Entertainment
Laufey on creating her own sound
Laufey’s music may not be what you usually think of as “pop,” but if pop is short for popular, then she is indeed a pop star. The 26-year-old Icelander has earned a devoted following blending modern lyrics and music with classical and jazz. “My music is such a combination of the sounds of my childhood,” she said. “It’s just something that’s become a part of me. I wanted to make things that made me happy.
“I loved Golden Age musicals,” said Laufey. “I’d watch ‘Carousel’ and ‘Oklahoma’ and ‘American in Paris’ and ‘Sound of Music.’ They were so beautiful and had these dance breaks and the dresses were floating and the colors – that feeling I got from that, I just wanted to create that feeling.”
The world she inhabits (in her work, anyway) is whimsical and romantic, full of windswept cliffs, frilly dresses and bows … and cello, almost always cello.
Watch Laufey perform “I Wish You Love” with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra:
She says the cello is “as important to me as my voice. And I think it’s really what makes a Laufey song a Laufey song.”
Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir comes by it naturally. Her Icelandic father introduced her to jazz when she was a girl; her Chinese mother played classical violin. So does Laufey’s identical twin sister.
CBS News
Growing up, she said, she felt different: “Everyone was like, you know, going to play soccer after school or dance, and I was sitting down and playing music from the 17th century. And then on top that I was a twin, identical twin. I just feel, like, weird on top of weird, on top of weird.”
And things only got weirder when she started singing, as when she appeared on the TV competition “Iceland’s Got Talent” singing Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You,” at age 13: “I remember going on singing competitions in Iceland when I was younger and they’d always be like, ‘She sounds like a 40-year-old woman that’s been divorced twice and she chain-smokes cigarettes,” Laufey said. “And I was, like, a 13-year-old girl standing on stage being like, okay, like, I just wanted to be a girl. So, yeah I was always a little bit like … felt a little bit like a circus act.”
But Laufey found her footing at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She started posting original songs and jazz covers on social media during the pandemic, and they quickly went viral.
Laufey performs “I Love You (For Sentimental Reasons”) on guitar and cello:
I asked, “Were you surprised that people were responding to the jazz influences?”
“I was so shocked, because I’d never seen any example of it before,” Laufey replied. “And I’d never seen a community of young people … that was the most shocking part, that it was young people responding to the music. But there was always a part of me that was like, of course, it’s the best music in the world!”
Now she sells out just about every concert – like a recent one in Norfolk, Virginia, where one fan, Alissa, told us, “When I first like showed, like, my parents that, they were like, ‘This is what you guys listen to?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, like, this is what, like, younger people are listening to!'”
Another fan, Logan, said, “I feel like she takes just kind of more ‘old people music’ and pushes it into, like, a newer generation so that more people can enjoy it.”
Laufey’s new album, “A Matter of Time,” comes out this week. A stadium tour will follow.
Her songwriting usually starts on guitar, like her bossa nova-influenced “From the Start.”
But she just as easily can weave in a little classical, as she did on her last album, “Bewitched.” Last year, “Bewitched” briefly knocked Frank Sinatra off the top of the jazz charts – and then, that album won a best traditional pop vocal Grammy Award, beating such artists as Bruce Springsteen.
And then, Barbra Streisand asked Laufey to sing on her recent album of duets, performing a song Laufey wrote, “Letter to My 13-Year-Old Self.” “It’s one of those songs that I wrote just in my most intimate moments and could have been a song that I never put out,” she said. “It was a song for me to heal myself. But it’s a very hopeful song. It’s reaching back to tell your younger self that you’re going to be okay.”
Don’t you worry ’bout your curly hair
Clothes that don’t quite fit you anywhere
Voices echo in the gym
Another girl’s had her first kiss
Please don’t think too much of it, darling
I asked, “What do you think your 13-year-old self would think of all of this?”
“I think she’d be really excited,” Laufey replied. “I think she’d be really happy. There’s not a single part of myself that has changed any of my artistic interests to follow some sort of trend. And I get to make exactly the music that I loved back then. So, I think I would’ve been really, really happy.”
To hear Laufey performing “Silver Lining,” from her album “A Matter of Time,” click on the video player below:
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Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: Steven Tyler.
K-Pop Demon Hunters has officially dominated the UK Officials Singles Chart Top 40 once again!
