Miley Cyrus Spends Her ‘Endless Summer Vacation’ Deftly Balancing Mellow Gold and Dance-Pop: Album Review

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic BMI has prevailed in a New York court in a dispute with Live Nation and AEG over collections of songwriting revenue from live concerts, earning a judgment the performing rights organization said would earn its affiliates 138% higher than the historical rate. Louis L. Stanton of the Southern District of New York issued the ruling giving songwriters and publishers the raise on live revenue. BMI said that as a result of the judgment, that extra money will also come from tickets sold on the secondary market, service fees and VIP packages. BMI president-CEO Mike O’Neill expressed the org’s delight with the court victory, while still throwing shade at the two concert promoters and the North American Concert Promoters Association (NACPA) for years of opposition to carving out a boost in songwriter revenue.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The all-star trio Boygenius has set 14 headlining dates for this summer, on top of festival gigs that include Coachella appearances and concerts under the Re:SET banner that’d previously been announced for the group. Opening acts for the 14 newly set dates include Carly Rae Jepsen, Broken Social Scene, Illuminati Hotties, Bartees Strange and Claud. The shows include gigs at two of the nation’s most iconic outdoor venues — Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado, on Aug. 5, and the Gorge in Washington state, on July 29 — along with al fresco appearances in Phoenix, Houston, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, Toronto, Vancouver, Asheville, Wilmington, Bend, Bonner and Boise.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When it comes to the surprise-songs portion of each night’s show on the Eras Tour, Taylor Swift fans probably should have seen one of Friday night’s two picks coming. Of course she was going to honor the opening day of release for her friend Lana Del Rey’s new album by performing the song that the two of them wrote together for Swift’s most recent album. But before she did that, Swift gave Del Rey’s Friday release, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” all the “promo” that a fellow artist could ask for, calling it “brilliant” and urging the approximately 60,000 fans gathered at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium to stream or buy the new album.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Your eyes have deceived you if you ever took too quick a look at a passing reference to one of the great singer-songwriters of our day and mistook Brandy Clark for Brandi Carlile or vice versa. But those same eyes will not be seeing double if, in the very near future, you end up seeing both those names in close conjunction, a lot. Clark recently completed her fourth album — a self-titled one — for Warner Records, and the just-announced May 19 release is produced by possibly her biggest fan: Carlile. Their occasionally confused monograms are among the least of the things the two have in common, since both have enjoyed years of mutual acclaim among music fans who are partial to top-flight Americana or country sounds, or simply the classic singer-songwriter style. Beyond that, there are even more borderline-spooky commonalities that make it seem like they were both born under a good sign. “We’re both from Washington State; we’re both gay — we have a lot in common,” says Clark, picking out some of the obvious shared bio points. “And then a lot not in common. But Brandi is amazing, is how much she wants to prop other artists up. It’s a pretty big, generous gift.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Before anything else is said about Lana Del Rey’s new album, let it be noted that however well the record came out, it was foreordained to come in second among her artistic works of the past year. Because absolutely nothing could surpass the mic drop of her placing the sole billboard announcing the new project in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the hometown of a fairly recent ex-boyfriend, in what could only be seen as a clever combination of extreme advertising narrowcasting and baller performance art. But if “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.” had to come in as a runner-up to that, it’s a very, very, very close second. It might even count as her masterpiece to date, among her non-billboard-related work. The word “might” is advisable because claims to that kind of superiority can only be made after a lot of time and repeat listens have passed, of course, and “Ocean Blvd.” is such a dense set of songs to take in that your immediate response to its 16 songs might be to rise for a standing ovation… and then think that maybe you’ll need a week to rest before you settle in for a second and third listen, this time with a whole Internet’s worth of Cliff Notes. The album is likely to wear you out — at least it will if you’re consuming it as confessional songwriting, in bulk, and not just aural wallpaper — but it’s a happy exhaustion.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Guitarist Wayne Swinny, a founding member of the rock band Saliva, died Wednesday at age 59 after suffering a brain hemorrhage the previous day in the midst of a tour by the group. Swinny was the only current member to have been with the nu-metal outfit since its first album in 1996. Over the intervening 27 years, Saliva had released 11 albums, been nominated for a hard rock Grammy, and reached No. 1 on Billboard’s alternative rock chart with the outfit’s biggest song, 2002’s “Always.” The band announced Swinny’s death hours after first going on social media Wednesday to reveal that the longtime lead guitarist had been in the ICU since being “discovered in medical distress” Tuesday morning.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic All the old Taylors came to the phone Friday night at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. For the purposes Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, these past personas are all very much alive, because what died didn’t stay dead, and… well, quoting lyrics will only get you so far in describing a show that may best first be characterized by its essential stats: 44 songs in 192 minutes.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Whenever country-rock pioneers of the late ‘60s and very early ‘70s come up — whether it’s the Byrds, Burritos, Poco, Michael Nesmith, et al. — the Rolling Stones tend to be left out of the conversation. Maybe that’s fine: It’s not as if there aren’t other reasons to bring them their (dead) flowers. Still, they were experimenting with hybrid genre elements as early as 1968’s “Beggars Banquet” LP. Those latent elements mostly stayed kind of latent: Even though Keith Richards — admirer of Merle Haggard, close pal of Gram Parsons — took it very seriously, Mick Jagger admitted, “I don’t know if I’m able to do it without being tongue-in-cheek.” But if the group could only move so close to country in the end, country was sure able to move closer to them over the years. Think of how many cues the loud and rowdy Southern rock movement took from the Stones before it started crossbreeding with country later in the century.

