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“Beyoncé Amps Up ‘Savage,’ and 12 More New Songs - The New York Times” plus 4 more

jazeeradarden Şubat 19, 2022

“Beyoncé Amps Up ‘Savage,’ and 12 More New Songs - The New York Times” plus 4 more

Beyoncé Amps Up ‘Savage,’ and 12 More New Songs - The New York Times

Posted: 01 May 2020 09:22 AM PDT

With "Hot Girl Summer," a catchphrase became an inspiration for a song that became an occasion for Megan Thee Stallion to rap alongside one of her idols, Nicki Minaj. The results were mixed, a too-timid color-by-numbers exercise. The remix for her track "Savage" arrives via a similar path — the chorus to "Savage," from Megan's recent album "Suga," became a TikTok dance-challenge sensation, elevating the song from amusing album cut to legitimate phenomenon. That made it an ideal vehicle for a collaboration with fellow Houstonian Beyoncé, a pairing that has been a long time coming. "Savage Remix" is fantastic, far more involved and intricate than most blink-and-you'll-miss-it collaborations. Beyoncé rises to the challenge, rapping heartily about staying silent even when mad, the kinship of curves ("If you don't jump to put jeans on, baby, you don't feel my pain") and, in a flamboyant demonstration of cultural acuity, the Demon Time series of private Instagram strip clubs that's been a quarantine-era distraction for hip-hop and sports celebrities. Proceeds from the collaboration go to Bread of Life's coronavirus relief efforts. JON CARAMANICA

On the songs Haim has been teasing out from its next album, now due June 26, its three sisters have been turning to less sparkly, more subdued productions than in the past, suiting the misgivings that have always been in the lyrics. "I Know Alone" portrays longtime depression and isolation — "Nights turn into days/That turn to gray" — while the instrumental intricacies turn inward, like obsessive thoughts. The video clip is a TikTok-ready sync-dance sequence, with the sisters at a social-distance separation and a recurring move that suggests scrolling through social media. JON PARELES

In the mid-1990s, Oasis reigned as proud inheritors of a British rock continuum from the Beatles through the Smiths and the Stone Roses. The band split up in the late 2000s over the long-running filial conflict between Noel Gallagher — the band's songwriter — and Liam Gallagher, its lead singer. During pandemic isolation, Noel rediscovered a demo of "Don't Stop…," a song that was previously known to die-hard fans from a bootlegged 2005 soundcheck performance. It's a waltz sung by Noel, backed by guitars and a tambourine, saying goodbye and urging a positive spirit: "Take a piece of life/It's all right to hold back the night." It's a kindly postscript from a contentious band; who knows if it's the final one? PARELES

"There's some times, so much noise between us/And I wish it could just be quiet for a moment," Raphaelle Standell-Preston sings in "Just Let Me," and she gets that quiet. In most Braids songs, the band's busily layered math-rock patterns seize the foreground alongside vocals and lyrics. But this song is a moment of analytical clarity in the middle of a lovers' quarrel — "Just let me get through to you" is the refrain — and that's no time for distractions. PARELES

Eve Owen's "Mother" gathers intensity as it goes: not by speeding up its galloping six-beat rhythm but by the way Owen's voice gathers focus and attack, working up to a whoop, and by thickening layers of guitars, drums and a string arrangement. Her collaborator is Aaron Dessner of the National, yet the quavers and breaks in Owen's voice make her sound far more volatile than his band does. PARELES

It's surprising that up until the trapcorrido movement of the last couple of years, embodied most vividly in the Rancho Humilde label, the tropes of gangster rap and the aesthetics of regional Mexican music rarely overlapped. "Que Maldición" feels like an attempt to make up for lost time, or perhaps a genial elder-generation retort to the upstarts who are creating this alchemy in real time. The Sinaloan outfit Banda MS has been a force for almost two decades, and Snoop Dogg has been a hip-hop icon for a decade longer than that. Their collaboration is tender, low-stakes, a little goofy — the uncles letting the youngsters know they see what's happening, and that they were cool once, too. CARAMANICA

The Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra has been playing lighthearted, ska-tinged big-band music since 1988. Its single for the pandemic moment is a remake of the Japanese song that was renamed "Sukiyaki" and became an international hit in the early 1960s. Now it's a polyglot call for long-term optimism, merging the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra with an Argentine ska band, Los Auténticos Decadentes, and featuring the Brazilian rapper-singer Emecida — calling for "happiness as a mission" — and appearances from Angelo Moore of Fishbone and the Puerto Rican singer iLe and her producer Ismael Cancel. Yes, it's one of those grid-of-musicians-multitracking videos, but the networked camaraderie comes through. PARELES

