Music
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If the party was over and our time on Earth was through… could you say you’ve watched Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars‘ “Die With a Smile” video? Since its release more than eight months ago, the music video has officially racked up 1 billion views on YouTube — so yes, a few people can say […]
Following before-and-after photos of Olly Murs‘ fitness journey going viral this week, the British pop star is reacting to what he calls “very disappointing” coverage of his body transformation.
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It seemingly started when a poll on X (formerly Twitter) asked users if they preferred the “before” or “after” version of Murs’ body, and whether they were male or female. The results showed that the majority of women voters thought the “before” looked better, while men voters chose the “after.”
After days of social-media debate (which seemed to dismiss the fact that only Murs needs to be happy with his own physique), the singer/songwriter and TV host weighed in on the chatter, sharing a photo on Instagram of a Daily Mail headline that read: “Bad luck, Olly! Women prefer your ‘huggable dad bod’ to the muscles you got in the gym.”
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“I wouldn’t normally comment on stuff like this but from what I’ve seen I just want to say that this journey at the start of the year was for many personal reasons and not one of them was to spark a debate and divide opinions,” Murs wrote in the caption. “So it’s very disappointing to see this kind of reporting!”
He ended with a message to his supporters and anyone else on their own fitness journey: “Big Love to everyone who’s been kind and to anyone out there improving themselves and making adjustments to their wellbeing. Love to you all, keep it up! ignore the noise!”
One of Murs’ fans decided to flip the narrative by providing her own “before & after” moment on X. “Thought I’d do my own Olly Murs comparison post since that’s all that’s on my feed right now… 15 years in the game..5 albums out of 7 went to number 1 and STILL selling out arenas ! you deserve every single bit of success @ollymurs.”
The “before” moment she shared was Murs’ audition on season 6 of the U.K.’s X Factor in 2009 — where the then-25-year-old declared his dream of becoming a “pop star” and finished as the runner-up — and the “after” is his Official Charts Company stats, which include five U.K. No. 1 albums and four U.K. No. 1 singles. In the U.S., Murs has scored two Billboard Hot 100 hits, including the top 40 hit “Troublemaker,” featuring Flo Rida, which peaked at No. 25 in 2013 and hit the Pop Airplay top 10.
In addition to his music career, Murs has found success as a TV personality, appearing as a coach on The Voice UK from 2018 to 2023.
Find Murs’ response to the online debate below.
thought I’d do my own Olly Murs comparison post since that’s all that’s on my feed right now…15 years in the game..5 albums out of 7 went to number 1 and STILL selling out arenas ! you deserve every single bit of success @ollymurs 👏❤️ pic.twitter.com/ALaAgpoAj6— antonia✨ (@antonia_704) April 29, 2025
Ye’s Donda 2 streaming debut could be short-lived. Mere hours after the lost 2022 project hit streamers on Tuesday night, Ye (formerly Kanye West)revealed that he received threats of legal action from managers of producers who contributed to the album over financial compensation. “Free Maiden tried to charge me 3 million dollars for these beats […]
DDG has an offer for popular streamer IShowSpeed. While on Twitch promoting his upcoming album Blame the Chat, the rapper and streamer asked Speed how much it would cost for him to make a cameo in a music video for a song of the same name featuring Ty Dolla $ign and Rich the Kid. “Speed, […]
Calvin Harris and Vick Hope are finding love in new places this year, with the couple currently expecting their first baby together. As revealed in photos posted on Instagram on Tuesday, the British TV and radio personality is visibly pregnant. In one snap of Hope hosting the 2025 Roundhouse Poetry Slam, she shows off her […]
Victoria Monét checked a mommy-daughter moment off her parenting bucket list this week when she brought her baby girl, Hazel Monét, to her first concert as Beyoncé kicked off her Cowboy Carter Tour on Monday night. The “On My Mama” singer posted a carousel of clips and photos from the heartwarming evening with friends and […]
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard 200 dated May 10, we look at the chances of Ghost’s Skeletá to top the chart – or whether a late-registering rap superstar may sneak in ahead of them.
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Ghost, Skeletá (Loma Vista): The masked-and-costumed Swedish hard rock outfit Ghost has steadily grown their profile stateside over the past decade and a half – even scoring a surprise Billboard Hot 100 hit in 2022 with the TikTok-favored “Mary on a Cross.” Each of their five studio albums has performed better than its predecessor on the Billboard 200, leading up to 2022’s No. 2-peaking Impera – which means there’s only one spot left for sixth album Skeletá, released last Friday (Apr. 25), to reach if the band wants to continue the trend.
