It’s time to stock up on tin foil like it’s toilet paper in March 2020, because the theories and discussion around Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn‘s rumored breakup after six-ish years as a couple are a-swirlin’ so vigorously you need water wings to stay above water. Don’t feel like you have the face shape to pull off a hat with full confidence? Fine, fine, a ball of yarn and some thumbtacks will do in a pinch.
Swift closed out her three-night run in Arlington, Texas on April 4, with the next planned stop on the Eras tour landing in Tampa, Florida on April 13. Reports of the split soft-launched on Saturday, April 8, with unnamed sources telling ET and People that “the relationship had run its course.” (Vanity Fair has reached out to Swift’s reps for comment.) Swift and Alwyn themselves haven’t released official comment or confirmation as of yet, but then, they wouldn’t—they’ve kept their public presence as opaque as the layers upon layers of pantyhose and nude fishnets Swift has made her signature onstage. Impenetrable. Very shiny. Probably both very supportive and weirdly relieving to take off at the end of the day, at the same time.
So where in the world is Taylor Swift in this week-long break from stage shows, as fans murmur “I hope she’s okay” to no one in particular while they listen to “Love Story” for the nth time on their commute? It would appear she’s blowing up buildings and googling herself.
Swift was spotted Sunday across the pond in Liverpool, according to a report in The Sun, shooting a music video for an as-yet-unrevealed track. With actress Joey King, who also appeared in the video for Swift’s “how dare you?” country-pop anthem “Mean,” on-site, Swift was spotted by paparazzi in what one captioned “boom smash and grab” on Twitter, with production simulating an explosion at the historic Cunard Building, with Swift maybe….stealing a painting? At the very least, she’s running like she got caught on the Beanie Baby forums after bedtime, with a large canvas under her arm. The production also reportedly filmed over the long weekend at St. George’s Hall in the area. Could one call this…“Vigilante Shit”?
There’s nothing Swift loves more than an Easter egg, so it seems fitting that when she wasn’t filming, she spent some downtime checking her mentions on TikTok. Call it proof of life, call it a reach, call it what you want, but Swift’s account dropped an approving “like” on a TikTok compilation of tour clips from a fan saying they couldn’t “wait 2 see her soon,” and another of a family dancing to “Karma” in a kitchen under a decorative cabbage garland (obviously). She lives! Karma is her boyfriend!
Swift’s not the only one googling herself: So are the masses. Her albums are on the rise on the iTunes charts, with Midnights currently clocking in the No. 12 spot, Folklore at 27, Lover at 30, Reputation at 43, Evermore at 58, and 1989 at 65 on the overall chart, but absolutely dominating the service’s pop album chart: Midnights is No. 1, Lover is No. 3, Reputation No. 5, and 1989 No. 8. Notably, all of these but 1989 are of what we might call the “Alwyn Era.” (And 1989 is a no-skips classic, so can’t blame that one for charting at any time.) We think we know that Alwyn also co-wrote some of the songs across the albums, credited under the pseudonym William Bowery, including “Exile,” “Betty,” “Champagne Problems,” “Coney Island,” “Evermore,” and “Sweet Nothing.” “Champagne Problems” and “Betty” have consistently been on Swift’s Eras setlists so far, and it’s been noted that in recent shows, “Invisible String,” which is a mush-o-rama ode to soulmates and includes references to Alwyn’s teenage job at a yogurt shop (which, it cannot be said often enough, was apparently called Snogs??), has been replaced with breakup anthem “The 1,” which has much less yogurt, but does include the line “the greatest loves of all time are over now.”
Meanwhile, Tampa is preparing itself for Swift’s stay, with Florida’s Hillsborough County temporarily declaring itself “Swiftsborough.” Here’s to hoping their tin foil supply is accordingly stocked. If anyone happens to be near New York’s Cornelia Street in the meantime, you may want to bring protective gear and/or an orthopedist, due to all the falling to knees happening around those parts.
Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn have broken up after six years together, Entertainment Tonight exclusively confirmed. The split was amicable and “it was not dramatic.”
The 33-year-old singer is currently on her highly anticipated “Eras” tour. Her relationship with the British actor, 32, “had just run its course” and that is “why [Alwyn] hasn’t been spotted at any shows,” ET reports.
The pair were rumored to have met at the 2016 Met Gala and have kept their relationship mostly private. One of the few times the pair was photographed publicly together was at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards, when Swift was nominated for best original song for “Beautiful Ghosts” from “Cats.”
Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn at the 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 5, 2020.
Christopher Polk/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Alwyn has starred in several TV shows and movies, including the Hulu adaptation of the book “Conversations with Friends,” and the Oscar-nominated film “The Favourite.”
Last year, Swift released her tenth studio album, “Midnights,” and announced her “Eras” world tour, where she will perform songs from her past albums.
Alwyn inspired one of the songs on the album, “Lavender Haze,” Swift revealed on TikTok, according to ET. “I happened upon the phrase ‘Lavender Haze’ when I was watching Mad Men and I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool, and it turns out that it was a common phrase that was used in the ’50s where they would just describe being in love,” she said. “Like, If you were in the ‘Lavender Haze,’ that meant you were in that all-encompassing love glow, and I thought that was really beautiful.”
She said when you are in the “lavender haze” feeling, you will do anything to stay there, even if people try to bring you down. “My relationship for six years, we’ve had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it,” she said. “And so this song is sort of about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff. I hope you guys like it.”
When news of their breakout was announced over the weekend, the term “Taylor” began trending on Twitter and as of Monday was still trending with 362,000 tweets.
Now that Taylor Swift and her London Boy Joe Alwyn have reportedly broken up after 6 years of dating, the question about their engagement is up again. The 33-year-old pop singer and Joe’s break up was reported to be “non-dramatic” because “the relationship had just run its course.”While Swifties are heartbroken about the breakup, they’re also really curious about one thing in particular. Fans wonder if Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn have been engaged in the 6 years they were dating. Here is everything we know.
Joe Alwyn addressed the engagement rumors
Last year in an interview, Joe finally spoke out on the topic of his and Taylor’s engagement saying, “If I had a pound for every time I think I’ve been told I’ve been engaged, then I’d have a lot of pound coins. I mean, the truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn’t say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn’t say.” Taylor and Joe’s relationship has been very private over the years and the fans have gotten a glimpse inside it only through a few of Taylor’s songs.
In another interview, Joe said, “I’m aware people want to know about that side of things. I think we have been successfully very private and that has now sunk in for people … but I really prefer to talk about work.”
Ever since the start of the relationship, Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn have kept it under wraps. The couple has stayed lowkey throughout the course of their relationship. Reports of the two dating first emerged in May 2017, but in June 2017 the rumors were confirmed as Joe and Taylor were pictured together for the first time. In the October of the same year, Taylor released her song “Gorgeous” and admitted in a secret listening session to her fans that it was about Joe Alwyn. Later in December, Joe and Taylor were spotted snuggling during Ed Sheeran’s iHeartRadio performance.
International pop sensation Taylor Swift and British actor Joe Alwyn have broken up, as per reports in ET Online and People. Swift, the 12-time Grammy Award-winner, is currently in the middle of her Eras Tour, which heads to Tampa, Florida next week. Dates are scheduled through early August, and a five-night run at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, with international engagements “to be announced.”
When ET Online broke the story on Saturday night, they wrote that the split occurred “a few weeks ago.” A source said that the breakup was “not dramatic,” and that “the relationship had just run its course.” The news sheds some light on why Alwyn, 32, has not been spotted at any of the 33-year-old Swift’s shows. The Eras Tour began in mid-March at State Farm Stadium outside of Phoenix, Arizona.
V.F. has reached out to both Swift and Alwyn for further comment.
As recently as this January, Alwyn was joking around with the press about a possible engagement with the diamond-selling artist. “If I had a pound for every time I think I’ve been told I’ve been engaged, then I’d have a lot of pound coins,” he said, before adding, “I mean, the truth is, if the answer was yes, I wouldn’t say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn’t say.”
Considering the level of Swift’s fame, the relationship between the couple has always been relatively private. It is believed that the first couple met at the Met Gala in May 2016. (Swift decoders point to the 2017 song “Dress” as a clue, as it features the lyric “Flashback to when you met me/your buzzed cut and my hair bleached,” which lines up with the pair’s ‘dos at the time.) That fall, Swift attended the premiere of the Ang Lee film Billy Lynn’s Longtime Walk, in which Alwyn starred, at the Arclight in Los Angeles. Paparazzi shots of the two as an apparent item didn’t emerge until summer 2017. In September 2018, Alwyn talked about Swift during an interview for the first time, but to say “I prefer to talk about work.”
Earlier this year, Swift’s video for “Lavender Haze” included what many interpreted as a reference to Alwyn with an image of their zodiac signs, and at roughly the same time, Alwyn uploaded a pic of Swift’s cat Meredith to his Instagram stories. But now, just two-and-a-half months later, we have this news.
People noted that, beginning on March 31 in Arlington, Texas, Swift changed the setlist of her tour to include “The 1,” a breakup song. It replaced “Invisible String,” which focuses on two soulmates.
While Swift continues performing to sold out arenas this year, Alwyn will next be seen in Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’s new project AND, which costars Margaret Qualley, Jesse Plemons, and Emma Stone. He’s also been announced as playing Laertes in an upcoming film version of Hamlet starring Riz Ahmed and Morfydd Clark.
