James Taylor is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with five Grammy awards, more than 100 million albums sold, and an induction into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame under his belt.

And yet the gentle singer-songwriter seems to ooze wholesome down-homeness, and a new video of him casually singing with his family from their home in Montana just reinforces that image. With simple, pure musicianship, Taylor plays guitar and sings while his wife and son sing harmony on his song “Now You Can Close Your Eyes.” And oh my goodness, the 3-part harmony is just soul-stirring. An absolutely gorgeous gift to us all.

James Taylor: You Can Close Your Eyes (The Tonight Show: At Home Edition)

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The performance was shown on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and included a call to raise funds for the Mass General Emergency Response Fund (https://massgeneralresponds.org), supporting the Boston hospital where 72-year-old Taylor was born and where his father worked as a doctor.

Thank you, James Taylor, for bringing this beauty to our homes during such a difficult time.

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It’s been a big afternoon for Zane Lowe on his Apple Music Beats 1 show today. First, he got to premiere the sentimental new The 1975 song and chat about it with Matty Healy. Shortly after that, he started a conversation with Ariana Grande to discuss her recent goings-on. During their talk, Grande revealed that she has a collaboration with newly minted No. 1 artist Doja Cat on the way.

Lowe asked Grande for her thoughts on Doja, and Grande responded, “I love her. I was able to work with her earlier this year on this song that I want to save for whenever it’s time again, to drop. But I love her so much. I love her personality. I love what she brings to the table musically. She’s just such a breath of fresh air. I think she’s brilliant and so talented.”

This comes shortly after Grande expressed the joy she felt at seeing Doja and Nicki Minaj’s “Say So” remix top the charts with Megan Thee Stallion and Beyonce’s new version of “Savage” right behind it. On her Instagram Story, Grande shared a screenshot of the week’s top 10 songs and wrote, “this is such an incredible moment in music [heart emoji] wowowoooowoowwowoo i love seeing this with all my heart,” then tagging the four artists involved.

Watch Grande talk about Doja above.

Up until the past few years, The Undertaker was infamous for upholding kayfabe, committing to always appearing in character. In a recent interview on WWE’s The Bump, Taker, out of character, said he doesn’t think he could pull that off today.

“It would be virtually impossible in this day and age to maintain the mystique of the character,” The Undertaker, who is currently the subject of a documentary series on the WWE Network, told the hosts. He explained that had to work hard to protect the character back then, and he thinks that would be even more difficult with the amount of cameras backstage at WWE today.

I never wanted anybody to see Undertaker not being Undertaker. I didn’t do a lot of outside projects because I didn’t feel like, ‘Okay, I can go and do this and then come back and then be Undertaker.’ It just didn’t work for me. So I put all my eggs in that one basket and this is the way it was going to be. I dressed in black everywhere I went. When they would book us on Regis and Kathie Lee and all these shows, Paul did most of the interacting. I sat there and stayed in character.

Taker doesn’t think he could do the same today with the increased amount of cameras not just in WWE, but in everyday life. “Everybody’s got a cellphone everywhere you go. It would be virtually impossible to do it and be able to maintain the mystique of that character.”

Of the nearly 100 artists who received invites to Dreamville Records’ legendary Revenge Of The Dreamers III recording sessions in Atlanta, one newcomer’s name particularly stood out. Despite only having a handful of extremely underground releases to his name and not being signed to any label, major or otherwise, Deanté Hitchcock was chosen to participate in those sessions on the strength of singles like “Talking To God, Pt. 2” and “No Secret,” ultimately appearing on one Revenge song, “PTSD,” alongside Omen, Mereba, and St. Beauty. It was enough to ensure that he wouldn’t stay unsigned for long; he signed with RCA Records in 2019.

Today, he made his major-label debut, dropping off Better, his 11-track full-length album, with features from fellow Atlantan rising stars 6lack, JID, and Young Nudy, as well as a reunion with St. Beauty alongside Grammy-winning R&B star Miguel. Despite being his 10th project overall — including five EPs, three mixtapes, and a live album — Better is as good a jumping-on point for his bandwagon as any, reflecting his soulful, introspective, and autobiographical sensibilities. Fans of Dreamville artists like J. Cole, Bas, Lute, and Cozz will find plenty to love here, as Hitchcock raps like it’s the only way he can draw oxygen, touching on topics as wide-ranging and personal as religion, romance, family relationships, and social consciousness over classic soul samples and hard-hitting trap drums. Deanté won’t fly under the radar for too much longer — he’s got all the makings of a star and the co-signs to help him reach hip-hop’s stratosphere.

Better is out now via ByStorm Entertainment and RCA Records. Get it here.

While musicians are coping with a change of pace as venues around the country have been shuttered, Nashville rockers Bully are looking to other artists’ music for solace. The group’s lead vocalist, Alicia Bognanno, teamed up with Sub Pop to pull from the iconic label’s lengthy catalog and create a physical 7-inch and cassette release of covers.