Kenny Chesney spends most of his albums playing the easygoing nice guy, savoring small pleasures and sympathizing with everyday life. But every so often he chooses a song that snarls. On his new album, "Here and Now," that song is "You Don't Get To," a sullen march sung to an ex who's trying to seduce him back: "You don't get to give a damn/After all you put me through," he sings, with deep resentment behind the honeyed croon. PARELES

The sensitive country bruiser Mitchell Tenpenny grabs the Lewis Capaldi hit by the throat, shakes it violently, empties its pockets, then pops it in his mouth and lets it dissolve. Surprisingly winning stuff. CARAMANICA

Since 2003, the pianist Vijay Iyer and the poet Mike Ladd have collaborated on a series of full-length stage performances blending music, words and visuals, and interrogating the lives of people of color in the United States during the "war on terror." The music on each of these suites is a kind of mixed-media work of its own: a sound that's also an atmosphere, and a way of pumping blood into the words recited by Ladd and other poets. Their first project together was "In What Language," looking at the experiences of black and brown people in airports after 9/11. It was released as an album in 2003, and now Pi Recordings has put out an all-instrumental version. If you ever made the mistake of hearing the music here as secondary to the words, this will set that right. "Three Lotto Stories," which on the original album features the poet Latasha N. Nevada Diggs, represents one of the sharpest musical moments, especially when Ambrose Akinmusire offers a snarling trumpet solo over blustery waves of synthesizer and cello and stippled guitar. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

The quarantine-themed hip-hop videos continue: for "Moana," the new collaboration between G-Eazy and Jack Harlow, much of the video takes place in split screen fashioned to look like a Zoom call, where the two rappers and the producer Zaytoven enjoy themselves listening to their handiwork. And there are FaceTime cameos from Snoop Dogg, Diddy, Marshawn Lynch and more, as well as a glimpse of DJ Drama's home sauna. But the real surprise here is the welcome return of the bubbly, approachable, flirtatious-but-not-icky approach to rapping that G-Eazy has toyed with but never committed to. CARAMANICA

"Improvisation for Sonic Cure" is a secular ritual, a half-hour meditation on instruments and materials amid mysterious electronic tones. The accompanying video shows Ryuichi Sakamoto wandering in his studio as he taps and scrapes rocks; uses rocks and a bow to play a cymbal (that was made in Wuhan, China, a close-up shows); plays sparse piano clusters and tentative bits of melody on piano; draws drones and feedback from an electric guitar and sets up and melts down a buzzy pattern on an analog synthesizer, listening intently all along. PARELES

There are obvious ways to pay tribute to Dizzy Gillespie. Play some bebop (a genre he helped create) or Latin jazz (another), or just cover a few of his myriad compositions. But on "Dizzy Atmosphere: Dizzy Gillespie in Outer Space," the esteemed trumpeter Dave Douglas pays homage through dissection and expansion. By taking elements of Gillespie's compositions but mostly creating fresh works of his own, and centering the rapport with his five bandmates, Douglas has created a loving tribute with its own liftoff. The title of "Con Almazan," and its way of unhurriedly cycling through chords, refers to Gillespie's "Con Alma." But it's also a nod to the band's pianist, Fabian Almazan, who adorns the twin trumpets of Douglas and Dave Adewumi with spiked harmonies, then takes a rambunctious solo, moving up the keyboard in quickening spirals. RUSSONELLO

Beyoncé Joins Megan Thee Stallion On The Delightfully Braggadocious 'Savage (Remix)' - NPR

Posted: 30 Apr 2020 07:07 AM PDT

YouTube

Houston hotties, roll up.

Two months after releasing Suga, ferocious rapper Megan Thee Stallion returns with a royal guest on a remix of that project's lead single.

Over the course of four minutes, fellow Houston native Beyoncé adds four original verses to "Savage (Remix)," bragging about how her hips would rule TikTok and inheriting her attitude from the mother monarch, Tina Knowles, over a subtly pounding, house-music-indebted piano. And because "classy" comes first, both Megan and Beyoncé have pledged to give their portions of the song's proceeds to Bread of Life, a Houston nonprofit providing disaster relief to those impacted by COVID-19.

