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Journey Montana is a name, or at least a face, that you’ve seen before. The young Los Angeles-born and Harlem-raised singer first made a splash as an actor on All American, playing the role of Jenn in the show’s fourth season. Music always came first for Montana despite that acting role, and her music career has taken off in the years that followed. She released her debut EP In & Out in 2021 before returning with the Stargirl EP in 2024. The latter put Montana in prime position to have the coming out party she displays on her debut album Lucky Girl Syndrome.

Don’t be mistaken, despite the album title of Lucky Girl Syndrome, Journey Montana’s position in the music world is a well-earned one. Lucky Girl Syndrome delivers a contemporary blend of pop and R&B, with Montana effortlessly operating in either genre to deliver her story of a young woman stepping fully into her own power. Themes of self-worth, love, and destiny drive Lucky Girl Syndrome as Montana boasts about the opportunity to have her talent and hard work pay off so that she can share her story and voice with the world.

In a press release, Montana called the album, “A labor of self love and self empowerment… During the making of this project, I was inspired by the power of my words. Speaking love and light into myself is so important to me at this time in my life because if you don’t pour into yourself and believe in yourself why would anyone else? Lucky Girl Syndrome is a collection of real stories of womanhood and feelings that I hope everyone can understand and enjoy.”

Just a couple of weeks removed from the release of Lucky Girl Syndrome, Journey Montana stepped under the Uproxx Music 20 spotlight to share her influences, inspirations, and aspirations for this week’s column. Scroll down to check them out and here highlight records from Lucky Girl Syndrome.

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What is your earliest memory of music?

My earliest memory of music would have to be riding in the car as a little girl with my mom listening to Mary Mary’s “Heaven”. There was also some Kirk Franklin and Beyoncé mixed in there, but that song stood out the most to me, I still get nostalgia when I listen to it.

Who or what inspired you to take music seriously?

As a little girl growing up, I was always singing in the church and at talent shows, but I feel like I really started taking it seriously when I made my first Instagram account. My first post was a video of me singing just for fun and I just started posting covers more and more consistently.

Do you know how to play an instrument? If so, which one? If not, which instrument do you want to learn how to play?

I can play piano by ear. I’ve taught myself a few songs, but nothing too crazy. I’d really love to learn the bass.

What was your first job?

My first job was a cashier at Chick-fil-A! That was in 10th grade.

What is your most prized possession?

My most prized possession is probably my grandmother’s wedding dress. She just recently gave it to me and I just admire her and my grandfather’s marriage. I feel like it’s a good reminder of their love and how it created the whole family.

What is your biggest fear?

Being dropped in the middle of the ocean.

Who is on your music Mt. Rushmore?

Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Whitney Houston, and Drake.

You get 24 hours to yourself to do anything you want, with unlimited resources: What are you doing? And spare no details!

Make the greatest film/music video of all time!

What are your three most used emojis?

, , and .

What’s a feature you need to secure before you die?

Drake!!

If you could appear in a future season of a current TV show, which one would it be and why?

Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I love that show, I’ve watched it since I was 8 years old and I still watch it now. I feel like a lot of my humor and personality come from that show.

Which celebrity do you admire or respect for their personality and why?

SZA. I think she’s real in a way that a lot of people don’t understand but that I deeply relate to.

Share your opinion on something no one could ever change your mind about.

Drake is an R&B artist.

What is the best song you’ve ever heard in your life and what do you love about it?

That’s a really hard question, but one of the best in my opinion is “I Look To You” by Whitney Houston. Gospel music holds a special place in my heart and that song fills me with so much hope and good feelings.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform, and what’s a city you’re excited to perform in for the first time?

My favorite city that I’ve performed in would have to be a tie between Nashville and London! I’m really looking forward to performing somewhere in Asia in the future.

You are throwing a music festival. Give us the dream lineup of 5 artists that will perform with you and the location where it would be held.

