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Big Brother was supposed to take over in 1984 — not a 5’2”, 26-year-old musical polymath from Minnesota. But with the June 25, 1984, release of Purple Rain, Prince took his throne as a global pop star. The album “was like a magic bullet,” Revolution guitarist Wendy Melvoin tells Billboard ahead of Celebration 2024, a five-day Minneapolis party with performances from The Revolution, Morris Day and New Power Generation. “He knew there was lightning in a bottle.”
Purple Rain, which will turn 40 in June, poured onto Billboard’s pages as soon as it came out.
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‘Wet Behind the Ears
When Prince released his debut album, For You, the April 29, 1978, Billboard hailed it as “a one-man gangbuster” from an “18-year-old musical phenomenon who goes only by the name Prince.” The reviewer predicted “across the board appeal,” but only “Soft and Wet” hit the Billboard Hot 100, and it stalled at No. 92. It wasn’t until 1999, his fifth album, that Prince sped to the chart’s top 10 with “Little Red Corvette” and “Delirious.”
Baby, He’s a Star
The June 2, 1984, Billboard called The Jacksons’ Victory the month’s biggest album, with Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. named the “next hottest.” The same article mentioned two other albums “by acts that hit platinum” — Prince and Jane Fonda. Two weeks later, Billboard identified Prince as a critics’ pick, “viewed with skepticism by pop programmers.” But a headline in the July 7 issue trumpeted that “Prince Keeps Springsteen Humble” as “When Doves Cry” flew to the peak of the Hot 100, shutting out The Boss’ “Dancing in the Dark.” By Aug. 4, Prince & The Revolution overthrew Springsteen atop the Billboard 200, and Purple Rain ruled for an astonishing 24 weeks.
‘Rain’ Storms Theaters
“Seeing Purple Rain makes it clear that the man from Minneapolis is certainly going to give anybody else making music this year a real hard time,” according to a movie preview in the July 28, 1984, Billboard. The next week’s issue called it “the most gripping contemporary rock movie in years,” as well as “the most performance-oriented music exploitation film since the glory days of Richard Lester’s classic Beatles films.” Another article, about the release of the single “Let’s Go Crazy,” reported that Prince had delivered “a second tour de force” — “even before the doves have stopped crying.” It became his second Hot 100 No. 1 in the Sept. 29 issue.
Crowning Achievement
An article in the Dec. 22, 1984, issue declared that the year had been “dominated by the phenomenon of His Purple Badness, thanks to a multimedia blitz of vinyl, video and film soundtracks” that “epitomized the upbeat creative and commercial climate.” “When Doves Cry” was revealed as the “top-selling single of the year.” But mainstream success didn’t clean up Prince’s dirty mind: The same issue noted that growing interest in B-side “Erotic City” — “fueled” by “controversial lyric content” — was forcing radio stations to “wrestle with how to deal with its popularity.”
This story appears in the June 22, 2024, issue of Billboard.
On a recent trip back to London, rising pop-rock artist Towa Bird visited the house she lived in during university — it’s where she started producing, writing songs and posting videos online — and felt a rare moment of pride upon returning there. “Standing back in that house, it sort of hit me: ‘I have come a long way,’ ” says Bird, 25. “Even though I don’t necessarily let myself believe that, I have.”
Bird’s career has been growing gradually since 2021, when she scored a major-label deal with Interscope and moved from London to Los Angeles. She gained recognition as the towering guitarist who could shred in Olivia Rodrigo’s 2022 Disney+ special, driving home 2 u. In 2023, she scored an opening slot on Reneé Rapp’s Snow Hard Feelings Tour and, in October, released breakout single “Drain Me!,” an electrifying alternative-rock hit about lust that appears on her debut album, American Hero, out June 28.
Growing up in Hong Kong and later London, the half-Filipino, half-English artist was raised on alternative and classic rock, identifying most with guitarists (her idols include Jimi Hendrix and Prince). “Hearing the way that guitarists would manipulate the instrument, making it sound just as strong and present as the lead vocal, I was attracted to that,” Bird says. By 12, she was learning how to play on her father’s old guitar, “which I think had like three strings on it,” she recalls. “But I definitely tried to make it functional.”
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Two years later, Bird formed her first band, The Glass Onions, and started performing at local Hong Kong dives. Yet, despite her early strides, Bird assures she wanted to be everything but a full-time artist — namely because she never felt empowered or allowed to be one at all. “I don’t think anyone in my family thought that [this] would be the case — including myself,” she says. “I thought it’d be a cute hobby.”
Nicole Nodland
She went on to attend Goldsmiths, University of London, but dropped out in 2020 just before the pandemic. Shortly after to pass the time, Bird started uploading videos of herself shredding over other artists’ songs on TikTok and soon “fell into” writing, producing and playing guitar for more emerging acts. Never feeling like she had “permission” — mostly from herself — to be an artist, Bird preferred working outside of the limelight. But what she didn’t expect was that through those sessions — many of which were done on Zoom late at night in London with artists in L.A. — she felt the authority she had always sought. “Just being in the scene and being seen was good,” she says.
Around the same time, Bird met music managers Jacob Epstein and Zack Morgenroth (of Lighthouse Management, whose clients include Rodrigo) “through the internet,” as she says, and signed with the pair. She figured a publishing deal would follow, but despite being “too scared to sing,” Epstein and Morgenroth were simultaneously setting up label meetings for Bird as an artist. The interest she received piqued her own, saying the encouragement and support from major labels “gave me a little kick up the ass” to focus on her own music. In 2021, she signed an artist deal with Interscope and moved to L.A.
