Pop

18 Jan 2024

Justin Timberlake Booked for ‘Tonight Show’ Appearance Amid New Music Teasers

Justin Timberlake is heading back to late night! The “Mirrors” singer is set to join The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday (Jan. 25) as a guest alongside Molly Ringwald and musical guest Flo Milli.

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Because Timberlake and Fallon are longtime friends, fans are speculating that Timberlake will use the late night appearance to announce a new album era. He’s been teasing fans via social media over the past week, wiping his Instagram clean before posting a series of photos from what looks like a music video set.

“EITIW,” he captioned the post, with fans theorizing that the single will be called “Everything I Thought It Was.” Redditors even tracked down a trademark application filed by a mysterious LLC early last year for that phrase, as well as for “Everything I Thought It Was…A Sonic Film.”

Should Timberlake release a new album, it would mark his sixth album and first since 2018’s Man of the Woods. That project marked his fourth consecutive No. 1 on the Billboard 200, where it charted for a total of 19 weeks. Just days after the album’s Feb. 2 release, he performed at the Super Bowl LII halftime show in Minneapolis. In September, Timberlake reunited with *NSYNC to release “Better Place” for the Trolls Band Together soundtrack, marking the group’s first musical release since 2002 (when the Neptunes remix of “Girlfriend,” featuring Nelly, arrived).

18 Jan 2024

Lil Nas X Gets Vulnerable in Intimate Trailer for ‘Long Live Montero’ Documentary: Watch

For the last few years, Lil Nas X has carefully built up his public persona as a pop provocateur, master marketer and hilarious internet troll. But in a new clip, the rapper is stripping away all the facade and letting fans get to see the person underneath.

On Thursday (Jan. 18), Lil Nas X unveiled the trailer for Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, his new documentary set to premiere on Max on Jan. 27. In the trailer, the singer shares his struggle dealing with public perception as a seemingly controversial figure in the music industry. “Some people think my music is dope,” he says at the outset of the trailer, over clips of him recording music and performing on tour. “Some people see me as, like, this satanic devil. But me…?”

The trailer focuses on the star’s rocket to fame following the success of his breakthrough single “Old Town Road,” as well as his journey with coming out, releasing his debut album Montero and his relationship with his family, all set against the backdrop of his 2022 Long Live Montero Tour.

“So many queer people are making these huge strides, but it’s a fight,” he says in the trailer. “There’s still parts of myself that I’m learning to accept. But we’re getting closer.”

The documentary officially premiered at the Toronto Independent Film Festival in September 2023. According to a press release at the time, the film was “shot over the course of 60 days with unparalleled access” and follows Lil Nas on an “emotional odyssey through the creation and performance of the critically acclaimed Long Live Montero show.”

The new film comes on the heels of the rapper’s controversial new single “J CHRIST,” which received enough backlash to cause Lil Nas to release a video on his Instagram explaining his thought process behind the religious-themed music video. “I know I messed up really bad this time. I can act unbothered all I want, but it’s definitely taken a mental toll on me,” he said. “I’m not some evil demon guy trying to destroy everybody’s values and stuff like that. That’s not me.”

Check out the official trailer for Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero below:

18 Jan 2024

Foo Fighters, Chris Stapleton, Neil Young, Rolling Stones to Headline 2024 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

The 2024 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival will feature headlining sets from The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Chris Stapleton, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, The Killers and Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals.

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The eight-day fest that takes place across 14 stages over two weekends — April 25-28 and May 2-5 — at the Fair Grounds Race Course, draws nearly half a million music lovers to a sprawling event that includes some of the biggest names in rock, pop, hip-hop, country, funk and jazz, including the usual compliment of homegrown legends.

Among the other acts slated to perform this year are: Hozier, Jon Batiste, Queen Latifah, Vampire Weekend, Greta Van Fleet, Heart, Widespread Panic, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Bonnie Raitt, Earth, Wind & Fire, Celebrating Jimmy Buffett with the Coral Reefer Band, Fantasia, The Revivalists, The Beach Boys, Big Freedia, Kem, Juvenile with Mannie Fresh, Irma Thomas, Joe Bonamassa, Steel Pulse, Cyril Neville, George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Jeffrey Osborne and Rhiannon Giddens, and hundreds more.

