Latest news with #CarlySimon
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Carly Simon Defends Sabrina Carpenter Against Album Cover Backlash: 'She's Not Doing Anything Outrageous'
Carly Simon is defending Sabrina Carpenter amid the backlash against her album artwork for Man's Best Friend In an interview with Rolling Stone, the "You're So Vain" hitmaker said the LP cover seemed "tame" Man's Best Friend is due Aug. 29Carly Simon is standing by Sabrina Carpenter. In an interview with Rolling Stone published on Wednesday, June 18, the "You're So Vain" hitmaker came to the pop star's defense amid the backlash surrounding the cover for her forthcoming album Man's Best Friend. The album artwork features a photo of Carpenter, 26, on her hands and knees as someone who appears to be a man grabs her by the hair. In the image, she's donning a short, black dress and black heels. Simon herself released a similarly controversial cover with her 1975 album Playing Possum, which featured the "You Belong to Me" artist on her knees wearing black lingerie and black leather boots. "Everybody looked at it, and people definitely had a reaction to it,' Simon, 81, told the publication of the controversial album cover. 'But they wouldn't have told me what they really thought.' When the album was shipped to stores, she was met with bolder reactions. 'Suddenly, I'm getting calls from Time and Newsweek, saying, 'This is one of the sexiest covers that has ever known,'' Norman Seeff, the photographer who shot the cover for Playing Possum, told Rolling Stone. He continued: 'There's this whole controversy around what did it represent? It felt very much like that energy in a woman, but I just thought of it as a beautiful shot. None of that stuff they were talking about was the intention." Simon also addressed the criticism Carpenter has faced for her Man's Best Friend album artwork, which she didn't understand. "She's not doing anything outrageous,' she told the outlet. 'It seems tame." Added Simon: "There have been far flashier covers than hers. One of the most startling covers I've ever seen was [The Rolling Stones'] Sticky Fingers. That was out there in terms of sexual attitude. So I don't know why she's getting such flak." Carpenter announced the release of her seventh studio album and its cover art on Wednesday, June 11. The news came after she shared the album's lead single "Manchild" earlier this month. In the days after she shared the album cover, Carpenter responded to an X user who reshared the singer's Man's Best Friend album cover, saying, 'Does she have a personality outside of sex?' The 'Espresso" hitmaker then reshared the post and said: 'girl yes and it is goooooood.' Man's Best Friend follows Carpenter's chart-topping LP Short n' Sweet, which was released last August. Read the original article on People
Fox News
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Carly Simon defends Sabrina Carpenter's controversial album cover, says it's not 'outrageous'
Carly Simon is coming to Sabrina Carpenter's defense. During a recent interview, Simon reacted to Carpenter's album cover that caused quite a stir. Carpenter's album artwork for "Man's Best Friend" showed a photo of the singer on her hands and knees, as a man appeared to be grabbing her by the hair. The "Busy Woman" singer wore a black mini dress and matching heels in the photo. Simon argued the current outrage surrounding Carpenter's album is relatively mild, compared to past examples of bold artistic expression in the music industry. "She's not doing anything outrageous," the "You're So Vain" singer said in an interview with Rolling Stone. "It seems tame." "There have been far flashier covers than hers," Simon said. "One of the most startling covers I've ever seen was [The Rolling Stones'] "Sticky Fingers." That was out there in terms of sexual attitude. So I don't know why she's getting such flak." Once Carpenter shared her latest album cover of "Man's Best Friend," fans were quick to comment. "This cover makes me uncomfortable…" one person wrote. Another comment read, "That's disgusting!!" Other fans enjoyed Carpenter's album and wrote, "Sue her she wants to be iconic." While Simon is no stranger to pushing the envelope herself, the singer reacted to the similar criticism she received for her famous 1975 "Playing Possum" album. "Everybody looked at it, and people definitely had a reaction to it," Simon told Rolling Stone of her own cover at the time. "But they wouldn't have told me what