Bird has since emerged as an urgent voice in rock music, whether through her singing or shredding. And most often, it’s both. She believes that in the last few years, there has been a groundswell of interest in live instruments again, especially among her generation. She credits the resurgence in part to her pal Rodrigo. “Olivia really opened doors for me,” Bird says, referring to the Disney+ special that earned her early praise and press. “It was really cool of her to see a young female artist and be like, ‘I want to highlight you.’ ”
Nicole Nodland
Last year, Bird had another peer (and labelmate) give her a boost when Rapp enlisted her to play guitar on “Tummy Hurts,” off Rapp’s debut album, Snow Angel. She then brought Bird on her 2023 tour, which allowed the singer-guitarist to meet her fans in person for the first time — and to spend time with singer-songwriter-producer Alexander 23, a fellow Rapp tourmate and friend of Bird’s whom she worked with on American Hero.
Across the album’s 13 tracks, Bird reflects on a range of relatable 20-something woes: raging over how expensive life is and the lacking U.S. health care system on “B.I.L.L.S.”; adjusting to life in L.A. and a career in music on “This Isn’t Me”; and feeling fearful about falling in love with a friend on “Sorry Sorry.”
“I was never like, ‘Oh, I’m going to write a gay song today,’ ” she says of her approach to writing. “It was just like, ‘I want to write a good song about love or sex,’ or whatever I was feeling. It’s funny how [my music has] been labeled as queer music or whatever people decide to label it as, but for me, I think it’s just good music — maybe.”
Nicole Nodland
True to form, Bird struggles to celebrate the victories she has had so far. She can’t even say the word “success” without using air quotes. She insists she’s trying to get better at acknowledging her wins along the way — which now include a slate of summer festival gigs — and already has an idea of how to celebrate her album’s release. “I’ll sit and listen to the full thing, front to back. And then probably cry and get aggressively drunk,” she says with a laugh.
But in spite of feeling “sh-t scared” about its release, Bird recognizes its importance. While she never felt like she had permission to land exactly where she has, with American Hero, she gives that runway to anyone who listens. “It’s something that I clearly still continue to lack,” Bird says. “I mean, what young woman will tell you that that [support is] something they received growing up? Probably none. Especially in this industry. So if I can help in any sort of way, even inadvertently, then that’s great.”
This story will appear in the June 22, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Are you ready to rock? Paramount+ revealed exclusively via Billboard on Thursday (June 20) that a brand new docuseries, Nöthin’ But a Good Time: The Uncensored Story of ’80s Hair Metal, will hit the streaming platform later this year. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The three-part, […]
Alice Cooper‘s next presidential campaign has begun, and this time he’s… well, not entirely serious, but a bit more on point than he’s been previously.
Since releasing “Elected” on 1972’s Billion Dollar Babies album (a revision of the track “Reflected,” the first single from the band’s 1969 debut, Pretties For You), the largely apolitical Cooper has used the song as fodder for his act, staging mock rallies at the end of his shows, stumping for his Wild Party and branding himself “a troubled man for troubled times.”
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It’s been part of the climax of his latest show, which debuted during April 2023, but now he’s adding verbiage that “I have absolutely no idea what to do — so I should fit right in.” He’s also launched the website aliceforpresident.com, which promises “ongoing virtual rallies and Q&A sessions,” and urges fans to “Stay informed. Join the Conversation. Be Part of the Movement.
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If elected he will not serve, of course, but Cooper seems more vested in being part of the discussion as the election season intensifies.
“It’s the same joke over and over. It was funny when I started doing it, now I’m really tired of it,” the Arizona resident tells Billboard from his current tour in Europe. “I just can’t’ believe these two (candidates) are the best we can do. Y’know what they really are? These two are the best that money can buy. What they should do is just pick up a phone book and put a finger on somebody; whoever it is, if it’s a guy who owns a gas station in Iowa, he should be president… It seems like anybody out there can be better than these two guys.”
Cooper adds that touring overseas has also given him additional perspective about the situation. “Everyone here’s terrified with what’s happening with our presidential race,” the artist says. “Everybody that I talk to in Europe goes, ‘Really? Is that the best you can do is these two guys?’ and I go, ‘I have no idea.’”
He’s been adding to the political commentary, too, by keeping the straitjacket that he wears during “Ballad of Dwight Fry” on when he mounts the tall, bunting-adorned podium to deliver “Elected.”
“That’s the funniest bit of it. Here’s this maniac in a straitjacket going, ‘You could do better! I’m your man!’ Alice in the straitjacket makes the point, y’know? ‘Let insanity reign!’”
Electoral satire aside, Cooper’s own campaign trail will be a busy one for the rest of the year. He and his band are in Europe through mid-July, returning to North America starting July 30 in Niagara Falls, Canada, and including another run of the Freaks On Parade Tour with Rob Zombie, Ministry and Filter during the late summer. Another European run, meanwhile, takes place in October.
Cooper has also finished work on “a surprise album” to follow last year’s Road. He isn’t offering any details, including a title or release date, other than “it turned out to be very unique.” He’s also enjoying new life on syndicated radio with Alice’s Attic, the successor to Nights With Alice Cooper. He’s expanded his presentation with the five-hour program, introducing a variety of characters and more aural theatricality.
“I actually am having more fun with it now, because I can go to different places with it,” Cooper says. “It’s basically the same kind of show except now I put it into a form where I can have characters, ’cause once you’re in Alice’s Attic there’s broken dolls, a butler, Madeline the Mannequin — things you would normally find in an attic are now characters in the show. I’ve gotten to make it a little creepier, a little funnier.”
