ARIA Magazine

ALL ABOUT MUSIC, ARTISTS, AND NEWS
IS AI TAKING
OVER
MUSIC?
MUSICIANS RESPOND
ALL EXCLUSIVE
INTERVIEW WITH
LANA
DEL REY!
FRANK OCEAN
& THE COACHELLA
AFTERMATH
THE CULTS
TALKS
ABOUT NEW
ALBUM
USA $9.50
CANADA $10.50
MEXICO $255
BEYONCÉ!
Hits The Stage After
7 Years

Editors Note
Dear readers,
As we dive into the world of melodies, rhythms, and lyrical genius,
we are thrilled to bring you an eclectic mix of articles, interviews, and
reviews that will immerse you in the captivating universe of music.
In this issue, we celebrate the power of live performances and the
long-awaited return of concerts after a tumultuous period of uncertainty.
Our dedicated team of writers attended some unforgettable shows, capturing
the raw energy and unifying spirit of these performances. Join us as
we recount these magical moments and share our personal experiences of
being swept away by the euphoria of live music.
Furthermore, we have had the privilege of engaging in insightful
conversations with some of the most influential voices in the industry. From
celebrated artists breaking new ground with their innovative creations to
producers and songwriters shaping the soundscape of today, we uncover
their creative processes, motivations, and the stories behind their chart-topping
hits. Their anecdotes and words of wisdom will undoubtedly resonate
with both aspiring musicians and avid fans.
Of course, no music magazine would be complete without an exploration
of the latest album releases. As always, we encourage your active
participation in the music community. Share your thoughts, opinions, and
experiences with us on our social media platforms, and let’s create a dialogue
that celebrates the universal language of music.
Thank you for joining us on this exhilarating journey through the world
of music. We hope this edition of our magazine sparks joy, ignites your
passion, and leaves you with a deeper appreciation for the transformative
power of sound.
Yours in music,
Emiliano Albuerne
Editor-in-Chief
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Table of Content
4 7
Beyonce Kicks Of her
Renaissance Tour.
So excited, so exotic — Beyoncé’s a seasoned professional
—
and her Renaissance tour cycle is officially upon us.
The Cult Talks About
New Album.
The Cult’s Billy Duffy talks to ARIA’S about the
band’s latest album and his 40-year creative partnership
with Ian Astbury.
8 10
Frank Ocean’s Coachella
Performance & Its
Aftermath.
We talk about what it was like to witness Frank’s puzzling
set in the California desert, and what it means
for the star moving forward.
14
Musicians Respond
Over AI Taking Over
Music
It looks like AI, for better or worse, is here to stay.
But does it have a place in modern songwriting?
Lana Del Rey Reminisces About
Her Career & More.
How Lana Del Rey became “completely unburned” for her most personal material yet.
3

ARIA
Beyoncé Kicks Off Her
Renaissance Tour.
By Nardine Saad
ueen Bey kicked off her global tour
Wednesday at the Friends Arena in
Stockholm with the first of 57
sold-out shows. Tens
of thousands of fans converged
there to see
the most-decorated
Grammy Award
winner in history
perform
during her
first tour in
more than
six years.
The “Break
My Soul”
hitmaker
brought the
crowds, the
dance music,
enormous set
pieces and the
crystals, cowboy
boots and sparkling
bodysuits during the threehour-long
show, which featured
a whopping 37-song set spanning her two-decade
career. Bey kicked off her ambitious set
with her 2003 solo-album title track “Dangerously
in Love,” moved through the 2011 female
empowerment anthem “Run the World
(Girls),” as well as every one of the 16 tracks
from her latest album, “Renaissance,” including
“Cuff It,” “Break My Soul,” “Church Girl”
and “Alien Superstar.”
So excited, so exotic —
Beyoncé’s a seasoned
professional — and
her Renaissance
tour cycle is
officially
upon us.
She closed
the show with
“Pure/Honey”
and “Summer Renaissance,”
according
to the Associated Press
and Billboard. “Renaissance
is a monster blockbuster concert experience
on a different plane,” the Guardian
said in its review. The singer played on
interactions between a digital and physical
world where robotic devices make
space for weird silver moon rovers or an
inflatable horse. Even Queen Bey herself
morphs into a cybernetic character.
Seems confusing? It was.”
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ARIA
The New York Times described
it as a spectacle that was “part retrofuturism
and part disco fantasia.”
The first night also included Bey thanking
fans for coming to see her, as well
as dancing robot arms and nods to
Mary J. Blige’s “I’m Goin’ Down,” Britney
Spears’ “Toxic”, husband Jay-Z
and Kanye West’s “Lift Off” and a
remix of Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage.”
She also paid tribute to her Destiny’s
Child roots and worked in music
from her other hit albums, “Beyoncé,”
“B’Day,” I Am… Sasha Fierce,” “Lemonade”
and “Lion King: The Gift.”
While fans largely ate up the performance,
some were convinced that the
singer was injured during the concert
because she wasn’t delivering many of
her signature dance moves.
All photos provided by Beyoncé’s team.
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The Cult Talk About
New Album
By Keith Cameron
There seems a mood-shift on this
album after Hidden City and
Choice Of Weapon.
“There was definitely a team decision
to not make another record like
those two, which were similar in a lot of
ways, and to me had a North American
flavour. Quite raw, a bit rock’n’roll. This
one is definitely more… European?”
Does that decision open up certain
areas to explore?
“Well, it closes some off. Anything
a bit bluesy rock didn’t fit. So I just
stopped putting forward those kinds of
riffs. It did open up ways to achieve excitement
and drama without using certain
rock elements.”
Talking of which, you began work
during 2019’s Sonic Temple 30th
anniversary tour?
“That was the plan, touring in parallel
with the creative process. It takes
me and Ian a while, to put it mildly, to
get stuff together. So we started, and
Tom Dalgety kept showing up at gigs,
especially around dinner time, funnily
enough. He’s such a nice chap and his
CV’s incredible. Me and Ian definitely
need a producer. We need that other
voice, a bit of sanity. Somebody, like a
marriage guidance counsellor, who can
see that me and Ian probably want the
same things, but our vocabulary is different.”
“I Trust Ian As A Human
Being…”
- Billy Duffy
Give Me Mercy feels like a Pure Cult
moment.
“Ironically, it’s the first single and the
last song Ian sang on the session. I knew that
that was gonna be a good ’un, from the moment
I came up with the riff. The issue, musically,
was to get the right nuance from the guitar,
make it not too ’80s rock. In the end I tried to
channel Mike Campbell from The Heartbreakers.
I always look to guys like him who are not
‘show-off’ guitar players, they play the song.
But Ian kept me waiting, consciously put that
one off. I was ringing Dalgety – ‘Has he sung
it yet? What’s he got?’”They don’t get any easier!
But I trust Ian as a human being. He’s very
honest. And I think there’s a lot of personal
stuff that has gone into this record. We’re just
at that place where we realise we have something
to offer together, that’s greater than what
we could do individually.”
7
Photos prvided By Mojo Magazine

