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Tag: Singers

  • Pa. native Sabrina Carpenter to make her ‘Saturday Night Live’ debut on May 18

    Pa. native Sabrina Carpenter to make her ‘Saturday Night Live’ debut on May 18

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    In Sabrina Carpenter’s catchy new single, “Espresso,” she sings “I’m working late, ’cause I’m a singer.” She’ll live up to that line later this month when she makes her debut on “Saturday Night Live.”

    Carpenter — an actress and singer who was born and raised in the Philly suburbs — will be the musical guest on the May 18 episode of “SNL,” the Season 49 finale, which will be hosted by Jake Gyllenhaal.

    MORE: Learn more about Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ album by talking to your Amazon Alexa

    During her “SNL” set, Carpenter is almost sure to perform “Espresso,” which she released last month and is already being called a front-runner for the song of the summer. Throughout her music career so far, Carpenter has released five albums, including 2022’s “Emails I Can’t Send,” which garnered explosive success with tracks like “Nonsense” and “Feather.” 

    But with its dance-inducing beat, earworm-worthy lyrics — just try to get “That’s that me, espresso” out of your head — and a splashy music video to match, “Espresso” became Carpenter’s first to hit the Billboard top 10. 

    Her “SNL” gig comes in the wake of Carpenter’s Coachella debut, as well as her run as the opener for a string of international dates on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour — which she previously attended in Philadelphia as a fan and famous friend of Swift herself. During downtime at Coachella, Carpenter was spotted hanging out with her rumored flame, actor Barry Keoghan, along with Swift and her boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

    Carpenter, 24, was born in Quakertown, Bucks County, and grew up in East Greenville, Montgomery County, where she was homeschooled. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment at age 13. Along with her music career, Carpenter also is an actress who’s best-known role was in the Disney Channel series “Girl Meets World” — a reboot of ’90s Philly-based sitcom “Boy Meets World” — which ran from 2014 to 2017.

    Following the announcement of Carpenter’s “SNL” gig on Thursday, fans took to X (formerly Twitter) to “espresso” their excitement for the pop star’s performance. 

    Fans also riffed off the fact that Carpenter would be appearing during Gyllenhaal’s episode. Gyllenhaal is famously believed to be the inspiration behind Swift’s breakup song “All Too Well,” and the even more scathing “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” which Swift performed on “SNL” in 2021. The lore is further complicated, for people who are a little too online anyway, by the fact that “Barbie” star Ryan Gosling spoofed “All Too Well” during his “SNL” monologue last month.

    Before Carpenter’s debut, the next new episode of “SNL” will air Saturday, with host and musical guest Dua Lipa. In case you’re one of the few people in the world who haven’t heard “Espresso” yet, give it a listen below to learn the lyrics and perfect your dance moves ahead of Carpenter’s performance:

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    Franki Rudnesky

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  • Learn more about Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ album by talking to your Amazon Alexa

    Learn more about Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ album by talking to your Amazon Alexa

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    In the days since the release of Taylor Swift’s surprise double album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” fans and critics alike have attempted to interpret and decode the masterful, metaphorical lyricism on the singer’s 31 new songs. Now, Swift is offering a direct glimpse into her mind and songwriting process through a new Amazon Alexa feature. 

    On Monday, Amazon launched an album experience featuring Swift’s commentary on the inspiration behind some of the “TTPD” tracks. The feature can be accessed through the Amazon Music app, or by saying to an Alexa device, “Alexa, I’m a member of the Tortured Poets Department.”

    RELATED: Taylor Swift mentions Bucks County band the Starting Line in new song

    Topics for Swift’s commentary include the first single from the album, “Fortnight” with Post Malone, along with “Clara Bow,” “Florida!!!” with Florence + the Machine, “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” and “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys.”

    As a Swiftie, I had to give the feature a try … for investigative journalism purposes, of course! So, I said the magic words to my Alexa, which played a beat of ominous music before informing me, “You’re in.” Before I could revel in what felt like my initiation into an exclusive club, Swift’s voice filled the airwaves:

    “Hi, I’m Taylor, taking you behind the scenes of my new album in a unique listening experience called track-by-track, only on Amazon Music,” she said.

    From there, Swift launched into the following explanation of “Fortnight.”

    “‘Fortnight’ is a song that exhibits a lot of the common themes that run throughout this album. One of which being fatalism — longing, pining away, lost dreams. I think that it’s a very fatalistic album in that there are lots of very dramatic lines about life or death. ‘I love you, it’s ruining my life.’ These are very hyperbolic, dramatic things to say. It’s that kind of album.”

    Doing my due diligence as a Swiftie, I filmed my initial interaction with Swift-via-Alexa and posted it to TikTok to share the news of the Alexa feature with other fans. 

    @frak.attack through this alexa feature taylor talks about the inspo for multiple songs on TTPD including fortnight, clara bow, florida, WAOLOM, & MBOBHFT #THETORTUREDPOETSDEPARTMENT #taylorswift #torturedpoetsdepartment #swifties #swifttok ♬ original sound – franki

    Based on the comments on the video, some people didn’t have as much luck utilizing the feature. Many claimed their Alexa misheard them, with multiple users saying their device thought they were asking to listen to “Eclectic Donut.”