When Prince & the Revolution’s Purple Rain dropped from the sky on July 25, 1984, it saturated pop culture. “When Doves Cry” flew to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, earning Prince his first ruler on that chart. “Doves” perched there for five weeks and was soon followed by another No. 1 smash, “Let’s Go Crazy,” plus two more top 10 singles, “Purple Rain” and “I Would Die 4 U.” The Purple Rain soundtrack album topped the Billboard 200 for a jaw-dropping 24 weeks, and the movie was a smash, too. By December, Billboard reported that “Doves” was 1984’s top-selling single and noted that the year had been “dominated by the phenomenon of His Purple Badness.” Years later, when Prince died unexpectedly in 2016 at the age of 57, it was Purple Rain that people flocked to more than any other studio album in his classic catalog.
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It’s a 40th anniversary that deserves a celebration, which is precisely what will happen this weekend in Minneapolis. Prince’s hometown (and his Paisley Park complex in Chanhassen, Minn.) is the site of Celebration 2024, a five-day party featuring live performances by The Revolution, Morris Day — who played Prince’s dapper rival in the film but was a real-life friend — and New Power Generation, his post-Revolution backing band.
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On Friday (June 21), The Revolution – Wendy, Lisa, Bobby Z., Brownmark and Dr. Fink – return to First Avenue, the iconic Minneapolis venue where the musical sequences of Purple Rain were shot, to perform that beloved classic. Ahead of this pinch-me concert, Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman spoke to Billboard about what to expect at Celebration 2024 and their memories of making the movie in the freezing Minnesota winter.
But it’s hardly all nostalgia for these two. Wendy & Lisa also spoke to Billboard about their latest musical project, a new band with another musical icon — Annie Lennox. Despite Purple Rain storming the world around the same time Eurythmics were riding high on the charts, the three never met each other until last year – but they’re making up for lost time with an album of original songs that’s on the horizon.
Whose idea was it to commemorate 40 years of Purple Rain with a show at First Avenue?
Wendy: I think, if my memory serves, Bobby Z., the drummer from The Revolution, and First Ave struck up a conversation about how great it would be to have a show commemorating this. And then the estate got wind that we were probably going to do this, and they thought it was such a great idea that they wanted to add [more] and make it an all-inclusive event.
Lisa: It was just a cool idea, because that’s where the movie was filmed — all the music scenes were done there — and so we’re gonna have some fun. [We’re] not recreating it, but almost recreating it.
Wendy: Yeah, right — almost. [Makes womp-womp noise.]
Do you have any particular memories of shooting the movie at First Ave? I know film shoots tend to start pretty early in the morning, and musicians are not exactly known for waking up at the crack of dawn.
Wendy: [laughs]: I gotta say, it felt like a very familiar feeling to me, because I hated getting up for school early in the morning. It had that feeling: “Oh, my God, we have to get up for school.” Our alarms had to be set for 4:30 and we had to go outside and start the cars so that they’d be warm enough to drive downtown in time. And then we’d get there and there’d be all these space heaters everywhere. I do have one memory that was seared into my head. I remember walking to the side of the stage and watching that famous scene of Prince performing “Darling Nikki.” And that was pretty cool to see. I remember that him being up on top of that riser and singing out to the audience — well, he’s actually supposed to be singing to Apollonia – but it was fantastic.
Lisa: Wow, was I there? [laughs]
Wendy: Yeah, you were, I think you were getting makeup done.
Lisa: I remember how cold it was, definitely. At the club, the thing was that the back door had to be open a little bit because there was the truck outside and they were running [power] cables in. We couldn’t actually get the heat to work because there was all this cold air rushing in — minus 20 or whatever. It was seriously cold. And our outfits weren’t that warm. It was a little bit of a bit of a challenge. But it was fun, it was a trip. I mean, we were young, we could do that. And like Wendy said, we had to get up and scrape the ice off the windshield and do all that just to get to work at five in the morning.
What is it like watching yourselves in the Purple Rain movie now?
Wendy: To sit outside myself and satellite and just watch the film as like someone who’s a Prince fan, the music sequences are fantastic. To me, that’s the whole thing. That’s the beauty of it. Yeah, there’s a narrative in there, but as the cinephile that I am, I wouldn’t really have paid that much attention to the narrative. The actual music by everybody in there was just fantastic. It’s a great rock n’ roll movie.
Lisa: I was just saying, I have to sit down and watch it again, because it’s been a while. It’s on TV all the time and I’ll catch a thing here or there. To me, I don’t see it as a movie. To me, it looks like little pieces of home movies: “Oh, there’s my friend Kim in it as a waitress!” It’s just fun to look at how young we were. There was such a build up to it. We had acting classes and dance classes and rehearsals and all this stuff. We were a bunch of crazy twentysomethings. We were serious, but we were also extremely jocular. We were being silly with it, doing dance class with our trench coats on. [laughs] It was just like a silly time, but it ended up being this huge success. And it was really a happy, happy thing.
Wendy: You could also tell that Prince was, at that point, starting a film career. His whole life seemed like it was getting dispersed. He had his hands in so many different things. After a while, he started getting like, “Wow, I need to focus on one thing for a while.” I think that might have taken a toll on him, but he got used to it as well.
Did he seem more stretched or stressed than he would have been during a regular recording session?
Wendy: To me, yeah. It wasn’t dysfunctional but he did have a lot more stress on his shoulders and a lot more responsibility. We didn’t see as much of him during that time. We were like, “Where’s our friend? Where’s our guide? Is he coming? Where is he today?” “Oh, he’s in the editing room” or “he’s at color correction” or “he’s at ADR.” You could see that he was like, “Times a-tickin’.” There wasn’t a lot of time wasted. You could see that stress on him for sure.
Obviously, the music and the movie did remarkably well. When it was finished but hadn’t come out yet, did you know it would be a blockbuster?
