On Oct 16–18, Save Our Stages Festival—or #SOSFest—will bring live music from huge names playing in empty independent venues safely to fans via a star-studded YouTube livestream. The full lineup and schedule have been revealed, so you can make sure to be front row (on your couch) for your favorite artists

FINNEAS, Dillion Francis and Bea Miller will each perform at Los Angeles' Teragram Ballroom, while YG, the Foo Fighters, Phoebe Bridgers, Leon Bridges and Marshmello with Demi Lovato will play at West Hollywood's legendary Troubadour. Comedian and musician Reggie Watts will host the entire weekend.

Miley Cyrus, Sebastián Yatra, G-Eazy and the Black Pumas will also serve up sets from Hollywood's Whisky a Go-Go, Fort Lauderdale's Broward Center, San Francisco's Independent and Austin's The Parish, respectively. Cautious Clay, the Roots, Dizzy Fae, Alec Benjamin and more will also bring their music to the cause.

Witness: Capturing Los Angeles' COVID-Closed Venues

The organizers, the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) goal is to deliver much-needed support to the shuttered music spaces with direct financial support and raising awareness for the $10 billion stimulus package currently in Congress.

During the three-day livestream fest, viewers will be encouraged to donate what they can to the NIVA NIVA Emergency Relief Fund, which benefits indie venues at risk of closing. Save Our Stages is part of the updated HEROES Act, which includes essential funding for independent entertainment venues and promoters.

Related: Taylor Hanson Speaks Out For Oklahoma's Live Venues At Save Our Stages Event

A recent NIVA study found the majority of indie venues—90 percent!—in the U.S. will be forced to close without federal support.

Visit NIVA's YouTube channel, where the show will be streamed this weekend, to set reminders for each day of the fest. You can also visit saveourstages.com for the full lineup, for more info on the fight to Save Our Stages and to contact your elected officials to urge Congress to pass the Act.

Hispanic Heritage Month: Leila Cobo, Felix Contreras & Jennifer Mota Talk Covering The Thriving Latin Music Scene

It's that time again! The 2023 Met Gala — one of the fashion bonanzas of the year — is in full force. And given that fashion has always been the yin to music's yang, GRAMMY winners and nominees were among the stars studding this glamorous, fashion-forward event.

Presented by gala co-chair Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue and global editorial director of Condé Nast, the Met Gala this year is co-chaired by Penélope Cruz, Michaela Coel, Roger Federer and three-time GRAMMY winner Dua Lipa.

GRAMMY winners and nominees as well as today’s leading artists in music are already setting the Met Gala red carpet on fire, with everyone from Dua Lipa, Phoebe Bridgers, Rita Ora, David Byrne, rising rap sensation Ice Spice, and more showing off their fierce fashion looks. Plus, Rihanna and her partner ASAP Rocky made a last-minute surprise arrival on the 2023 Met Gala red carpet, setting the fashion and music worlds ablaze.

This year's Met Gala celebrates the indelible legacy of the late fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld; the dress code is "In honor of Karl…")

Below, check out some of the most eye-catching red carpet fashion looks from music’s biggest stars at the 2023 Met Gala.

Rihanna attends the 2023 Met Gala Celebrating "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Dua Lipa arrives for the 2023 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 1, 2023, in New York | Photo: ANGELA WEISS / AFP

(L-R) Finneas O'Connell and Billie Eilish attend The 2023 Met Gala Celebrating "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/MG23/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue

Bad Bunny attends The 2023 Met Gala Celebrating "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Jennifer Lopez attends the 2023 Met Gala Celebrating "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Cardi B attends the 2023 Met Gala Celebrating "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/MG23/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue

Doja Cat attends the 2023 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Lil Nas X attends The 2023 Met Gala Celebrating "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/MG23/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue

Usher attends the 2023 Met Gala Celebrating "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

Sean "Diddy" Combs attends The 2023 Met Gala Celebrating "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

Phoebe Bridgers attends the 2023 Met Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Anitta attends the 2023 Met Gala the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

Halle Bailey attends the 2023 Met Gala Celebrating "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Kevin Mazur/MG23/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue

Janelle Monáe attends The 2023 Met Gala Celebrating "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line Of Beauty" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 01, 2023 in New York City | Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

2023 GRAMMYs Red Carpet Fashion Highlights: Taylor Swift, Cardi B, Harry Styles, Lizzo, Doja Cat & More

Long before Meet Me @ The Altar formed in 2015, the trio found inspiration from women who were doing exactly what they are now — breaking the mold for women in rock. So when it came time to name their debut album, there was a title no more fitting than Past // Present // Future.

"We're always going back to the music that inspired us in our childhood growing up and finding ways to make something modern out of that," bassist Téa Campbell tells GRAMMY.com.

