Latest news with #ballad
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Katy Perry struggles to keep ‘composure' performing breakup song after Orlando Bloom split
She'll cry about it later. Katy Perry attempted to keep her 'composure' while performing a breakup ballad during her Inglewood, Calif., concert Tuesday. The Grammy nominee, 40, usually lets her fans choose a song for her to sing each concert. However, this time, she questioned those who voted for her to sing 'Not Like the Movies' at the Kia Forum, according to People. 'You're gonna make me sing this song in this time in my life?' she asked, referencing her and ex-fiancé Orlando Bloom's recent split. Perry said, 'OK, we'll do it! Because you voted for it. … I'm gonna try not to cry. Don't worry. I won't cry.' The singer told her fans that the 2010 release dated back to her 'first divorce' from ex-husband Russell Brand. The former couple ended their marriage in 2011 after just one year. Perry told fans, who also voted for her to perform 'The One That Got Away,' that she would 'try and hold [her] composure while sing[ing] it a week before [her] period.' Earlier this month, news broke of the songwriter and Bloom, 48, calling it quits while she was on her still-running 'Lifetimes' tour. However, their relationship was long done as Page Six reported in June that the duo was 'over.' Perry and the 'Lord of the Rings' star have been together on and off since 2016 and share a 4-year-old daughter named Daisy. They called the little one their main 'focus' while confirming their breakup via their reps earlier this month. 'They will continue to be seen together as a family, as their shared priority is — and always will be — raising their daughter with love, stability and mutual respect,' the joint statement read. Perry and Bloom have since shown off their amicable co-parenting dynamic, going on vacation together in Italy last week. The 'Pirates of the Caribbean' star even included a cozy family photo in a recent Instagram dump, which also included his and ex-wife Miranda Kerr's 14-year-old son, Flynn. Solve the daily Crossword
News.com.au
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Katy Perry struggles performing break-up song after Orlando Bloom split: ‘Try not to cry'
She'll cry about it later. Katy Perry attempted to keep her 'composure' while performing a break-up ballad during her Inglewood, California, concert Tuesday. The Grammy nominee, 40, usually lets her fans choose a song for her to sing each concert. However, this time, she questioned those who voted for her to sing Not Like the Movies at the Kia Forum, according to People. 'You're gonna make me sing this song in this time in my life?' she asked, referencing her and ex-fiance Orlando Bloom's recent split. Perry said, 'OK, we'll do it! Because you voted for it. … I'm gonna try not to cry. Don't worry. I won't cry.' The singer told her fans that the 2010 release dated back to her 'first divorce' from ex-husband Russell Brand, per Page Six. The former couple ended their marriage in 2011 after just one year. Perry told fans, who also voted for her to perform The One That Got Away, that she would 'try and hold [her] composure while sing[ing] it a week before [her] period.' Earlier this month, news broke of the songwriter and Bloom, 48, calling it quits while she was on her still-running Lifetimes tour. However, their relationship was long done as Page Six reported in June that the duo was 'over.' Perry and the Lord of the Rings star have been together on and off since 2016 and share a 4-year-old daughter named Daisy. They called the little one their main 'focus' while confirming their break-up via their reps earlier this month. 'They will continue to be seen together as a family, as their shared priority is — and always will be — raising their daughter with love, stability and mutual respect,' the joint statement read. Perry and Bloom have since shown off their amicable co-parenting dynamic, going on vacation together in Italy last week. The Pirates of the Caribbean star even included a cozy family photo in a recent Instagram dump, which also included his and ex-wife Miranda Kerr's 14-year-old son, Flynn.
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Alex Warren has a chart-topping hit with 'Ordinary.' So why is he his own 'No. 1 hater'?