I’d have it in New York during the summertime with SZA, Drake, Kehlani, Beyoncé & Cash Cobain on the lineup.

What would you be doing now if it weren’t for music?

Probably dancing, or Broadway, or acting full-time. Something performance-driven for sure though.

If you could see five years into the future or go five years into the past, which one would you pick and why?

Neither. Honestly, I’d prefer to live in the present. Be grateful for the past and look forward to the future.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Not advice, but maybe some hope and kindness — a hug maybe — and tell her she’s beautiful and things will get better.

It’s 2050. The world hasn’t ended, and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

I’d like everyone to take away something different from my music. Some people to just feel good, some feel seen, some feel inspired. Overall just touching people in a real way.

Lucky Girl Syndrome is out now via 10K Projects. Find out more information here.

In December, I wrote a column defending music websites and publications that publish year-end lists before the end of the year. I justified this for three reasons: 1) December is mostly bereft of notable new releases; 2) Readers check out by mid-December; 3) Nobody remembers what goes on year-end lists anyway.

I still stand by the second and third justifications. But as it pertains to 2024, I can no longer vouch for the first justification. New evidence has come to light. What’s worse is that when I wrote that column, the album that nullified my reasoning had already been out for a week.

I refer to Heavy Metal, the debut solo LP by a prodigiously talented 22-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist named Cameron Winter. The record dropped the same day as my year-end list for 2024, which of course at this point is just irrelevant trivia. A decade from now, when I look back on my favorite albums of that year, I suspect that Heavy Metal will be among the standouts. For these past few frigid and tumultuous months, Winter’s songs — grand, idiosyncratic, funny, disturbing, densely wordy, and deeply moving – have remained lodged in my cranium. It feels like a major statement by an emerging artist, and there’s also reason to think that he will never make an album like it ever again. But for now, it sounds new and fresh and feels ancient and profound. Heavy Metal is special, and if you’re not yet on board, I heartily recommend making early 2025 a Cameron Winter winter.

Before Heavy Metal, I knew Winter as the frontman of Geese, a Brooklyn post-punk band that initially garnered critical raves for their 2021 debut Projector, made when Winter was still in his teens. Admittedly, I was skeptical at first — Projector sounded, superficially at least, like an on-the-nose pastiche of the sort of “Brooklyn post-punk band” music that always attracts positive press from Brooklyn-based music writers. But setting aside the hometown hype, it felt a little generic. I tended to agreewith my colleague Ian Cohen’s assessment in Pitchfork: “If Geese were in the middle of a four-band bill at the Mercury Lounge in 2002, would we remember them now?” The answer to that rhetorical question was self-evident.

Or was it? The next Geese record, 2023’s 3D Country, marked a dramatic shift. This band of baby-faced urbanites left the city for the desert (metaphorically speaking) where they ingested loads of psychedelic drugs (perhaps not metaphorically speaking) and produced one of the wildest and most exhilarating rock records of the 2020s. It’s hard to describe 3D Country without devolving into a word salad of hackneyed classic-rock references. It’s like Can’t Buy A Thrill if it was more like Goats Head Soup! It’s like Black Sabbath’s Vol. 4 if it were covered by Phish on Halloween in 1997! Each song explodes out of the speakers with a barrage of heavy riffs, noodly guitar solos, drum-circle breakdowns, and wailing gospel backing vocals. At the center was Winter, whose love-it-or-hate-it vocals — a combination of Julian Casablancas at his drunkest, Jeff Mangum at his most messianic, and Nick Cave in undead sex-goth crooner mode — imbued everything with larger-than-life, charismatic swagger.

Sometime after making 3D Country, Winter started on Heavy Metal, which he claims took him a year and a half. Not that we should take this at face value. The pranksterish playfulness that manifested on the Geese record carried over to the press materials for Winter’s solo LP, which he says was recorded “in a series of Guitar Centers across the New York tri-state area” with a supporting cast the includes a five-year-old bassist and a distant (and disowned) relative of John Lennon.

