Chris Willman-Senior: Last News

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Jack Lee, who co-fronted the influential L.A. band the Nerves in the late 1970s and saw his songs turn into major hits for Blondie and Paul Young, died May 26 in Santa Monica, Calif. at age 71. His death was revealed Wednesday in a press release, which revealed Lee died after battling colon cancer for three years. Although Lee had not had much public visibility in recent years, “he never gave up on his music,” his family said in a statement, “to the very end. His guitar, right by his side. He lived his songs. One by one they told the story of his life. Some dreams die. His never will.” His greatest success as a musician came with a pair of high-profile covers. Blondie recorded an extremely faithful cover of the Nerves’ “Hanging on the Telephone” in 1978 that remains one of the group’s most instantly identifiable signature songs to this day. (Blondie’s version went to No. 5 in the U.K., although, as an FM hit, it never charted in the U.S.) Paul Young found success in 1983 with “Come Back and Stay,” a song the Nerves wrote but never recorded; it first appeared on a Lee solo project a couple of years before Young had the hit. (The cover reached No. 4 in the U.K. and No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100.) Young recorded a total of three Lee songs for his Euro-chart-topping debut album that year.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic George Winston, one of the bestselling instrumental pianists in the world during his heyday in the 1980s and ’90s, died Sunday at age 73. The announcement came through his social media and website and said he “painlessly left this world while asleep” following a decade-long battle with cancer. “George courageously managed serious cancers, including having a successful bone marrow transplant for Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) in 2013 at City of Hope, in Duarte, California, that gratefully extended his life by 10 years,” said the announcement. “Throughout his cancer treatments, George continued to write and record new music, and he stayed true to his greatest passion: performing for live audiences while raising funds for Feeding America to help fight the national hunger crisis along with donating proceeds from each of his concerts to local food banks.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The traveling carnival known as Re:SET is so set on putting a brand new spin on the festival experience that it’s not even using that particular F-word in its name or advertising. Setting down at Brookside at the Rose Bowl over the weekend, it was a rose by any other name, but the concept is just novel enough (and just hard enough to explain in a user-friendly nutshell) that it counts as a semi-reinvention, and a welcome one: the festival as an a la carte buffet. LCD Soundsystem, Boygenius and Steve Lacy are the headliners for a three-day outing hitting different regions across the U.S., where local fans need not attend all three days (and in most cases, probably won’t), but get quite a smorgasbord if they do.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Allison Russell had one of the most acclaimed records of 2021 with her solo debut, “Outside Child,” in spite of — or because of — the fact that reviews described just how tough much of the subject material was. But she’s taking a break from “harrowing” with her second release, “The Returner,” which has just been announced as coming out Sept. 8. With its increased twin focus on grooves and celebration, it might not be inaccurate to call the album a party, albeit with the understanding that the celebration is a hard-fought party. “I thought about returning, and what that means to me,” Russell tells Variety, offering a preview of what to expect from the end-of-summer release. “And I thought about survivors’ joy, and how we don’t talk about that enough.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift revealed the full track list for “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” Monday, including who her duet partners would be on the previously unrecorded “Vault Tracks” — Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Fall Out Boy. Wrote Swift on social media: “I’m VERY excited to show you the back cover of Speak Now (my version) including the vault tracks and collaborations with @yelyahwilliams from @paramore and @falloutboy. Since Speak Now was all about my songwriting, I decided to go to the artists who I feel influenced me most powerfully as a lyricist at that time and ask them to sing on the album. They’re so cool and generous for agreeing to support my version of Speak Now. I recorded this album when I was 32 (and still growing up, now) and can’t wait to unveil it all to you on July 7th.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Morgan Wallen was poised to have a 13th straight week topping the Billboard 200 album chart, but someone who more regularly weaponizes the number 13 had other plans. Taylor Swift stopped Wallen’s possibly historic run at 12 weeks, as her 2022 album “Midnights” reclaimed the top spot due to the release of deluxe editions with hotly anticipated new tracks. All of the different variations of “Midnights” count as one for charting purposes. After never leaving the top 10 since it came out last year, and recently spending a number of weeks at No. 2, “Midnights” returned to No. 1 with 282,000 album-equivalent units for the week. It wasn’t a close call, as Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” album registered 126,000 units to slip to No. 2. If it hadn’t been Swift toppling Wallen, it almost could have been somewhere else. The country star’s long-standing smash was nearly in a tie with Lil Durk’s “Almost Healed,” which came in third with 125,000 units.