Of all the pop hits vying to become the song of the summer, Alex Warren's 'Ordinary' might be the most improbable: A stark and brooding ballad full of lurid Christian imagery — 'Shatter me with your touch / Oh Lord, return me to dust,' goes one line — it's about a guy seeking the kind of sexual-spiritual fulfillment not typically found on the beach or at a barbecue. Yet the song, which has more than 720 million streams on Spotify, just logged its sixth week since early June atop Billboard's Hot 100 — more than a month longer at No. 1 than Sabrina Carpenter's 'Manchild,' to name one of the sunnier tunes soundtracking the season. (Among Warren's other competitors: Drake, who posted an image of the current chart on Instagram on Monday showing his song 'What Did I Miss?' at No. 2 behind Warren's hit. 'I'm taking that soon don't worry,' the rapper wrote.) 'Ordinary's' somber tone is all the more striking given that Warren — whose father died when he was 9 and who grew up in Carlsbad with a single mother he's described as an abusive alcoholic — first made a name for himself as a founding member of Hype House, the early-2020s conclave of TikTokers known for beaming out goofy bite-size content from a rented mansion in Los Angeles. Half a decade later, Warren is still a faithful user of his TikTok account (with its 18.8 million followers), though these days he's mostly driving attention — often with the help of his wife, fellow influencer Kouvr Annon — to his music, which combines the moody theatrics of early Sam Smith with the highly buffed textures of Imagine Dragons. On Friday, Warren will release his debut LP, 'You'll Be Alright, Kid,' featuring guest appearances by Blackpink's Rosé and by Jelly Roll, who brought Warren to the stage at April's Stagecoach festival to sing 'Ordinary' and to premiere their duet 'Bloodline.' Warren, 24, discussed his journey during a recent trip to L.A. from his new home in Nashville, where he lives not far from Jelly Roll and Teddy Swims. 'I was just texting Teddy,' Warren says as we sit down. 'I got off tour and immediately was like, 'Oh, I want to buy a go-kart.' Teddy FaceTimes me, he goes, 'You a—hole. I'm trying to buy a go-kart right now too.' Apparently, I bought the last go-kart in Tennessee.' These are excerpts from our conversation. 'Ordinary' is clearly drawing on your identity as a Christian. Yet there's something almost sacrilegious about the song. I get that criticism a lot. To me it's what makes the song interesting — the erotic energy in a line like 'You got me kissing the ground of your sanctuary.' I'm worshiping my wife in a way — she's the best thing that's ever happened to me. You can't just write a song like that and be like, 'Oh, baby, you're my everything.' Everyone's already done 'You're my world,' you know? I wanted to do something different — almost Hozier-esque. I wrote into it being like, I really love my wife, and I have a relationship with God — that's something I can compare it to. As the song has gone out, I've heard a lot of Christians' opinions on it, and some people are like, 'F— this guy.' There's also so many people who think it's a super die-hard Christian song and don't like it either. I have to be OK with both sides hating me. You've led a peculiar life, which obviously lends context to your music for anyone who knows the details. Yet 'Ordinary' is big enough now that many listeners — maybe most listeners — are hearing it without knowing anything about new song I've been teasing ['Eternity'] is about grief, and people are like, 'I can't wait to play it at my wedding.' It's cool that people are making it their own. It reminds me of Lewis Capaldi's 'Someone You Loved,' where people were like, 'Oh my God, this is a breakup record.' No, he wrote it about his grandma. Are you a Capaldi fan?I love Lewis. I don't look like a Justin Bieber/Shawn Mendes traditional pop star, but it's cool because Lewis kind of made it popular to not give a f—. Lewis and Ed [Sheeran], I would say — I mean, I've seen Ed's closet, and it's just nine white Prada T-shirts. Read more: Justin Bieber is a chill, God-fearing bro on the messy yet beautiful 'Swag' You have an unusual you — I think? It's deeper than most pop voices right now. Does it seem unusual to you?No. I asked my wife, 'Do I have a basic voice?' She was like, 'What are you talking about?' I was like, 'I live with this voice, and I think it just sounds like every other bitch.' But I'm my No. 1 hater. I went back and looked at the series Netflix made about Hype House.I'm so sorry. There's some significant fluctuations in your weight, and I was wondering how working in a visual field from a pretty young age shaped your ideas about eating and I started making money, I didn't know what to do with it and I just used DoorDash every second