With each new generation that “comes up,” there is the constant accusation from previous ones that there has never been a worse sect of people than the “youthquake” currently dominating. In Gen Z’s case, however, it might actually be true (until Alpha comes along to overtake them). Of course, defendants of the generation would argue that they can’t help what they are, being the first to have grown up entirely in the matrix. Never knowing a world in which the internet didn’t reign supreme. Those who came before them, the millennials, at least have some vague remembrance of a life before being totally “connected” (thereby being, ironically, totally disconnected). And yes, millennials were, once upon a time, the most hated. It was they who were dubbed the “snowflakes” first. But that term is quickly shifting to apply to Gen Z. Not just because of how easily offended they are or how incapable of processing opinions and ideas that don’t fit in with their own algorithm, but because, well, they’re just not equipped to deal with much of anything at all outside the matrix.
Nonetheless, for a generation as dependent on the internet as Z, they scarcely seem to understand how to use it to its utmost potential. Certainly not for research and fact-checking purposes, it would appear. This much was made starkly apparent by one of the few Gen Z spokespeople thus far, Billie Eilish. For, in an episode of her now-defunct “radio show” (a.k.a. Apple Music podcast), me & dad radio, Eilish unashamedly admits, “I used to love [“Picture to Burn”] when I was, like, four—no, probably older than that. Probably, like, six. It’s crazy. It’s very country. When I listen to it now, I’m like, ‘Wow, I totally didn’t realize how country this was.’ But I loved this song back then because I thought it was so badass. I thought it was so cool and mean. I just loved it.” And yet, she didn’t love it enough to 1) look into who actually sang it and 2) try to understand something as simple as what it means to burn a picture.
To be “fair,” Taylor Swift was an entirely different person in 2006, when her self-titled debut came out and she was Country Barbie. Eager to neither confirm nor deny the ever-burgeoning rumors that she was a savior to the Aryan race and a God-fearing Republican. So there little four- or six-year-old (she was seven, per the math of when the single was released that Eilish ostensibly can’t do) Billie was, probably right to file away this country singer as someone separate from the Swift we would all eventually come to know. A being so far-removed from her howdy, yee-haw days that it’s understandable someone might not associate her with that girl from “Picture to Burn.” If, that is, said person had no access to the internet and/or was totally detached from interacting with pop culture. Such a person, needless to say, is not Billie Eilish. But her ill-informed, la-di-da statements reveal much about the generation to which she subscribes. One that is so out of touch with anything tangible that she felt no embarrassment in also adding, “I didn’t understand at all what a ‘picture to burn’ meant. The only word ‘burn’ that I knew, that I thought that she meant, was, like, when you burn a CD.”
While one could say that associating “burning” with CDs is decidedly millennial, in this instance, not so. Eilish’s childhood spent in a world where the trappings of the internet (including downloading songs and, at that time, burning them onto CDs) were pervasive as opposed to peripheral is indicative of a generation that would scarcely grasp (or ever have to) anything related to the physical. That CD burning was, in fact, a “millennial thing” was far more telling of said generation’s lingering attachment to that which was concrete. But, as it turned out, the practice was just a launching point for eradicating all tangibility and turning everything digital with the advent of the first iPhone in 2007 that also combined the key elements of an iPod function for music-listening purposes. In other words, what Gen Z would come to view as more normal than anyone because they grew up with it as their norm. CDs (and records and tapes) be damned.
Swift, who released “Picture to Burn” in February of 2008 (two years after Taylor Swift came out) offered an accompanying video that Eilish could have easily watched at some point for a keen understanding of what it means to burn a picture. Complete with contextual cues at the beginning of the Trey Fanjoy-directed video that includes Swift holding up a picture of her and her ex and asking her friend, who’s with her in the front seat of her car, “Would you look at how happy we were back then? I can’t believe he turned out to be such a jerk” (by the end, that picture will be up in flames, further “spelling it out” for Eilish). It’s the sort of comment one could imagine hearing in a Britney Spears interlude from Oops!…I Did It Again. And, yes, at that time, Spears was still at the peak of her influential powers, so it’s entirely possible Swift could have been “infected” with a touch of Spears in this regard (even if “Picture to Burn” itself was ahead of Britney’s curve by employing the same style of pyrotechnics as her months before the “Circus” video came out that same year). Unlike Eilish, whose undercover love of Swift all this time never seemed to creep into her own musical style. No overbearing Telecaster guitar strings or vocal warblings about how, “As far as I’m concerned/You’re just another picture to burn.”
At the same time, some of Eilish’s “we are never ever getting back together” sentiments on Happier Than Ever might be traceable to this moment in her early sonic exposure. For just as Taylor rails against a no-good, low-life type with, “State the obvious, I didn’t get my perfect fantasy/I realize you love yourself more than you could ever love me,” so does Eilish on “Lost Cause” via such lyrics as, “I used to think you were shy/But maybe you just had nothing on your mind/Maybe you were thinkin’ ’bout yourself all the time/I used to wish you were mine/But that was way before I realized/Someone like you would always be so easy to find.”
However, by this estimation, everything of “value” Gen Z has to “give” (read: repurpose and pass off as their own) was ultimately gleaned from millennials through internet osmosis. A phenomenon that’s only worsened thanks to TikTok and the increasing lack of “crediting original sources.” Leading one to believe that civilization truly has reached a “wall” in terms of everything having been done before (something Barenaked Ladies confirmed in 1998). And rather than being, at the very least, done in a better or more thoughtful way in the present, it seems that the “reinvention” of the same thing only gets worse in its presentation over time. Making one simply want to burn it all to the ground. Surely Eilish must know what “burn” would entail in that sense.
I love it when the rich and famous go on trial to display how vastly out of touch they are with the rest of humble society. Bone-broth-drinking, Goop-founding, avid skier Gwyneth Paltrow is social media’s current favorite spectacle. And I’m calling it: this might be the greatest celeb trial of all time. It started way back in 2016, when poor Gwyneth was simply trying to enjoy a peaceful day skiing … until she collided with another skier.
And it’s all getting dredged up now for our entertainment.
The accuser claims Gwyneth ran into him and caused lasting injuries and even brain damage! But a twist: Gwyneth claims the skier ran into her back while she was reveling in a wintry getaway with her children Apple and Moses Martin, and husband Brad Falchuck. A wealthy white woman on trial for a skiing accident? Snooze! So, I totally get if you’re thinking, borinngggg. But don’t tune out just yet. The real fun starts in the courtroom.
Let’s begin with the iconic outfits. It’s obvious that Gwyneth has dusted off her actress chops to play the role of beleagured-Ski-Mom. Her wardrobe has so far featured a pair of clear-framed aviator glasses (giving 70’s serial killer) and a beige turtleneck (almost now sold-out at $600 from none other than Goop.com). If you’re gonna be on trial, might as well make it a press tour for your brand!
That’s when I knew this trial was meant for the big screen, and not just for the eyes of a few Park City, Utah jurors. Oscar-winner Gwyneth never under-serves, and her counter-lawsuit against 76-year-old Terry Sanderson is no different.
With an initial lawsuit of $3.1 million in 2019, Sanderson has since knocked down the reparations to $300,000…but no amount of money can lead to Gwyneth saying “No, I wouldn’t say [Taylor Swift] and I are good friends…we’re friendly, I’ve taken my kids to one of her concerts before but we don’t talk very often.” while taking the stand with a straight face.
What people fail to mention is that Gwyneth probably didn’t have to take the stand. But she’s a woman for America! I choose to believe she wants to give us these moments. Moments like her forlornly admitting she “lost a half a day of skiing” or apologizing for her language when she reiterates “you skied directly into my effing back.”
The whole thing is the definition of camp. It’s like seeing an SNL skit come to life in the best possible way. Watching Gwyneth Paltrow’s jaw drop as the defense attorney said she lied under oath multiple times is my favorite raw reaction to date. PSA to the general public: start suing celebs for all your minor inconveniences, please.
Swift attended Wright’s senior prom at as part of MTV’s “Once Upon a Prom” special.
Wright later took to Twitter again, adding, “I never could’ve imagined the attention this would get and the positivity from everyone! Firstly, my tweet was out of pure fun, I had no motive for recognition or handouts. The MTV gig was a great memory and everything that came with it was fantastic.”
Wow! I never could’ve imagined the attention this would get and the positivity from everyone! Firstly, my tweet was out of pure fun, I had no motive for recognition or handouts. The MTV gig was a great memory and everything that came with it was fantastic! Thanks for the love!!
With an impressive 44-song set list and an over-three-hour runtime, Taylor Swift’s highly anticipated Eras tour included an impressive number of costume changes that likely went along with her different eras. And based on what I’ve seen of her stunning outfits, I’m quite sure they pleased both Swifties and casual observers alike. Swift’s eye-catching looks helped her to be seen by her thousands of fans across the massive arena, and you’re about to see why.
In addition to choosing dramatic looks that helped her to easily be spotted, Swift wore quite a few current trends during the first two nights of her concert. And luckily for her, there happen to be many Taylor Swift-esque trends out there right now. Scroll on for the noteworthy ones she’s wearing right out of the gate (all paired with custom Christian Louboutin shoes), and shop the Swift-inspired trends for yourself—no headlining concert needed.
GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Taylor Swift opened her U.S. concert series with a three-hour tour of her career.
Swift kicked off the first concert of the 52-date Eras Tour with a six-song set from her album “Lover” on Friday night at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, where the Super Bowl was played a month ago.
“I don’t know how to address the way this is making me feel right now,” Swift, who hasn’t toured since 2018, said early in the show.