This year’s Jazz Fest will also celebrate the music and culture of Colombia at the Expedia Cultural Exchange Pavilion, with 17 bands and a variety of artists sharing the unique sights and sounds from the South American nation, including Colombian salsa, cumbia, champeta, vallenato, chirimia, and currulao. There will also be daily parades honoring Colombia’s vibrant carnival spirit, with attendees getting opportunities to meet Indigenous and Afro-Colombian artisans, purchase their crafts and taste traditional Colombian food and drinks, according to a statement announcing the lineup.

Weekend and VIP packages are available here now, with single day tickets slated to go on sale in February; all tickets are subject to additional service fees and handling charges and an account with AXS is required for purchase. This year’s Jazz Fest will also offer a 4-day GA+ weekend pass for the first time, with access to an exclusive GA+ lounge with private restrooms, a full-service bar and shade. There will be a limited supply of 4-day second weekend passes including admission to the May 2 Rolling Stones set, the group’s only announced 2024 North American festival gig.

Stapleton, Killers, .Paak, Batiste and Vampire Weekend are the top line acts for the first weekend (April 25-28), with the Stones, Foo Fighters, Young, Hozier and Queen Latifah topping the list for the second weekend (May 2-5). Click here for the full day-by-day lineup.

Check out the 2024 lineup poster below.

18 Jan 2024

Norah Jones Announces ‘Visions’ Album, Spring 2024 U.S. Tour

Norah Jones revealed the title of her upcoming ninth studio album, Visions, on Thursday (Jan. 18), as well as the 12-song collection’s bubbling first single, “Running.” The Blue Note album from the 9-time Grammy winner is due out on March 8 and was recorded with producer/multi-instrumentalist Leon Michels (El Michels Affair, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings), who also co-wrote the single, on which he plays drums and baritone sax.

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“From the first time I felt the click in my heart/ I keep running, oh I keep running away/ Try to sleep but the aching tears me apart/ I keep running, oh I keep running away,” Jones sings breathily on the slow-rolling, meditative pop tune spiked with her signature piano playing.

“The reason I called the album Visions is because a lot of the ideas came in the middle of the night or in that moment right before sleep, and ‘Running’ was one of them where you’re half asleep and kind of jolted awake,” Jones said in a statement that describes the album as “vibrant and joyous,” while tapping into “feeling free, wanting to dance, making it right, and acceptance of what life brings.”

In her statement, Jones added, “We did most of the songs in the same way where I was at the piano or on guitar and Leon was playing drums and we were just jamming on stuff. I like the rawness between me and Leon, the way it sounds kind of garage-y but also kind of soulful, because that’s where he’s coming from, but also not overly perfected.”

Visions is the follow-up to Pick Me Up Off the Floor, Jones’ last album of new songs, which was released early in the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

In addition to the album, Jones also announced the dates for her 9-show 2024 spring East Coast U.S. tour, which is slated to kick off with a May 6 show at MGM Music Hall at Fenway in Boston and wind down on June 30 on the Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Watch the “Running” video and see Jone’s tour dates and the Visions track list below.

Visions track list:

“All This Time”

“Staring at the Wall”

“Paradise”

“Visions”

“Running”

“I Just Wanna Dance”

“I’m Awake”

“Swept Up in the Night”

“On My Way”

“Alone With My Thoughts”

“That’s Life”

Spring 2024 U.S. tour dates:

May 6 – Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway

May 7 – Poughkeepsie, NY @ Bardavon 1869 Opera House

May 10 – Port Chester, NY @ The Capitol Theatre

May 13 – Washington, DC @ Kennedy Center Concert Hall

May 15 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Met Philadelphia

May 16 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount

May 19 – New York, NY @ Apollo Theater

May 24 – Napa, CA @ BottleRock Napa Valley

June 30 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival

18 Jan 2024

Ice-T Reveals His 5 Favorite Musician Guest Stars on ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’

Ice-T may have risen to fame in the ’90s as a rapper and fronting the band Body Count, who courted controversy with their song “Cop Killer,” but these days he’s a cop himself — at least on TV. He’s Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola on NBC’s long-running police procedural Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which kicks off its milestone 25th season on Thursday, Jan. 18, and it’s the rapper-actor’s 24th season on the Emmy-winning crime drama.