I could. As time went on, especially in Hype House, you have so many people's opinions and everyone's pointing out your flaws, and the weight was definitely one of them. After that I was like, "OK, how do I fix this?" I'm 24 now — I was 22, 21 at the time, and I was like, "I should be in the best shape of my life." But it definitely does take a toll on you. Even now, if you go look at my TikTok comments, thousands of people are loving me. You go on Twitter, the first 400 comments are like, 'He's so ugly,' 'His nose is crooked,' all these things. It hits a point where you have a thousand people loving you, but those two people not — you're like, "Wait, are they the ones telling me the truth? Is everyone else just gassing me up?" Kind of such a strange career. I have the Kids' Choice Awards on Saturday, and I'm like, "Should I be eating this the next few days?" Would you say you're in a good place in terms of how you think about your physical appearance?Looking in the mirror, probably not. But when it comes to having to approve a photo, I don't give a s—. I'll approve whatever, double chin and all. Is that true?Truly, I don't mind, because I don't think people are watching my videos for my attractiveness. That being said, if I was lighter, I think I'd be happier looking at myself. But at the same time, I don't care because these songs to me are more about what they're about and less about how I look. Also, it gives me some leeway if someone catches me lacking at In-N-Out. You've said you don't really drink or do drugs but that you get drunk once a year. What would be the occasion?I just got drunk with Ed Sheeran — I drank two Modelos and I got put on my ass. This was at Santa's Pub [in Nashville] — me, Noah Kahan and Ed Sheeran. They had just played something, and Ed was like, 'Do you want a drink?' I was like, "If I'm getting drunk this year, it's getting drunk with Ed Sheeran." So he gave me a Modelo, and I was like, 'Whoa, I'm feeling this.' He's like, 'OK, dude, I'm on my 11th.' He hands me a second one, and my wife had to drive me home. So I've been getting a little loose with it. But it's always beer — I don't really drink any hard stuff. Nothing against it, I've just always preferred Diet Coke. I wish I liked alcohol. I mean, you can cultivate this. It's easy to do.I've been trying. I had a sip of my friend's old fashioned. I thought it was interesting — sugary, but I liked it. Your song 'The Outside' on this new record talks about the illusory nature of happiness and success.I went into it wanting to write about the things that people go through to turn to God or another power or something to get out of their own heads. I wanted to depict people finding a sense of purpose. 'Hollywood wasn't all that she thought / City of Angels but her wings got caught / She got high enough to think she met God.'You move to L.A. to pursue a dream and you see God after doing a hallucinogenic — that's referencing a friend of mine who's now a Christian buff who did ayahuasca. The other [verse] is about health care — watching my friends who don't have it because it's so expensive. ''It's just stress,' so the doctor says / His young heart's beating out of his chest / Student loans and medical debt.'The Luigi Mangione case happened around the time we wrote that record. Luigi was in your head as you were writing?That second verse is literally about Luigi Mangione. Not to get political, but the things that I feel are necessary in life — you have to pay for it, and it causes people to turn to something like God. The song ends with me being like, 'I talk to my dad in the sky, hoping he talks to me back.' That song means a lot to me. Read more: Why Parker McCollum's new country album might be the best he'll ever make Your music is extremely tidy, which stands in contrast to the singer-songwriter mode of the Zach Bryans —And the Noah Kahans, where they're flat in some parts and it doesn't matter because the emotion's there. Why is your instinct as a musician to go for something neater?Because I don't have the luxury of being able to make what some people view as mistakes. Coming from TikTok to music, I feel like it needs to be neat — it needs to be, 'Oh my God, this guy can do this.' The next album I'm working on, it's more rugged. I'm finding different parts of my voice. I've been listening to a lot of older music too, which has been really good. Such as?Hall & Oates — dude, 'Rich Girl'? Billy Joel too. Is there still a Hype House group chat?I have a group chat with not all of them but the ones that — I'm not gonna name-drop them, but the ones getting popular with music. It was formative years in my life — my college experience, I guess. We're able to look back on it and have a moment of, like, 'That sucked, but it was also awesome.' Would people in