She ended the concert with a seven-song set from her latest album “Midnights,” closing with the song “Karma.”
In between she played clusters of songs from most of her albums — and just one, “Tim McGraw,” from her 2006 self-titled debut. In the end it took 44 songs and just over three hours for her to span her 17-year career.
Having not toured for her previous three albums, this concert series is intended to play catchup by providing the live debut of many of those songs. When Swift announced the tour in November she called it “a journey through the musical eras of my career (past and present!).”
After another show at the same venue Saturday night, the tour moves on to Allegiant Stadium outside Las Vegas and then AT&T Stadium near Dallas.
It concludes with two Los Angeles-area shows in August.
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This story was first published on March 18, 2023. It was updated on March 19, 2023 to correct the number of dates on the tour. The number is 52, not 27.
In 2022, Madonna stated the obvious with regard to the mention of potentially selling her music catalogue: “Ownership is everything.” In other words, there’s no price tag she would accept to give up control of her music. Taylor Swift understands that better than anyone as she continues the daunting task of re-recording all the albums she made while under contract with Big Machine Records. At fifteen years old, the caveat of letting the label own her masters as part of the signing deal probably seemed like a small price to pay for fame. Over a decade later, as one of the most famous pop stars in the world, it suddenly felt like a huge mistake. Especially when music manager Scooter Braun bought Big Machine Records in 2019, thereby claiming ownership over Swift’s prized masters.
The only “negotiation” Swift was offered in terms of buying them back was to agree to re-sign with Big Machine and “earn” one album back per every album recorded under the new contract. That’s fucked-up, Shylock-type shit, obviously, and Swift vehemently turned down the so-called deal in favor of signing with Republic Records, who offered a contract that allowed her to own all of her master recordings going forward. Without Swift on “his side,” Braun then sold the masters to a private equity firm called Shamrock Holdings (which, yes, sounds totally made up, complete with the word “sham” in it). And now, here we are two re-recordings (Fearless and Red) of six later, with Swift still managing to get her digs in at the (Big) Machine by releasing re-recorded versions of even her standalone singles from The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond. Luckily, this wasn’t the only “celebratory” marker of launching her Eras Tour on March 17th (because one supposes she loves an Irish boy too). She also offered a re-recording of “If This Was A Movie,” a bonus track on the deluxe edition of Speak Now (the likely next re-recording, as all but confirmed by the requisite Easter eggs Swift likes to dole out to salivating fans). But, better still, is a truly unreleased song from Lover called “All of the Girls You Loved Before.”
Released too late to use in the soundtrack for To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, “All of the Girls You Loved Before” could easily have been written from the perspective of Lara Jean (Lana Condor) after finally getting the boy she was obsessing over for so long to see that it was her he should be with (this smacking of another Taylor single, “You Belong With Me”). Rather than playing into the 00s school of thought on how “other women” should be treated (read: with disdain—e.g., Pink’s “Stupid Girls” or Marina and the Diamonds’ “Girls”) by their “competitor,” Swift wields the “correct” approach (a.k.a. the publicly sanctioned one we’re all supposed to adhere to now—Hailey Bieber take heed) with regard to seeing these previous women as “gifts.” Silver linings and all that rot. Because, while he was out being a himbo, it gave him the chance to understand what he did and did not want in a woman. Or, as Taylor puts it, “All of the girls you loved before/Made you the one I’ve fallen for/Every dead-end street [a euphemism for “dead-end vagina”] led you straight to me.” It has a certain “invisible string” slant to it, to be sure. Swift also speaks of her own patchy past with men as she adds, “When I think of all the makeup/Fake love out on the town/Cryin’ in the bathroom [a line Olivia Rodrigo also riffs on in “good 4 u”] for some dude/Whose name I cannot remember now.” In effect, everyone else was just a pile of trash that allowed Swift and Joe Alwyn to climb to the top of the heap together.
Another notable quality about “All of the Girls You Loved Before” is that it’s directly in contrast to the message of “Hits Different” (not to be confused with SZA’s “Hit Different”), a bonus track from the Target edition of Midnights. For, apparently, three years after Lover, Swift was in a less welcoming headspace toward her “love object’s” additional dalliances by noting, “I pictured you with other girls in love/Then threw up on the street.” But hey, people are so many colliding emotions at once that Swift can hardly be blamed for inconsistency in sentiments on the matter of dealing with “other hoes.”
As for her Hunger Games re-recordings, “Eyes Open” wasn’t the best track to resuscitate if Swift was hoping for a reminder of her musical prowess. Mainly because the track has a decidedly Avril Lavigne tinge, correlatingly saturated in the 00s sound of Rock (said in the “italicized, capital R” sort of way back then despite it being the lamest sound ever), even though it was originally released in 2012. Another re-recording from the same soundtrack, “Safe & Sound,” stands the test of time slightly better. Perhaps because it was given the prompt to embody “what Appalachian music would sound like in three hundred years.” Swift, a sucker for being part of any movie soundtrack related to Appalachia (hear also: “Carolina” from Where the Crawdads Sing), thusly responded with sparse instrumentation as she harmonizes with Joy Williams and John Paul White (a.k.a. The Civil Wars), “Just close your eyes/You’ll be all right/Come morning light/You and I will be safe and sound.” A likely story.
The fourth song of the “Eras Tour celebration pack,” “If This Was A Movie (Taylor’s Version),” is awash in the country twang Swift was still fond of employing back in 2010. Considered a “fast-paced ballad,” Swift urges, “Come back, come back, come back to me/Like you would, you would if this was a movie/Stand in the rain outside ’til I came out.” That last line, of course romanticizing the stalker-y behavior of Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) in Say Anything (minus the rain…though there is a separate scene of him being drenched as he pines over Diane Court [Ione Skye] while talking on a pay phone). She pleads again (desperate much?), “Come back, come back, come back to me/Like you could, you could if you just said you’re sorry/I know that we could work it out.” To the point of Swift insisting it would all be okay if the boy in question just apologized, she was sure to state during opening night at Glendale, Arizona’s State Farm Stadium, “Sort of a running, recurring theme in my music is I love to explain to men how to apologize. I just love it, it’s kind of my thing. I love to tell them step-by-step: here’s how simple this is to fix things if you just follow these simple steps I’m laying out for you in a three-minute song. I just love the idea of men apologizing.” A fantasy that certainly gets plenty of play in “If This Was A Movie” (incidentally, Steven Spielberg’s new theme song).
Although the track appeared as a bonus on Speak Now, it is being promoted as part of The More Fearless (Taylor’s Version) Chapter. Fans have speculated that because “If This Was A Movie” stands alone as the only track on Speak Now not to have been written entirely by Swift, she wants to section it apart from the re-recording of an album that will resultantly be solely written by her. But that seems like a very megalomaniacal reason. Then again, you don’t become the first female to sell out a show at every stadium from State Farm to SoFi without perhaps having a touch of the megalomaniac’s control freak nature.
NEW YORK (AP) — Taylor Swift will receive the 2023 iHeartRadio Innovator Award at the iHeartRadio Music Awards later this month, which will feature performances by Kelly Clarkson, Keith Urban, Pat Benatar, Muni Long, Cody Johnson, Coldplay and Pink, who is this year’s Icon Award recipient.
The Innovator Award is presented to an artist who has “impacted global pop culture throughout their career.” Past recipients include Pharrell Williams, Justin Timberlake, U2 and Alicia Keys.
Pink will receive the Icon Award honoring her “impact on pop culture, longevity and continued relevance as a touring and radio force with a loyal fan base worldwide.”
The iHeartRadio Music Awards will be aired March 27 on Fox from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and aired on iHeartRadio stations and the app.
Lizzo, Swift and Harry Styles lead the awards nominations with seven nods each, and Jack Harlow and Drake are close behind with six each.
For top song of the year, Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” faces off against Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” Styles’ “As It Was,” Justin Bieber’s “Ghost,” Doja Cat’s “Woman,” Glass Animals’ “Heat Wave,” Latto’s “Big Energy,” Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow’s “Industry Baby,” Harlow’s “First Class,” and Imagine Dragons’ “Enemy.”
Fans can vote in several categories including best fan army, best lyrics, best cover song, best sample and best music video. Voting on Twitter begins Wednesday using the appropriate category and nominee hashtags and will close March 20.
With five nominations each are Doja Cat, Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Tems, Bad Bunny and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Silk Sonic, Future, Latto, Imagine Dragons, The Weeknd, BLACKPINK, Karol G and Nicki Minaj have four each.
Artist of the year pits Beyoncé against Doja Cat, Drake, Dua Lipa, Styles, Harlow, Bieber, Lizzo, Swift and The Weeknd for the crown. Best duo or group nominees are AJR, Black Eyed Peas, BLACKPINK, Silk Sonic, Glass Animals, Imagine Dragons, Måneskin, OneRepublic, Parmalee and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Country artist of the year nominees are Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean, Kane Brown, Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen. Hip-hop artist of the year nominees are Drake, Future, Kodak Black, Lil Baby and Moneybagg Yo.
Nominees for alternative artist of the year are Imagine Dragons, Måneskin, Twenty One Pilots, Weezer and Red Hot Chili Peppers, the last of whom also are on the list of rock artists of the year, along with Ghost, Papa Roach, Shinedown and Three Days Grace.
The Latin pop/reggaeton artist of the year nominees are Bad Bunny, Daddy Yankee, Farruko, Karol G and Rauw Alejandro. And nominees for best R&B artist are Blxst, Bleu, Silk Sonic, Muni Long and SZA.
