albums: Last News

Cyndi Lauper was done — or so she thought — with her classic 1983 debut album “She’s So Unusual,” but something was missing to producer Rick Chertoff.“Rick came in one day and said, ‘We could use one more song,’” Rob Hyman, who played keyboards on the LP, told The Post. “And I felt like, ‘One more song?? You gotta be kidding!’ We were really spent.”But after months of working tirelessly on the album that would turn the singer into a pop superstar, Hyman and Lauper came up with “Time After Time,” the bittersweet ballad that would become her first No.

Mother Monster is Mother-ing again.Lady Gaga’s seventh solo studio album “Mayhem” — which was released to the delight of Little Monsters everywhere on Friday — returns the 38-year-old diva to the dance-in-the-dark moves of her early career.Before she began crooning classics with Tony Bennett.

Taylor Swift may have turned her pen on him on “The Tortured Poets Department.”But Joe Alwyn — who gets the ex treatment on the pop superstar’s blockbuster 2024 album — still has fond feelings about collaborating with the singer during their six-year relationship.Indeed, the British actor formed a fruitful pandemic partnership with Swift, co-writing songs on her 2020’s “Folklore” (“Exile,” “Betty”) and its sister album “Evermore” (“Champagne Problems,” “Coney Island” and “Evermore”), as well as her 2022’s “Midnights” (“Sweet Nothing”) — all under the pseudonym William Bowery. Alwyn also served as a co-producer on “Folklore,” thus sharing in Swift’s Album of the Year Grammy win for the LP in 2021.“Lockdown was a whole host of surprises and that was pretty special,” Alwyn, 33, told The Guardian about his creative collaboration with Swift.

“All That She Wants,” the reggae-pop smash that would launch the quartet from Gothenburg, Sweden, to international stardom in 1992.“That was one of the songs we tried to get a record deal from,” Ulf Ekberg, founding member of Ace of Base, told The Post. “But we were rejected by every single record company in Sweden.”But there was something in the special sauce of Denniz Pop that made the quartet Ekberg formed with siblings Jonas, Jenny and Linn Berggren feel like he could be their secret weapon.“We heard his skills, how he worked with drums and so forth,” he said, “and we were good at melodies, but not good at rhythms.“That he got the tape stuck in his car … it was kind of this perfect serendipity situation to go to Stockholm and record with him.

Quincy Jones “Beat It” — as in his own odds of survival — long before he produced that “Thriller” classic for Michael Jackson.Fifty years before his death at 91 on Sunday, the legendary producer was given a 1% chance of living after he suffered a brain aneurysm in 1974.“It was scary,” Jones told GQ in 2018. “Like somebody blew my brains out.

rock music has been dead.But just as the Day of the Dead is upon us, the Cure has brought the genre back to life.The goth gods — who had been left for dead after not releasing a new studio LP since 2008’s “4:13 Dream” — have come back after 16 long years with the best rock album of 2024: “Songs of a Lost World,” which fittingly dropped the day after Halloween. It’s Friday, and I’m in love with the Cure all over again.“Songs of a Lost World” is easily the Cure’s best album since 1992’s “Wish” — which included their hit “Friday I’m in Love” — but maybe even since their 1989 masterpiece “Disintegration.”That’s saying a whole helluva lot for a band that didn’t owe us anything else — and could’ve easily coasted along on the well-deserved Rock & Roll Hall of Fame props they earned in 2019.

Billie Eilish did indeed seem to have everything she wanted on Wednesday night.In the first of three sold-out shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden on her “Hit Me Hard and Soft” Tour, the 22-year-old pop phenom got all the love she could’ve asked for — and then some.“It’s pretty f—king amazing — gosh,” said an almost embarrassed Eilish to deafening cheers. “Thank you guys for being here and joining me.”But when she sang “Everything I Wanted” — the 2019 hit that won Eilish one of her nine Grammys and her second straight for Record of the Year — it didn’t exactly feel as if she was living the dream.In fact, on her first tour without her producer brother Finneas, she seemed to be conflicted about it all.

died from falling from a hotel balcony on Wednesday, he reportedly postponed the release of his second solo album because he was “struggling” in the industry. A source told the Sun on Oct.