ARIA
Frank Ocean & The
Coachella
Aftermath
By Puja Patel & Marc Hogan & Jill Mapes
here have been waves of
commentary since the performance,
considering
why something like this could
happen, and how artists are under
a lot of pressure. And there was a
lot of conversation around just,
like, was Frank OK? He’s still grieving
the passing of his younger
brother, and he spoke to that directly
during the performance.
And it almost felt like he didn’t
want to be there. It’s like there is
one camp who is like, “If you don’t
want to play, don’t agree to play,”
versus other folks being like, “People
can suddenly be in crisis and
you don’t know,” versus folks being
like, “He just didn’t care and
this was just for the money.” So he
reportedly got paid $4 million for
that set, and would have been
paid another $4 million had he
played the second weekend of
Coachella, which he pulled out of.
And I can’t
even really
contemplate
how hard I
would work if
that’s how much
I was getting
paid! But apparently
he spent that money
on production costs
for the show, which the
artist has to cover. And then
he didn’t use the ice rink that he
used a lot of the money on. And in
the livestream video of the performance,
there’s a moment where you can see the exact moment
before he sings the Isley Brothers’ song “(At
Your Best) You Are Love,” which was the last song of
the night. He’s having a long conference with one of
his band members and he mouthed the words, “How
long do we got?” You see the exact moment he realizes
he’s done, and he has this sheepish, rueful grin.
8

ARIA
Photos Provided By Coachela and Frank Oceans team
Then
he kind of
looks off to the
side. You can
imagine how he
could have salvaged
the set if they’d played
some more fast songs after
that slow Isley Brothers cover,
that there could have been some kind of
energy. But instead it was just this huge, set-long
anticlimax where you kept waiting for something
to happen. We can’t get into his head,
but it definitely did feel like he didn’t want to be
there. Jill, what do you think about how much
space we have to give an artist to grieve and be
human up there?
So Frank’s brother Ryan passed in
2020, which was the year he was initially
going to be playing Coachella, but it was
canceled because of the pandemic.
I don’t think grief is linear for anybody,
especially in this time period, so I
do really feel for him, because he made
a speech that bluntly explained why he
was there, because he used to go to
Coachella with his brother. He said, “I
know he would’ve been so excited to be
with all of us, and I want to say thank
you for the support and the ears and the
love of all this time.” It felt like an explanation,
a way of saying, “I am here because
I have this sentimental attachment.
And when I agreed to do this, I imagined
it being different.” I think artists should
be allowed time to process, and when he
said that, it really made me have more
empathy towards whatever was going to
happen on that stage in a way that I don’t
think people who weren’t there or didn’t
watch it in full could understand. But you
can both understand what an artist is going
through and also be disappointed.
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ARIA
Musicians
Respond About
AI taking Over
Bruce Springsteen Photographed By the
Rolling Stone
Music.
By Rolling Stone UK
n assorted list of musical luminaries
including Sting and Charli XCX have
opened up on the rise of artificial intelligence
(AI), as many begin to contemplate
its potential role in the future of music.
They discussed the issue last week at the
Ivor Novello Awards, where Geordie icon
Sting became the 23rd musician to be honoured
with a prestigious fellowship of the
Ivors Academy.
“Songwriters and our rights needed to be
protected,” Sting told Rolling Stone UK.
“Especially in light of AI and legislation that
may or may not protect us. I don’t think we
can be complacent about its dangers or indeed
its advantages, but it’s an open question.
We can’t not just think about it.” In the
past few, stories about emerging AI technology
have become a weekly occurrence in
the media, with many experts emphasising
that an AI reality is happening right now,
not just one day in the future.
Charli XCX Photographed By Steve Niles
ChatGPT has been writing lyrics, AI has created
a viral collaboration between Drake
and The Weeknd that doesn’t exist and a
Kanye West verse generator, while a ‘lost
Oasis’ album emerged, and Liam Gallagher
said it was “better than all the other snizzle
out there”.
But amid the fears, Charli XCX, told an altogether
different approach. She told Rolling
Stone UK and other press outlets that she
doesn’t “really care”.
The 30-year-old, who was picking up the
2023 visionary award, said: “Maybe that
is a very uneducated answer, but I haven’t
delved super deep into it. I heard an AI-generated
song, it was a collaboration between
me and Ava Max and it slapped. “Personally
I’m not really bothered, I’m into the idea
of me just being global so have robots make
songs… I don’t care.”
10