For whatever reason, when Lana Del Rey first arrived onto the scene, she appealed endlessly to the ten through twelve-year-old set. Like a “goth” version of Britney Spears, this chanteuse’s talk of obsessing over boys and/or being broken-hearted by them spoke to a generation of girls who had yet to even “snag” a boyfriend. Among that generation was Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo, both of whom have come forward of late to declare their unwavering love for Del Rey (despite Rodrigo being far more of a Swiftie). Eilish’s gushing has been markedly more consistent (e.g., “Lana raised us”) than Rodrigo’s, who seemed to become a fangirl in time to present Del Rey with an award at the Billboard Women in Music Awards.
The award in question was the “Visionary Award.” Something that one would think might actually require a bit more…vision. At least in terms of not reiterating the same tropes about “he hurt me, I love him still” (a.k.a. “he hit me and it felt like a kiss”). Del Rey herself is the first to admit that, when it comes to the “world building” (as she and everyone else is suddenly calling it) of her albums, “boyfriends!” are the key inspiration behind it all (cue Swift saying, “Hey, that’s only okay when I do it!”). So no, few of Del Rey’s songs are capable of passing the Bechdel Test. And few people can say that perpetuating this motif of obsessing over men is a “good thing” to imbue in subsequent generations. Even so, Del Rey, despite a “low-key presence” overall, has saturated “the culture” with her “visionary” status. A branding that feels somewhat ironic when considering that all Del Rey has done, fundamentally, is raise another generation of women who fixate on men, their opinions of women and what women can do about it to claim vengeance (e.g., write a song about the jilting—though not everyone gets that luxury). Eilish has her series of such songs, from “Wish You Were Gay” to “Happier Than Ever” to “Lost Cause.” And, naturally, Rodrigo’s entire debut album, Sour, is directed at (supposedly) one boy in particular: Joshua Bassett.
So yes, perhaps Del Rey effectively did “raise” a generation (even if Taylor had a record deal years before Del Rey achieved mainstream success). Indeed, that’s just it: there’s no denying her influence in the music of the moment. And while that influence has been championed as a boon for female musicians being able to show their “sad girl” vulnerability without shame, it’s really caused a reversion to the usual tropes of twentieth century feminine capitulation to male dominance. Which, to be sure, is very paradoxical when taking into account that there’s never been a time in the music industry when women have been so “at the center of it.” Yet now that they are, the one thing they still want to talk about, despite all the “progress” we’ve made as a society, is: men.
Del Rey’s overall conservative views on relationships (complete with how they ought to be monogamous) provide insight into why Gen Z musicians like Madison Beer (also name-checked by Del Rey at the Billboard Women in Music Awards), Eilish and Rodrigo are still parroting back the same tired sentiments. Eilish, at least, throws in the occasional reference to Gen Z anxieties, according opioid addictions and a general disaffection vis-à-vis the end of the world’s imminence (in short, Euphoria is a Billie Eilish song). Del Rey is instead all about the undercurrent of decay that belies the shiny veneer of Americana from the era she’s most inspired by: the 1960s. Alas, that decade also favors the aforementioned “he hit me and it felt like a kiss” “philosophy” on heteronormative relationships. Take the abuse, glamorize it and repeat when one relationship ends and a new one begins. Of course, Del Rey has mentioned being accused of glamorizing abuse in a “trailblazing” sort of way—as though she “forged the path” for women like Ariana Grande, Doja Cat and Cardi B (as if), each of whom are mentioned in her illustrious “question for the culture.”
That question resulted in an expected backlash about her racially specific list (save for the blackfishing Ariana) that also included Camila Cabello, Kehlani, Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé. She would later backpedal on why she chose to mention these women by insisting they were her favorite singers. Though, patently, at least one fellow white woman named Billie Eilish should have made the list if we’re talking bona fide preferred musicians. Now, conveniently, Del Rey actually is playing up Eilish—along with Rodrigo and Beer—as her true “favorites.” Perhaps because it’s actually “safe” to say that she paved the way for them (without causing a “race war”). Even if Beer is obviously more of an Ariana Grande knockoff with a pre-plastic surgery Megan Fox aesthetic.
As for the aesthetic that made Del Rey famous circa 2012 (incidentally, when Beer was just starting out), she took the stage at the Billboard Women in Music Awards in an approximation of that looQue. Arriving in front of the mic with said “persona” (though Del Rey would vehemently deny ever having one) faintly recognizable from the 2012 era—complete with a vague beehive, liquid eyeliner and false eyelashes—Del Rey herself mused, “I don’t exactly have a long-term vision at all.” Clearly…for if she did, she might have been able to see that continuing to tout the same lyrical themes for the past decade has had one pronounced effect overall: “Seasons only change/It’s always been the same.” This being a quote from Madison Beer’s song, “Showed Me (How I Fell In Love With You).” Del Rey, in the end, didn’t “change” the game, just played it a bit more “offbeatly” at a time when retro wasn’t as “in”—what with Amy Winehouse releasing Back to Black about two years before Lizzy Grant began her attempts at making it as a professional singer.
Just how little things have really changed under the guise of having done so is indicated in the fact that there even needs to be a “Women in Music” Awards put on by Billboard. For it speaks to the persistent love of division in America, centered on the identity politics (for fuck’s sake, Idris Elba can’t even say he doesn’t want to be hemmed in by the label “Black actor”) that sow these “partitionings.” Nonetheless, Del Rey and her acolytes are convinced that she’s a visionary when, in truth, her messages have been maintainers of the status quo with regard to male-female power dynamics. At another point in her acceptance speech for being a “visionary,” she added, “I’m so grateful to be in the best company I’ve ever been in,” alluding to the new generation that will ostensibly persist in placing far too much emphasis on male views and acceptances of women.
With the first portion of You’s fourth season out, it bears noting that there have been few scenes as indelible as one that took place in the final episode (“What Is Love?”) of season three, during which Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) drags his wife’s corpse across the floor to the tune of Taylor Swift’s “exile.” A song from folklore that was released as the second single, it features Bon Iver, and accordingly maximizes that overall “sad indie” sound Swift was going for back in 2020, when most people wanted to slit their wrists because they couldn’t do much besides go to the grocery store (spoiler alert: that’s all life boils down to anyway). To play it contrasted against the murdering and disposal of one’s significant other, therefore, lends a different layer of “sadness” to the tune, which is all about having outgrown the person who is now your ex—with the female counterpart in the duo noting that she had given plenty of warning signs before the imminent demise (therefore echoing the theme and structure of Postal Service’s “Nothing Better”). Swift and Iver rue in unison, “I think I’ve seen this film before/And I didn’t like the ending/You’re not my homeland anymore/So what am I defending now?/You were my town, now I’m in exile, seein’ you out/I think I’ve seen this film before/So I’m leavin’ out the side door.” This being exactly what Joe does after he sets their house ablaze with the stove.
At the beginning of the episode, Joe mentions Shirley Jackson’s declaration (in her story, “Pillar of Salt”) about how suburbia is where people start to come apart. Unravel. Mentally, needless to say. More specifically, the quote goes, “Upstairs Margaret said abruptly, ‘I suppose it starts to happen first in the suburbs,’ and when Brad said, ‘What starts to happen?’ she said hysterically, ‘People starting to come apart.’” Yes, there’s an entire genre about “coming apart” in the suburbs (mostly written by Richard Yates). But Joe has been “split” since childhood, pulling something of a Dexter Morgan by compartmentalizing his “alter ego” and using it for “good.” Joe, of course, views “good” as killing anyone who gets in the way of his “ownership” over a current obsession. The latest in season three (briefly extending into season four before Joe gets distracted by a new girl to pump) is Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle). The surly librarian (is there any other kind?) who makes Joe all the more certain that marrying Love (Victoria Pedretti) and having a child with her was a huge mistake (and not just because it entailed all those sex scenes Badgley now won’t do). Even though he plays the “protective papa” role well enough, he’s not so caring about Henry as to take him along when he flees from Madre Linda (a fictional town meant to be somewhere in the Silicon Valley realm). “It wasn’t fair of me, but it was the right thing for Henry,” he assures the viewer as the finale comes to a close. The abandonment comes after finishing Love off, of course.
Tidily wrapping up his “chapter” in Madre Linda by turning Love into a “Mrs. Lovett” figure, Joe bakes a meat pie with one of his toes in it (which he cuts off himself—committed to the authenticity of the narrative he’s trying to create). The wordy email Joe then sends to the HOA on Love’s behalf when he’s done putting together all the fake details goes, “I moved to the suburbs because I bought into the dream. Community, prosperity and, most of all, safety. But I never felt safe here. Judged from day one, for my past, my body, how I was raising my child. If I wasn’t perfect, I would lose it all. A game so rigged, it could only exist in a world that hates women.” It all sounds pretty rational until the suicide note Joe pens (making him all the more “undercover” misogynistic because he thinks he can write women so well) veers into a rant about how she needed to do what she “had to” in order to really protect her family: kill the adulterer next door, kill and frame the anti-vaxxer who got her child sick, trap the couple (Sherry and Cary) who tried to “sabotage” her, etc. Of course, these were things Joe was complicit in, pawning his own crimes off on her and leaving her holding the (body) bag, as it were. Thanks to the benefit of her corpse to take the blame for everything. As women so often do no matter what their “motives” might have been. Men like Joe, on the other hand, are examined and analyzed so as to determine what might have went wrong in their life to make them “this way.” Women, not so much. They’re either psycho bitches or docile duckies who can get along in a patriarchal society.