Wendy: I knew just by the music sequences that this was going to catapult him. And I wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know what people would think of the acting or the narrative part of it, and that came later, and I really didn’t concentrate much on that at the time. I was very young. But the music sequences, I knew he was going to be a household name by that point. I was like, “This is it, it’s a done deal.”
When the Purple Rain deluxe edition came out in 2017, I flipped over the extended “Computer Blue.” I still can’t believe that didn’t get an official release during his lifetime.
Wendy: I know. I know. Well, he was really having a very close relationship with Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker over at Warner Bros. at that time. Between Lenny and Mo and Prince and his management, there was a lot of discussion about what would make that album. I know that what was released was agreed upon, but Prince was adamant that he be able to release extended versions and 12 inches [of some of the songs]. My educated guess would be that [they] agreed the extended versions would be the treat for fans [who wanted to] dig for gold. We had a mobile unit at our rehearsal, so a lot of things were going on simultaneously at that time. The song was recorded to be filmed — “Computer Blue” is however many minutes long and we know exactly how that’s gonna look timewise with all the cameras and the performance [in the movie]. Then when we had an extra day and we were at rehearsal, before the soundtrack would come out, we’d pull the songs open, and go, “Let’s extend it.” “Let’s Go Crazy” had one as well, all of them had these extended versions that we would do at the rehearsal space where the mobile truck was. I remember the process of pulling those songs once we were done filming them and making extended versions. Do you remember that, Lisa?
Lisa: Yeah, all the time. That was the fun part, just because we jam and come up with other sections and little things. It was fun and inspiring. It was so great to have a truck there at your rehearsal. You didn’t need to go to a studio and work things out, it was really organic. And there was so much excited energy and I think that it shows on the recording.
Wendy: I think Prince was pretty savvy, or vigilant, to know that the magic that we were all creating as Prince & The Revolution on that particular album was like a magic bullet for him. And to keep recording and have everything hooked up to the mobile unit at all times. He knew there was lightning in a bottle with all of us at that very moment. He knew it.
When you play First Avenue for the Celebration, might you do the extended versions of some of the Purple Rain songs?
Wendy: God, I would love to. No, we’re gonna hit it and quit it. We’re going to just play a kind of truncated version. I would love to do a three-hour show and have it all be our extended versions, but the problem is, we’re missing our commander in chief. And to do those things without him, we just feel funny about it.
Lisa: So much of it was [that] we relied on his cues. We needed him to conduct, so it’s a little hard. It’s a little strange to do those things without him there. We’ll try to do a couple vamps with the horn parts and stuff, but yeah, not really.
Wendy: Yeah, we don’t have him. It’s just different. And we’re not going to have anybody be him on stage. I mean, why? [That would be] ridiculous. We’re just gonna have the audience do it. Audience participation – it’s like the ultimate karaoke night except you’re with the real band.
Does it feel like 40 years since Purple Rain came out?
Wendy: Oh, my God, no. It doesn’t feel 40 years ago at all, zero percent. But that’s the way life goes. The older you get, the faster things go and the world becomes upside down. I remember when I was 10 better than I remember yesterday. That’s what age does.
Anything else you want to mention?
Wendy: Lisa and I and Annie Lennox have formed a band and we’re recording an album right now. We’re really excited about it. We’ve got some great songs — it’s just the three of us, we’re playing everything and she’s singing. We’re just in our little room and we’re making it happen. The three of us met each other because we were all at the Gorge in Washington state doing a Joni Mitchell gig together. The three of us fell in love with each other and now we’re making a record.
That’s amazing, especially because she doesn’t release music that often.
Wendy: She hasn’t released any new songs in 14 years. And these are all brand new, coming from her little brain and coming from our little brains. It’s just the three of us are making some really great music.
What’s the vibe of the music, or the genre, if you were to describe it?
Lisa: All I can say is most of it right now is really up. And it feels good. It’s because we’re happy and excited in the studio getting away from all the really difficult stuff that’s going on in the world. We’re really enjoying getting our rocks off in the studio. It’s pretty fun stuff.
Wendy: If you were to pick a genre, we can’t really find what this is. It feels… I guess you could call it alternative pop.
Lisa: That makes sense.
It’s wild that you had never met her until a year ago, since you both came up during the ‘80s.
Wendy: We crossed each other’s paths, we played in the same venues, blah, blah, blah. But we were always just like ships in the night. And then at the Gorge, it was like, “Oh my God, I’ve known you my whole life.” We were texting just now with each other, saying, “It’s been an entire year since we met each other, but it feels like we’ve known each other forever.” We’re like family. We have dinners every Friday night, we have luncheons every Sunday and we’re in the studio all the time making this record. We’re very excited about it.
Any sense of when it might come out?
Wendy: Well, she and the two of us had this conversation about that very thing. And it could be the beginning of next year. We have a whole summer of writing to do and then maybe fine-tuning things in the fall. Maybe we’d be ready to release it by the beginning of next year.
The Revolution
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Hulaween, the four-day music and camping festival renowned for its fusion of jam bands and dance acts, has revealed its 2024 lineup, Billboard can exclusively announce. In its 11th year, the independently operated event returns to Live Oak, Florida, from October 24-27.
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Leading this year’s extensive lineup are: The String Cheese Incident, Black Pumas, Sublime, Chase & Status, Chris Lake, Tash Sultana, Liquid Stranger, Of the Trees, Nora en Pure, Greensky Bluegrass, Tipper and CloZee, among others. The roster also boasts a diverse array of supporting acts such as Cory Wong, LP Giobbi, Cassian, Zingara, and G Jones. Additional performances will include Daily Bread, Lettuce, Zingara, J. Worra, Walker & Royce, and many more.