While they initially bonded over Paramore — after Campbell and drummer Ada Juarez met on YouTube, they held auditions for a singer, and Edith Victoria won them over with a rendition of Paramore's "All I Wanted" — Meet Me @ The Altar had a separate set of influences in mind while creating their first LP: Demi Lovato, P!nk, Alanis Morissette, and Kelly Clarkson.

All of those artists' impacts are felt across Past // Present // Future, but Meet Me @ The Altar bring a youthful energy that makes the music feel less copycat and more well-informed. There's no denying they were kids of the pop-punk era, as apparent in the racing guitar melody of "Try" and their fearless shots at online trolls on lead single "Say It (To My Face)." Across the album's 11 tracks, it's clear that the MM@TA girls are simply having fun paying homage to the music they grew up on — but ultimately, making it their own.

Just before the album was released on March 10, Meet Me @ The Altar kicked off their first-ever headlining tour. Despite only being six shows in by the time they caught up with GRAMMY.com, the trio had already noticed that they're making a similar impact on fans that their heroes had on them. And with all three members being BIPOC and two queer, the band is serving the next generation in an even bigger way.

"We grew up not seeing people like us on stage — none that we directly saw ourselves reflected in — and we are that for a lot of people now," Campbell says. "That's something that we don't take lightly."

Below, hear from Campbell, Juarez and Victoria on how Demi Lovato, P!nk, Alanis Morissette, and Kelly Clarkson inspired Meet Me @ The Altar's debut LP.

Demi Lovato

Victoria: She's such a fantastic vocalist. She can sing literally anything — she can sing over a pop instrumental or over a rock Instrumental and she'll still sound fabulous. 

Campbell: Demi was always a freakin' rock star. I just remember being like, 7, 8 years old, turning on the TV in my playroom. They would play the music videos in between the shows and stuff, and it was always so inspiring to see someone just, like, rocking out. Disney Channel doesn't get enough credit — they really made [everyone] look like rock stars. It was so iconic.

Victoria: The album that did it for me when I was really young was Don't Forget, with "Get Back" and all of that. I loved that record so much, because it was a fuse of pop and rock, and her badass voice over it was just amazing.

Campbell: Especially instrumentally, Demi's older stuff was a huge influence on this record. [On] "La La Land," the songwriting is really good. That's something I was really focused on with this album, having really good songwriting, because we really care about creating quality work. 

"Here We Go Again" was also a main vibe that we wanted to go for, because it's a perfect amount of nostalgia. That's something that we wanted to emulate too.

For all of these artists, it's more vibes versus [trying] to copy their song, you know? We just really loved the energy that all these artists put out, and Demi's songs were just so solid and such good pop-rock songs. And we wanted to have that kind of iconic-ness about ours.

Juarez: Demi's music, since the beginning, has been really rock-based, and that's obviously something that we took into account with what we were doing with this album. We also worked with John Fields, who has produced some of Demi's albums. 

We definitely wanted to sound, quality-wise, just like how she sounded in those albums. Those albums are so good. 

Campbell: [John] had a bunch of photos and videos [of Demi] from that time when we were recording and stuff, so it was so crazy — especially thinking back to our 7/8/9-year-old selves. They would be freaking out!

Victoria: The melody for "Need Me" [on our album] reminds me a lot of that era. The "yeah, yeah"s were inspired by Demi because she loved her "yeah, yeah"s back in the day. The cadence reminds me of her a lot as well, and that Don't Forget period.

Campbell: "TMI" gives the most, like, Camp Rock-y kind of vibe. I can imagine Edith singing it by a lake, just looking out at the water. 

Juarez: Also, just to say: As a person, Demi is amazing — how far they've come, where they are today and where they came from. Demi is definitely someone that I've looked up to for a very long time, to get to where they are today.

P!nk

Victoria: All these people [inspire me] on a vocal scale, because they're so versatile and they kind of can sing anything, but my favorite parts of them was when they were singing over a rock instrumental. That really influenced me, and it made me realize I can have a more colorful voice than the basic pop-punk dude voice and still be able to sing over rock. Pink's poppier stuff is just as good as her rockier stuff, and I think it's really important to be able to be versatile in your voice like she is.

Juarez: The immediate thing that comes to mind is that P!nk is the best person in the entire f—ing world. She's so unapologetically herself, and always has been. Even how she raises her children today — P!nk is just, like, an angel. 

Her music has always been really good. She's done many genres, and honestly, nailed them all. She's just one of those artists that, growing up, I always looked up to. There's never been a point in time where I didn't know that P!nk existed. I've always been like Wow, I want to be as influential as she is. 