In this regard, another appropriate track from the folklore album to have included in this episode might have been “madwoman,” on which Swift laments with a controlled rage in her voice, “Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy/What about that?/And when you say I seem angry, I get more angry.” She builds on the theme of being branded as the “crazy” woman (usually as a result of the wonders of gaslighting) with the chorus, “And there’s nothing like a mad woman/What a shame she went mad/No one likes a mad woman/You made her like that/And you’ll poke that bear ‘til her claws come out/And you find something to wrap your noose around/And there’s nothing like a mad woman.” Sometimes referred to as, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
Which is why Love decides to kill Joe when she unearths his roaming attraction for Marienne. Alas, after Joe outwits her plan to kill him with his own plan to kill her, Love rightly assesses, “We’re perfect for each other.” The way Joker and Harley Quinn are (how fitting, then, that Love’s last name is Quinn). They’re both “anti-heroes,” if you will. Speaking of that particular single, Penn Badgley’s commitment to Swift’s work under the pretense of being “Joe Goldberg” continued when he joined TikTok to enact his own “Anti-Hero” challenge by trying to run away from himself, only to find that it was him, hi, he’s the problem, it’s him. This realized after trying to run away from the person chasing him, only to open the door and find the pursuer (himself) there, too. And yes, so much of Swift’s oeuvre can be sardonically applied to You, especially a song like “You Belong With Me.” Then there’s “Bad Blood,” “Look What You Made Me Do,” “Blank Space,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “All Too Well,” “I Knew You Were Trouble,” “I Did Something Bad,” “Don’t Blame Me,” “Call It What You Want,” “Lover,” “The Archer,” “ME!” and, specifically for season four, “London Boy.” The list of applicable songs from Swift goes on and on, but something about “exile” being wielded for this particular scene would make it difficult to top in terms of other songs from her canon being placed over a certain moment in You.
Despite this unforgettable soundtrack instance, You’s third season, expectedly, was met with eyebrow raises from most viewers (except probably Cardi B) who weren’t about the suburbia-driven plot, and felt that the show was starting to drag. Regardless, the You team is on board for a five-season track to wrap up any supposed “arc” for Badgley’s character. Who, incidentally, was only really challenged by Love (this being part of why he killed her—men hate being outdone by a woman in their “field”). A person described as having “no loyalty for anyone but herself.” Sounds, ultimately, like Joe. The difference being that he uses the guise of “doing the right thing” to justify every murder, as well as the subsequent inevitable need to abandon the life he faked in a new city because of his obsession du moment.
At the conclusion of “What Is Love?,” Joe can feel good about what he’s done. Even tell himself that he created a legacy for Love that she herself never would have secured by turning her into “a bit of a folk hero” (hence, folklore being the perfect album of Swift’s to pull from). “More famous, even, then Guinevere Beck.” With the dragging of her poisoned (with aconite) husk to the kitchen area (where women belong, right?), the brutal coda of a relationship that a man decided needed to end on his terms is highlighted with macabre flair in the lyrics, “So step right out/There is no amount of crying I can do for you/All this time/We always walked a very thin line/You didn’t even hear me out.” The next round of verses then includes Taylor’s echoing rebuttal via, “You never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)/All this time I never learned to read your mind (never learned to read my mind)/I couldn’t turn things around (you never turned things around).”
Joe, it would seem, hasn’t been able to turn them around in season four either. But at least in season three, underloved as it was, there was a far more memorable scene to tie to it than there has been thus far in season four. However, the trailer for Part Two of the season has teased the return of Love. Whether it’s in a haunted, Shakespearean (because London?) sort of way or not, perhaps it means further use of Swift’s music somewhere in the fray. For, in spite of Badgley noting of Joe’s likely take on Swift, “I think, unfortunately, he would despise her. Because she’s successful and blond, maybe? I don’t know, but I think he would,” she’s thus far provided the most iconic marriage between music and action in the series. The only song that could really outdo it would be Mariah Carey’s “Obsessed” played during the series finale.
Forbes just released its annual list of “The World’s 10 Highest-Paid Entertainers in 2002” — and they’re not all who you’d think.
Classic English rock band Genesis took the top spot, earning $230 million in a single year. Genesis, which released its first album in 1969, launched the careers of both Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, releasing such hit songs as “Invisible Touch” and “That’s All.”
But those songs dropped way back in the 1980s, so how did Genesis make so much money last year? One word: Publishing.
According to Forbes, Genesis sold the rights to their music catalog to Concord Music Group in September for $300 million. The deal also included some of Phil Collins’ solo work, including his hit song “In The Air Tonight.”
Genesis weren’t the only greying rockers to kill it in 2022.
Sting was the second highest-paid entertainer. The former Police frontman and solo star of the 80s sold his entire songwriting catalog, including his work with the Police (“Every Breath You Take”) and his solo hits (“If You Love Somebody Set Them Free”), to Universal Music Group for $210 million.
Genesis and Sting were the latest benefactors of major music conglomerates and companies, like JP Morgan and BlackRock, investing in artists’ music catalogs, which they believe are undervalued in the age of streaming.
Not all the big earners last year were in their 70s. Other highly-paid entertainers include Taylor Swift (#9), who earned $92 million from her record sales, streaming, digital downloads, and licensing.
And that was last year.
“Crashing Ticketmaster with insane demand for her Midnights tour in November suggests an even bigger 2023 for her,” wrote Forbes.
Latin rapper Bad Bunny was the 10th highest-paid entertainer of 2022, earning $88 million, thanks to his two tours and endorsements from Corona, Cheetos, and Adidas.
The dark pall cast over the Chateau Marmont has been ongoing since 2020, when The Hollywood Reporter published a damning article in September entitled “Rot at Hollywood’s ‘Playground’: Chateau Marmont Staff Allege Racial Discrimination, Sexual Misconduct and Neglectful Management.” The “neglectful management” in question was ultimately attributed to hotelier and, yes, manager André Balazs, who bought the Chateau in 1990. Sixty-one years after the hotel—at that time, an apartment building—opened. For it was in February 1929, eight months before the infamous stock market crash, that the Chateau Marmont opened to the public. Described as, “Los Angeles’ newest, finest and most exclusive apartment house… [it is] superbly situated, close enough to active businesses to be accessible and far enough away to ensure quiet and privacy.”
That assurance of privacy is what has captivated the hotel’s celebrity clientele for years. And the timing of the eventual hotel’s opening as lavish apartment residences seemed unexpectedly fortuitous in that the Great Depression era that arose soon after forced its original owner, Fred Horowitz, to sell the building to Alfred E. Smith for $750,000 in cash. This was in 1931, just a year before the 1932 Olympics would be hosted in L.A. Thus, Smith’s decision to convert the fledgling apartment building (which no one could pay the rent on during the Depression) into a hotel proved to be a business savvy maneuver—and cement the hotel’s reputation as a haven for privacy for decades to come.
But privacy in the celebrity realm often becomes code for: turning a blind eye to egregious behavior. As Harry Cohn grossly said, “If you must get into trouble, go to the Marmont.” And many have heeded that advice, even if only “harmlessly” (see: Lindsay Lohan not paying her bill). In the wake of that aforementioned The Hollywood Reporter article, the barrage of information and testimonies gathered from employees about what cost to “the little people” that “privacy” has come at prompted a certain business associate (who preferred to remain anonymous, of course) of Balazs’ to remark to THR, “I’m reconsidering the Chateau through a totally different lens now. All of the talk of it being a ‘playground,’ of it exalting ‘privacy.’ It really was just a system that protected white men in power.” Maybe that person was genuine in their statement… or just trying to “adapt or die” in a climate that can’t help but increasingly roll its eyes at white men. At best. At worst, shame them into oblivion—granted, that’s pretty hard as most white men have no sense of shame.
Least of all Balazs, who coined the illustrious aphorism: “All good hotels tend to lead people to do things they wouldn’t necessarily do at home.” Even though a lot of rich people probably do treat “the help” like shit at home as well, maybe they feel obliged to delight in such degradation more so when the help isn’t actually “theirs.” Like, say, Sonia Molina Sanchez, one of the subjects of the THR article and a Chateau housekeeper for roughly ten years at the time of the piece’s publication. Per THR, Sanchez “tells of an incident six years ago in which a male guest began masturbating while she was cleaning his room. She reported what happened to her manager, hoping the man would be barred from the hotel. However, the guest continued to visit (she didn’t service his room again). ‘[Management] made me believe that they were going to deal with it, but they didn’t do anything… They made me feel unsafe at work. Every time I saw him, I was reliving my experience. I felt abused again.’”
This particular subject and scenario feels especially poignant when taking into account that the latest high-profile celebrity to turn a blind eye to the Chateau’s sordid past and business practices, Taylor Swift, has been a vocal proponent for victims of sexual harassment, having been one herself “thanks to” sleazy ex radio DJ David Mueller, who groped her during a 2013 meet-and-greet. Upon immediately reporting the incident to her mother, management and security team, Mueller was fired from the station soon after. And yet, being a white man, he figured he could gaslight her into believing she had imagined the whole thing, countersuing her for “defamation”—despite some very strong photographic evidence of the incident. A photograph that Swift did not want shown to the public, but then TMZ went and shot that to shit, leaking the photo that very much revealed some untoward behavior on Mueller’s part.