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Of all the things Belinda Carlisle has been mad about in recent years, her career as a pop solo artist has not been high up there, from all appearances. That changed with the May release of “Kismet,” a five-song EP that finally found Carlisle dipping a toe back into the recording studio with her first new collection of English-language pop music since 1996, including a single titled “Big Big Love,” which really did have the beat (as opposed to her last album, a mantra record). But if there’s any pop star of her generation that hasn’t cravenly coveted the spotlight, and isn’t likely to start now, it’s Carlisle, who seems like she’d be perfectly content even if Diane Warren hadn’t talked her into finally reentering the studio for a new batch of songs. Long an American expat and constant traveler, the singer seems quite content to spend most of her time with her husband of 37 years, Morgan Mason, at home in Mexico City, with only occasional forays onto the road. She’s not making any promises one way or another about whether this EP presages a full solo album… though Carlisle will offer assurances that the Go-Go’s are “done,” having gone out on top, in her estimation, with a long-, long-awaited Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic More than ever, rock stars were TV stars in 2023 — in the form of subjects for television documentaries — and so were their brethren in pop, hip-hop, K-pop and Latin music. Some of these TV films or docuseries were vanity projects used to promote new albums, of course; others started off as “making of” projects and ended up catching a star in a moment of real psychological crisis. It wasn’t all cinema verité; historical overviews capturing the full breadth of an artist’s career or even a genre still had their place in the pop-doc landscape. Four films or limited series stand out in the subgenre of docs that were initially commissioned to capture an album or tour and, through circumstances, evolved into something deeper or darker. “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me” (Apple TV+) was going to be a tour documentary, but then, when an emotional breakdown caused her to pull off the road, it became a portrait of a singer coming to terms with mental illness.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Nobody’s perfect, but “Some Like It Hot” was close enough for the 67th annual Drama Desk Awards, which gave the Broadway adaptation of the classic film comedy eight honors on Wednesday, including outstanding musical. The top-achieving play was “Life of Pi,” which came away with four awards. Winning three Drama Desk Awards each were “A Doll’s House” and “Sweeney Todd.” Tied with two apiece were “Shucked,” “Prima Facie,” “AIn’t No More” and “Leopoldstadt.” The number of awards these productions received was often not in direct correlation with which shows prevailed for the very top prizes, with only “Some Like It Hot” scoring wins across the board as well as for outstanding musical. While the production of Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt” came up with only a pair of prizes, one of those was for outstanding play. Meanwhile, “Life of Pi,” the top winner among plays, was not nominated for outstanding play.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Singer-actor Janelle Monáe will be bringing her “Age of Pleasure” principle to North American theaters and amphitheaters this late summer and fall, with a nearly two-month tour that begins Aug. 30 in Seattle and wraps Oct. 18 at the L.A. area’s YouTube Theater. The Live Nation-backed 26-city tour will follow a couple of months on the heels of Monáe’s first album in five years, “The Age of Pleasure,” which comes out June 9. It’s been preceded by a new single and music video, “Lipstick Lover.” A Verizon presale begins Thursday at 10 a.m. local time, with other targeted presales happening throughout the next week before a general ticket sale one week from today, June 7, also at 10 a.m. local time.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “It’s been about 25 years since I stood on this stage,” since Shania Twain, not long after the kickoff to her set Sunday night at the Hollywood Bowl. She had that figured about right — the calendar shows she last played America’s most favored amphitheater on May 6, 1999. That was a few weeks shy of the moment that her signature song among all signature songs, “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!,” peaked on the charts. When she pulled it out as her inevitable final encore number Saturday, it still felt like it was cresting. It’s a song that may never have truly peaked until all the generations represented at the Bowl this Memorial Day weekend have passed away and/or the day the prerogative to have a little fun has been codified into the criminal as a felony. For as long as there are women, and gay men, and straight men relaxed with themselves enough to buy “Let’s go, girls” T-shirt and diode-blinking pink cowboy hats, Twain will own rights to the ultimate ladies’ night anthem, just as surely as she owns the federal trademark on exclamation points. (She does, doesn’t she?)

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Oft-remembered for soundtracking “Valley Girl” with the classic cut “A Million Miles Away,” singer-songwriter Peter Case has a worldwide following, but veteran followers of the Los Angeles music scene may have spent the last 40 years or so trying to solve a puzzle about him. The riddle: When Case was a master of Beatlesque power-pop in his role as frontman of the Plimsouls, one of the great L.A. bands of the early ‘80s, was that the real him? Or is he an ageless acoustic-folkie who accidentally got swept up in rock’s new wave on the way to the hootenanny? Because, even with decades of hindsight, fans may still have a problem reconciling these two primary identities as being the same guy.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic You can easily hear the impact of Tina Turner in the music of Yola, one of the greatest singers of our generation. But it goes far beyond any basic level of influence for this British-bred, now Nashville-based powerhouse. Before becoming a recording artist and Grammy nominee, back in her native U.K., she was a teacher and lecturer in vocal biomechanics who would instruct young singers in how to emulate Turner’s singular voice… or at least how to try. Yola spoke with Variety about Turner, who died May 24 at age 83. These are some of her thoughts, on everything from Tina’s pure technique to the unique challenges she faced as a Black stylist without parallels or filters to her place in genre-bridging musical history.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift and Ice Spice fans in New Jersey were likely feeling they’d amassed some good karma of their own — at least the ones who had made it through the gauntlet to get tickets for Friday’s MetLife Stadium show — as the suddenly dynamic duo gave the audience two doses of “Karma” toward the end of Swift’s long set. One was in the form of a premiere of the video for the song, which went out to the world not very much later. The other was a live performance of the duet, as the new remix’s featured rapper came out on stage to join the headliner for “Karma,” which has ended Swift’s shows each night since the Eras Tour started in April.