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Ed Sheeran‘s latest album, Subtract, has topped this week’s new music poll.
Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (May 5) on Billboard, choosing the British pop star’s sixth studio release as their favorite new music release of the past week.
Subtract brought in nearly 57% of the vote, beating out new music from Lil Baby (“Go Hard”), Megan Moroney (Lucky), Toosii featuring Khalid (“Favorite Song (Remix)”), and others.
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On Friday, Sheeran dropped a full visual album to accompany the emotional studio set. Featuring a music video for each of the 14 songs on the album’s standard tracklist, the 12 new visuals joined the previously released ones for singles “Eyes Closed” and “Boat” to tell the story of Subtract.
Subtract is the last installment in Sheeran’s decade-long mathematical album era, following 2011’s +, 2014’s x, 2017’s ÷ and 2021’s =.
The singer teamed up with The National’s Aaron Dessner — whom he met through pal Taylor Swift — to write and produce the upcoming album.
Trailing behind Sheeran on the poll is Lil Baby’s “Go Hard,” with 17% of the vote, and Moroney Lucky, with 13% of the vote.
See the final results of this week’s new music release poll below.
Taylor Swift‘s closest friend since high school, Abigail Anderson Berard, got to share a special moment with the star during the second night of The Eras Tour in Nashville on Saturday night (May 6).
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Sitting at the piano during the highly-anticipated part of her set featuring surprise songs, Swift joked, “I feel like if I give you one piece of information you’d know exactly what song I was about to play,” before singing the Fearless classic “Fifteen” for her “beautiful, redheaded high school best friend,” who was in attendance at the show.
Fans seated near the Nissan Stadium VIP tent where Swift’s friends were enjoying the concert captured Abigail’s sweet reaction and uploaded the videos to TikTok.
Swift added a line to the song on Saturday night, one that contributed to the reflective vibe of hearing the high school song performed in their 30s.
“Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday/ But I realized some bigger dreams of mine/ And Abigail gave everything she had/ To a boy who changed his mind/ And we both cried,” she sang, topping the original lyric off with “and that’s alright.”
Earlier in the week, the pair shared a snapshot of themselves laughing together on Instagram, with the caption: “‘Cause when you’re… 33.”
See the reaction to the surprise concert moment — and some clips of Swift’s 2023 performance of “Fifteen” –below. Keep up with all the surprise songs Swift has played on The Eras Tour here.
Something unexpected in the crowd caught Taylor Swift‘s eye during her performance of “Marjorie” in Nashville Friday night (May 5).
Dozens of printed photos of Swift’s grandmother Marjorie, who inspired the personal Evermore song, were held up by fans near the mainstage for Swift to see. The thoughtful tribute to Swift’s grandmother left her emotional in front of an audience of 70,000 at the first of three shows at the city’s Nissan Stadium this weekend.
Her mouth wide open at the sight of Marjorie’s portrait being displayed on The Eras Tour, Swift stayed composed enough to continue to sing: “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re still around.” She then smiled and put her hand to her heart as the song concluded.
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The vast audience also lit up the stadium, from floor seats to nosebleeds, with their phone lights throughout Swift’s performance of “Marjorie” like they had the weekend before at her Atlanta stop.
“What are you trying to do to me?” she asked the crowd as she sat down at the piano in Nashville. “Oh my god, that was so beautiful.”
“So that song, Marjorie, that was a song that I wrote about my mom’s mom, my grandmother,” she said, giving the backstory to anyone in attendance who might not have known. “She was a singer too. And she passed away when I was 13.”
“I just know that my mom, right now, is just like bawling and has been for the solid last five-and-a-half minutes, and I love you guys so much. That was so meaningful and so special,” said Swift.
The project was led by a fan who passed out hundreds of Marjorie printouts to Swifties in her section at the concert. She documented her experience on TikTok.
“I couldn’t be more proud of making this crazy idea into reality. Lugging 300 copies around a crowded stadium wasn’t ideal, but for her I’d do it, ‘a million little times’!” TikTok user Jessica Morris (@auntie_hero) wrote of “Project Marjorie” following Friday night’s concert.
See Swift’s reaction to the moment on that TikTok account, and in another fan clip below.
Matty Healy was seen in attendance at Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour concert in Nashville on Friday (May 5), sparking further speculation that the two music stars are romantically involved.
Earlier in the week, rumors surfaced that the The 1975 frontman and pop superstar are “massively proud and excited about this relationship,” according to a source cited by The Sun. The report, published Wednesday (May 3), follows news of Swift’s split from her longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn in early April.