Campbell: P!nk has always been really inspiring in terms of just taking up space and having a voice. It's her way or the highway — she doesn't take anyone's crap. That mentality has really helped us navigate this whole thing, being young women in a scene that's very older male-dominated. It's hard to navigate sometimes, but having that inside of you, like, I'm just gonna do me and worry about what I got going on — that's something that I really took from P!nk. She's a badass, and that's how we want to be.

If you think about songs as a formula, she's got it down. That's something that we paid attention to. Her song structures are just perfect. It's that mix of that powerhouse voice with the real rock instrumentals. We also focused on more of a driving chorus for most of these songs — that's something that she did a lot and that was something that we really liked. 

Juarez: She also has a lot of fun in her songs, and I feel like we get some of that from her. You don't have to take the song too seriously, you can still put your little spin on things. 

Campbell: "Thx 4 Nothin" was heavily P!nk inspired.

Victoria: That was one where we were like, "We should write something that is very reminiscent of P!nk." We decided that before we went to the studio that day.

Alanis Morissette

Edith: She's so unconventional and odd. I remember my mom used to play her all the time when I was growing up, and my mom was telling me that when Jagged Little Pill came out, people were so freaked out by her — they were like, "She's the devil" and all this stuff, just because she was a rock star and she sang a lot differently than what any other woman was doing at the time. 

I love how unconventional she was and how unapologetic she was. I think that she carried all of that negativity and dealt with it with such grace, and she still just did what she had to do for her fans. 

Juarez: I wasn't too familiar with Alanis Morissette for a really long time. But as I've gotten older and learned more about her, I've realized that she's always had her place in the rock scene — like, she played Woodstock '99! Taylor Hawkins was her drummer for the longest time. She's always had a name for herself, and that's something that we strive to do always in a male-centric genre. 

Victoria: We cover "You Oughta Know" live, actually. It's one of my favorite songs ever — that whole album is one of my favorite albums ever, Jagged Little Pill. Her song "Thank You" is one of my favorites too.

"Kool" is a song that I wanted to be very kind of weird. That chorus melody is very Alanis-inspired with the way I'm moving my voice, because she moved her voice in a lot of odd ways too.

Kelly Clarkson

Victoria: I didn't recognize how much Kelly influenced me, because I was so young listening to all her hits on the radio that I didn't process who it was, I just knew I liked the song and the singer. "Miss Independent" and "Breakaway" — that whole album, I had it on CD, and I used to play it, like, every single day, but I didn't know who the heck Kelly Clarkson was! 

When we started this album, and then I went back and I realized, "Oh my gosh, all of these songs are Kelly Clarkson. And they're all so good!"

She is one of my favorite vocalists ever. She's so versatile and her voice is so powerful. She's just amazing.

Campbell: Kelly Clarkson was one of the first people who made me realize how powerful music can be in the context of movies. The Princess Diaries — I think that might have been the first time I ever heard Kelly Clarkson. It made me feel so much. 

It's just so cool what music can do. I think that's something that all of these artists opened our eyes to. Especially nowadays, we always find ourselves going back to that time period, because music today just does not feel the same.

All of these artists were songwriters too, and you could tell that their truth was in these songs, and it made you feel something. That's something that is super inspiring, and Kelly is so great at that.

Juarez: Kelly Clarkson — in particular, it was "Breakaway," but honestly that whole album, and even like "Since U Been Gone" and "Behind These Hazel Eyes" — that was one of the first times I felt that nostalgia emotion. Specifically "Breakaway" — I was like 4 or something — like, it would play at the YMCA, that's where I remember hearing it. It always stuck out to me. 

Victoria: The melody for "Same Language," but specifically the post-chorus, reminds me so much of her. It's super high, it's super open. It's like a slap in your face in the best way. I can hear singing that part of the chorus so easily.

Campbell: I feel like a lot of our songs, vocally, have the same kind of vibe as "My Life Would Suck Without You." It's just up there and it's just like, goin'.

Juarez: I love that the music we make gives me the same feeling that "Breakaway" gave me when I first listened to it. It's, like, a vibe thing. And also Kelly Clarkson is like, the best person in the world. I think she can do no wrong.

Victoria: She's a ray of sunshine. I'm so happy we're able to be on her show, because that was very full-circle for all of us.

Juarez: We didn't get to meet her though, it was all pre-recorded. One day!

Victoria: I want to get all these people to know who we are so bad. I think they would really like us!

Miley Cyrus' Road To 'Endless Summer Vacation': How Hannah Montana, Artistic Reinvention & Heartbreak Led To Her Most Self-Assured Album Yet

In the frigid depths of January, Miley Cyrus pronounced an Endless Summer Vacation was on its way. But it wasn't just the promise of perennial sunshine and lazy days by the pool in the near future — it was the title of her eighth studio album.

