Entertainment
Beyoncé is Billboard's greatest pop star of the 21st century. Mom Tina isn't surprised
The end of the 21st century is still decades away, but Billboard has already declared its greatest pop star: Beyoncé.
The music magazine on Tuesday revealed that the “Crazy in Love” and “Formation” diva had secured the top spot among 25 generational pop talents, including Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Drake and Lady Gaga. Billboard’s editorial staff selected Queen Bey for her “full 25 years of influence, evolution and impact,” the outlet announced.
“She’s been Beyoncé for 25 years now, and as she continues to challenge herself (and by extension, the rest of the pop world) to find new and different ways to be define [sic] greatness,” wrote Billboard deputy editor Andrew Unterberger, “it doesn’t seem like she’s going to stop being Beyoncé anytime soon.”
As part of its Beyoncé celebration, Billboard published an essay that chronicled the “Single Ladies” singer’s career from her Destiny’s Child days in the late 1990s to her most recent album, “Cowboy Carter.” The career retrospective praised the Houston native’s consistency, her ubiquity across music and other facets of pop culture — including film and fashion — and her “commitment to innovation.”
While the music outlet dedicated thousands of words to Beyoncé’s life and career, the singer’s mom, Tina Knowles, offered a handful in response to her daughter’s latest honor.
“That’s nice. That’s very nice,” Knowles told TMZ during a brief exchange Tuesday evening on the Sunset Strip.
When the reporter asked whether her family gets “used to those titles” and accolades, Knowles simply responded, “Yeah.”
The “16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold ’Em” singer has not yet publicly addressed her latest honor.
Knowles, Destiny’s Child’s former costume designer and mother to “Cranes in the Sky” artist Solange, isn’t shy about celebrating her superstar kin. On her Instagram, Knowles hypes her daughters’ magazine covers, album sales and even their nonmusic ventures, such as Beyoncé’s Cécred haircare line and her SirDavis whiskey brand.
On Tuesday, Knowles also touted Beyoncé’s upcoming NFL halftime show. The Grammy winner’s performance will stream Christmas Day on Netflix when the Houston Texans host the Baltimore Ravens at NRG Stadium. Knowles told TMZ that “excellence” is what viewers can expect from the holiday gig.
Taylor Swift, who soon will wrap her blockbuster Eras tour after nearly two years, secured the No. 2 spot on Billboard’s list. The historic Grammy winner (she is the only artist to win album of the year four times) “is the most famous woman in the world,” according to Billboard. However, the well-meaning praise inadvertently sparked a twofold backlash last week when her ranking was announced. Before Beyoncé landed the top spot, some of Swift’s legion of fans, known as Swifties, called out Billboard about her second-place ranking and made the case for the “Lavender Haze” singer to be No. 1.
“I like Beyoncé but she’s nowhere near Taylor’s level when it comes to impact and numbers,” a fan tweeted last week. Another Swift devotee on X (formerly Twitter) also cited the “Love Story” pop star’s “commercial success” and “record-breaking sales” as reasons for her to claim the top spot.
Adding salt to the wound, Billboard included a controversial snippet of Kanye West’s “Famous” music video in its montage meant to celebrate Swift. The Billboard clip reportedly featured the music video’s infamous wax figure modeled after a naked Swift, prompting Billboard to issue an apology for including the clip “that falsely depicted her.”
“We have removed the clip from our video and sincerely regret the harm we caused with this error,” the outlet tweeted.
In Tuesday’s Beyoncé reveal, Billboard acknowledged Swift’s accomplishments, lauding her as the “lone artist who really challenged Beyoncé for the top spot” and celebrating her dominance in album sales, streaming and touring. However, she “simply hasn’t been around for long enough to be able to match the expansiveness of [Beyoncé’s] quarter-century of dominance,” the magazine said.
Still, Swift found success with Spotify, which announced Wednesday that the “Shake It Off” diva was its most-streamed artist of the year. Swift also earned the title last year.
