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    Joey Molland of the Power-Pop Band Badfinger Dies at 77

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    He was the last remaining core member of a group that was both propelled and pigeonholed in the 1970s by its close association with the Beatles.Joey Molland, a guitarist and songwriter who was the last surviving member of Badfinger, one of the first acts signed to the Beatles’ Apple Records and a power-pop force in the early 1970s on the strength of hits like “Day After Day” and “No Matter What,” died on March 1 in St. Louis Park, Minn. He was 77.His partner, Mary Joyce, said he died in a hospital from complications of diabetes.Mr. Molland joined Badfinger — originally called the Iveys — in 1969. The band had been signed the year before as a marquee act for Apple Records, the much-publicized label formed by the Beatles in 1968 as part of the parent company Apple Corps.“Badfinger gave me the opportunity to do everything a musician could want,” Mr. Molland said in a 2020 interview with Guitar World magazine. “I got to make records. I heard my music on the radio, and I toured all over. I couldn’t believe the luck we were having. For a time, everything was great.”Apple Corps was a high-minded, if financially dubious, initiative to tap the Beatles’ millions to fund unknown talents in music, film and electronics. It was created so that, as John Lennon said at the news conference announcing the venture, “people who just want to make a film about anything don’t have to go on their knees in somebody’s office — probably yours.”This experiment in “Western Communism,” as Paul McCartney called it, involved no shortage of misfires. (The company’s retail shop, known as the Apple Boutique, hemorrhaged 200,000 pounds — the equivalent of millions in today’s dollars — in a little more than a year.) But Badfinger was a gamble that worked, and its members enjoyed their new status as rock stars.Badfinger in about 1970. From left: Pete Ham, Tommy Evans, Mike Gibbins and Mr. Molland.via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gwen McCrae, Singer Who Helped Open the Dance Floor to Disco, Dies at 81

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      Originally a gospel singer, she went on to meld soulful melodies with dance-floor-friendly grooves on songs like the 1975 Top 10 hit “Rockin’ Chair.”Gwen McCrae, whose gospel-infused R&B hits of the early 1970s like “Lead Me On” and “Rockin’ Chair” featured bouncing, dance-floor-friendly grooves that helped open the door to disco, died on Feb. 21 in Miami. She was 81.Her former husband and frequent singing partner, George McCrae, said she died in a care facility from complications of a stroke she had in 2012.Though she had her share of nationwide hits, Ms. McCrae was best known on the music scene in the Miami area, where her upbeat R&B fit perfectly with the hot nights and subtropical vibe.She released most of her best-known songs through TK Records, a regional powerhouse founded by Henry Stone that counted other proto-disco acts, like Betty Wright and KC and the Sunshine Band, among its stable.Ms. McCrae and her husband, George McCrae, in the early 1970s. After the worldwide success of his signature hit, “Rock Your Baby,” she recorded her own hit, “Rockin’ Chair.”GAB Archive/Redferns, via Getty ImagesShe began performing with Mr. McCrae as a duo. They recorded their own albums, sang backup on others and carved a presence for themselves in the clubs of South Florida.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      7 New Songs You Should Hear Now

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      Hear new music from Doechii, Valerie June, Perfume Genius and others.Doechii performing at the Grammys.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersDear listeners,Did any musician have a better February than Doechii?* Going into this month, the Tampa, Fla., rapper and self-proclaimed Swamp Princess was a rising star but hardly a household name. Then on Feb. 2, she had a breakout night at the Grammys, giving an unforgettable (and impressively gymnastic) performance that showcased the full scope of her artistic vision, pulling off an upset win in the best rap album category for her razor-sharp “Alligator Bites Never Heal” and giving one of the night’s most memorable, emotional speeches. If you didn’t know her in January, you know her now.But as Doechii makes clear on “Nosebleeds,” an audacious one-off single she dropped just hours after her triumphant Grammy night, she was fully prepared to win that award. “Will she ever lose?” she ponders on the track with her signature cartoonish bite, before offering an answer straight out of another famous Grammy speech: “I guess we’ll never know.”Doechii’s bold, keyed-up victory lap kicks off this eclectic roundup of some of the most notable new songs released in February, though it eventually segues into some softer sounds from the indie-rock group Mamalarky, the alt-country staple Waxahatchee, and the ambient folk composer William Tyler, among others. What would happen if you didn’t have any new music to listen to this month? I guess we’ll never know.Cut my mic off ’cause I’m ’bout to misbehave,Lindsay*OK, maybe Kendrick Lamar, but that’s the only other acceptable answer!Listen along while you read.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Smurfs’ Trailer Shows Rihanna as Smurfette and Promises New Music

