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      David Sanborn, Saxophonist Who Defied Pigeonholing, Dies at 78

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      He was best known as a jazz musician, but his shimmering sound was also heard on classic albums by David Bowie, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen.David Sanborn, whose fiery alto saxophone flourishes earned him six Grammy Awards, eight gold albums and a platinum one, and who established himself as a celebrity sideman, lending indelible solos to enduring rock classics like David Bowie’s “Young Americans,” died on Sunday. He was 78.He died after a long battle with prostate cancer, according to a statement on his social media channels. He had received the diagnosis in 2018 but had maintained his regular schedule of concerts until recently, with more planned for next year.The statement did not say where Mr. Sanborn died.Drawing from jazz, pop and R&B, Mr. Sanborn was highly prolific, releasing 25 albums over a six-decade career. “Hideaway” (1980), his fifth studio album, featured two instrumentals written with the singer Michael McDonald as well as “The Seduction,” written by Giorgio Moroder, which was the love theme from “American Gigolo,” the ice-cool Paul Schrader film starring Richard Gere.“Many releases by studio musicians suffer from weak compositions and overproduction, including some albums by Sanborn himself,” Tim Griggs wrote in a review of that album on the website Allmusic. In contrast, he continued, “Hideaway” had a “stripped-down, funky” quality that showed off his “passionate and distinctive saxophone sound.”Mr. Sanborn’s albums “Hearsay” (1994), “Pearls” (1995) and “Time Again” (2003) all reached No. 2 on the Billboard jazz chart.Mr. Sanborn joined Miles Davis onstage at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland in 1986. He worked with a long list of musicians, both in and out of jazz.Keystone/ReduxWe 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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      Steve Albini’s 10 Essential Recordings

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      The musician and audio engineer, who died on Tuesday at 61, gave artists including Nirvana and PJ Harvey an authentic representation of their work at a reasonable price.The Chicago noise wrangler Steve Albini’s signature recording technique was the invisible force that brought alternative rock’s most recognizable sounds to life. Preferring the term “recording engineer” to “producer,” he championed a style of elevated realism that remains as influential as the tracks he captured — most famously drum-heavy albums by Nirvana, Pixies, PJ Harvey and the Jesus Lizard.Those sessions would define his career, but Albini, who died on Tuesday at 61, was loathe to say he had a “sound.” Bands of all D.I.Y. genres — from the famous to the unknown — converged on his Electrical Audio studio seeking what he really provided: an organic, authentic and honest representation of their work at a reasonable price.Albini estimated he’d recorded “a couple thousand” albums in a 2018 interview; his productivity was related to the purity of his process. Albini sessions were done quickly and affordably. Instruments were recorded with room microphones to capture the natural reverberations of the space. Analogue gear and one-take recordings were preferred. “Anyone who has made records for more than a very short period will recognize that trying to manipulate a sound after it has been recorded is never as effective as when it’s recorded correctly in the first place,” he told Sound on Sound magazine.Here are 10 songs that demonstrate his philosophy of the studio. (Listen on Apple Music or Spotify.)Pixies, ‘Where Is My Mind’ (1988)For the first record he recorded outside of his friend circle, Albini used the buzzy Boston band Pixies as lab animals for his sonic ideas: loading its debut album, “Surfer Rosa,” with off-the-cuff studio chatter, refusing to use silence in between songs and making the bassist Kim Deal sing the reverb-soaked background vocals on “Where Is My Mind?” in the studio’s echo-y bathroom. In retrospect, Albini said his production touches were intrusive, but the next generation of alt-rock titans found them invigorating. “‘Where Is My Mind?’” later became one of the records that other bands would reference when they wanted to work with me,” he told The Guardian. “Nobody expected it to take off because no underground American band of that generation had even a fleeting notion of commercial success as a goal. People just wanted to blow minds.”The Breeders, ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun’ (1990)When Albini worked with Deal on her solo project the Breeders, “I instantly preferred it to the Pixies,” he said in the book “Fool the World: The Oral History of a Band Called Pixies.” “There was a simultaneous charm to Kim’s presentation to her music that’s both childlike and giddy and also completely mature and kind of dirty.” The band, often in pajamas, banged out its debut LP, “Pod,” in the first week of a two-week session. “Steve Albini wasn’t interested in ‘perfecting’ a song or a performance: His métier was getting the best sound from the equipment and pressing ‘record,’” the Breeders bassist Josephine Wiggs said in a 2008 news release. “He was utterly pleased with himself when mixing the record, saying, ‘Look — no EQ!’”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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      Universal Music Artists Will Return to TikTok