“In her Global Top Artist era,” Spotify tweeted Wednesday. “Congratulations Taylor Swift on the over 26+ billion streams in 2024.”
Joining Swift as the audio platform’s top 10 global artists are fellow Billboard 21st century greatest pop star honorees Drake, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Bad Bunny and Kanye West.
“You guys are unbelievable. What an amazing thing to find out going into our last weekend of eras shows,” Swift wrote to fans Wednesday in an Instagram story. “THANK YOU!”
For Beyoncé and Swift, their respective Billboard and Spotify wins can be a boon as they prepare for the 2025 Grammy Awards. In November, Beyoncé earned 11 nominations, the most of the latest crop of Grammy hopefuls. Top nominees also include Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Post Malone, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Swift.
Who will win the top Grammy prizes? It’s best to stick around, ‘round, ‘round for when the ceremony is broadcast on CBS and streams live from Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena on Feb. 2
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Movie Reviews
Film Review: Nightbitch – SLUG Magazine
Film
Nightbitch
Director: Marielle Heller
Annapurna Pictures
In Theaters: 12.06
I turned 50 this month, and you don’t do this without starting to think seriously about bucket list items you’d like to cross off over the next 50 years or less. Some of these items seem more achievable than others, but the most inexplicably hopeless one would have to be “see a good Amy Adams movie again.” The once imminently reliable star of Enchanted, American Hustle, Big Eyes and Arrival has been in a major slump for about eight years now, and I was really hoping that together, she would break that slump with Nightbitch.
Adams stars as a character identified only as Mother, and not just on screen, but to everyone around her, and increasingly to herself. A former artist who has chosen to put her career on hold to care for her young Son (Arleigh and Emmett Snowden), she believes that full-time motherhood will bring fulfillment. Instead, she finds herself overwhelmed and isolated. Husband (Scoot McNairy, Argo, C’mon ‘C’mon) is often away on business and leaves her alone to navigate the monotony of daily life, pushing her further into a state of disconnection and frustration. As the problem gets worse, strange changes begin to surface—her senses sharpen, her body sprouts hair and she begins to identify more as a dog than a woman. As these transformations intensify, she questions whether they are dreams, fantasies or a descent into a primal state.
Writer-director Marielle Heller has an impressive track record with Can You Ever Forgive Me? and A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, and my hopes were high for this adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s 2021 novel. I can only hope the material works better on the page, as here the rather pedantic and ham-fisted metaphor for postpartum depression feels condescendingly on-the-nose and yet far too tentative, as Heller seems to be constantly waffling on how literally she wants to play this scenario. One moment it’s ambiguous as to whether this is really happening or just a metaphor, and the next she’s murdering her cat. While the subject matter of motherhood and the expectations that come with it is certainly worthwhile, Nightbitch has little to nothing new or insightful to say. All of the ground that it covers, from feeling inadequate and undervalued to the growing resentment between the couple, feels like it’s moving down a checklist of rather obvious observations and tropes rather than saying anything from the heart. Simply put, I’d feel ill-equipped to review an introspective film about motherhood from a woman’s point of view if it all didn’t feel so generic and obvious that I could have written it myself with no personal experience to draw on.
The dialogue all feels rather stilted (“Do I regret having a child? No. But If I could go back in time, I’d sit us down and try to figure out a more equitable way to do this parenting thing.”) and the no names, only titles approach is rather telling of the generic characterization and broad strokes at work. While Nightbitch isn’t terrible by any means, at a mere 98 minutes it feels more like a short film that has been far too padded out than it does a feature.
Adams captures the depression and disconnection well enough, but she never sells the canine element with any particular degree of believability. There’s a tentative quality to her performance that left me feeling that the character might have been better served had someone with a more intense presence been cast in the role. McNairy is quite effectively clueless and off-putting, but doesn’t get to go much deeper, and he gives a far more layered performance as Woody Guthrie in A Complete Unknown, despite not having a single line of dialogue. The most satisfying performance comes from the Snowden twins, who are wonderfully natural and charismatic. The supporting ensemble features some familiar and talented faces, but they are all playing cardboard characters and don’t really register.
