new level on Monday (Nov. 7) when they unveiled a new version of the Midnights track “Anti-Hero,” featuring Antonoff’s solo project Bleachers.
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In the new version, Antonoff takes over the second verse, changing the viral “sexy baby” lyric to “art bro.” He sings, “Sometimes I feel like everybody is an art bro lately / And I just judge them on the hill / To hard to hang out talking s— about your famous baby / Pierce through the heart of 90s guilt.”
A sweet moment in the pre-chorus finds Swift singing, “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism / Like some kind of congressman,” before Antonoff assures her, “Taylor, you’ll be fine.”
In a post shared to Instagram announcing the new collaboration, Swift captioned a photo of the Grammy winning duo, “Jack’s version of ‘sexy baby’ is ‘art bro’ and we sincerely hope it confuses just as many people.”
Antonoff is credited with co-writing 11 of the 13 songs on the traditional version of Swift’s freshly released 10th studio album, Midnights, including the original version of “Anti-Hero.” In an Instagram post, Swift elaborated on the duo working on the project. “We’d been toying with ideas and had written a few things we loved, but Midnights actually really coalesced and flowed out of us when our partners (both actors) did a film together in Panama,” she wrote. “Jack and I found ourselves back in New York, alone, recording every night, staying up late and exploring old memories and midnights past.”
See Swift’s “Anti-Hero (featuring Bleachers)” announcement below.
Aaron Carter, a fixture of Y2K era pop music, died on Saturday (Nov. 5) at age 34. The singer, actor and TV personality passed away at his residence in Los Angeles. He is survived by his son, Prince.
In 1998, Carter — the younger brother of Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter — made his solo debut in America with Aaron Carter, featuring the singles “Crush on You,” Crazy Little Party Girl” and “I’m Gonna Miss You Forever.”
His follow-up album, Aaron’s Party (Come and Get It), was released in September 2000. Aaron’s Party peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and went triple platinum. It featured the singles “I Want Candy” and two Billboard Hot 100 hits, “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)” (No. 35) and “That’s How I Beat Shaq” (No. 95). He supported the album as an opening act for Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears on the Oops!… I Did It Again Tour. His third album, Oh Aaron, went platinum in 2001, and he has released two albums since then, most recently LØVË in 2018, where he had a writing credit on every track.
Carter also appeared in TV shows such as Lizzie McGuire, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and 7th Heaven. He made his Broadway debut in 2001 as JoJo the Who in Seussical the Musical and also enjoyed a long stint in the off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks. In a 2019 interview with Billboard, Carter talked about his drive to keep going in the music business: “I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to stop. I’m going to succeed. If something is broken, I’m going to f–king fix it.”
“Love,” PEGGY
Boston-based singer-songwriter PEGGY’s latest is a stunningly bare track that spotlights her wide-ranging vocals and self-harmonies. The slow-burning track — which at times seems to pluck inspiration from “Look At Me I’m Sandra Dee” –sounds tailor-made to soundtrack a romantic comedy. “I’ve never been in love,” sings PEGGY, before asserting, “No, I don’t need l-o-v-e.” — Lyndsey Havens
“Missing You,” Stephen Sanchez and Ashe
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On the heels of breakout hit “Until I Found You,” emerging pop-rock artist Stephen Sanchez tapped pop singer-songwriter Ashe for the tender duet “Missing You.” A true collaboration, the pair trade verses and challenge one another to push hardest on the chorus, allowing the song’s story to soar both sonically and emotionally. — L.H.
“Lifetime,” SG Lewis
As English artist SG Lewis readies his upcoming album AudioLust & HigherLove, he continues to drop a steady stream of enticing singles. The latest, “Lifetime,” is a late-night groove with the purest of intentions: “I’ve waited for a lifetime to tell you I love you,” he sings. He said in a recent interview it could be “my favorite record I’ve ever made,” sharing it channels the music he grew up listening to. — L.H.