More credible is Winter’s assertion that these songs came out of a period when he was obsessed with Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, as well as a literary phase centered on Jack Kerouac, various Beat poets, James Joyce and Rimbaud. As he put it in a recent interview, “I went to the pretentious stuff really fast.” And that plays to the benefit of Heavy Metal, which is loaded with surreal lyrics that at turns are grotesque and comic. On the opening track “The Rolling Stones,” he sings about how he “will keep breaking cups until my left hand looks wrong,” the first act on an ongoing spiritual journey he likens to the twisted paths taken by doomed seekers such as Brian Jones and John Hinckley. (Later in the song, he makes a deep cut allusion to Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights — you can’t take the Brooklyn out of the boy, after all.)

“Cancer Of The Skull” is even more striking. Like much of Heavy Metal, it’s a dirge played on acoustic guitar and piano, with a twanging jaw harp and punch-drunk horn section arriving in the back half for extra flavor. It sounds like something that Robert Altman could have played over the image of Warren Beatty’s frozen corpse at the end of McCabe And Mrs. Miller. “I can’t reach cancer of the 80s / I was beat with ukuleles,” he drawls. “Oh, songs are a hundred ugly babies / I can’t feed.”

The old-school singer-songwriters trapping might suggest a stripped-down, folkie effort. But while Heavy Metal doesn’t have the instrumental firepower of Winter’s work with Geese, it actually packs a much heavier emotional wallop. Whereas 3D Country occasionally has a goofy edge, there’s an unwavering intensity on Heavy Metal that builds to a series of near-unbearable crescendos of feeling and catharsis. Three songs are particularly powerful: “Drinking Age,” a piano ballad with a pained, soaring vocal in which Winter pointedly wails, “Today I met who I’m gonna be from now / And he’s a piece of shit, yeah”; “Try As I May,” a surprisingly straight-forward and earnest love song with a repetitive organ riff reminiscent of Harry Nilsson’s “One”; and “$0,” a beautiful neo-classical number that climaxes with a remarkable rant insisting that “God is real / God is real / I’m not kidding, God is actually real.”

That part of the song ends with Winter reiterating, “I’m not kidding this time.” And I believe him. If 3D Country was Winter’s “wander the desert on acid” record, Heavy Metal is what happens the day after, when you preach your wild-eyed personal truth to the world. And let me tell you: This kid has a lot — wisdom and otherwise — to share.

The NBA has spent the last decade trying desperately to come up with an All-Star Game format that will get players more engaged and produce a better basketball game than what the All-Star Game has become. They’ve tried setting a target score for the fourth quarter, having team captains draft teams, putting money for charity on the line, and this year, will go to a mini-tournament format with teams of 8 playing shorter burst games to 40.

The truth is, the stakes of the game just aren’t high enough to get guys locked in and there’s probably not much of a way to change that so long as it’s still a team game. One of the ideas that’s been thrown out by fans and media members over the years is a 1-on-1 tournament, but that’s never seemingly gotten close to being really considered. Not every player is keen on the potential to get embarrassed in a 1-on-1 game — and, truth be told, not every All-Star is built to thrive in 1-on-1 hoops. That said, it would be far more entertaining than what currently exists, and I think most of the players would be way more engaged if they were going head-to-head with a friend or rival. Put a little bread on the line — and maybe encourage players to do their own side bets, too — and you might just get something great.

Given how often it’s been dismissed, most fans have given up on the idea. But with the new women’s basketball league Unrivaled successfully getting much of their league signed up for a 1-on-1 tournament that is happening this week (with $200,000 going to the winner), there’s some newfound optimism that, perhaps, the NBA might see that as a viable possibility in the future. With that in mind, we wanted to take a look at what a 24-player NBA All-Star 1-on-1 Tournament bracket might look like for 2025.