the house have called that you and Addison Rae would be the ones to break out as musicians?No, I don't think so — especially not me. Maybe Addison — Addison has always been cool. Everyone loved Addison, even in the house, and she's always been so kind. Even to this day, she's a good friend of mine. But no one would have guessed me. I don't think anyone liked me. In the house?Just in general. The Netflix show — a lot of it was fake, but looking at that, I feel like I'm such a better person now. Are you glad that 'Ordinary' happened after the influencer moment in your life — that there's a bit of separation?I started this in 2020, 2021 — I put out my first song then, and I was still an influencer, vlogging, doing all those things. Everyone's like, 'He came out of nowhere,' and I'm like, I've been doing this for five years. But nobody cared until well after your time as an influencer — which might be a good thing, right? I'm not sure the overlap served Lil Huddy. In a weird way, you might've gotten lucky.I think about that often. I made videos with my wife — I never really made videos with the content house — and those videos were successful in their own right. I think a lot of my fans today were watching me at that time, but not for the Hype House. Actually, no, that's not true. It's hard to generalize about the audience for a song this I do is put my head down and promote the records. I'm not paying attention to the scope of things. Of course you're checking the numbers.I'm not understanding the scope besides the numbers. My monthly listeners [on Spotify], someone told me it was 50-something million — that's sick. But I can't contextualize that. If I'm walking down the street, how many people have heard the song and how many people know who I am? I know the song is big, but I'm under the assumption that the record's bigger than I am. That seems so what does that mean? I can compare it to a Lola Young, or is it a Benson Boone? I think that's two separate things right now. Also, I don't know the age demographic. If I walk into a bingo night, are they gonna know who I am? A bingo night?You know what I'm saying. The song is No. 1 on Hot AC — that's adult contemporary. Is it someone's mom? I don't know who's listening to the record. But I write songs about people passing away, and most people — no matter rich, poor, whatever — it's typically gonna be your 40-and-up who are gonna relate to that record. Kids don't necessarily deal with loss the same way. Is it weird to think that a significant portion of your audience is people twice your age?No, that's f—ing rad to me — the older audience is the hardest to grab. I think it's safe to say that most people judge notoriety on whether their mom knows who they are, right? If that's where I start, that's cool. Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword
CNA
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNA
CNA938 Rewind - Singer Narysal charms with a suite of slick & soulful R&B songs
In 'Culture Club', Melanie Oliveiro speaks with Singaporean R&B singer-songwriter Narysal, who has just released 'Falling Slowly', a ballad with vocalist Marae. He'll talk about the story behind the song as well as the appeal of another more recent single 3AM. Narysal will also talk about how he's been singing since he was in Primary School, the enduring appeal of R&B love songs and who inspires his craft. Discover more Singaporean music and musicians - like Narysal - at an initiative by the National Arts Council, produced by independent music media company Bandwagon.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How to win Eurovision, according to the experts
The Eurovision Song Contest was watched by around 163 million people last year – meaning there are potentially 163 million different opinions on what makes a perfect entrant. Do you go for a soulful ballad, guaranteed to leave Europe misty-eyed and full of love and peace? Or do you opt for a cheesy extravaganza, complete with saucy takes on regional costumes and eye-popping staging that will have the entire continent (and Australia) raving in their living rooms? Forensic musicologist at Boston's Berklee College of Music Joe Bennett has analysed hundreds of Eurovision finalists, identifying two dominant musical styles. One is the "Euro-banger" - high-energy, 120+ BPM songs with kick drums and synth-heavy production, like Sweden's winning entries Euphoria (Loreen, 2012) and Heroes (Måns Zelmerlöw, 2015). The other is the slow-burning ballad - typically around 70 BPM, such as Portugal's Amar Pelos Dois (Salvador Sobral, 2017) and the Netherlands' Arcade (Duncan Laurence, 2019). There is a cliché that Eurovision songs are only about love and peace – reinforced by a song performed during the 2016 contest's interval about writing a perfect