Or more accurately, the first 10 times. As soon as I finished listening to the impossibly tender “It’s Okay To Cry,” the first track from her momentous 2018 album Oil Of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, I pressed the back button and listened to it again. And again and again and again. Where had this song been my whole life? A lot of people felt and still feel this way about Sophie, which made her death in 2021 all the more tragic. But her influence can still be felt today.
FKA Twigs called Sophie “a star of our generation.” To Rina Sawayama, she was “an icon,” while Vince Staples praised her for not being “afraid to be who she was, to wear what she wanted, to say what she wanted, to play what she wanted.” Sophie was a pop visionary, an electronic music icon, a trans trailblazer, someone who made an impact on the underground and the mainstream with her kitchen-sink production and vulnerable songwriting. The amount of everything happening all at once in her songs — clangs, bloops (bipps?), screeches — should have led to a pile-up of noise, but Sophie was a skilled enough producer to turn the clatter into something profound.
“I think all pop music should be about who can make the loudest, brightest thing,” Sophie once said. “The challenge I’m interested in being part of is who can use current technology, current images and people, to make the brightest, most intense, engaging thing.”
Sophie’s bright, intense, engaging deconstructed pop found fans in Madonna (she co-wrote “Bitch I’m Madonna”), Kim Petras, Mykki Blanco, Arca, St. Vincent, and Caroline Polachek, who considered Sophie a “complete embodiment of the contemporary diva.” She dedicated “I Believe,” a standout track from 2023’s acclaimed Desire, I Want to Turn Into You album, to her.
Sophie’s beautifully brash imprint can still be heard across the indie and pop genre-smashing landscape, including the songs of 100 gecs (“it’s impossible to overstate the influence Sophie had on me and countless others, musically and otherwise,” one-half of the duo, Laura Les, wrote as a tribute) and on one of 2024’s most defining albums.
Charli XCX’s career can be separated into two eras. Before Sophie, she was the “I Love It” and “Bloom Clap” girl. Once Sophie entered into her orbit, she began to shape pop in strange, new directions, beginning with the thrillingly brash Vroom Vroom EP, and later, Number 1 Angel and Pop 2. “She believed in me in ways that I didn’t believe [in] myself,” Charli told The Face earlier this year. There might be no Brat, or “Brat summer,” without Sophie.
There’s a new Sophie album out this week. It’s called Sophie, and it includes collaborations with many of her close friends. There’s Kim Petras on the pulsating “Reason Why,” Hannah Diamond on the lovely “Always and Forever,” and Bibi Bourelly on the Rihanna-like “Exhilarate.” The posthumous release came with the blessing of Sophie’s family. “Sophie didn’t often speak publicly of her private life, preferring to put everything she wanted to articulate in her music. It feels only right to share with the world the music she hoped to release, in the belief that we can all connect with her in this, the form she loved most,” they wrote when the album was announced. “Sophie gave all of herself to her music. It’s here that she can always be found.”
Sophie is part of the collective healing process, but for all its strengths, the album can’t help but feel incomplete because Sophie’s life was incomplete. She wouldn’t want us mourning what happened, however — to truly honor Sophie, listen to the music she left behind, and the music from her spiritual disciples to come. “I think if this album does anything, it’s about her legacy not being associated with something purely in the past,” her sister Emily told The New York Times. “That’s my real hope. I think that there’s a part of her in the future.”
It’s okay to cry about Sophie’s passing, but it’s also okay to feel joy that she was in our lives at all.
Sophie is out now. You can find more information here.
iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Tour season is nearly upon us. Today (September 27), the annual multi-city run was announced, including its beloved New York City stop.
As its official sponsor, Capital One cardholders will get granted first access to tickets and exclusive experiences during the Capital One pre-sale beginning on Tuesday, October 1 at 10 a.m. local time. The general on-sale will launch on Friday, October 4 at noon local time. Find more information here.