Cyrus has always been a musical shapeshifter, dating all the way back to her days as a Disney star. In fact, to call her a chameleon is something of an understatement. More than any of her contemporaries in the Disney Channel class of the late 2000s, the superstar has zigzagged wildly from genre to genre, and aesthetic to aesthetic, across more than 15 years in the business. 

Of course, before Cyrus became a pop star in her own right, she was known to an entire generation as Hannah Montana, the titular character of the hit Disney Channel sitcom that ran from 2006 to 2011. Portraying Hannah gave the then-child star her first taste of life as a (fictional) music sensation, one who lived in the "Best of Both Worlds" and could put her fame on like a costume by adopting a stage persona and new look. 

When looking at Cyrus' wide-spanning career, it could be argued that the foundational experience of playing Hannah Montana informed the way a young Miley approached her own identity as a pop star, shifting from one style to the next — and yet, having each of them feel entirely authentic to her talent and point of view.

Despite the sometimes drastic stylistic changes from one album to the next, Cyrus has always insisted her music is rooted in personal truth and reflective of her current moment. "Everyone that I've been — whether you are thinking about Hannah Montana or the music I made in the past — all of it has always been the truth," she said in a 2017 interview with NPR. "So I think people are saying 'the new Miley' or 'the more honest Miley' — I've always been that. But I've been honest for who that person was then."

The singer first started breaking away from her Hannah Montana character long before the kid-friendly series finished airing in 2011. Establishing her own identity happened in fits and starts, even as her persona as Hannah grew larger than life. In 2007, she released Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus — a part soundtrack/part double album to introduce fans to the budding artist underneath Hannah's blonde wig. The project earned Cyrus her very first top 10 hit in the form of "See You Again."

In the years that followed, she essentially lived parallel lives as both Miley and Hannah. Breakout, her second studio album, arrived in 2008 with singles "7 Things" and "Fly on the Wall," and yet Hannah was still making appearances on her Best Of Both Worlds Tour. "I think having Hannah come up on stage gives it a cool vibe," she explained to MTV News at the time. "And it shows, like, one girl but definitely two sides and I like that you get both tastes of music, and I think it's just really fun."

That dichotomy continued the following year when her alter ego made the leap to to the big screen in Hannah Montana: The Movie. And yet, Hannah's big break also gave Miley the perfect platform to debut "The Climb," the soundtrack offering that rose all the way to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became her highest-charting single at the time. 

As with many child stars before her, the time eventually came for Cyrus to grow up, and as she pushed against the constraints of her kid-friendly image, controversy came calling. First, there was the pearl-clutching over "Party in the U.S.A.," with Miley's short shorts and playful pole dancing at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards; nearly a year later, her cheekily titled third album, 2010's Can't Be Tamed, sparked minor outrage over the themes and title, as well as the slight raciness of the title track's music video.

However, if the road to autonomy started out a tad bit bumpy, Cyrus burned the bridge to her tween idol past to cinders with her fourth album, 2013's Bangerz.

As its brash title suggests, the studio set is indeed a collection of banger after banger — and a provocative swerve into party-ready hip-hop and electro-pop, including a tracklist filled with all-star guest features like Britney Spears (the fan favorite "SMS (Bangerz)"), Nelly (the country-fried stomp of "4x4"), Big Sean (the blurred-out "Love Money Party"), Future (Ben E. King-sampling highlight "My Darlin'") and more. And stylistically, Miley had traded in both her long brunette waves and Hannah's signature blonde wig for a platinum pixie cut, bold red lip and rotating wardrobe of barely-there bodysuits made from latex and the pelts of abandoned teddy bears.

In retrospect, the album is unequivocally part of the defining soundtrack to the early 2010s. While the most indelible image from the Bangerz era was Miley swinging naked and free atop a giant wrecking ball, lead single "We Can't Stop" became the hedonistic anthem for a then-rising generation of young millennials coming of age in the post-recession years of Obama's second term — Cyrus included. 

And for as much scandal as Miley gleefully courted during the era — whether over her appropriation of hip-hop and Black culture, that unforgettable VMAs performance with Robin Thicke, all the twerking, or the constantly stuck-out tongue of it all — the album also earned the singer her first, and so far lone, solo GRAMMY nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album. Still, even Miley can admit all these years later that she'll pretty much "never live down that I licked a sledgehammer."

Following a project like Bangerz, most pop stars might perform something of a label exec-encouraged course correction into less provocative territory. But Miley isn't just any pop star. So, instead, she took her antics, and her music, even further down the rabbit hole with Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz in 2015.

