At the same time, Spears noted in Wednesday’s Instagram post, she’s still writing music — just for other people.

“When I write, I write for fun or I write for other people !!!” she wrote. “I’ve written over 20 songs for other people the past two years !!! I’m a ghostwriter and I honestly enjoy it that way !!!”

The Instagram caption, in which she blasted those who “keep saying I’m turning to random people to do a new album,” was paired with a photo of a Guido Reni painting of Salome holding the head of John the Baptist.

This isn’t the first time Spears has indicated she’s retiring from releasing her own music. In July 2021, while still under the infamous conservatorship that controlled her life, money and voice for nearly 14 years, her longtime manager Larry Rudolph resigned, saying she had no intention of resuming her career. Just after being released from the conservatorship later that year, she took to Instagram to say she was scared of the music business and that not doing her own music was an act of defiance against her family.

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But the next year, she released the single “Hold Me Closer,” a collaboration with Elton John that spent 20 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at No. 6. Last year’s “Mind Your Business,” a single with will.i.am, was poorly reviewed and failed to make the Hot 100, though. Spears’ last full album was 2016’s “Glory.”

In Wednesday’s post, Spears also wrote that it was “far from the truth” that her 2023 bestselling memoir, “The Woman In Me,” was released without her approval.

Selena Gomez is sick of the same old love songs.

The “Only Murders in the Building” actress shared that she’s aiming to focus more on her acting career and retire from music after her next album.

“I started having a lot of fun with music and then touring was really fun,” Selena shared on the Jan. 7 episode of the Smartless podcast. “But I was doing my TV show [Wizards of Waverly Place] at the same time and I just found it really fun so I just kept going. But the older I get, the more I’m kind of like, ‘I would like to find something to just settle on.'”

And the heart wants her to press pause on making music.

“I do feel like I have one more album in me, but I would probably choose acting,” the 31-year-old said. “I am gonna wanna chill because I’m tired.”

Selena released her most recent album Revelación in 2021, which was preceded by her solo records Rare (2020), Revival (2015) and Stars Dance (2013).

Photos: Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco: Romance Rewind

However, her roots trace back to the small screen, as she got her start as a child actor on Barney in 2002. And while she’s best known for her breakout role on “Wizards of Waverly Place” during her Disney Channel days, it’s her work on “Only Murders in the Building” that has earned her two Emmy nominations.

Perhaps that’s why she feels more at home on the screen.

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“I think of myself more as an actress,” Gomez told CinemaNerdz in 2011. “I do my music because I’m very passionate about my music. I love making music. I love inspiring people. I love making great songs that are just really fun. But that’s all it usually is for me.”

She explained, “I do work really hard when it comes to acting and I want to do that for a long time. So, that’s where I hope to be recognized professionally most.”

The six-meter (20-foot) tall monument depicts the multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy winner in one of her famous belly dancing outfits, with her hips swaying to her right and her arms raised gracefully toward the sky.

A plaque under the statue says that on Feb. 2, 1977, the town of “Barranquilla and the world witnessed the birth of a heart that composes, hips that don’t lie, a voice that moves masses and a pair of bare feet that walk for the good of children and humanity.”

The statue, located on a recently built promenade along the Magdalena River that runs along the edge of the town, was unveiled in a small ceremony on Tuesday attended by Shakira’s parents and the mayor, Jaime Pumarejo.

However, the bronze giant is not the Caribbean town’s first Shakira statue. In 2006, Barranquilla unveiled a Shakira monument that depicts the pop star in her early days, playing an acoustic guitar and wearing jeans and boots. That statues stands near the entrance of the local soccer stadium.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Shakira thanked sculptor Yino Marquez and his students at Barranquilla’s public art academy for the latest statue, which she described as proof of the “enormous talent” of Barranquilla’s citizens.

The Colombian pop star won three Latin Grammys earlier this year, and also made headlines in January, when she published a fiery rap song about her ex-partner that broke YouTube records.

She also settled a tax-fraud case in Spain with a $7.5 million dollar payment this year, and recently moved to Miami with her two children.

The two-time Grammy award winner teased the future full-length album on her Instagram page. It will be her seventh studio album and first since 2020’s “Positions.”

“See you next year,” she wrote in the caption of the Instagram post, which included images in a studio and in front of a mixing board, and a video where someone off screen tells her it is “almost the last day of this album.” Grande responds, “I’m so tired,” and laughs. “But so happy and grateful. I also feel like I weigh 3,000 tons.”

On her Instagram story, she shared a screenshot captured from FaceTime with the text, “The two moods of the album.”

She also shared posts from fans who received packages from her in the mail containing red lipstick from her R.E.M. Beauty line and a note that also read, “See you next year.”

The announcement arrives a few weeks after news broke that Ariana Grande signed to Good World Management firm, following her split with long-term manager Scooter Braun.

The new album will also be her first since her marriage and subsequent separation from real estate agent Dalton Gomez.

A representative for Republic Records did not immediately return AP’s request for confirmation.

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Willie Nelson is on the road again — but this time, he’s going down memory lane.

The country singer, 90, reflects on the ups and downs of his life in his new Paramount+ docuseries “Willie Nelson & Family.” In the four-part special, the songwriter lays out all the details of his relationships, including the shocking moment his second wife Shirley Collie found out he had been having a yearslong affair.

According to the “Pretty Paper” singer, his ex discovered he had welcomed a newborn with then-girlfriend Connie Koepke after finding a hospital bill in the mail that disclosed the birth of a baby girl named Paula.

“Shirley wanted to know who in the hell was Connie Nelson,” Nelson — who wed Collie in 1963 after his breakup from first wife Martha Matthews — said in the docuseries. “The truth is, Connie had been my girlfriend for several years before becoming pregnant.”

After finding out about the affair, Collie’s marriage to Nelson unraveled, with the couple finalizing their divorce in 1971. Nelson went on to tie the knot with Connie that same year and remained married until their split in 1988.

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Three years after his divorce from Connie, Nelson married his current wife, makeup artist Annie D’Angelo. In his series, the dad of eight shared that he “never had met a woman like her before.”

“She was whip-smart with a keen appreciation for all forms of art,” he noted. “She was pretty and radiated enough energy to light up any room she entered. I fell head over heels in love with Anne Marie D’Angelo.”

As for how he feels looking back at the tangled web of his personal life now?

“I’ve always said there’s no such thing as a former wife,” he explained. “Once in your life, a wife never leaves. I regret the pain I caused Connie, and Martha and Shirley before her. I have no excuses. I’d be hard-pressed to define love. I know God’s love is pure, but worldly love is flawed love, and lots of times confused love.”

Despite the journey, Nelson is grateful for his destination.

“When it came to romance, I had a gift for complicating things,” he shared, “but marrying Annie wasn’t complicated at all. It’s about the smartest thing I ever did.”

For Michael Bublé, his son’s cancer diagnosis was a major wake-up call.

The Grammy winner, whose eldest son Noah was diagnosed with hepatoblastoma in 2016 when he was just 3 years old, reflected on how the now 10-year-old’s battle changed everything in his life.

“It pulled the curtain from over my eyes,” Bublé admitted on the Dec. 21 episode of “The Diary of a CEO” podcast. “That was a sledgehammer to my reality.”

These days, Noah, who Bublé shares with wife Luisana Lopilato, is in remission. But their son’s battle with the disease when he was just a toddler forced the “Haven’t Met You Yet” singer to reevaluate his priorities.

“When it actually happened, I was going through a crisis,” he explained. “I don’t think I was a terrible guy. But it was the blinders — career, ambition, ‘How do I become the baddest, biggest, best?’ More ego, more power, more money.”

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And when they learned of his son’s diagnosis, the reality of the situation sunk in quickly.

“I went, ‘OK, this is it,'” Bublé recalled. “‘This is life. This is what’s important. It’s not like I thought about it. There was no time to process it.'”

That was when the 48-year-old made a crucial promise to himself.

“I remember closing my eyes and saying to myself, ‘If we get out of this, I’m living a different life, a better life,'” he shared. “‘I want to be kinder, I want to be more empathetic, I don’t want that ego and that false self to take over, I want to know how lucky I am.'”

“‘I’m a lucky man,'” Bublé — who also shares kids Elias, 4 and Vida, 1, with Lopilato — continued. “‘Look at my wife, how did that happen? How did I get this incredible human being, who is the best of all of us, to lead me through and carry me through these things?'”

And the singer has made it clear he takes his promise to heart every day as she shares glimpses into his life on social media — including in a sweet birthday post to Noah.

“You don’t even know how much we love you,” Bublé wrote in the Aug. 27 video. “Thank you for teaching us how to be parents and for all the memories we have and will make together!!!”

Generative AI poses a challenge to the idea that creativity is uniquely human. Music is an art form where experiments testing this edge are multiplying, and raising tensions. AI can make the music production process easier and more accessible, but it’s also beginning to threaten many artists, songwriters, and producers, diluting the market and raising legal copyright issues.

Despite the unknowns, The Chainsmokers, the popular DJ duo consisting of Drew Taggart and Alex Pall, are AI optimists. “As an artist, I want every possible tool to make my art better,” said Taggart at this week’s CNBC Work Summit. “The only answer is to embrace [AI] and figure out a way to harness it.”

Figuring it out has taken the artists to a financial model in addition to their artistic one — The Chainsmokers have their own venture capital business, Mantis VC, including a series of funds nearing $1 billion in assets that have made AI, among other, investments.

AI can replicate every stage of song production, leading to situations in which Spotify has already had to remove thousands of AI generated songs. It can write song lyrics, create a melody, add a beat, and sing the song using AI-generated vocals. There are some upsides — it’s increasing the democratization of music, allowing anyone to create a track from their own bedrooms. And with today’s social media algorithms, any song has the potential to explode overnight. In April, AI-generated music made headlines when ghostwriter, a previously unknown artist, used AI-generated vocals of Drake and The Weeknd to produce viral hit “heart on my sleeve.”

Now, AI-generated music is dominating social media, with AI covers of famous songs made by other artists taking over TikTok For You pages and YouTube Recommended feeds. The covers are even competing with the original songs: An Ariana Grande AI cover of Korean song Everytime, for example, received over 7.6 million views and became the top-liked search result for the song on TikTok.

Given the tensions, corporations are trying to include artists. YouTube recently announced its Dream Track experiment, which will allow users to use AI-generated versions of select artists as soundtracks for their creator videos. The star-studded lineup of available artists include Alec Benjamin, Charlie Puth, Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, John Legend, Sia, T-Pain, Troye Sivan and Papoose.

For The Chainsmokers, using AI-generated vocals in their own music is appealing. “I want to be able to write a song and be able to design my own voice that’s not mine. I want five voices that are mine, but generated off of mine, in a track,” Taggart said. “I see it as a huge tool that’s going to be enabling Chainsmokers music to reach a level it hadn’t been.”

But anyone can type “make me a song that sounds like The Chainsmokers produced it” in an AI tool and receive a song in minutes. Or, artists can write a song from start to finish, but replace their own vocals with those of more recognizable artists and generate more clicks.

Copyright law allows artists to protect their creative works and grants them with exclusive rights. And the Copyright Office issued a formal guidance on AI in March, affirming that only the human aspects of AI-produced work could be copyrighted. In the case of “heart on my sleeve,” Universal Music Group was able to use a copyright claim to take the song down from streaming platforms. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows a rights-holder to request for a violation to be removed.

The Chainsmokers said they are not opposed to hearing AI-generated music in their style, as long as it was protected. “It would be cool if someone could make Chainsmokers music and couldn’t upload it without the permission of us,” Pall said. “Now we have the option to reach out to the person, collaborate with them on the idea, or say ‘this is fine, release it.’ But there’s a framework set up so we’re all doing this fairly and legally at the end of the day.”

And the music duo says there is no way to stop the generation of AI music. “You’re definitely going to see a huge influx of content … but I do think the cream always rises to the top,” Pall said.

AI isn’t just limited to producing songs — it also has the potential to take on an identity and become an entirely new artist. In September, Warner Music Group signed its first social media virtual influencer to make music — Noonoouri, a digital character who uses AI for her voice and has over 425,000 followers on Instagram, more than some artists could ever dream of amassing.

The Chainsmokers aren’t phased by the AI competition. “I think what people are favoring right now are feeling like they have a connection to somebody over something that sounds like it should be a hit,” Taggart said. “The internet is allergic to inauthenticity. So as AI comes in, people will sniff out what’s real and what’s not. They want to be fans of true artists telling their story. They want something to believe in.”

Jimin, 28, and Jung Kook, 26, are scheduled to enlist together. V, 27, and RM, 29, will “enlist according to their own procedures,” BigHit said in the post. The label did not list an exact date of the members’ enlistments.

“Please support and continue to love RM, Jimin, V, and Jungkook until the day they return healthy after completing their military service,” the post read. “We will spare no effort in continuing to support our artists.”

BigHit also urged fans to refrain from attending the new recruit training camp ceremony, which is intended for friends and family.

Read the full story on NBC News.com here

Every year, music-streaming giant Spotify releases a personalized analysis of user listening data to each of their users as part of their Wrapped publicity campaign. If you have and actively use an account, you’ve likely seen the list of your five most-listened-to songs and artists over the course of a year.

You may also have seen the annual influx of memes on social media, as people joke about what their favorite artists and songs say about them.

Another feature of this year’s Wrapped campaign is Wrapped Mapped, which tells users what city had many other fans of their top artists.

Inexplicably, a huge contingent of people were told that their “sound town” was either Burlington, Vermont; Berkeley, California; or Cambridge, Massachusetts. Even Spotify weighed in on those jokes, tagging each city’s account on X (formerly known as Twitter) to say “hey besties.”

No matter your “sound town,” if you actually physically live in Washington, D.C. and want to know what your neighbors listened to most often, check out Spotify’s data below:

DC’s top genres on Spotify for 2023:

1. Rap
2. Pop
3. Hip Hop
4. Rock
5. Trap

These genres give an interesting peek at the listening trends in the District. For example, despite its proximity to Virginia, country didn’t make its way into D.C.’s favorite sounds this year.

On the other hand, D.C. does have a long history with hip-hop, so hip-hop and rap making it into the top three genres makes sense.

DC’s top artists on Spotify for 2023:

1. Taylor Swift
2. Drake
3. Bad Bunny
4. Morgan Wallen
5. SZA

Taylor Swift was Spotify’s worldwide most-listened to artist of the year for 2023. She finally dethroned Bad Bunny, who earned the title for the previous three years in a row — making it no wonder that both artists were also popular in the capitol city of the U.S.

No word yet on whether the District’s dedication to Taylor Swift will influence her to make a stop in D.C. on her next stadium tour.

DC’s top songs on Spotify for 2023:

1. “Kill Bill” by SZA
2. “Last Night” by Morgan Wallen
3. “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus
4. “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift
5. “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2” by Ice Spice and PinkPantheress

If “Kill Bill” doesn’t ring a bell by title alone, the song went viral on TikTok earlier this year. You may have heard the earworm clip of the following lyrics:

“I might kill my ex / Not the best idea / His new girlfriend’s next / How’d I get here?”

All five of D.C.’s top songs are breakup anthems, ranging from melancholy denial in the case of “Last Night” (with the main refrain “No way was it our last night”) to victorious independence in the case of “Flowers” (you CAN buy yourself flowers!).

We may be in the middle of cuffing season, but based on the top song choices, it appears that the lead up in 2023 wasn’t any easier than D.C. singles have come to expect.

(Have heart, D.C. singles — it’s not just you. According to Spotify’s global trend analysis, listeners created more than 200,000 breakup playlists this year, peaking around Valentine’s Day.)

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In the declaration filed Wednesday in a Nashville chancery court, Hall also lamented the deterioration of his relationship with and trust in his musical partner of more than a half-century. The joint venture in question includes Hall & Oates trademarks, personal name and likeness rights, record royalty income and website and social media assets, the declaration states.

In his own court filing later Wednesday, Oates said that he was disappointed in Hall’s “inflammatory, outlandish, and inaccurate statements about me,” and argued that he had been trying for some time to enhance their business partnership.

A judge has issued a temporarily restraining order blocking the sale of Oates’ share of Whole Oats Enterprises LLP to Primary Wave IP Investment Management LLC while legal proceedings and a previously initiated arbitration continue.

A court hearing is scheduled Thursday in the case. Hall is seeking further court action to keep the transaction on hold.

“While falsely contending over the last several months that the Oates Trust wanted to maintain ownership in WOE, John Oates and the Co-Trustees engaged in the ultimate partnership betrayal,” Hall said in a declaration. “They surreptitiously sought to sell half of the WOE assets without obtaining my written approval.”

Oates argued in his filings that the court should not extend the temporary restraining order, and he said he didn’t want to publicly address details of business dealings that he considers “private matters.” But in a rejoinder to the suggestion that he was the one causing a rift, he argued that Hall has been trying for years to be seen as an individual.

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“Over the years, Daryl has consistently and publicly been adamant about being perceived as an individual rather than as part of a duo or group. Thus, he has insisted on our being known as ‘Daryl Hall and John Oates,’ rather than the more commonly known ‘Hall & Oates,’” Oates’ declaration said. “On this point I agree. I now must act with truthfulness and make decisions that are right for myself, my family, and my artistic future.”