If you aren’t able to secure a ticket to one of the tour stops, iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Tour will air as part of a special on ABC on December 18. The following day, the special will be available to stream on Hulu. Continue below to view the entire 2024 Jingle Ball Tour schedule.
iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Tour 2024 Dates
12/03 — Fort Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena
12/06 — Los Angeles, CA @ Intuit Dome
12/09 — Chicago, IL @ Allstate Arena
12/10 — Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
12/13 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
12/15 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
12/16 — Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
12/17 — Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
12/19 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
12/21 — Miami, FL @ Kaseya Center
Drake has long been connected with the sports world, most notably via his love (and since 2013, official role as an ambassador) for the NBA’s Toronto Raptors. Now, he’s honoring some of his home city’s most beloved athletes as his brand October’s Very Own (OVO) announces the “Hometown Heroes Collection.”
OVO
The new merch drop honors “the legendary athletes who have shaped the city’s sports and culture,” per a press release. The ten-piece collection includes hoodies, t-shirts, and basketball and hockey jerseys featuring OVO branding, in partnership with the Raptors and the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs.
OVO is launching the collection with a campaign highlighting three Toronto favorites: former Toronto Maples Leafs captain Mats Sundin and former Raptors Muggsy Bogues and Morris Peterson.
OVO
The Hometown Heroes collection will be able to shop on the OVO website and at OVO flagship stores in the US, Canada, and UK, starting today, September 27, at 10 a.m. ET. Prices range from $68 to $198 USD.
Meanwhile, it was recently reported that on multiple occasions, Drake has turned down an invitation to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Jamil “Mal” Clay of the New Rory & Mal podcast claimed, “Drake has been offered the Super Bowl show for some years now and has turned it down. Probably four years, he’s been offered to perform at the Super Bowl, said no for whatever reason.”
Billy Strings is a man of many talents: A preternaturally skilled guitarist, a soulful singer, a thoughtful interpreter, a crafty songwriter, a charismatic stage presence. But his greatest feat to date might be persuading Marc Maron to not talk over him.
The 31-year-old bluegrass phenom appeared on WTF With Marc Maron back in May, and it is truly one of the more enjoyable podcast episodes I’ve heard all year. For about 90 minutes, Strings shares his life story, which has already become an integral part of the Grammy winner’s mythos. He talks about growing up in rural Michigan as William Lee Apostol, a kid who started playing guitar practically out of the womb amid squalid trailer park surroundings as his parents succumbed to substance abuse. He outlines the musical education he received from stepfather (and future collaborator) Terry Barber, who raised him to appreciate both country pickers (Doc Watson and David Grisman) and classic rock stalwarts (Jimi Hendrix and Black Sabbath). All the while, Billy is charmingly lowkey, expressing a wealth of beyond-his-years music knowledge with self-effacing humor. He’s so engaging that Maron temporarily forgets to redirect the conversation back to himself, as is his custom, and instead listens intently.
In the episode’s final third, Strings reveals a critical turning point in his career: Meeting the veteran mandolinist Don Julin, who played with the much-younger Strings on his early records. A respected player and author with a long resumé going back to the eighties, Julin is credited by Strings with teaching him how to be a professional musician. “When I was in middle school, I thought I was going to be some ‘Jimi Hendrix’ guy. I quickly realized that isn’t reality,” Billy says. “What he showed me was, you might not be a guitar god, but you could make a living.”
The irony is that Billy Strings — in terms of the reverence he’s earned from a large and growing audience of fanatical admirers — essentially is a guitar god at the moment. He is the guitar god, in fact. Given how the culture these days generally is agnostic when it comes to six-string deities, the profundity of this achievement cannot be overstated. This simply is not an era in which guitarists become famous for playing with extreme speed, force, clarity, and agility. And yet that is precisely what Billy Strings has done. He’s so good at playing guitar that he can call himself “Billy Strings” and not look foolish. He’s so good at playing guitar that “Billy Strings” might as well be a moniker engraved in stone and passed down directly from the Guitar Center store in the sky.
I am a recent convert to the church of Billy. Until recently, I was aware of his music, respectful of his obvious ability, but mostly noncommittal. This stemmed from my general indifference to bluegrass music, as well as the jam-grass wing of the jam-band world. I don’t dislike bluegrass; as a person with a heart that beats and toes that tap, I can enjoy Flatt & Scruggs or Bill Monroe as much as the next cowboy-booted individual. But usually, I have my fill after about 20 minutes. My ears just get exhausted by all of those frenetic banjo runs and fiddle … fiddlin’. (Also — I apologize in advance to all traditionalists out there — I love drums in my music and miss them when they’re not there.) I once wrote about the concept of “jam ears” to describe how one can become acclimated to hearing 20-minute improvisations and actually enjoy them. You could say I was not equipped with strong “bluegrass ears.”