Skeletá does not yet have a “Mary”-sized breakout hit, and its streaming presence will likely be relatively modest. But Ghost has long sold well, and the band’s latest is available for purchase in over a dozen vinyl variants — with different-colored and/or different-pictured records — as well as four cassette color variants, and as a digital download. For most of the week, it looked like that would be enough for Skeletá to likely stand virtually unopposed as the week’s top debut. However…
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Donda/Ye, Donda 2 (YZY) …a major new variable has emerged in the form of divisive rapper Ye‘s new re-release. While constantly under a cloud of controversy due to his recent drift towards hate speech, Ye (formerly Kanye West) has also remained a consistent commercial performer, with six-digit first-week unit bows for both of his Vultures 1 & 2 sets. Now, he doesn’t have a new set to a threaten the charts with, but he does have a reissue of an older album that has never been widely available before.
Upon its early 2022 release, Ye’s Donda 2 – sequel to his chart-topping, Grammy-nominated 2021 set – was only released via the Stem Player, and was not even considered eligible for the Billboard charts. Today (Apr. 30), the rapper has released the 18-track LP to DSPs like Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal, and has also made the set available for purchase on iTunes – allowing fans who didn’t make the investment in the album and/or the Stem Player the first time around to essentially get to experience it like a new release. (The album is technically credited to the artist “Donda” on these services.)
Of course, with the album’s Wednesday release, it will only have two days of tracking counting towards its performance on the upcoming Billboard 200, and Donda 2 was not particularly well-received by either the fans or the critics who did hear the album back in 2022. But even at yet another PR low point, Ye cannot ever be counted out on the Billboard 200 – he has 11 No. 1s on the chart, including both Donda and Vultures 1 this decade.
IN THE MIX
d4vd, Withered (Darkroom/Interscope): One of the more consistently buzzy performers in the alt-rock space this decade, the prodigious d4vd finally released his debut album Withered last Friday. The now-20-year-old’s LP includes the Hot 100 hit “Feel It” — originally released on the soundtrack to the Amazon Prime series Invincible – and is available in six different vinyl variants (as a 12-track set), on CD (14 tracks), on streaming (15 tracks), with each of those versions also available for digital download, and as an extended digital download (17 tracks). He’ll also profit from signed iterations of the vinyls and CD.
Tucker Wetmore, What Not To (Back Blocks/UMG Nashville): After scoring a pair of viral hits in “Wine Into Whiskey” and “Wind Up Missing You,” Tucker Wetmore quickly became one of the hottest names in country. Now he’s trying to capitalize on that early success with his debut album What Not To – which includes both those hits, as well as current country radio single “3,2,1,” among its 19 tracks. The album is available in multiple CD and vinyl variants (including four signed CDs), as well as 20- and 21-track extended d2c digital downloads.
Grateful Dead, Dave’s Picks Volume 54 (Rhino): The Dead’s Dave’s Picks series, always available in a limited-edition run of 25,000 total copies. remains a regular presence in the Billboard 200’s top 40, though it hasn’t gotten to the top 20 since Volume 45 back in January 2023. Regardless, the three-disc Volume 54 is out now, and features the band performing at the Baltimore Civic Center back in March 1973 – with some four-disc copies also including songs from the Dead’s show at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium earlier that month.
“I’m a little nervous,” Sandra Bernhard told the audience on the first night of her debut residency at Manhattan’s Café Carlyle on Tuesday (April 29) evening. Noting that the chic space insists its performers (whether they’re a singer, actor, comedian, or in her case, all three) bring new material to the 90-capacity room, she wondered aloud whether that meant the venue had someone “watching, monitoring” to ensure everything was fresh.
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For a performer who started out in the ‘70s and has been singing, acting and cracking wise since (Bernhard is legendary for her brash, uncompromising style and dry wit, perhaps best showcased in her classic 1990 film Without You I’m Nothing), that’s no small task. But if the venue was concerned about new material, they got that and much more when Bernhard revealed she had recently underwent open heart surgery.
“It was a planned surgery, it wasn’t that dramatic,” Bernhard clarified, pointing out that other patients she came in contact with at the hospital were suffering through much harder health scares. (Her reaction to all that? “This sh-t’s crazy, I’m gonna pull through and get the f–k out of here,” she deadpanned).
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Bernhard shared she had some last-minute concerns about potential scarring right before her surgery. “I know we’re just minutes away from being wheeled into the operating room, but I’m an actress, I’m a performer,” she recalled telling the doctor. “Do I need to bring in a plastic surgeon? They said, ‘We’ll make it work, we’ll make it beautiful.’ … And here I am.”
After some cheers and applause from the crowd, she gave her fans the side-eye. “I thought I’d get a standing ovation, but okay.”
The opening night crowd included her partner of 25 years, Sara Switzer, as well as friends and longtime fans (her rescue pup, George, was waiting for her in one of the upscale hotel’s rooms in “a smoking jacket”), giving the evening a casual, conversational feel. At one point, she engaged in an extended conversation with one lucky woman sitting toward the front. Similarly, during an anecdote about her gynecologist, she turned to a table of presumably gay men (they were, after all, at a Sandra Bernhard show) and assured them, “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna force anything on you.”