Enlisting a trusted pair of Bangerz producers, Mike WiLL Made-It and Oren Yoel, the singer added a psychedelic bent to her existing oeuvre by teaming with Wayne Coyne and the rest of the Flaming Lips. The resulting project — which opened with the discordant declaration, "Yeah I smoke pot, yeah I love peace/ But I don't give a f—, I ain't no hippie!" — was so experimental and decidedly noncommercial that it was originally released independently, available to stream for free on Soundcloud. (While it didn't count towards her multi-album deal with RCA, the album was later added to traditional streaming services by the label, but never made a mark on the Billboard 200 or any other official chart.)

"I created my surroundings, my own world. What seems like fantasy or trippy, it's not to me. It's my actual reality," the star explained in a profile in the New York Times about the oddball release, and argued that despite its lack of traditional, well, bangers, it was actually an innate progression from its pop-heavy predecessor.

"When I made Bangerz, it was as true to me then as this record is now," she told the NYT. "It just happened naturally in my head. It's like anything — styles just change…I literally can do whatever I want. It's insane. This music was not meant to be a rebellion. It was meant to be a gift."

For his part, Miley's trusty right-hand man Mike WiLL Made-It saw her evolution through much the same lens, declaring to the NYT, "Why would she drop another Bangerz? Miley is the new Madonna."

Of course, there's only so far off the yellow brick road you can go before risking losing your fanbase to woozy fields of poppies. No matter how delayed, the course correction was bound to come — "what goes up must come down," as the saying goes and all that — but like every other step of her evolution, Miley veered back to the middle of the road entirely on her own terms.

Not only was Younger Now, her fifth album from 2017, a sonic shift to rootsy country pop (led by the downtempo, dreamy "Malibu"), it was also the first time Cyrus laid bare her approach to personal and artistic reinvention in song. "Feels like I just woke up/ Like all this time I've been asleep/ Even though it's not who I am/ I'm not afraid of who I used to be," she intoned on the opening title track, decked out in her best rockabilly cosplay before preaching, "No one stays the same/ Know what goes up must come down/ Change is a thing you can count on/ I feel so much younger now."

The album cycle was also marked by seismic changes in Cyrus' personal life. In 2016, she reconciled with longtime on-and-off boyfriend Liam Hemsworth and by the time Younger Now was released into the world, the pair were engaged to be married. The romance had gone through many different stages, breakups and reconciliations since the duo met filming The Last Song in 2009, but Cyrus had no idea at the time just how impactful it would turn out to be in the years to come.

At the time she dropped Younger Now, the superstar actually confessed her enthusiasm had already waned for her singer/songwriter phase — one natural drawback to her need for constant creative reinvention. "I'm over this now," she said during a promotional visit from BBC Radio 1 at her home studio in Malibu two full weeks before the album debuted at a career low of No. 5 on the Billboard 200. "I want to figure out what I want to do next."

If her 2019 EP She Is Coming is any indication, what Miley originally had planned was a full-circle return to her role as pop provocateur. The seven-track sampling came across as a sort of Bangerz 2.0, trading the debauchery of "We Can't Stop" for the unabashed political message of lead single "Mother's Daughter." 

The EP was meant to be the first in a trilogy that would eventually make up a full-length record, but the idea was scrapped when another metaphorical wrecking ball came crashing through the pop star's life: In August of that year, she announced her separation from Hemsworth after just eight months of marriage. Two weeks later, the actor officially filed for divorce. But even before he'd filed the papers, Cyrus had released standalone single "Slide Away" to eloquently and powerfully tell her side of the story.

"Once upon a time it was paradise/ Once upon a time I was paralyzed/ Think I'm gonna miss these harbor lights/ But it's time to let it go," she reflected, cutting her losses before bluntly telling her ex, "Move on, we're not 17/ I'm not who I used to be/ You say that everything's changed/ You're right, we're grown now."

Although it had spanned more than a decade of her life, Miley had never been so autobiographical about her relationship in her music up to that point — and the emotional vulnerability seemed to crack open a door she still has yet to close. 

In fact, it's easy to see the throughline connecting "Slide Away" to cuts like "Midnight Sky," "WTF Do I Know" and "Never Be Me" off her excellent 80s-inspired seventh album Plastic Hearts, even through the glam rock sheen and covers of Blondie, Metallica and the Cranberries. 

By the time Plastic Hearts was ready to be unwrapped in late 2020, Miley had also made peace with all the versions of herself that had come before. "I discredited myself for what I had been almost every step of the way," she said in a Rolling Stone cover story. "During Dead Petz, discrediting Bangerz. During Bangerz, discrediting Hannah Montana. During "Malibu," discrediting Bangerz. It's almost like when I have evolved, I've then become shameful of who I was before. What makes you an adult, I think, is being OK with who you've been before."