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      The two companies reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month stalemate that kept some of pop’s biggest stars off the platform.TikTok and Universal Music Group have reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month stalemate that had blocked songs from some of pop’s biggest stars from the influential social media platform.In a joint announcement early Thursday, the two companies said that they had agreed to a “multi-dimensional” new deal that included “improved remuneration” for Universal’s roster of artists and songwriters, and would address the label’s concerns over the growth of A.I.-generated content on the app.In statements that accompanied the announcement, Shou Chew, the chief executive of TikTok, called music “an integral part of the TikTok ecosystem.” Lucian Grainge, the chief executive of Universal — the world’s biggest music company, with a roster of artists including Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Drake and U2 — called the deal a “new chapter in our relationship with TikTok” that “focuses on the value of music, the primacy of human artistry and the welfare of the creative community.”The agreement ends the music industry’s biggest and most contentious dispute with a tech platform in years. Both companies hurled public accusations at each other, and artists from across the spectrum worried about whether their careers would be hurt by the absence of their music from TikTok, which has become a vital promotional platform and boasts more than 170 million users in the United States alone.But the deal also comes amid wider uncertainty for TikTok as the app faces a possible ban or sale in the United States because of national security concerns over the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance. Last month, President Biden signed a bill that would allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States if it was sold in nine months, though the company is expected to challenge the law in court.Universal began to withdraw permission for its music from TikTok on Feb. 1, after an impasse in negotiations to renew its previous licensing agreement. At the time, Universal said that TikTok “attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth.”Millions of videos that included Universal music — including many artists’ own official music videos — were muted on the platform. TikTok said that by withdrawing its songs, Universal had “put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.”TikTok and Universal have not commented on their negotiations since then. But the dispute seemed to shift three weeks ago, when Swift — the biggest and most influential artist on Universal’s roster — broke ranks with the label and returned her music to TikTok, ahead of the release of her most recent album.Her move may have weakened Universal’s leverage. But since the ban took effect, fans noticed that songs from many other Universal artists, including Grande and Camila Cabello, had returned, often in sped-up or slowed-down versions that may have been uploaded to the platform by fans.In their announcement, TikTok and Universal did not offer any specifics about the financial terms of their deal. The companies’ statement says they will work together to “realize new monetization opportunities” through e-commerce, and that TikTok will “invest significant resources” in building tools like data analytics and ticketing.The companies added that they were “working expeditiously” to return Universal’s music to the platform. That could take a matter of days or weeks. More

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      Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets’ Breaks Records With Blockbuster Debut

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      Only the Beatles have more No. 1 LPs now: The pop superstar reigns atop the Billboard 200 for the 14th time with the equivalent of 2.6 million album sales.There was never any doubt that Taylor Swift’s latest release, “The Tortured Poets Department,” was going to be big. The question was just how big.And the answer is, gigantic.“The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift’s 11th studio album, opens at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart with historic numbers, including huge results in streaming and vinyl sales. It is Swift’s 14th chart-topping title, tying her with Jay-Z for the second-most No. 1 albums by any act in the 68-year history of Billboard’s flagship album chart; only the Beatles, with 19, have more.In its first week out, “Tortured Poets” had the equivalent of 2.6 million album sales in the United States, according to Luminate, which tracks the data behind Billboard’s charts. That is the biggest overall first-week take for any album since Adele’s “25” in 2015, which opened with nearly 3.5 million, driven by in-store CD sales.The “equivalent” figure is a composite, based on a formula used by Luminate and Billboard to reconcile the various ways listeners now buy and consume music. And in each way, “Tortured Poets” was a smash.It sold 1.9 million copies in traditional album sales, including 859,000 for vinyl alone, which blew away Swift’s own previous record of 693,000 LPs, set just six months ago. Advance sales through Swift’s website — begun the day Swift announced the album, at the Grammy Awards — were key. She offered an array of tinted vinyl variants and CDs, some in “deluxe” versions advertised with autographs or on-brand trinkets like engraved bookmarks that went for as much as $50 apiece. According to Billboard, 1.4 million copies of the album were sold on its first day, many preordered over the last two months.The opening followed a promotional blitz that included a blanketing of social media and radio, tie-ins with streaming platforms and IRL happenings like an Easter-egg-filled library installation at a Los Angeles shopping center. “Tortured Poets” also arrived following several years of Swift’s increasing saturation of pop culture, with her Eras Tour generating an estimated $1 billion in ticket sales last year, with months left to go.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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      Mike Pinder, Founding Keyboardist of the Moody Blues, Dies at 82