Backed by her Sandyland Squad Band (including her pianist of 40-some years, Mitch Kaplan), Bernhard sang an eclectic mix of decades-spanning songs over the course of the evening. Per the Carlyle’s new-material mandate, she trotted out fresh covers in her repertoire, tackling everything from McFadden & Whitehead’s “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” to Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” to Seals & Crofts’ “Summer Breeze.” While the lyrics for the lattermost gave her a spot of trouble (“Isn’t this the soundcheck?” she quipped), she quickly fell into a groove with her band; while Bernhard isn’t known for vocal dynamics, she brings a captivating, effortless verve to the mic that eludes many technically proficient singers.
There was real pathos and pain in her voice when she sang Marianne Faithfull’s “As Tears Go By.” The recently deceased singer-songwriter was a longtime friend of hers, and Bernhard told a few stories about her time with the chain-smoking chanteuse. “We’ll never see the likes of her again,” she concluded of the late icon.
Many years from now (we hope) when Bernhard herself shuffles off this mortal coil, the same will certainly ring true for her. From Flint, Mich., to stages around the world, Bernhard is a true American original, possessing the kind of wit and presence that can’t be learned or manufactured. Seeing her in an intimate venue like Café Carlyle during this residency, which runs through May 3, is an undeniable treat.
Before the night was over, she did a callback of sorts to her big reveal: grasping her chest, she slumped over, briefly faking a heart attack. “That’s a new party trick,” she shared.
On Wednesday morning (April 30), Lorde fans opened their phones to a one-word text from the star: “Virgin.”
The term would turn out to be the title of the New Zealand native’s long-awaited fourth studio album — arriving June 27 after a four-year drought following 2021’s Solar Power — as revealed through the text blast sent out to fans, which featured a link to her website directing them to the official announcement. And though it’ll be another month until the project finally comes out, Lorde has already given her disciples much to discuss with the project’s cover art, which features a blue-toned X-ray of a woman’s crotch, and a description she shared of the record in a statement.
“THE COLOUR OF THE ALBUM IS CLEAR,” she wrote. “LIKE BATHWATER, WINDOWS, ICE, SPIT. FULL TRANSPARENCY. THE LANGUAGE IS PLAIN AND UNSENTIMENTAL. THE SOUNDS ARE THE SAME WHEREVER POSSIBLE. I WAS TRYING TO SEE MYSELF, ALL THE WAY THROUGH. I WAS TRYING TO MAKE A DOCUMENT THAT REFLECTED MY FEMININITY: RAW, PRIMAL, INNOCENT, ELEGANT, OPENHEARTED, SPIRITUAL, MASC.”
On her site, the “Royals” artist added that the album was “100% WRITTEN IN BLOOD.”
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With all of that to mull over — as well as April 24-released lead single “What Was That” still ringing in their ears — fans have been flooding social media to share their reactions to the news. “ohhhh this is gonna break me,” another fan commented on Lorde’s Instagram post announcing the album.
“We are so f—ing back,” one person wrote on X, adding that they think the cover art is “weird but simple & intriguing.”
The cover has quickly become perhaps the most talked-about facet of Lorde’s announcement, with the image opening itself up to much interpretation. Embedded between the pelvic bones visible on the X-ray is an IUD, with a zipper and belt buckle seemingly also showing up on the scan.
“Lorde’s new album being a transparent view of her femininity and the title being a societal construct tied to womanhood and the album cover being an Xray of a woman’s reproductive organs while she’s clothed,” one fan wrote on X. “oh the symbolism.”
“I can’t stop looking at this cover,” another fan replied. “It just seems so symbolic to me of the unintended loss of innocence, the way women need to be prepared for if and when that happens to them, and the sadness surrounding everything about it.”
Co-produced by Lorde and Jim-E Stack with help from Fabiana Palladino, Andrew Aged, Buddy Ross, Dan Nigro and Dev Hynes of Blood Orange, Virgin clearly already has followers hyped up for the imminent Lorde summer. Even before the album announcement, New York authorities had to cancel the singer’s pop-up in Washington Square Park on April 22 after the grounds became overrun by fans — who took to singing in the streets after being kicked out — with Lorde later showing up hours later than scheduled to perform “What Was That” for whoever had stuck around. Footage from the event was featured in the track’s music video days later.
See Lorde’s Virgin announcement below.
Suge Knight has avoided a retrial in his 2015 wrongful death civil case by reaching a settlement for $1.5 million with the plaintiffs, according to Rolling Stone. The suit was filed by the two daughters and wife of Terry Carter, the Compton entrepreneur whom Knight ran over with a truck in January 2015 in the […]