Over the show’s many seasons, it has featured countless entertainers as guest stars before they made it big (Stephen Colbert, Bradley Cooper, Adam Driver and Hayden Panettiere, for example), as well as household names (Carol Burnett, Robin Williams, Angela Lansbury and John Stamos, to name a few). But SVU has also given everything from blink-and-you’ll-miss-it guest spots to pivotal roles to musicians besides Ice, who has become a beloved staple alongside Mariska Hargitay’s Captain Olivia Benson (who one of Taylor Swift’s cats is named after).

Among them? Miranda Lambert, Heavy D, Sabrina Carpenter, Dave Navarro, Questlove (who played a dead body!) and many more.

“The one thing about [creator] Dick Wolf [and production company Wolf Entertainment] is they understand how musicians translate into acting — they have no fear of that,” Ice tells Billboard. “I think Dick Wolf’s theory is, ‘If you could be a star at something, you could be a star at anything.’”

“My whole career doing music and being on SVU, I’ve never had Dick Wolf or any people then try to talk to me about music or anything, like, ‘Oh, Ice-T did ‘Cop Killer” or this that or the other,” adds the actor-musician. “I think from the Wolf perspective, ‘The bigger the star Ice-T is elsewhere, the bigger the star I have on my show.’ So when I go win a Grammy, it’s like SVU now has a Grammy Award-wining actor. He understands power is power.”

As for his run on the procedural, Ice — who’s up for a 2024 People’s Choice Award for drama TV star of the year — tells Billboard it’s not just his acting abilities that keep Fin on the drama. “[Wolf] sits back, he watches not only a performance but what are you bringing — kind of like what I always say is he looks at a show and goes, ‘If anybody’s tuning in to see Ice-T, yes, he stays on the show.’ If you’re on the show and they don’t think they’re tuning into see you, you can get one in the back of the head in the parking lot, you know?” the Grammy winner says. “For some reason, he likes me. I think I’ve done more television with Dick Wolf than anybody in his camp. I’m on five shows; I’ve been on seven, counting crossovers.” (The Law & Order franchise has boasted a total of seven different shows to date.)

As for how much longer Ice can see himself playing Fin, the answer is a long time. “Yeah, I’ll stay on it. I have nothing better to do,” he shares. “Like I said, right now, it’s an easy gig for me. I’m still able to do Body Count, my music, I gig on the weekends; I got a daughter in school — it’s much easier. When you’re touring, you have to do 200 days a year on the road. … I said when Law & Order ends — whenever it does end — I’ll just go out and read for all Samuel L. Jackson’s parts!”

But until then, he’s happy to keep carrying Fin’s shield, and having musicians guest star on SVU alongside him. “I just love it when they bring hip-hop artists on,” Ice tells Billboard. “It’s one of those shows where if you got a fanbase and you throw your name in the hat, they might call you.”

While Ice isn’t sure which musician he’d like to see on the police procedural next, there are a few who have stood out in his mind as some of the most notable guest roles. Read on to see which five musicians are Ice-T’s favorite cameos on Law & Order: SVU.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit airs on NBC on Thursdays. Catch up on past seasons — as well as other shows in the Law & Order franchise — on Peacock.

18 Jan 2024

Lana Del Rey Teases Unreleased Song ‘Henry, Come On’: Listen Here

From her brief stint as a Waffle House waitress in Alabama to her recent cover of “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” Lana Del Rey has been embracing a rootsier aesthetic – and her latest song teaser is no exception. 

On Wednesday (Jan. 17), the 38-year-old alt-pop star shared a snippet of an unreleased recording on Instagram, which she simply captioned, “Henry, come on.” “Do you think I’d really choose it?/ All this off and on, Henry come on,” she croons over folksy acoustic guitar, her sultry voice drenched in her trademark reverb. 