For the first cover, Bognanno chose to rework Nirvana’s 1989 classic “About A Girl,” which originally appeared on the band’s debut album Bleach. The singer keeps the song’s charged instrumentals and grumbling vocal delivery while adding her recognizable cadence. Bognanno’s second cover moves away from ’90s-era grunge into contemporary music. Bully selected a single from the infamously masked cowboy’s debut album, Pony. The singer infuses her style into a rendition of Orville Peck’s “Turn To Hate.”

In a statement, Bognanno explained her reasoning behind releasing the covers: “Normally during this time I’d be running around trying to promote the upcoming record and rehearsing to get ready to tour again but given the circumstances, I’m trying to work with what I can do at home alone. I picked a couple Sub Pop songs to cover to release something in the meantime. I played everything on these songs (for better or worse haha) and tracked them in my living room. Gotta do what ya gotta to spice it up sometimes.”

Listen to Bognanno cover “About A Girl” and “Turn To Hate” above.

About A Girl/Turn To Hate is out now via Sub Pop. Get it here.

Following the success of the Parks and Recreation reunion special, which raised funds for Feeding America, the cast of Community announced that it, too, would reunite for a virtual table read benefiting charities that are battling hunger during the ongoing health crisis.

The plan was for the cast to read the season five episode “Cooperative Polygraphy,” which featured Walton Goggins executing the will of Chevy Chase’s recently deceased character Pierce Hawthorne. There was just one small problem: Goggins was booked. Fortunately, the cast was able to find a substitute with The Mandalorian and Games of Throne star Pedro Pascal, who shared a screenshot from the reunion on his Instagram with the following caption:

Subbing for the irreplaceable @waltongogginsbonafide for a #Community table read benefiting @wckitchen & @frontlinefoods airing on Sony’s YouTube channel May 18th, 2pm. Fantasy fulfillment during a pandemic. Slap me, I deserve it.

You can see Pascal’s Instagram post below:

Of course, Pascal couldn’t officially join the cast without being roasted by Community co-creator Dan Harmon, who took a few potshots at Pascal’s biggest roles in an Instagram post announcing Goggins couldn’t make the table read:

Today we Zoom a special reunion table read of the Community episode in which Pierce bestows frozen sperm from his grave. The incredible Walton Goggins can’t make it so Pedro Pascal will play Pierce’s lawyer. He’s on some Disney show where Boba Fett’s in college with Yoda’s niece. In keeping with that theme, the part of Troy will be played by Lando. Yes, for real, the whole gang is back together. We got Horse Girl, we got Card Shark, we got ‘em all.

Harmon also joked about not streaming the virtual table read live because of Yvette Nicole Brown’s penchant for going on Area 51 rants. You can read his full announcement below:

The Community table read will premiere May 18 at 5 pm EST on Sony Pictures TV’s Community YouTube page.

(Via Pedro Pascal on Instagram)

Is The New Mutants the most cursed movie of all-time? The X-Men spin-off was announced five years ago today — it was originally scheduled to come out on April 13, 2018, but the release date was pushed back to February 22, 2019, then August 2, 2019, and finally April 3, 2020. Then that whole global pandemic thing happened. And is still happening, but Disney (which now owns 20th Century Studios) is confident that theaters will re-open this summer, as The New Mutants has a new release date: August 28.

“We’re back,” a tweet from the New Mutants official Twitter account reads, although it might as well say, “We’re back, and we’re not going straight to Disney+ or Hulu.”

Earlier this year, or maybe it was seven years ago, who knows at this point, Maisie Williams, who plays Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane), offered an explanation for the numerous delays. “It was a lot to do with the merger, I think it [the film] had a really bad rep and people thought there was going to be something wrong with it,” the Game of Thrones star said. “But I honestly think it was just really badly affected by something that was out of our control.” Gotta appreciate that positive-spin hustle.

Directed by Josh Boone, The New Mutants also stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt, and Henry Zaga.

Though The Last Dance often comes down on the side of Michael Jordan in the various controversies of his career, the way the national media reacted to Jordan’s baseball career clearly crossed a line. In the film, Jordan explains how part of his reasoning for retiring in 1993 was the emotional exhaustion of being one of the most famous athletes on the planet for a decade. None of that slowed down when Jordan joined up with the White Sox AA affiliate that year, though, and it even prompted a seething article from Sports Illustrated entitled “Bag It, Michael.”

The story criticizes Jordan for attempting to play baseball, with the sub-headline “Jordan and the White Sox are embarrassing baseball.” The reporter who wrote the story all those years ago regrets doing so.

In a recent episode of the ESPN Daily podcast, writer Steve Wulf told host Mina Kimes, “I think he was rightly insulted. He wasn’t out to embarrass baseball. He was out to pursue a dream that we thought at the time was delusional, but we should not have come down on him that hard.”

In The Last Dance, Jordan reiterates that he was never interviewed for the story, though Wulf still says he got the sense from reporting on the White Sox that there was resentment about Jordan trying baseball. Of course, it’s wild to write a whole story criticizing a player as famous and accessible as Jordan without interviewing, well, Jordan.

While Wulf’s regret is notable, it only added fuel to the fire that pushed Jordan away from the game the first time and fed into the ridiculous way superstar athletes are often covered.

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