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Music For Japan

The music community unites to raise money and support for Japan earthquake and tsunami relief efforts

GRAMMYs/Dec 3, 2014 - 05:06 am

On March 11, within hours of hearing about the tragic magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the subsequent devastating tsunami that decimated Tohoku, Japan, Costa Rican composer/singer/producer Jorge Castro knew he had to respond.

So he called 14 of his well-known friends — singers Michelle González and Marta Fonseca, Malpaís principal Fidel Gamboa, guitarist Federico Miranda, and Castro's drumming brother Andrés among them — and hurriedly finished a song he began in the wake of the destructive Sumatra tsunami in 2004.

Recorded under the collective Costa Rica For Japan, the resulting single, "Un Mar De Amor (A Sea Of Love)," has received widespread attention throughout Costa Rica, a nation with a population of 4.6 million, and blanket media coverage. It also yielded a video on YouTube.

"We needed something to put on the Internet so the Japanese know that on the other side of the world there are people that care," says Castro.

Castro hasn't been the only musician to spring into action for Japan. One of the first artists to help raise funds for the tragedy was Lady Gaga, who offered a "We Pray For Japan" charity bracelet via her website for $5, with all proceeds earmarked for Japanese quake relief.

While a recent lawsuit by a Michigan law firm claiming that she has profited from the project has attempted to muddy Lady Gaga's charitable efforts, it was reported the bracelet raised $1.5 million as of late March.

Lady Gaga's generosity hasn't ended there. She also contributed a Starsmith remix of "Born This Way" to the star-studded 38-song digital compilation, Songs For Japan, which contributed $5 million to the Japanese Red Cross Society. The compilation features songs by U2, Keith Urban, Cee Lo Green, Adele, and Nicki Minaj, among others.

The GRAMMY-winning artist also flew to the besieged country on June 25 and performed at MTV Video Music Aid Japan, a charity event broadcast to more than 30 million homes in Japan, South Korea and China that also featured homegrown artists MC AKB48, Girls' Generation, Namie Amuro, and Monkey Majik, among others.

"The recent events here really affected me, not just because I have so many fans in Japan, but because it's hard to watch a country struggle," Lady Gaga told Us Weekly. "But I can't let myself cry — I have to be strong because [everyone in Japan] has been so strong. No one gave up for a second."

Canadian rocker Avril Lavigne also rallied for the cause with her Abbey Dawn fashion line. The entire net proceeds of her "AD Loves Japan" oversized T-shirt are being donated to the Avril Lavigne Foundation to support Mercy Corps' Comfort for Kids program in Japan. Lavigne also donated net proceeds raised by her single "Keep Holding On" on Amazon.com to American Red Cross' Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami relief.

"I want the people of Japan to know that they have been in my thoughts since the devastating disasters," said Lavigne in a statement. "Japan and my fans there have been so important to me and so supportive throughout my career. I hope my fans around the world will join me by showing their support for our friends in Japan."

GRAMMY-winning rock band Linkin Park has initiated several fundraising efforts, including a pair of T-shirts designed by co-founder Mike Shinoda, and, in conjunction with lead vocalist Chester Bennington, a Signal Snowboard featuring Linkin Park vinyl as graphics was auctioned in May.

The band is also promising to perform a secret show in Los Angeles on Aug. 31 for the first 500 people who raise $500 or more, with all proceeds going to Save the Children's Japan Earthquake Tsunami Relief via Linkin Park's charitable organization Music for Relief.

In the UK, on April 3 Brixton Academy hosted a benefit for the British Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal. Featuring Liam Gallagher's new ensemble Beady Eye, the Coral, Graham Coxon, Paul Weller, Kelly Jones, Primal Scream, and Richard Ashcroft, the concert raised approximately $260,000 for the charity. Beady Eye also issued a cover version of the Beatles' "Across The Universe" as a limited-edition download to raise additional funds.

With artists ranging from Sonic Youth, Lou Reed and Yo La Tengo to John Zorn, Norah Jones and Yoko Ono pitching in with shows, music and merchandise, a diverse cast has united to show the positive healing power of music similar to relief efforts for such recent disasters as the Nashville flood in 2010 and Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast in 2005.

And even if money isn't involved, musical tributes such as "Un Mar De Amor (A Sea Of Love)" express a sentiment that will go a long way toward helping with the healing process.

"It's not necessarily about money," says Castro. "We did it out of love and support and solidarity. Music is a universal language."