ARIA
Caption
Kamille, winner of the Outstanding Song
Collection and the first Black woman to win
the award, believes we need to tread with
caution.
“I’m afraid of robots! I don’t even like using
self-service check-outs at Sainsbury’s,
but it’s the way the world works and we
have to move with it,” she said.
“I’m very old school though and I still prefer
to write for myself. It’s inevitable to be
nervous, but I’ll continue doing what I do.
But I am scared!”
Meanwhile, James’ Saul Davies admitted
that ChatGPT had a scary ability to mimic
lyrical abilities.
“I asked it to write a James song last year
and 30 seconds later it came back with this
lyric about dolphins!” he admitted.
It looks like AI, for better or worse, is here
to stay. But does it have a place in modern
songwriting?
“But I then got it to do a Bruce Springsteen
song, and it’s the best thing he’s done in
ages!”
Elsewhere, Harry Styles, SAULT, Wet Leg
and Raye were among the other big winners
at last week’s awards. Styles, Kid Harpoon
and Tyler Johnson won for most performed
work with ‘As It Was’, while SAULT scooped
album of the year.
Wet Leg were also named songwriters of the
year, while Raye won best contemporary
song for ‘Escapism’.
11

ARIA
Lana Del Rey
Reminisces About Her
Career &
More.
By Kristin Robinson
Can you remember what it felt
like creatively when you were
just starting out?
I think back to the beginning, being
in New York. I would just go to a
little deli by Grand Central and all you
had to do to sit at the table for hours
was buy a black coffee. I remember
thinking, “I’m doing it. I’m living it.” It
was all very thrilling. I was so psyched
back then.
All Photos Prvided by Lana’s Team
How has your process changed
since Born To Die came out?
Eleven years ago I wanted it to be
so good. Now, I just sing exactly what
I’m thinking. I’m thinking a little less big
and bombastic. Maybe at some point I
can have fun creating a world again, but
right now, I would say there’s no world
building. This music is about thought processing.
It’s very, very wordy. I’m definitely
living from the neck up.
Since 2019, you’ve released four albums.
Is it fair to say you have more
creative energy than ever?
I think it might look like that! It’s funny
because I keep telling people, “I haven’t
worked in three years,” but really I just haven’t
done shows in three years. As soon as I start
getting ready for a show, that’s when it feels
like work.
14

“This music is about thought processing. I’m definitely living
from the neck up.”
- Lana Del Rey.
You recently featured on Taylor
Swift’s “Snow on the Beach.”
What was collaborating with her
like?
Well, first of all, I had no idea
I was the only feature [on that song].
Had I known, I would have sung the entire
second verse like she wanted. My
job as a feature on a big artist’s album
is to make sure I help add to the production
of the song, so I was more focused
on the production. She was very
adamant that she wanted me to be on
the album, and I really liked that song. I
thought it was nice to be able to bridge
that world, since Jack [Antonoff] and I
work together and so do Jack and
Taylor.
Who do you consider to be a visionary?
Joan Baez. I sang with her recently. She
gave me a challenge: She said, “Go down a
little road and look for a left turn and find my
house [in Northern California]. If you find it and
can play ‘Diamonds and Rust’s’ high harmony,
I’ll come to Berkeley with you and sing.” So my
sister and I rented a car and searched for the
house. I was very nervous. I don’t play guitar
that well, but I learned the first three chords and
sat across from her, [and when] we stopped
playing, she was like, “Great, I’ll see you at
Berkeley.”
And another visionary to me is Cat Power. I had
heard that she would run offstage when she
wasn’t feeling it or just turn her back to the [audience]
and keep playing. That’s when I knew I
could probably do this.
15