Category: News

One of the most highly anticipated albums of this year is The National’s First Two Pages Of Frankenstein, which features Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers, and Sufjan Stevens. After cryptic mail and password-protected websites, they unveiled the lead single “Tropic Morning News.”

The band is back today with the new single “New Order T-Shirt.” The song is a twinkly, wistful ballad that serves as a compilation of memories. “I keep what I can of you / Split second glimpses and snapshots and sounds / You in my New Order t-shirt / Holding a cat and a glass of beer,” Matt Berninger croons, the image as vivid as a real photograph.

“To me the line ‘I keep what I can of you’ means something about everyone I’ve ever known or loved,” Aaron Dessner said in a statement. “There’s a simplicity to ‘New Order T-Shirt’ that reminds me of our earlier records, but with the full maturity and experience we have now. It feels like a really important song for the future of our band.”

The National also teamed up with New Order for a literal, limited-edition New Order t-shirt, because why not? Check it out here.

Listen to “New Order T-Shirt” above.

First Two Pages Of Frankenstein is out 4/28 via 4AD. Pre-order it here.

Philip Selway is the drummer for one of the world’s greatest and most famous rock bands. But when it came to making his third solo record, Strange Dance (due Friday), one of the first orders of business for this founding member of Radiohead was to replace himself behind the kit.

“I started off drumming, and I got about a day and a half into it and realized it wasn’t happening,” he explains during a recent Zoom call. The problem is that he hasn’t been playing drums all that much lately, as any Radiohead fan can confirm. (The band has not toured since 2018.) Fortunately, the album’s producer Marta Salogni recommended a worthy replacement: Italian percussionist/composer Valentina Magaletti.

“Valentina breathed this whole life into the record,” Selway enthused. “She works really quickly, and there’s a richness in her playing, and there’s kind of a narrative and a precision in it. But also at the same time, because she works quickly, there’s this real spontaneity about it. It’s almost improvised in a way. So, yeah, I think that was one of my better decisions, to kick myself off the drum stool.”

Strange Dance is the latest example of a Radiohead band member making music outside of Radiohead. Ed O’Brien produced his first solo effort (under the moniker EOB), Earth, in 2020. Last year, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood teamed up in the well-regarded side project The Smile, forming a power trio with jazz drummer Tom Skinner. Also in 2022, Colin Greenwood started playing with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

During the promotional campaign for Strange Dance, Selway has hinted that Radiohead might reassemble this year, sparking hopes for their first new album since 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool. But when I spoke with him, he seemed less committal, suggesting that the band is now a collective of sorts in which solo projects fall under “the umbrella of Radiohead.”

Very curious! What’s going on here? In our interview, along with speaking at length about how he made Strange Dance, Selway discussed the current status of Radiohead and shared his memories of making Hail To The Thief, which turns 20 in June.

Looking at your solo records, there’s an obvious progression in terms of musical sophistication. Does that reflect a growing sense of confidence working on your own?

When I first started on my solo work, I had it in mind that I would do three albums and see what ground I could cover. I knew there was a lot to learn. I felt I could write songs, and I felt I could do something that would connect with people, but it was almost like starting over again, really. It’s really expanded my musicality, in ways that I wouldn’t have expected.

Wait — you set out to make three solo records? What happens now?

That’s it. I’m going to start drawing my pension now. [Laughs.] No, it needed to feel manageable when I was setting out to do it. But I’ve got to this stage now and it’s the end of the first stage, and so that opens up a lot of possibilities beyond here. As long as I’m writing, and the ideas are coming, then I will carry on making music. So I haven’t dried up quite yet.

You’re in a band with a pretty phenomenal singer. How did you develop your own voice? Have you always been a vocalist?

When I started out, my main impulse was to sing. Because I couldn’t really play an instrument at the time, so singing was where any musicality came out. Then puberty happened and I sounded like a drain for quite a while. Once Radiohead was signed, my focus became drumming, and trying to get that up to speed and up to the standard that was required of what we were doing.

I am still very much finding my singing voice. I can look at it over the course of records and see how it’s developed. Like with this record, I’ve found that actually singing in a lower register really suits my voice. It’s a much more expressive register for me to sing in.

You said earlier that you wanted the sessions for this album to go quickly. And it made me think about how Radiohead albums are notoriously difficult to make. I wonder: Is part of the attraction for you guys making music outside of the band is that, in a way, it’s easier?