(Nick Krewen is a Toronto-based journalist who has written for The Toronto Star, TV Guide, Billboard, Country Music and was a consultant for the National Film Board's music industry documentary Dream Machine.)
 

Gary Clark, Jr. On 'JPEG RAW': How A Lockdown Jam Session, Bagpipes & Musical Manipulation Led To His Most Eclectic Album Yet
Gary Clark, Jr.

Photo: Mike Miller

interview

Gary Clark, Jr. On 'JPEG RAW': How A Lockdown Jam Session, Bagpipes & Musical Manipulation Led To His Most Eclectic Album Yet

Gary Clark, Jr.'s latest record, 'JPEG RAW,' is an evolution in the GRAMMY-winning singer and guitarist's already eclectic sound. Clark shares the process behind his new record, which features everything from African chants to a duet with Stevie Wonder.

GRAMMYs/Mar 18, 2024 - 01:10 pm

Stevie Wonder once said "you can’t base your life on people’s expectations." It’s something guitarist and singer Gary Clark, Jr. has taken to heart as he’s built his own career. 

"You’ve got to find your own thing," Clark tells GRAMMY.com.

Clark recently duetted with Wonder on "What About The Children," a song on his forthcoming album. Out March 22, JPEG RAW sees Clark continue to evolve with a mixtape-like kaleidoscope of sounds.

Over the years, Clark has ventured into rock, R&B, hip-hop blues, soul, and country. JPEG RAW is the next step in Clark's eclectic sound and sensibility, the result of a free-flowing jam session held during COVID-19 lockdown. Clark and his bandmates found freedom in not having a set path, adding elements of traditional African music and chants, electronic music, and jazz into the milieu.

"We just kind of took it upon ourselves to find our own way and inspire ourselves," says Clark, a four-time GRAMMY winner. "And that was just putting our heads together and making music that we collectively felt was good and we liked, music we wanted to listen to again."

The creation process was simultaneously freeing and scary.

"It was a little of the unknown and then a sense of hope, but also after there was acceptance and then it was freeing. I was like, all right, well, I guess we’re just doing this," Clark recalls. "It was an emotional, mental rollercoaster at that time, but it was great to have these guys to navigate through it and create something in the midst of it."

JPEG RAW is also deeply personal, with lyrics reflecting on the future for Clark himself, his family, and others around the globe. While Clark has long reflected on political and social uncertainties, his new release widens the lens. Songs like "Habits" examine a universal humanity in his desire to avoid bad habits, while "Maktub" details life's common struggles and hopes. 

Clark and his band were aided in their pursuit by longtime collaborator and co-producer Jacob Sciba and a wide array of collaborators. Clark’s prolific streak of collaborations continued, with the album also featuring funk master George Clinton, electronic R&B/alt-pop artist Naala, session trumpeter Keyon Harrold, and Clark’s sisters Shanan, Shawn, and Savannah. He also sampled songs by Thelonious Monk and Sonny Boy Williamson.

Clark has also remained busy as an actor (he played American blues legend Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis) and as a music ambassador (he was the Music Director for the 23rd Annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor).

GRAMMY.com recently caught up with Clark, who will kick off his U.S. tour May 8, about his inspirations for JPEG RAW, collaborating with legendary musicians, and how creating music for a film helped give him a boost of confidence in the studio. 

This interview has been edited for clarity.

You incorporated traditional African music on JPEG RAW. How did it affect your songwriting process?

Well, I think traveling is how it affected my songwriting process. I was over in London, and we played a show with Songhoy Blues, and I was immediately influenced. I was like, "dang, these are my musical brothers from all the way across the world." 

I always kind of listened to West African funk and all that kind of stuff. So, I was just listening to that in the studio, and just kind of started messing around with the thing. And that just kind of evolved from there. I was later told by Jacob Sciba that he was playing that music trying to brainwash me into leaning more in that direction. I thought we were just genuinely having a good time exploring music together, and he was trying to manipulate me. [Laughs.]

I quit caring about what people thought about me wanting to be a certain thing. I think that being compared to Jimi Hendrix is a blessing and a curse for me because I'm not that. I will never be that. I never wanted to imitate or copy that, no disrespect. 

You’ve got to find your own thing. And my own thing is incorporating all the styles of music that I love, that I grew up on, and [was] influenced by as a pre-teen/teenager. To stay in one space and just be content doing that has never been my personality ever…I do what I like.

I read that you play trumpet at home and also have a set of bagpipes, just in case the mood strikes. 