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters took to social media Friday night to defend himself — as he often has in recent years — against charges of antisemitism, saying that “my recent performance in Berlin has attracted bad faith attacks from those who want to smear and silence me because they disagree with my political views and moral principles.” His statement followed on the heels of Berlin police telling news media that they had opened an investigation into Waters’ behavior and imagery at his arena concerts in Berlin. Waters did not directly refer to the news of the German police investigation in his post. “The elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice and bigotry in all its forms,” Waters wrote on Facebook. “Attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated. The depiction of an unhinged fascist demagogue has been a feature of my shows since Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ in 1980.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Sad songs say so much, as the man said. And in the case of a brand new Taylor Swift song, “You’re Losing Me,” some of her fans believe the lyrics say plenty about her relationship status over the last year or so. If her material is nothing if not almost always immediately quotable, “You’re Losing Me” has some lulus, starting with: “I wouldn’t marry me either / A pathological people pleaser / Who only wanted you to see her.” The overall tone, though, is less sad than weary, bordering on fatalistic: “Do I throw out everything we built or keep it? / I’m getting tired even for a phoenix / Always rising from the ashes / Mending all her gashes / You might just have dealt the final blow.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift has lived up to her self-proclaimed “Mastermind” status with the Thursday night/Friday morning release of fresh versions of two “Midnights” songs. In one, which she spices up “Karma” with an all-new verse from arguably the hottest rapper of the moment, Ice Spice. In the other, bluntly subtitled “(Featuring More Lana Del Rey),” Swift all but cedes the aural spotlight to the guest artist who was formerly inaudible on the track, Lana Del Rey. Ice Spice makes a few interjections here and there in Swift’s verses in “Karma” — she adds an affirmative “Facts!” after Swift sings, “Karma takes all my friends to the summit” — and she also gets the first and last words in this remix (“Karma is that girl, like” and a concluding “Karma’s gonna hold you down”). Mostly, though, she’s afforded an all-new second verse, with lyrics including: “Karma is your checks by the bounce / Karma is the fire in your house / And she ’bout to pop up unannounced.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Tina Turner, who died Wednesday at 83, rarely failed to electrify, not just in person but with cameras as her conduit to the audience, too. Longtime Grammys executive producer Ken Ehrlich worked with Turner on programs from the late ’70s through the late ’90s, and he shared his memories with Variety of three particularly memorable TV performances. The first of these was in 1985, when she sang “What’s Love Got to Do With It” on the Grammys, the same year she won record of the year for that song — arguably the peak of her career, though she’d been revered for a quarter-century before that and would become a bigger superstar still in the next 25 years to follow. The second appearance he singles out is a duet between Turner and Elton John for a 1999 “VH1 Divas” special that got more fiery behind the scenes than necessary, albeit possibly to its benefit. Finally, he was an integral part of one of Turner’s last great TV spots, a highly copacetic duet with Beyoncé on the 2008 Grammys telecast.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift announced a new deluxe edition of her “Midnights” album, titled “Midnights: Til Dawn,” that will feature Ice Spice as her guest on a fresh version of “Karma” and additional, newly recorded lead vocals from Lana Del Rey on their “Snow on the Beach” collaboration. Digital and physical editions will each have a format-exclusive track. For the digital release, it will be “Hits Different,” a song that was previously only available on the Target version of “Midnights.” More interestingly for fans, the physical edition will have a “Vault” track never before heard from the “Midnights” writing sessions. The all-new song is titled “You’re Losing Me,” the title of which will obviously set fans’ minds aflutter even before they hear it, given recent revelations about Swift’s personal life.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Global Citizen has announced another all-star concert aiming to help force a real effect on world poverty and climate change, this one set to stream live from Paris’ Champ de Mars on June 22 and featuring Billie Eilish, Jon Batiste, Lenny Kravitz and H.E.R., with additional special appearances by Ben Harper, Finneas and Mosimann. The Live Nation-produced event, “Power Our Planet: Live in Paris,” will be held before a ticketed audience and streamed from in front of the Eiffel Tower on the Global Citizen channel on Amazon’s Twitch, with further broadcast or streaming partners to be announced in the coming weeks. The location wasn’t chosen just for its scenic value. The Summit for a New Financial Pact is being held in Paris on June 22-23, and Global Citizen’s stated hopes are that the concert will help compel World Bank President Ajay Banga, the U.S. government’s Janet Yellen and all the G20 Nations to take action on loosening up funds for less developed nations to deal with climate change.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In response to public and political pressure, the Ford Motor Company has announced that it will keep installing AM radio in new vehicles after all. Previously, the manufacturer had been on record as saying there was no compelling need to maintain the AM band in any of its forthcoming models — a stance that other carmakers had taken with electric cars but not extended as a policy to all vehicles. That had made Ford particularly a target amid growing controversy over the increasing move to eliminate AM and new congressional legislation designed to make it mandatory in all new models. Jim Farley, Ford’s CEO, announced the reversal in a social media statement.