“Baby come on, do you think I’d really lose it on ya?/ If you did nothing wrong, Henry come on,” she continues in the clip, whispering in some places. “Last call, hey ya, hang his hat up on a wall.” 

Del Rey provided no other details about the project, although she did pair the audio with a hazy black-and-white Polaroid of her wiping her eye with her thumb. “country era is coming,” one fan commented, while another person added, “Ah, so is this what you’ve been cooking up here down south? ? Sounds absolutely beautiful!” 

Indeed, the “Summertime Sadness” singer has been spending a lot of time below the Mason Dixon Line in recent months. In addition to mysteriously serving customers at a Waffle House in Florence, Ala., she was also spotted getting her nails done at a seemingly random salon in Birmingham over the summer. And just days before she released her take on John Denver’s “Country Roads,” she stopped by Memphis, Tenn., to perform “Unchained Melody” in Elvis’ honor on the live NBC special Christmas at Graceland. 

Del Rey’s potential song teaser comes less than a month ahead of the 2024 Grammys, at which she’s nominated for five awards, including album of the year for Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd and song of the year for “A&W.” She was also recently announced as one of three headliners at this year’s Coachella alongside Tyler, the Creator and Doja Cat, about which she wrote on Instagram: “It’s a little bit crazy but we’re going back to Coachella! I think you should come it’ll be fun.” 

Listen to Del Rey’s “Henry, Come On” clip below: 

18 Jan 2024

Post Malone, Reba McEntire and Andra Day to Headline Super Bowl LVIII Pregame

The NFL unveiled the lineup for the pregame entertainment for Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas on Thursday morning (Jan. 18). Before Usher takes the stage for the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime show, country icon Reba McEntire will sing the National Anthem, while Post Malone will tackle “America the Beautiful” and Andra Day will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

The National Anthem and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” will be produced and arranged by Emmy-winning musical director/producer Adam Blackstone. Both the pregame and halftime shows will feature American Sign Language performances, with Coda actress Daniel Durant performing the National Anthem in ASL, actress/model/singer Anjel Piñero signing “America the Beautiful” and actor/choreographer Shaheem Sanchez signing “Lift Every Voice and Sing”; Sanchez will also perform the ASL rendition of the halftime show.

In a new interview with Vogue, Usher said he has been in intense rehearsals for his Apple Music halftime show, saying the 13-minute trip through his career “has to be perfect.” The “Yeah!” singer explained, “I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I want people who have been a part of that journey to feel like it’s a celebration for everybody, for all of us, from the beginning up until this point.”

The tightly-held specifics of the show have not yet been revealed, but Usher did promise that he would show off some of his signature dance moves and roller skating skills and that there would be a costume change and special guests.

“I’m literally speaking to every woman. I want to make it feel like that,” the singer said of his goal to make provide an intimate, steamy show in the 65,000-capacity stadium. “I want the world to smile when they look at me. I want them to feel something, and feel my passion, my love, feel like I was the right person to sit in this position, and I was the right person to bring this kind of energy and love and connection to the entire world.”

Super Bowl LVIII will take place on Feb. 11 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

18 Jan 2024

Sophie Turner’s ‘Wrongful Retention’ Lawsuit Against Ex Joe Jonas Dismissed After Couple Reach Custody Agreement

Former Games of Thrones actress Sophie Turner dropped her “wrongful retention” lawsuit against ex-husband Joe Jonas over the custody of their two daughters after the former couple signed a co-parenting consent plan approved by a U.K. judge last week.

According to The New York Times, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the suit on Wednesday (Jan. 17) with both stars’ consent. Turner sued the Jonas Brothers band member in September several weeks after the couple announced their plans to divorce; Jonas filed for divorce in Florida on Sept. 5 stating that the “marriage between the parties is irretrievably broken.”

Shortly after, Turner, 27, sued Jonas for “wrongful retention,” claiming that the 34-year-old singer was withholding the girls’ passports and requesting the “immediate return of children wrongfully removed or wrongfully retained.” The suit claimed that despite their “peripatetic lifestyle,” the couple agreed that their “forever home” would be in England, but that following the split Jonas allegedly “refuses to return the passports to the Mother and refuses to send the children home to England with the Mother.”

