Category: Music

The 66th annual Grammy Awards, taking place on Sunday at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, is poised to be a big night for young women.

SZA is the top nominee, with nine nods for her album “SOS,” which topped the Billboard 200 for 10 straight weeks. Taylor Swift, who rocked the entertainment world with her record-breaking Eras Tour, and Olivia Rodrigo, the 20-year-old singer-songwriter with a proclivity for rock, are both competing with SZA for the three major all-genre categories: best album, record and song. Joining them are a host of other female artists, including boygenius, Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish and Victoria Monét. The sole male performer contending for the top three competitions? Jon Batiste.

But the biggest winner of the night could be the musicians behind “Barbie,” Greta Gerwig’s meditation on what it means to be a woman today. The film’s soundtrack garnered 11 nominations across seven categories, with a mix of artists that includes Eilish, Dua Lipa, Nicki Minaj and Sam Smith.

This emphasis on female representation is notable because the Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammys, has been criticized in the past for failing to adequately recognize women. In recent years, the Grammys have worked to bring in a younger, more diverse membership, with the goal of making the voting process more transparent and fair.

The awards show on Sunday will honor recordings released from Oct. 1, 2022 through Sept. 15, 2023. Here’s how to watch and what to expect.

What time does it all start?

The ceremony will air live on Sunday, at 8 p.m. Eastern time (5 p.m. Pacific time) on CBS and stream on Paramount+. Subscribers to Paramount+ with Showtime will have access to the real-time stream via the live feed of their local CBS affiliate on the service, as well as on demand in the United States, while Paramount+ Essential subscribers will only have access to on-demand the day after the special airs.

Before the prime-time event, the premiere ceremony, where nearly all of the prizes will be given out, will air at 3:30 p.m. Eastern (12:30 p.m. Pacific) on live.grammy.com and the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel. That ceremony will by hosted by the songwriter Justin Tranter and feature performances from Brandy Clark (a six-time nominee this year), Robert Glasper and Laufey, among others.

Who is hosting?

Trevor Noah, formerly host of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central, will return for the fourth straight year.

Who are the top contenders?

Just behind SZA’s nine nominations, the R&B singer Monét and the indie rocker Phoebe Bridgers of boygenius both have seven, while Batiste, boygenius, the Americana singer-songwriter Clark, Cyrus, Eilish, Rodrigo and Swift have six nods apiece.

SZA’s “Kill Bill,” Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” Rodrigo’s “Vampire,” Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” from the “Barbie” soundtrack and “Flowers” by Cyrus are up for both record and song of the year. Batiste’s “Worship” is up for record, and “Butterfly” for song.

Releases by Batiste, Cyrus, Rodrigo, Swift and SZA will compete for best album, alongside boygenius’s “The Record,” Lana Del Rey’s “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” and Janelle Monáe’s “The Age of Pleasure.”

Best record is rounded out by boygenius’s “Not Strong Enough” and Monét’s “On My Mama,” while song’s entrants include Del Rey’s “A&W” and Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night.”

The competition for best new artist pits Monét against Gracie Abrams, Fred again.., Ice Spice, Jelly Roll, Coco Jones, Noah Kahan and the War and Treaty.

Who was snubbed?

There was no best new artist nomination for Peso Pluma, a Mexican star who had a breakout year in 2023. Last year’s top country artists, such as Morgan Wallen (who had Billboard’s best-selling album of the year) and Oliver Anthony Music (who rocketed to No. 1 with “Rich Men North of Richmond”) were also notably absent from this year’s top categories. And Paul Simon’s “Seven Psalms” surprisingly did not receive any all-genre nominations despite being the kind of soulful and musically complex project Grammy voters typically eat up.

Who will present?

This year’s presenters include Christina Aguilera, Lenny Kravitz, Lionel Richie, Mark Ronson, Maluma, Meryl Streep, Samara Joy, Taylor Tomlinson and Oprah Winfrey.

Who will hit the stage?

The show will feature performances from nominated artists, including Eilish, SZA, Lipa, Rodrigo, Travis Scott, U2, Luke Combs, Burna Boy and Joni Mitchell, who will be making her Grammy debut. Billy Joel will perform his first pop song in nearly two decades.

What are the new categories?

The 66th Grammys will feature three new categories: best African music performance, best alternative jazz album and best pop dance recording.

Who might make history?

All eyes will be on Swift as she seeks to win album of the year for a fourth time, which would make her the first four-time champ at 34 years old. “Anti-Hero” could also take both record and song of the year, two categories she has not won yet despite her many nominations. SZA could win album of the year for “SOS,” which would make her the first Black woman to win the award in 25 years.