I used to go collect instruments and old cameras from thrift stores and vintage shops and flea markets. So, I saw some bagpipes and I just picked them up. I've got a couple of violins. I don't play well at all — if you could consider that even playing. I've got trumpet, saxophone, flutes, all kinds of stuff just in case I can use these instruments in a way that'll make me think differently about music. It'll inspire me to go in a different direction that I've maybe never explored before, or I can translate some of that into playing guitar. 

One of my favorite guitarists, Albert Collins, was really inspired by horn players. So, if you can understand that and apply that to your number one instrument, maybe it could affect you. 

Given recent discussions about advancements in AI and our general inundation with technology, the title of your album is very relevant. What about people seeing life through that filter concerns you? Why does the descriptor seem apt?

During the pandemic, since I wasn't out in the world, I was on my phone and the information I was getting was through whatever social media platforms and what was going on in certain news outlets, all the news outlets. I'm just paying attention and I'm just like, man, there's devastation

I realized that I don't have to let it affect me. Just because things are accessible doesn't mean that you need to [access them].  It just made me think that I needed to do less of this and more of being appreciative of my world that's right in front of me, because right now it is really beautiful.

You’ve said the album plays out like a film, with a wide range of emotions throughout. What was it like seeing the album have that film-like quality?

I had conversations with the band, and I'd expressed to them that I want to be able to see it. I want to be able to see it on film, not just hear it. Keyboardist Jon Deas is great with [creating a] sonic palate and serving a mood along with [Eric] "King" Zapata who plays [rhythm] guitar. What he does with the guitar, it serves up a mood to you. You automatically see a color, you see a set design or something, and I just said, "Let's explore that. Let's make these things as dense as possible. Let's go like Hans Zimmer meets John Lee Hooker. Let's just make big songs that kind of tell some sort of a story." 

Also, we were stuck to our own devices, so we had to use our imagination. There was time, there was no schedule. So, we were free, open space, blank canvas.

The album opens with "Maktub," which is the Arabic word for fate or destiny. How has looking at different traditions given you added clarity with looking at what's happening here in the U.S.?

I was sitting in the studio with Jacob Sciba and my friend Sama'an Ashrawi and we were talking about the history of the blues. And then we started talking about the real history of the blues, not just in its American form, in an evolution back to Africa. You listen to a song like "Maktub," and then you listen to a song like, "Baby What You Want Me to Do" by Jimmy Reed…. 

The last record was This Land, but what about the whole world? What about not just focusing on this, but what else is going on out there? And we drew from these influences. We talked about family, we talked about culture, we talked about tradition, we talked about everything. And it's like, let's make it inclusive, build the people up. Let's build ourselves up. It’s not just about your small world, it’s about everybody’s feelings. Sometimes they're dealt with injustice and devastation everywhere, but there's also this global sense of hope. So, I just wanted to have a song that had the sentiment of that.

I really enjoyed the song’s hopeful message of trying to move forward.

Obviously, things are a little bit funky around here, and I don't have any answers. But maybe if we got our heads together and brainstorm, we could all figure something out instead of … struggling or suffering in silence. It's like, let's find some light here. 

But part of the talks that I had with Sama'an and his parents over a [video] call was music. He’s from Palestine, and growing up music was a way to connect. Music was a way to find happiness in a place where that wasn't an everyday convenience, and that was really powerful. That music is what brought folks together and brought joy and built a community and a common way of thinking globally. They were listening to music from all over the world, American music, rock music, and that was an influence.

The final song on the album, "Habits," sounds like it was the most challenging song to put together. What did you learn from putting that song together?

Well, that song originally was a bunch of different pieces, and I thought that they were different songs, and I was singing the different parts to them, and then I decided to put them all together. I think I was afraid to put them all together because we were like, "let's not do these long self-indulgent pieces of music. Let's keep it cool." But once I put these parts together and put these lyrics together, it just kind of made sense. 

I got emotional when I was singing it, and I was like, This is part of using this as an outlet for the things that are going on in life. We went and recorded it in Nashville with Mike Elizondo and his amazing crew, and it's like, yep, we're doing it all nine minutes of it.

You collaborated with a bunch of musicians on this album, including Naala on "This Is Who We Are." What was that experience like?

Working with Naala was great. That song was following me around for a couple of years, and I knew what I wanted it to sound like, but I didn't know how I was going to sing it. I had already laid the musical bed, and I think it was one of the last songs that we recorded vocals on for the album. 