A Nashville chancery court judge issued the temporary restraining order on Nov. 16, the same day Hall filed his lawsuit, writing that Oates and others involved in his trust can’t move to close the sale of their share until an arbitrator in a separately filed case weighs in on the deal, or until the judge’s order expires — typically within 15 days, unless a judge extends the deadline. Hall’s declaration was initially filed in the arbitration case.

The lawsuit contends that Hall opened an arbitration process on Nov. 9 against Oates and the other defendants in the lawsuit, Oates’ wife, Aimee Oates, and Richard Flynn, in their roles as co-trustees of Oates’ trust. Hall was seeking an order preventing them from selling their part in Whole Oats Enterprises to Primary Wave Music.

Primary Wave has already owned “significant interest” in Hall and Oates’ song catalog for more than 15 years.

The lawsuit says Oates’ team entered into a letter of intent with Primary Wave Music for the sale, and alleges further that the letter makes clear that the music duo’s business agreement was disclosed to Primary Wave Music in violation of a confidentiality provision. Additionally, Hall said in his declaration he would not approve such a sale and doesn’t agree with Primary Wave’s business model.

Hall said he was blindsided by Oates’ plan to sell his part of Whole Oates Enterprises.

“I am deeply troubled by the deterioration of my relationship with, and trust in, John Oates,” Hall said in the declaration.

Hall said in his declaration that the ordeal has unfolded while he’s been on tour throughout the U.S. West Coast, Japan and Manila. Hall said he believes Oates timed the sale “to create the most harm to me.”

Hall accused Oates of becoming “adversarial and aggressive instead of professional and courteous” toward him in the last several years. As part of a proposed “global divorce,” Hall said he was entertaining Oates’ idea to dissolve their touring entity and a separate partnership related to their musical compositions and publishing, while Hall raised the idea of dissolving Whole Oats Enterprises.

Daryl Hall and John Oates got their start as Temple University students before signing with Atlantic Records in 1972. In the decades since, they have achieved six platinum albums and many more Top 10 singles with their unique approach to blue-eyed soul. Hall & Oates was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 and the duo’s latest album, “Home for Christmas,” was released in 2006. The pair continued to perform as of last year.

“We have this incredibly good problem of having so many hits,” Oates told The Associated Press in 2021, just before resuming a national tour that had been delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic. “Believe me, it’s not a chore to play those songs because they are really great.”

The decision Monday came four months after a Detroit-area jury said the document was a valid will under Michigan law, despite scribbles and many hard-to-read passages. Franklin had signed it and put a smiley face in the letter “A.”

The papers will override a handwritten will from 2010 that was found at Franklin’s suburban Detroit home around the same time in 2019, the judge said.

One of her sons, Kecalf Franklin, will get that property, which was valued at $1.1 million in 2018, but is now worth more. A lawyer described it as the “crown jewel” before trial last July.

Another son, Ted White II, who had favored the 2010 will, was given a house in Detroit, though it was sold by the estate for $300,000 before the dueling wills had emerged.

“Teddy is requesting the sale proceeds,” Charles McKelvie, an attorney for Kecalf Franklin, said Tuesday.

Judge Jennifer Callaghan awarded a third son, Edward Franklin, another property under the 2014 will.

Aretha Franklin had four homes when she died of pancreatic cancer in 2018.The discovery of the two handwritten wills months after her death led to a dispute between the sons over what their mother wanted to do with her real estate and other assets.

One of the properties, worth more than $1 million, will likely be sold and the proceeds shared by four sons. The judge said the 2014 will didn’t clearly state who should get it.

“This was a significant step forward. We’ve narrowed the remaining issues,” McKelvie said of the estate saga.

There’s still a dispute over how to handle Aretha Franklin’s music assets, though the will appears to indicate that the sons would share any income. A status conference with the judge is set for January.

Franklin was a global star for decades, known especially for hits in the late 1960s like “Think,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and “Respect.”

Family, friends, fans and veterans of the music world mourned the loss of the Grammy-nominated singer who was considered a musical powerhouse and an integral part of New Orleans’ music legacy.

Knight died Wednesday of natural causes in Tampa, Florida, where she was residing, said family representative Mona Giamanco. She confirmed the death to the Associated Press on Monday afternoon.

“Jean Knight’s legacy is not just a musical one; it is a testament to the enduring love between an artist, her hometown and the fans who adored her,” the singer’s family said in a statement.

Knight got her start in her hometown of New Orleans by singing in her cousin’s bar shortly after graduating from high school. In the 1970′ she recorded “Mr. Big Stuff” — a sassy and soulful chart-topping anthem that became known for the infectious refrain of “Who do you think you are?”

The song reached No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B chart and No. 2 on Billboard 200 pop chart, earning Knight a Grammy nomination for best female R&B vocal performance in 1972. The Stax Museum of American Soul Music said in a news release that Knight was Stax Records’ top-selling female artist.

Following the success of “Mr. Big Stuff” Knight went on to record several more albums — including ones that featured songs “(Don’t Mess With) My Toot Toot” and “Bill” — and former her own label, Comstar.

Reginald Toussaint was an engineer for one of Knight’s albums and even helped mix a song that his father — musical legend Allen Toussaint — wrote for it. Reginald Toussaint went on to become friends with Knight, who he described as a “wonderful woman.”

“She was genuinely a nice person with a gentle spirit … whenever I saw her she was always smiling,” said Toussaint, the executive director of production for New Orleans Jazz Fest and Essence Music Festival.

Knight spent years touring and performing locally, both on large festival stages and in more intimate smaller French Quarter venues.

In addition to her soulful, sassy and joyful performances, among family and friends she was known as a mother and grandmother who loved cooking Creole dishes and celebrating Mardi Gras.

Information about her funeral arrangements was not immediately available.

Waiting for tonight the official release date for Jennifer Lopez’s new music?

Well, you’re in luck because the singer just announced that “This Is Me…Now” will drop Feb. 16, 2024 — and with it, a corresponding film.

“‘This is Me…Now: The Film’ is like nothing you’ve ever seen from JL,” a Nov. 27 press release notes. “A narrative driven, intimate, reflective, sexy, funny, fantastical and highly entertaining musical and visual reimagining of her publicly scrutinized love life.”

While “This Is Me…Now” marks Lopez’s first new album since 2014’s “A.K.A.,” it also marks the culmination of her journey in the more than two decades since her 2002 album “This Is Me…Then” dropped.

And the film, directed by Dave Meyers, promises to include “impressive choreography, star studded cameos, costumes, sets and blockbuster-worthy visuals,” per the press release.

“Although an astonishing vivid spectacle, the film is ultimately a heartfelt ode to JL’s journey of self-healing and everlasting belief in fairytale endings,” the release continues. “Audiences will be captivated and leave hopeful that true love can be more than a dream.”

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Of course, this includes Lopez’s love story with husband Ben Affleck, who after getting engaged and splitting in the early aughts rekindled their romance in 2021. In fact, the album includes several nods to the Oscar winner. This includes songs like “Dear Ben pt. ll,” a follow-up to “Dear Ben” from her 2002 album, and “Midnight Trip to Vegas” about their 2022 wedding.

“I got very inspired when we got back together,” Lopez said on a January episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “It was kinda like a miracle and something that neither one of us really ever thought would happen.”

Sheila Kennedy, 61, filed the lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for physical injury, pain and suffering, severe emotional distress, mental anguish, humiliation, embarrassment, anxiety and economic harm.

The lawsuit was filed against Rose, 61, of Malibu, California, under a temporary New York law, the Adult Survivors Act, that lets adult victims sue over attacks that occurred even decades ago. The law expires after Thursday.

Attorney Alan S. Gutman said in a statement on behalf of Rose: “Simply put, this incident never happened. Notably, these fictional claims were filed the day before the New York State filing deadline expires.”

He added: “Though he doesn’t deny the possibility of a fan photo taken in passing, Mr. Rose has no recollection of ever meeting or speaking to the Plaintiff, and has never heard about these fictional allegations prior to today. Mr. Rose is confident this case will be resolved in his favor.”

In her lawsuit, Kennedy, of Palm Springs, California, alleges that she met Rose in February 1989 in a Manhattan nightclub, where the singer invited her to join a party in his hotel suite afterward.

According to the lawsuit, Kennedy saw Rose have sex with another model before he became angry with the woman, ordering her out of his suite.

He then turned toward Kennedy, dragging her across a floor by the hair and tying her hands together with pantyhose, before assaulting her from behind, the lawsuit said.

“Rose made no attempt to ask for or check that Kennedy was consenting,” the lawsuit said. “He treated her like property used solely for his sexual pleasure.”

The lawsuit said the attack left Kennedy with lifelong emotional, physical, psychological and financial damage and “symptoms akin to post-traumatic stress disorder whenever she hears Rose’s name or the music of Guns N’ Roses.”

She was diagnosed with anxiety and depression because of the attack and her earnings have suffered because she has avoided nightclubs and social scenarios where she could encounter Rose or hear his music, and those social contacts are important for her career, the lawsuit said.

Kennedy has made the allegations about Rose in the past, including in a 2016 memoir, “No One’s Pet,” and in a 2021 documentary, “Look Away,” about women sexually abused in the music industry.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Kennedy has done.

On the second day of Yoon’s three-day state visit to London, Charles made Blackpink members Jennie Kim, Jisoo Kim and Lalisa Manoban honorary Members of the Order of the British Empire.

Bandmate Roseanne (Rosé) Park also received an MBE, though hers came without the “honorary” qualifier because she has dual citizenship in New Zealand, one of the 14 countries where the U.K. monarch is head of state.

The honors were presented during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in recognition of Blackpink’s role in promoting the work of the COP26 summit on climate change two years ago in Glasgow, Scotland. The awards are part of Britain’s honors system, which recognizes outstanding service to the nation and the wider world.

Charles had lauded the K-pop girl group on Tuesday during a state banquet in honor of Yoon and first lady Kim Keon Hee “for their role in bringing the message of environmental sustainability to a global audience.

“I can only admire how they can prioritize these vital issues, as well as being global superstars,” Charles said at the banquet.

The Korean president is being treated to royal and diplomatic pomp on the visit, which the U.K. government hopes will help cement an “Indo-Pacific tilt” in its foreign and trade policy.

Yoon met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the British leader’s 10 Downing St. residence for talks focused on trade, technology and defense.

To coincide with the visit, U.K. and Korean officials launched talks on an “upgraded” free trade agreement to replace their current deal, which largely replicates the arrangements the U.K. had before it left the European Union.

The leaders also signed an agreement dubbed the “Downing Street Accord” pledging closer cooperation on defense and technology, including artificial intelligence. Britain hosted the first international AI Safety Summit this month, and South Korea intends to hold a follow-up event next year.

The two countries also agreed joint naval patrols to curb smuggling and to enforce U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea to curb its nuclear weapons ambitions.

“Your state visit underlies the deep partnership and friendship between our two countries and the signing of the Downing Street Accord today strengthens that friendship,” Sunak told the Korean leader.

Yoon has not commented directly on North Korea’s launch of a spy satellite on Tuesday or its suspected failed missile test on Wednesday, both of which took place while he was in London.

In a speech to both houses of Britain’s Parliament on Tuesday, Yoon said Britain and South Korea would work together on “geopolitical risks like the war in Ukraine, the Israel and Hamas conflict, and the North Korean nuclear threats.”

“Korea stands united with the United Kingdom and the international community to fight against illegal aggression and provocations,” he said.

The musician, whose distinctive finger-picking style drove hits for the British rockers including “Sultans of Swing” and “Money for Nothing,” is putting 120 guitars and amps up for sale in London on Jan. 31, the auction house said Tuesday.

Estimated sale prices range from 300 pounds ($375) for an electric-acoustic mandolin to 500,000 pounds ($625,000) for a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard with a cherry red sunburst finish. A 1983 Les Paul that Knopfler played on Dire Straits’ chart-topping 1985 album “Brothers in Arms” and onstage that year at Live Aid has an estimated price of 10,000 to 15,00 pounds.

Knopfler said the collection was the product of his 60-year “love affair” with guitars, but it was time to relinquish “some of these treasured six-string companions.”

“You can be sure I’ll be sad to see them go but we’ve had wonderful times together and I can’t play them all,” he said. ”To you fellow players, enthusiasts and collectors, I wish you many good times with these old friends of mine.”

The instruments will go on public display at Christie’s New York showroom Dec. 9 to 13, and at the auctioneer’s London headquarters from Jan. 19 to 30, 2024.

A quarter of the sale total will go to the British Red Cross and other charities.

The ballot also includes “Footloose” singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins, Nashville hitmaker Hillary Lindsey, who helped write “Girl Crush” for Little Big Town, and producer-writer Timbaland, the mastermind behind Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” and Missy Elliot’s “Get Yer Freak On.”

Included on the list are the “Losing My Religion” R.E.M. quartet led by Michael Stipe, as well as sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, who showed women could rock hard with songs like “Barracuda” and “Crazy On You.”

Joining them is Adams, with radio staples like “Summer of ’69” and “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?,” and Clinton, whose Parliament-Funkadelic collective was hugely influential with hits like “Atomic Dog” and “Give Up the Funk.”

Eligible voting members have until Dec. 27 to turn in ballots with their choices of three nominees from the songwriter category and three from the performing-songwriter category. The Associated Press got an early copy of the list.

Debbie Harry, Chris Stein and Clem Burke are nominated as Blondie, who gave the world the New Wave hits “Call Me” and “Rapture,” and Chapman, whose “Fast Car,” originally released in 1988, won her two Grammys in 1989 and a Country Music Association award this year after being covered by Luke Combs.

Adams, R.E.M., Blondie, The Doobie Brothers and Heart were also nominated last year but didn’t make the final cut. Last year’s inductees included Snoop Dogg, Gloria Estefan, Sade, Jeff Lynne, Glen Ballard and Teddy Riley.

The performing songwriters nominees this time include Canadian rock musicians Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings — behind “American Woman” and “These Eyes” — and The Doobie Brothers — Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons and Michael McDonald — with such classics as “Listen to the Music” and “Long Train Runnin.’”

David Gates, who sang with the band Bread, is up for a career that includes such songs as “Everything I Own” and “Make It With You,” while Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Flavor Flav got nods for iconic tunes like “Fight the Power” and “Bring the Noise.”

Somewhat surprisingly, Steely Dan — co-founded by Donald Fagan and the late Walter Becker — are not in the hall despite being a staple of classic rock with songs like “Reelin’ in the Years,” “Do It Again” and “Hey Nineteen.” They went into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

Other songwriter nominees who work behind the scenes include Maurice Starr (“Candy Girl”), Tony Macaulay (“Baby Now That I’ve Found You”), Dean Dillon (“Tennessee Whiskey”), L. Russell Brown (“Sock It To Me — Baby”), Narada Michael Walden (“How Will I Know”), Roger Nichols (“We’ve Only Just Begun”) and the team of Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter (“Ain’t No Woman (Like The One I’ve Got).”

Loggins’ “Footloose” is also a credit for nominated songwriter Dean Pitchford, who also co-wrote “Fame” and “Holding Out For a Hero.” And Tony Macaulay, whose songs have been sung by Elvis Presley, Gladys Knight and Tom Jones, is nominated for “Baby Now That I’ve Found You” and “Build Me Up Buttercup.”

The Songwriters Hall of Fame was established in 1969 to honor those creating the popular music. A songwriter with a notable catalog of songs qualifies for induction 20 years after the first commercial release of a song.

Some already in the hall include Carole King, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Lionel Richie, Bill Withers, Neil Diamond and Phil Collins.

Cassie, who previously had a romantic relationship with Combs, filed the bombshell federal suit in New York City on Thursday. The following day, both parties announced a settlement had been reached. 

Videos on social media showed Kesha performing at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles on Saturday and changing the opening line of her song “Tik Tok” to “wake up in the mornin’ feelin’ just like me” instead of its original version, “wake up in the mornin’ feelin’ like P Diddy.”

While performing in Oakland, Calif., on Friday night she sang the same lyric, according to a video clip.

NBC News has reached out to her representatives for comment.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com.

Maren Morris is getting back in the saddle.

Despite previously sharing plans to step back from country music, the singer revealed that she may not be done with the genre after all.

“I don’t think [country music is] something you can really leave because it’s a music that’s in me and that’s what I grew up doing,” Morris said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Nov. 7. “It’s the music I write, even if I’ve been sort of genre-fluid my whole career.”

Reflecting on her past comments, the 33-year-old noted, “You can’t scrub the country music out. So, it was very hyperbolic.”

When host Jimmy Fallon asked the “Girl” artist point blank if she was leaving country music, Maren replied, “No, no.”

“I’m taking the good parts with me and all are welcome,” she continued. “But, yeah, there were just some facets of it that I didn’t really jibe with anymore. So, I’m a lot happier now.”

Morris first shared her plans to pivot away from country music in September, a year after she publicly called out Jason Aldean’s wife Brittany over alleged transphobia.

“The stories going on within country music right now, I’ve tried to avoid a lot of it at all costs,” she told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Sept. 15. “I feel very, very distanced from it. I had to take a step back.”

The Grammy winner added at the time, “The way I grew up was so wrapped in country music, and the way I write songs is very lyrically structured in the Nashville way of doing things. But I think I needed to purposely focus on just making good music and not so much on how we’ll market it.”