they really thought." The "You Belong To Me" singer famously posed in a lacy black dress with matching leather boots. Simon's face wasn't shown, but she was photographed on her knees for the album cover. That photo was shot by Norman Seeff, who still remembers the stir it caused. "Suddenly, I'm getting calls from 'Time' and 'Newsweek,' saying, 'This is one of the sexiest covers that has ever [been] known,'" Seeff recalled. "There's this whole controversy around what did it represent? It felt very much like that energy in a woman, but I just thought of it as a beautiful shot." Meanwhile, the former Disney star has been known for her racy performances and turning heads. In March, Carpenter shocked fans with her explicit dance moves at her concert in Paris. During every show on her "Short n' Sweet" world tour, the singer simulates a different sexual position while performing her hit "Juno." Carpenter shows off each move when she sings the lyrics, "Wanna try out some freaky positions? / Have you ever tried this one?" At her Paris performance, Carpenter paid tribute to the City of Lights when she and two male backup dancers simulated a three-way sex act, known as the Eiffel Tower. In a photo from the performance that the account Buzzing Pop posted on X, Carpenter, who donned a sparkly green and silver halter top with a matching miniskirt, was seen bending over between the two dancers who leaned into her and held hands above her. The position is meant to emulate the structure of Paris' famed historical landmark. The post divided fans when it went viral on social media, with some fans slamming Carpenter's performance as too inappropriate for the younger members of her fan base, while others contended that she had the right to evolve as an artist after transitioning to adulthood.
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sabrina Carpenter Is Under Fire for a Spicy Album Cover. Tell It to Carly Simon
Almost 25 years before Sabrina Carpenter was born, Carly Simon was in a department store in New York and feeling pretty good. She'd just released her fifth album, Playing Possum, and the frisky single 'Attitude Dancing' was looking to follow her hits 'You're So Vain,' 'Haven't Got Time for the Pain,' and 'Anticipation' onto the radio. Then, a woman who was apparently familiar with the cover of Playing Possum approached her. 'She'd either seen a picture of it, or she knew someone who had the album,' Simon recalls. 'And she said, 'What were you thinking?' Voices were raised.' More from Rolling Stone Sabrina Carpenter Cold-Plunges Before Every Show and 16 Other Things That Didn't Make Our Cover Story Sabrina Carpenter's 'Manchild' Debuts at Number One on Hot 100 Sabrina Carpenter Laughs Off Critics of Her Sexy Shows: 'You're Obsessed With It' Last week, Carpenter unveiled the now-notorious cover for her upcoming album Man's Best Friend, in which she's depicted kneeling on the ground, one hand extended toward a figure in a suit who's grabbing her hair. Debates, some pretty intense, ensued about whether the photo signified savvy, knowing female empowerment or simply empowered the male gaze. But as Simon well knows, the sight of a female pop star in a similar pose and pushing plenty of the same buttons didn't start with Man's Best Friend. Released in 1975, Playing Possum sported a couple of suggestive song titles, like 'Are You Ticklish' and 'Love Out in the Street,' but its most provocative aspect was its black-and-white cover photo: Simon, on her knees, looking fierce and mysterious in a black negligee and black boots, fists clenched, face partly hidden, mouth sightly open. Photographer Norman Seeff's shot was the polar opposite of the cover of her previous album, 1974's Hotcakes, which featured a smiling and visibly pregnant Simon. Of Playing Possum, Simon says, 'I remember thinking, if this works, it'll also let people see that I've gotten my body back.' But in a scenario that may be familiar to the Carpenter camp, fans and feminists alike didn't know what to make of it and began arguing over its message. As Rolling Stone reported at the time, the Sears department-store chain, which sold a good deal of LPs, considered not carrying Simon's album at all. Crawdaddy, a competing counterculture magazine, published a review that was entirely devoted to analyzing the cover instead of the music. The image became so indelible that the negligee Simon wore was included in her exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame when she was inducted in 2022. Given how much Playing Possum's cover contrasted with Hotcakes, its back story is ironic: It actually began with Simon's daughter Sally, who, only a few months old, was in a baby carrier on her mother's back as Simon shopped in Bloomingdale's. 