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      His expertise on the electromechanical Mellotron helped define the band’s progressive sound in the 1960s and ’70s on albums like “Days of Future Passed.”Mike Pinder, the last surviving founding member of the Moody Blues, whose innovative use of the Mellotron — a predecessor of the sampler — helped make the band a pioneer of progressive rock, died on Wednesday at his home in the Sacramento area. He was 82.His son Dan confirmed the death. He said that his father had breathing difficulties and had been in hospice care for a few days.The Moody Blues were formed in 1964, with a lineup of Mr. Pinder on keyboards, Denny Laine on guitar, Graeme Edge on drums, Ray Thomas on flute and Clint Warwick on bass. The group’s “Go Now!,” sung by Mr. Laine, rose to No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.The Moody Blues at the house they shared in South London in 1965. From left: Ray Thomas, Denny Laine, Graeme Edge, Clint Warwick and Mr. Pinder.Chris Ware/Keystone Features, via Getty ImagesMr. Laine and Mr. Warwick left after the release of the band’s first album, “The Magnificent Moodies” (1965), and were replaced by Justin Hayward and John Lodge. The change in personnel set the stage for a change in direction: from R&B-tinged rock to the psychedelic, orchestral sound that the Moody Blues vividly showcased on their breakthrough 1967 album, “Days of Future Passed.”Mr. Pinder had worked as a tester in the Mellotron factory in Birmingham, England, before the Moody Blues formed. Playing the company’s Mark II model for the first time was “my first ‘man on the moon’ event,” he told the British music website Brumbeat.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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      Kathleen Hanna Reveals the Story of Her Life in ‘Rebel Girl’

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      The first draft of Kathleen Hanna’s memoir, “Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk,” was 600 pages long. As she worked to cut the manuscript, Hanna found herself excising page after page of male violence. “It’s pretty sad, if you read the book, because there’s still a lot in there,” she told me. “I had a joke with my editor about it.” Like, she’d already removed a rape and a kidnapping and a guy who threw a wine glass at her head! “What more do you want from me?”Hanna is super funny. When she takes the stage as the frontwoman of Bikini Kill, Le Tigre or the Julie Ruin, she plays a kind of punk trickster, shifting her voice to resemble a bratty Valley Girl, a demonic cheerleader, an obnoxious male fan. She is always subverting femininity and disarming bad guys with her spiky and irreverent lyrics. But when it came time to write her life story, she realized that she could not playfully twist away from her past.“I keep trying to make my rapes funny, but I have to stop doing that because they aren’t,” she writes in the book, which comes out on May 14.Kathleen Hanna at home with her dog, Terry. While writing her memoir, she was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder.OK McCausland for The New York Times“Rebel Girl” documents Hanna’s long career as an underground artist and musician, and its striking intersections with the mainstream. In the 1990s, she helped instigate the riot grrrl movement, calling girls to the front of punk venues and setting off a D.I.Y. feminist ethos that was later assimilated into a girl-power marketing trend. She was a friend of Kurt Cobain’s who scrawled the phrase “Kurt smells like Teen Spirit” on his bedroom wall, inspiring the anthem that exploded into a global phenomenon.Nineties nostalgia applies an appealingly gritty filter to that era’s underground rock scene, but it could be punishing for those who stood in opposition to its white male standard. Hanna has sometimes worried that if she put it all out there, she would be disbelieved. “I’ve been told by men: Oh, you’re just the kind of woman these things happen to, as if I have some sort of smell I’m emanating,” she said. “But I knew that other women would understand.”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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      Huey Lewis’s Music Makes ‘The Heart of Rock and Roll’