Lyrically, it’s like a knight in shining armor or a samurai, and there's fire and there's war, and this guy's got to go find something. It was like this medieval fairytale type thing that I had in my head. Naala really helped lyrically guide me in a way that told that story, but was a little more personal and a little more vulnerable. I was about to give up on that song until she showed up in the studio. 

"What About the Children" is based on a demo that you got from Stevie Wonder. You got to duet with him, what was that collaboration like?

Oh, it was great. It was a life-changing experience. The guy's the greatest in everything, he was sweet, the most talented, hardworking, gracious, humble, but strong human being I've been in a room with and been able to create with. 

I was in shock when I left the studio at how powerful that was and how game changing and eye-opening it was. It was educational and inspiring. It was like before Stevie and after Stevie.

I imagine it was also extra special getting to have your sisters on the album.

Absolutely. We got to sing with Stevie Wonder; we used to grow up listening to George Clinton. They've stuck with us throughout my whole life. So, to be able to work with him and George Clinton — they came in wanting to do the work, hardworking, badass, nice, funny — it was a dream. 

Stevie Wonder and George Clinton are just different. They're pioneers and risk takers. For a young Black kid from Texas to see that and then later to be able to be in a room with that and get direct education and conversation…. It's an experience that not everybody gets to experience, and I'm grateful that I did, and hopefully we can do it again.

In 2022, you acted in Elvis. What are the biggest things you've learned from expanding into new creative areas?

I really have to give it up to a guy named Jeremy Grody…I went to his studio with these terrible demos that I had done on Pro Tools…and this guy helped save them and recreate them. I realized the importance of quality recordings. Jeremy Grody was my introduction to the game and really set me up to have the confidence to be able to step in rooms like that again.

I played some songs in the film, and I really understood how long a film day was. It takes all day long, a lot of takes, a lot of lights, a lot of big crews, big production.

I got to meet Lou Reed [while screening the film] at the San Sebastian Film Festival, and I was super nervous in interviews. I was giving away the whole movie. And Lou Reed said, "Just relax and have fun with all this s—." I really appreciated that.

Do you have a dream role?

I don't have a dream role, but I do know that if I was to get into acting, I’d really dive into it. I would want to do things that are challenging. I like taking risks. I want to push it to the limit. I would really like to understand what it's like to immerse yourself in the character and in the script and do it for real.

You're about to go out on tour. How will the show and production on this tour compare with the past ones?

We're building it currently, but I'm excited about what we got in store as far as the band goes. There are a few additions. I've got my sisters coming out with me. It's just going to be a big show.There's a new energy here, and I'm excited to share that with folks. 

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5 Songs To Get Into Kim Gordon's Solo Work, From "Change My Brain" To "I'm A Man"
Kim Gordon performing in 2023

Photo: Jason Squires/FilmMagic

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5 Songs To Get Into Kim Gordon's Solo Work, From "Change My Brain" To "I'm A Man"

An ocean of ink has been spilled about Sonic Youth's indomitable legacy, which includes a bounty of Kim Gordon songs. With her new solo album, 'The Collective,' out in the world, press play on five great songs from her post-Sonic Youth discography.

GRAMMYs/Mar 14, 2024 - 02:11 pm

The Beastie Boys' Ad-Rock once offered a brilliant observation of Kim Gordon. "Wherever Kim ends up, she is the coolest person in the room," he told The New Yorker in 2013. "But I know her, and I know she'd rather be at home grilling hot dogs."

How much more succinctly could one put it? Since Sonic Youth tortured their first Jazzmaster, Gordon has radiated mysterious cerebral, enveloping art, while never coming across as an arteest.

Gordon's vital contributions to the band, from "'Cross the Breeze" to "Bull in the Heather" and beyond — coupled with cool you could cut with a knife — cemented her as an alternative icon.

So much so, that when she and romantic and creative partner Thurston Moore split in 2013 — which took Sonic Youth down with them — Gordon arguably won the public in the divorce.

The four members of Sonic Youth have remained active with various projects, and Gordon's have been some of the most enticing. She hit the ground running with Body/Head, a collaboration with guitarist Bill Nace — and formed another duo, Glitterbust, with fellow axeman Alex Knost.

Gordon has also released two solo albums — and the last one, especially, is turning heads. The Collective, which dropped March 8 via Matador, is like a T-bone between rap production and the shattering noise she's made her own.

As you absorb this sui generis piece of art — from opener "BYE BYE" to closer "Dream Dollar" — take a spin through five songs that act as entryways to Gordon's solo years.