However, Morris later clarified that there are aspects of country music that she still loves very much.

“I love living in Nashville, I have my family,” she said during the Oct. 4 episode of The New York Times’ Popcast podcast, per People. “There’s a reason why people come there from L.A. and New York to write with us. It’s because we have amazing songwriters there. That’s not gonna change.”

Wilson is the leading nominee for the second year in a row, competing for entertainer of the year along with Carrie Underwood, Chris Stapleton, Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs.

Stapleton, Dan + Shay and the War and Treaty are among the performers scheduled to take the stage at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. The show airs live on ABC beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern and will stream the next day on Hulu.

Luke Bryan and Peyton Manning will host the ceremony, which will feature a musical tribute to the late singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett.

Wilson is up for nine awards, including her collaborations with HARDY (“Wait in the Truck”) and Jelly Roll (“Save Me”).

Rapper-turned-singer Jelly Roll, who earlier this year topped the CMT Music Awards, has five nominations, including best new artist.

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Other best new artist nominees are Zach Bryan, Parker McCollum, Megan Moroney and Hailey Whitters.

More than 30 years after she won two Grammy Awards for “Fast Car,” Tracy Chapman could win a song of the year trophy from the Country Music Association, thanks to Luke Combs’ cover.

Willie Nelson brought the country, St. Vincent honored the art-rock of Kate Bush and George Michael’s old partner in Wham! honored the late pop star.

Crow joined by Rodrigo — both in black — traded verses as they both played guitars. Stevie Nicks later joined Crow for a performance of “Strong Enough” and Peter Frampton came out to help sing “Everyday Is a Winding Road.”

“This is a little bit like getting an Oscar for a screenplay you have not finished writing,” Crow said. She thanked her parents for unconditional love “and piano lessons.” She called music a “universal gift.”

Laura Dern inducted Crow, calling her friend “a badass goddess.” Dern said the music business initially had no idea what to do with a Southern female guitar-playing singer-songwriter. But it soon learned. “She mapped out the chapters of our lives,” Dern said.

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Elton John came out of retirement to perform and toast his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin. “He became my best friend and my lyricist,” John said. “He is without doubt one the finest lyric writers of all time.”

John joked that the two never had an argument over their 56 years together. “He was disgusted by my behavior, but that’s a given.” John also revealed that the two have just finished a new album.

The two men hugged at the podium and Taupin said he found in John when they met in 1967 someone “to inspire with their imagination and ignite your dreams.” John then sat at the piano to sing “Tiny Dancer.”

The ceremony in New York City is streaming live for the first time on Disney+.

H.E.R., Sia and Common accompanied Khan for a medley of her funky hits that included “I Feel For You,” “Ain’t Nobody,” “Sweet Thing” and “I’m Every Woman,” the latter which brought nearly everyone to their feet.

At the podium, Khan graciously called up guitarist Tony Maiden, a member of the band Rufus, which featured Khan in her early career. “Without him and the band, I would not be here today,” Khan said.

Nelson’s part of the ceremony took a fair chunk of the night, with Dave Matthews playing an acoustic “Funny How Time Slips Away,” and the legend joining Chris Stapleton on “Whiskey River,” deuting with Crow for “Crazy” and then all three musicians combining with Nelson for a rollicking “On the Road Again,” which got a standing ovation.

Matthews said Nelson, 90, wrote his first song at 7 in 1940 and has put out over 70 albums. He ran through the legendary musician’s career, including Farm Aid, IRS troubles and Nelson’s preference for pot. “It’s people like Willie Nelson who give me hope for the world,” Matthews said.

When it was his turn, Nelson thanked his wife, Annie, for “keeping me out here, doing what I’m meant to do.” He added: “Thanks for appreciating my music.”

Andrew Ridgeley honored his partner in Wham!, the late George Michael. “His music was key to his compassion,” Ridgeley said. “George is one of the greatest singers of our time.”

Michael attracted an intriguing trio of performers in his honor: Miguel, Carrie Underwood and Adam Levine, who each performed one of his hits — “Careless Whisper,” “Faith” and “One More Try.”

Another posthumous inductee was “Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius. A huge sign from his old TV dance show was lowered and the crowd danced happily. Snoop Dogg, Questlove and Lionel Richie in a video called the show a rite of passage and a pioneering show that elevated Black music and culture.

Big Boi inducted Kate Bush, telling the crowd he never knew what to expect from her music and comparing her insistence on producing her own work to being very hip-hop. “Who sounds like Kate Bush?” he asked. “If you were hearing Kate’s music for the first time, why wouldn’t you believe this was a current artist?”

St. Vincent took the stage to perform a solemn “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God),” the Bush song that bumped up her popularity after the TV show “Stranger Things” featured it. Bush didn’t make it to Friday’s ceremony.

LL Cool J presented inductee DJ Kool Herc, called the Father of Hip-Hop. “Arguably, no one made a bigger contribution to hip-hop culture than DJ Kool Herc,” LL Cool J said and then turned to the older artist: “You lit the fire and it’s still blazing.” A visibly moved Herc was unable to speak for a few moments before thanking his parents, James Brown, Marcus Garvey and Harry Belafonte, among others.

Queen Latifah will present Elliott, who becomes the first female hip-hop artist in the rock hall. Elliott will then take the Barclay’s Center stage for a performance. The four-time Grammy Award-winner is also the first female rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

The Spinners, who became a hit-making machine with four No. 1 R&B hits in less than 18 months, were honored by a velvet-jacket-and-fedora-clad New Edition, who sang “I’ll Be Around,” “The Rubberband Man” and “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love.” John Edwards and Henry Fambrough represented the Philadelphia five-member group.

Also entering the hall as the class of 2023 are Rage Against the Machine and the late guitarist Link Wray. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin honored Wray with a virtuoso performance of the late guitar god’s seminal “Rumble” with a double-necked guitar.

The ceremony’s strong representation of women this year comes not long after the hall removed Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner from its board of directors. Wenner, who also co-founded the hall, had said that Black and female musicians “didn’t articulate at the level” of the white musicians featured in his new book of interviews. He later apologized. Taupin drew cheers when he said he was honored to join the 2023 class with such “profoundly articulate women” and “articulate Black artists.”

Artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years before they’re eligible for induction. Nominees were voted on by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals.

ABC will air a special featuring performance highlights and standout moments on Jan. 1.

LONDON — A new Beatles song featuring the complete Fab Four will be released Thursday, 45 years after John Lennon began writing it — with the help of artificial intelligence.

Titled “Now And Then,” it will debut on BBC radio at 2 p.m. London time (10 a.m. ET) at the same time as its release on streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music. The track will be available on CD and vinyl from Friday.

A short film detailing the making of the “last Beatles song” was published to the band’s official YouTube channel Wednesday and has already gained more than 1.4 million views.

Lennon recorded a demo of the song with piano and vocals at his home in New York two years before he was murdered in 1980.

Fellow band members Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr worked on the song in 1995 with the aim of releasing it in a Beatles retrospective project, but it was left unfinished due to the technical difficulty of using the vocals on Lennon’s tape.

Work on completing the song revived more than two decades later, when director Peter Jackson was producing the mammoth eight-hour Beatles documentary “Get Back.”

Artificial intelligence software — which Jackson used to clean up archive footage in the film — isolated Lennon’s voice on “Now And Then,” removed background noise and improved sound quality.

“We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI, so that then we could mix the record as you would normally do. It gives you some sort of leeway,” McCartney said earlier this year.

Harrison died in 2001 and will feature in rhythm guitar sections recorded during the 1995 project.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that “Now And Then” will be released at 10 a.m. ET.

It’s one of the surprising revelations in Willie Nelson’s new book, “Energy Follows Thought: The Stories Behind My Songs,” an examination of the 90-year-old country legend and soon-to-be Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s seven decades of songwriting.

While his guitar is practically an extension of his body at this point, he has always started the writing process by thinking up words rather than strumming chords. To him, it’s doing the hard part first.

“The melodies are easier to write than the words,” Nelson told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of Tuesday’s release of his book.

He does not, however, write those words down, not even on a napkin.

“I have a theory,” he said, “that if you can’t remember ’em, it probably wasn’t that good.”

Nelson actually started out as a poet of sorts. At age 6 in Depression-era Texas, he composed a verse in response to the looks he got when he picked his nose and got a nosebleed while standing in front of his church congregation.

“My poem was, ‘What are you looking at me for? I ain’t got nothin to say, if you don’t like the looks of me, look some other way,’” he recalled 84 years later. “That was the beginning.”

He started writing songs soon after.

When he became a superstar in middle age in the mid-1970s, Nelson would be best known for his dynamic live performances and his guitar and vocal stylings.

But as a young man in the 1950s and early ’60s, he was best known as one of the struggling songsmiths who spent their days and nights at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville.

In 1961, three of his songs became hits for other artists: Billy Walker’s “Funny How Time Slips Away,” Faron Young’s “Hello Walls” and, most importantly, Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” a song that would become a signature for her and both a financial boon and an ego boost for him.

“Because Patsy liked it, I was poor no longer,” he writes in the book. “This particular ‘Crazy’ convinced me, at a time when I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of my writing talent, that I’d be crazy to stop writing.”

He would go on to make other writers’ songs his own in the same way. He didn’t write most of the biggest hits associated with him, which came in the 1970s and 80s: “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” “Always on My Mind.”

He almost seemed to retire from songwriting when fame finally came to him in the Outlaw Country era, enjoying the chance to record his favorite old standards or the compositions of hot young writers.

But he never stopped composing entirely. Director Sydney Pollack prodded him to write a new song for the 1980 Nelson-starring film “Honeysuckle Rose,” on which Pollack was an executive producer.

Nelson responded by writing — words first — “On The Road Again.”

Pollack was less than thrilled with the lyrics in isolation: “The life I love is makin’ music with my friends, and I can’t wait to get on the road again.”

But was pleased when he heard the chugging music that suggested a train, or a tour bus.

And Nelson would appreciate the nudge.

“Without knowing or trying, in a few little lines, I’d written the story of my life,” he says in the book.

But the songs did get fewer and farther between. More than performing, songwriting can be a young man’s game.

“I don’t write as much as I used to,” he told the AP. “The ideas don’t come that quick. I still write now and then.”

He did recently write the song that gives the name to his book, “Energy Follows Thought,” for his 2022 album, “A Beautiful Time.”

In it, Nelson and co-authors David Ritz and Mickey Raphael give brief backstories to 160 different songs he’s written through the years.

It wasn’t prompted by any great sense of reflection.

“Some of my business guys thought it would be a good thing to do,” Nelson said.

The year of his 90th birthday has been overloaded with events. He was feted by a fellow stars, including Neil Young and Snoop Dogg, in a two-night celebration at the Hollywood Bowl in the summer.

And on Friday, the same week the book is released, he’ll be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Last year, fellow country legend Dolly Parton got a spot in the hall, and had mixed feelings about whether she belonged, even turning down the honor at first.

But Nelson, whose whole body of work has been built on ignoring the lines between genres, has no such problem.

“You can get rock ‘n’ roll in country, rock and roll in any kind of music,” he said.

“The true ‘magic’ of this tour is in the music, the moments and the memories that we get to create – and recreate – with our amazing fans each night,” Donnie Wahlberg said in a written statement. “Feeling all the nostalgic feels of the original Magic Summer, with the bond that we’ve shared throughout the years, will make for a most magical time indeed.”

Special guests Paula Abdul and DJ Jazzy Jeff will join Wahlberg, along with original NKOTB members Danny Wood, Joey McIntyre and brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight on the tour, which includes more than 40 dates, the release said.

Presales begin Wednesday, Nov. 1, with tickets to the general public set to go on sale at 10 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 3., Live Nation said.

Also on Nov. 3, the group will release a “revamped version” of their 2008 comeback album “The Block Revisited.”

Overall, the band has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide, with several chart-topping songs including 1988’s “Hangin’ Tough,” and 1990’s “Step by Step.”

A full list of tour dates and cities is below.

The track, called “Now And Then,” will be available Thursday, Nov. 2, as part of a single paired with “Love Me Do,” the very first Beatles single that came out in 1962 in England, it was announced Thursday.

“Now And Then” comes from the same batch of unreleased demos written by the late John Lennon, which were taken by his former bandmates to construct the songs “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love,” released in the mid-1990s.

Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison worked on “Now And Then” in the same sessions, but technological limitations stood in the way.

With the help of artificial intelligence, director Peter Jackson cleared those problems up by “separating” Lennon’s original vocals from a piano used in the late 1970s. The much clearer vocals allowed McCartney and Starr to complete the track last year.

The survivors packed plenty into it. The new single contains guitar that Harrison had recorded nearly three decades ago, a new drum part by Starr, with McCartney’s bass, piano and a slide guitar solo he added as a tribute to Harrison, who died in 2001. McCartney and Starr sang backup.

McCartney also added a string arrangement written with the help of Giles Martin, son of the late Beatles producer George Martin.

As if that wasn’t enough, they weaved in backing vocals from the original Beatles recordings of “Here, There and Everywhere,” “Eleanor Rigby” and “Because.”

“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear,” McCartney said in the announcement. “It’s quite emotional. And we all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording. In 2023 to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s quite an exciting thing.”

Harrison’s widow, Olivia, said he felt in the 1990s that the technical problems made it impossible to release a song that met the band’s standards. With the improvements, “he would have wholeheartedly” joined Paul and Ringo in completing the song now if he were still alive, she said.

Next Wednesday, the day before the song’s release, a 12-minute film that tells the story of the new recording will be made public.

Later in the month, expanded versions of the Beatles’ compilations “1962-1966” and “1967-1970” will be released. “Now And Then,” despite coming much later than 1970, will be added to the latter collection.

The surviving Beatles have skillfully released new projects, like remixes of their old albums that include studio outtakes and Jackson’s “Get Back” film, usually timed to appeal to nostalgic fans around the holiday season.

This year, it’s the grand finale of new music.

“This is the last track, ever, that you’ll get the four Beatles on the track. John, Paul, George, and Ringo,” Starr said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Girl, you know the truth about Milli Vanilli. Or do you?

“I thought this story was two guys conned everybody, they’re talentless frauds,” director Luke Korem, whose new documentary “Milli Vanilli” unpacks how Fabrice “Fab” Morvan and Rob Pilatus ended up at the center of one of the biggest music scandals of all time, told E! News’ Francesca Amiker in an exclusive interview.

But then Korem watched a video on YouTube of Morvan sharing his story at The Moth in New York, and was struck by how calmly the artist spoke about what happened.

“I could tell he had a peace in his life that I was surprised by,” the filmmaker said. Then, when Morvan started to sing and “he has this beautiful voice,” he realized he didn’t know much about Milli Vanilli at all.

“Nobody was interested in the behind-the-story of what happened,” said Morvan, recalling how he and Pilatus had to face the music after their producer told the world it wasn’t their voices on the duo’s platinum-selling debut album, “Girl You Know It’s True.” “It was [all about] Rob and Fab, latching onto them, they’re the guilty ones! For a long time, we carried a burden of everything.”

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Just months earlier they’d won the 1990 Grammy for Best New Artist. But their arrival was followed swiftly by their departure, Milli Vanilli synonymous with lip-syncing forever after — and in the history books as the first act to have a Grammy rescinded.

“They went from anonymous to worldwide stars, to infamous,” Korem said, “all in the span of two years.”

At the time, they attributed the subterfuge to having signed a contract that got lost in translation, Morvan being from France and Pilatus from Germany. Especially since they’d already received an advance, they said they were under the impression they just had to go along with what producer Frank Farian wanted: To put their faces and names on an album they didn’t make. They said everyone expected the release to just come and go.

Instead, “Girl You Know It’s True” was huge. And so the live lip-syncing began, including most infamously during a Club MTV tour stop in Bristol, Conn., on July 21, 1989, when mid-performance of the title track, the tape skipped.

However, any memory lodged in people’s minds of the MTV debacle being the big reveal is “complete lore,” Korem said. In reality, he explained, “very few people caught on to that. What that tape skip did was cause paranoia within Rob and Fab, that this can’t happen.”

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Their most public successes came after — three American Music Awards, the Grammy, the fact that being named the worst act of 1989 by Rolling Stone didn’t prevent them from selling 6 million albums — but Pilatus, who died in 1998, once said that he felt like a “mosquito being squeezed.”

“The last two years of our lives have been a total nightmare,” he told the Los Angeles Times in November 1990 after their producer Farian blew the whistle on the operation during a news conference in Munich. “We’ve had to lie to everybody.”

Morvan struck a conciliatory tone in the aftermath of the scandal, saying on “The Arsenio Hall Show,” “We don’t want to blame or point a finger at anybody, we take the blame on us.”

As time went by, though, Morvan decided there was no need to carry that burden alone while, he told E!, “everyone, outside of Rob and Fab, left unscathed.”

So when Korem approached him, wanting to tell the whole story, including how the inner workings of the music industry allowed for such a thing to happen in the first place, Morvan was intrigued.

Still, “it took a year to get him onboard,” Korem noted. “And then it took a long time to get all the other people.”

After it was revealed that Morvan and Pilatus weren’t the real singers, there was left the question of who at Arista Records may have known all along that Milli Vanilli were faking it.