While I imagine that some audiences, particularly mothers, will connect with Nightbitch more profoundly than I did, and it certainly has some value, it’s hardly the searingly penetrative and daring film that it wants to be. Heller merely restates the same basic points about mothers being overwhelmed and appreciated over and over, as everyone watching is as willfully oblivious as the Husband character. The sentiment is sound, but the presentation is just a lot of incessant barking from an old and rather lifeless dog that is frustratingly lacking in new tricks. –Patrick Gibbs
Read more film reviews:
Film Review: The Order
Series Review: Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
Entertainment
Brian May stabilized, playing instruments again after stroke affected arm mobility
Queen guitarist Brian May has regained use of his left arm after having a stroke over the summer, according to his wife, British actor Anita Dobson.
“He’s much better now, he’s stabilized now, which is brilliant,” Dobson told the Mirror. “I just hope we don’t have any more reoccurrences [sic].”
May, 77, announced in September that he had suffered a “minor stroke,” apparently in late August, that briefly affected his ability to control his arm. The stroke, which he referred to as a “little health hiccup,” came “all of a sudden, out of the blue,” but he was OK.
His wife told the Mirror that the musician is able to use his affected arm again. Although it “was a bit of a challenge,” he’s “good to go now,” she said.
“He’s playing the piano quite a lot in the house. He likes a lot of Beethoven. I love it — the piano in the house is really just very relaxing,” the “East Enders” star said, adding that May didn’t try to play instruments until after he recovered “quite a bit.”
“And then he very slowly started to pick up an acoustic guitar and gradually just exercise the muscles. And it very quickly came back,” she explained. “He’s just retraining the messages from your brain to that arm, that it’s actually OK to do what it used to do. It was scary. And also being a genius for someone like that. His brain’s overloaded, that’s what it is. He’s too clever for his own good.”
The “Bohemian Rhapsody” musician, an astrophysicist who mounted a hugely successful music career with the legendary rock band, mentioned that the stroke slightly impaired his arm at first, but in a video revealing the illness in September, May waved the fingers on his left hand to show that they had some dexterity.
“The good news is that I can play guitar after the events of the last few days,” May said at the time. The rocker was transported to a hospital after the stroke and had “fantastic care” but didn’t want to publicize his illness because he didn’t want sympathy or anything that would “clutter up my inbox.”
“The good news is I’m OK. Just doing what I’m told, which is basically nothing. I’m grounded,” the “We Will Rock You” songwriter said, noting that he wasn’t allowed to do activities that would “raise the heart rate too high.”
May has been out and about since the stroke and has continued to post about the band and his animal welfare activism on Instagram.
The musician, who was knighted by King Charles III in 2023, suffered a “small heart attack” in 2020 that left him “very near death” at the time. Doctors told him that he had three blocked arteries and placed stents to keep them open, he said. Other health complications have developed because of his medication, he told The Times of London, one of which he said caused “a stomach explosion that nearly killed me.”
Movie Reviews
Luca Guadagnino – 'Queer' movie review
(Credits: Far Out / A24)
Luca Guadagnino – ‘Queer’ review
Nobody has had a better year than Luca Guadagnino – the commercial success of Challengers simultaneously revitalised the erotic thriller and made tennis seem like a vaguely appealing sport. However, I had several qualms with the film (for reasons that I won’t get into), but mostly because it felt like a story with no substance, which is very much in contrast to the nuanced emotional layers present in his earlier work. And when I saw that Queer was being sold as a ‘new love story’, I felt tepidly intrigued and wary. But after a less immediate and underwhelming gush of praise towards Queer, I wondered whether that pointed towards a less commercial or palatable story, and after seeing it at the London Film Festival, I felt both disturbed, relieved and thrilled by what I had seen. My theory had been confirmed – Guadagnino had redeemed himself.