"Change My Brain" (Body/Head's The Switch, 2018)

At its best, Gordon's noise is tactile, overwhelming; it's like big muscles. "Change My Brain," from Body/Head's 2018 album The Switch, is a glorious, 10-minute thicket of fuzz, with a rounded and iridescent center that undulates like a glow worm.

"Air Bnb" (No Home Record, 2019)

The top comment on the official "Air Bnb" music video is genius: "This is the best video I've ever read." It consists of a black screen, explaining that the funding just wasn't there for Gordon to crawl and cavort through a mid-century modern  rental. Instead, the video describes all the details as Gordon sings about the Air BnB that "could set me free."

But the throttling music is a mindmovie on its own: whatever's in your head is more unsettling than what Gordon and her collaborators would have come up with.

"Murdered Out" (No Home Record, 2019)

In a press statement, Gordon evocatively explained her No Home Record banger "Murdered Out."

"When I moved back to L.A., I noticed more and more cars painted with black matte spray, tinted windows, blackened logos, and black wheels," she said, considering all its cultural implications: "Like an option on a voting ballot, 'none of the above.'"

Like the foreboding whips of its namesake, "Murdered Out" is unforgiving, ominous, devoid of light. It's also utterly gripping; turn it up loud.

"BYE BYE" (The Collective, 2024)

As usual, YouTube randos sum it up better than any music writer could. "This is the hardest shopping list I've ever heard," one writes. Another: "I'm not even surprised that it's 2024 and Kim Gordon has the sickest beats in the game."

Over a serrated trap beat, Gordon relates her itinerary: purchase a suitcase, drop pants at cleaner, call the vet, call the groomer. The final item? "Vibrator, teaser, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye."

"I'm a Man" (The Collective, 2024)

Gender-flipping's been a thing since the dawn of rock 'n' roll, and it's been baked into indie from its inception. But only a select few can make it so funny.

"So what if I like the big truck? / Giddy up, giddy up!" Gordon crows, as if she's instructed ChatGPT to approximate dummy masculinity. "Don't make me have to hide/ Or explain/ What I am inside." Checkmate to the XY-chromosomed: as usual, Gordon has the last laugh.

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5 Inspirations Behind Norah Jones' New Album 'Visions': Nightly Dreams, Collabs, Harmony Stacks & More
Norah Jones

Photo: Joelle Grace Taylor

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5 Inspirations Behind Norah Jones' New Album 'Visions': Nightly Dreams, Collabs, Harmony Stacks & More

On her iridescent new album 'Visions,' out March 8, Jones embraces a newer collaborator in Leon Michels, and brings the stuff of phantasmagoria into immediate, organic relief.

GRAMMYs/Mar 8, 2024 - 03:06 pm

Not all Norah Jones fans know this, but her debut 2002 album Come Away With Me was recorded in its entirety a whopping three times. Her latest, Visions, is no less detailed or exacting. But in true Blue Note fashion — it's out March 8, via said label — it sprang from an improvisatory, immediate space.

"I didn't really have a lot of preconceived ideas," Jones tells GRAMMY.com over Zoom, as a typically oppressive winter in New York blurs into spring. ("I like winter," she says. "Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one.") Despite this dearth of advance material, "We just wrote and played," Jones continues. "And, honestly, he's one of the most fun people I get to play music with."

"He" is none other than producer, multi-instrumentalist and two-time GRAMMY nominee Leon Michels; Jones, a nine-time GRAMMY winner and 19-time nominee herself, previously worked with him on her first-ever holiday album, 2021's I Dream of Christmas.

Highlights like "Staring at the Wall," "Running" and "I'm Awake" show Jones is clearly the same artist who made classics like Come Away With Me and 2004's Feels Like Home — but in the ensuing decades, her work has assumed layers of adventurousness and dynamism.

"I love playing music with people and collaborating and trying new things, and I feel very at ease with myself and as myself in all those situations," Jones says. "Which is why it works, I think. I'm not trying to be somebody else when I do this. I'm comfortable, but I love to just try new clothes on musically."

Read on for a breakdown of people, concepts and things that inspired the making of Visions.

Her Podcast "Norah Jones Is Playing Along"

Over 32 episodes and counting, Jones has sat down with everyone from Jeff Tweedy to Seth MacFarlane to Laufey for extemporaneous collaborations and conversations. Jones notes that they're gearing up to release more episodes.

While she doesn't expressly note the podcast as a direct influence, its one-on-one format harmonizes with the dynamic between herself and Michel on Visions.