With Radiohead, every step of the way we’ve been learning the next stage, if you like. It’s not like we’re coming in with all our chops and saying, “Well, I had this piece which I’ve done before, and I think it’ll work really well in this.” Everything’s bespoke as we’re going through, so you’re having to learn how to do that each time. That’s partially why it takes a while to make a Radiohead record. There’s quite a natural struggle in that.

With this album, the bits where it was a personal struggle happened for me before I got to the sessions. It was a lovely process making this record. I mean, really, really enjoyable. I don’t know if it was easy. Well, it certainly wasn’t. I mean, it’s a lot of hard work doing it.

Let me ask the question in a different way. And feel free to dismiss this if I’m just being a music critic projecting an idea on to your work.

[Chuckles]

But everything that Radiohead does is endlessly discussed and scrutinized. And I wonder if working outside the band allows you guys to make music that doesn’t have all that Radiohead baggage automatically affixed to it. Does that make sense?

It does make sense. I think for all of us, that baggage comes with you regardless of what you’re working on. Because the first thing people will say in an interview or a review is, “Philip Selway, better known for his work in Radiohead.” So you’re aware of that. And I’m sure it must be the same for all the other band members as well. I mean, that’s a particular pressure that we put on ourselves in the band from even before we were signed. That’s just part of how we function.

When I made my first two records, Familial and Weatherhouse, I was very aware of Radiohead. With Familial, I made an album that couldn’t have been more different to Radiohead in some ways. Because I really felt, “Well, I’m doing this outside of that context, it should be something very different.” But for Strange Dance, I’ve had this sense that the reference points for it have been these musical relationships that I’ve built up over this past decade. So that sense of being in Radiohead was much more in the background for me. But it never goes away, which is a good thing. I mean, God, that’s a massive presence in your life. One I’m quite happy to have.

I’m fascinated by how bands operate. Especially a band like yours where you’ve not only been in a band together for decades, but you’ve also been friends since you were kids. And it’s the same five people, which is such a rare thing. Do you feel like the opportunity to make your own records, and the other guys making their own records, has added to the longevity of the band?

I think it’s been essential, really. We’re all aware that Radiohead works in a particular way, and that’s a really effective way, and are really proud of what we’ve done with that. But when you’ve been making music for 40 years, there are going to be avenues that you want to go down which don’t necessarily fit in that mold. I think it must be the same for all of us. For me, back in Radiohead, you really value what’s there. But you also really get a greater sense of who you are as a musician in your own right.

Did you see that Beatles documentary Get Back?

I did, yeah.

In that movie, The Beatles were back at work on a new album less than two months after the release of The White Album. And it made me think about how those guys never really said, “Let’s take a year or two off, make our solo albums, and then reconvene.” That’s something you see long-running bands do all the time now. I feel like one thing bands learned from The Beatles is how not to burn themselves out.

Yeah, I mean, there’s a big difference in that we’re in our 50s now. The Beatles weren’t even out of their 30s at that point. What they did in that decade, less than a decade, is just unbelievable. But it feels like they had to step out of that to find their lives beyond it. And, I guess, we have been luckier, that actually our lives outside of the band have been able to develop at the same time.

But The Beatles, I mean, that’s just such an exceptional circumstance, isn’t it? What they were doing musically, just in terms of being this global phenomenon and ubiquitous and just kind of fetishized, all of those different things. Then you watch that documentary and you see the poise that they handled it all with. And you just think, “Oh my God.”

I could not have done that at 30 in their place. At that age, we were just about to release OK Computer. It was hard enough doing that without all that history you had already accumulated, and without all of the expectation on what you were doing. I’m glad we’ve been able to spread it out over a number of decades rather than sorting it all into one.

Have you ever brought your own songs into Radiohead?

When I first joined, I brought material in. But actually, it’s really been about Thom’s songwriting in the band, and then how we interpret that and where we all take it as the five of us.

You’ve said recently that Radiohead expects to work together in 2023. Do you know when that might be?

We get together quite regularly, and we talk about what we might be able to do. But we also talk a lot about our own projects that we’re working on at the moment. Right now, it feels like all of those different projects are where our attention needs to be placed. Ed is making a solo album at the moment, and it’s going to be great. And Thom and Jonny are doing more work on The Smile, and it’s been brilliant watching that this past year. And then Colin kind of beats us all hands down, working with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.