An Arista executive told the LA Times in 1990 they were just the distributor and had no involvement with how the album was actually made. Farian backed that up, saying he never told anyone at the label.

And to this day, everyone’s still got their own version of events.

Korem’s pitch to those he wanted to interview was, “‘You’re going to get to tell your story, no matter if it conflicts with someone else’s story,'” he explained. “Because somewhere in between there’s the truth.”

Watching the finished film, there were “executives who were not showing true remorse after all those years,” Morvan said, without naming names. “And it took a long time for them to actually utter the words, to speak the truth. I was like, ‘Damn.’ Even for me, watching that made me cringe. It was like, ‘Yo, really? It’s like that? Thirty years later, who are you backing up?'”

But, Korem said, the point of the project wasn’t to exonerate Milli Vanilli.

“In the film, even Fab says that ‘we embraced the lie,'” he said. “It’s to show the people behind the headlines, the real story of the personal journey of Rob and Fab, where they come from, how this impacted them—and, also, the other people.”

Most everybody “kept on doing business as usual,” Morvan said, shaking his head. “And we were destroyed to a point where Rob lost his life, and I was able to survive through time.”

Pilatus was only 32 when he was found dead in a hotel room in Friedrichsdorf, Germany, of what police determined was an accidental overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol.

Celebrity Deaths: 2023’s Fallen Stars

“Rob was a firecracker,” Morvan said of his late friend. Early on they attempted to recapture the magic as Rob & Fab, then planned to tour again as Milli Vanilli, but never got the chance. An audio recording of a conversation Pilatus had in rehab only 60 days before he died is woven into the documentary, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June.

Calling the use of the tape “powerful,” Morvan took comfort in knowing that Pilatus was embracing recovery in that moment. “I was trying for a long time to convey to him, ‘Make that happen and then you’ll be able to be happy again,'” he said.

Pilatus wanted love, Morvan continued, and then when their audience turned on them, they both crumbled. But, he added, “I was able to go not too low. I went clean before he tried to do that. But it was too late because the addiction had taken a toll on his soul, on his mind and on his body.”

Rejecting the notion that this moment is a comeback for him — “I never left,” he noted — Morvan remains a producer and songwriter. And he still tours, singing those once-maligned Milli Vanilli hits that just needed time to be considered bops once again.

The 57-year-old doesn’t know how their experience might have been different if social media had existed back in the day, but he marveled how it’s since changed the music business.

“We live in a different world now,” he observed. “Look at TikTok, it turned lip-syncing into an art. We got crucified for lip-syncing. I guess we were like trailblazers in some kind of way, not knowing society would evolve to this point.”

But ultimately Morvan is happy — as is Pilatus, he added, pointing toward the sky — that their whole story has finally been told.

“My one regret is that Rob is no longer here,” Morvan said. “But now it’s OK, more people will realize what happened to us. The people who are able to watch the doc right now, they know, and they felt it. And whatever they’re feeling, I felt too, and the whole world is going to feel it.”

Milli Vanilli starts streaming Oct. 24 on Paramount+

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“There are no words to express my feelings and the love I have for my brother. Our family will miss him. But I know he’s in a better place,” Ronald Isley said in a statement released Thursday by an Isley Brothers publicist. Further details were not immediately available.

A Cincinnati native, Rudolph Isley began singing in church with brothers Ronald and O’Kelly (another sibling, Vernon, died at age 13) and was still in his teens when they broke through in the late 1950s with “Shout,” a secularized gospel rave that was later immortalized during the toga party scene in “Animal House.” The Isleys scored again in the early 1960s with the equally spirited “Twist and Shout,” which the Beatles liked so much they used it as the closing song on their debut album and opened with it for their famed 1965 concert at Shea Stadium.

The Isleys’ other hits included “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You),” later covered by Rod Stewart, and the Grammy-winning “It’s Your Thing.” In the 1970s, after younger brother Ernest and Marvin joined the group, they had even greater success with such singles as “That Lady” and “Fight the Power (Part 1)” and such million-selling albums as “The Heat Is On” and “Go for Your Guns.”

Rudolph Isley left the group in 1989, three years after the sudden death of O’Kelly Isley, to become a Christian minister. He was among the Isleys inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

___

The former lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish opened up to People about the hardships following his 2020 split with wife Beth Leonard, despite remaining “close friends and parenting partners.”

“That stuff hurts and you feel like a failure,” Rucker told the publication, noting that they’re “not officially divorced yet.”

The artist said he and his ex strive to keep the family a unit, emphasizing, “a piece of paper is not going to change that” adding, “we’re still a family, and that’s all because Beth is awesome. She knows it’s the best for the kids, and she’s a great human being.”

The two share daughter Daniella, 22, and son Jack, 18. The “Beers and Sunshine” singer also has daughter Carolyn, 28, from a previous relationship.

When asked about dating, Rucker told People, “I’m just trying to be the best dad I can be.”

Rucker is one of six children himself and, in a recent interview with Sunday TODAY’s Willie Geist, credited his mother for his family values.

“My mom just taught us family’s everything,” he said.

Along with instilling unity between himself and his siblings, Rucker said his mom encouraged him to “do it” when he made the decision to leave college after his junior year to pursue music full-time.

A former singer herself, Rucker’s late mother continued to influence her son’s career, the Grammy winner noted, dedicating his new album to her.

“We’ll name the record ‘Carolyn’s Boy’ because in my heart, I’m just my mom’s kid,” he told Geist.

Rucker got his start in music as the lead member and singer of 80s rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which was originally formed at the University of South Carolina.

The band primarily comprised of Darius Rucker, Mark Bryan, Dean Felber and Jim Sonefeld made their way around the southern college circuit until a 1994 performance on “The Late Show with David Letterman” that “changed their lives.”

Hootie & the Blowfish earned two Grammys during their time together until announcing a break in 2008, the year Rucker went solo.

Rucker, who was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, then returned to his southern roots with hit song “Wagon Wheel” and made history as the No. 5 best selling country song of all time.

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Maddie has also loved Beyoncé Knowles-Carter since childhood, having danced to her music since the pop star’s days as a member of the group Destiny’s Child.

Both have been the soundtrack to her life, she says.

“Taylor’s debut album came out when I was, like, an emotional 12-year-old. So ‘Teardrops on My Guitar’ really hit home,” says the 29-year-old, who asked not to use her last name because her boss is a public figure. “And Beyoncé definitely, I don’t think, is celebrated in the way that Taylor is.”

Both Swift and Beyoncé have been touring since this past summer, each performing undisputedly exceptional shows. And each have since announced concert movies that will hit AMC theaters; Swift’s “The Eras Tour” premieres Oct. 13, while “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé” was just announced to hit theaters Dec. 1.

With stunning dancers and choreography and amazing special effects, just about everyone interviewed for this story called both concerts “life-changing.” But even as their tours have been lauded for helping to boost the American economy, an old narrative that has intermittently plagued these two artists for years has reemerged:

Are you a Swiftie, or a member of the BeyHive? And who puts on a better show?

Perhaps the more important question, however, is why the comparison between these two radically different female artists is even a question at all. Exquisite Williams, a 23-year-old writer from Atlanta who attended both Swift’s “Eras Tour” and Beyoncé’s “Renaissance World Tour,” has an idea.

“The only reason they’re getting compared is because they’re both at the top of their respective games, and there’s no one else to compare them to,” she says. “But they’re not even peers with one another … they’re not doing the same thing.”

She was so passionate about this narrative that in August, she took to X — the platform formerly known as Twitter — to write about it.

“Y’all keep comparing Beyoncé and Taylor I’m gonna start comparing Ed Sheeran and Usher so y’all hear how dumb you sound,” she wrote in a now-viral tweet.

Of course, this unspoken rivalry has been brewing for years. For nearly two decades, Swift and Beyoncé have competed against each other for music awards. For many fans, the 2009 moment Kanye West interrupted a then-20-year-old Swift as she accepted the award for the best female video at the MTV Video Music Awards to argue that Beyoncé was more deserving is etched into their brains.

“I’m really happy for you, and I’mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time,” the rapper shouted into the microphone. Later that evening, when Beyoncé won video of the year for “Single Ladies,” she invited Swift onto the stage to speak with her.

In the years since, the two have competed for several VMAs, including earlier this year; on Sept. 12, they squared off again in several categories. They’ve also gone head-to-head at the Grammys, with both nominated in 2023 for song of the year and best song written for visual media. And while competition in the music industry is normal, with every award show comes fierce discourse between fandoms on social media, as well as the media, with frequent articles comparing their album and ticket sales.

The comparison might seem inexplicable, but according to experts, the pitting of two women against each other is common in every capacity — from mom-shaming to the workplace. It even has a name: the concept of the “exceptional woman.” The idea that there can only be one.

Why is there a perceived rivalry in the first place?

Tammy L. Kernodle, a Miami University musicology professor who specializes in African American music and gender studies in music, explains to TODAY.com that the “exceptional woman” narrative allows the patriarchy to perpetuate a framework that keeps men in power.

“And yes, we have this woman and she’s exceptional, but instead of allowing her and those who come behind her (into) this conversation about genius and paradigm shifting cultural expression, they use that exceptional woman to say, ‘Look, we’ve got one.’ It’s like tokenism.”

She adds that the one accepted woman into the club is then used to “keep other women from being included in these narratives.”

Catherine Provenzano, a musicologist and music industry professor who works on pop music at UCLA, echoes Kernodle’s comments to TODAY.com, saying that the narrative is all a “well-rehearsed rhetoric.”

“I think we still are in this place where we (as a country) can’t quite make sense of women with power,” she says. “(Beyoncé and Taylor Swift) are two performers that are so singular, and incredibly powerful right now. They are breaking out these financial records, and their shows are getting all this attention that for that to be happening simultaneously just almost doesn’t compute with the culture right now.”

Kernodle notes that media or fan-created rivalries like this one are nothing new, citing everyone from jazz pianists Mary Lou Williams and Hazel Scott to Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. Even Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson, both “American Idol” winners who went on to have successful careers, also have a rumored feud, which they have both adamantly denied.

How fans have perpetuated the dynamic

Kernodle says that when it comes to Beyoncé and Swift, while there are some fans who overlap, there might also be some “identity politics” at play.

“I think marginalized individuals tend to rally around certain artists, and Beyoncé is embracing a culture that is associated so much with the disenfranchised,” she says, citing how the singer’s use of house music on her “Renaissance” album and tour resonates with the LGBTQ+ community. “Beyoncé is speaking to those individuals and representing those individuals who are oftentimes rendered silent and invisible.”

Swift, on the other hand, didn’t enter the world of identity politics until era of her “Lover” album — more than a decade after she first came on the music scene at the age of 16.

In the 2020 Netflix documentary, “Miss Americana,” Swift can be seen deciding to take a more political stance by endorsing liberal Tennessee politicians and releasing songs with lyrics like “shade never made anybody less gay!” But the gap — between her first single, “Tim McGraw” in 2006 and the “Lover” album in 2019 — has often been criticized by fans and critics alike.

“It creates this kind of duality,” Kernodle goes on to say. “Swift embodies this notion of the youthful, exuberant, beautiful girl, which had always been marketed through popular culture as the ideal of white feminism, or a white feminine identity.”

Maddie, the New York-based fan, agrees.

“Taylor Swift has been mainstream, stereotypically, for white women,” she says, adding that she identifies as white woman. “People have not always viewed Beyoncé in the same ‘wholesome’ way they do Taylor. (Beyoncé) does definitely have more sexual lyrics, but that doesn’t mean she’s not also an amazing, powerful, strong role model for girls and women everywhere.”

Kernodle went on to say that it’s possible Beyoncé doesn’t “speak to (white women) in the same way” that Swift does.

She also adds that there might be a generational difference at play, too. “There’s a certain level of worldliness and maturity that comes with Beyoncé,” she explains, adding that sensibility can preclude a younger contingent of fans.

“But it also doesn’t always resonate with white suburban women. Some, but not all,” she continues. “So I think you have these fandoms creating dynamics that center around our conceptions of beauty and power and agency.”

Williams, who is from Atlanta, says being a Black Swiftie can come with its own unique challenges. She compares being a fan of Swift while being Black to attending a predominantly white university.

“You’re surrounded by all these white people … and just non-Black people in general,” she explains. “I think it’s just because white fans dominate the conversations and sometimes it can get real racist real quickly,” she says. “And it’s like, ‘Whoa, I’m right here!'”

She adds that even non-Swifties also share their thoughts, saying things like, “I’ve never seen a Black Swiftie before.”

“And it’s like, ‘Well, that’s just because you don’t look!'” Williams says, exasperated. “The attempt to undercut my Blackness because I like pop music is so dumb.”

Williams says she faces scrutiny from the Black community, too: “You have Black people who don’t like Taylor Swift, who are also judging you. It’s like ‘Wow. Wow.’”

Concerts will ‘never be the same after this year’

Rather than focus on rivalry, Provenzano says it would be more productive to note this unique moment in pop culture history. Both Kernodle and Provenzano agree that the summer of 2023 was a watershed moment for live music.

“Concert culture will never be the same,” Kernodle says. “Hear me when I say that: It will never be the same after this summer.”

It’s not just about the ticket sales, or the “spectacle” of each respective show, for which fans came decked out in outfits, Kernodle says. It’s about “the level of artistry that you experience” when you’re there.

“The experiential element of live music concert was taken to a whole ‘nother level. They have transformed the economies of the places that they have gone to. This is paradigm-shifting.”

“That’s the thing about these women. Think about what they have done in the context of popular culture over the last 10 years,” Kernodle says. “They’ve shifted the paradigm — and they’ve shifted the paradigm so much so that the metrics that define excellence can’t keep even keep up.”

Williams says that both concerts were incredible, but “completely different.”

“They’re both so good at what they do,” she says adding that both shows are “kind of like night and day — both options are fantastic.”

When asked if she could ever pick between the two artists — “gun to her head” — she laughs, then jokes:

“No, you’d have to kill me!”

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“A lot of the times they would tell me that I am too Mexican to be American or too American to be Mexican and that you can’t be in the middle. Why would I have to give up a part of myself to be accepted here and the other way around?” said Becky G from New York in a recent video call interview conducted in English and Spanish.

Now, that album is finally here: “Esquinas” was released on Thursday night. Becky described it as “a love letter to my abuelitos, to my younger self and hopefully to the future generations.”

“It’s like the cross streets of two flags, two cultures, two languages,” said the singer, who was born in Inglewood, California, and thinks of her identity as 200%: 100% Mexican, 100% American.

The album was produced by the Latin Grammy nominee Édgar Barrera. Initially, Becky wanted to do something very traditional to show she was capable of dabbling in Mexican genres, so she incorporated elements such as trumpets, tololoche and acoustic guitar. She included covers of classics she listened to when she was younger, such as “Un puño de tierra” (“A handful of soil”) by Ramón Ayala — dubbed “the king of the accordion.”

But as the project evolved, it allowed for more alternative sounds and collaborations with the new generation of regional Mexican music artists: Iván Cornejo on “2ndo Chance,” DannyLux with “Cries in Spanish” and Peso Pluma with “Chanel.”

While this is her third Spanish-language album, she said the release of “Chanel” as a single was the first time fans heard her use “a tone of voice that was a little more different.”

“It’s because regional music is a little more organic, it has more acoustic elements and it’s a lower tone of voice for me, but I love it,” Becky said. “I think when we recorded that song it literally took us an hour to write it; a guitar and the two of us, me with the melodies and him with the story.”

In “Querido Abuelo” (“Dear Grandpa”), she talks about her roots, her family and the people she loves most. Since childhood, she had talked with her grandparents about a project “totally inspired by regional Mexican music.” She decided it was finally time to focus on that project after the death of her grandfather Miguel, to whom she dedicated the track.

“He was a great inspiration to me, very hardworking. He was a very humble man who was always available to help every person in his community,” she said. “He always had somewhere for them a place to sleep, food to give, he always had love to share.”

When writing the song, which she performs accompanied by guitar, Becky felt connected to her origins and the memories that inspired the lyrics in which she talks about the smell of the countryside and sleeping on the ground. Becky’s mother’s family is originally from Tepatitlán and her father’s, including her late grandfather, is from Tenamaxtlán, both in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

Becky co-directs the video for “Querido Abuelo” with the filmmaker Elías López, in which she features multiple home clips on a ranch and of her maternal and paternal grandparents.

“This project has a lot of content that is very personal,” she said of the visuals accompanying the album. “Even the album cover was inspired, it’s a photo my mom took for my birthday, when I was about two years old.”

For “2ndo Chance,” which she recorded in the studio physically with Cornejo, Becky’s voice sounds nostalgic. She said it was based on her memories of the old AM radio songs her grandmother listened to while cleaning her house. Another of her inspirations is the bolero trio Los Panchos for the song “Los Astros”.

“When I was a child, on my great-grandmother’s side, she always played Los Panchos and I wanted to do something like that in that style, and it is a song that is great. I love it, it has a slightly sexy flow, but also very sweet,” said Becky G.

Becky said she planned to have a party with her family for the album release. But she’s having the biggest party with her fans during the ongoing Mi Casa, Tu Casa Tour, her first headliner tour in the United States. It started in Boston and New York this month and continues with stops in the Southwest, including El Paso, Texas; San Diego and Los Angeles.

