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Houston, we have liftoff. Just 10 days after making headlines for her trip to space, Katy Perry kicked off her highly anticipated Lifetimes Tour with a celestial show in Mexico City Wednesday (April 23) — featuring a setlist that the pop star first revealed while hurtling through the Earth’s atmosphere on Blue Origin’s first all-woman […]
Five For Fighting‘s Grammy-nominated “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” became an anthem of solidarity and a No. 14 Billboard Hot 100 hit in 2001 after it was repurposed as a tribute to the victims and first responders of the horrific Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The gentle piano ballad on which band mastermind John Ondrasik sings “I’m more than a bird, I’m more than a plane/ I’m more than some pretty face beside a train/ And it’s not easy to be me” in his homage to heroes who have the right to bleed provided succor at a time when Americans were wounded to their souls over the deadly assault.
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Now, Ondrasik’s song has gotten a second life as a means to call attention to the estimated 59 Israeli hostages still being held hostage in Gaza in the wake of militant group Hamas’ murderous Oct. 7, 2023 attack in which around 1,200 Israelis were murdered and 250 were taken hostage.
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Ondrasik told NPR on Wednesday (April 23) that he re-wrote some of the song’s lyrics at the behest of the mother of 24-year-old hostage Alon Ohel. “When they reached out, I’m like, ‘of course. I’m honored to do this.’ And very quickly, it became clear that ‘Superman’ should be the song,” Ondrasik said, noting that some original lines, such as “Find a way to lie about a home I’ll never see” didn’t fit the assignment.
“I couldn’t have that line, ‘a home I’ll never see,’ because we all hope and pray they will see – and many of the hostages have come home,” said Ondrasik, who traveled to Israel last April to perform the song in Tel Aviv’s so-called “Hostages Square” on Ohel’s piano; he also released another song, “OK (We Are Not Okay)” last year to honor the hostages. The new “Superman” lyrics find him singing: “Found a way to fly to a home I will soon see.”
Ondrasik, 60, who is not Jewish, told NPR that for him, “this is a moral issue. It’s not political. It’s not religious. Everybody should be demanding to release the hostages. It’ll put much more pressure on Israel to end this war.”
The singer uploaded a new video for the song to YouTube on April 14 — two days after the start of the Passover holiday — with a message of hope, writing, “The strength and perseverance of our hostage families, while enduring over seventeen months of unimaginable torment and devastation, often seems Superhuman. I am honored to collaborate with current hostage Alon Ohel’s mother Idit, brother Ronen, and family and friends with this new version of ‘Superman’ to support Alon and all hostages and their families.”
Check out the new video Ondrasik recorded with footage from Hostage Square below.
We’ve been talking about it on the Greatest Pop Stars podcast for nearly half a year already, but it didn’t actually get here until last weekend: The Grand National stadium tour, co-headlined by Billboard‘s No. 1 Greatest Pop Star of 2024 (Kendrick Lamar) and our No. 2 Greatest Pop Star of 2023 (SZA) finally began […]
Haim have given their two-month notice. The sister trio revealed the title of their upcoming fourth album during an underplay gig at L.A.’s The Bellwether theater on Wednesday night (April 23), flashing the phrase I Quit on the screen behind them at their first full show in nearly two years. They posted a photo of the moment on Instagram, as well as a video in which the phrase appeared amid a jumble of flashing boxes, followed by a robotic female voice reading the phrase “I quite what does not serve me.”
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A cascade of other quits followed, including “I quit overthinking, I quit shame, I quit nicotine, I quit fear, I quit d–k, I quit judgement, I quit avoiding emotional intimacy, I quit my job, I quit caring about what you think, I quit waiting for an apology, I quit f–king around, I quit f–king everything, I quit f–king you, I quit wondering if someone will save me.”
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The barrage of loud quitting ended with the phrase “I quit new haim album coming June 20th.” The follow-up to 2020’s Women in Music Pt. III has been previewed so far with the first single, “Relationships,” as well as “Everybody’s Trying to Figure Me Out.”
According to Setlist.fm, the show opened with the second new single, followed by a run of classics including “The Wire,” “Want You Back” and “Forever,” and the live debut of new tracks “Down To Be Wrong” and “Blood in the Streets,” with the latter featuring a surprise appearance by Addison Rae, who rolled around provocatively on stage in a long white tank top and sunglasses during the performance. The show ended with an encore run through “Relationships.”
The 1970s pop anthem “Down To Be Wrong” is due out on Thursday (April 24), with a video slated to drop on Friday (April 25). Haim will be back at Bellwether on Thursday night for a second show.
Watch Haim’s album title announce and “Down To Be Wrong” preview below.
Madonna‘s steamy video for her 1987 True Blue single “La Isla Bonita” has joined the YouTube billion-views club. The visual for the song featuring flamenco guitar, maracas and Latin percussion was helmed by prolific film (Pet Sematary Two, Best. Christmas. Ever!) and TV director Mary Lambert, known for her work on music videos for Janet […]
When romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You was released in 1999 — a seminal time for the Shakespeare adaptation-as-teen-movie — it was a watershed pop cultural moment. The winning take on The Taming of the Shrew cemented the star power of actors Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and boasted a spunky […]
Sara Bareilles is heading back to her alma mater to deliver this year’s commencement address. UCLA announced on Tuesday (April 22) that the Grammy-winning “Brave” singer will deliver the keynote address at the 2025 UCLA commencement ceremonies on June 13 in Pauley Pavilion. “My time at UCLA held some of the most treasured years of […]
Kesha is celebrating being a “free f–king woman.” The singer sat on the couch on the Kelly Clarkson Show on Tuesday (April 22) for a chat about her upcoming album and her new(ish) status as the owner of the independent label Kesha Records. “My first release is . [Period],” Kesha, 38, said of her upcoming […]
Katy Perry is gearing up to launch her global Lifetimes tour in Mexico City on Wednesday night (April 23), but a pair of Guadalajara, Mexico shows originally scheduled for next week have been scotched due to issues with the venue. “Sadly, I learned that the construction of Arena Guadalajara will not be complete for their […]
Lady Gaga continues to expand her upcoming Mayhem Ball tour. The singer announced on Tuesday morning (April 22) that she has extended the outing with shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The seven additional shows will include three nights at the Chase Center in San Francisco on July 22, 24 and 26, as well […]