For the format, we’d go with one similar to Unrivaled’s. We like the 7-second shot clock as it keeps things moving, with a 10-minute time limit on games in case they don’t get to the target score. We’d still go by 2’s and 3’s to limit the advantage of shooters some compared to 1’s and 2’s, but instead of 11, I’d have the All-Stars play to 15. We’d also stick with the 1-shot free throws, again, to keep it rolling.

Unrivaled let fans seed the player pool, and the NBA could certainly do that to boost fan engagement in the event. Here, we took the time to seed the 24 All-Stars currently on the rosters (meaning no Giannis Antetokounmpo, who would probably be a 1-seed, or Anthony Davis) and look at some of the incredible matchups we could have if this became a reality.

SEEDS

1-Seeds: LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic

Until proven otherwise, we have to have LeBron and KD on the 1-seed line in a 1-on-1 tournament (and seeing guys try to dethrone them would be awesome to watch). They are just matchup nightmares, have the size to battle on both ends with anyone, and are elite tough shotmakers. From there, SGA is arguably the best two-way player in the NBA right now and would be a lock for a top seed.

The fourth spot is what I had the hardest time figuring out. In terms of who is the best player in the world, Jokic is a top-seed without question. However, if Jokic plays with the effort level we see typically from him at All-Star Weekend, he should probably be a 6-seed. Beyond that, part of Jokic’s superpower is his passing, and that’s taken away. But he is also an insane shotmaker, is shooting it at a preposterous clip this year, and no one is better at getting to their spot and getting a bucket. If he’s at all engaged, he might just never give the other guy the ball, especially if he’s bullying guards non-stop. Defense could be an adventure, but it feels disrespectful not to have the best player in the world on the 1-seed line, even though he is the guy that feels most vulnerable to an upset.

2-Seeds: Victor Wembanyama, Jayson Tatum, Anthony Edwards, Stephen Curry

Wemby would be a lot of folks pick to win, as he might just be impossible to score on. If he can hit any jumpers, it’s not clear how you successfully defend him. Tatum and Ant also feel like locks to be on the 2-seed line, and would also be favorites of some to win the whole thing with their two-way skills. The last spot here was, again, the hardest one to figure out. We debated between Steph and Kyrie and wouldn’t begrudge anyone that would flip those (Kyrie is an insane shot-creator and scorer in isolation). In this case, we gave Steph the nod at the 2-seed because it’s in San Francisco, so he gets the home team bump, and he’s an all-time great.

3-Seeds: Kyrie Irving, Donovan Mitchell, Cade Cunningham, James Harden

Kyrie maybe should be a 1-seed? We had that discussion in Slack, and while he was literally the last man into the field as an injury replacement, admittedly this feels low for his skills. Because what matters most is whether you are a top-2 seed or not because of the bye, we lumped the best 1-on-1 guards into the 3-seed group and put the best remaining bigs and wings in the 4-seed group. For me right now, that’s Mitchell, Cunningham, and Harden — all bigger, stronger guards. We would love to see this tournament in action for the chance to be proven wrong by some of the other guards who we are maybe undervaluing for their size.

4-Seeds: Jaren Jackson Jr., Evan Mobley, Pascal Siakam, Jalen Williams

The aforementioned bigs and wing group. If any of these guys got hot with their jumper, they’re all good enough defensively to put opponents in hell and make a real run. The challenge with the short clock as a wing or a big is being able to face-up and attack quickly, and all of these guys can do that. It’d be a matter of whether they can get those pull-up jumpers/midrange floaters to fall when they can’t get all the way to the rim.

5-Seeds: Jaylen Brown, Karl-Anthony Towns, Darius Garland, Damian Lillard

As it turns out, everyone in the All-Star Game is a very good basketball player so it feels wrong to have some of these guys this far down. Brown, like the guys in the group above, could be really good in this if he can hit some jumpers because of his defense on the other side. KAT is a real Wild Card because he might just be able to rain in threes over anyone. Garland has crazy handles but the size is a concern on defense. Lillard, similar thing, but the shot-making ability is still up there with the best.

