The Irish singer Eithne Ni Bhraonain — known to the world as Enya — has essentially created her own style of music and sold some 80 million CDs in three decades. Yet when she leaves a hotel after talking about her first new work in seven years, chances are she will walk Manhattan streets unnoticed. It’s an enviable place to be in a celebrity-soaked world. “As a musician, I love the fact that the success was on the music,” she said. “I always say that fame and success are two very different things. … I had a choice — and not a lot of people have this choice
— of whether to seek fame with this music or whether to stay back behind the music and let the music speak for itself. And, really, that’s what I did.” Enya’s music re-entered the spotlight on Friday, with the release of Dark Sky Island. The music industry will be watching to see in this era of streaming and sharing whether Enya can replicate past success. Nielsen Music says she’s sold 23.8 million albums in the United States alone. Enya fans are also being teased with the possibility that the 54-year-old singer, who rarely sings in public, may actually be ready to take the stage. “The way we put an album together is very much a performance feel,” she said. “We’re trying to capture that live performance, and that’s why I would know it would work on stage, and I would love to perform it.”
R&B star Mary J. Blige is hoping she can offer love and support to those who “are sitting in their car in traffic about to jump out and kill somebody or kill themselves,” with a positive and inspirational radio show. The singer, who launched Real Talk this month on Apple Music’s Beats 1 Radio, said she wants to motivate fans with her show — much like her songs have. “So many people out there are hurting and there are so many people out there that need to be reached, and there are so many people I wish I could … give a word of encouragement to,” Blige said. “If I can reach somebody and say, ‘You’re beautiful and I go through the same things, too, and right now I’m thinking the same thing’ — it means so much to them.” Blige, 44, added that if she “could have had Michael Jackson on a radio station back then or had Janet Jackson talk to me when I was growing up, it would have meant the world to me.” Each episode of her show will be named after songs by Blige, whose hits include “Not Gon’ Cry,” ”Real Love,” ”Family Affair” and “No More Drama.” Her first show, “My Life,” looked back at her groundbreaking 1994 sophomore album of the same name.
The West Wing actor Martin Sheen says he wishes he had the courage of his son Charlie Sheen, who has revealed he’s HIV-positive. The elder Sheen made the comment Tuesday during an event at The Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Fla., hours after his son’s appearance on NBC’s Today. According to the Naples Daily News, Sheen said his 50-year-old son had been working up to the announcement for months with his family’s encouragement. Sheen said that as he watched his son reveal “his deepest, darkest secret, I couldn’t believe the level of courage I was witnessing, and that it was my son.” Sheen encouraged support for people struggling with drug and alcohol addictions. He said he hoped the announcement was “the first day of the rest of Charlie’s life as a free man.”