Last month, Meg gave a middle finger to The Man when she filed a suit against her label, 1501 Certified Entertainment. Meg had entered renegotiations with her label after signing to Jay-Z's management company, Roc Nation, and alleges that she was blocked from releasing new music after talks went south. A judge in Texas granted Megan a temporary restraining order against 1501 and its CEO, Carl Crawford, which allowed her to drop Suga on March 6. (Crawford has denied the allegations.)

Megan carved out a name for herself last year with the motto, if not the song, of summer after releasing the catchphrase-laden mixtape Fever in May. After appearing as one of the four surprise headliners for NPR Music's Tiny Desk Fest in October 2019, Megan told NPR in a post-show interview that she would premiere a new alter-ego on her forthcoming debut album.

"Her name is Suga. She's besties with Tina Snow," she explained.

Although the titular character of Suga appears on last month's mixtape, Megan's proper debut album is still to come.

Poll: From "Savage" To "03' Bonnie & Clyde," What's Your Favorite Beyoncé Feature? - Recording Academy | Grammys

Posted: 01 May 2020 09:33 AM PDT

With quarantine meaning more time to catch up on shows and movies for many of us, we want to know: What current TV show do you think has been serving up the best tunes? Vote in our poll below and read on for more info on the music behind some of the biggest series.

Polls

What on-air TV show has your favorite soundtrack?

The Emmy-winning dramedy "Atlanta," whose third and fourth seasons are slated for a 2021 release, sees its creator Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino, co-starring as the manager and cousin of a rising ATL rapper. Glover also serves as an executive producer, writer, director and the executive music producer of the acclaimed series, which has featured an eclectic soundtrack including Flying Lotus, 2 Chainz, Yo Gotti, Curtis Mayfield, King Krule and Nas.

Rapper Lil Dicky Talks New TV Show 'Dave' And His Creative Ambitions On- And Off-Screen

Season one of "Dave" just launched last month. A comedy starring goofy rapper Lil Dicky a.k.a. Dave Burd, the show is based on his own rise to fame. The new show features hip-hop tracks from A$AP Rocky, Tyler, The Creator, O.T. Genasis and more. Burd and Jeff Schaffer are the show's co-creators and also serve as executive producers along with Saladin Patterson, Kevin Hart, Greg Mottola, Scooter Braun and a few others.

"Empire," the musical drama depicting the fictional Empire Entertainment hip-hop dynasty has not been without its own off-camera drama, but its sixth season will wrap up the critically acclaimed series this year. The talented cast, including Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard and Bryshere Y. Gray add great original music to an already fire playlist. GRAMMY-winning producer/songwriter Rodney Jerkins, a.k.a. Darkchild, has served as Supervising Music Producer since season three, taking over for fellow GRAMMY-winning production powerhouse Timbaland. This season has included music from Chaka Khan, Khalid, Gladys Knight & The Pips and Ciara.

"Euphoria" is a visually stunning, jarring teen melodrama that unflinchingly looks at addiction, sex, identity, toxic masculinity, social media and more, with a powerful soundtrack and score crafted by musical mastermind Labrinth, executive produced by Drake. With original music from series star Zendaya ("All Of Us"), along with perfectly timed bops from Lizzo, Doja Cat, Billie Eilish, Jamie XX, the emotions are high in this new HBO show, whose second season is set to resume filming following the coronavirus shutdown.

'One World: Together At Home': Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga + More

Set in Los Angeles in the '80s, the Emmy-winning Netflix series "GLOW," or "Gorgeous Women Of Wrestling," features a synth-heavy, period-appropriate soundtrack featuring hits from Roxette, Billy Joel, The Bangles, Daryl Hall & John Oates and more. The fourth and final season of the show starring Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin and Marc Maron is set to resume production after COVID-19 restrictions lift.

Starring Zoë Kravitz as an obsessive yet effortlessly cool Brooklyn record shop owner Rob, "High Fidelity" has an appropriately edgy, eclectic soundtrack. The new Hulu series is a modern take on the 2000 film of the same name starring John Cusack and Lisa Bonet, Kravitz's mom, both of which are adapted from Nick Hornby's 1995 novel. GRAMMY-winning multi-hyphenate Questlove helps curate the vibes as Executive Music Supervisor, with season one featuring music from David Bowie, Frank Zappa, Fleetwood Mac, OutKast and many more. Episode three even features a perfect cameo from Blondie's Debbie Harry as they listen to "Heart of Glass."