That started to change in July upon the release of Live Vol. 1, Strings’ first “official” concert album. (Scores of Billy Strings’ live recordings are also available on Nugs.net, not to mention the audience tapes posted for free on Live Archive.) Sometimes, if the right record clicks in your mind, it can unlock the rest of an artist’s work. That’s what Live Vol. 1 did for me with Billy Strings. On his studio albums, Strings dabbles in psychedelia but mostly sticks to succinct songs and orderly arrangements. But on Live Vol. 1, he goes full Deadhead, taking already expansive numbers like “Away From The Mire” and “Heartbeat Of America” to the tripped-out “Dark Star” zone. Along the way, he uses effects pedals to wring acid-soaked electric solos out of his otherwise crisp acoustic guitar. These lines are exploratory, mesmerizing, and frequently surprising. But above all, it’s the combination of physicality, energy, precision, and curiosity that dazzles. Strings leaves himself open to in-the-moment discovery in ways that don’t feel self-indulgent or tedious. He might not know exactly where he’s going, but his success rate at uncovering musical gold along the way is very high.
On WTF, Strings says that his early attempts at bluegrass amounted to him attempting Hendrix-style leads against an old-timey musical landscape. He had to get over that, he says, though some of that vibe (thankfully) remains on Live Vol. 1. (His excellent backing band, particularly mandolinist Jarrod Walker and fiddle player Alex Hargreaves, must also be praised for keeping up with Billy as well as grounding him.)
For me, Live Vol. 1 is Exhibit A in the case for Billy Strings being a generational talent. After hearing this record, I became hopelessly Billy-pilled.
But like the guitar gods before him, Billy Strings wants to be known for more than unspooling exploratory, mesmerizing, and frequently surprising solos. He also cares about albums that work as albums, and not just as adjuncts to the live show. On record, he tends to downplay his blazing leads and instead focus on his “singer-songwriter” side. This is especially true of Highway Prayers, his 20-song major label debut out today.
In light of the jam-heavy Live Vol. 1, Highway Prayers feels like code-switching, with Strings deftly transitioning from his most far-out music on record to his most carefully considered. A key to Billy Strings’ popularity is that he’s a musical Rorschach test — he appeals to Americana lovers, bluegrass purists, and jam-band scenesters equally, but often in ways that don’t necessarily overlap. His music is big enough that people can take what they want from it and disregard the rest.
Highway Prayers is a record made primarily for the jam-averse portion of the Billy congregation. Even in comparison to previous efforts like 2019’s Home and 2021’s Renewal, which allowed for the occasional lysergic instrumental passage, Highway Prayers sticks mostly to a back-porch, folk-country lane. (The exceptions are two prog-grass instrumentals, “Malfunction Junction” and “Seney Stretch,” as well as the two-part mind-melter “Stratosphere Blues/I Believe In You.”) As the album title suggests, Strings’ extensive tour schedule has inspired him to write about life on the road. Sometimes he reflects on his existence as an in-demand budding superstar musician (the pensive “Gone A Long Time”), but he’s just as likely to spin a good-time number about fast cars and the small-town ne’er-do-wells that pilot them (“Leadfoot,” in which Billy plays guitar, banjo, bass, Ebow electric guitar, and a “1972 Chevrolet Chevelle”).
Highway Prayers was co-produced by Jon Brion, an L.A. music scene legend most famous for his sonically adventurous work on albums by Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, and Rufus Wainwright. So, it’s surprising that Highway Prayers mostly sounds straightforward and unadorned. (The most eccentric production occurs on the pro-weed drawler “MORBUD4M3,” in which the rhythm section is composed of lighter flicks and bong gurgles.) The idea, apparently, was to put Billy in a room with his band and some A-list session players — including drummer Matt Chamberlain, pianist Cory Henry, and dobro master Jerry Douglas — and let the songs shine.