A highlight of this year’s program is the newly formed The Bobby Weir Incident, featuring Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead/ Dead & Company teaming up with Hulaween’s host band The String Cheese Incident. Scheduled for a three-hour, two-set performance, this first-time collaboration draws inspiration from the recent success of Dead & Co.’s ongoing run of shows at Sphere in Las Vegas.
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This year marks a pivotal one for Hulaween under the new co-ownership of festival magnates and Billboard Latin Power Players, Chris Den Uijl and Aaron Ampudia, with founding partner Michael Berg. Den Uijl and Ampudia, known for co-founding Baja Beach Fest in Rosarito, Mexico, Sueños in Chicago, and Mexico City’s Coca Cola Flow Festival, and more, all under their La Familia franchise, will bring a wealth of experience to Hulaween’s future.
“As a co-founder of the festival, the opportunity to reacquire Hulaween and continue its storied legacy is an incredible full-circle moment after over a decade of commitment and service to the Hulaween journey,” Berg tells Billboard. “Our goal to keep the dream alive is in the greatest possible hands with my friends and partners, Chris and Aaron, alongside the well-curated and longtime all-star team that produces Hulaween.”
With over 90 acts scheduled to perform, this year’s festival is poised to maintain its reputation as “arguably the greatest in the world for multi-genre lineups, experiential art, and a passionate community whose fans live for both,” adds Berg.
The festival’s new ownership trio — Den Uijl, Ampudia and Berg — not only oversee Hulaween but also helm other music events such as North Coast Music Festival and Rose on the River in Chicago.
See the full line-up for Hulaween 2024 below:
Stevie Nicks will no longer play at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday night “due to illness,” according to a statement on the venue’s social media. “Due to illness, the Stevie Nicks concerts on Tuesday, June 18 in Grand Rapids has been postponed to September 24,” the statement reads. “Customers should hold […]
Did you come in when I was dressed like a sperm?”
Despite her wry tone, Annie Clark — the artist better known as St. Vincent — isn’t joking. Not quite an hour earlier, Clark was posing for her Billboard photo shoot in a hooded, ruffled cream mini-dress in front of a billowing blush-pink backdrop meant to evoke a different bit of human anatomy. (Let’s just say the setup was a spiritual descendant of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work.)
As St. Vincent, Clark conjures an enigmatic, opaque aura. But today, she’s in a frank, funny and freewheeling mood. She jests about the suggestive pictures of female models plastered on the walls around us (“Boner patrol, look out!”) and swerves easily from topics highbrow (abstract Russian painter Kazimir Malevich) to low (an off-and-on gamer, she was briefly obsessed with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild). Clark chose to soundtrack her shoot with David Bowie’s coke-fueled 1976 classic, Station to Station, and as we gush over it, the singer-songwriter gives her beige Prada jacket a little shake. “I do like to think this trench coat is giving ‘Dancing in the Street,’ ” she says, referencing the outrageously ’80s music video for Bowie and Mick Jagger’s hit cover. “Minus the cocaine.”
Much like Clark herself, St. Vincent’s Grammy Award-winning output — which has run the gamut from twee indie to ass-kicking art-rock to conceptual electropop — is an arresting mix of the intellect and the id. Her latest album, All Born Screaming, can be experienced as an atavistic staring contest with existence — or simply as a rippin’ alt-rock record.
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“It’s about life and death and love,” she explains. “And that’s it.” For the 41-year-old Clark, at least two of those topics are intrinsically linked to her own identity as a queer artist. “Every record I’ve ever made has been so personal about what’s going on in my life at any given time. I’m queer. I know how to code-switch. The idea of identity as performance has been very clear to me since I was a child.” Even so, Clark shuts down the suggestion that she adopted a mask or performative identity for the album: “I’m queer, I’m living in multitudes, but this record in particular is not about persona or deconstruction.”
Shushu/Tong dress and headpiece, Zhilyova gloves, BY FAR shoes.
Lenne Chai
Code-switching — changing one’s behavior to suit an uncomfortable environment — is nothing new for LGBTQ+ people. Even in the generally progressive-minded music community, Clark says the world queer musicians currently inhabit is “very different” than when she kicked off her recording career in 2006 with the three-song EP Paris Is Burning. “Which is one of those things which gives me a lot of hope,” she notes. “I know there are certain things in the world trending in a scary direction, but all in all, I’d rather live right now than any other time in history. We wouldn’t be having this conversation 60 years ago. I would be a nurse, I would be a secretary, or I would be a mother.”
When I suggest that 60 years ago, I would have been pushed into a heterosexual union and having same-sex dalliances on the down-low, she laughs and perks up. “Exactly! You would have a beautiful wife at home and would be getting your d–k sucked at the whatever. And you’d never know if it was a cop [trying to entrap you].”
As she references the hankie code (as early as the ’70s, gay men used different-colored bandannas to signify sexual preferences) and Hal Fischer’s 1977 photo book, Gay Semiotics: A Photographic Study of Visual Coding Among Homosexual Men, it’s clear Clark knows her queer history. “People the world was hostile to developed these secret languages, secret codes, in order to communicate. I find that fascinating,” she says. “You’re very aware there’s a subterranean, subtext layer to everything that’s going on — and you have your antennae up at all times. That is erotic to me. But I’m glad that [I live in this era].”
As for the downside to LGBTQ+ culture going mainstream? “Well, if you’re safe for the TV screen, you also invite an aspect of grift [from the outside world],” she muses. “Which… I raise an eyebrow at.” To emphasize her point, she cocks her left brow; for a moment, she could pass for a hyperlogical Vulcan on Star Trek. “But there have been plenty of queer people in music. Even if the culture was saying no, there were always queer people in the arts. Please. We have built this.”