The animated Netflix series’ fictional girl group, HUNTR/X’s Golden is on the top spot, marking its fourth non-consecutive week at the summit.
Additionally, two more of its songs are on the top 10 this week, which includes songs by the fictional demon boy band, Saja Boys, namely, Soda Pop on number 4 and Your Idol on number 6.
As we move past the Top 10 and into the Top 40, TWICE’s K-Pop Demon Hunters song, Takedown saw a new surge of popularity and landed on 27 whereas Strategy is on the 39th spot.
Now the chart expands from the Netflix series but remains under the umbrella of K-pop still, as after their Wembley Stadium show, BLACKPINK’s Diplo-produced, JUMP is at Number 29.
Additionally, popular South Korean boy band, Stray Kids earned their second Top 40 song this week, with the track CEREMONY, making its debut on the charts on number 37.
Meanwhile, Olivia Dean just made history, by becoming the first British female since Adele in 2021 to sink three tracks in the Top 10 simultaneously.
Man I Need is Olivia Dean’s highest-charting single and is currently on number two, her track Nice To Each Other is on number seven and her Sam Fender collaboration, Rein Me In is on the tenth spot.
UNITED NATIONS: Britain, France and Germany are pressing Iran to take a deal that would hold off fresh UN sanctions.
The three European powers said that the offer gives Tehran more time for talks on its nuclear programme, but only if it allows inspectors back in and eases Western fears about uranium stockpiles.
UN envoys for the three countries – known as the E3 – issued a joint statement before a closed-door Security Council meeting, a day after they launched a 30-day process to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear programme.
The E3 offered to delay reinstating sanctions – known as snapback – for up to six months if Iran restored access for UN nuclear inspectors, addressed concerns about its stock of enriched uranium, and engaged in talks with the United States.
“Our asks were fair and realistic,” said Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward, who read the statement. “However, as of today, Iran has shown no indication that it is serious about meeting them.”
“We urge Iran to reconsider this position, to reach an agreement based on our offer, and to help create the space for a diplomatic solution to this issue for the long term,” she said, with her German and French counterparts standing next to her.
In response, Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said the E3 offer was “full of unrealistic preconditions”.
“They are demanding conditions that should be the outcome of negotiations, not the starting point, and they know these demands cannot be met,” he told reporters.
Iravani said the E3 should instead back “a short, unconditional technical extension of Resolution 2231”, which enshrines a 2015 nuclear deal that lifted UN and Western sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.
Sino-Russian draft
Russia and China have proposed a draft UN Security Council resolution that would extend the 2015 deal for six months and urge all parties to immediately resume negotiations. But they have not yet asked for a vote.
The pair, strategic allies of Iran, have removed controversial language from the draft – which they initially proposed on Sunday – that would have blocked the E3 from reimposing UN sanctions on Iran.
Iravani described the Russian and Chinese draft resolution as a practical step to give diplomacy more time. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes by the US, France, Britain, China or Russia.
UN nuclear inspectors have returned to Iran for the first time since it suspended cooperation with them after attacks in June on its nuclear sites by Israel and the United States. But Iran has not yet reached an agreement on how it would resume full work with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Jennifer Lopez is feeling nostalgic as her 17-year-old twins, Max and Emme, step into their senior year of high school.
The On The Floor hitmaker, 56, shared a throwback video of her son Max, then 7, adorably singing Lukas Graham’s song 7 Years.
In the Instagram Story, the mom-of-two also mused about how quickly time went by. “How does 10 years go by so fast!? So proud of you Maxi. 1st day of senior year. I love you beyond forever.”
The actress and singer also marked her daughter Emme’s milestone just days earlier as she dropped off the teen for their own first day of senior year.
“I just dropped off this little coconut to their first day of senior year. Looking back at this photo from a few years ago, it just reminds me that they’ll always be my beautiful baby!” Lopez wrote on Monday over a photo from the occasion.
Lopez—who shares Max and Emme with ex-husband Marc Anthony—has been soaking in family moments ahead of their recent milestone.
Before the school year kicked off, she shared highlights from a summer trip to the Hamptons, including a selfie with Emme and vocal coach Stevie Mackey, plus serene solo shots of herself in white jeans and a cream hoodie by the bikes. She captioned the post simply: “Le Sunshine.”
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