On Friday night, Healy was photographed watching Swift perform her first of three sold-out concerts at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium as part of her ongoing Eras Tour. During her performance of “Cardigan,” fans were quick to spot Swift mouthing the same words to that Healy was filmed saying before The 1975’s performance of “About You” in Manila on May 3.
“This one is about you. You know who you are. I love you,” the artists mouthed to the crowd on the separate occasions.
Swift and Healy have been longtime friends, with the 12-time Grammy winner surprising fans during The 1975’s concert at the O2 Arena in London in January by covering the band’s “The City” and performing “Anti-Hero” for the first time.
Neither Swift nor Healy have spoken out publicly about the situation.
See fan-captured images of Healy attending Swift’s Nashville concert, and watch the two stars mouthing the same words during their respective shows below.
Starting to feel like i’m in a documentary WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TAYLOR SWIFT AND MATTY HEALY THIS IS NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOR pic.twitter.com/0vEFYVVTc0— maggie♀ (@titanicsrising) May 6, 2023
It’s official: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is on the way. Taylor Swift revealed during her first of three shows at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium on Friday night (May 5) that her 2010 third studio album will be her next re-recorded release, out July 7.
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All of Swift’s fans got to enjoy the announcement too, because the Taylor Nation Instagram account went live from the concert for the onstage moment. She directed fans’ attention to the screens around the stadium, which read: “Speak Now. Taylor’s Version. Available July 7.”
Swifties already noticed that something was up last Sunday, when the light-up wristbands given to the Eras Tour attendees at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium turned purple at the end of the show. Purple is the color that represents Speak Now, which fans have long speculated would be the next re-recording. To celebrate the announcement, Nashville’s John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge also changed its lights to a bright violet hue on Friday night.
So far on the Eras Tour, which kicked off March 17 in Glendale, Ariz., Swift has only been performing one song from Speak Now, “Enchanted,” in her setlist — although “Mean” was performed as a surprise song during her April 15 show in Tampa, Fla. Speak Now spawned two top 10 singles in “Mine” (No. 3 peak on the Billboard Hot 100) and “Back to December” (No. 6), plus four other singles — “Mean” (No. 11), “Ours” (No. 13), “Sparks Fly” (No. 17) and “The Story of Us” (No. 41) — that charted on the Hot 100.
Upon its October 2010 release — following Swift’s mainstream breakthrough with 2008’s Fearless, which won the album of the year Grammy — Speak Now became the first Swift album to cross the 1 million sales mark in its debut week, launching at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 1.047 million copies sold. Swift’s third album has earned a total of 7.8 million equivalent album units in the U.S. through Apr. 27, according to Luminate.
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) will follow Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version), both of which were released in 2021, as the third re-recorded studio album in her six-album endeavor. Swift announced plans to re-record her first six studio albums in 2019 after being unable to purchase the master recordings of her back catalog. Instead of releasing a re-recorded album last year, Swift issued her 10th studio album, Midnights, which scored the biggest debut week of her career and of any album in 2022.
Zendaya and Tom Holland took their romance to the NBA Playoffs on Thursday night to root for the Golden State Warriors against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The NBA shared multiple looks of the couple inside San Francisco’s Chase Center on social media. Sitting on Celeb Row, the Euphoria star proudly repped her hometown team (she was, after all, born in Oakland, Calif.) in an all-black Warriors cap while her boyfriend donned a ’90s-style sweater emblazoned with the Land Rover logo.
The couple also interacted with some other famous folks taking in game 2 of the playoff series — namely 49ers players George Kittle, Sam Darnold and Christian McCaffrey, who playfully pretended to shoot Spidey webs out of their wrists toward Holland.
The Warriors eventually beat the Lakers by a score of 127-100, bringing the playoffs to a 1-1 tie. Meanwhile, the two Spider-Man: No Way Home costars also recently hit up Usher’s Las Vegas residency at the Dolby Live Theater inside the Park MGM for another high-profile date night just days after Zendaya made a surprise appearance on the second weekend of Coachella to perform her two collaborations with Labrinth.
The special occasion, which sent fans into an absolute tizzy across social media, marked the one-time Disney Channel star’s first public musical performance in at least seven years. (Her self-titled debut solo album was released back in 2013 under Hollywood Records and peaked at No. 51 on the Billboard 200 at the time.)
Check out Zendaya and Tom taking in the NBA Playoffs together below.