For a college dropout, Clark has done pretty well for herself. Born in Tulsa, Okla., she relocated to Texas as a child when her mother moved her and two older sisters to Dallas following her parents’ divorce. (Clark now has four brothers and four sisters from the combined families.) Her childhood obsession with the guitar, ignited by the 1987 Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba starring Lou Diamond Phillips, became serious as she entered her teen years, and a stint as a roadie for her uncle’s jazz-folk duo, Tuck & Patti, gave Clark her first taste of the touring business.
Clark attended Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music but left after three years (though her parents didn’t find out until several years later, when they read it in the press). “Other people have real educations,” she says. “I had philosophy teachers who were like, ‘How is Kierkegaard like Bob Marley?’ ” She shakes her head, almost tenderly. “It’s not. It’s not and that’s fine.” (When I ask how a music school dropout seems to have an endless fount of cultural, historical and artistic references at her disposal, she laughs and asks, “Is that your way of saying, ‘It’s OK you never went to real college’?”)
After cutting herself loose from Berklee, Clark spent 2005 and 2006 on the road with the robe-rocking, symphonic indie outfit Polyphonic Spree, joining Sufjan Stevens’ touring band for a spell shortly thereafter. Her solo debut album, Marry Me, released in 2007 on Beggars Banquet, was a chamber-pop cauldron with notes of Stevens and Spree, but had a playful, wry sense of humor that indicated it was just the tip of the St. Vincent iceberg. (For one thing, the album takes its title from a running joke on Arrested Development — a fact that today causes Clark to rest her head on her fingertips in faux embarrassment before concluding, “It is a great show.”)
On her next release, Actor, Clark’s music developed a jagged, sardonic bite that brought her to the Billboard 200 for the first time (at No. 90). Her top 20 follow-up, the 2011 art-rock statement Strange Mercy, was tinged with pain, fury, self-doubt and confusion — and dispelled any lingering misconceptions that she was a holdover from the demure, precious indie pop of the ’00s. While Clark had always seemed like an artist with something to say, on Strange Mercy, she sounded like an artist who needed to say something.
“In order to get good, you have to go through a series of humbling and humiliating experiences,” she reflects. “On the other hand, you have to have this psychotic belief — an unreasonable belief, truly — that you are going to write songs and make music that is going to matter. And that’s a really crazy thought.” She pauses. “I have that thought — with plenty of self-loathing and self-laceration — but I also have this [feeling], ‘If I don’t do this, I’m going to die.’ ”
Camilla and Marc shirt, Nour Hammour coat, Zhilyova gloves.
Lenne Chai
Among those who took notice of Clark’s creativity and drive was Talking Heads legend and fellow rock eccentric David Byrne. Their 2012 collaborative album, the funky, brass-heavy Love This Giant, netted Byrne his first top 40 entry outside Talking Heads on the Billboard 200.
“Annie is so many things all at once,” Byrne tells Billboard. “Beautiful, inventive, inscrutable — in the best way possible. I know her as someone warm and friendly, but as anyone listening to her music can hear, she’s got a dark side that as far as I know just has an outlet in her music. Would that all of us could do that.”
After a lengthy tour with Byrne — “I love playing shows. I’m up there, and truly, something else kicks in,” Clark emphasizes — she solidified her reputation as an art-rock auteur on her self-titled fourth album, the first of three on Loma Vista, in 2014. With a chromatic purple-blue-pink palette and a gray ’do teased to the heavens, Clark delivered the most stylistically cohesive St. Vincent album yet — and for the first time on wax, she sounded like she was having a blast. St. Vincent won Clark a Grammy for best alternative music album, kicking off an active streak of her collecting at least one Grammy per proper studio release since. In 2014, Clark also spoke publicly about her queerness for the first time, telling Rolling Stone, “I believe in gender fluidity and sexual fluidity.”
With 2017’s Masseduction, Clark pivoted to electropop and paired it with neon-drenched, latex-heavy visuals, as well as some of her most personal songs yet. Co-produced by Jack Antonoff, the album (her first top 10 entry on the Billboard 200) expanded her creative circle to include a range of musicians such as Sounwave, Kamasi Washington, Jenny Lewis, Mike Elizondo, Pino Palladino and Cara Delevingne (the latter of whom Clark dated for a year and a half, briefly putting her in the tabloid spotlight). Masseduction singles “New York” and “Los Ageless” hit the Adult Alternative Airplay and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs charts, and the title track won her the Grammy for best rock song. Not that she’s in it for the accolades: “I’m a musician because I’m obsessed with making music,” Clark states. “If I wasn’t, God knows, I don’t think it would be pretty.”
As her profile grew, Clark earned her first GLAAD Media Award nomination for outstanding music artist in 2018; that June, she unleashed “Fast Slow Disco,” a dancefloor remix of one of Masseduction’s tracks, along with a music video where she cavorted with a throng of leather-clad men making out with one another. “Happy Pride,” she tweeted. “It was sweet of these boys to let me crash their party.”
Fittingly, the tune’s title was inspired by a text message exchange with Wendy Melvoin, whose romantic relationship with Lisa Coleman in Prince’s backing band The Revolution provided sorely needed representation in the ’80s. “Annie’s a real artist. It’s always satisfying to be friends and compatriots with people that you have respect for,” Melvoin says. “She’s extremely talented,” Coleman agrees. “[She’s] a real musician that was so influenced by what we did, and she had a reverence for us. It was easy to return that because she is so good.”
St. Vincent wearing Ultra Open Earbuds by @Bose and Maggi Simpkins.