Miley Cyrus is the “healthiest and happiest she’s been in a long time,” a source has said.

Miley Cyrus is living her best life!

Miley Cyrus has not personally revealed if all of her new music is about her ex husband Liam Hemsworth and their relationship, but everyone on the Internet is convinced.

Endless Summer Vacation, alongside her rarely seen boyfriend of over a year, Maxx Morando. According to W, Cyrus and Morando stopped at the Versace fall/winter 2023 fashion show in Los Angeles on March 9, before heading to her Gucci-hosted album release party at the Gucci Osteria in Beverly Hills. Also in attendance to celebrate Cyrus's latest debut were Baz Luhrmann, Daisy Edgar Jones, Adam DiMarco, and others. The pair have been romantic since at least December of 2021, per , when they were seen getting cozy backstage at her New Year's Eve special, Miley's New Year's Eve Party.

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Miley Cyrus dropped her eighth studio album,, and already her most ardent fans have analyzed and deduced Liam Hemsworth cheated on her.In her new track «Muddy Feet,» featuring SZA, Miley includes lyrics such as, «And you smell like perfume that I didn't purchase. Now I know why you've been closing the curtains (uh-uh).

Miley Cyrus isn’t done with her Endless Summer Vacation yet — and she’s got more to say about her ex-hubby Liam Hemsworth!

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The upcoming Apple TV+ competition series “My Kind of Country,” executive-produced by Kacey Musgraves and Reese Witherspoon, is not just going to be a genre-specific knockoff of “American Idol” or “The Voice,” it’s clear from a first trailer released Friday. (Watch the new preview, below.) Fostering inclusiveness of every sort looks to be as high on the agenda as finding unknown talent, as is made apparent not just from the YouTube teaser but the previously known trio of celebrity talent scouts — Jimmie Allen, Mickey Guyton and Orville Peck — plus a just-released rundown of the dozen competing aspirants. “The people that i love in country music, they don’t look like me,” one contestant, Camille Parker, a Black woman from North Carolina, is seen as saying. “I’m ready to show people what they’ve been missing.”

Miley Cyrus’ new album Endless Summer Vacation is causing a stir with fans.

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She’s a “Wonder Woman!” Miley Cyrus’ eighth studio album, Endless Summer Vacation, is finally here — and it’s clear that she knows what she wants.

Miley Cyrus‘ Endless Summer Vacation is here, and fans are already dissecting several songs on the tracklist to find out who and what they’re about.