Radiohead hasn’t toured in five years, and the band hasn’t put out a new album in seven years. Is it just assumed that you’re always going to be a band? Or has there ever been any doubt about that?

With all the other projects that we do, I look at it and think that it all falls under the umbrella of Radiohead. That’s the richness of what we do. And I still very much identify as a member of Radiohead.

So you’re like The Wu-Tang Clan at this point?

[Laughs.] I wouldn’t make that claim for ourselves, that might sound a little bit inappropriate for us. But there is that kind of collective sense of what we’re doing, yes.

Hail To The Thief turns 20 in June. What are your memories of that record?

Looking back on it now, it’s a very good bridge between Kid A, Amnesiac, and In Rainbows. It’s almost like two records in one, actually, which I guess is what Kid A and Amnesiac were. But very much there was the core of the band at one point in the Ocean Way sessions. Then you had tracks that are much more electronic, if you like. So you have the two hemispheres of the Radiohead brain coexisting in that record. And there are a lot of tracks on that record.

Wasn’t the original idea to work quickly after Kid A and Amnesiac took so long?

We started quickly. Then it … had more requirements.

Logic is set to drop College Park, his debut independent album since departing Def Jam with Vinyl Days as his final label act last summer. The multi-platinum rapper and best-selling author conjured very college vibes on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday night, February 22, the same day Logic released his “Lightsabers” single.

In the “Lightsabers” video, Logic traverses fantastical and vast landscapes. But on Kimmel, he only needed Juicy J, C Dot Castro, and the all-too-familiar confined nature of a college dorm.

The performance began with Juicy J proclaiming, “Logic! Juicy J! College Park! We gon’ take it back to 2011. Y’all know what time it is.” As Juicy exited the screen, viewers were welcomed into a staged college dorm where Logic sat next to C Dot Castro, who handled the keys. “It’s a good day, good day, good day,” Logic rapped. “Had a lot of bad ones this year / But today’s a good day, good day, good day, good day, good day.”

The song is equally reflective and projective, with Logic reminiscing on past times when he felt down but didn’t stay down and spreading a message of perseverance: “I hope you don’t give up your dreams for a 9-to-5 / Don’t get me wrong, it’ll pay your bills / But if you don’t love your job, tell me, what’s the point? / Don’t disappoint / Gotta make it a point to do it a better way.”

Logic emerged from his makeshift set to dap up the Kimmel audience and lead into slowed-down, jazzier verse backed by a live band from a traditional stage. It wouldn’t have been a complete performance without Logic tossing dollar bills into the crowd during Castro’s verse. But the true finale was Logic saying, “My wife’s pregnant again. It’s a little boy.”

Logic and his wife, Brittney Noell, announced they were expecting their second child in early January, but Logic’s Kimmel appearance served as a gender reveal party.

Watch the “Lightsabers” performance above.

College Park is out on 2/24 via Three Oh One Productions. Pre-order it here.

Netflix will soon start charging for password sharing, but it’s lowering its cost in more than 30 countries worldwide. Not the United States, however. “The streaming company’s recent price cuts span Middle Eastern countries including Yemen, Jordan, Libya, and Iran; sub-Saharan African markets including Kenya; and European countries such as Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Affected markets also include Nicaragua, Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.

The price drop — which, in some cases, halves the cost of a subscription — is good news for more than 10 million subscribers, or roughly four percent of the company’s 230 million-plus subscribers.

While Netflix didn’t unveil the pricing changes in a big announcement, it communicated them locally. “Starting today, our Basic Plan in Malaysia is now RM28 per month for both new and existing members,” the streamer tweeted in that country, for example. The 28 Malaysian Ringgit ($6.32) is down from 35 Ringgit ($7.90) previously.

“It definitely goes against the recent trends not just for Netflix, but for the broader streaming industry,” John Hodulik, a media and entertainment analyst at UBS Group AG, told the WSJ. “Some of these cuts on a percentage basis are substantial.” That they’re happening before the password sharing crackdown goes into effect is not a coincidence. You can see the full list of markets with lowered subscription costs (congrats to Papua New Guinea!) here.