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      The first preview of the animated feature shows the singer in her “blue era” and assures fans that new songs from her will be featured on the soundtrack.Music superstar, beauty mogul, fashion designer and … Smurfette? Rihanna’s next big role may not be what you were expecting.On Thursday, Paramount released a trailer for “Smurfs,” giving us a first look at the singer as the elflike, blonde-haired, blue-skinned creature. In an animation style that blends smooth 3-D rendering with elements that evoke the classic hand-drawn cartoons, Smurfette leads her cohort into the real, live-action world on a quest to Paris to find Papa Smurf after he mysteriously disappears.The trailer begins with Rihanna, in human form, addressing the audience.“I can’t wait for you all to see it this summer,” she says, with sunglasses largely covering her Smurf-blue eye shadow. She had teased the trailer in an Instagram post on Wednesday, which was a short video captioned “in my blue era.”The animated movie also features an ensemble cast including Nick Offerman, Natasha Lyonne, Amy Sedaris, Nick Kroll and Dan Levy, and is directed by Chris Miller, who previously helmed “Shrek the Third” and “Puss in Boots.” It will be a musical-comedy reboot of ‘The Smurfs’ film franchise, which last had an installment with “Smurfs: The Lost Village” in 2017.In addition to playing Smurfette, Rihanna is a producer on the movie. But, in what will most likely be the biggest news for her fans, who have been clamoring for more music since her album “Anti” was released in 2016, the trailer ends with a message advising people to “presave” the movie’s soundtrack, which will feature new music from Rihanna.It also says the movie will include the song “Higher Love,” recorded by Desi Trill and featuring DJ Khaled, Cardi B, Natania and Subhi.“Smurfs” is set to release on July 18. More

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      Timotheé Chalamet and the Stars of ‘A Complete Unknown’ Pack NYC Premiere: Photos

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      “I saw him,” said Charlotte Barbié, 18, who stood outside the SVA Theater on Friday night, shaking from either the cold or the excitement. “He was blond.”She indicated her white Adidas sneaker had just been signed in black marker by the actor Timothée Chalamet.Ms. Barbié stood among a gaggle of young fans who shrieked when Mr. Chalamet arrived at the New York premiere of “A Complete Unknown,” the Bob Dylan biopic in which he stars that has been nominated for three Golden Globes.The premiere took place just down West 23rd Street from the fabled Manhattan hotel where Mr. Dylan had lived 60 years earlier. The film, directed by James Mangold, traces Mr. Dylan’s arrival in New York as a teenager and his ascent through the Greenwich Village music scene.Mr. Chalamet sang live in the movie and said he had spent five years working with a harmonica coach to nail the singer’s mannerisms. Although his dark hair is tousled to Dylanesque proportions in the film, on Friday, it was blond and straight, sticking out from a turquoise beanie. Mr. Chalamet appeared to be dressed as Mr. Dylan had at a Sundance Film Festival appearance in 2003 for the premiere of the film “Masked and Anonymous,” which the musician starred in and co-wrote.“A Complete Unknown,” which will be released in theaters on Dec. 25, is based on the 2015 book “Dylan Goes Electric!” by Elijah Wald, which recounts the years leading up to Mr. Dylan’s polarizing performance with electric instruments at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Miho Nakayama, Japanese Music and Movie Star, Dies at 54

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      A top-selling pop singer as a teenager in the 1980s, she also had an award-winning career as a dramatic actress.Miho Nakayama, a reigning J-pop star of the 1980s who broke through to become a critically acclaimed dramatic actress and gained international attention for her starring role in the sentimental Japanese drama “Love Letter,” died on Friday at her home in Tokyo. She was 54.Ms. Nakayama was found dead in a bathtub, according to a statement from her management company. The statement added, “We are still in the process of confirming the cause of death and other details.”The Japan Times reported that Ms. Nakayama had canceled an appearance at a Christmas concert in Osaka, Japan, scheduled for that same day, citing health issues.Born in the city of Saku in Nagano Prefecture on May 4, 1970, and raised in Tokyo, Ms. Nakayama — known by the affectionate nickname Miporin — rocketed to fame in 1985, becoming one of Japan’s most successful idols, as popular young entertainers there are known, with the release of her first single, “C.” That same year, she took home a Japan Record Award for best new artist.She exploded on both the big and small screens that same year with starring roles in the comedy-drama series “Maido Osawagase Shimasu” (roughly, “Sorry to Bother You All the Time”) and the film “Bi Bappu Haisukuru” (“Be-Bop High School”), an action comedy set on a dystopian campus filled with uniformed schoolgirls and brawling schoolboys.Such stories were popular teenage fare at the time, as evidenced by her subsequent role in “Sailor Fuku Hangyaku Doumei” (“The Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance”), a television series that made its debut in 1986, in which Ms. Nakayama played a member of a group of martial arts-savvy girls who squared off against wrongdoers at a violence-marred high school.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Is the Real ‘Wicked’ Movie the Press Tour?