Created by and starring everyone's favorite "Awkward Black Girl" Issa Rae, the flyness of "Insecure"'s soundtrack rivals that of its stars, which also include Yvonne Orji, Jay Ellis and Natasha Rothwell. Led by Music Supervisor Kier Lehman, along with an original score from GRAMMY winner Raphael Saadiq, the series features a dope mix of hip-hop and R&B that soundtracks the wave of moods in their L.A. lives, with a strong emphasis on female artists, including Saweetie, Khia, Amber Mark, Kali Uchis and H.E.R. Season four is currently running on HBO.

Vote Now: Which 2000 Album Will You Have On Repeat This Year?

If the music, costumes and fierce dance moves on "POSE" don't make you want to strike a—well, you know—maybe you don't have the volume turned up loud enough. Starring iconic GRAMMY winner Billy Porter, alongside powerhouse rising trans actors Indya Moore, Dominique Jackson and Mj Rodriquez, the Emmy-winning FX show explores the glamour and inequality of late-'80s/early-'90s New York City through the lens of the LGBTQ+ ball scene. Shimmering with disco realness, the series features funky jams from KC & The Sunshine Band, The Gap Band, Chaka Khan, En Vogue and more with Amanda Krieg Thomas serving up the tunes as Music Supervisor. The show was renewed for a third season last year, set to launch after the COVID-19 shutdowns.

Netflix favorite "Stranger Things" is a fantastical, surreal journey set in a small town in the early '80s, in a nod to the golden age of sci-fi/fantasy films like "E.T." and "Labyrinth." Starring Winona Ryder and actors Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard and Noah Schnapp, longtime film and TV music supervisor Nora Felder ("Romy and Michele's High School Reunion," "Californication") bringing the dark, neon-lit '80s mood front and center. The stellar soundtrack includes '70s and '80s hits and deep cuts from Corey Hart, Don McLean, TOTO, The Clash and more.

Music Is Coming: Composer Ramin Djawadi Looks Back On Eight Epic Seasons Of 'Game Of Thrones'

Beyonce, Drake & More: Vote for Your Favorite New Music Release - Billboard

Posted: 01 May 2020 11:56 AM PDT

Plus: Doja Cat's "Say So" remix with Nicki Minaj, Camila Cabello's "My Oh My" remix with a new Gunna assist & much more.

This mega-star-studded week of new music flexed some pretty big muscles. But who reigns as the heavyweight champion?

"Big B and the B stands for..." Beyoncé breaking the internet on Wednesday when she buzzed onto Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage" remix. The two dethroned James Harden and Russell Westbrook as H-Town's supreme powerhouse duo -- just ask Mayor Sylvester Turner, who announced he's giving the superstars their own days after the song's release.

But that's not the only hot remix by two female hip-hop artists released this week: Doja Cat tapped Nicki Minaj for an even groovier "Say So" remix, the original of which pounced on top of the No. 5 spot of the Billboard Hot 100 this week (dated May 2). Minaj delivered some fire quarantine bars, from "Ever since I put the cookie on quarantine" to "Social distance, I'mma need my space."

Camila Cabello recruited Gunna to join DaBaby on her "My Oh My" remix, and the 26-year-old rapper referenced his recent "Quarantine Clean" collaboration with Young Stoner Life Records boss Young Thug in his prominent line: "She wanna see me clean, no quarantine/ I'm only here for one thing." And for the fourth and last remix of the week, Khalid partnered with Summer Walker on his "Eleven" remix, and the two cruise side-by-side in the neon-hued street-racing music video

So which new music release will be on repeat for you this weekend? Vote below!

‘Telephone’: When Lady Gaga Took Beyoncé Into the Deep End - The New York Times

Posted: 10 Apr 2020 03:56 PM PDT

Were the pop world — nay the world world — still spinning on its usual axis, Friday would have seen the release of Lady Gaga's highly anticipated sixth album, "Chromatica." Like many other musicians, she decided to push back her record because of the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike many other musicians, she has toggled between the roles of global pop star and world health advocate quite gracefully.

Just one day after unveiling the riotous cover art for "Chromatica" — a shocking pink cyberpunk-y image that answers the unprompted question "what if Grimes had directed 'Blade Runner 2049'?" — Lady Gaga appeared on Jimmy Fallon's home-recorded "Tonight Show" in a nude lip, turtle neck and blazer, and black-rimmed glasses to discuss her efforts raising $35 million for the World Health Organization. In a blink, she was far from the shallow.

But understated, business-casual Gaga was a role she was moving away from with the release of "Chromatica," a record that — after the stripped-down solemnity of "Joanne" and a stint in awards-season finery promoting "A Star Is Born" — promised to return to the early dance-pop sound and its monstrous, Alexander McQueen-reverent silhouettes that originally made her a star. The world had other plans.