That personal reckoning is part of what makes "Flowers," the lead single off Endless Summer Vacation, feel like such a victorious culmination of what makes Miley Cyrus a superstar. The disco-inspired track is a testament of self-determination and hard-won independence, and has already become the biggest hit of her career by a long mile before the rest of the album even drops. She's broken colossal streaming records set by the likes of Adele not just once but twice over and spent six consecutive weeks at No. 1 on charts across the globe. 

The rest of Endless Summer Vacation is divided into two sides — A.M. and P.M. — representing different acts of a complete story. But even before fans heard the new album, it was clear Cyrus had already arrived at the most fully-formed version of herself yet. 

"I hope this show is a representation of you never need[ing] to choose who you want to be. And you don't need to fit into any boundaries or into any boxes," she told the rapt crowd at the 2022 Super Bowl Music Fest, which was recorded for her live album ATTENTION: MILEY LIVE ahead of Endless Summer Vacation's arrival. "You can be anything and everything that you've ever wanted to be all at the same time." 

The singer knows that better than just about anyone. After all, she's just being Miley.

Listen To GRAMMY.com's Women's History Month 2023 Playlist: Swim In The Divine Feminine With These 40 Songs By Rihanna, SZA, Miley Cyrus, BLACKPINK & More

It would be a near-impossibility to cover all the diverse women making art during Women's History Month — and celebrating creators every day, week and month is the goal — but any opportunity to elevate deserving female musicians is one to jump on.

This March, GRAMMY.com shines a spotlight on female-identifying music-makers. This month's 15 releases include entries from the Phoebe Bridgers-Lucy Dacus-Julien Baker supergroup boygenius, Chloe (of R&B sister duo Chloe x Halle), and indie creators like Lana Del Rabies and Jen Cloher; and Radie Peat of Irish dark folkies Lankum.

From bold returns (Sophie B. Hawkins) and buzzy up-and-comers (Nia Archives) to superstars (Miley Cyrus) to metal groundbreakers (Entheos), GRAMMY.com offers up a guide to the must-hear music from women this March.  

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the new release date for Ellie Goulding’s album.

Kali Uchis - Red Moon in Venus

Release date: March 3

Kali Uchis is clearly universal and boundary-crossing in her collaborations and appeal: She was nominated for a 2017 Latin GRAMMY Award for "El Ratico" (with Juanes); won a GRAMMY for Best Dance Recording for her feature on Kaytranada's single "10%" and was nominated for Best R&B Performance. Uchis (who sings in Spanish and English) has also toured with Lana Del Rey, worked with Diplo, Tyler, the Creator.

On Red Moon in Venus, her third studio album, the Colombian American singer continues her hot streak. Uchis describes her 15-track LP as a " timeless, burning expression of desire, heartbreak, faith, and honesty, reflecting the divine femininity of the moon and Venus."

Jen Cloher – I Am The River the River Is Me

Release date: March 3

On I Am The River the River Is Me, the fifth album from Aussie-born singer/songwriter Jen Cloher digs deep into their Māori roots. The LP features songs about theirancestry, with powerful choruses/phrases in the te reo Māori language. The gently intimate single "Mana Takatāpui" is rife with sweet ‘70s-sounding guitar work, and celebrates queerness as a Māori woman. 

In contrast, the irresistible "Being Human" is delivered with a driving rock ‘n’ roll urgency, dynamics and shimmering and quirky guitar tones.  "My Witch" also mines creative ‘70s guitar sounds, and as Cloher told NPR, "It feels immediately fresh. It feels catchy. It's in your ear straight away." I Am The River the River Is Me arrives via indie label Milk! Records, run by Cloher in part with Courtney Barnett.

Entheos – Time Will Take Us All

Release date: March 3

The progressive metal genre may not be packed with women, but Entheos singer Chaney Crabb is a powerhouse on stage and in the metal scene. Time Will Take Us All, the band’s third release and first for Metal Blade Records, is darker and heavier than previous outings with a wealth of influences.

The dynamic and melodic "I Am The Void" illustrate the album’s concept of "growth and self-reflection that focuses on the true human commonality – that our time on Earth is fleeting," according to a release. Entheos furthers that "what we choose to do with that knowledge is up to each of us as individuals." Entheos, normally a two-piece with drummer and band co-founder Navene Koperweis, will bring an expanded, powerful live lineup on European and American tour dates in 2023.     

Nia Archives – Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against Tha Wall

Release date: March 10

Mining her life for material, Nia Archives told NME that on Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against Tha Wall, she’s "broadly talking about growing up as a person, reaching new levels of maturity, love and loss, rejection, estrangement, the come-up and the comedown… It’s six tracks with six different moods soundtracking the recent chapter in my life." 