And that, mostly, is a smart strategy. As a songwriter, Strings resembles the rock-solid craftsmen who scored numerous AM radio hits in the seventies, artists like Gordon Lightfoot and John Denver that could meld traditional sounds with catchy song structures and unforgettable acoustic-guitar hooks. In that mode, Strings moves from dusty strummers like the murder ballad “My Alice” to the sly pop-country of “Don’t Be Calling Me (At 4 AM)” with ease. On these songs, Strings leans on his most underrated attribute: his voice. It has that natural, inherent grit that all singers from Michigan seem to have. (I hear traces of Bob Seger, with 75 percent less raspiness.) While you can feel the velocity of his fingers every time he touches his ax, Billy’s vocals always sound relaxed and conversational. It’s a disarming instrument, as soothing as his guitar is incendiary.
Speaking of incendiary guitar playing: I wish Highway Prayers had more of it. I can appreciate that my gods don’t always want to summon their showiest displays of fire and brimstone. But Highway Prayers, for all its strengths, doesn’t have the same “knock you on your ass” power of Live Vol. 1. The music is laidback, and that suits the mostly contented vibe of the lyrics, which don’t reflect as much on Strings’ checkered past as his previous records do. Billy’s present, after all, seems to be pretty damn good. On the first track, he wonders, “How much longer now before I’m in the clear?” And then the rest of the record affirms that he is.
Which, of course, is great. Billy Strings is an easy person to root for. And Highway Prayers should only strengthen his standing in the current generation of young, ascendant Americana artists. As for me, I’m going to keep preaching about Live Vol. 1. It’s just that kind of record — it has the capacity to turn casual listeners into evangelists.
Lady Gaga‘s Joker: Folie À Deux companion album, Harlequin, is out today, and many of the 13 jazzy tracks are taken right out of the Great American Songbook. There are two originals, however, and you might expect “The Joker” to be one of them. But nope, the song hails from the 1964 musical The Roar Of The Greasepaint – The Smell Of The Crowd and was later performed by Shirley Bassey. Gaga, who plays Harley “Lee” Quinn in the Joker sequel, called her cover the “most daring” song on the album.
“The most daring is on ‘The Joker.’ Michael [Polansky, Gaga’s fiancé] and I wanted to show the defiance of Lee proclaiming that she is the real criminal in all of this,” Gaga told Entertainment Weekly, “and that she has the ability to mastermind a kind of coup d’etat in their relationship, that she is the persona of Joker incarnate, in a woman.”
Speaking about the album as a whole, Gaga said, “I think they’re all risky. Some of these songs, like ‘Get Happy,’ are from the 1930s. We’re in 2024, the song is nearly 100 years old. We focused on deploying slapstick and lyrical changes in reference to Arthur [Fleck]. He made his way into the album as well. The lyric, ‘If a nice guy can lose, what’s it matter if you win?’ — that’s pretty daring, considering who Arthur is, what he’s done, and it’s something the film grapples with. We’re rooting for Arthur, and yet he killed five people.”
Harlequin is out now. Joker: Folie À Deux releases in theaters on October 4.
No marriage certificate has surfaced yet, but the Daily Mail has photos and videos from the wedding, which took place on Dufrene’s turf in Des Allemandes, Louisiana. Del Rey was seen holding a bouquet as her father (and fellow musician) Rob Grant walked her down the aisle.
Del Rey wore a dress featuring “an elegant ruffled neckline, a billowing skirt and a modest train that dragged on the gravel aisle,” while Dufrene wore a “black suit, white dress shirt and brown leather shoes.” Following the ceremony was an outdoor reception in a public harbor.
The public connection between Del Rey and Dufrene goes back to 2019, when Del Rey went on one of Dufrene’s tours and shared photos on Facebook. She then went on another tour this year and posted about it on Instagram, tagging Dufrene in the post and calling him “my guy.”
Steven and Ian begin this week’s episode with the first ever “Furnace-cast” about the current state of Steven’s heating and cooling units at his house. Both were being installed during this episode, which might have resulted in some post-punk-style background noise. What’s more indie rock than that? After a quick Sportscast about the latest from Steven’s Green Bay Packers and Ian’s Philadelphia Eagles, they hold their Fantasy Albums Draft for Q4. Will Steven finally win one of these? Probably not! But who knows?