At the time, a rep for Jonas said that turning over the passports to Turner would have violated a Florida court order that restricted both parents from relocating the children. The Times reported on Wednesday that Judge Katherine Polk Filla said in court that Turner and Jonas both signed a memorandum of understanding and a “parenting plan” for the children in October, as well as a consent order with a British court that was approved on Jan. 11.

The former couple met in 2016, and married in two ceremonies in 2019. The first was a surprise Las Vegas wedding in May that they held immediately after attending the Billboard Music Awards, where the Jonas Brothers had just performed. They then threw a lavish wedding at the end of June in Southern France. Their two daughters were born in the U.S. in 2020 and 2022 and have dual American/British citizenship.

17 Jan 2024

Justin Timberlake Posts Cryptic ‘EITIW’ Teaser: What Does It All Mean?

Justin Timberlake had fans buzzing on Wednesday (Jan. 17) when he posted what appears to be a taste of an upcoming musical era.

“EITIW,” he captioned a series of photos on Instagram from what looks like a music video set, with fans theorizing that the single will be called “Everything I Thought It Was.” Redditors even tracked down a trademark application filed by a mysterious LLC early last year for that phrase, as well as for “Everything I Thought It Was…A Sonic Film.”

A poster featured in the Instagram carousel says “MISSING” at the top and “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?” The tongue-in-cheek details include: “Age: Infinity; Height: Feels like 10′ tall; Weight: Up; Eyes: Precision; Hair: Depends.”

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See the full post here.

On Jan. 8, fans noticed that all the posts on the “SexyBack” singer’s Instagram account were wiped clean. The only thing that remained was a profile photo of Timberlake, which featured his eyes sending a piercing look to a car’s rearview mirror.

Should Timberlake release a new album, it would mark his sixth album and first since 2018’s Man of the Woods. That project marked his fourth consecutive No. 1 on the Billboard 200, where it charted for a total of 19 weeks. Just days after the album’s Feb. 2 release, he performed at the Super Bowl LII halftime show in Minneapolis.

In September, Timberlake reunited with *NSYNC to release “Better Place” for the Trolls Band Together soundtrack, marking the group’s first musical release since 2002 (when the Neptunes remix of “Girlfriend,” featuring Nelly, arrived).

17 Jan 2024

Madonna Teams With Jean Paul Gaultier for Exclusive Charity T-Shirt

It’s hard to pin down the most iconic Madonna look when you consider her four-decade career, but near (if not at) the top of that list has to be the cone-bra corset Jean Paul Gaultier created for her globe-trotting Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990.

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Now, that look is coming to a t-shirt near you. Madonna’s Celebration Tour – which kicked off last year in London and continues to roll through the United States – includes a number of merch items that call back to her culture-shifting outfits and fashions over the years, but this new item is a little different. First off, it’s an exclusive collaboration between the Queen of Pop and the French fashion provocateur. Secondly, it’s for a good cause. According to a Wednesday (Jan. 17) post on Madonna’s Instagram, the item will benefit her Raising Malawi charity, a nonprofit she co-founded nearly two decades ago.

“Who doesn’t remember My iconic Gold corset designed by the one and only Jean Paul Gaultier for my Blonde Ambition tour in 1990?!” wrote Madge on IG. “Now you can have an exclusive T-shirt created by the man who designed it, and the woman who wore it —M.E. All proceeds from this Special collaboration will benefit @RaisingMalawi and help provide critical medical interventions to orphans and vulnerable children at the Mercy James Center for Pediatric Surgery and Intensive Care. Thanks to @RaisingMalawi and the support that the Mercy James Center has been able to provide for over 11,000 surgeries since it opened in 2017.”

The Mercy James Center shares its name with Madonna’s teenage daughter, Mercy James, whom she adopted in 2009. Mercy James is currently part of M’s Celebration Tour, demonstrating her effortless piano skills on every stop. Of Madonna’s six children, four of them are a regular part of the international trek.

You can check out the “Madonna x JPG Blond Ambition Tee” here.