Wayne Kramer, whose explosive guitar playing with the influential Detroit band the MC5 in the late 1960s and early ’70s helped set the template for punk rock, died on Friday. He was 75.

His death was announced in a post on his official Instagram account, which said the cause was pancreatic cancer. It did not say where he died.

The MC5 (short for Motor City Five) formed in Lincoln Park, Mich., in 1965.

Mr. Kramer and Fred (Sonic) Smith teamed to provide the twin-guitar attack that was at the heart of the band’s sound and the centerpiece of its notoriously loud and frenetic live performances.

In ranking Mr. Kramer and Mr. Smith, together, at No. 225 last year on its list of the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, Rolling Stone said the two “worked together like the pistons of a powerful engine” to “kick their band’s legendarily high-energy jams deep into space while simultaneously keeping one foot in the groove.”

The band, which also featured the vocalist Rob Tyner, the bassist Michael Davis and the drummer Dennis Thompson, splintered in the early 1970s after just two studio albums.

Its debut album, “Kick Out the Jams,” a live set recorded at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit in 1968, is considered one of the most influential albums of its era. It inspired generations of musicians, including the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Ramones and Queens of the Stone Age.

Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine said on Instagram on Friday that Mr. Kramer and the MC5 “basically invented punk rock music.”

Mr. Kramer was arrested on drug charges in 1975 and sentenced to four years in prison.

In 2009, after he returned to performing and recording as a solo artist, he established Jail Guitar Doors U.S.A., a nonprofit that donates musical instruments to inmates and offers songwriting workshops in prisons, in partnership with his wife, Margaret, and the British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg.

The name comes from “Jail Guitar Doors,” a song by the Clash that opens with a line about Mr. Kramer’s struggles with substance abuse and the law: “Let me tell you about Wayne and his deals of cocaine.”

“The guitar can be the key that unlocks the cell,” Mr. Kramer told High Times in 2015. “It can be the key that unlocks the prison gate, and it could be the key that unlocks the rest of your life to give you an alternative way to deal with things.”

A full obituary will follow.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “K-pop”? Is it the global boy band phenomenon BTS, wearing studded jackets and dancing in perfect sync? Or the girl group Blackpink, performing at Coachella in trendy fashions and perfectly curled hair?

How about an “independent music collective” of casually dressed people, crowded around a mixing board in a one-room studio, across the street from a Seoul restaurant specializing in fried chicken?

“Give me some more bass,” said Omega Sapien, a vocalist with electric-green hair and grills, swaying his hips and grunting to the beat. The studio was cluttered with art, vinyl records, dumbbells and other odds and ends. Another singer lay prone nearby, nursing a bad hangover.

For Balming Tiger, this is daily life as an alternative K-pop band. Their music, a fusion of diverse genres from electro to hip-hop, is funky and edgy. Their look, unkempt and grungy, is far from the professional styling of the groups that most of the world associates with K-pop.

But they claim that label, too. K-pop is any music that comes out of South Korea, according to Omega Sapien. “Everything in that realm is K-pop,” he said.

Is it?

“K-pop” is shorthand for Korean popular music, but it is often taken to mean something more specific: the boy bands and girl groups whose members are known as idols (partly because of their fiercely devoted fan bases). Their music tends to be formulaically structured, the performances tightly choreographed. Management companies invest millions in these acts and exercise strict control over the final product.

But in South Korea, it is not the most popular kind of music. Idol groups are far outnumbered by independent and alternative artists, according to government and industry data. Hyukoh, a four-member band from Seoul’s hip Hongdae neighborhood, and Leenalchi are two other well-known local alternative acts.

“These days, I get the sense that when most people hear the term K-pop — and by ‘most people,’ I mean people around the world and not just in Korea — they often just think of girl groups and boy bands that fit a particular mold,” said Regina Kim, a New York-based journalist who writes about Korean pop culture. When she was growing up in New Haven, Conn., Ms. Kim said, R&B and dance music from South Korea were also thought of as K-pop.

In 2023, almost a quarter of South Koreans attended a live concert, on- or offline, by an independent artist, according to a survey by the Korea Creative Content Agency. The same report found that ballads, not idol-group pop, made up the nation’s favorite genre, with over half of respondents identifying that slower-paced, less flashy category as the one they listened to the most.

Although Balming Tiger identifies as K-pop, they do not consider themselves idols. “Even if we wanted to be like idols, we can’t,” said Chanhee, a vocalist who also works on the group’s styling, videos and photography.