'I was looking through the racks of undergarments, and she bent over with me as I bent over to look at something,' Simon says, recalling how her daughter grabbed at the black lingerie and pulled it into the carrier with her. 'It wasn't noticed at checkout.' (These were the days before security tags were affixed to clothing.) When Simon arrived at Seeff's L.A. studio for the photo shoot, she was wearing the purloined piece of clothing underneath a skirt and blouse. As Simon remembers, she was in a dressing room putting her street clothes back on after the session when she heard Isaac Hayes' 'Theme from Shaft' playing in the studio. 'I loved that song, so I ran out and started dancing to it,' she says. As Seeff clicked away, Simon, in the black lingerie, sang along with Hayes, ultimately lying down on the floor on her back before pulling herself up. 'And that's when Norman took that picture, after I landed in that pose,' she says. 'It wasn't done on purpose. It wasn't a setup.' When the photos were developed, Seeff zeroed in on one in particular. 'I'm looking at these shots, and I go, 'Well, here's a shot that's got some kind of energy to it,'' he says. 'The head's cut off. She was in movement from being on the floor to standing up, and she's got this clenched fist. No one thought about what it might convey. It was a fascinating, unique image and it left a lot to the imagination.' Simon herself wasn't sure at first but came around to the same thinking. 'There was something about black and white photographs, where you suddenly see it as an art picture,' she says. 'The whole thing looked artistic, even though it wasn't artistic on purpose.' In Simon's memory, the initial feedback she received — from then husband James Taylor and her producer, the late Richard Perry — was positive, and she proudly showed it to Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash at a birthday party Simon threw for Taylor in L.A. just before the album was released. 'Everybody looked at it, and people definitely had a reaction to it,' she says, 'but they wouldn't have told me what they really thought.' The more visceral responses arrived when Playing Possum was shipped to stores. 'How's that for crashing the image of the sweet mother-to-be beaming on the cover of her last album?' wrote one critic. Another wondered if she should be carrying a whip to match the outfit. Simon even recalls her mother, Civil Rights activist Andrea Louise Heinemann, saying, 'Carly, darling! What are you doing?' 'Suddenly, I'm getting calls from Time and Newsweek, saying, 'This is one of the sexiest covers that has ever known,'' Seeff says. 'There's this whole controversy around what did it represent? It felt very much like that energy in a woman, but I just thought of it as a beautiful shot. None of that stuff they were talking about was the intention.' The conversation didn't hurt sales: Playing Possum became Simon's third straight Top 10 album. The cover of Carpenter's Man's Best Friend isn't an overt homage to Playing Possum, but Simon has been recognized by modern pop stars. Both Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo have covered 'You're So Vain' onstage, and Addison Rae shouted out Simon's later Boys in the Trees album in a recent interview. 'I love it that the younger girls are discovering me, and that I've had attention from them,' Simon says. Of Carpenter's controversial artwork, Simon doesn't quite see the fuss. 'She's not doing anything outrageous,' she says. 'It seems tame. There have been far flashier covers than hers. One of the most startling covers I've ever seen was [The Rolling Stones'] Sticky Fingers. That was out there in terms of sexual attitude. So I don't know why she's getting such flak.' Simon herself hasn't released a new album since 2009, but she's been working on new music on and off for a decade. The songs, many produced by her son Ben, include 'Howl,' featuring Nile Rodgers on guitar and a guest vocal from Chris Stills, son of Stephen. 'It's kind of a vengeance song about getting back at someone, or, in this case, a whole lot of people,' she says. 