Perhaps if Swift had had the Chateau on her side, she might have maintained some privacy vis-à-vis the photo. And yet, it is an institution like the Chateau that protects the very people that Swift has sought to call out on songs like “The Man,” wherein she asks, “When everyone believes ya, what’s that like?” Despite Balazs’ cushion of power (a byproduct of wealth), it was easy for many to believe the “low-level” employee who said of Balazs’ erratic mood swings spurred by drug-taking in THR, “It’s like having an alcoholic, drug-addicted father, but it’s your CEO.” Surely, Swift can empathize with that as well, what with her whole Scooter Braun debacle (of which she described as being subject to his “incessant, manipulative bullying”).
Another interviewee for the article was an unnamed producer who noted, “The Chateau is such a long-running show. It’s this weird beast that kind of slipped by and shouldn’t exist as it is, but it does. But if you were to say, ‘It needs better HR and proper compliances and codes and egalitarianism at the door,’ it loses its touch.” One could say the same of celebrities themselves becoming truly “moral” in a manner that would require them to actually “walk the talk” (instead of just talking the talk), as it were. For Swift isn’t unaware of the controversy that surrounds the hotel, nor the implications of choosing to ignore its legacy.
The same went for Beyoncé and Jay-Z when they threw an Oscars after-party at the Chateau in 2022 amid a hospitality workers’ union boycott of the establishment that began after the flagrant mistreatment of the staff came to light via THR. While the duo might have cited—if they actually cared to exhibit a guilty conscience—the fact that Bar Marmont, where the party was held, constitutes a “separate” property from the Chateau, it is nonetheless part of the same holdings company, owned by Balazs. Jay-Z also tried to mitigate the “bad look” with the consolation that he’d be bringing in “his own team” to “staff the after-party.” How kind of him. Besides, what does a New York loyal care about the rights of L.A. workers? Or Swift, another New York loyal (though not born there), for that matter?
The answer has been made clear yet again by the latter’s decision to host a Grammys after-party at the Chateau. As Unite Here Local 11 co-president Kurt Peterson said of Jayoncé’s Oscars after-party, it’s “not morally good.” But celebrities, who have flocked to the amoral Chateau Marmont for the past two centuries, go there precisely for that reason. Whether they want to admit it or not. This includes even the “pure” ones, like Swift. Who, for whatever reason, remains unbesmirchable. We saw that much after all the controversy over Swift being the worst offender for private jet use quickly blew over. Sometimes, all it takes is an album release for people to forgive even the worst of sins. And Swift has been forgiven repeatedly for all of hers, including her country roots that unavoidably touted a white bread existence, even if not “directly.”
For it wasn’t until Swift started to transition to pop, moved to New York and become “correctly woke” that she finally saw fit to include people of color occasionally in her music videos (this includes the “unwittingly” Black Mirror-esque video for 2019’s “Lover”). Shit, she even threw in a fair quota for the aggressively white and heteronormative “All Too Well” video. And so, being “racially aware” all of the sudden now that she spent some time living (in a bubble) in New York, one would think that, if the sexual harassment the Chateau allows to flourish wouldn’t make Swift think twice about having her Grammys party there, then maybe the history of racial discrimination toward its employees would. Embodying an Abercrombie & Fitch practice of only allowing white employees “on the floor” and POC employees in the proverbial back, the same thing that went on at many an A&F store would also go down when Balazs showed up, with supervisors girding their loins in anticipation for his arrival ensuring that the “right” (read: white) employees were up front and center.
A more recent article (from The Atlantic) on the dilemma posed for celebrities in continuing to relish the “experiences” provided by the Marmont asked: “Can debauchery and decency co-exist? Can luxury accommodate fair labor practices and still feel luxurious?” The response is obvious to any celebrity willing to be truthful: no. Though an ostensibly fair deal struck between Balazs and his employees, with the former capitulating to the establishment of a union, would like to make people believe otherwise. Thus, a happy ending for all that allows celebrities like Swift to feel comfortable turning a blind eye to the Chateau’s notorious track record. One that isn’t likely to dissipate just because, golly gee whiz, there’s a union now.
In that same The Atlantic article, writer Xochitl Gonzalez notes realistically, “I also couldn’t help wondering how much the contract will change workers’ experience on the job. They’re better-compensated; they have retirement benefits and other protections. But the agreement does little to shield them from entitled or inebriated guests. It did what I used to do: it threw money at the problem.” And because of that, more “wholesome” celebrities like Swift can feel good about supporting the institution, indulging in the type of reverie that only it can provide. With a “Marmo lover” like Lana Del Rey (Swift’s musical “scissor sister,” of sorts, thanks to a shared man in Jack Antonoff that resulted in a flaccid collaboration like “Snow on the Beach”) also showing up to the after-party.
But then, that particular chanteuse has been a long-time supporter of the Old Hollywood “glamor” the Chateau represents (openly licking its asshole at the beginning of her career with a song lyric that declared, “Likes to watch me in the glass room, bathroom, Chateau Marmont” and an interview or two filmed there to play up the “glamorous” vibe she was going for back then…before devolving her “persona” into an uncharacteristic deadbeat soccer mom aesthetic). So have many people who just can’t let go of the inanimate L.A. icon. Especially now that it’s “cleaned up” its act, surely. Though it seems rather convenient that it did so just in time for the many after-parties of the 2023 awards season (with the union contract ratified in December of 2022).
Gonzalez isn’t so naïve about the concession to a union either, concluding in her The Atlantic piece, “I’m not sure whether a great place for the wealthy can ever be a great place for those who serve them. In a business where the key word is yes, unions can police employers, but the whole point of a luxury experience is that no one polices the guests.” Even ones as “tame” and “dulcet” as Swift and her ilk.
For football fans, February 12 marks the Super Bowl. For music fans, February 5 marked their version of the Super Bowl: the 65th annual Grammy Awards. It’s a day where everyone comes together to celebrate their favorite artists…and brutally criticize the Recording Academy’s decisions.
For three and a half arduous hours, the Grammy’s held viewers captive…delaying the Big Four categories until the very end with Trevor Noah monologues, performances by Stevie Wonder, Lizzo, Harry Styles, and an ode to the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. But, at the end of the day, history was still made.
Lizzo
Rob Latour/Shutterstock
Beyoncé, who arrived late after being stuck in traffic, became the most decorated artist in Grammy history, earning her 32nd Grammy award for Best Dance/Electronic Recording. Fans of Beyoncé, however, were outraged when she lost Album of the Year to Harry Styles. This makes it the fourth year where she was nominated for AOTY and lost.
But that’s not all…Kim Petras became the first transgender woman to win a Grammy in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category for her song “Unholy” with Sam Smith. The catchy song dominated the Billboard Hot 100, which they also performed in Satanic-chic clothing.
Kim Petras & Sam Smith
David Fisher/Shutterstock
One of the most wholesome moments was Adele accomplishing her lifelong dream. It wasn’t to win another Grammy…but to meet The Rock. After Trevor Noah revealed this fact earlier in the show, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson took the stage to present his new best friend, Adele, with the Best Pop Solo Performance award.
Adele and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
Rob Latour/Shutterstock
Ticketmaster’s worst nightmare and our queen, Taylor Swift, won Best Music Video for “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version) (10 Minute Version).” Not only that, but she stood and cheered for every act and winner. Drinking wine and just vibing at the Grammys? My exact vibe.
Lizzo is the first Black woman to win Record of the Year for “About Damn Time” since Whitney Houston for “I Will Always Love You.” She looked equally ecstatic for friend Harry Styles, who won the first and last awards of the night: Best Pop Vocal Album and Album Of The Year, for his album Harry’s House.
It’s an awards show that, like so many others, never quite gets it right. And can never possibly please everyone. Nonetheless, the “objective” viewpoint regarding the 2023 Grammy Awards was that one, Beyoncé Knowles, ought to win Album of the Year for Renaissance. A record that plundered and pillaged from the formerly underground, Black gay male-dominated 90s-era house scene with as much delight as Madonna’s “Vogue” (and yes, Beyoncé made that connection by offering a “Vogue”-infused “Queens Remix” of “Break My Soul”). The difference between Madonna doing it and Beyoncé doing it is that, obviously, the latter is Black, so she has a “right” to plunder said loot. And it seems the world can forgive her of anything, including her own forgiveness of Jay-Z cheating on her. Because, after all, it brought rapt listeners Lemonade. Yet another album that the Grammys snubbed at the 2017 awards when they opted to give the Album of the Year vote to Adele for 25.
Unlike fellow Briton Harry Styles, however, Adele couldn’t seem to take the award in good conscience, arriving onstage to make her guilt over winning known as she declared, “I can’t possibly accept this award [yet of course she then did], and I’m very humbled and very grateful and gracious, but my life is Beyoncé, and the album to me, the Lemonade album, Beyoncé, was so monumental, and so well thought-out. And so beautiful and soul-baring and we all got to see another side of you that you don’t always let us see, and we appreciate that. And all us artists adore you. You are our light. And the way that you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my Black friends feel, is empowering, and you make them stand up for themselves. And I love you. I always have. And I always will. I appreciate it.” The Recording Academy, on the other hand, doesn’t appreciate it quite as much, notorious for choosing to laud white boy records or albums that are otherwise totally unknown to the public at large (e.g., Jon Batiste winning Album of the Year at the 2022 edition of the awards show).