Then the guys delve into the mailbag to answer some quality emails. Topics include the sad state of music festivals in 2024, the relative quality of music put out in 2014, and whether it’s possible to have a good song with good music and bad lyrics (yes!) or bad music and good lyrics (maybe?).
In Recommendation Corner, Ian stumps for a divorce record by Adeline Hotel and Steven goes for the latest from bluegrass phenom Billy Strings.
New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 208 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.
Say what you want to about Saweetie’s stop-and-start album rollout, but the Bay Area bombshell has been on a roll lately. After the UGK-inspired “Richtivities” rebooted the rollout, “Nani” has become a sleeper hit, landing placement in a number of high-profile syncs, while her feature on LL Cool J’s “Proclivities” gave her the co-sign from a hip-hop legend. She returns to her 808s-and-soul-samples bag — her most effective mode, in this writer’s opinion — for “Is It The Way.” Pairing a trunk-rattling Texas beat with a loop from Jill Scott’s 2001 hit “The Way,” Saweetie contemplates all the attention she gets while combining the best parts of her last two singles.
In the video accompanying the song, Saweetie struts the streets of London, causing all the British boys’ heads to turn in her haute couture looks, which include a truly stupendous pair of heels and Union Jack-bearing short shorts that just scream “Spice Girls.” The whole video is a throwback to the British R&B invasion of the early 2000s (think Craig David’s “Fill Me In”), which could provide a fruitful new avenue for the particular form of millennial nostalgia that Saweetie has embraced throughout her career. The trendsetter has been making a solid push for a comeback, and with a few more tracks like this, the turnaround could truly be just around the corner.
BIA and Lil Yachty vow dire consequences for anyone who irks them in the video for their new collaboration, “Pissed Off.” “Somebody just pissed me off, where’s the switch?” she intones on the chorus, making it sound very much like hot lead will be flying at any moment. And just in case there was any doubt of her intentions, this is how she opens her verse: “Somebody gon’ die today / This sound like Jeff in the ride today / I make it slip if she slide today / It’s on the seat of my right-side / Kissing you bitches goodbye today.”
The tag-team is BIA’s third high-profile collab with an Atlanta rapper in 2024; in June, she teamed up with JID for “Lights Off,” while in July, she and Flau’jae appeared on Culture Jam’s latest compilation with Lakeyah on “Can’t Get Enough.” Like plenty of her rapper peers, the Beantown native has plenty to be pissed off about this year, too.
In March, BIA got into it with Cardi B over the shared Missy Elliott sample that appeared in both rappers’ new singles. Supposedly, Cardi took shots at BIA on her “Wanna Be Remix” verse, while BIA clapped back with “Sue Meee.” In June, Cardi made mentions of “opps,” and fans were sure it was a reference to BIA, so her latest will almost certainly be interpreted as a Cardi diss, as well. 2025 can’t get here soon enough.
You can watch BIA and Lil Yachty’s “Pissed Off” video above.
Fans of the first Todd Phillips Joker film starring Joaquin Phoenix were apprehensive to learn that its sequel, Joker Folie À Deux, would be a musical co-starring Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. Phillips himself tried to mitigate the worries by downplaying the importance of music to the plot, but now that Lady Gaga has shared Harlequin, the film’s companion soundtrack, it’s clear: Her Harley Quinn goes full-on Broadway on “Get Happy” and “Good Morning,” embracing all the camp inherent to the concept with some good, old-fashioned show tunes.
“Get Happy” opens with a suitably dramatic overture before kicking into the same jaunty, jazzy mode as the 1950 Judy Garland version from Summer Stock. You can check it out above.
Meanwhile, her take on the 1939 standard “Good Morning” similarly starts off cool and heats up quickly, just like a summer day. In terms of the composition, it’s closer to the version from Babes In Arms than the one from Singin’ In The Rain, and how you feel about that just might depend on your preference between Garland and Debbie Reynolds. You can check it out below.
So, there you have it: Joker Folie À Deux is 100 percent a musical, borrowing from classics of the past rather than composing original material to suit the dark and zany mood of the first Joker. We’ll find out how audiences feel about that on October 4 — although the early returns don’t look too promising.
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