'Is it tender? No, it's not. It's very gutsy. It's got a lot of power.' She's also written a song about her daughter Sally, 'Mother of Pearl,' and another, 'Do It Anyway,' that she calls 'kind of a coach song — 'if you think you can't do it, do it anyway.'' 'Pity the Poor Man' was co-written with Natasha Bedingfield, and Simon has also set a W.H. Auden poem to music. What form the songs will take remains to be seen, Simon says. 'I didn't record it as an album,' she says. 'I just did it as a song here and a song there. We have 10 songs, an album's worth, but you don't really release albums now, so we're just going to release one by one.' Since it may not be an actual old-fangled album, Simon isn't even thinking about cover art. But as far as advice to Carpenter on how to deal with her situation, Simon says, 'Well, any press is good press, so I wouldn't worry about the press. And as far as her being salacious, I certainly don't think it's that. I mean, look at all of the people who dress much more scantily. She's so beautiful, and she should be proud of herself and the way she looks. I don't see anything wrong with that.' Taking another look at Man's Best Friend, Simon has one last thought. 'I thought it was going over the line a little bit, touching the man's knee,' she says, with a chuckle. 'I thought she didn't have to do that.' Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked
New York Post
12-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- New York Post
This ‘cloud' coffee trend is taking over TikTok — it's a great way to ‘sneak in a few extra nutrients'
Tropic like it's hot! TikTok's latest beverage craze — dubbed 'cloud' coffee, no doubt inspired by Carly Simon — is frothing up feeds with a summery twist on your standard cup of joe. The sweet elixir features coconut water instead of plain water, placing your morning brew on island time. Advertisement 3 'Cloud' coffee is frothing up feeds with a summery twist on your standard cup of joe. TikTok/@daphneoz 'Cloud' coffee can be easily made by pouring a shot of espresso over ice, adding coconut water and topping with some creamy non-dairy milk. Fans are obsessed with this tropical take on iced coffee — but does it live up to the hype? Advertisement 'This trend is basically an Americano but with coconut water swapped in for regular water, giving it a tropical, nutrient-boosted twist,' Mackenzie Burgess, a registered dietitian nutritionist and recipe developer for the Cheerful Choices blog, told The Post. While they might be minor, there are some health perks. 'Mixing coffee with coconut water can make it a bit more hydrating thanks to coconut water's electrolyte content,' she said. Advertisement 'Each brand may vary, but one cup of Vita Coco coconut water contains 470 mg of potassium, which is 10% of the daily recommended intake, and 19 mg of magnesium, which is about 5% of the daily value for adults.' Her general take? 'Overall, if you're into the flavor, it's a fun way to sneak a few extra nutrients into your morning drink,' she said. 3 'Cloud' coffee can be easily made by pouring a shot of espresso over ice, adding coconut water and topping with some creamy non-dairy milk. TikTok/@carebearsbites Advertisement Since many of us are not getting enough electrolytes, 'cloud' coffee could be a good way to supplement while you sip. 'Coconut water adds electrolytes to help with hydration, along with antioxidants that support immune health and help the body fight oxidative stress,' Burgess explained. 'It's also a lighter, more hydrating alternative to sugary creamers.' 3 'Overall, if you're into the flavor, it's a fun way to sneak a few extra nutrients into your morning drink,' a registered dietitian nutritionist said. TikTok/@caseyshappyhealthy And just when you thought the sky's the limit for coffee, you can take your cloud even higher. 'When it comes to adding a plant-based milk on top, a splash of Almond Breeze's Unsweetened Almondmilk Coconutmilk blend is a great pick — it adds creaminess without added sugar and pairs perfectly with the tropical feel of the coconut water coffee,' she said. But not everyone's taste buds will be up for this tropical trip. Advertisement 'This flavor combo might not be everyone's cup of coffee — some people find the mix of coconut water and espresso a bit unusual,' Burgess said. 'Also, some coconut waters contain higher amounts of added sugar, so it's worth checking the label if you're keeping an eye on your sugar intake.' She recommends 'choosing coconut water with 2 grams or less of added sugar — or ideally zero added sugars.' We can hear the steel drum already.
