Women in music

Fiona Apple recorded a heartfelt video message to her "hero" Sinead O'Connor, just days after the Irish singer posted her own video detailing her mental illness battle and thoughts of suicide.





"I want you to know that you are my hero as well," Apple said. "I just saw the video of you and I don't want you to feel like that. I don’t want you to feel like that. You've given so much. And I wish I could be there. I wish I could be of some use to you… I'm your friend, that's all I want to say, and you're my hero."



On August 3rd, O'Connor posted a troubling 12-minute video, recorded in a New Jersey motel room, to social media.

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The families of the 22 people killed in the May attack outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England will receive $324,000 each from the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, Billboard reports.





The fund was established in the aftermath of the attack and has raised more than $23 million both through public donations and from the proceeds of Grande's One Love Manchester benefit concert. Grande hosted the all-star show in June, just weeks after the May 22nd attack. The concert featured performances from the pop star, as well as Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Coldplay, Pharrell and more.

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Coldplay, Mary J. Blige and Lady Antebellum are among the artists to postpone Houston-area shows Friday as the region braces for the arrival of Hurricane Harvey, which is expected to reach Category 3 status by the time in makes landfall.




"We really wanted to play tonight, but sitting here all together watching the news about the storm, we feel that we can't ask anyone to put their safety at risk. So, sadly, we will have to postpone," the band wrote in a statement.
"We will give details of rescheduling/refunding as soon as we can. We are really sorry for the inconveniences this will cause. Stay safe and see you soon."

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When Taylor Swift unveiled an excerpt of her upcoming "Look What You Made Me Do" video on Friday, one of the shots in the preview drew immediate comparisons and social media criticism for its likeness to Beyoncé's "Formation." Following the controversy, director Joseph Kahn, who helmed the Swift video, turned to Twitter to downplay any similarities between the two videos.




"I've worked with Beyoncé a few times. She's an amazing person. The #LWYMMDvideo is not in her art space. Love and respect to Bey," Kahn tweeted. "Also there's something to that 'formation' shot I painted out and you haven't seen yet. Stay tuned Sunday."

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Beyoncé has pledged to "help as many" victims of Hurricane Harvey as she can in the aftermath of devastating storm that has unleashed historic flooding in Texas.




In a statement to the Houston Chronicle, the Houston-born singer said, "My heart goes out to my hometown, Houston, and I remain in constant prayer for those affected and for the rescuers who have been so brave and determined to do so much to help."

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Pink elaborated on the poignant speech she made after receiving the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the MTV Video Music Awards. On Ellen, Pink explained she hoped to inspire her six-year-old daughter, Willow Hart, to be more "resilient" with her message of non-conformity.




"I get my feelings hurt all the time," Pink told DeGeneres, who introduced the singer at the VMAs. "It doesn't feel good to hear mean things about yourself, but if you’re human you’re going to hear it. If you're past the age of 12, you will at some point be heartbroken by someone else."

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Fifth Harmony dropped their surprise new video "Deliver" Friday, the latest visual from the now-quartet's self-titled album.




"Surprise, Harmonizers! We wanted to DELIVER something special as a thank you for your incredible support," Fifth Harmony tweeted to fans before the David Camarena-directed video's premiere.

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Miley Cyrus turned her own Rainbowland Studios in Malibu into the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge Friday, where the singer performed her rendition of the Roberta Flack classic "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."



Keeping with the vibe of Cyrus' upcoming LP Younger Now, the singer takes a country-tinged approached to the oft-covered soul song, adding pedal steel and acoustic guitars to transform "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" into a country waltz.

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A digital doppelgänger shadows Björk in her trippy video for new single "The Gate." Longtime visual collaborator Andrew Thomas Huang and Gucci designer Alessandro Michele helped create the kaleidoscopic clip, which opens with the singer playing flute in a field before shifting to a dreamscape where Björk controls a magical sphere.





"The doorway lies within the wound from Vulnicura, which now appears transformed into a prismatic portal channeled between the chests of two lovers," he said. "Not lovers in the quotidian romantic sense, but in a broader cosmological way. As a throughway into Bjork's new album, 'The Gate' is a declaration of hope sung by a woman refracted and re-formed into a luminous whole."

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Lady Gaga reckons with the grueling demands of pop stardom in the new trailer for Gaga: Five Foot Two. The documentary debuted earlier this year at the Toronto Film Festival and comes to Netflix this Friday.





In the latest teaser for the film, Lady Gaga offers a brief summary of the struggles that preceded her 2016 LP Joanne while speaking with Apple Music's Zane Lowe: "Paranoia, fear, body pain, anxiety." "I go from everyone touching me all day, talking at me all day to total silence," she adds in the somber trailer. "And all these people will leave, and then I'll be alone."

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