“Moon Music,” but Coldplay took the stage at a strangely sunny hour for a rare club show at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg on Monday. I mean, it was still late afternoon, not even evening yet, when the alt-rock giants shrunk themselves down to everyday life size at the 650-capacity venue that was infinitely more intimate than their last local concerts at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ.“Getting the band Coldplay to perform before 9 p.m is one of the most difficult things in the world,” Coldplay frontman Chris Martin told the crowd at the private SiriusXM concert that is now available to stream on the service.“And the reason we’re playing so early this afternoon is because tomorrow we’re doing the ‘Today’ show that starts at, like, 3:15 a.m.,” he continued, joking that “this is really just a sound check for that in some way.”All kidding aside about their start way before normal rock star hours, though, Coldplay is as responsible as it gets for a band whose primary audience has hit middle age right along with them.

Katy Perry was beefing with Taylor Swift about dancers.The story goes that Perry stole three dancers away from Swift’s “Red” Tour to join her “Prism” Tour. At the time, they were dueling divas at the very top of pop.

crowned Best New Artist at the MTV VMAs last week — is already burning out on what she calls the “abusive” side of fame.“I feel like fame is just abusive,” Roan, 26, told The Face in a new cover story. “The vibe of this — stalking, talking s–t online, [people who] won’t leave you alone, yelling at you in public — is the vibe of an abusive ex-husband.“That’s what it feels like. I didn’t know it would feel this bad.”She’s already drawn some clear boundaries for herself with invasive, aggressive fan behavior.“I told myself, if this ever gets dangerous, I might quit,” Roan said.

True to the raw, anarchic spirit of punk-rock, the Ramones played as dirty as those notoriously filthy CBGB bathrooms when they got a spontaneous offer from their first manager at the holy underground in New York’s East Village in 1975.“They wanted to be in my column in the SoHo Weekly News. And I kept saying, ‘I can’t make it,’ ” legendary Ramones manager Danny Fields told The Post about seeing the iconic New York band at the club that they first played 50 years ago on Aug. 16, 1974.

“Coming Home” — his first solo studio LP in eight years — headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, and, right after rocking the game, getting married to longtime partner Jennifer Goicoechea in Las Vegas, Usher Raymond IV is taking his act to the big screen.Following in the concert-film footsteps of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, the R&B superstar — who in June was honored with the 2024 Icon Award at the Apollo Theater’s annual spring benefit and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BET Awards — will be hitting theaters Sept. 12-17 with “Usher: Rendezvous in Paris.”Filmed in 2023 over Usher’s eight-show run at La Seine Musicale during Paris Fashion Week, the movie features the 45-year-old singer performing his chart-topping tunes like “Love in This Club,” “My Boo,” and, of course, “Yeah!”The film will be bringing love in this cinema just a month after Usher launches his Past Present Future Tour in Atlanta on Aug.

“Weekends with Adele” Las Vegas residency ends in November. “I don’t have any plans for new music at all,” she said Sunday in an interview with German outlet ZDF.“I want a big break after this and I think I want to do other creative things, just for a little while.”The “Hello” artist added, “I don’t like being famous. I love that I get to make music all the time.”Adele began her Vegas residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in November 2022.

Taylor Swift is like winning the lottery in music right about now.We all saw what happened to Sabrina Carpenter’s career after she opened for Swift on her epic Eras Tour last year. I mean, she blew all the way up — and now she’s got the song of the summer with “Espresso.”Now it’s Gracie Abrams’ turn to have a hot girl summer after also opening for Swift last year.

Luke Combs — having ridden his historic cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” all the way to No. 2 on the pop charts — is one of the hottest country artists in the game right now.And as such, the 34-year-old North Carolina native is in that cushy zone where he can pretty much do whatever the hell he wants.His new album “Fathers & Sons” is what we call a “passion project.”It’s all about the love he has for his two sons: Tex Lawrence, who turns 2 next week, and Beau Lee, who was born just last August.The album — which continues the titular theme from 2022’s “Growin’ Up” and 2023’s “Gettin’ Old” — is also a shrewd marketing move, arriving just in time for Father’s Day weekend.

Entertainment Tonight” at the launch of her new business venture, Fenty Hair, that she’s “starting over” on her highly anticipated ninth album, which has been dubbed “R9” by fans.“Music for me is a new discovery. I’m rediscovering things,” she said at the event in Los Angeles on Monday.