“I feel very lucky and honored to celebrate this milestone, with my third studio album,” she said. “We are going to be able to sing the music live with the fans and see in real time which songs they are most connected to, which songs are their favorites.”

This scene may seem customary, but the visuals were created by floor-to-ceiling graphics inside the immersive Sphere. It was one of the several impressive moments during U2’s “UV Achtung Baby” residency launch show at the high-tech, globe-shaped venue, which opened for the first time Friday night.

The legendary rock band, which has won 22 Grammys, performed for two hours inside the massive, state-of-the-art spherical venue with crystal-clear audio. Throughout the night, there were a plethora of attractive visuals — including kaleidoscope images, a burning flag and Las Vegas’ skyline, taking the more than 18,000 attendees on U2’s epic musical journey.

“What a fancy pad,” said Bono, who was accompanied onstage with guitarists The Edge and Adam Clayton along with drummer Bram van den Berg. He then stared at the high-resolution LED screen that projected a larger version of himself along with a few praying hands and bells.

Bono then paid homage to the late Elvis Presley, who was a Las Vegas entertainment staple. The band has rocked in the city as far back as 1987 when they filmed the music video for “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” on the Strip during a tour in 1987.

“Look at all this stuff. … Elvis has definitely not left this building,” he continued. “It’s an Elvis chapel. It’s an Elvis cathedral. Tonight, the entry into this cathedral is a password: flirtation.”

U2 made their presence felt at the $2.3 billion Sphere, which stands 366-feet (111 meters) high and 516-feet (157 meters) wide. With superb visual effects, the band’s 25-show residency opened with a splash performing a slew of hits including “Mysterious Ways,” “Zoo Station,” “All I Want is You,” “Desire” and new single “Atomic City.”

On many occasions, the U2 band members were so large on screen that it felt like Bono intimately sang to the audience on one side while The Edge strummed his guitar to others on a different side.

The crowd included many entertainers and athletes: Oprah, LeBron James, Matt Damon, Andre Agassi, Ava DuVernay, Josh Duhamel, Jason Bateman, Jon Hamm, Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Oscar de la Hoya, Henrik Lundqvist, Flava Flav, Diplo, Dakota Fanning, Orlando Bloom and Mario Lopez.

After wrapping up The Beatles’ jam “Love Me Do,” Bono recognized Paul McCartney, who was in attendance, saying “Macca is in the house tonight.” He acknowledged Sphere owner James Dolan’s efforts for spearheading a venue that’s pushing forward the live concert audio landscape with 160,000 high-quality speakers and 260 million video pixels.

The Sphere is the brainchild of Dolan, the executive chair of Madison Square Garden and owner of the New York Knicks and Rangers. He sketched the first drawing of the venue on notebook paper.

“I’m thinking the that the Sphere may have come into existence because of Jim Dolan trying to solve the problem that The Beatles started when they played Shea Stadium,” Bono said. “Nobody could hear you. You couldn’t hear yourselves. Well, the Sphere’s here. … Can you hear us?”

The U2 frontman pointed into the crowd and shouted out Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Jimmy Iovine. At one point he became emotional when he dedicated a song to the late Jimmy Buffett’s family, who were also in attendance.

Afterward Bono spoke about performing onstage for the first time without drummer Larry Mullen Jr., who is recovering from back surgery. He acknowledged Dutch drummer Bram van den Berg’s birthday and him filling in for Mullen.

“I would like to introduce you to the only man who could stand, well, sit in his shoes,” said Bono, who walked toward Berg as some in the crowd began to sing “Happy Birthday.” He handed the microphone to Berg, who offered a few words.

“Let there be no mistake, there is only one Larry Mullen Jr,” Berg said.

As U2 wrapped up the show, a bright light shined from the ceiling and the massive screen began to fill with images of birds, insects and reptiles above a lake. The band closed its first Sphere concert with “Beautiful Day,” which one three Grammys in 2001.

During the 1950s and ’60s, the long arm of AM radio brought both into her home.

“I can still hear Ned Martin of the Red Sox reciting poetry about the mountains in Anaheim,” said Waldman, the pioneer announcer and former star of musical stage who’s been calling New York Yankees games for decades. “I can still hear Curt Gowdy with that Wyoming twang.

“Not everyone can remember who their first television broadcasters were — but everyone knows who the radio team was. Everyone.”

Like many fans, especially older ones, Waldman originally got hooked by America’s pastime listening to ballgames on an AM signal. In fact, next month will mark the 100th anniversary of the first World Series broadcast to a national radio audience, when Graham McNamee and Ford Frick were among those who called the 1923 Fall Classic between the Giants and Yankees on NBC.

A century later, however, some consider AM stations a dying medium in the modern age of digital technology. Several major automakers are eliminating broadcast AM radio from newer models — prompting lawmakers on Capitol Hill to propose legislation that would prevent the practice for safety and other reasons.

A bill with bipartisan support, the “AM for Every Vehicle Act” is winding its way through Congress.

“Not all change is progress,” Waldman said.

To be sure, from satellite radio and streaming services to FM stations and cell phone apps, baseball fans nowadays have all sorts of options for tuning in their favorite team — even all 30 teams — whether their car features AM radio or not.

But those options aren’t necessarily free. And it’s not necessarily that simple.

Because for generations of fans, the warm memory of climbing into the family car on a hot summer night and finding the ballgame on that dashboard dial, leaning in to listen pitch by pitch with mom or dad over the persistent static of crackling AM airwaves, is the kind of age-of-innocence nostalgia that evokes “Field of Dreams.”

“I still like baseball on the radio,” John Thorn, official historian for MLB, said in an email. “I suspect that is not only because it is my favorite game, but also because it is a stop-action sport whose rhythms are well-suited to pauses, visualization by the listener, and reflection about the wonder of being ‘there’ at a distant game.”

Even if the future of AM radio is uncertain, there’s no denying its impact on the growth and popularity of baseball.

The marriage dates all the way back to Aug. 5, 1921, when Harold Arlin delivered the first play-by-play broadcast of a big league game between the Phillies and Pirates at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh on KDKA.

“Joined at the hip,” said longtime New York Mets announcer Howie Rose, who is 69. “What radio has meant to baseball and vice versa is probably the quintessential symbiotic relationship.”

It’s a romantic history, too, thick with unmistakable voices and signature calls forever immortalized as the familiar soundtracks to those grainy old highlight reels of Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays and Ted Williams.

And beloved broadcasters, community icons still inexorably linked to their teams even generations later: Mel Allen (Yankees), Red Barber (Brooklyn Dodgers), Ernie Harwell (Detroit Tigers), Russ Hodges (New York Giants), Bob Prince (Pittsburgh Pirates), Chuck Thompson (Baltimore Orioles), just to name a few.

And charming tales, including a young Ronald Reagan, long before becoming the 40th president of the United States, announcing Chicago Cubs games in Iowa during the 1930s by recreating play-by-play at Wrigley Field that was initially transmitted via Morse code.

“Some clubs resisted the advent of radio, as they later would the introduction of television, believing it would deter attendance at the game,” the 76-year-old Thorn said. “But like the introduction of night baseball in 1935, radio had already brought major league games to the working class, and especially to women.”

Indeed, AM radio provided a gateway to the game for all sorts of folks at a time in America when ballpark stands were mostly filled with white men.

Before cable television took over, it was the long range of clear-channel AM stations that carried baseball all over the country and gave fans living far from big league cities the chance to follow a favorite team.

“Milo Hamilton and Ernie Johnson, Atlanta Braves, under the covers. My dad would come in, get on me, and then go, `What’s the score?’ The Braves, that’s the one thing we could pick up,” said 67-year-old Mets manager Buck Showalter, raised on the Florida panhandle. “Listening to Hank Aaron, Rico Carty. I can tell you the whole Braves lineup.”

KMOX in St. Louis, with its powerful signal reaching all over the central and southern United States, spawned countless Cardinals fans from Minnesota to Mississippi and beyond, as Hall of Fame broadcasters Harry Caray and Jack Buck described the scintillating exploits of Stan Musial, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson and more.

“You think about the teams that first started broadcasting on the radio, whether it was the Pirates or the Cardinals or the Reds, on these enormous clear-channel stations, it definitely grew the game,” said 65-year-old Mets announcer Gary Cohen.

“It definitely brought the game home for fans who were too far away to attend in person. At a time when most baseball was during the day and a lot of working people couldn’t attend, they could listen on the radio. So yeah, I mean, the connection between AM radio and baseball is not only one in terms of just entertaining the fans, but also creating fans.”

One of them was Rick Rizzs, the longtime Seattle Mariners broadcaster who spent his childhood on the South Side of Chicago.

“With that little magical transistor radio, that AM radio, you could not only get your teams, but maybe four or five other teams, wherever you were located,” said Rizzs, who turns 70 in November.

“So your baseball horizon was expanded, not just the Cubs and the White Sox, but to the Milwaukee Braves, at the time, or maybe when the weather was just right you could get the St. Louis Cardinals or the Detroit Tigers, or whoever was playing somewhere nearby. But because of AM radio, it expanded your chance to hear about all the stars that you had in your mind.”

The band, which recently reunited at the MTV VMAs, got together again on the first episode of the 22nd season of “Hot Ones,” the famed YouTube series where host Sean Evans interviews guests as they eat wings that get increasingly hotter as the episode moves on. 

The episode title, “*NSYNC Breaks Another Record While Eating Spicy Wings,” refers to the fact that the show has never had this many guests — or wings — on the show at one time, with five guests and 60 wings total on the table.

In the 24-minute episode now available on YouTube, the guys from ‘N Sync share a meaty toast while they each hold up a wing and say, “Cheers.”

What the band’s legion of fans has been wondering about is their future plans, who just recorded a new song, “Better Place,” for the upcoming movie “Trolls Band Together” that prompted chatter about a reunion tour.

While all five of the boys — Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez and Joey Fatone — remained tight-lipped about whether or not Taylor Swift’s dreams of a new album are underway, the band members reflected on their nearly 30 years of stardom, offering morsels of wisdom that at times were spicier than the wings themselves — though the wings were pretty spicy, judging by most of their reactions.

“See you in the bathroom,” Kirkpatrick said early on before he sank his teeth into a wing.

He also pondered whether swallowing quickly helps, while Fatone (who a “Hot Ones” veteran, appearing all the way back in 2016 in Season 2) said, “Wait till you breathe.”

While the boys chattered among themselves like a group of decades-old friends tend to do, Evans chimed in to ask the band about their past stadium tour shows, with their pyrotechnics and other fancy effects. Fatone recalled an accident involving a “toaster” trap door while performing on stage, which the now-father-of-one recalls “slammed” his leg — a scary moment. Bass and Chasez then recalled a much more positive moment, involving the very first time they heard themselves on the radio.

“We were at a radio station in Germany … and I remember we were in two vans, we were like split up, and there were so many stuffed animals in the van because they loved throwing stuffies,” Bass said of their European fans. “And then we came on the radio and we just kind of geeked out.”

“And we put on a puppet show for each other,” Chasez added, painting an adorable mental image.

One of the juiciest moments in the interview came when Evans asked Timberlake about what might be the most meme-able moment of his career so far: his peculiar pronunciation of “me” (“MAY”) in ‘N Sync’s 2000 hit single, “It’s Gonna Be Me.”

Of course, if you’ve ever been on the internet on April 30, you’ve likely seen Timberlake’s smiling face (and ramen-esque hair), ushering in the spring month. And now, Timberlake has finally revealed why he pronounced it that way.

“I don’t remember the specifics … but I sang, ‘It’s gonna be me,’ and he was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ And he was like, ‘It’s May,’” Timberlake told Evans.

Although he doesn’t mention who exactly gave him the instruction by name, the song was written by Max Martin, Andreas Carlsson and Rami Yacoub, all of whom are Swedish. So once, and for all, we know the truth: Timberlake was asked to sing it in a Swedish accent.

The band then reflected on their most treasured memories from the set of MTV’s “Total Request Live” (aka “TRL”) the popular music video countdown show once hosted by TODAY’s own Carson Daly, of which they were frequent guests and chart-toppers.

Timberlake noted that “TRL” was “the pinnacle of pop culture for at least a decade,” with the rest of the band all agreeing. But then, they started feeling the true heat of the hotter wing sauces, which the group was well into at this point.

“Oh, yeah, there it is,” Bass said before getting up to grab a tissue. “Why is it so bad on the tongue?”

“Why is this a thing?” asked Timberlake — who’s also been on the show before, during Season 11 in 2020 — while Bass said his lips were on fire.

JC Chasez seemed bulletproof, though, when it comes to the spiciness.

“I’m actually OK,” he said.

“Shut up, JC,” Kirkpatrick fired back with mock anger.

Although Evans didn’t request that the band sing, they did break into expletive-laden song when they asked Evans who cursed the most on the show. Of course, the answer was Gordon Ramsay, but Fatone took that as an opportunity to scat the expletive “f—” in rapid succession, with Timberlake, Bass and Kirkpatrick joining in the adult chorus.

By the arrival of the “Last Dab” where guests are encouraged to put as little or as much of the final, spiciest hot sauce on their last wing, it’s obvious who has tapped out and who among them is the King of the Wings. That​​ sauce, by the way, clocks in at over 3 million Scoville Heat Units. Compare that to a jalapeño pepper at 8,000 SHU.

The amount each puts on their last wing is telling: Timberlake poured a healthy glug on his, and Bass only put a drop on his, indicating his doneness with the whole experience. Kirkpatrick and Chasez both put a healthy amount on their wings, and Fatone, not to be outdone, drenches his wings in the stuff.

While its clear Fatone is the bravest by “Last Dab” standards, it is Chasez whose calm demeanor throughout the whole ordeal proves he handled the spiciness of the wings — and the questions — the best.

“Why did I do that again?!” Timberlake joked as the video cuts.

You can catch ‘N Sync’s entire episode on the “Hot Ones” YouTube channel.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Lizzo preaches self-love and acceptance. But backstage, her team was mocked and bullied, designer says in a new lawsuit
• Sophie Turner sues Joe Jonas for return of their children to England, court docs say
• Cindy Crawford calls out Oprah Winfrey for her 1986 interview: Here’s what happened

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

On Sept. 20, Del Rey gave an interview to the Hollywood Reporter, reflecting on her career so far, musicians who count themselves among her admirers, including Bruce Springsteen and Billie Eilish.

The interview, though, opens on what so many of her fans theorized about two months prior: her being spotted in uniform at a Waffle House in Florence, Alabama.

Back in July, reports and social media posts began popping up showing the six-time Grammy-nominated recording artist at several spots around Florence. Not only did she pose for photos and selfies with fans at a local nail salon and a Texas Roadhouse restaurant, she was also spotted at a Waffle House in the area.

Why was Lana Del Rey working at Waffle House?

According to the star, a casual morning visit to the diner chain turned into an hours-long hangout and snowballed into a viral moment.

“We were on our third hour, and the servers asked, ‘Do you guys want shirts?’” Del Rey recounted to the Hollywood Reporter. “Hell yeah! We were thrilled.”

Del Rey explained that while wearing her uniform, a Waffle House manager asked the star to fulfill a simple request.

“This guy, a regular, comes in every day and orders two things, so they were like, ‘Just go get it for him!’ I brought him a Coke. No ice. And an empty cup,” Del Rey said, adding that the empty cup was for chewing tobacco.

After, the restaurant’s manager, who goes unnamed in the interview, posted a short clip to Facebook, which set off the rumor mill.

The Hollywood Reporter story also notes that Del Rey has “family ties” to the small town and the ability to make fast friends.

Making friends and meeting fans at Waffle House

In fact, she befriended a Waffle House worker named LaShawn D. Tuttle, according to a pair of posts on Facebook from July.

“Had so much fun with  Lana Del Rey, she is so humble , funny and such a  good sport!!” Tuttle wrote on Facebook, posting pictures and video on July 20. In the post, Del Rey can be seen pouring coffee in uniform, complete with a name tag that says “Lana,” chatting with customers and speaking with her brother, Charlie Grant, who is also seated at the restaurant, though not in uniform.

Tuttle additionally also appears to have met Del Rey prior to the singer’s adventure at the diner chain, posing for photos out of uniform in a July 19 post.

“There is no Summertime Sadness here!!” Tuttle wrote, posing for selfies in front of the Great American Thrift Store in Florence, Alabama, according to a later comment. “Just Lana Del Rey, Dylan,& I !!”

Tuttle wasn’t the only person to score some time with the singer: A few lucky fans caught her while she was in the restaurant and even in the parking lot, getting selfies and more.

“To say I am ecstatic is an understatement!!! LANITA ❤️ I have been a huuuge fan of Lana Del Rey for over a decade, so meeting her today was truly insane,” wrote Karina Cisneros Juarez on Facebook.

In addition to a selfie, Juarez included a photo of an autographed copy of Del Rey’s 2019 book of poetry “Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass.”

Another fan even caught Del Rey in the parking lot.

“I may have gotten this poster from San Francisco,” TikToker Haley (@halnicolee) tells Del Rey in a TikTok video, unfurling a giant poster advertisement for the singer’s latest album. 