6-Seeds: Jalen Brunson, Tyler Herro, Alperen Sengun, Trae Young

For the three guards here, the size question on defense plays a big role in being on the 6-seed line. All of them are talented and diverse scorers on offense, but would face real challenges against bigger players. Sengun isn’t the best defensive big and if it’s a quick shot clock, you wonder about his ability to get to his spots in time to get good shots off. But again, he’s a crazy talented shotmaker and if he can get the touch on those midrange floaters and things, he could give someone the business.

THE BRACKET

Look at this bracket and tell me you wouldn’t be extremely excited to see this tournament. We’ll dive into the first round matchups below, but just look at what the quarterfinals would be if the top-2 seeds all won their first game — LeBron vs. Steph, Jokic vs. Wemby, KD vs. Ant, SGA vs. Tatum. Are you telling me those guys wouldn’t have a little more juice for those matchups? This would be sensational. I’m begging the NBA to go through their rolodex of sponsors and find someone that’ll put a million or two up as a prize for this, because I don’t think the players would turn it down if there was a considerable prize at the end.

FIRST ROUND MATCHUPS

3. Kyrie Irving vs. 6. Trae Young (Winner faces 2. Stephen Curry)

Kyrie vs. Trae as our opener? Yes, please. Winner faces Steph? Double yes. Some phenomenal shot creation skill would be on display in this matchup and it might come down to who can get a stop.

4. Jaren Jackson Jr. vs. 5. Damian Lillard (Winner faces 1. Nikola Jokic)

Matchups are going to matter a lot in this tournament, and this feels like a tough draw for Dame. Still, few are better at shot creation in a 1-on-1 environment than Dame and if he can see an early three go down, he’d have a chance.

3. Donovan Mitchell vs. 6. Alperen Sengun (Winner faces 2. Anthony Edwards)

How would Sengun fare in space defending Mitchell? Could Mitchell stop Sengun from getting to his spots? The cat-and-mouse of the big vs. guard matchups would be fascinating.

4. Evan Mobley vs. 5. Darius Garland (Winner faces 1. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander)

This is really where I think the 1-on-1 tournament could be especially fun. One of the best parts of the drafted All-Star teams has been when teammates go against each other — the most competitive portion of recent games has been when Tatum and Brown have gone 1-on-1. Here, we get the Cavs two young stars going toe-to-toe in a matchup I’m sure has happened plenty in practice. Could Garland hold up at all on defense? Could he shake Mobley and get the range from deep to make it not matter?

3. Cade Cunningham vs. 6. Tyler Herro (Winner faces 2. Jayson Tatum)

This would be the matchup that got overlooked on paper, but could be one of the most fun early-round matchups. Cade would have the strength advantage going downhill, but Herro can get hot from deep.

4. Pascal Siakam vs. 5. Karl-Anthony Towns (Winner faces 1. Kevin Durant)

I would honestly love to see this matchup. Two very unique offensive skillsets going head-to-head. As mentioned above, if KAT can knock down threes, he’d be very dangerous.

3. James Harden vs. 6. Jalen Brunson (Winner faces 2. Victor Wembanyama)

Another really fun one. Harden would be favored, but Brunson’s Dog In Him levels are off the charts and this feels like a more favorable matchup for him than if he drew one of the longer wings. Of course, both players would only dodge length for one matchup as Wemby would be waiting in the wings on this matchup.

4. Jalen Williams vs. 5. Jaylen Brown (Winner faces 1. LeBron James)

Closing out the night would be the matchup that I think would get the feistiest. The battle of Ja(y)lens would feature some aggressive defense and serious physicality. This would just be two bulls just locking horns, with LeBron waiting in the next round.