    Technological difficulties aside, this new feature gives fans a rare intimate look into the songwriting process of Swift, while also leaving the album largely open for Swifties to interpret and relate to things that have happened in their own lives. 

    For her explanation of the song “Clara Bow,” Swift discusses how the entertainment industry teaches women to see themselves “like you could be the new replacement for this woman who’s done something great before you.” “Florida!!!” is an ode to Swift watching “Dateline” and seeing how some criminals try to reinvent themselves in the Sunshine State, while “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” is about being with people who “devalue us in their mind.”

    As for “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” Swift was inspired by “bitter” feelings about how society treats artists. 

    “What do we do to our writers, and our artists, and our creatives? We put them through hell,” she says. “We watch what they create, then we judge it. We love to watch artists in pain, often to the point where I think sometimes as a society we provoke that pain and we just watch what happens.”

    Listeners can also learn more about the meaning behind key words on the album by saying to their Alexa, “Alexa, give me a ‘Tortured Poets Department’ word.” Plus, a special “TTPD” introduction by Swift will play when users tell their devices, “Alexa, play the latest album by Taylor Swift.” 

    Since the release of “TTPD” on Friday, Swift has been smashing records. “TTPD” became the first album to exceed 200 million streams in a single day, according to Variety. With the new release, the Berks County native became the most streamed artist in a single day in Spotify history, breaking her own record from when “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” dropped in October. Amazon and Apple also said that Swift’s album broke records across their respective streaming platforms, according to CNN.

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    Franki Rudnesky

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  • Lizzy McAlpine to play two homecoming shows at The Met in June

    Lizzy McAlpine to play two homecoming shows at The Met in June

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    Pop star Lizzy McAlpine is heading out on tour behind her upcoming album, “Older,” and she’ll be playing two homecoming shows in Philadelphia this summer.

    McAlpine’s “The Older Tour 2024” will hit The Met Philadelphia on Monday, June 24, and Tuesday, June 25. The singer initially was slated to play only one show in Philly, but added a second due to the high volume of sales during the presale period, which began Wednesday. The general sale starts Friday at 10 a.m.

    RELATED: Montgomery County’s Lizzy McAlpine to release third studio album ‘Older’

    News of the tour comes just days after McAlpine — who grew up in Wynnewood and graduated from Lower Merion High School in 2018 — revealed “Older,” her third studio album, will be released April 5. The 24-year-old already has released the title track, a piano ballad in which she ponders the difficult transition into adulthood.

    Here’s what she wrote on Instagram: 

    “me & the band are going on tour! i know it’s been a while since i’ve gone on the road but i needed to figure out a way to do it that would be less taxing on my mental and physical health. and i think we’ve done that! it’s gonna be frickin epic.”

    In April, McAlpine stopped at The Fillmore as part of her last headlining tour, “The End of The Movie.” After the U.S. leg of that tour, McAlpine rescheduled her dates in Europe due to the tour being hard on her “mental & physical well-being.” This time, McAlpine said she is playing fewer cities in an effort to “keep my sanity” and avoid the need to cancel or postpone. 

    McAlpine has been recording and releasing music since 2018, when she was a student at Berklee College of Music in Boston. A number of covers and original songs posted to her TikTok account in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic helped propel her to national fame. 

    She released her debut album “Give Me A Minute” in 2020. But it was her second album, “five seconds flat,” released in 2022, that brought her into the mainstream. In particular, the single “ceilings” took off on TikTok last winter, when it became the soundtrack to a popular trend. It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, and the official music video has been viewed 19 million times on Youtube. 

    Lizzy McAlpine: The Older Tour 2024

    Monday, June 24, and Tuesday, June 25
    8 p.m. | Ticket prices vary
    The Met Philadelphia
    858 N. Broad St., Philadelphia, PA 19130

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    Franki Rudnesky

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  • Lucinda Williams on Her Life, Her Lyrics, and Everything In Between

    Lucinda Williams on Her Life, Her Lyrics, and Everything In Between

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    Well, there’s a tribe of people who live here; we like each other and hang together. I’ve had this same conversation with people here who are progressive and they all say, “We feel we live somewhere where we can join the fight and it’s going to make a difference.”

    How did you feel when Roe v. Wade was overturned?

    It was a shock—complete and utter dismay. It’s hard to wrap my head around it; like did that actually happen? It seems so unreal.

    Preorder Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You from Amazon or Bookshop.

    Your husband manages you and you’ve collaborated with him a bit on songwriting. How is it living, working, and touring with him?

    It’s hard. At first it felt like it was stabilizing my life, but working on the book with Tom and living with him has been incredibly stressful. Women say [they have] hormonal things, but I think men have that too.

    You’re singing, but still unable to play guitar onstage. How do you feel touring and performing? 

    It’s exhausting. I enjoy the shows but the travel really tires me out. 

    You toured with Tom Petty and did a Hollywood Bowl concert with him the weekend before he died (in 2017)? 

    Yes, I had toured with him [previously] and we did the Hollywood Bowl together; we were just beginning to form a great friendship. Then he died. His death really affected me.