Billie Eilish dropped her groundbreaking, Grammy-winning debut album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” — there was a seismic shift in pop.At just 17, she emerged as a goth-pop princess whose spooky, synthy sound was eerily prescient of the doom to come when the pandemic shut the world.And the Billie effect was felt with everyone from Olivia Rodrigo to SZA to, yes, even Taylor Swift. While Eilish broke out of the “Bad Guy” groove of her biggest hit on her second album, 2021’s “Happier Than Ever,” there was still no stopping her power.And even when she made the most anti-blockbuster ballad for last summer’s “Barbie” smash, “What Was I Made For?” went on to win both the Song of the Year Grammy and the Best Original Song Oscar — even though the single didn’t even crack the Top 10.Now 22, Eilish is hot off of accomplishing that rare Grammy-Oscar double as she releases her third LP, “Hit Me Hard and Soft” — and she continues to go against the mainstream.In fact, she chose not to release any singles leading up to the album, wanting the collection to be consumed as a “family of songs.”Forget the fact that listening to an album from start to finish in the streaming era is a pretty radical concept.And when the LP gets off to the sleepiest of starts with the dreamy “Skinny” — where Eilish displays her new thing for strings, courtesy of the Attacca Quartet — you might think you accidentally shuffled it to the end.Just like Prince rebeled against the “Purple Rain” mania with “Around the World in a Day” and Radiohead tried to shake off the “OK Computer” masses with “Kid A,” Eilish has refused to play to the basic crowd to meet any sort of commercial expectation.And yet, it still works for her.

Detroit Free Press newspaper as promotion for the 51-year-old rapper’s upcoming album, “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce),” per Complex.The obituary features a picture of Eminem — who grew up in Michigan — wearing overalls and a hockey mask as his Slim Shady persona. The headline reads: “Slime Shady Made Lasting Impressions.”“Fans ‘Will Never Forget’ Controversial Rapper” is written in the subheading.The faux obituary touts Eminem’s alter ego’s success in the music industry.“A product of Detroit who began his career there as a rogue splinter in the flourishing underground rap scene of the mid to late 1990s, Shady first became a household name in 1999 with the debut of his playfully deranged single ‘My Name Is,’ which — along with its uniquely eye catching video — exposed the young artist and his lyrics to a wider audience,” the obituary reads.

Dua Lipa had all that Mermaid Barbie training.The Grammy-winning songstress — who had a tail of a cameo in last summer’s “Barbie” blockbuster —needed all of her water-nymph powers as she presided over a rain-soaked Times Square on Sunday night in a surprise pop-up performance that still had fans braving the elements to dance the night away.It completed the Dua Lipa NYC takeover this weekend to launch her third album, “Radical Optimism,” which included her serving as host and musical guest on “Saturday Night Live.”And certainly, some “Radical Optimism” was needed to brighten up a cold, soggy Cinco de Mayo that felt more like Cinco de Marzo.Even the diva’s dad, Dukagjin Lipa, knew it — the former Kosovan crooner handed out $2 bills for good luck to guests as he was entering the VIP area.“New York!” the British-Albanian singer exclaimed as she took the stage inside of a trailer parked at the corner of 43rd Street and Seventh Avenue.Flipping her burgundy-tinted tresses like the former model she is — while safely covered from any hair-busting bursts from the skies — she launched into “Training Season” like a well-conditioned pro as her mammoth likeness took over the Nasdaq and Amex jumbotrons.Welcome to Dua Square.It was certainly a feat to get the crowd — which stretched all the way to 47th Street — levitating to any degree.“Thank you for braving the rain and the cold,” Lipa, 28, said.And for her next trick, Lipa performed “Houdini” — the first single from “Radical Optimism” — which possesses the same kind of dance-pop magic she has been crafting since her 2017 breakout hit “New Rules.”Then Lipa shifted into midtempo mode for the “Radical Optimism” closer “Happy for You,” which seems determined to prove that she can do more

Kate Hudson has two words for anyone who slams her singing career — “f–k you.” That’s exactly what she said when she recalled a critic telling her she wasn’t young enough to launch a singing career.“There was someone who said to me — and it kind of jarred me a little — it was when I was in my early 30s, and they basically said, ‘It’s done, it’s passed. You can’t, you’re too old,'” Hudson said in an interview with CBS’ Sunday Morning, which aired on Sunday.“And you know, for me, it wasn’t just about being a performer, it was about wanting to write music,” she went on.