“Did you steal this?” Del Rey asks the TikToker before dutifully laying the poster on the ground to sign it for her. In two other videos, the TikToker details her once-in-a-lifetime experience of getting a key piece of fan memorabilia.

“So, she put on a Waffle House outfit, and had, like the whole Waffle House to themselves,” Haley theorized in another TikTok video sharing the experience. “An old man is sitting in the corner and Lana Del Rey just bought a coffee out to him and he don’t even know what just happened.”

Meanwhile, another video shows Del Rey and an older gentleman singing “Amazing Grace” together.

Fan reaction at the time was a mixture of theories and jokes.

“is this what she meant when she said she wanted to explore other career paths in that one speech,” wrote one fan on LanaBoards.

“She serves in more ways than one,” another fan jokingly noted.

“This is the most Lana Del Rey thing Lana Del Rey has ever done imo 🤣,” tweeted another.

“I have so many questions,” wrote one Reddit user, to which another replied, “right like has anyone figured out why she’s doing this.”

“For Fun I guess. No other real explanation,” speculated another Redditor. (Turns out they were right about that!)

“The music she’ll write about the line cook will bring a tear to your eye,” tweeted yet another fan.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• Lizzo preaches self-love and acceptance. But backstage, her team was mocked and bullied, designer says in a new lawsuit
• Sophie Turner sues Joe Jonas for return of their children to England, court docs say
• Cindy Crawford calls out Oprah Winfrey for her 1986 interview: Here’s what happened

This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

The Latin Recording Academy announced this year’s nominees in a livestream Tuesday.

Barerra is nominated for best pop song, record, album, songwriter, and producer of the year — and has two nominations in the song of the year category. He also has three noms apiece in the best tropical song and best regional song categories.

Just behind him are some of his collaborators, like Karol G, Shakira, and Camilo. They have seven nominations each, as does Kevyn Mauricio Cruz Moreno, the Colombian songwriter who works under the moniker Keityn.

Argentine record producer Bizarrap, known for his Bzrp Music Sessions, has six.

Barrera and Moreno are also nominated in the songwriter of the year category alongside Felipe González Abad, Manuel Lorente Freire, Horacio Palencia and Elena Rose. The songwriter of the year is first of three new categories, which also includes best singer-songwriter song and best Portuguese-language urban performance.”

The 24th Annual Latin Grammy Awards will take place on Nov. 16 in Sevilla, Spain, and wil be broadcast live on Univision in the U.S. and Radio Televisión Española in Spain.

See the full list of nominees below:

Record of the Year
“No Es Que Te Extrañe” – Christina Aguilera
“Carretera y Manta” – Pablo Alborán
“Déjame Llorarte” – Paula Arenas Featuring Jesús Navarro
“Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53” – Bizarrap Featuring Shakira
“Si Tú Me Quieres” – Fonseca & Juan Luis Guerra
“Mientras Me Curo Del Cora” – Karol G
“De Todas Las Flores” – Natalia Lafourcade
“Ojos Marrones” – Lasso
“La Fórmula” – Maluma & Marc Anthony
“Despechá” – Rosalía
“Correcaminos” – Alejandro Sanz Featuring Danny Ocean

Album of the Year
La Cu4rta Hoja – Pablo Alborán
A Ciegas – Paula Arenas
De Adentro Pa Afuera – Camilo Décimo
Cuarto – Andrés Cepeda
Vida Cotidiana – Juanes
Mañana Será Bonito – Karol G
De Todas Las Flores – Natalia Lafourcade
Play – Ricky Martín
Eadda9223 – Fito Páez
Escalona Nunca Se Había Grabado Así – Carlos Vives

Song of the Year
“Acróstico” – Kevyn Mauricio Cruz Moreno, L.E.X.U.Z, Luis Fernando Ochoa & Shakira, songwriters (Shakira)
“Amigos” – Pablo Alborán & María Becerra, songwriters (Pablo Alborán Featuring María Becerra)
“De Todas Las Flores” – Natalia Lafourcade, songwriter (Natalia Lafourcade)
“Ella Baila Sola” – Pedro Julian Tovar Oceguera, songwriter (Eslabon Armado, Peso Pluma)
“NASA” – Édgar Barrera, Camilo & Alejandro Sanz, songwriters (Camilo & Alejandro Sanz)
“Ojos Marrones” – Luis Jiménez, Lasso & Agustín Zubillaga, songwriters (Lasso)
“Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53” – Santiago Alvarado, Bizarrap, Kevyn Mauricio Cruz & Shakira, songwriters (Bizarrap Featuring Shakira)
“Si Tú Me Quieres” – Fonseca, Yadam González & Yoel Henríquez, songwriters (Fonseca & Juan Luis Guerra)
“Tqg” – Kevyn Mauricio Cruz, Karol G, Ovy On The Drums & Shakira, songwriters (Karol G Featuring Shakira)
“Un X100to” – Bad Bunny, Édgar Barrera, Marco Daniel Borrero & Andrés Jael Correa Ríos, songwriters (Grupo Frontera Featuring Bad Bunny)

Best New Artist
Borja
Conexión Divina
Ana Del Castillo
Natascha Falcão
Gale
Paola Guanche
Joaquina
León Leiden
Maréh
Timø

Field 1: Pop
Best pop vocal album
La Cu4arta Hoja, Pablo Alborán
Beautiful Humans Vol. 1, Alemor
De Adentro Pa Afuera, Camilo
La Neta, Pedro Capó
Tu Historia, Julieta Venegas
Best traditional pop vocal album
A Ciegas, Paula Arenas
Que Me Duela, Camilú
Corazón y Flecha, Manuel Carrasco
Décimo Cuarto, Andrés Cepeda
Placeres y Pecados, Vanesa Martín

Best pop song
“5:24,” Edgar Barrera & Camilo, songwriters (Camilo)
“Bailo Pa Ti,” Natalia Hernández Morales, Monsieur Periné, Santiago Prieto Sarabia, Julio Reyes Copello & Mitchie Rivera, songwriters (Monsieur Periné)
“Contigo,” Pablo Alborán, Mauricio Rengifo, Andrés Torres & Sebastián Yatra, songwriters (Sebastián Yatra Featuring Pablo Alborán)
“Déjame Llorarte,” Paula Arenas & Manuel Ramos, songwriters (Paula Arenas & Jesús Navarro)
“Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” Santiago Alvarado, Bizarrap, Kevyn Mauricio Cruz Moreno & Shakira, songwriters (Bizarrap Featuring Shakira)

Field 2: Urban
Best urban/fusion performance
“La Jumpa,” Arcángel Featuring Bad Bunny
“Ojalá,” Maria Becerra
“Quevedo: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 52,” Bizarrap Featuring Quevedo
“TQG,” Karol G Featuring Shakira
“Yandel 150,” Yandel & Feid

Best reggaeton performance
“Automático,” Maria Becerra
“La Receta,” Tego Calderón
“Feliz Cumpleaños Ferxxo,” Feid
“Gatúbela,” Karol G Featuring Maldy
“Hey Mor,” Ozuna & Feid

Best urban music album
Xtassy, Akapellah
Saturno, Rauw Alejandro
3Men2 Kbrn, Eladio Carrión
Feliz Cumpleaños Ferxxo Te Pirateamos El Álbum, Feid
Mañana Será Bonito, Karol G
Alma, Nicki Nicole

Best rap/hip hop song
“Autodidacta,” Mauro De Tommaso & Nohelys Jimenez, songwriters (J Noa)
“Coco Chanel,” Bad Bunny & Eladio Carrión, songwriters (Eladio Carrión Featuring Bad Bunny)
“Dispara ***,” Santiago Alvarado, Milo J, Nicki Nicole & Santiago Ruiz, songwriters (Nicki Nicole Featuring Milo J)
“Le Pido A Dios,” Martin Chris E, Feid & Esteban Higuita Estrada, songwriters (Feid Featuring Dj Premier)
“Pá Ganá,” Akapellah, songwriter (Akapellah)
“Pregúntale A Tu Papá Por Mí,” Vico C, songwriter (Vico C)

Best urban song
“Automático,” Maria Becerra, songwriter (Maria Becerra)
“La Jumpa,” Bad Bunny & Austin Santos, songwriters (Arcángel Featuring Bad Bunny)
“Mi Mejor Canción,” Nelson Onell Diaz, Farruko, Gocho, Franklin Jovani Martinez & Eric Perez Rovira, songwriters (Gocho Featuring Farruko)
“Quevedo: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 52,” Santiago Alvarado, Bizarrap & Quevedo, songwriters (Bizarrap Featuring Quevedo)
“TQG,” Kevyn Mauricio Cruz, Karol G, Ovy On The Drums & Shakira, songwriters (Karol G Featuring Shakira)
“Yandel 150,” Jowan, Andrés David Restrepo, Joan Manuel Ubinas Jiménez & Yandel, songwriters (Yandel & Feid)

Field 3: Rock
Best rock album
Íntimo Extremo – 30 Años, A.N.I.M.A.L
Cowboys De La A3, Arde Bogotá
De La Tierra III, De La Tierra
Dopelganga, Eruca Sativa
Sólo D’ Lira, Molotov

Best rock song
“Depredadores,” Andrés Giménez & Andreas Kisser, songwriters (De La Tierra)
“El Piso Es Lava,” Todo Aparenta Normal, songwriter (Todo Aparenta Normal Featuring An Espil & Evlay)
“Gris,” Juanes, songwriter (Juanes)
“Leche De Tigre,” Juan Galeano, songwriter (Diamante Eléctrico Featuring Adrián Quesada)
“Los Perros,” Arde Bogotá, songwriters (Arde Bogotá)

Best pop/rock album
El Diablo En El Cuerpo, Alex Anwandter
Trinchera Avanzada, Babasónicos
El Hombrecito Del Mar, León Gieco
Vida Cotidiana, Juanes
Tripolar, Usted Señalemelo
Despídeme De Todxs, Juan Pablo Vega

Best pop/rock song
“Alaska,” Bunbury, songwriter (Bunbury)
“Amantes,” León Larregui, songwriter (León Larregui)
“Caminar Sola,” Alex Anwandter & Julieta Venegas, songwriters (Julieta Venegas)
“¿Dónde Se Llora Cuando Se Llora?,” Francisca Valenzuela & Francisco Victoria, songwriters (Francisca Valenzuela)
“Ojos Marrones,” Luis Jiménez, Lasso & Agustín Zubillaga, songwriters (Lasso)
“Señorita Revolución,” Bruses & Ali Stone, songwriters (Bruses)

Field 4: Alternative
Best alternative music album
Martínez, Cabra
Nacarile, iLe
Bolero Apocalíptico, Monsieur Periné
Mesa Dulce, Dante Spinetta
Reputa, Zahara

Best alternative song
“Aleros/Pompeii,” Sebastian Ayala, Daniel Briceño, Henry D ́Arthenay, Rodolfo Pagliuca & Hector Tosta, songwriters (La Vida Boheme)
“ANASTASIA,” Cami & Jonathan Julca, songwriters (Cami)
“Cicatriz Radiante,” El David Aguilar, songwriter (El David Aguilar)
“El Lado Oscuro Del Corazón,” Dante Spinetta, songwriter (Dante Spinetta)
“Traguito,” Ismael Cancel, iLe & Mon Laferte, songwriters (iLe & Mon Laferte)

Field 5: Tropical
Best salsa album
Catarsis, Daniela Darcourt
Voy A Ti, Luis Figueroa
Cambios, Willy García
Niche Sinfónico, Grupo Niche y Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia
Tierra y Libertad, Plena79 Salsa Orchestra Featuring Alain Pérez y Jeremy Bosch
Debut y Segunda Tanda (Deluxe), Gilberto Santa Rosa

Best cumbia/vallenato album
Leandro Díaz Special Edition, Silvestre Dangond
El Favor De Dios, Ana Del Castillo
Cumbia Del Corazón, Los Ángeles Azules
Hombre Absurdo, Gregorio Uribe
Escalona Nunca Se Había Grabado Así, Carlos Vives

Best merengue/bachata album
Cuatro26, Manny Cruz
Road Trip, Manny Manuel
Trópico, Vol. 2, Pavel Núñez
Fórmula, Vol. 3, Romeo Santos
A Mi Manera, Sergio Vargas

Best traditional tropical album
Tierra, Songs By Cuban Women, Estrella Acosta
Y Sigo Pa’lante, El Septeto Santiaguero
Tour Sinfónico En Vivo Auditorio Nacional, La Sonora Santanera
Danzoneando (En Vivo Desde Matanzas), Orquesta Failde
Vida, Omara Portuondo
En Tiempo De Son… Homenaje A Las Canciones De: Jorge Luis Piloto, Septeto Acarey De Reynier Pérez

Best contemporary tropical album
Contigo, Mike Bahía
5:10 am, Luis Fernando Borjas
Intruso, Silvestre Dangond
24/7, Gusi
Otro Color, Ilegales

Best tropical song
“Ambulancia,” Édgar Barrera, Camila Cabello, Camilo & Juan Morelli, songwriters (Camilo & Camila Cabello)
“Día De Luz [80 Aniversario],” Pablo Milanés, songwriter (Pablo Milanés Featuring Juanes)
“El Merengue,” Edgar Barrera, Nico Cotton, Gale, Marshmello, Miguel Andres Martinez Perea, Juan Diego Medina Vélez, Julián Turizo Zapata & Manuel Turizo, songwriters (Marshmello & Manuel Turizo)
“La Fórmula,” Marc Anthony, Edgar Barrera, René David Cano Ríos, Sergio George, Kevin Mauricio Jiménez Londoño, Bryan Snaider Lezcano Chaverra, Maluma & Justin Rafael Quiles, songwriters (Maluma & Marc Anthony)
“Que Me Quedes Tú,” Techy Fatule, songwriter (Techy Fatule)
“Si Tú Me Quieres,” Fonseca, Yadam González & Yoel Henríquez, songwriters (Fonseca & Juan Luis Guerra)

Field 6: Singer-Songwriter
Best singer-songwriter album
Nueve, Santiago Cruz
Los Mejores Años, Joaquina
De Todas Las Flores, Natalia Lafourcade
Tierra De Promesas, Maréh
El Equilibrista, Juan Carlos Pérez Soto

Best singer-songwriter song
“De Todas Las Flores,” Natalia Lafourcade, songwriter (Natalia Lafourcade)
“La Raíz,” Valeria Castro, songwriter (Valeria Castro)
“1.200 Kilómetros,” Santiago Cruz, songwriter (Santiago Cruz)
“Si Me Matan,” Silvana Estrada, songwriter (Silvana Estrada)
“Tu Historia, La Mía y La Verdad,” Juan Carlos Pérez Soto, songwriter (Juan Carlos Pérez Soto)

Field 7: Regional-Mexican
Best ranchero/mariachi album
Se Canta Con El Corazón (Deluxe), Majo Aguilar
Bordado A Mano, Ana Bárbara
Sólo Muere Si Se Olvida, Adriel Favela
Herederos, Mariachi Herencia De México
Forajido EP2, Christian Nodal

Best banda album
De Hoy En Adelante, Que Te Vaya Bien, Julión Álvarez y Su Norteño Banda
Hecho En México… Mágico, Banda El Recodo De Cruz Lizárraga
Punto y Aparte, Banda MS de Sergio Lizárraga
Una Copa Por Cada Reina (Deluxe), Nathan Galante
1500 Pedas, La Adictiva
Prefiero Estar Contigo (Deluxe), La Arrolladora Banda El Limón De René Camacho

Best Tejano album
Sin Fin, Gary Hobbs
El Patrón, Jay Perez
Súper Héroes De Blanco, Proyecto Insomnio
Para Empezar A Amar, Juan Treviño
Ganas, Vilax

Best Norteño album
Aclarando La Mente, Joss Favela
Family & Friends, La Abuela Irma Silva
Fuera De Serie, La Energía Norteña
Colmillo De Leche, Carin León
Hay Niveles (Deluxe), Los Rieleros Del Norte

Best regional song
“Aclarando La Mente,” Joss Favela, songwriter (Joss Favela)
“Alaska,” Edgar Barrera & Camilo, songwriters (Camilo & Grupo Firme)
“Ella Baila Sola,” Pedro Julian Tovar Oceguera, songwriter (Eslabon Armado & Peso Pluma)
“La Siguiente,” Edgar Barrera, Kany García, Richi López & Christian Nodal, songwriters (Kany García Featuring Christian Nodal)
“un X100to,” Bad Bunny, Edgar Barrera, Andrés Jael Correa Rios & Mag, songwriters (Grupo Frontera Featuring Bad Bunny)

Field 8: Instrumental
Best instrumental album
Tres, Renesito Avich
Choro Negro, Cristovão Bastos e Mauro Senise
Brooklyn-Cumaná, Jorge Glem y Sam Reider
The Chick Corea Symphony Tribute. Ritmo, Adda Simfònica, Josep Vicent & Emilio Solla
Made In Miami, Camilo Valencia & Richard Bravo
Romance Al Campesino Porteño, Miguel Zenón, José A. Zayas Cabán, Ryan Smith & Casey Rafn

Field 9: Traditional
Best folk album
Epifanías, Susana Baca
Aguajes De Mar y Manglar, Cantares Del Pacífico
Camino Al Sol, Vicente García
Mamá Cumbé, Tato Marenco
El Trébol Agorero, Homenaje A Luis Antonio Calvo, Quinteto Leopoldo Federico
Ayvu, Tierra Adentro