"I think anything you do influences you in some ways, even if you don't realize how," Jones says. "I've always been a pretty open musician, but I just feel like I get more and more open."

Her Creative Synergy With Leon Michels

When Jones had a shred of an idea — a few lyrics, a sketch of a melody — she would sit at a piano or guitar, Michels would get behind the kit, and they'd jam it out, garage band-style.

From there, the collaborators would add "a ton of harmonies" — more on that later — as well as bass, guitar, horns, organ, or whatever else would elevate the songs.

"The live energy you feel on those recordings is from me and him playing drums and piano or guitar," Jones says, "and just having fun."

Subconscious, Subterranean Zones

As Jones noted in the press materials, Visions came from a space beyond wakefulness.

"The reason I called the album Visions is because a lot of the ideas came in the middle of the night or in that moment right before sleep," she said. She then evoked the lead single: "'Running' was one of them where you're half asleep and kind of jolted awake."

"I think it just all flowed really fast," Jones says in retrospect. "There were some songs that I had to tweak the lyrics more because they were slower to come, but most of them were pretty fast."

Stacking Harmonies — Christmas Style

Two years and change ago, I Dream of Christmas displayed a newer facet of Jones' sound: dense, layered harmonies. It worked so well on those yuletide tunes that Jones and Michels expanded on that concept for Visions.

"I'm always hearing harmonies, and I'm pretty quick at adding them," Jones recalls, and he's always, "Add a harmony, add a harmony, add a harmony." It's really part of the sound of the record."

Jones says this comes straight from her record collection. "It does come pretty naturally. It comes from years of loving music," she says. "I mean, I used to imitate Aretha's background singers. I think it was Cissy Houston. I love that kind of harmony." (Plus, she sang in jazz groups and high school and college, with 10 vocalists as a united throng.)

For Jones' upcoming tour dates on the East Coast, which span May and June, Michels won't be present. But those shimmering, layered vocals will.

Bringing Two More Singers To The Party

Along with four-time GRAMMY-winning drummer extraordinaire Brian Blade and the great, indie-oriented bassist Josh Lattanzi, Jones will perform alongside singers Sasha Dobson and Sami Stevens, who will also chip in on guitar and keys.

"We had our first rehearsal yesterday, and it sounds incredible," Jones says, aglow. She then considers the nuances of bringing studio creations to life onstage.

"Sometimes, you want to hit all the parts and sometimes you can and sometimes you can't," she says. "And you have to strip a song back and it sounds just as great, because it's a good song, and that's always a good feeling."

Onstage, though, Jones says they'll have all the resources to pull it off. Call it Visions come to life, and made material.

Norah Jones On Her Two-Decade Evolution, Channeling Chris Cornell & Her First-Ever Live Album, 'Til We Meet Again

U2 Performs "Atomic City" & Transports The 2024 GRAMMYs To Las Vegas
The Sphere in Las Vegas

Photo: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

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U2 Performs "Atomic City" & Transports The 2024 GRAMMYs To Las Vegas

Bono and co.’s long-distance return to the 2024 GRAMMYs marks the Sphere, a state-of-the-art Sin City structure. The 22-time GRAMMY winners performed a jaunty take on "Atomic City" among incredible visuals.

GRAMMYs/Feb 5, 2024 - 02:51 am

U2 transported Music's Biggest Night from the Crytpo.com Arena in Los Angeles to Las Vegas on Sunday night, performing their song "Atomic City" live from the Sphere. 

"Guitar, she pulls the strings et cetera/ Sinatra swings, a choir sings/ Love is God and God is love/ And if your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough," Bono wailed as the cameras took in the majesty and awe of the futuristic venue just off the Vegas Strip.

Following the performance, the live segment also featured a special presentation of Best Pop Vocal Album Award to Taylor Swift for 2022’s Midnights — with the superstar using her acceptance speech to announce the April 19 release date for her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department.

Bono and co.’s long-distance return to the GRAMMYs (where they last performed at the 2018 GRAMMYs) marks the first live broadcast from the state-of-the-art Sin City structure, which the 22-time GRAMMY winners are currently breaking in as a performance venue with their residency U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere.

Launched in September, U2’s inaugural run of 40 shows at the Sphere will wrap on March 2. After the Dublin rockers’ final concert highlighting their 1991 GRAMMY-winning album Achtung Baby, Dead & Company will take over the venue for their own residency with an assist from John Mayer.

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