Last month, Selena Gomez seemed to be teasing some upcoming music. Now, we know that to be true: Today (February 14), she and fiancé Benny Blanco announced a collaborative album, I Said I Love You First, and shared the lead single, “Scared Of Loving You.”

So, the album is officially on the way, but it very easily could have been scrapped.

The two were interviewed together for a new Interview conversation shared today. During the chat, they were asked if there was any hesitation about making an album with each other, and Blanco said, “We said at the beginning, ‘If this ever is weird, we cancel it fucking immediately,’ because we knew what we had was so important.”

Gomez added, “I definitely didn’t feel any sort of pressure. I was maybe just nervous with jitters in the beginning, and then slowly but surely it was happening and it sort of fell into place with a lot of hard work and love.”

Blanco continued, “We also just made it in this house. We weren’t going to a studio every day. I’d be like, ‘Hey, I have this cool chord thing.’ Then she’d come in. We weren’t like, ‘Today’s the studio. We’re going to write this song and that.’ So many times it was so hodgepodge. It was like two hours here, two hours there. I’d never worked that way with someone. Usually I work that way if I’m by myself, but it was so cool to be able to do that with her.”

Read the full interview here.

I Said I Love You First is out 3/21 via SMG Music/Friends Keep Secrets/Interscope Records. Find more information here.

Like the rest of the world last year, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker was addicted to playing Balatro.

He called the poker roguelite the “the most addictive thing ever created,” and predicted that when the video game comes out on mobile devices (which it is now), “humankind’s activity is going to drop about 25 percent.” Hopefully Brooker found enough time away from Balatro — as well as his other recent favorites, open-world adventure game Ghost of Tsushima and deep-sea RPG Dave the Diver — to work on new episodes of Black Mirror.

Here’s everything we know about season 7 of Black Mirror on Netflix.

Plot

Charlie Brooker described Black Mirror season 7 as “a mix of genres and styles. We’ve got six episodes this time, and two of them are basically feature-length. Some of them are deeply unpleasant, some are quite funny, and some are emotional.” He added that the new season is “a little bit OG Black Mirror. It’s back to basics in many ways. They’re all sci-fi stories, but there’s definitely some horrifying things that occur, but maybe not in an overt horror-movie way. There’s definitely some disturbing content in it.”

When asked by Wisconsin Public Radio host Doug Gordon what he can reveal about the season, Brooker replied, “Not much! What can I say? There is a real mix of styles. There are quite a lot of emotional episodes. We’ve got a sequel for the first time. We did an episode called ‘USS Callister,’ which is very heavily influenced by The Twilight Zone.”

The “USS Callister” follow-up has Critics’ Choice award winner Cristin Milioti reprising her role as Nanette Cole, but Jesse Plemons won’t be back considering… I’ll just let Brooker spoil an eight-year-old episode. “Well, Jesse Plemons, his character is dead, unfortunately. So not to spoil the first one! Yeah, he dies at the end of the first one, so he’s gone, but they’ve got to sort of press on,” he teased. “It’s a nearly feature length extravaganza. And we’ve got another feature length episode elsewhere in the series. And like I say, quite a lot of emotion. You know, I just hope, as ever, I hope people like it.”

Based on the response to the first-look image, I think people will.

As for whether this is the final season of Black Mirror, here’s what Brooker had to say:

“I’m in a really, really fortunate position where I get to write this stuff, and it gets made, and I get to work with amazing people who also make me look better. And I love every minute. The editing is my favorite, actually. And there’s so much variety, so it’s in many ways inexhaustible. I’m sure I’ll find out when we’re not doing any more seasons! It will be made apparent to me at some point, I’m sure. But I’m in it for the long haul. I’m not going anywhere.”

Hm, if only there were technology concerns for Black Mirror to cover. Oh well!