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThe film adaptation of the Broadway musical “Wicked” has been long in the works and perhaps anticipated for even longer. Starring Ariana Grande (billed as Ariana Grande-Butera) as Galinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, it is an ornate adventure that serves as a sort of prequel to “The Wizard of Oz.” (It is also the first of two films; the second one will be released next November.)Grande and Erivo have been praised for their performances onscreen, but they have also been performing in a parallel show, making viral magic on the press tour. The result has been a film rollout that at times feels louder than the film itself.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about how “Wicked” survived the transition from stage to film, how Grande and Erivo inscribed new narrative into their roles, and how the real film may well be Grande and Erivo’s public appearances.Guest:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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      Peggy Caserta, Who Wrote a Tell-All About Janis Joplin, Dies at 84

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      Her Haight-Ashbury clothing store was ground zero for the counterculture. But she was best known for a tawdry book — which she later disavowed — published after Ms. Joplin’s death.Peggy Caserta, whose funky Haight-Ashbury clothing boutique was a magnet for young bohemians and musicians, and who exploited her relationship with Janis Joplin in a much-panned 1973 memoir that she later disavowed, died on Nov. 21 at her home in Tillamook, Ore. She was 84.Her partner and only immediate survivor, Jackie Mendelson, confirmed the death but did not specify a cause.The Louisiana-born Ms. Caserta was 23 and working at a Delta Air Lines office in San Francisco when she decided to open a clothing store for her cohort, the lesbians in her neighborhood. She found an empty storefront on Haight Street, near the corner of Ashbury, which she rented for $87.50 a month.At first Ms. Caserta sold jeans, sweatshirts and double-breasted denim blazers that her mother made. Then she added Levi’s pants, which a friend turned into flares by inserting a triangle of denim into the side seams. When the friend couldn’t keep up with the orders, Ms. Caserta persuaded Levi Strauss & Company to make them.She named the place Mnasidika (pronounced na-SID-ek-ah), after a character in a poem by Sappho. “It’s a Greek girls’ name,” Ms. Caserta told The San Francisco Examiner in 1965, for an article about the “new bohemians” colonizing the Haight-Ashbury district.Ms. Caserta was 23 when she opened a clothing store, Mnasidika, in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.via Wyatt MackenzieWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Interview’: K-Pop Trained Rosé to Be ‘a Perfect Girl.’ Now She’s Trying to Be Herself.

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      South Korean pop, known as K-pop, is not just a type of music — it’s a culture, where bold style, perfectly choreographed dance moves and ebullient earworms that draw from pop, hip-hop and traditional Korean music attract a huge and particularly devoted global fan base. The genre’s stars, known as idols, are trained, often for years, by entertainment companies that then place the most promising trainees in groups, write and produce their music and obsessively manage their public images. It’s a system that works for the idols who make it big, but it has also drawn criticism for its grueling methods, which some call exploitative.One of the biggest stars to come out of that system is Rosé. Born Roseanne Park, she trained for four years with one of K-pop’s largest agencies, YG Entertainment, eventually breaking through as part of the girl group Blackpink. Now at age 27, she is striking out on her own with her first full-length solo album, “Rosie,” which comes out on Dec. 6 from Atlantic Records. (The album’s first single, “APT.” a collaboration with Bruno Mars, is a true bop and has made history as the first track by a female K-pop artist to break into the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.) She is still a member of Blackpink, and the group re-signed with YG in 2023. But after years of singing other people’s songs and performing as Rosé, which she described to me as “a character that I really worked hard on as a trainee,” writing her own songs for this solo album has made her think about where she came from and who she is, separate from the system that turned her into a global phenomenon.Listen to the Conversation With RoséThe Blackpink star talks about striking out on her own, away from the system that turned her into a global phenomenon.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppYou’re about to release your first full-length solo album. Can you tell me what you’re feeling? Like I’ve been waiting to release this album for my whole life. I grew up listening to a lot of female artists. I used to relate to them, and they used to really get me through a lot of tough times. And so I would always dream of one day having an album myself. But I never really thought it would be realistic. I remember last year when I first began the whole process of it, I doubted myself a lot.It probably would be surprising to anyone who would look at Rosé, with all your success, with the enormous fan base that you have, to know that you doubted yourself so much. I don’t think I ever learned or trained myself to be vulnerable and open and honest. So that was the part I feared, because it was the opposite of what I was trained to do.You were born in New Zealand to South Korean immigrant parents and then you moved to Australia when you were 8. In 2012, when you were 15, you auditioned for a slot in YG Entertainment’s trainee program, which is basically a boarding school for becoming a K-pop star. It was your dad’s idea, right? Yes. More