“It’s our imperfections that actually make us more attractive,” said another vocalist, Sogumm, one of two women in the group. “I want people to see us and think ‘K-pop is cool,’ not just in the frame of being pretty and handsome, but being something that appeals to a diverse audience.” It’s not the staggering levels of fame they are after, but rather, a wider acceptance and embrace of their version of K-pop. They are already succeeding by many measures, having just wrapped up a tour of Europe, Asia and the Americas late last year, all without the financial backing or marketing power of Seoul’s large entertainment companies.

Balming Tiger — the name comes from Tiger Balm, a Singaporean ointment — started out as a party crew, organizing events with DJs around Seoul.

Singers and producers gradually came onboard, and they evolved into a full-fledged performing act. Chanhee and Omega Sapien both left school to devote themselves to the group full time. (“At first, I lied to my mom, saying I had to take a break from school to go into the military,” Chanhee said.) They released their first album in 2021.

A grass-roots origin story like that is practically unheard of in the world of idols. The vast majority of them audition for a management company and then, if they make it, undergo rigorous training that can last years.

The companies’ authority over the groups goes beyond the music. Many idols are told what they can and cannot say in public; sometimes their diets are even monitored. Some idols have said that they were told not to date because their most devoted fans would feel upset or betrayed if they did.

The marketing works, said Daniel Anderson, a K-pop writer based in Seattle. Many fans are drawn to the personas that the companies create for the idols. “They know how to build and construct these stories,” he said.

“People will latch onto these narratives that could be genuine, but a lot of times these images are crafted,” Mr. Anderson said. “What they wear, what they say, who’s the funny one, who’s the introverted one.”

But at the same time, he said, “fans want these idols to be more authentic.”

Some observers of K-pop say its unyielding value system reflects a broader social pressure in South Korea that allows for no mistakes. The results can be compelling, as Ms. Kim, the journalist, noted. “Watching a K-pop music video often feels like you’re watching a short Hollywood movie with high production value, insanely good-looking people and amazing choreography,” she said.

But so many idol groups have entered the market in recent years that it is getting harder to stand out, said Shin Cho, the domestic marketing director and head of K-pop and its Japanese counterpart, J-pop, at Warner Music Korea.

“People were one-upping each other on the ‘perfect’ scale,” Mr. Cho said.

One way of standing out in that environment might be to do things yourself. Balming Tiger’s “collective” has 11 members, including people behind the scenes — producers, a writer, videographers. The music, videos and choreography are all theirs.

For the main dance move in one of their songs, “BuriBuri,” they simply stretch their arms out to the sides and sway their hips. “This isn’t something that professional choreographers would have come up with,” Omega Sapien said during a rehearsal in December. “It’s organic and comes from us. It’s better.”

The group members, back in their regular stomping grounds, are now performing around South Korea and working on new music. Whatever it ends up sounding like, they’ll consider it K-pop.

“K-pop has an edge, which is what is breaking through the market,” Omega Sapien said. “We are adding a different layer to that edge, which will be our legend and asset that we pass on to future generations.”

A measure of inflation closely watched by the Federal Reserve continued to cool in December, the latest sign that price increases are coming back under control even as growth remains solid and the labor market healthy. In particularly positive news, a key gauge of price increases dipped below 3 percent for the first time since early 2021.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index picked up 2.6 percent last month compared with a year earlier. That was in line with what economists had forecast and matched the November reading.

But after stripping out food and fuel costs, which can move around from month to month, a “core” price index climbed 2.9 percent from December 2022. That followed a 3.2 percent November reading, and was the coolest since March 2021.

Fed officials aim for 2 percent price increases, so today’s inflation remains elevated. Still, it is much lower than its roughly 7 percent peak in 2022. In their latest economic projections, central bankers predicted that inflation would cool to 2.4 percent by the end of the year.

As inflation progresses back to target, policymakers have been able to dial back their campaign to slow down the economy. Fed officials have raised interest rates to a range of 5.25 to 5.5 percent, up sharply from near zero as recently as early 2022. But they have held borrowing costs steady at that level since July — forgoing a final rate increase that they had previously predicted — and have signaled that they could cut interest rates several times this year.

Officials are trying to complete the process of setting the economy down gently, without inflicting serious economic pain, in what is often called a “soft landing.”

“The punchline here is that the data is still consistent with a relatively soft landing, at least for now,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, head of U.S. rates strategy at TD Securities. Between strong growth and milder inflation, “they’re getting the best of both worlds.”

Now, investors are watching closely to see when, and how much, policymakers will lower borrowing costs.

Fed officials are toeing a delicate line as they decide what to do next. Keeping rates too high for too long could risk cooling the economy more than is strictly necessary. But lowering them prematurely could allow the economy to reheat, making it harder to bring inflation fully under control.