So, in its honor, let's celebrate another over-the-top pop milestone that, back in mid-March, got lost in the darkness of a global crisis: the 10th anniversary of the nearly 10-minute neon-brite music video for Lady Gaga and Beyoncé's "Telephone."

Originally written by Lady Gaga and several collaborators for Britney Spears — a what-if demo of Spears singing the song later leaked — "Telephone" appeared on "The Fame Monster," a more adventurous coda to Gaga's debut album, "The Fame." Though Spears was reportedly considered again as a potential guest star, the featured artist ended up being the woman Gaga joined on the 2007 track "Video Phone (Remix)": Beyoncé.

Continuing the plotline of the "Paparazzi" video, which ended with Lady Gaga killing an abusive lover played by Alexander Skarksgard (seven years before "Big Little Lies"!), "Telephone" begins with the singer behind bars in a rather permissive women's prison (three years before "Orange Is the New Black"!) Beyoncé bails her out, chides her for being a bad girl, and then together, for reasons never quite explained, they poison an entire diner full of people. There's also egregious product placement (Wonder Bread, Beats by Dre), an interlude about making sandwiches, and an ending shot that conjures a millennial "Thelma & Louise." It was, purposefully, a lot.

Post-"Single Ladies" but still years away from the avant-garde image reinvention that was her 2013 self-titled visual album, "Telephone" gave Beyoncé one of her earliest opportunities to get weird. Though it's hard to imagine now, at the turn of the last decade, Beyoncé was still seen as a risk-averse, play-by-the-rules pop perfectionist. In "Telephone," she fed Lady Gaga a honey bun, acted out a violent revenge fantasy, and even mouthed an expletive before covering her mouth with a wide-eyed, faux-contrite look at the camera.

The Cut's recap of the video marveled that Bey "actually shows the angry, crazy side that we knew lurked beneath her too-perfect facade"; while Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield noted, "Beyoncé, the most egregiously non-crazy pop star of our time, gets to pretend she's as nuts as Gaga for a few minutes." Somewhere in the future, "Lemonade" beckoned.

"Telephone" is not Lady Gaga's most iconic music video — that would be "Bad Romance" — but in retrospect it may be the one that best represented a turning point in the form. In a recent interview with Variety, the video's director Jonas Akerlund recalled Gaga telling him she had become, "right on the edge of getting bored with making music videos." MTV "didn't like her," she claimed, and was always censoring or editing her most ambitious ideas.

"Telephone" would not be for them, by design. "Gaga was, like, the first artist that came to me and said, '[Expletive] MTV, we can do this, we don't need them,'" Akerlund said. "We can do this all online, on YouTube.'"

Released seven months before Kanye West's similarly epic, MTV-agnostic short film for "Runaway," "Telephone" was somewhere between an old-fashioned pop event and a digital-era phenomenon. It premiered, of all places, on a Friday night broadcast of "E! News" on March 12. But the internet was where most people saw it — a then-record-setting 15 million views in the first five days — and, just as importantly, where they dissected it.

In 2010, mainstream media was still attempting to make sense of and monetize the insurgent energy of the blogosphere and its voicy, offhandedly erudite pop cultural analysis. With its feminist-minded film references ("Kill Bill," "Thelma & Louise"), queer imagery and seemingly Warholian-ironic product placement, "Telephone" proudly announced itself as a Rich Text.

Lengthy articles and blog posts analyzing the video proliferated: One ABC News article featured a doctoral student "decoding" the video's ideas, at one point name-dropping Michel Foucault's "Discipline and Punish." Gaga encouraged such readings: "What I really wanted to do with this video is take a decidedly pop song, which on the surface has quite a shallow meaning, and turn it into something deeper."

Only a year later, she walked that bravado back. "There are so many [expletive] ideas in that video and all I see in that video is my brain throbbing with ideas and I wish I had edited myself a little bit more," she told Time Out in May 2011, claiming she couldn't even stomach watching the clip anymore.

In the rearview, though, her self-criticism seems unduly harsh. Perhaps the bloggers were a little overzealous in their scholarly shot-by-shot breakdowns, but taken on its gloriously shallow surface — smoldering cigarette sunglasses! Diet Coke curlers! an infomercial for poison! — "Telephone" remains one of the wildest and most watchable pop artifacts of its era, a defining moment in the music video's migration from MTV to the unruly internet.

It's certainly worth revisiting in the long lead-up to "Chromatica." Sure it's almost 10 minutes long — but I suspect you have the time.
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