The Backstreet Boys‘ 25th-anniversary celebrations for signature album Millennium are about to be larger than life, with the band announcing a revamped version of the LP along with three more Sphere residency dates Friday (Feb. 14).
As revealed Valentine’s Day morning by bandmates Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean, Kevin Richardson and Howie Dorough on Instagram, Millennium 2.0 will arrive on July 11, a whole quarter-century after the original album first topped the Billboard 200 for 10 weeks. The anniversary edition — for which the group members recreated their iconic album cover, futuristic all-white outfits and all — will feature remastered versions of all the songs on the original tracklist, plus a few uncovered demos and some live recordings from their 1999-2000 Into the Millennium World Tour.
The LP will also include the band’s new single, “Hey!,” which fans can hear as soon as they pre-save Millennium 2.0. “Thank you for still loving this album more than 25 years later and we can’t wait to make a ton of new Millennium Memories with you!” the band wrote. “It’s time for (us) to go to work y’all …”

The 2025 reworking of Ariana Grande’s lightly conceptual seventh album appends six tracks to its predecessor—and, perhaps crucially, a notable do-over. “intro (end of the world) [extended],” the first of the new cuts, starts simply enough as a reprise of the existential lullaby that opens the original album. But its longing is cut off at the knees when Grande begins describing her desire to “jump into your skin and change your eyes” so she can provide a kind of turbo-charged empathy that reveals the relationship’s darker side. While its pillow-soft sonics and Grande’s resolute singing are gentle, it’s still a jarring lyric to hear right after the album proper’s closer, “ordinary things,” on which Grande's nonna Marjorie tells her granddaughter in no uncertain terms about the signals that a relationship is over. Nonna spoke, Grande listened, that book is closed.

Or is there even a book in the first place? When discussing the beat-forward, hit-packed <i>eternal sunshine</i> with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe around its initial release in 2024, Grande said, “Finding a home in <i>eternal sunshine</i> was a lovely costume to wear,” noting that the “freedom within art” was present because of the endless possibilities for sources—personal truths, films (like <i>Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</i>, the surrealistic love story that provides the album’s title), high concepts. With the release of <i>Wicked</i>, Ariana's big-screen coming-out party in late 2024, Grande had reached new heights of celebrity—and with that newfound status, her personal life was under further scrutiny.

Over the rest of <i>brighter days ahead</i>, Grande is playfully opaque, making a reference to “holding space” on the simmering “warm,” which turns Grande’s vocals into a neon-lit cloud settling over glossy synth skyscrapers, and declaring “I’m still the same but only entirely different” on “Hampstead,” a reimagining of the barroom-piano-led last-call lament. That’s only one spot where Grande’s voice pushes into exciting new territory: “dandelion,” a lusty expression of desire, spins out of a drowsy trumpet line, its looped horn and sampled trap drums adding heat.

“Might fuck around and elevate my expectations,” Ariana muses on the chorus of “past life,” a low-lit synth-R&B cut. As with her other releases, <i>brighter days ahead</i> shows how her attention to detail and desire to evolve have resulted in a singular body of work that, even if it’s playing coy about where the public Grande ends and the private Ari begins, is utterly her own.

美国歌手海尔希的全新自白概念专辑

“Harlequin” will be released on Sept. 27 and feature 13 songs. In the lead up to the announcement, Gaga teased fans with posts to Instagram “I’m ready for my interview,” read one post, while another said: “Don’t tell me what to wear.” A third post, which was accompanied by the lone plucking of an acoustic guitar, read: “No duct tape. No mission.” She also teased the album earlier this week with billboards including the number “6.5,” which presumably means that she does not consider this a full Lady Gaga studio album, unlike the forthcoming one that has been written in shorthand “LG7.”

有些人会选择与敌人一笑泯恩仇，而在 2024 年大放异彩的流行明星 Sabrina Carpenter 则反其道而行，她在轻盈的旋律、顽皮的笑容里，用毒舌金句狠狠吐槽一无是处的前任。曾经身为迪士尼频道童星的她，在 2014 年以首支单曲《Can't Blame a Girl for Trying》开启了音乐事业，那年她 15 岁。十年过去了，25 岁的她在全世界的瞩目下，创作着她个人迄今最悦耳、最幽默，也最真诚的音乐。在《Please Please Please》里，她表面上恳求男友不要再次让她难堪，实则也嘲笑了自己。她告诉 Apple Music：“我喜欢这张专辑里对自己负责的态度。我不但会吐槽别人，也会吐槽自己。”

Carpenter 表示，把第六张专辑命名为《Short n' Sweet》，并不是在开身高的玩笑，她解释道：“我想起一些过去的感情，有些交往时间很短的关系，影响却最深。我也反思了自己在各种境遇下的反应，有时很温和，有时却糟糕透顶。”但这张专辑并不困顿于省思的苦涩，反而充满戏谑和幽默。Carpenter 用生活的荒诞解构了悲伤。“生活到了这一步，你已一筹莫展、无计可施，于是一切看起来都变得很好笑。”Carpenter 坦言，“专辑很多歌曲都诞生于让我捧腹大笑的时刻。我想，好啊，不如就把它写成歌吧。”《Dumb & Poetic》是一首温柔的不插电抒情歌，却整篇弥漫着淡淡的嘲讽，Carpenter 在其中揭穿了一个用花言巧语和高雅品味掩饰龌龊念头的家伙。而在令人忍俊不禁的《Slim Pickins》里，她幽默地唱着：“天呐，这个女孩该怎么办？/这小子连 there、their、they are 都分不清/而他在我的房间里脱光了衣服”（Jesus, what's a girl to do?/This boy doesn't even know the difference between there, their, and they are/Yet he's naked in my room）。”

Carpenter 在法国乡下的一个小镇住了 11 天，期间创作了专辑中的不少歌曲。独处让她更加真实地面对自己、写出了前所未有的真挚之作，也包括一首红到让她不知所以然的《Espresso》，里面一句莫名其妙却琅琅上口的歌词“That’s that me espresso”让她的事业一飞冲天。在谈到创作过程时，她回忆道：“写歌词其实没什么规则。我只是问自己：怎么唱会听起来很棒？什么感觉最好？怎么去表达我想说的故事？”不过，这首歌也让她在世界各地的咖啡店点餐时遇到了一点麻烦。“他们都等我说那句歌词。”她大笑道，“但我偏要说：‘给我来杯茶。’”