Cast

The season 7 cast was revealed in a very Black Mirror-y way: on a flickering computer screen in a video titled “TCKR_Confidential_NotForDistribution.mp4.” The headliners include Awkwafina, Peter Capaldi, Emma Corrin, Paul Giamatti, Rashida Jones, Billy Magnussen, Cristin Milioti, Chris O’Dowd, Issa Rae, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Jimmi Simpson, but if you want to see the full, lengthy list, click here.

Release Date

Black Mirror season 7 will definitely premiere in 2025, as confirmed in the video below, but there’s no exact date yet.

Trailer

There’s also no trailer, but Black Mirror gets a shout out in the streamer’s 2025 sizzle reel.

Today (February 14), lovers around the world are celebrating Valentine’s Day. With that in mind, Emotional Oranges decided to give fans something sweet to vibe out to.

The “Be Somebody” musicians teamed up with Jessie Reyez and Becky G to get their romantic message out there. Together, the entertainers released their collaborative song, “Candy Gum,” co-produced by Chiiild.

In alignment with the record’s title, “Candy Gum” is a sweet and sensual song about a tussle between the sheets.

“Mouth to mouth like you need resuscitation / Ain’t no point in fighting, you know what I came for / I came for loving, came for touching / Came for sugar, came to c*m,” sings Emotional Oranges’ Valentina Porter.

Over on Instagram, the group teased their studio follow-up to 2023’s Still Emo while promoting the track. “It’s been over a year since STILL EMO and we wanted to come with something special for our first single from the album,” wrote the duo. “There’s nothing more iLL than 3 fly women barring out, reminds me of some of the dope posse cuts we grew up with in the early 2000s. been a fan of jessie since she dropped ‘figures’ & it’s an honor to work with becky again, a real LA legend.”

Listen to “Bubble Gum” above

Bon Iver is one of the more accomplished indie artists of the past 20 years. John Wilson created HBO’s equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking How To With John Wilson. Together, they combined forces on the video for “Everything Is Peaceful Love,” the first single from Bon Iver’s new album, SABLE, fABLE.

Vernon said in a statement, “I knew what kind of record I wanted to make the day we made ‘Everything Is Peaceful Love.’ I always knew that would be the feeling I wanted to share first. I wanted the video to just be people smiling uncontainably. Luckily, Eric Timothy Carlson suggested getting in touch with John Wilson from How To with John Wilson.”

The Bon Iver frontman accurately called the HBO series “simply the most poignant and hilarious program in all of television,” continuing, “We were extremely fortunate that John liked the idea. He went out, shot a bunch of fun stuff, and edited it all to the song. It gives me what I want for this album, all in one video. The idea that happiness and joy are the highest form and the true buoyancy of survival, and even taking yourself less seriously could heal the world.”

You can watch the “Everything Is Peaceful Love” video.

SABLE, fABLE is out 4/11 via Jagjaguwar. Find more information here.

When Sydney Sweeney isn’t on a set, she’s frequently demolishing the Internet with her social media thirst traps. How she manages to find the time, who knows? Sweeney recently finished filming the Christy Martin biopic and will return for Euphoria‘s third season sometime this year. At the moment, the Immaculate actress is working on The Housemaid, which will take her back to thrillers while adapting Frieda McFadden’s household-name making beach read novel that sparked sequels.

This movie has the advantage of a built-in audience ready to flock into theaters, so let’s not waste any more build-up on what to expect.

Plot

The Housemaid has sold millions of copies (and counting), leading the audience to tap into McFadden’s 20+ other books, which she has somehow managed to amass despite her “day job” as a physician. Sweeney is also doing just fine in the multitasking department with TMZ reporting that she is being paid $7.5 million for this film. Sequels will be possible as well with The Housemaid’s Secret and The Housemaid Is Watching also ripe for adaptation.