(Via the Wall Street Journal and the Hollywood Reporter)

In an attempt to score political points ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump paid a visit to the site of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio in an effort to distinguish himself from Joe Biden who spent President Day making a surprise visit to Ukraine. Like any good Trump visit, it involved naked shilling for his own brand of water, and of course, a stop at McDonald’s where he bragged to employees that he knows the menu better than they do.

The Ohio visit turned even more Trumpian when the former president decided to hold court with the press and ramble about how… he saved football during the pandemic? To hear Trump tell it, he personally brought back both the Big 10 and the NFL just by placing phones calls to commissioners and saying, no joke, “You gotta get this football open.”

Here’s the full text of Trump’s weird football rant:

I don’t know if you remember when Ohio State wasn’t going to be playing football for another season. They were gonna sit back and watch with the China Virus or COVID or whatever you want to call it. And I called the head of the Big 10, the Big 10 football, and I said, ‘You gotta get this football open.’ And they were great and they responded and Ohio State played that season. Nobody remembers that, I think, right? Does anybody know? We got that opened very early, and you had a great season of football to put it mildly. So it was a very great honor. The Big 10. That led to the NFL and it led to most of the rest of football in the country. But you led it through Ohio State and Big 10 and we got that done. And I did that very personally. I called the commissioner and he did a good job.

As for what any of this has to do with helping victims of an environmental disaster is anybody’s guess. Is Trump going to call the train and say, “You gotta get this town open,” because, seriously, what is he talking about?

(Via Aaron Rupar on Twitter)

Lana Del Rey’s family is all over the music industry: Sister Chuck Grant is a photographer who has directed some of Del Rey’s videos, and it was just revealed that father Rob Grant is putting out a new album, Lost At Sea. The LP is set for release on June 9.

An album blurb from Rough Trade (that has since been removed but is cached here) reads:

“Rob Grant releases his debut album, Lost At Sea via Decca Records. An accidental recording artist, Grant has never had a lesson on any instrument in his life. No kind of formal musical training at all. He can’t read sheet music. But when he sits down at a piano, something magical happens. Notes flow from him and out pours composition after composition. The father of international icon Lana Del Rey, he enlisted an array of talent to contribute to the making of the album. Features and writing credits include his daughter Lana Del Rey, while production credits include Jack Antonoff, Luke Howard, Laura Sisk, and Zach Dawes. Now signed to Decca Records, Rob Grant is set to embark on his next venture as he delves into his newfound career in music.”

Per a tracklist shared by Vinyl Tap, the album has 14 songs and Del Rey features on the title track and another called “Hollywood Bowl.”

Some Del Rey fans on Reddit pointed out that the Lost At Sea cover art is reminiscent of Rey’s Norman F*cking Rockwell art, in which she also stands on a boat with the water in view behind her. Another user made note of a Del Rey Instagram Live broadcast from last September, when she mentioned Grant’s album and he seemed upset about her letting the cat out of the bag. Furthermore, another clever commenter called Grant a “nepo daddy.”

Grant had previously teased the project himself on his Twitter account, with photos of him in the studio accompanied by leading captions.

Lost At Sea is out 6/9 via Decca Records.

South Park duo Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been incredibly busy with their long-running quest to re-open Casa Bonita in Colorado. That shall happen in May (and they’re looking to hire 500+ more employees), but that doesn’t mean that South Park itself is on the back burner. Nope, the show recently made scores of headlines after a recent episode roasted the “privacy”-claiming ways of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

That subject is necessarily a loaded one, so it’s right up South Park‘s alley. It should be noted, as well, that the Comedy Central show remains an equal-opportunity offender, so to speak. The series profanely scorched the Royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton back in the day, and dare I say that that was a more brutal take on certain rumors.

However, we’re now in 2023, and South Park made a fine point while going over the top in their typical satiric way. Harry and Meghan are arguably overexposed, and it’s hard to claim they want absolute privacy while Harry is out there releasing a memoir about losing his virginity and all that. South Park poked fun at this with the “The Worldwide Privacy Tour” episode, mainly to point out contradictions. And although the Harry and Meghan critics pointed towards this as evidence of them being “over,” a spokesperson wants everyone to know that they’re alright, and they’re not suing. Via People:

A spokesperson for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry is shooting down reports that the couple is suing over a recent South Park episode.