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      The new musical doesn’t take itself too seriously and has many winning moments — almost enough to eclipse the weaknesses of its story.It’s 2024, and Huey Lewis is having a moment. Just let that sink in.Lewis was an unexpected highlight of the recent Netflix documentary “The Greatest Night in Pop,” about the star-studded 1985 session where “We Are the World” was recorded. An everyman rocker, Lewis was amazed (and still is) that he was rubbing elbows with Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen. He even got to sing the part originally intended for Prince.Now comes the new Broadway show “The Heart of Rock and Roll,” which is not so much a Huey Lewis (and the News) musical as the Huey Lewis of musicals: not taking itself too seriously, doing what it does well, and just happy to be on Broadway, keeping company with starrier productions.Like most jukeboxes, “The Heart of Rock and Roll” shoehorns big hits, including “The Power of Love” and “Stuck With You,” with lesser-known tracks into a plot generic enough to accommodate them.Set in 1987, Jonathan A. Abrams’s book, based on a story by Tyler Mitchell and Abrams, centers on Bobby (Corey Cott, from the underrated “Bandstand”), an employee at an ailing cardboard box manufacturer, Stone Incorporated, in Milwaukee. Bobby works on the assembly line, but he really wants to join the sales department so he can “Be Someone,” as the show’s new song puts it. Wait, no, maybe what he really wants is to rock out with his old band, the Loop. Bobby might sing “It’s Hip to Be Square,” but deep down, does he really believe it?By now you might have noticed that dreams play a big part in “The Heart of Rock and Roll.” There are numerous references to chasing the dream, making it come true and living it, but also giving it up. Sentimentality is often ladled out, along with clichés. And Bobby, whose sole personality trait appears to be “good guy,” carries more than his share of both — he hears the fateful siren call “one last show” and lugs emotional baggage related to his “old man.” At least Cott gives Bobby a laid-back charm that’s not unlike Lewis’s own, along with his emotional big Act II aria, “The Only One.”Fortunately, there is also enough good-natured goofball humor to keep Gordon Greenberg’s production from sinking into cloying goo. Much of the levity comes from amusing supporting characters, starting with Bobby’s love interest and his boss’s daughter, Cassandra (McKenzie Kurtz, a recent Glinda in “Wicked”). She is an uber-dork with a fondness for spreadsheets, and Kurtz’s Cassandra is a daffy delight that recalls Annaleigh Ashford’s performance in “Kinky Boots.”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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      Future and Metro Boomin’s Second Joint LP Opens at No. 1

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      The Atlanta rapper and producer’s “We Still Don’t Trust You” reached the top of the Billboard 200 before the expected arrival of monster numbers from Taylor Swift next week.Future and Metro Boomin, two of the big kahunas of Atlanta hip-hop, have released a pair of joint albums in the last month — wisely getting them to market ahead of Taylor Swift’s new “The Tortured Poets Department,” which has the music industry braced for gigantic sales figures.“We Don’t Trust You,” the first LP by the rapper Future and the producer Metro Boomin, went to No. 1 three weeks ago with solid streaming numbers. “We Still Don’t Trust You,” its sequel, opens at No. 1 this week with the equivalent of 127,500 sales in the United States, largely from its 163 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate. (“We Don’t Trust You” is No. 3.)By the time next’s week’s chart lands, however, those numbers will look minuscule. “Tortured Poets,” released Friday, was credited with 1.4 million in traditional album sales — meaning CDs, vinyl LPs and full-album downloads — on its first day out, according to Billboard. That indicates a huge number of pre-orders; Swift’s website was selling the album as early as Grammy night in February, when she announced it from the stage. On Spotify alone, the songs from “Tortured Poets” were streamed 300 million times around the world, a new record on the platform.Numbers that big on Day 1 mean that Swift is on track for the biggest opening sales week of her career — more than for “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” last year (1,653,000) or “Midnights” in 2022 (1,578,000), her best so far. How high Swift’s numbers could go is anybody’s guess, but the big target is Adele’s “25,” which opened with 3,482,000 in 2015.Swift delivered “Tortured Poets” with an aggressive and far-reaching promotional plan, including tie-ins with streaming services, social media platforms and radio networks. The album was released in an array of collectible physical products, including colored vinyl and signed editions; by making it a surprise double album — bringing its standard track list to 31 songs — Swift stood to benefit from even more clicks on streaming platforms.Aside from Future and Metro Boomin, this week’s chart also includes Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” at No. 2, after two weeks at the top; Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time,” at No. 4; and Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season,” in fifth place. “Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000-2023),” a greatest-hits compilation by Linkin Park, opens at No. 6. More