Billy Porter, “Stranger Things”
On “Stranger Things,” multi-hyphenate Billy Porter reaches back even further than the decade a certain Netflix series has made synonymous with the phrase, mining the slow-burning soul of the ’60s. That period saw many progressives beginning to grow weary of the uphill battle for change (sound familiar?) and turning that exhaustion into powerful statements of resilience, which is exactly what Porter does on this knockout musical missive from a man who refuses to throw in the towel. — Joe Lynch
Jordana, “You’re In the Way”
Ahead of her upcoming EP I’m Doing Well, bedroom pop purveyor Jordana delivers another low-key treat in the form of “You’re In the Way.” While previous teaser “SYT” brought to mind the indie boom of the ’00s, this one – a lovely acoustic number with a shuffling beat – is worth its weight in Beck’s Mellow Gold. – J. Lynch
Q, “Today”
Q, the young singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Broward County, Fla., casually radiates talent, as if constructing rhythm pop songs with an eye on vintage R&B and another on futuristic production techniques comes naturally. New single “Today” hangs in midair during its first half as Q showcases the warmth of his tone, and when the instrumentation kicks in, he invites you along for the ride. — Jason Lipshutz
First Aid Kit, “Palomino”
“Where you go my love goes, darling / I can hear the unknown road calling,” First Aid Kit’s Johanna and Klara Söderberg croon on wind-swept new single “Palomino,” which doubles as the title track of their new album. Sonically, “Palomino” reaches outward with a yearning for open space, with the electric and acoustic guitars finding a folk-pop harmony as the Swedish duo offer a universal vision of romance and adventure. — J. LIPSHUTZ
Girl Scout, “All the Time and Everywhere”
New Swedish band Girl Scout just released their second single, but “All the Time and Everywhere” sounds so accomplished — its pop-rock jangle immediately grin-inducing, its melodies clean and effervescent — that it’ll trick you into believing that the collective has been rolling for a decade. For a song about the crushing weight of daily existence, “All the Time and Everywhere” positively floats, and serves as a three-minute panacea. — J. LIPSHUTZ
Hunny, “JFK”
On HUNNY’s July EP Homesick, the four piece dabbled in angsty, 2000s-inspired rock while dealing with themes of loneliness, youth and ennui. The newly extended version of the EP includes “JFK,” a raw track that talks of “losing your partner to the love of another city and selfishly becoming bitter about it,” according to bassist and keyboardist Kevin Grimmett. Crunchy guitar work and upbeat drums contrasts vocalist Jason Yager’s pain as he sings of heartbreak. – Starr Bowenbank
Coco & Clair Clair, “Lamb” (feat. Porches)
On new album Sexy, pop-rap duo Coco & Clair Clair expand on their infectious, signature sound while giving new genres a try, too. Deep cut “Lamb” — which features Porches, the brainchild of Aaron Maine — sees the girls slowing down their typically upbeat flow to something melancholic and alternative leaning, as Coco languidly sings the chorus’ refrain (“Dancing in the club with my friеnds, my friends/ Nothing’s really changed, I’m the same as always/ But I would give it all to go back to the old days”). Maine swoops in for the assist at the second verse, providing mesmerizing harmonies. – S.B.
Lorde‘s Solar Power Tour had double the star power Sunday night (Nov. 6). Stopping through Brazil to perform at the Primavera Sound festival, the 26-year-old singer-songwriter brought out fellow alt-pop star Phoebe Bridgers to perform “Stoned at the Nail Salon” — a song the two collaborated on last year for Lorde’s Solar Power.
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“I wanted to sing a song that means a lot to me, and a song that probably wouldn’t exist without this person,” Lorde told her audience while introducing the “Motion Sickness” singer. “It’s a pretty direct channel of inspiration between me and this wonderful artist.”
“Please give the warmest welcome to Phoebe Bridgers,” she concluded, the crowd going wild in response.
Bridgers then walked out onstage and hugged the “Royals” singer before the two sat down on one of the set pieces onstage — an enormous replica of a sundial that’s been present throughout Lorde’s Solar Power tour, which kicked off in April this year. With the audience loudly belting the lyrics along with them, the pair sang the soft main melody of “Stoned at the Nail Salon” together.
The song was one of two tracks to which Bridgers lent background vocals ti on Lorde’s third studio record Solar Power, which was produced by Jack Antonoff and released in August 2021. The “Kyoto” musician, along with Clairo, also sang on the album’s lead single and title track, “Solar Power.”
“I love those girls so much,” Lorde said of Bridgers and Clairo in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe last year. “I was like, ‘Who are my most God-tier female vocalist friends that could be on this?’ And they both just crushed. It was such a pleasure for me to have them.”
“So talented, so cool and I’ve never had any other voices on my songs,” she added at the time. “This is the first time people were singing with me. I just knew it had to be a gang.”
Watch Lorde and Bridgers sing “Stones at the Nail Salon” below.