Ed Sheeran gave his first interview on Friday (May 5) in the wake of winning his court case in defense of “Thinking Out Loud.”
“The one thing that felt like the biggest win for me was, afterwards, Katherine Griffin Townsend and her family and everyone came up to me, hugged me and said, ‘We believe you,’” the singer-songwriter said on The Elvis Duran and the Morning Show. “And I got to walk away … from it knowing I did the right thing.”
The star added that he felt in some ways that the court case, in which he’d been accused of stealing parts of Marvin Gaye’s 1973 classic “Let’s Get It On” for his 2014 smash by Gaye’s producer Ed Townsend, had “overshadowed” the other major things happening in his life, such as the premiere of his new documentary Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All and the release of his latest album Subtract.
“On both sides, it takes a massive toll — both personally and financially — but it’s about heart and integrity, and that’s why I fought it was, I can’t be accused of something that I didn’t do. So I just had to prove that,” he explained.
During the trial, Sheeran took the stand in his own defense, offering an education in songwriting and chord structures, and even breaking into song in different parts of his testimony to prove his point.
However, he’s now ready to focus on moving forward and celebrating his album release and docu-series, which is now airing on Disney+. “I very much see the two things as coming hand in hand,” he told Duran. “You know, the documentary goes with the album and the album goes with the documentary. ‘Cause the last thing I want to do is bring more attention to my personal life, but I felt that opening up that door gave more context to the record.”
Watch Sheeran’s full post-win interview above.
City officials have been pulling out all the stops to welcome the superstar.
You always find your way back home. Taylor Swift is homeward bound this weekend for a trio of Eras Tour shows in Nashville, and Music City just welcomed her home with a custom bench in one of her favorite spots.
Mayor John Cooper unveiled the new Swiftie seating area, located in the city’s popular hub, Centennial Park, on Twitter Thursday (May 4) — one day ahead of the pop star’s first of three concerts at Nissan Stadium. “Welcome home, @taylorswift13,” Cooper captioned two photos of a dark wood bench surrounded by bushes. “As of today, you now have the perfect place to read at Centennial Park. Nashville is READY for this weekend.”
“For Taylor Swift,” reads a small green plaque on the top plank of the bench. “A bench for you to read on at Centennial Park. Welcome home, Nashville.” The plaque is, of course, a reference to Swift’s Folklore song “Invisible String,” which opens with the lyric: “Green was the color of the grass where I used to read at Centennial Park.” Toward the end of the loved-up track, the 12-time Grammy winner references the park again: “Gold was the color of the leaves when I showed you around Centennial Park.”
The bench isn’t the only way Nashville is honoring Swift, who moved to Tennessee’s capitol from Pennsylvania as a young teenager to start her music career. Cooper also named this weekend “Taylor Swift Homecoming Weekend,” issuing an official proclamation filled with cheeky references to the singer’s lyrics.
“Long story short, Taylor Swift is a legendary musician, producer, and director,” it reads. “Karma is Taylor Swift coming straight home to Nashville to play three sold-out tour performances at Nissan stadium.”
See the new Taylor Swift bench in Centennial Park below.
Niall Horan once again addressed the chatter about a potential One Direction reunion in a new interview on Thursday (May 4).
Speaking to ET Canada, the pop star admitted he’s “not surprised” by the amount of interest in seeing him reunite with his bandmates, considering he gets the question “every day.”
“I don’t know anything about it; there hasn’t been a conversation. And I’m sure if there ever is one, you’ll know about it,” he told journalist Morgan Hoffman in Toronto. “And that’s kind of the answer every time.”
At that point, the host brought up Harry Styles‘ recent remarks on the final episode of The Late Late Show With James Corden to “never say never” about the possibility of the lads getting back together. Horan responded with his two cents, saying, “I agree with Harry. Same thing as he said.”
However, Hoffman wasn’t quite finished with her 1D-related inquiries, following up the question by asking The Voice coach who he would envision playing him in an eventual big-screen biopic about the history-making boy band.
“Good question — I guess that’d have to be a young actor by then, by the time that happens,” Horan opined. “Currently if someone was to play me, it would be Allan Leech from Downton Abbey … We actually do look like each other, which is crazy. We’re both Irish, too — he wouldn’t have to change his accent, anyway.”
Currently, Horan is just a month away from releasing his third solo album The Show, which has been preceded by singles “Heaven” and “Meltdown.” Watch him dish about a One Direction reunion above.