The year 2022 was a big one for the English record producer, DJ and songwriter, whose "future classic" sound uses jungle, drum and bass and neo-soul.  Along with European and UK dates, look for Archives, who is a 2023 nominee for a  Brit Award for Rising Star, to perform her new single "Conveniency" — and more — at this year's Coachella.

Miley Cyrus – Endless Summer Vacation

Release date: March 10

Miley Cyrus has clearly empowered legions of listeners with "Flowers,'' its lyrics asserting, "I can take myself dancing / I can hold my own hand / I can love me better than you can." With more than 560 million Spotify streams, it's likely that "Flowers" and the album it’s on, Endless Summer Vacation, will be laurel in Cyrus’ crown. 

According to a release, the music and imagery of Endless Summer Vacation serves as a "reflection of the strength she’s found in focusing on both her physical and mental well-being." Cyrus, who produced her album with Kid Harpoon, Greg Kurstin, Mike WiLL Made-It and Tyler Johnson, describes the album as her love letter to LA, where the album was recorded.  

Fever Ray – Radical Romantics

Release date: March 10

Swedish singer/songwriter/producer Karin Dreijer, aka Fever Ray, has long earned her music bona fides, kickstarting  a career with guitar band Cool Honey, then electronic music duo the Knife, formed with brother Olof Dreijer. Dreijer released their debut solo album under the alias Fever Ray in 2009, and now, the third Fever Ray album features Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross along with sibling Olof.  

A visual and musical shape-shifter, Dreijer explained the title Radical Romantics: "Everything needs to be dissected and loved and torn and built back up again and we're dreamers aren't we?" On the lead single "Carbon Dioxide," shades of Nina Hagen and ‘80s new wave lead the bubbling, electro-pop tune.

Frankie Rose – Love as Projection

Release date:  March 10

With a lengthy resume that includes Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls and Beverly, Frankie Rose has an impressive legacy, and further cements her status with Love As Projection. 

The drummer/guitarist/singer's sixth solo album melds '80s influences with contemporary electronic pop; the single "Anything" sounding like it could be on the soundtrack of a John Hughes movie. (Fittingly, Rose interpreted the Cure’s iconic Seventeen Seconds LP in 2019.) "This album is about having to focus our collective energies on the small things…we can control to find joy," Rose told the Vinyl Factory. "A distraction from the larger systemic problems that feel so overwhelming and are so very out of our collective hands… for now."

Lankum – False Lankum

Release date: March 24

"Go Dig My Grave" from 2023’s False Lankum is nearly 9 minutes long, featuring singer Radie Peat’s plainspoken singing and ominous, mesmerizing musicality inspired by the Irish tradition of keening (lament). Together, these effects create a marching doom vibe. The dark folk lineup (Cormac Dermody, and brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch), utilize traditional Irish instruments, including uilleann pipes, along with guitars, percussion, fiddle, banjo, piano and double bass. Peat employs bayan, concertina, harmonium, organ, electric organ, harp, mellotron for a sound that mines the traditional for a modern context. 

The end result, as The Guardian described, contains "ambient textures of Sunn O))) and Swans, plus the sonic intensity of Xylouris White and My Bloody Valentine." False Lankum follows the Dublin doom folk quartet’s 2019 breakthrough The Livelong Day, which garnered the band numerous awards in Ireland, including the RTE Choice Music Prize (Ireland’s equivalent to the Album of the Year GRAMMY). 

Sophie B. Hawkins – Free Myself

Release date: March 24

Sophie B. Hawkins' 2023 "anti-Valentine" song "Better Off Without You" features wrenching words about an ex: "We changed the world / Until you took my best friend to bed." The song and sentiment appear on Free Myself, the singer/songwriter’s first album in more than a decade. 

Tracks such as "Love Yourself" and "I’m Tired Of Taking Care Of You" further themes of romantic empowerment. The Free Myself, Hawkin's seventh studio album, shows the multi-instrumentalist in top form:  raw, poetic but accessible and relatable, as inclusion of her tracks in cinematic and moody television shows "Ozark," "Stranger Things" and "Euphoria" have proven.

Lana Del Rabies – STREGA BEATA

Release date: March 17

Lana Del Rabies is the alter-ego of Phoenix-based musician, producer and multimedia artist Sam An. In her Del Rabies guise, as hinted at by the moniker, An seeks to  "re-contextualize  the more ominous aspects of modern pop music made by women," creating what she calls a "dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project." As such, she’s done a spare, industrial take on Tori Amos’ "Cornflake Girl,'' plus two LPs, including the boldly titled In the End I Am a Beast. 

On her third full-length album, STREGA BEATA (loosely translated as "Blessed Witch") Del Rabies delves into dark themes, buoyed by elements of industrial, gothic noise, metal, darkwave and ambient. From opener "Prayers of Consequence" to the final cut, "Forgive," the album, as its creator explains, "is told through the evolving perspective of a cryptic and obscure "Mother" creator figure, specifically echoing the mother and crone goddess archetypes."

Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd

Release date: March 24

Lana Del Rabies is the alter-ego of Phoenix-based musician, producer and multimedia artist Sam An. In her Del Rabies guise, as hinted at by the moniker, An seeks to  "re-contextualize  the more ominous aspects of modern pop music made by women," creating what she calls a "dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project." As such, she’s done a spare, industrial take on Tori Amos’ "Cornflake Girl,'' plus two LPs, including the boldly titled In the End I Am a Beast. 

On her third full-length album, STREGA BEATA (loosely translated as "Blessed Witch") Del Rabies delves into dark themes, buoyed by elements of industrial, gothic noise, metal, darkwave and ambient. From opener "Prayers of Consequence" to the final cut, "Forgive," the album, as its creator explains, "is told through the evolving perspective of a cryptic and obscure "Mother" creator figure, specifically echoing the mother and crone goddess archetypes."

Boygenius – The Record

Release date: March 31

Boygenius is made up of the girl geniuses Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, together a super-group collective whose debut EP expanded minds in 2017. As Baker told Newsweek, the trio of friends took the tongue-in-cheek band name because of "the archetype of the tortured genius, [a] specifically male artist who has been told since birth that their every thought is not only worthwhile but brilliant." 

The trio’s debut full-length, The Record, offers bright indie rock bounce on "$20," a low-key haunting on "Emily I'm Sorry" and to the straight-ahead fullness on "True Blue." Other intriguing song titles from the full-length include "Leonard Cohen" "Satanist." In addition to a headlining tour, boygenius will appear at Coachella in 2023.  

Deerhoof – Miracle-Level

Release date:  March 31

Deerhoof singer/bassist/songwriter Satomi Matsuzaki’s origin story is the stuff of dreams: She joined Deerhoof within a week of immigrating to the United States from Japan in May 1995 to attend college. And in 2023, the singer and self-taught bassist is front and center on Miracle-Level, Deerhoof’s 19th LP and the first sung in Satomi’s native Japanese. It’s also the influential DIY band’s first to be made totally in a professional recording studio with a producer (Mike Bridavsky). 

Miracle-Level kicks off with the joyful noise of "Sit Down, Let Me Tell You a Story," and contains the delightfully oddball "My Lovely Cat!" plus one song that’s as awkward but interesting as its title: "Phase-Out All Remaining Non-Miracles by 2028."

Critical praise has been near-universal over the lineup’s career, the New Yorker praising an "adventurous compositional style that features complex rhythms, electronica, atonal flourishes, and the pacific singing of Satomi Matsuzaki, whose sonic detachment from the group’s noisier and more aggressive side is curiously affecting." 

Chloe Bailey - In Pieces

Release date: March 31

As half of the GRAMMY-nominated powerhouse R&B duo Chloe x Halle, Chloe debuted as a solo artist in 2021 with platinum single "Have Mercy." The singer/dancer/producer’s full-length solo debut, In Pieces, launches with the sonorous "Pray It Away" before then teaming with Chris Brown for her "How Does It Feel" single. Inspired by naysayers, Chloe posted about In Pieces on her Instagram, writing "My tears are like the water. My heart is like the sun. Through chaos, beauty grows. There’s power in my pain.. It’s me breaking free."

Ellie Goulding – Higher Than Heaven

Release date: April 17 (adjusted)

On the energetic new single "Like a Saviour,"  Ellie Goulding expresses what so many felt during the last several years: "Trying to find my faith in tomorrow" and wishing for a saviour to lead her "out of the dark." The tune, off Higher Than Heaven, the English singer-songwriter’s fifth album, was inspired by the pandemic. But it’s not a wallow in darkness. In short: Expect musical and lyrical celebrations of love and sex, plus the wisdom and power of cutting out when things go bad.

As Goulding teased on Instagram: "‘Let it Die’ is about when a relationship plays out much longer than it needed to. Instead of giving love to yourself you spend it all on someone else and have nothing left, which is when it can become toxic and harmful." "Let It Die," which has notched 13 million streams, preceded the LP, along with  "Easy Lover" (featuring Big Sean) and "All by Myself."  Given the singles’ out-of-the-box success, it’ll be no surprise if  Goulding has another "Love Me Like You Do" (from the  Fifty Shades of Gray soundtrack) on her hands, the hit that  earned Goulding her first GRAMMY nom for Best Pop Solo Performance. 

Listen To GRAMMY.com's Women's History Month 2023 Playlist: Swim In The Divine Feminine With These 40 Songs By Rihanna, SZA, Miley Cyrus, BLACKPINK & More