Best tango album
Retrato Del Aire, Pablo Jaurena
Operation Tango, Quinteto Astor Piazzolla
Reencuentro, Susana Rinaldi & Osvaldo Piro
Ahora, Romo – Agri – Messiez Tango Trio
Argentinxs, Tanghetto

Best flamenco album
Pura Sangre, Israel Fernández
Por La Tangente, Diego Guerrero
Quejíos De Un Maleante, Omar Montes
Camino, Niña Pastori
Prohibido El Toque, Juanfe Pérez

Field 10: Jazz
Best Latin jazz/jazz Album
Unánime, Roxana Amed
Flying Chicken, Hamilton De Holanda Featuring Thiago Rabello & Salomão Soares
Bembé, Iván “Melon” Lewis & The Cuban Swing Express
Semblanzas, William Maestre Big Band
I Missed You Too!, Chucho Valdés & Paquito D’Rivera (with Reunion Sextet)

Field 11: Christian
Best Christian album (Spanish language)
Fuego & Poder (Live), Barak
Vida, Alex Campos
El Vallenato Se Hizo En El Cielo, Gilberto Daza & Sergio Luis Rodríguez
Hazme Caminar, Jesús Israel
El Cielo Aún Espera, Jesús Adrian Romero
Lo Que Vemos, Marcos Vidal

Best Portuguese language Christian album
30 Anos – Vol 1, Aline Barros
Novo Tempo, Casa Worship
Único, Fernandinho
Preto No Branco Vertical, Preto No Branco
Nós, Eli Soares

Field 12: Portuguese language
Best Portuguese language contemporary pop album
Bryan Behr Ao Vivo Em São Paulo, Bryan Behr
Em Nome da Estrela, Xênia França
Hodari, Hodari
Quintal, Melim
As Palavras, Vol. 1 & 2, Rubel

Best Portuguese language rock or alternative album
Não Me Espere Na Estação, Lô Borges
Jardineiros, Planet Hemp
Meu Esquema, Rachel Reis
Habilidades Extraordinárias, Tulipa Ruiz
Olho Furta-Cor, Titás

Best Portuguese language urban performance
“Da Favela Pro Asfalto,” Àttøøxxá & Carlinhos Brown
“Aviso De Amigo,” GIULIA BE
“Fé,” Iza
“Distopia,” Planet Hemp Featuring Criolo
“Good Vibe,” Filipe Ret, Dallass, Caio Luccas

Best Samba/Pagode album
Negra Ópera, Martinho Da Vila
Resenha Do Mumu, Mumuzinho
Desse Jeito, Maria Rita
Sambasá, Roberta Sá
Meu Nome É Thiago André (Ao Vivo), Thiaguinho

Best MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira) album
Mil Coisas Invisíveis, Tim Bernardes
Vem Doce, Vanessa da Mata
D, Djavan
Serotonina, João Donato
Daramô, Tiago Iorc

Best Sertaneja music album
Ao Vivo no Radio City Music Hall Nova Iorque, Chitãozinho & Xororó
Daniel 40 Anos Celebra João Paulo & Daniel, Daniel
É Simples Assim (Ao Vivo), Jorge & Mateus
Decretos Reais, Marília Mendonça
Raiz, Lauana Prado

Best Portuguese language roots album
TecnoShow, Gaby Amarantos
Portuguesa, Carminho
Raiz, João Gomes
Elba Ramalho No Maior São João Do Mundo, Elba Ramalho
Do Amanha Nada Sei, Almir Sater
Erva Doce, Gabriel Sater

Best Portuguese language song
“Algoritmo Íntimo,” Arnaldo Antunes, Criolo, Gabrieu, Keviin & Marcia Xavier, songwriters (Criolo, Ney Matogrosso)
“Do Acaso,” Ronaldo Bastos & Chico César, songwriters (Alice Caymmi Featuring Chico César)
“Num Mundo De Paz,” Djavan, songwriter (Djavan)
“Que Tal um Samba?”, Chico Buarque, songwriter (Chico Buarque Featuring Hamilton de Holanda)
“Tudo O Que A Fé Pode Tocar,” Tiago Iorc & Duda Rodrigues, songwriters (Tiago Iorc)

Field 13: Children’s
Best Latin children’s album
Aventuras, Flor Bromley
Vamos Al Zoo, Danilo & Chapis
Cantando Juntos, Gaby Moreno & Zona Neon
Colcha De Retazos, María Mulata
¿Y Si Pido Que Me Cuentes?, Veleta Roja

Field 14: Classical
Best classical album
Afro-Cuban Dances, Kristhyan Benitez; Jon Feidner, album producer
Albéniz & Granados Piano Works, Luis López; Luis López, conductor; Fernando Ortí Salvador, album producer
Cantata Negra, Marvin Camacho & UCR Coral; Didier Mora, conductor; Marvin Camacho Villegas & Jorge Castro Ruiz, album producers
Estirpe, Pacho Flores; Carlos Miguel Prieto, conductor; Ingo Petry, album producer (Orquesta Sinfónica De Minería)
Huáscar Barradas Four Elements Immersive Symphony For Orchestra And Chorus, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra; Ollantay Velasquez, conductor; Huascar Barradas, Maria Cardemas, Eugenio Carreño & Eduardo Martinez Planas, album producers

“Jann Wenner has been removed from the Board of Directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation,” the hall said Saturday, a day after Wenner’s comments were published in a New York Times interview.

A representative for Wenner, 77, did not immediately respond for a comment.

Wenner created a firestorm doing publicity for his new book “The Masters,” which features interviews with musicians Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Townshend and U2’s Bono — all white and male.

Asked why he didn’t interview women or Black musicians, Wenner responded: “It’s not that they’re inarticulate, although, go have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest. You know, Joni (Mitchell) was not a philosopher of rock ’n’ roll. She didn’t, in my mind, meet that test,” he told the Times.

“Of Black artists — you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level,” Wenner said.

Wenner co-founded Rolling Stone in 1967 and served as its editor or editorial director until 2019. He also co-founded the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which was launched in 1987.

In the interview, Wenner seemed to acknowledge he would face a backlash. “Just for public relations sake, maybe I should have gone and found one Black and one woman artist to include here that didn’t measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism.”

Last year, Rolling Stone magazine published its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and ranked Gaye’s “What’s Going On” No. 1, “Blue” by Mitchell at No. 3, Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life” at No. 4, “Purple Rain” by Prince and the Revolution at No. 8 and Ms. Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” at No. 10.

Rolling Stone’s niche in magazines was an outgrowth of Wenner’s outsized interests, a mixture of authoritative music and cultural coverage with tough investigative reporting.

The 45-year-old rapper, whose birth name is Jay Wayne Jenkins, filed to end his marriage on Thursday in Georgia’s Superior Court of Fulton County.

The filling says “the marriage of the parties is irretrievably broken” and “there is no hope for reconciliation.”

The pair welcomed their first child together, a daughter, in January 2022. Jeezy and Mai began dating in 2018 and were married in March 2021.

Jeezy is seeking joint legal custody of their daughter, according to the divorce documents. The two had a prenuptial agreement that Jeezy expects will be enforced, according to the filing.

Representatives for Jeezy and Jeannie Mai did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Grammy Award-nominated rapper Jeezy exploded on the music scene in the mid-’00s and is widely considered a trailblazer of Atlanta trap. He has released 10 studio albums.

Mai, 44, is a California native and stalwart figure of daytime television best-known for her work as a host on such programs as “The Real” and “How Do I Look?”

The ’90s boy band, made up of Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez, Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass and Joey Fatone, released the track after reuniting onstage for the first time in a decade at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards Sept. 12.

Since then, Google searches about an ‘N Sync reunion tour have skyrocketed with fans desperate to know if they’ll be able to see the beloved boy band perform live. The band has seemingly leaned into the speculation and fan fervor by teasing on social media that they have a secret to share.

Fans realized that the band reunited in the studio when it previewed their new song — their first in more than 20 years — for the upcoming film “Trolls Band Together,” starring Timberlake. On Sept. 14, ‘N Sync released a short snippet of the song “Better Place,” which is set to be released in full later this month.

The song is intended to be a “love letter” to ‘N Sync fans, Timberlake revealed in an Instagram video of the group recording the song.

But the track and their public appearance has left fans wanting more.

“You know what’s also a love letter to fans? A whole reunion tour,” one fan commented on Timberlake’s post.

“new *NSYNC song on the Trolls whatever soundtrack??? oh, we are SO getting a reunion tour!!!” someone said on X.

“I really hope *NSYNC didn’t get me all hyped up- to just be coming out (with) a Trolls song I need a damn reunion tour,” another person tweeted.

The band has not announced any plans for a reunion tour, and representatives for the band did not respond to TODAY.com’s request for comment.

Universal Pictures previously confirmed to TODAY.com that the band only recorded one new song for the movie.

The growing hype around the return of ‘N Sync started after Timberlake posted a video on Instagram Sept. 13 of the group in an elevator talking and laughing. The other four members also posted it on their accounts.

“So five guys walk into an elevator…” Timberlake captioned his post.

He removed the audio from the video, but fans are convinced they’re talking about new music and a reunion.

“FIVE GUYS NEED TO WALK INTO A STADIUM AND SING SOME HITS!!!!” someone rebutted in the comments.

“Y’all better be makin’ music in that elevator,” Will Smith commented.

“Millennials, start defrosting. It’s our fkin time,” another person wrote.

“SHUT THE FRONT DOOR! WHAT DOES THIS MEAN! All of us 30 something year old Mom’s need to know when we need to find babysitters ASAP!?!?” a third said.

In another video posted to social media, band members used audio of a scene from “Friends” to say in so many words that if one of them does have information about something, they cannot disclose it until another member does. They mouthed the words as the “Friends” audio played.

“Do you know something?” Timberlake mouthed, to which Fatone mouthed the same question back to him sharply.

“I might know something,” Kirkpatrick chimed in, prompting Chasez to quickly slip in, “I might know something too.”

“What’s the thing you know?” Bass asked everyone.

“Oh no, I can’t tell you until you tell me what you know,” Timberlake quipped.

“I can’t tell you what I know,” Fatone rebuffed.

“Well then I can’t tell you what I know,” Kirkpatrick declared.

Fans who commented on Timberlake’s TikTok post of the video say they see right through the cryptic video.

“UGGGGHHHH!!! All y’all be teasing us SOOO BAD!!! just go ahead & announce the tour already! We got ADULT $$ to spend now,” someone said.

“They don’t know, we know, they know…….” someone commented, again referencing “Friends.”

“Don’t play with our millennial hearts!!” another wrote.

While the tease videos seemingly hinted at the band’s reunion for the new song, fans have pointed out that ‘N Sync has also increased their social media presence, and there’s now a verified TikTok account under the band’s name.

“No cause *Nsync launching a TikTok, getting more active on Ig and Twitter, then updating their website? I know this isn’t just for this damn Trolls movie!” one fan tweeted.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

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‘N Sync is releasing its first new song in over 20 years with “Better Place,” which is part of the upcoming “Trolls Band Together” movie. And anxious fans can get a peek at the song in the new movie trailer, released at midnight on Sept. 14.

The exciting announcement comes just one day after the iconic boy band, which consists of Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick, reunited at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, shocking fans (including Taylor Swift).

“Are you doing something? What’s gonna happen now?” Swift asked the group on stage after they presented her with the award for best pop video. “They’re gonna do something and I need to know what it is!” And now we all know.

When is ‘N Sync’s new song “Better Place” being released?

Timberlake has been the voice of Branch in the “Trolls” franchise, which began with the 2016 “Trolls” movie and various spin-offs since. “Trolls Band Together” will be the third feature film in the franchise and will be released in theaters Nov. 17, 2023.

But no need to wait that long to hear “Better Place” in full. The song will be released on Sept. 29!

Universal tells TODAY.com that while the ‘N Sync song “I Want You Back” is heard in the trailer and will be on the soundtrack, Timberlake re-recorded it for the film with some other movie characters, voiced by Eric Andre and Daveed Diggs.

Is ‘N Sync releasing any other music for “Trolls”?

Universal tells TODAY.com that ‘N Sync has only recorded “Better Place” for the film.

Clues ‘N Sync was going to release a new song

Fans have had sufficient reason to think something was in the works with ‘N Sync. Bass talked to Billboard in February, saying, “I do think the world needs something again from ‘N Sync.”

More recently, fans began suspecting “Trolls Band Together” may include an ‘N Sync song after advertisements began appearing for the movie around Los Angeles in late-August, and they included the band’s logo.

Additional clues that some ‘N Sync news was about to be made were found in the movie’s plot being about a boy band called “Brozone.”

In the original trailer, the “Trolls” boy band makes several nods to boy bands throughout the decades.

Floyd, voiced by Troye Sivan says at one point in the trailer, “Branch, we’re out of sync. We’ve gone from boys to men, and now there’s only one direction for us to go: to the back streets.”

Then, on Sept. 13 before the new trailer was released, Timberlake shared a TikTok video seemingly recorded while they were at the VMAs.

In the video, the band stands together and lip syncs as audio from a 1999 “Friends” episode where Rachel and Joey want to but initially can’t tell each other about a secret: that Monica and Chandler are dating.

“Do you know something?” Joey asks.

“Do you know something?” Rachel responds.

The two go back and forth until the end of the clip, which the boy band pantomimes.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• 2023 MTV Video Music Awards: See the full list of VMA winners
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“I just talk with my hands,” Megan Thee Stallion wrote in a caption on an Instagram post. “@justintimberlake love ya.” In a TikTok of the same video, she wrote, “See ya next time (Justin Timberlake).”

In the front-facing camera video, she and Timberlake sit next to each other and laugh. While their words are drowned out by the sound of Fukai Mori’s “Do As Infinity,” the duo’s warm, intimate body language is meant to refute whatever was interpreted by spectators during Sept. 12’s VMAs.

The rapper and the former *NSYNC member were captured talking on an MTV backstage camera, which was included in a live feed.

In the short interaction, Megan is getting a make-up touch-up as *NSYNC’s five members pass by. Justin Timberlake seemingly leans toward her. She takes a step forward and raises her arm, shaking her hands and pointer finger back and forth. Joey Fatone appears to chime in after. As they finish walking, she turns away and rolls her eyes.

It’s unclear what words were exchanged between Megan and Timberlake, as audio was not included in the clip. But that hasn’t stopped fans from debating what, exactly, was said, and whether an argument had taken place.

“A Megan Thee Stallion and Justin Timberlake backstage vma fight was not on my 2023 bingo card,” tweeted @seanlofficial.

“an argument between megan thee stallion and justin timberlake is not what i expected tonight, what do you think this was about??” another wrote.

Some fans were quick to “stand with Megan.” Others said people were quick to “manufacture beef” between the two stars before knowing the full story.

TODAY.com reached out to Megan and Timberlake’s reps for comment but had not yet heard back as of publish time.

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And the rumors were right. The band — consisting of Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez, Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, and Joey Fatone — reunited onstage at the VMAs to present Taylor Swift with the award for best pop video.

Swift’s reaction to seeing *NSYNC was arguably even more outsized to her winning for “Anti-Hero.” Taking to her feet, Swift – the most-nominated artist of the evening — cheered on the boy band’s epic return.

The last time they were onstage together was in 2013, also at the VMAs. That time, the band was honoring Timberlake with the Video Vanguard Award.

Ahead of the show, fans clocked that three of the band’s five members were in New York, miles away from the VMAs’ New Jersey location. Fatone, Timberlake and Bass were all spotted, or were posting from, different places in the metro area.

The band’s rumored participation in the next “Trolls” movie appeared to be confirmed in a trailer that played during the commercial break. Fans suspected their inclusion after a poster for “Trolls Band Together” featured the band’s signature “*N” in its logo.

Timberlake is currently among the stars of the franchise. His song “Can’t Stop the Feeling” was a breakout hit.

TODAY.com has reached out to Universal Pictures for comment. Universal Pictures is part of NBCUniversal, TODAY’s parent company.

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:

• 2023 MTV Video Music Awards: See the full list of VMA winners
• Jamie Lynn Spears, Charity Lawson and Ariana Madix: ‘DWTS’ Season 32 cast
• Taylor Swift ties record for most VMA wins in one night

“This is unbelievable. The fact that this is a fan-voted award means so much to me,” Swift said in her acceptance speech. “I can’t believe it was a year ago that I announced the ‘Midnights’ album.”

The show, held at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, was Swift’s from nearly the beginning. The night’s first presenters were none other than NSYNC, who reunited to hand the best pop video award to Swift.

In coordinating suits, Justin Timberlake, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick and JC Chasez shared the stage with Swift. Bass handed her a friendship bracelet, just as fans do at the superstar’s shows. “You’re pop personified,” she told the group.

The night’s top nominee later returned to the stage to pick up the song of the year trophy for “Anti-Hero” and also the best direction award.

Swift took home nine of the 11 awards she was up for, including artist of the year in a category made up entirely of women nominees for the first time in VMA history.

Her “Karma (Remix)” collaborator, Ice Spice, won best new artist. “Oh my God, this is so cool,” she said. “I just want to thank my munchkins.”