Lenne Chai
By 2021’s Daddy’s Home, Clark had nothing left to prove, which might explain why the album — partially inspired by her father’s 2019 release from prison after he served time for a stock manipulation scheme — was her first where she looked backward for inspiration. (Then again, maybe she meant it literally when she titled her 2017-18 tour Fear the Future.) Steeped in ’70s rock, AM pop and queer camp, the album netted her another Grammy for best alternative music album and another GLAAD nomination for outstanding music artist. As a victory lap and era-appropriate tie-in, she supplemented her own headlining trek for the record with a stint opening for Roxy Music’s farewell tour.
Beyond Roxy Music and Byrne, Clark has amassed an enviable Rolodex of rock royalty. She performed alongside the surviving members of Nirvana at their 2014 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony; produced Sleater-Kinney’s 2019 album, The Center Won’t Hold, and co-starred with the band’s Carrie Brownstein in the trippy 2020 mockumentary The Nowhere Inn; contributed to the 2021 remix album McCartney III Imagined (even getting a phone call from the Beatle himself); and feted Eurythmics at the duo’s 2022 Songwriters Hall of Fame induction, performing “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” Having worked with so many of her own musical heroes, she has also paid that forward, contributing to tracks by next-gen fans like Willow and Olivia Rodrigo.
“I’ve been a huge St. Vincent fan since I was a teenager. I think she’s such an inspiring artist and a wonderful person. I was so excited to bring her in to work on this song,” Rodrigo tells Billboard of co-writing “Obsessed” with Clark for the deluxe version of GUTS. “She added so many unique textures and sounds that I could’ve never thought of.”
Those inventive, meticulous methods stuck out to Willow when Clark guested on “Pain for Fun” from the former’s 2024 album, empathogen. “St. Vincent’s prodigious attention to detail is something that I have admired since hearing her for the first time at 12 years old,” Willow says. “To have had the opportunity to be in the same room with her, to witness and observe her process, is something that I will always hold close to my heart and something I will always refer back to for inspiration.”
“She’s an inspiration to me, but I can see [she is] to a lot of other singers and songwriters as well,” Byrne says. “And a somewhat underrated guitar goddess.” (Clark even has her own signature axe, a collaboration with Ernie Ball Music Man, which Jack White played on Saturday Night Live in 2018 and Rodrigo trotted out on her tour this year.)
Another one of those singer-songwriters is, of course, Taylor Swift. Alongside Antonoff and Swift, Clark wrote (and played guitar on) “Cruel Summer” from 2019’s Lover. After years of fan campaigns and three subsequent studio albums, Swift finally released “Cruel Summer” as a single in 2023; it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks and has spent more time on the chart than any of her other hits, earning an astounding 1 billion official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate.
“I remain blown away by ‘Cruel Summer’ being the phenomenon that is it,” Clark says. “Not because it isn’t a great song. It’s indicative of the time we’re in, where a song from many albums ago, that wasn’t even a single at the time, the fans go, ‘No, this one — we pick this one.’ And then they march it up the charts. That’s completely a testament to her fan base being so powerful.”
While some critics and fans have described the rock-heavy, emotionally raw All Born Screaming as a return to form, the album also marks a few notable firsts for Clark. Though distributed by Virgin Music Group, it’s the inaugural release on her own label, Total Pleasure Records, which she calls “just a little cozy place for me.” She’s excited about plenty of young artists but shrugs off any label boss ambitions. “I never want to be the person who is like, ‘I’m so sorry, we can’t afford to pay for your video unless you shill for cat laxatives,’ ” she deadpans. “I’m not trying to be The Man to any talent that I love. It just means autonomy.”
Clark insists that “DIY till you die” is her guiding mantra on all fronts, from making music to mounting tours on a scalable level. “I more enjoy the creative side, but you have to be across all of it. It’s your career. You can’t just let someone tell you where you are going. And putting all those pieces together is fun for me.”
St. Vincent wearing Ultra Open Earbuds by @Bose and Maggi Simpkins.
Lenne Chai
Perhaps more significantly, All Born Screaming is also the first of her own albums on which she is credited as sole producer (though she has co-produced more than half of her discography).
“I don’t think I could have made this record any other way. I don’t think I would have written these songs or explored this stuff without the solitude,” she says. “Around 2019 [I thought], ‘OK, I eventually just want to produce my own work.’ When I was making Daddy’s Home, I started making a plan for my engineer, Cian Riordan, to make my studio proper — to get more into the engineering side, hone my chops and build a playground for myself. But if I’m honest, the seed was planted earlier, because by the time I was 14 or 15 I was recording myself in my bedroom.” (Clark’s studio is in Los Angeles; she splits her time among New York, L.A. and Texas.)
A 2023 study of popular songs by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that just 3.4% of hits were produced by women in 2022, and Clark is still one of very few female producers finding success in the music business — with plenty more, she notes, deserving attention. “There are lots of women making their music DIY-style, and that is production,” she says. “My friend Cate Le Bon [who guests on All Born Screaming’s title track] is a great example of someone who produces herself and other people.” (The album also features drumming from Dave Grohl, Josh Freese and Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa.)
When it comes to ways to increase LGBTQ+ inclusion in the industry, Clark is reluctant to provide any glib or easy answers. “The answer is, ‘Of course,’ but I can’t go, ‘If we only changed this policy.’ ” The Texas-raised Clark does not, however, hold back when asked about Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who she says is waging “an absolute war on women and reproductive rights. That dude sucks. He sucks. I hate that dude.” For a brief moment, she sounds like an exasperated teenager ranting about her high school principal, but soon regains her poise. “What I love about Texas is the toughness and the grit. You can’t be too highfalutin. With love, they’ll knock you down a peg.” She looks thoughtful. “I did run away when I was 18, but at the same time, if you asked me to name parts of my identity, ‘Texan’ would be up there.”