They opted for the white boy route this year. And when Styles took the stage, it was clear many wanted him to pull some kind of Cady Heron at the prom moment where he might break the Grammy into pieces to give to all the other nominees—or maybe just in half to bequeath the other part to Beyoncé. But no, Styles, for all the grand displays of self-effacement, was not of the belief, like Adele, that Beyoncé deserved it more than he did—or should even be mentioned at all in the speech. Instead, he felt obliged to say, “This doesn’t happen to people like me very often.” Um, what does that even mean? Success doesn’t come rather easily very often (read: all the time) to cisgender (regardless of queerbaiting tendencies) white males? ‘Cause that’s a goddamn lie, and really not something to conclude in front of an audience full of venomous Beyoncé lovers. Particularly as Beyoncé helped to carve out a genre (for girl group is to boy band as breakout solo career is to being the most standout vocalist in one of those entities) that Styles’ generation would later capitalize on through post-empire music competition “reality” shows like The X Factor, where One Direction was summarily farted out of Simon Cowell’s ass. But, as it is now said, begat of an asshole one day, Grammy Award winner the next.
Plus, “at least” the Recording Academy saw fit to throw Beyoncé a bone by “allowing” her to secure the title of most Grammy wins ever by any artist as a result of awarding her in the categories of Best Dance/Electronic Music Album, Best Dance/Electronic Recording, Best Traditional R&B Performance and Best R&B Song. As for the “controversy” of “Mrs. Carter” not finagling Album of the Year, the thing is, Harry’s House says just as little about the current collective experience as Renaissance (which prefers to rely on musical tropes of the past because of pop culture’s permanent state of hauntology), on which “Queen” Bey also deigns to talk about how everyone should quit their job as she proceeds to siphon unreasonable amounts of cash from them so that they might better demonstrate the extent of their “devotion.” Perhaps being a “Church Girl,” she can only look at dynamics in this way: as either being the worshipper or the worshipped. Revealing herself to be the former for only one “man,” Beyoncé stated in her acceptance speech, “I wanna thank God for protecting me. Thank you, God.”
First of all, vomit. And second of all, how fucking narcissistic to believe that even if there was a god, he gives more of a shit about protecting celebrities than “normals” (granted, that is what evidence appears to prove). But such is the ego of someone at that level in the entertainment industry. What’s more, Beyoncé as a more calculated person than anyone has ever accused Taylor Swift of being is manifest in acceptance speeches past during which she’s stuck to the same script about thanking god and her “beautiful” husband (is she looking at the same man?).
So the real upset, if we’re truly talking “objectivity” as opposed to overwrought deification, was that the Recording Academy still couldn’t bring itself to select an album that’s actually reflective of the present climate, which, in this year’s case, would have been either Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers or Bad Bunny’s Un verano sin ti. But because something about Beyoncé elicits a more crack-licking response, compounded by a white male, um, beating her, we have this level of outrage on the same day a massive earthquake has wiped out thousands in the Turkey-Syria vicinity. But no, here in the United States, Beyoncé’s “loss” is far more upsetting that the loss of life of literally thousands of people. But they’re just ordinaries and ISIS members, so who cares, right?
Back in 2017, when this happened with Lemonade, Adele was, as mentioned before, the most vocal advocate for her idol. Not just in her speech, but even afterward when she tried to vaguely give the benefit of the doubt re: the Recording Academy’s out-of-touch decision-making with the placation, “I just said to [Beyoncé], like, the way that the Grammys works, and the people who control it at the very, very top—they don’t know what a visual album is. They don’t want to support the way that she’s moving things forward with her releases and the things that she’s talking about.” This year, there was no “visual album” (not yet, anyway) to “confuse” the stodgy members of the institution. And Beyoncé was talking about less “controversial” subjects than on Lemonade. But those “capitulations” were apparently still not compelling enough to make them choose her.
The truth is, though, it was “enough” on the Recording Academy’s part to give her the required number of award wins that would bestow her with the record for having the most Grammys. By not ceding Album of the Year, there is at least some acknowledgment of the fact that Beyoncé is, if one wants to be candid, overblown in many ways. And no one seems to want to address that the “empire” she has become was (and remains) built on the backs of many. It takes a literal village to make “Beyoncé” happen, including her songs (see: what Linda Perry said). Most seem to discount that in failing to remember that even the “gods” are capable of frailty—instead holding her up as some beacon of perfection that no human can actually embody—it creates an environment of contempt and hostility among “the fans” (a.k.a. blind worshippers) and those they deem responsible for their god’s “failing” when everything doesn’t automatically go Bey’s way.
To further quote Adele in 2017, “My view is, like, ‘What the fuck does she have to do to win Album of the Year?’ The Grammys are very traditional, but I just thought this year would be the year that they would kind of go with the tide.” In going against it yet again, however, the Recording Academy might unwittingly be onto something…if only they hadn’t counteracted the curveball with Harry’s House as their pick. Hopefully, for Taylor’s sake at the 2024 Grammys—as she’ll surely be nominated many times next year for Midnights—Bey won’t release any new qualifying material that results in yet another Kanye-at-the-2009-VMAs moment. An immortal instant that many were drawing comparisons to when certain audience members at the Crypto.com Arena (which will always be the Staples Center) booed Styles as he accepted the award for Album of the Year. So if nothing else, it can be confirmed that Bey has definitely won the award for triggering white guilt every time they “take” one away from her.
Even before the recent Taylor Swift ticket snafu, Ticketmaster and its parent company, the concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment, have been criticized for controlling 70% of the big concert ticket market, leaving fans and artists nowhere else to go. Live Nation is now being investigated by the Justice Department, and last month was called to testify before a Senate anti-trust subcommittee. Correspondent Rita Braver talks with Sen. Amy Klobuchar; with an attorney who has filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster; and with disappointed Swifties – fans of the pop star who can’t “shake it off.”
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Twins Izzy and Alexa Harrison, of Potomac, Maryland, have a room that is like a shrine to Taylor Swift. They also sport Taylor Swift merch, wearing her cardigan sweaters, and sporting her necklace. “She’s my role model, and she just makes me happy,” said Alexa.
But the twins were not happy when their mom was unable to get tickets for Swift’s upcoming Eras Tour using a special code that Ticketmaster gave out to verified fans who had bought Swift’s merchandise and downloaded her music. “Just disappointing and, like, upsetting,” said Izzy.
The twins’ mom, Penny Harrison, spent several hours just trying to sign on: “I signed on at 9:30 in the morning, and at 10:00 it kicked me out, and then you just sign back on again. So, by the time I got in, it was 4:30 in the afternoon,” she said. The problems continued for several hours as she tried and failed to purchase seats. “Any time I would click on something and try to put it in the basket, it would say, ‘Somebody else got those tickets, try again.’ I kept clicking, ‘Somebody else got those tickets.’ I kept trying to sign on all night.”
For some Taylor Swift fans, scoring tickets to her tour was beyond their “wildest dreams.”
CBS News
She wasn’t the only Swifty (as the fans call themselves) who couldn’t just “shake it off.” But one shut-out Swifty thought it was time to be “fearless.” In a TikTok post Dallas personal injury attorney Jennifer Kinder said, “We need to sue Ticketmaster.”
More than 300 other disappointed fans (including Penny Harrison) joined Kinder’s lawsuit against Ticketmaster, in which she is alleging fraud, misrepresentation, and anti-trust violations.
Braver asked, “Their argument, of course, is going to be, ‘Hey, this was like a lottery. You weren’t guaranteed to win.’”
“I don’t think that this is a lottery,” Kinder said. “It is a purposeful manipulation of a sale, in order to increase their profit. That’s really what this is about.”
Last month Taylor Swift fans protested against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, in Washington, D.C.
CBS News
The fans who are suing have one key supporter: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). “I’m always rooting for people that are taking on big monopolies,” she explained.
Klobuchar charges that Ticketmaster and its parent company, the concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment, do constitute a monopoly, controlling 70% of the big concert ticket market, leaving fans and artists alike nowhere else to go.
“They’ve actually starting buying arenas,” Klobuchar said, “but for the arenas that they don’t own, they tend to lock in on three- or five- or seven-year contracts, so that those arenas are boxed out of using competitors. So, picture this: there they are with the monopoly on the tickets, then they’ve got the promotion, then they’ve got the arenas.”
And, as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s anti-trust subcommittee, Klobuchar called a high-profile hearing a week-and-a-half ago to question whether Live Nation Entertainment needs to be broken up.
At the January 24 hearing, Klobuchar said, “Taylor Swift is just one example; whether it’s Bruce Springsteen or BTS or Bad Bunny, or in the past Pearl Jam or the Pixies, fans, artists and venues are facing real issues with Live Nation.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) noted (tongue firmly in cheek) that Live Nation had done the almost impossible in deeply-partisan Washington: “I want to congratulate and thank you for an absolutely stunning achievement: You have brought together Republicans and Democrats in an absolutely unified cause.”
Joe Berchtold, Live Nation Entertaiment’s president and chief financial officer, blamed it all on an unprecedented BOT attack: “This is what led to a terrible consumer experience, which we deeply regret. We need to do better, and we will do better.”
Senators were not appeased. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) suggested a ban on ticket re-sales to foil scalpers from jacking up prices: “Cap the price, cut out the bots, cut out the middle people.”
And as for those annoying fees that can add many dollars to a ticket price, Klobuchar asked why Live Nation hasn’t done more to reduce them. Berchtold replied, “The fees are set by the venues.”
Also appearing before the sub-committee, singer-songwriter Clyde Lawrence begged to differ: “We asked that question to the venues, and they say, ‘Not only do we not choose what it is, we don’t even know what it is, we can’t even tell you what it’s going to be.’”
More than a decade ago, when Live Nation and Ticketmaster first wanted to merge, there was so much concern about competition that the Justice Department insisted on a consent decree that would “forbid the company from engaging in anti-competitive conduct.”