On whether Harry and Meghan are pursuing legal action against the show, a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex tells PEOPLE: “It’s all frankly nonsense. Totally baseless, boring reports.”

Yes, this will all blow over, much like every instance of South Park taking aim (other than skewering of Scientology, which did leave a substantial mark). Parker and Stone do perform a great service to humanity, and I’m being very serious here. They’re gifted satirists and revel in pointing out pop culture hypocrisy, no matter how big or small. And if this causes Harry and Meghan to take some downtime, so be it. They have, after all, had quite a public run with a Netflix docuseries about their lives and how they fled the British monarchy. However, yes, they will recover from this and be alright.

Comedy Central’s South Park is streaming on Paramount+.

(Via People)

Nicki Minaj is having a good year. Last month, she kicked off 2023 by becoming the female rapper with the most consecutive years charting a single on the Hot 100. She then broke another milestone by becoming the first female rapper to surpass 28 billion streams on Spotify.

Now, it looks like she’s gearing up to share new music. She shared a video on Instagram that previews a new song. It’s playing in a club and Minaj — with her half-red, half-pink hair and thick shades — mouths along to the flow while people around her dance and twerk. The caption reads: “#RedRubyDaSleeze 3/3.”

Minaj has been otherwise quiet on social media, aside from congratulating Rihanna. “A lil pretty boy already,” she commented on Rihanna’s post. “Congratulations on the new bundle of, joy, Queen. Bodied the Super Bowl.”

In November, the “Super Bass” singer teamed up with Maluma and Myriam Fares for “Tukoh Taka,” the official FIFA World Cup anthem. “I am so happy to be part of this FIFA World Cup anthem!” Maluma said in a statement. “I always dreamt of an opportunity like this. Representing Latin music on this global track alongside amazing artists that sing in English and Arabic, takes our culture to another level.”

And Just Like That… did a masterful job of throwing fans off their scent ahead of the reboot series’ HBO Max debut in December 2021. Executive producer and showrunner Michael Patrick King admitted he and his team staged fake scenes to hide the death of Chris Noth’s Mr. Big. (Remember the Peloton fiasco?)

But it would be just cruel to tease a Sam Smith cameo and not deliver.

According to Deadline on Wednesday, February 22, Smith “is set to appear in Season 2,” though “details of the character Smith will play will remain under wraps.”

All we have to go from for now is a shared Instagram post from Smith and And Just Like That… captioned, “Up to something unholy on set.” Of course, that’s a cheeky reference to Smith’s Grammy-winning pop behemoth “Unholy” with Kim Petras.

And Just Like That… initially was billed as a limited series revival of Sex And The City, but it was renewed for a second season last March.

By June, it was confirmed that Kim Cattrall’s famed Samantha Jones will be featured again in the new season — presumably still off-camera, considering Cattrall hasn’t publicly taken back any of her vitriol toward her former castmates. Additionally, King told Variety in October that Sara Ramirez will reprise her controversial Che Diaz character, while Deadline reported around the same time that Tony Danza had signed on for a recurring role that may or may not be as Che’s father.

More recently, Sarah Jessica Parker has been spotted filming with John Corbett. The And Just Like That… Instagram teased stills of SJP’s Carrie and Corbett’s Aidan seemingly rekindling their old flame.

And Just Like That…‘s second season has yet to release a trailer or set a release date.

This June is the 10th anniversary of “The Rains of Castamere,” better known as the Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones. It feels longer than that — probably because the trauma it caused will last a lifetime. Some people are experiencing Walder Frey’s betrayal for the first time, however.

“Nothing convinced me to watch GOT yet but this might make me wth happened on that screen?” @xPlatinumShanel tweeted, along with a reaction video of a devastated TikTok user watching the Lannisters send their regards. This inspired others to share their Red Wedding memories.

In an oral history of the episode, Michelle Fairley, who plays Catelyn Stark, described to EW what it was like filming the wedding scene. “The woman is just grief-stricken. But she doesn’t lose control,” she said. “She knows she’s dead — and in her mind she wants to be dead — and wants to get revenge as well. Because of the way it’s filmed, you felt incredibly static, which is just powerful — she stays rooted to her spot. Her grief has to be expressed in some shape and form, and that’s vocally and through her face.”

The real tragedy of the Red Wedding: that Fairley wasn’t nominated for an Emmy.