As an adaptation of the William Burroughs novel, Queer tells the story of William Lee, a middle-aged expat living in New Mexico whose monotonous and lonely existence is disturbed by the presence of a much younger man called Eugene. While Guadagnino is undoubtedly a master at voicing the many heartaches and pains that come with actually being in a relationship, Queer is the first that explores the deep loneliness of unreciprocated love as someone who is queer, painting it as this deeply fracturing and out of body experience, with William yearning for intimacy but unable to openly express this.
William spends his time in seedy bars and clubs, sitting in deserted corners as he scans the room for bodies and other silently longing men, searching for validation and scraps of love that could temporarily lift him from the shackles of being unseen. As someone who has built a career on the image of hyper-masculinity, there could be no better man than Daniel Craig to play the William; completely transformed from his usual aura of effortless charm to being haunting and pitifully desperate as he skulks the streets in search of human connection and everything that lies between the cracks. He awkwardly tries to meet the gaze of the men around him; looking for an unspoken acknowledgement of attraction as he locks eyes with each stranger, painfully viewing every loaded glance and gesture as the one to finally save him. He intensely pines for anything that vaguely resembles attention, with his eyes burning holes into everyone that meets his gaze.
It captures the suffocating loneliness of being queer in a place where your identity has to be discreet, trying to communicate your humanity through a lingering touch and hoping that someone will silently understand while most recoil and are repulsed by the implications of your existence.
After meeting Eugene, William becomes completely infatuated by the idea of being close to him, meek and unsure of himself as he tries to express his desires through coded glances and awkward gestures, anxiously asking for reassurance from his one queer friend on whether or not Eugene is one of them. “I want to talk to you, without speaking”, he finally says, mustering the courage to boldly express the feeling that is usually silenced.
Despite Eugene’s cryptic response that reveals little about the hidden depths William suspects they both share, the two begin spending time together, even when it is clear that Eugene doesn’t care for him in the same way. Drew Starkey is hypnotic in the role, drawing you in with his stoic demeanour and sinister silence, leaving you feeling as mesmerised and frantic as William, whose feverish infatuation only grows the longer it goes unreciprocated. His obsession slowly becomes an addiction, unable to tell between healthy and unhealthy desires, and he loses himself in a delusional hope that engulfs him entirely. Through the use of eerie and slightly grotesque dream sequences, we see William’s inner world as the line between fantasy and reality fades, dreaming of a hand that will graze his knee or lightly brush over his ribcage, wanting something so pure and simple that it feels cruel when you realise it isn’t possible.
Queer is perhaps Guadgnino’s most experimental film to date, and he masterfully uses this jarring tonal style to explore queerness as a surrealist experience that slowly twists you into a disembodied figure, with William’s image being likened to that of a centipede, with nauseating sequences of bugs that crawl across bed sheets and skin, comparing his existence to that of an insect. The surrealism comes from the intense alienation of being treated as ‘other’ by the people around him for daring to express his need of wanting to be loved/seen, becoming a discombobulated and ghost-like figure that has been dehumanised as a result of his queerness.
The Italian director goes against the lush romanticism he is known for by creating a grimy and uncomfortable visual style in his portrait of loneliness and desperation, which is only slightly hindered in some scenes by the slightly dodgy visual effects. However, whatever is lacking in the visual effects is made up for in the incredibly visceral and unnerving sound design, with a horror-like score being used during the love scenes to play on the idea that William’s sexuality is perverse and something to be feared, with a raw undercurrent of danger pulsing through each interaction with Eugene. The needle drops are no exception, with Sinéad O’Connor’s ‘All Apologies’ setting the tone during the opening credits, with one mesmerising use of Nirvana’s ‘Come As You Are’ while Craig haunts the streets.
William hides his lack of fulfilment behind a facade of joviality, but despite this, he continuously tells people that he feels ‘disembodied’. After watching Guadagnino’s haunting odyssey of delusion and dehumanisation, you too will feel fragmented and broken, devastated by Wiliam’s innocent pursuit of connection as he turns himself inside out to be accepted, going to each far corner of the world to make himself worthy for the one he loves.
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