Klobuchar told “Sunday Morning,” “Well, they had violations of that, clear violations. And because of that, they have basically extended that consent decree. It keeps going. But whatever they’ve done, it hasn’t been enough.”
And Dean Budnick, who has written a book on the ticket industry, says – deliberate or not – just being part of Live Nation gives Ticketmaster an edge. (Or, to quote Taylor Swift, “It’s hard to fight when the fight ain’t fair.”)
Plume
“You don’t need to directly communicate to a would-be venue partner, ‘Hey, we’re affilated with Live Nation, the biggest concert promoter in the country. And maybe if you don’t enter into a contract with us, you might not get Live Nation shows,’” Budnick said.
CBS News has confirmed that, even before the Taylor Swift ticket snafu, the Justice Department has begun an investigation into the practices of Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster’s parent company. The company would not give us an interview for this story.
Still, Budnick argues that Ticketmaster shouldn’t get all the blame: “Ticketmaster’s clients are not the concert-goers; Ticketmaster’s clients are the venues and the promoters. And so, when customers get outraged at times, Ticketmaster, historically, they’ve always been willing to sort of put on the asbestos suit and take the heat.”
But Taylor Swift fans like Penny Harrison and attorney Jennifer Kinder, who demonstrated outside the Capitol hearing, are demanding action: “When something is wrong and not fair, it’s our responsibility to try to make the change,” Kinder said.
“This is just an incredible gift in America, which is this music industry, something we’ve literally given the world,” said Klobuchar. “And when you have one entity that is basically ticketing all the events and letting fans in the door, that gives them inordinate power.”
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Story produced by David Rothman. Editor: Ed Givnish.
The 65th annual Grammy Awards this Sunday night, Feb. 5, honor the best of the music industry, with comedian Trevor Noah returning as host. The show promises a packed lineup of contemporary stars, iconic veterans and promising newcomers, and will include special big-name performances to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.
The Grammys will be broadcast live from Los Angeles, starting at 8 p.m. ET Sunday, on CBS television stations and will stream live and on-demand on Paramount+.
Beyoncé leads this year’s nominees, with nine nods from the Recording Academy. Kendrick Lamar follows closely behind with eight.
Beyoncé performs on stage in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on January 21, 2023.
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Atlantis The Royal
All eyes will be on a handful of races for the Grammys’ highest honors — and the outcomes could prove to be less predictable than usual, for more reasons than one.
Answering public calls for inclusion, both in front of and behind the scenes, the Recording Academy has undergone significant shifts in recent years. The academy’s voter base, previously accused of racial and gender bias, changed dramatically last fall, when it welcomed a new membership class “composed of nearly 2,000 diverse music creators and professionals,” the organization said in a statement at the time, which noted that the move came as part of a conscious and ongoing effort to continue “cultivating a community that embodies the ethnicities, genres and crafts that power the music industry.”
Sunday’s Grammys ceremony will be just the second to include a larger number of nominees — 10 — in each of the Big Four categories: Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. The Recording Academy announced its plans to increase the number of slots from eight to 10 nominees in those categories at the end of 2021.
The competition is especially stiff this year. Here are the records, albums and artists to watch in the Grammys’ Big Four categories.
Record of the Year
The Grammy for record of the year considers the artist on a single track, as well as the producers, recording engineers, mixers and mastering engineers who helped bring it to life. This year’s nominees, all of whom are also nominated for performance awards in their respective genres, include a number of industry legends.
Perhaps the most contentious rivalry — in this category as well as several others — will be between Adele and Beyoncé, who are again competing against each other for several awards. In this category, Adele’s “Easy On Me,” a critically-adored ballad and the first single off her latest album “30,” is up against Beyoncé’s dance-hall anthem “BREAK MY SOUL,” from “Renaissance,” which was met with similarly widespread acclaim.
This is Beyoncé’s ninth time being nominated in this category, an all-time record, although she has never won before. Adele, a two-time winner and this year’s only nominee who has already taken home a prize for record of the year, would join the ranks of Paul Simon and Bruno Mars in a tie for most wins in the history of the category if she were to win a third time this Sunday.
Adele performs in Hyde Park on July 2, 2022, in London, England.
Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Adele
Several other nominees for record of the year also have a shot to win. The contenders are: “Don’t Shut Me Down” by ABBA, “Good Morning Gorgeous” by Mary J. Blige, “You And Me On The Rock” by Brandi Carlile featuring Lucius, “Woman” by Doja Cat, “Bad Habit” by Steve Lacy, “The Heart Part 5” by Kendrick Lamar, “About Damn Time” by Lizzo and “As It Was” by Harry Styles.
Alongside “Easy on Me” and “BREAK MY SOUL,” a number of the other nominated records were commercial smash hits, with “Bad Habit,” “About Damn Time,” “As It Was” and “Woman” at one point ranking in the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Rolling Stone placed Lacy’s “Bad Habit” at No. 3 on its list of best 100 songs of 2022.
Carlile, Lamar and Doja Cat have each been nominated twice before in this category, while ABBA, owing to their highly-anticipated comeback album after four decade, Blige, and Lizzo have each been nominated once during past awards seasons. Lucius, Lacy and Styles are first-time nominees for record of the year.
Album of the Year
Album of the year — an award given to artists, featured artists and songwriters of new material, as well as producers, recording engineers, mixers and mastering engineers — will be chosen from a pool of potentials that is nearly identical to the nominations for record of the year.
The nominees in this category are: “Voyage” by ABBA, “30” by Adele, “Un Verano Sin Ti” by Bad Bunny, “RENAISSANCE” by Beyoncé, “Good Morning Gorgeous (Deluxe)” by Mary J. Blige, “In These Silent Days” by Brandi Carlile, “Music Of The Spheres” by Coldplay, “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers” by Kendrick Lamar, “Special” by Lizzo and “Harry’s House” by Harry Styles.
Lizzo performs on NBC’s Today show at Rockefeller Plaza on Friday, July 15, 2022, in New York City.
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File
Many of this year’s nominees for album of the year have received previous nominations in the same category — this is the fourth nomination for Beyoncé, the third for Adele and Coldplay, and the second for Carlile and Lizzo. But Adele, who took home this prize for her last two studio albums, “21” and “25,” is the only current contender who has won the award before.
She somewhat notoriously won album of the year for “25” against Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” in 2017, a decision that sparked some public backlash and bias accusations against the Recording Academy. Even Adele seemed to disagree with the decision, saying in her acceptance speech: “The artist of my life is Beyoncé. ‘Lemonade’ was so monumental, Beyoncé, and so well thought-out and so beautiful and soul-baring and we all got to see another side to you. … I love you and I always have and I always will.”
Making history in contention for 2023 album of the year is Bad Bunny, whose yearning fourth studio album “Un Verano Sin Ti” — a chart-topping sensation and critical success, which held No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 13 consecutive weeks and whose hit single, “Titi Me Preguntó” leads Rolling Stone’s best of 2022 compilation — is the first Spanish-language album ever nominated for this award at the Grammys.
Song of the Year
The prize for song of the year is awarded to songwriters, for singles or tracks that were either released or first achieved prominence during a given Grammys eligibility period.
This year’s contenders are: “abcdefu” by GAYLE, “About Damn Time” by Lizzo, “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (The Short Film)” by Taylor Swift, “As It Was” by Harry Styles, “Bad Habit” by Steve Lacy, “BREAK MY SOUL” by Beyoncé, “Easy On Me” by Adele, “GOD DID” by DJ Khaled featuring Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, John Legend and Fridayy, “The Heart Part 5” by Kendrick Lamar and “Just Like That” by Bonnie Raitt.
Taylor Swift poses in the press room during the American Music Awards on November 20, 2022, in Los Angeles, California.
Tommaso Boddi/WireImage
Swift has now received six nominations for song of the year, although she has never won a Grammy in this particular category. Adele, meanwhile, has won twice — for “Rolling in the Deep” off “21” and “Hello” off “25” — but, like her acceptance speech for album of the year in 2017, the artist dedicated her remarks after winning song of the year for “Hello” to Beyoncé, who was nominated for “Formation.”
Beyoncé last won song of the year in 2010, for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It).”
Best New Artist
The Grammys’ coveted best new artist accolade is awarded annually to one performer whose music “achieved a breakthrough into the public consciousness and notably impacted the musical landscape” during a given season’s eligibility period, per the Recording Academy. It is the prize frequently credited for propelling a relative newcomer toward superstardom, with past winners including Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Adele, Sam Smith, Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish and Megan Thee Stallion.
For the first time since 2017, none of the year’s Grammy nominees for best new artist have received nods in other top four categories.
The nominees for best new artist are: Anitta, Omar Apollo, DOMi & JD Beck, Muni Long, Samara Joy, Latto, Måneskin, Tobe Nwigwe, Molly Tuttle and Wet Leg.
Several contenders are also competing in best album categories, with “Wet Let,” by Wet Leg, nominated for best alternative music album; “Crooked Tree,” by Tuttle, nominated for best bluegrass album; “Linger Awhile,” by Joy, nominated for best jazz vocal album; and “Not Tight,” by DOMi & JD Beck, nominated for best contemporary instrumental album.
Latto’s “Big Energy,” the rapper’s hit single off her album “777,” is independently nominated as well in the Grammys category for best melodic rap performance. The popular track’s standout success on the charts sets Latto apart from her best new artist competitors, although just two women rappers, Lauryn Hill and Megan Thee Stallion, have won in this category before.