    Did you go through your own bad period of drugs or drinking?

    The drinking, yes. Some drugs, psychedelics mostly. The drinking didn’t come in until my 20s, 30s. As for drugs, I’ve never really got into the hard stuff. I’m a wine drinker, but I’d go into the bars on tour and the wines were horrific. So a friend told me to have vodka tonics instead. 

    You’ve credited Bob Dylan and Neil Young as musical influences; are there any female musicians who inspired you?

    I loved Bobbie Gentry—she was the first female voice I heard whose voice was low and husky. Most of the female voices I heard were high, pretty voices—Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez. They had these amazing ranges and I could never sing like that; it was frustrating. I also listened to Memphis Minnie, Dinah Washington, and I loved Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette.

    What’s the new album like?

    I’ve got some great guest artists singing background vocals on it: Bruce Springsteen, Margo Price, Angel Olsen. I started cowriting with (New York City–based singer-songwriter) Jesse Malin—and one of my favorite songs on it is called “New York Comeback.” We recorded some stuff at the historic RCA studios in Nashville where legends like Tammy [Wynette] and Dolly [Parton] recorded. 

    Can you believe it’s the 44th anniversary of your first album?

    No, the thing with time just blows my mind. 

    All products featured on Vanity Fair are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

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    Lisa Robinson

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  • ‘Elvis’ Producers Criticized For Casting Austin Butler In Role Of Iconic Black Singer

    ‘Elvis’ Producers Criticized For Casting Austin Butler In Role Of Iconic Black Singer

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    LOS ANGELES—As awards season arrives and critics take note of the film’s problematic whitewashed casting, the Golden Globe–nominated Elvis faced increased scrutiny this week for casting Austin Butler in the role of the iconic Black singer. “Using a white actor to portray a world-renowned African American who single-handedly revolutionized pop music is regrettable, to say the least,” critic Ibrahim Lawrence wrote in the Los Angeles Times, suggesting that actors of color had little hope of succeeding in today’s film industry if producers couldn’t even bring themselves to give a Black man the starring role in a musical biopic about Elvis Presley. “And it’s so unnecessary. Why not cast Jonathan Majors? LaKeith Stanfield? Even Michael Ealy could’ve knocked it out of the park, but once again, Hollywood has chosen to engage in historical erasure to fit a white-centric ideal, in this case an Elvis who would be palatable to a larger demographic. Hearing classics like ‘Baby Let’s Play House,’ ‘Hound Dog,’ and ‘In The Ghetto’ coming out of a white man’s lips is nothing short of jarring.” Though his decision to take the part has been condemned in most quarters, many critics have nonetheless praised Butler for his refusal to wear blackface in his depiction of Presley.

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  • Drake Just Went On A Hentai Barrage On Instagram

    Drake Just Went On A Hentai Barrage On Instagram

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    Drake, the rapper, looks at his phone during an NBA game.

    Drake on his phone, maybe posting porn?
    Photo: Cole Bursto (Getty Images)

    Hello, welcome to the end of the week. I’m here to send you off into the night with the news that rapper Drake has posted a bunch of anime porn, aka hentai on his main Instagram account. The account has 124M followers, for the record, which is more than the entirety of Crunchyroll’s viewership in 2021. The porn is seemingly part of his marketing push for his new album “Her Loss.” Just one more thing the rapper has done recently that’s caught the eyes of the internet and made a lot of folks stop and go “…What? Why?”

    Let’s take a quick detour before we hop straight into the hentai posting to provide some context. Today, Drake released a new collaborative album with 21 Savage. To help promote Her Loss, the new record, Drake and 21 Savage have been on a wild whirlwind marketing blitz complete with a fake promo for a non-existent NPR Tiny Desk Concert starring the duo and a completely fabricated Vogue cover. Weird stuff! But last night, Drake decided to take his marketing of Her Loss to a whole new level, and uh…just posted straight-up anime porn on his main, official Instagram.

    As of 6:15 EST p.m. the photos are still up on his Instagram story. He posted four different hentai images last night accompanied with various English captions, including “Mood at midnight” and “Goodbye my dear husband.” Enough posts, in other words, that the porn doesn’t seem to be a mistake from a random image he found or something. Here is a censored look at the images:

    An image collage that shows four different pieces of censored anime porn.

    If you want to see the fully uncensored pics, click here, but just know that they are full-on hentai screenshots. So if you are at work or around prudish family members, be careful.

    G/O Media may get a commission

    The album hasn’t been out long, but it’s led to some controversy involving Megan Thee Stallion. In one song on the album, Drake seemingly references a reported 2020 shooting involving Stallion and Canadian rapper, Tory Lanez. Allegedly, Lanez shot Megan Thee Stallion’s feet when she tried to walk away from an argument. In the song, Circo Loco, Drake appears to reference this event when he raps, “This bitch lie ’bout getting shots but she still a stallion.”

    Megan Thee Stallion, another known anime connoisseur, has since commented about the song and its lyrics, tweeting: “Stop using my shooting for clout bitch ass n—-! Since when tf is it cool to joke about abt women getting shot!”

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    Zack Zwiezen

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