Fed policymakers meet next week, and officials are expected to leave interest rates unchanged when that gathering concludes on Wednesday. Still, markets will closely watch a news conference with Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, for any hint at what might come next.

Mr. Powell may offer insight into how the Fed is thinking about the interplay between growth and inflation. The economy is still growing at a solid pace and unemployment is very low, which many economic models would suggest could cause inflation to pick back up.

Friday’s report showed that consumption climbed more than economists had expected in December, for instance, especially after adjusting for cool inflation.

But so far, price increases have continued to moderate despite the momentum. That has come as the labor market balances out, supply chain problems tied to the pandemic clear and rent increases fall toward more normal levels.

Given that, officials have been more focused on actual price figures in recent months as they talked about the policy outlook. But they still take growth into account when they are thinking about policy.

Rapid growth is “only a problem insofar as it makes it more difficult for us to achieve our goals,” Mr. Powell said in December. “It probably will place some upward pressure on inflation. That could mean that it takes longer to get to 2 percent inflation. That could mean we need to keep rates higher for longer.”

Fake, sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift likely generated by artificial intelligence spread rapidly across social media platforms this week, disturbing fans who saw them and reigniting calls from lawmakers to protect women and crack down on the platforms and technology that spread such images.

One image shared by a user on X, formerly Twitter, was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended on Thursday. X suspended several accounts that posted the faked images of Ms. Swift, but the images were shared on other social media platforms and continued to spread despite those companies’ efforts to remove them.

While X said it was working to remove the images, fans of the pop superstar flooded the platform in protest. They posted related keywords, along with the sentence “Protect Taylor Swift,” in an effort to drown out the explicit images and make them more difficult to find.

Reality Defender, a cybersecurity company focused on detecting A.I., determined with 90 percent confidence that the images were created using a diffusion model, an A.I.-driven technology accessible through more than 100,000 apps and publicly available models, said Ben Colman, the company’s co-founder and chief executive.

As the A.I. industry has boomed, companies have raced to release tools that enable users to create images, videos, text and audio recordings with simple prompts. The A.I. tools are wildly popular but have made it easier and cheaper than ever to create so-called deepfakes, which portray people doing or saying things they have never done.

Researchers now fear that deepfakes are becoming a powerful disinformation force, enabling everyday internet users to create nonconsensual nude images or embarrassing portrayals of political candidates. Artificial intelligence was used to create fake robocalls of President Biden during the New Hampshire primary, and Ms. Swift was featured this month in deepfake ads hawking cookware.

“It’s always been a dark undercurrent of the internet, nonconsensual pornography of various sorts,” said Oren Etzioni, a computer science professor at the University of Washington who works on deepfake detection. “Now it’s a new strain of it that’s particularly noxious.”

“We are going to see a tsunami of these A.I.-generated explicit images. The people who generated this see this as a success,” Mr. Etzioni said.

X said it had a zero-tolerance policy toward the content. “Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them,” a representative said in a statement. “We’re closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed, and the content is removed.”

X has seen an increase in problematic content including harassment, disinformation and hate speech since Elon Musk bought the service in 2022. He has loosened the website’s content rules and fired, laid off or accepted the resignations of staff members who worked to remove such content. The platform also reinstated accounts that had been previously banned for violating rules.

Although many of the companies that produce generative A.I. tools ban their users from creating explicit imagery, people find ways to break the rules. “It’s an arms race, and it seems that whenever somebody comes up with a guardrail, someone else figures out how to jailbreak,” Mr. Etzioni said.

The images originated in a channel on the messaging app Telegram that is dedicated to producing such images, according to 404 Media, a technology news site. But the deepfakes garnered broad attention after being posted on X and other social media services, where they spread rapidly.

Some states have restricted pornographic and political deepfakes. But the restrictions have not had a strong impact, and there are no federal regulations of such deepfakes, Mr. Colman said. Platforms have tried to address deepfakes by asking users to report them, but that method has not worked, he added. By the time they are flagged, millions of users have already seen them.

“The toothpaste is already out of the tube,” he said.

Ms. Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine, did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Thursday.

The deepfakes of Ms. Swift prompted renewed calls for action from lawmakers. Representative Joe Morelle, a Democrat from New York who introduced a bill last year that would make sharing such images a federal crime, said on X that the spread of the images was “appalling,” adding: “It’s happening to women everywhere, every day.”

“I’ve repeatedly warned that AI could be used to generate non-consensual intimate imagery,” Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said of the images on X. “This is a deplorable situation.”

Representative Yvette D. Clarke, a Democrat from New York, said that advancements in artificial intelligence had made creating deepfakes easier and cheaper.

“What’s happened to Taylor Swift is nothing new,” she said.