As the French Canadians who attended the final night of Taylor Swift’s epic road show in Vancover might say: Au revoir to all that. The Eras Tour is now one for the history books, after 149 sold-out stadium shows, 10 million tickets sold and $2 billion in face-value sales … aside from spinoffs like a […]

Following her final night as an opening act on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, Gracie Abrams will return to her already-established role as a headliner — this time topping the bill in arenas, with 2025 shows that were announced Monday for North America. In the U.S., Abrams is only revealing a few dates for now, but […]

On the heels of news that Taylor Swift’s just-completed Eras Tour grossed more than $2 billion, now it’s being reported that the superstar handed out $197 million of that haul to tour employees as bonuses on top of their regular salaries, according to People magazine. The $197 million figure indicates that almost 10% of the […]

The final night of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Sunday night in Vancouver was marked by no big announcements, no guests, no gimmicks, no frills — unless, of course, you take into account that this was the frilliest tour of all time, and that every night on the 149-concert road show felt as spectacular as any […]

When Billie Eilish chose “Happier Than Ever” as the title of her previous album, you didn’t have to look far past the straight-faced album cover to find levels of irony in that. She didn’t completely put on a happy face for this year’s full-length follow-up, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” either. But one track, “Birds […]

In reviewing Laufey’s August concert with the LA Philharmonic, Variety wrote, “Laufey feels like she was born to play the Hollywood Bowl, with her rapturously received pop/jazz/classical set.” Something else she might have been born for: the big screen. She’s on Imax screens across America this weekend (and some slightly less massive-scale ones as well) with “Laufey’s […]

Is Laufey a jazz artist, or a bona fide pop star? The qualified answer, with asterisks to spare, is “both.” And that’s part of the fun in discussing everyone’s favorite Icelandic-Asian-American singer-songwriter-guitarist-pianist-cellist. Genre discussions can be a drag for artists and fans alike, but they’re suddenly a lot more fun when the overriding question is […]

Lainey Wilson already had plenty of trophies and accolades before being named Variety’s Storyteller of the Year — like winning the CMA Award for Entertainer of the Year, generally considered country music’s top honor, the very first time she was nominated in 2023. But the story part in the name of the award she’s being given at Variety‘s […]

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour book is only available from one retailer, Target, but that isn’t keeping it from having a more-than-blockbuster bow. “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book” sold 814,000 copies in just its first two days on sale, according to Circana BookScan, widely regarded as the most reliable tracker of weekly physical book […]

When Kevin Cahoon got his Tony and Drama Desk nominations in 2023 as a featured actor in Broadway’s “Shucked,” he played a hayseed character whose sexuality might or might not have been known to everyone in his straight-laced, corn-fed community. But in “La Cage aux Folles,” now playing at the Pasadena Playhouse, taking on the […]

The nominations for the 2025 International Folk Music Awards have been announced, with such names as Allison Russell, Sarah Jarosz, Sierra Ferrell, Nick Lowe and Aoife O’Donovan on the list of contenders. The Folk Alliance International (FAI) also announced that Indigo Girls will receive a lifetime achievement award at the ceremony, held on the first […]

Long absent from the scene while group members pursued other projects, Alison Krauss & Union Station will reunite in 2025 for a 73-show North American tour and a new album. The tour will mark the first time the group has gone out on the road in 10 years, while the album will be their first […]

I scream, you scream, we all scream for Beatlemania… but maybe it’s been a while. “Beatles ’64,” the new Martin Scorsese-produced documentary on Disney+, aims to recapture the shrieks that greeted the Beatles’ arrival on American shores at the beginning of 1964. Under the direction of David Tedeschi, the film brings back the tears of […]

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour-commemorating hardback book hit stores Friday, just nine days before she performs the show for the final time. And as much as we thought we knew about these concerts from the 21 months of it being dissected, the pop superstar still has some things to reveal about the epic, record-breaking outing in […]

If you’re lining up for Record Store Day Black Friday 2024, you may be experiencing just a little whiff of Record Store Day Black Friday 2023 deja vu. That’s because last year at this time, if you did a survey of people waiting in the cold to see the exclusive vinyl titles they were most […]

To paraphrase Cyndi Lauper and Paul Simon: She’s still so unusual after all these years. Lauper, at 71, is nearing the end of the U.S. leg of what is being billed as a farewell tour. And as much as she remains something of a unicorn now, it’s a chance to force ourselves to recall how […]

“Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book” hits stores on Black Friday, and among the more than 500 images included are close-up looks at what may be her most important stage arsenal… or what might be at least in a tie with the famous wardrobe. That would be the superstar’s full complement of acoustic guitars, […]

When the sing-along screenings of “Wicked” go down beginning Christmas Day, I’ll be there — but not because I have any intention of personally raising my voice in song. (Or maybe I’ll join in just with Dr. Dillamond, the goat professor, whose glottal peculiarities probably come closest to the sounds I could produce.) I do […]

Elvis Costello and T Bone Burnett might seem like portraits in courage, for anyone who has followed their individual and collective musical trail-blazing, but at the moment, they’re studies in Coward-ice. They portray their long-time alter-egos, Henry and Howard Coward, in the new scripted Audible Original series “The True Story of the Coward Brothers,” which […]