Eurovision song, called Love Love Peace Peace. According to Bennett, there is some validity to this, with every Eurovision song falling under six broad lyrical themes: "love, unity, self-assertion, partying, history and songs about making music". He adds that "songs of self-assertion or lyrical self-empowerment do very well" - as seen with Austria's 2014 winner Rise Like a Phoenix (Conchita Wurst). Acts might be tempted to go over the top on staging, but this may not be the way to secure victory, according to our experts. Songwriter Thomas Stengaard co-wrote Denmark's 2013 winner Only Teardrops (as well as this year's UK entry What the Hell Just Happened by Remember Monday). He puts his success down, in part, to its simple staging, which he says made it easy to remember. "If you asked a kid to draw that staging, they could. It was a girl with no shoes on, two guys playing the drums and a flute guy. Very simple, but it worked." Vocal coach Carrie Grant, who led the UK's jury in 2014 and came sixth in the contest as part of Sweet Dreams in 1983, agrees. "There is nothing worse than having an artist whose stage has lots of money but their performance doesn't warrant it," she says. "It makes that performance seem worse." The 2014 winner (and Carrie's personal favourite) was Conchita Wurst – the first act to win the contest without backing singers or dancers on stage since 1970. What made Conchita stand out was that she was a bearded drag queen. Carrie believes Eurovision fans love things that are quirky and that "embrace the LGBT community". But she adds that Conchita wasn't a gimmick but instead "a brilliant singer who could deliver what we call in vocal coaching 'money moments'". Minor-key songs increasingly dominate Eurovision. Bennett debunks the idea that "major equals happy, minor equals sad", adding that "minor keys are more a shorthand for emotional depth". In 2023, 85% of finalists performed in minor keys, according to the Press Association. In the last 20 years, only two major-key songs have won - 2011's Running Scared (for Azerbaijan) and 2017's Amar Pelos Dois. Professor Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, a researcher in music cognition at Princeton, highlights source sensitivity – our instinct to associate a song's sound with its intended context. A few bars of a techno song, for example, and we have a mental image of a dark nightclub, and of the sort of DJ who might perform there. This means certain minor keys now immediately signal "Eurovision-ness" to audiences. Remember Monday's What the Hell Just Happened was written at a songwriting camp, with multiple songwriters working together at a countryside retreat to write the perfect song for this year's UK act. The song was intentionally written in a major key to stand out in a sea of minor-key songs - similar to the UK's 2022 second-place entry, Spaceman by Sam Ryder (B Major). Repetition is important to make a song stick in the mind, says Margulis. But songs should avoid being too repetitive. Margulis says that what particularly makes a song catchy is "not only when they are heard repeatedly, but also when they throw in some kind of surprise twist". Bucks Fizz's 1981 winner for the UK, Making Your Mind Up, is a classic example. First, the song changes key, quickly followed by a memorable costume change in which the female singers' skirts were ripped off to reveal shorter skirts – a joint visual and musical twist. Earlier Eurovision winners were often mocked for their nonsense lyrics, like Sweden's 1984 winner Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley, but Bennett argues this highlights Eurovision's strong focus on melody. "Eurovision really needs big melodic hooks. You want people across Europe to be singing that melody. The need for a very accessible, catchy chorus is essential." Key changes have long been a way to introduce novelty into Eurovision songs. The 2000s saw multiple winners follow this formula, including Olsen Brothers' Fly on the Wings of Love for Norway (2000), and Serbia's Molitva in 2007. But as Bennett points out, though they are still present in around a fifth of finalists, no song with a final chorus key change has won since Molitva almost 20 years ago. Stengaard's song for this year's UK act Remember Monday is certainly full of surprises. BBC music correspondent Mark Savage said the song featured "a dizzying array of key changes and tempo shifts". The song is the songwriter's answer to the question he asks himself whenever he writes for Eurovision: "How do you stand out in a contest where everyone wants to stand out?" All you need to know about the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 UK Eurovision act recreate spoof song, as contest looms 'We're a real risk': UK Eurovision stars promise not to shy away