St. Vincent wearing Ultra Open Earbuds by @Bose and Maggi Simpkins. CAMILLA AND MARC shirt, Nour Hammour coat, Zhilyova gloves, JW PEI shoes.
Lenne Chai
As an artist who has explored both identity and technology deeply, Clark is cautiously intrigued by the musical potential of artificial intelligence in the hands of artists. “The tool is as interesting as its holder,” she says, then flashes a mischievous half-smile. “In some ways, I’m more concerned about artists sounding like AI than I am [about] AI sounding like artists.”
Clark is far more troubled by a more established technology in the digital music era. “If you are a big pop artist, streaming is fine. But there is some music that reaches you very deeply but isn’t music that you put on every single day. I’m not going to listen to John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme every day. It’s one of the most pivotal records of my life, but I’m not going to stream it over and over,” she says. “Streaming incentivizes songs to be consumable over and over again. Now, certainly there’s great music you want to consume like that — but there’s a lot of music that’s excellent and doesn’t fall into that category. And those artists, because of streaming, are wilting on the vine.” (St. Vincent’s catalog has accumulated a respectable 394.6 million official on-demand U.S. streams.)
Aside from friends like Le Bon, there are plenty of modern artists who keep Clark jazzed about music’s future. “I love Rosalía,” she says, leaning forward in her chair. “I saw her show last year. It was just art. It was so thoughtfully done. Post-modern choreography, flamenco. Just excellent.” All Born Screaming includes “Sweetest Fruit,” a tribute to the late trans artist SOPHIE, whom Clark deeply admired (though fan reaction to its literal lyrics was mixed). British rapper Little Simz is another favorite, and she lights up when talking about Willow. “She’s unbelievable. Her knowledge base and depth of reference is deep and varied. She’s pulling all these things together and making them her own, which is exactly what an artist should do.”
Whether speaking about her fellow artists, the music industry or her queer identity, Clark is animated and engaged; the only time she seems at a loss is when talking about how she fills her time that isn’t spent making music.
“I listen to a lot of audiobooks. Which is so boring,” she murmurs. “I work out. So boring.” Does she cook for herself? “Girl, no. Even playing Zelda, I would make dubious food.” Watch TV? “I will maybe watch something to fall asleep. I rewatched 30 Rock recently. I am obsessed with Girls5eva. It’s all the sensibility of 30 Rock, but with deep musical references. It makes me so happy.” Foster any unusual hobbies? “I walked into this bar across from Electric Lady [Studios in New York], but it was the wrong place — it was a coffee shop that turns into a knitting hour. I got the f–k out of there.”
After nearly two decades of making music professionally, Clark doesn’t seem fatigued or disenchanted by a business that often frustrates uncompromising creatives. If anything, she’s finding it easier to “trust in the process” with seven albums under her beloved trench’s belt. “There’s going to be speed bumps, and there’s going to be days when you don’t want to get out of bed. ‘Ugh, I can’t even face myself.’ And other days where you’re like, ‘Yeah, I am crushing it, wow!’ ”
Calling those polar mood swings “cancers to excise,” Clark says “it’s a miracle” she gets anything done. “The whole thing is chasing this feeling of being lit up and confused but excited at the same time,” she says. “It’s a bunch of people blowing into the same thing to make a balloon and, eventually, it rises. I don’t know how anything happens. I really don’t. The whole thing is mysterious. But I know if I focus on this little thing that I love, it will be OK.”
This story will appear in the June 22, 2024, issue of Billboard.
“Did you come in when I was dressed like a sperm?” Despite her wry tone, Annie Clark — the artist better known as St. Vincent — isn’t joking. Not quite an hour earlier, Clark was posing for her Billboard photo shoot in a hooded, ruffled cream mini-dress in front of a billowing blush-pink backdrop meant to […]
Stevie Nicks had to cancel her concert Saturday night (June 15) at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, Pennsylvania, because of “illness in the band,” according to a brief statement shared on the singer’s official social media accounts.
“Regrettably, due to illness in the band, tonight’s performance is being postponed. Please hold on to your tickets. A new date will be announced soon,” said the update, originally posted by the stadium at 5:30 p.m. ET on Saturday. The update was later added to Nicks’ stories on Instagram and Facebook, and shared on her page on X (formerly Twitter).
Billboard reached out to Nicks’ representatives for comment on Sunday. At press time, no further details or updates have been provided.
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The rock icon and vocalist for Fleetwood Mac, 76, was expected to take the stage Saturday night at the latest stop on her ongoing Live in Concert Tour across the U.S.
Nicks’ performance was postponed just hours before showtime.
In posts on social media, fans reported the show was canceled around the time doors were set to open, when they were already in line to enter the concert grounds. A video posted by a concertgoer in the comments of the announcement indicated soundcheck happened Saturday afternoon.
As of Sunday (June 16), Nicks’ published schedule has her performing on June 18 in Grand Rapids and June 21 in Chicago. What follows is a short break in her itinerary until July 3, when she’s set to jet to Europe for a gig in Dublin, Ireland. U.K. dates come next (Glasgow, Manchester and London), then stops in Antwerp, Belgium, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Last weekend Billboard saw Nicks and her touring band put on a lively show at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, with a 15-song setlist spanning solo hits and classics from Fleetwood Mac’s discography, complemented with plenty of career anecdotes told between songs. “My stories are starting to become as long as the show,” the star joked during her June 9 performance.
After opening with Bella Donna‘s “Outside the Rain” and playing the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “Dreams,” from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Nicks was in good spirits, telling the cheering crowd, “We’re very glad to be here. We got to fly in on a helicopter. It was truly magnificent.”