New music was abundant throughout the show. Host Nicki Minaj performed her latest single, the dreamy “Last Time I Saw You” before jumping into a brand-new tease of a fiery new trap cut from her highly-anticipated “Pink Friday 2” album.

“I ain’t nothing like you,” she raps, “I’m on a whole other level.”

As much as Swift dominated, the VMAs centered on music’s global power. K-pop boy band Tomorrow X Together and Brazilian superstar Anitta premiered their new collaboration, the glossy retro-pop of “Back for More.”

Another K-pop group, Stray Kids, brought “S-Class” to the stage, regional Mexicana star Peso Pluma performed “Lady Gaga” and reggaetonera Karol G delivered “Oki Doki” and “Tá OK (remix),”

Comedian Tiffany Haddish presented the award for “Best Afrobeats” in the category’s inaugural year, given to Rema and Selena Gomez for their massive hit “Calm Down.”

“Africa in the house!” Rema started his acceptance speech. “Shout out to Fela (Kuti) who started Afrobeats in the first place…and I want to give a big shout out to the next generation of Afrobeats.”

Gomez stood a few feet from the microphone but jumped in when Rema asked her to, telling the crowd: “I want to send all of my love to Nigeria, thank you.”

Colombian icon Shakira received the Video Vanguard Award and performed an incredible bilingual medley of her decades of hits — “She Wolf,” her collaboration with Rauw Alejandro “Te Felicito,” the viral, record-breaking “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53” with Bizarrap among them — in a set introduced by her “Hips Don’t Lie” collaborator Wyclef Jean.

“MTV, thank you for being such a big part of my career since I was only 18 years old,” Shakira said, also thanking her parents and her children, who she brought to the show.

“This is for you my people, my Latin American people, inside and outside this country,” she said, switching to Spanish. “Thank you for inspiring me and for injecting me with so much strength and so much desire to move forward, I love you so much.”

She also took home the award for best collaboration for “TQG,” her song with Karol G. The duo gave their acceptance speech entirely in Spanish. “If collaborating with the legendary Shakira had been impressive, having an award with her is something from another planet,” Karol G exclaimed.

Diddy received the Global Icon Award from Mary J. Blige and his daughter Chance Combs. He is third recipient of the award, following the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2022 and the Foo Fighters in 2021.

The legendary rapper also performed at the VMAs for the first time since 2005. It was an incredible collection of some of his biggest hits like “Bad Boy for Life” and “Mo Money Mo Problems,” joined by some of his greatest collaborators: Yung Miami, Keyshia Cole, and sweetest of all, his son, King Combs.

“Love wins, y’all, love wins,” he started his speech. “I started out as a paper boy, I didn’t know I was going to be here.” He then led the audience with a chant of “bad boy.”

“This is for 30 years,” he continued. “I pray to God that you get to do what you love for 30 years.”

Lil Wayne opened the show with a performance of his new single “Kat Food.” Immediately afterward, Olivia Rodrigo brought her “Vampire” music video set to the stage, before launching into her cheeky pop-punk single “Get Him Back!”

Between the two tracks, snippets of her sold singles played aloud – at the same moment, she was rushed from the staged in a pre-planned “malfunction,” further mirroring the “Vampire” video and symbolizing a move from her first record to her second.

The live sets were many: Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion brought “Bongos” to life with big choreography; Demi Lovato played a rock ‘n’ roll medley of her biggest hits: “Heart Attack,” into “Sorry Not Sorry,” “Cool for the Summer” before the best K-pop award was given to Stray Kids.

Later, Anitta would win the “best Latin” award for the second year in a row, delivering one of the more endearing acceptance speeches of the night — “I wanna thank myself,” she laughed. “Because I work so hard!”

French Montana used his position as best R&B presenter alongside Ashanti to draw attention to Morocco earthquake relief, spotlighting a relief fund that he said he would personally donate to. Montana grew up in Morocco.

Near the end of the show, the MTV Video Music Awards celebrated 50 years of hip-hop with a star-studded finale performance. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five started with “The Message,” which led to Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick’s “The Show.” Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, LL Cool J and DMC of Run-DMC closed it out — an energetic celebration of a multigenerational culture.

Robison died at a hospital in San Antonio after suffering cardiac arrest and other complications, according to a family representative.

Robison launched his music career in the late 1980s, playing in local Austin bands like Two Hoots and a Holler before forming his own Millionaire Playboys. In 1996, he released his solo debut, “Bandera,” named for the Texas Hill Country town where his family has had a ranch for generations.

When he was approached by Sony in 1998, Robison signed with its Lucky Dog imprint, which was devoted to rawer country. His 2001 album “Step Right Up” produced his only Top 40 country song, “I Want You Bad.”

In 2018, Robison announced that he had permanently lost the ability to sing following a surgical procedure on his throat. “Therefore, with a very heavy heart I am officially retiring from the stage and studio,” he wrote on Facebook.

Robison served as a judge for one year on USA Network’s “Nashville Star,” a reality TV show in which contestants lived together while competing for a country music recording contract.

He is survived by his wife, Kristen Robison, and four children and stepchildren. Three of his children were with his first wife, Emily Strayer, a founding member of the superstar country band The Chicks. They divorced in 2008.

Robison’s breakup with Strayer inspired songs on the 2009 album “Beautiful Day.” He recorded it while living across from the Greyhound bus station in San Antonio, in a loft apartment with mismatched furniture and strewn beer bottles, “the quintessential bachelor pad,” he recalled.

“People come up to me and say they’re going through something right now, and it’s like this is completely written about them,” Robison told The Associated Press in 2009. “I wasn’t meaning to do that, but it’s been a residual effect of the record.”

Robison’s final album, the rock-tinged “High Life” from 2013, included a cover version of Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece.”

Memorial services are pending.

This free bird is flying right to the stage.

Wynonna Judd will receive the Country Champion Award at the first ever People’s Choice Country Awards, Thursday, Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The show, is set to air live on NBC and Peacock from the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville.

“Wynonna is one of the most recognized and lauded performers in country music,” Senior Vice President of NBCUniversal Entertainment Cassandra Tryon said in a press release Sept. 8. “Not only is she incredibly talented, her selflessness and passion for putting the needs of others in the spotlight is unmatched. We can’t think of a better person to honor as our inaugural ‘Country Champion’ and to celebrate the holidays with across these two major country music events.”

And the accolade honors far more than her musical achievements. In fact, the award notes the contributions Judd —who will host NBC and Peacock’s “Christmas at the Opry” holiday special later this year—has made to organizations like Wounded Warrior Project and Habitat for Humanity.

CMA Awards 2022 Red Carpet Fashion

“Wynonna will be celebrated for her decades-long career and heroic efforts around philanthropy and activism,” the press release notes. “She has consistently used her public platform to create meaningful change and advocate for children.”

However, she’s not the only country superstar set for special recognition during the People’s Choice Country Awards. Also up for an award on the big night is Toby Keith, who will be presented with the Country Icon Award.

The special recognition also comes as the 59-year-old works to keep the memory of her mom Naomi Judd—with whom she made up the country music duo The Judds—alive following her death in 2022.

“I’m the matriarch now, so I’ve got my Naomi Judd cookbook,” Wynonna Judd exclusively told E! News at the 2022 CMA Awards last November, “and I’m going to be making the recipes as close to hers as I can possibly make them.”

“She took us out in the woods and made us sit still in the cold and read us the Christmas story about Jesus,” she continued, “I used to complain about having to go to the bathroom because we had so much clothes on. I miss her. I’m going to miss those times. So, I’m going to do it to my grandchildren.”

Wynonna noted that attending the ceremony without Naomi was “bittersweet,” but told E! that she feels “a lot of hope” adding, “I’m in pain because I miss her. I’m like, you should be here.”

Memphis police say they responded to reports of a shooting at FedEx Forum arena at around 10:23 p.m. local time. When they arrived on the scene they transported one unidentified man to the hospital with gunshot wounds.

Video from inside the arena concert showed a man being taken out by first responders on a stretcher. Fans could be seen fleeing or standing in shock as the concert came to a halt.

Police say they have not identified a shooter and do not know how many times the person was shot, or why.

“A person was shot tonight at FedExForum during the Lil Baby concert. The incident is under investigation and we are fully cooperating with the Memphis Police Department,” a spokesperson for FedEx Forum said in a statement.

In addition to being a concert venue, FedEx Forum acts as the home arena for the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies, as well as for the men’s basketball team for the University of Memphis.

Memphis police also say they are in the early stages of their investigation.

At least that is the title of the debut single from the band’s new album, the first in 18 years to contain a dozen original songs. It’s also the first album the band has recorded without drummer Charlie Watts, who died in 2021.

The three surviving Stones — Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood — came to east London’s Hackney district on Wednesday to unveil the new album, “Hackney Diamonds” and announce its release date: Oct. 20.

Jagger said not all the songs are furious. The album also contains “love songs, ballads, country-type” sounds, he said.

Recorded in December and January at studios around the world, the album sees the Stones team up with Grammy-winning producer Andrew Watt. It features drummer Steve Jordan on 10 of the 12 tracks in Watts’ place. Two more songs were recorded in 2019 with Watts. Former Stone Bill Wyman also puts in an appearance on one track.

Hard-core fans lined up in a heatwave outside the Hackney Empire, where the band members were interviewed onstage by “The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon to an audience of dozens of sweltering journalists and an online audience around the world.

Inside the ornate former Edwardian musical hall where Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel once performed, Jagger, 80, Richards, 79 and Wood, 76 gave details of the Stones’ first studio album of new songs since “A Bigger Bang” in 2005. The band released a set of blues covers, “Blue & Lonesome,” in 2016.

Of Watts, Richards said: “Of course he’s missed incredibly.”

The announcement of the new material follows a cryptic teaser campaign, in which a glittery, jagged version of the band’s iconic mouth and tongue logo was projected onto the façade of landmarks in cities around the world, including New York, London and Paris.

Music & Musicians Sep 4, 2023

The Rolling Stones will release their first studio album in 18 years, ‘Hackney Diamonds'

Nov 30, 2022

Rolling Stones' 60th Year Honored With UK Collectible Coin

The band screened the video for “Angry,” which has a classic mid-tempo crunchy Stones sound. The clip features “Euphoria” star Sydney Sweeney, shown cruising LA’s Sunset Boulevard in a red convertible, past billboards of the Stones from various eras.

Jagger joked that the reason the band hadn’t recorded an album in almost two decades was laziness.

“I don’t want to be big-headed but we wouldn’t have put this album out if we hadn’t really liked it,” Jagger said. “We said we had to make a record we really love ourselves.

“We are quite pleased with it, we are not big headed about it, but we hope you all like it.”

“Hackney Diamonds” is a slang term for shattered glass, and the band also teased fans with an ad in the local Hackney Gazette newspaper for a fictional glass repair business: “When you say gimme shelter, we’ll fix your shattered windows.”

Jagger said the phrase evoked “when you get your windscreen broken on Saturday night in Hackney and all the bits go on the street.”

Richards said the band hit upon the title after “flinging ideas around the table, and we went from ‘Hit and Run,’ ‘Smash and Grab’ — and somehow between that we came up with ‘Hackney Diamonds.'”

It was fitting, he said, because the Stones are a London band.

Founded in 1962, the Stones show no signs of planning to retire. Last year the band played a 60th-anniversary tour of Europe.

Brazilian fan Taric Fioravanti, from Sao Paulo, lined up to get a glimpse of the band, saying he hoped the new songs would sound like his favorite Stones album, “Some Girls.”

“I love these guys,” he said. “Keith Richards is one of the biggest guitar heroes in the history of rock music.

”(And) they’re 80 years old. Most bands have stopped making new music” by that age, he said.

Wright’s cause of death was a combination of Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease, which he had first been diagnosed with when he was six years old, his son told NBC News.

“It is with great sadness that I received the news of my dear friend Gary Wright’s passing,” Grammy-nominated musician Stephen Bishop wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Gary’s vibrant personality and exceptional talent made every moment together truly enjoyable. His legacy will live on for many years to come. I will always cherish the warmth and kindness shown to me by Gary and his wife Rose, and I will forever hold dear the stories he shared with me about days gone by. My heartfelt condolences go out to his family, friends, and fans during this difficult time.”

Wright’s biggest hit, “Dream Weaver,” was inspired by his trip to India with ex-Beatle George Harrison, who he helped record his 1970 solo album “All Things Must Pass.”

Born in Cresskill, New Jersey, Wright began performing as a child. He gained prominence in the mid-1970s with his before-mentioned hits, “Dream Weaver” and “Love Is Alive.”

Wright continued to record music, with his last album, “Connected,” being released in 2010.

He was also known to perform live as well, including in many concerts with another ex-Beatle, Ringo Starr.

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On Monday, the band announced they are preparing to release their first album of original material in 18 years — since 2005’s “A Bigger Bang.”

Titled “Hackney Diamonds,” the band will share details of the release at an event in East London’s Hackney district on Wednesday, where Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood will be interviewed live by “The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon.

The event will be livestreamed exclusively on YouTube on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. BST, 9:30 a.m. EST and 6:30 a.m. PST.

“Hackney may be at the heart of Hackney Diamonds, but this is a truly global moment we want to share with fans around the world via YouTube,” the Rolling Stones shared in a statement.

The announcement of “Hackney Diamonds” follows a cryptic teaser campaign, in which the band’s iconic mouth and tongue logo was projected onto the façade of major landmarks in cities around the world, including New York, London and Paris.

The album is also the Stones’ first since the death of drummer Charlie Watts in 2021.

He died peacefully and comfortably, surrounded by family and friends, according to Hayes. The cause was liver failure, he said.

Harwell had been in hospice care.

He co-founded Smash Mouth in 1994. The group reached international fame with such hits as “All Star,” “Walkin’ on the Sun” and a cover of The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer,” which is featured in the 2001 animated film “Shrek.”

“‘Walkin’ on the Sun’ changed music,” Harwell told Rolling Stone in 2019. “It changed the way people listen to music.”

“It was so different and it was so unusual, and it was so special,” he said. “It just had that sound that we created. Ask anybody that’s tried to copy us, you can’t. You just can’t.”

“Walkin’ on the Sun,” was the third song on the band’s debut album, “Fush Yu Man,” and the only hit. Its success helped the band get a major label with Interscope, Rolling Stone reported.

During Harwell’s time with Smash Mouth, the band sold more than 10 million albums worldwide, had two #1 hit singles and a Grammy nomination, NBC News reported.

Harwell had been retired from Smash Mouth for two years.

“Steve Harwell was a true American original,” Hayes said in the statement. “A larger than life character who shot up into the sky like a Roman candle. Steve should be remembered for his unwavering focus and impassioned determination to reach the heights of pop stardom. And the fact that he achieved this near-impossible goal with very limited musical experience makes his accomplishments all the more remarkable.”

Born in California in 1967, Harwell performed in a rap group called F.O.S. (Freedom of Speech) before forming Smash Mouth, The Associated Press reported. The band released two platinum albums, the ska-fueled 1997’s “Fush Yu Mang” and 1999’s “Astro Lounge.” The second album featured some of the band’s biggest hits, including the Grammy-nominated, platinum single “All Star,” and the cover of the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer.”

Humor was a driving force behind Smash Mouth’s success, and at the forefront was Harwell’s playful alt-rock voice and persona, The AP wrote. He made a cameo in 2001 comedy film “Rat Race,” and had a well-documented friendship with the Food Network chef and host Guy Fieri.

Harwell, who had battled heart and neurological conditions, retired in 2021 to focus on his health. It came after a concert in upstate New York where Harwell slurred his words, threatened audience members and gave what appeared to be a Nazi salute to the crowd, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Harwell “has suffered profusely over the years with several types of addiction leading to medical and mental health issues,” including cardiomyopathy and Wernickes encephalopathy, a neurological condition that “has greatly impacted his motor functions including speech and impaired memory,” a spokesperson for the band told the newspaper.

Harwell was replaced in the band by vocalist Zach Goode.

Harwell will be cremated in Boise and buried in San Jose, California, alongside his mother, Hayes said, according to The AP.

The music streaming service announced on X on Sunday that Taylor Swift‘s summer hit, “Cruel Summer,” became the 468th song on the platform to reach a billion streams.

Swift thanked her fans for the accomplishment on her Instagram story, saying “Summer just got a BILLION TIMES CRUELER. Thank you all so much for this.”

Another one of Swift’s songs, “Anti-Hero” from her album Midnight has also previously reached a billion streams and is also on the service’s Billions Club playlist.

2023 has not been a cruel summer for Swift. The “Shake it Off” singer just finished her North America Eras Tour, which ended with a week of star-studded shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif.

During a concert in Boston, Swift told the crowd that the Eras Tour has been the happiest time of her life.

“I’ve just never been this happy in my life in all aspects of my life ever … And I just want to thank you for being a part of that,” Swift said at the time. “It’s not just a tour, I just sort of feel like my life finally feels like it makes sense.”

Swift is set for a happy autumn as well. Her Eras Tour is scheduled to hit the big screen on Oct. 13, and has already broken an AMC record for advance ticket sales with the announcement.

And that’s not all. Swift announced that a “Taylor’s Version” of her album “1989” will be coming out on Oct. 27.

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