Louder: Know How the Beatles Ended? Peter Jackson May Change Your Mind.

November 12, 2021

By Caryn Ganz

Pop Music Editor

If you’ve ever sat in a high school cafeteria, or a dorm room, or a bar or anywhere people have passionate conversations about the Beatles, you’ve been in or overheard arguments about the band’s demise. Now the “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson is adding seven-plus hours of evidence to the docket. His three-part documentary “Get Back,” coming later this month, focuses on a pivotal January 1969 and was made with the help of nearly 60 hours of previously unseen footage, providing “astonishing glimpses into the band’s working life and the tensions that surrounded them,” writes Ben Sisario. If it proves anything, it’s that more than half a century after the Beatles disbanded, there’s still plenty to debate.

The major news this week was tragic: Nine people died in a “mass casualty event” at Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival in Houston. Joe Coscarelli traced the rapper’s rise, and how hyping up audiences in a kind of community-based catharsis has been a core part of his brand. Ben reported on how the disaster put renewed attention on concert safety, and what it might mean for a live-music industry just getting back on its feet after pandemic shutdowns. And Jon Caramanica spoke with Roger Gengo of Masked Gorilla and Masked Records about the rise of mosh pits in hip-hop, on Popcast.

As you are reading this (if you reading immediately upon receipt!), a hearing in Britney Spears’s conservatorship case will shortly be underway. Joe explained what’s at stake, and whether today might mark the end of the singer’s 13-year legal saga. Follow our live coverage of the hearing here.

Plus: Lady Gaga told us about her “Gucci” accent, Jon Hopkins let us hear some of the sounds that went into his “Music for Psychedelic Therapy” and the E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg shared a story about Springsteen and Abba.

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Know How the Beatles Ended? Peter Jackson May Change Your Mind.

The director’s three-part documentary “Get Back” explores the most contested period in the band’s history and reveals there’s still plenty to debate.

By Ben Sisario

TRAGEDY AT ASTROWORLD

Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images

Before the Astroworld Tragedy, Travis Scott’s ‘Raging’ Made Him a Star

The multiplatinum rapper earned a reputation for concerts that teetered on the edge of mayhem. Then eight people died during his performance in Houston on Friday.

By Joe Coscarelli

Annie Mulligan for The New York Times

Astroworld Disaster Rekindles Fears About Music Festival Safety

The concert industry notes that serious problems are still rare, but over the years a number of deadly stampedes have shown the inherent dangers of big, excited crowds.

By Ben Sisario

Jamaal Ellis/Houston Chronicle, via Associated Press

How the Mosh Pit and ‘Raging’ Came to Hip-Hop

The tragedy at Travis Scott’s Astroworld turned attention to how rap festival performances are increasingly oriented toward the rowdy.

THE CRITICS

The Playlist

Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers’s ‘Red’ Duet, and 14 More New Songs

Hear tracks by Beyoncé, Let’s Eat Grandma, Beach House and others.

By Jon Pareles, Isabelia Herrera, Giovanni Russonello and Lindsay Zoladz

Album Review

Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak Revisit Vintage Luxury as Silk Sonic

The duo gleefully reverse-engineers the analog-era sophistication of 1970s R&B on a new album, “An Evening With Silk Sonic.”

By Jon Pareles

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Lady Gaga and Ridley Scott on ‘House of Gucci’: When Beauty Turns Ugly

To play a fashionista willing to kill in the director’s fact-based drama, his star plunged deeply into character. “How could I possibly turn it off?” she said.

By Kyle Buchanan

The Future Is Big. So Courtney Barnett Still Sings About Small Things.

This Australian musician’s third album, “Things Take Time, Take Time,” rolls in a breakup, therapy and the pandemic as well as death and other certainties.

By Brodie Lancaster

Jon Hopkins’s Psychedelic Journey to a New Way of Creating Music

For more than a decade, the British producer’s muscle and grace made him a festival favorite. His new album, “Music for Psychedelic Therapy,” takes an unexpectedly quiet turn.

By Grayson Haver Currin

Astroworld Victims Include High Schoolers and College Students

The music festival at Astroworld in Houston left nine people dead. Here is what is known about them.

By Giulia Heyward

Houston Officials Worried About Crowd Control Before Travis Scott Took the Stage

On the day of the show, the Houston police chief said that he visited Mr. Scott in his trailer and shared his concerns about the crowd.

By J. David Goodman and Edgar Sandoval

Travis Scott’s Ties to Houston Could Complicate Investigation of Fatal Concert

There are worries about conflicts of interest in the criminal investigation into the deaths of eight concertgoers during Mr. Scott’s performance at the Astroworld festival.

By J. David Goodman

‘No Way Out’: A Sudden Life-and-Death Struggle at a Houston Concert

Eight people died at Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival, and hundreds more were injured as investigators sought to determine why and how a surging crowd turned deadly.

By J. David Goodman and Maria Jimenez Moya

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Ed Sheeran, Streaming Star, Is No. 1 With Help From Album Sales

Sheeran’s “=” (pronounced “equals”) opens at the top of the Billboard 200 with modest streaming numbers for a star of his magnitude.

By Ben Sisario

Northern Ireland’s health minister is suing Van Morrison over Covid-19 criticism.

The Belfast-born singer-songwriter has embraced conspiracy theories and criticized restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Last year, he released a single called “No More Lockdown.”

By Johnny Diaz