The Lionsgate movie will work from a script from Rebecca Sonnenshine (The Boys) and will follow the book’s setup with Sweeney portraying Millie, whose secret past leads her to accept a live-in position for the troubled Winchester family. The wife, Nina (Seyfried) seems seriously off, and the husband, Andrew (Sklenar), appears on the verge of breaking in half, according to the synopsis:

In the film, Sweeney will play Millie, a struggling woman who is relieved to get a fresh start as a housemaid to Nina (Amanda Seyfried) and Andrew, an upscale, wealthy couple. She soon learns that the family’s secrets are far more dangerous than her own.

Obviously, McFadden’s readers will know the twists that are coming, but presumably, they will be invested in watching drama unfold onscreen, much like the millions of people who watch Instagram reel-memes and know what’s coming. Speaking of which, filming began earlier this year in New Jersey with Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, and director Paul Feig (A Simple Favor, Bridesmaids) whipping out the meme power on social media. The caption reads, “Lights, camera, deception,” and they went in for the meme kill: “It’s the Delulu for me. They are living in this big a** house and they put her in the attic with a cotton itchy blanket, like, red flag.”

That’s The Housemaid in a nutshell, alright.

Cast

Sweeney is throwing herself into the role of Millie with Seyfried as Nina Winchester with Brandon Sklenar (1923) as her husband, Andrew. Michele Morrone, who recently made waves in Subservience on Netflix, has picked up the role of sexy Italian groundskeeper Enzo. Alexandra Seal (A Murder At The End Of The World, Escape At Dannemora) will portray Officer Connors.

Release Date

The Housemaid will deliver beach-read thrills into theaters on Christmas 2025. Talk about counterprogramming.

Trailer

Filming has only just begun, but we can only hope that similar vibes to Sweeney’s Euphoria “Cassie meltdown” will surface at some point. Behold:

Last month, Jason Isbell announced Foxes In The Snow, his first solo album since 2015’s Something More Than Free, as he’s been mostly making material with his band The 400 Unit in recent years. His approach is the exact opposite this time and much simpler, though: A press release notes Isbell recorded the album on the same “all-mahogany 1940 Martin 0-17 acoustic guitar” and over the course of just five days.

The project is set for March 7, but ahead of them, he has unveiled the album’s title track. It’s instrumentally sparse, of course, with just guitar and vocals. But, Isbell’s songwriting and voice make the song feel full.

He sings on the track’s opening verse, “I love my love / I love her mouth / I love the way she turns the lights off in her house / And I love my love / And her velvet bed / Where she’s heard me sing the words that can’t be said / And all the dreams that die unseen / All the Diphenhydramine / It took to put my soul to sleep / Now it’s easy.”

Meanwhile, Isbell previously announced tour dates and his US solo tour kicks off tomorrow, February 14.

Listen to “Foxes In The Snow” above.

Foxes In The Snow is out 3/7 via Southeastern Records. Find more information here.

Chappell Roan’s record-setting music festival performance is going international. The “Good Luck, Babe!” singer was announced as one of the headliners for Rock En Seine 2025, which takes place from August 20 to 24 at the Domaine National de Saint-Cloud, near Paris, France. The lineup also includes ASAP Rocky, London Grammer, Vampire Weekend, recent Grammy winner Doechii, Anyma, Justice, Jamie xx, Queens Of The Stone Age, Fontaines DC, Mk.gee, and Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory.

Pre-sale tickets for Rock En Seine 2025 will be available beginning Friday, February 14, at 2 p.m. CET with preferential prices exclusively for Revolut customers (there’s a €10 discount — roughly 10 bucks in American dollars — on tickets or packages when using Revolut Pay until Monday, February 17). Meanwhile, the general sale starts on Monday, February 17, at 10 a.m. CET. You can find more information here.

Check out the festival’s full lineup below.

Rock En Seine 2025 Lineup For Wednesday, August 20

Chappell Roan
London Grammar
Luvcat
Suki Waterhouse

Rock En Seine 2025 Lineup For Thursday, August 21

ASAP Rocky
Vampire Weekend
Doechii
Khruangbin
Barry Can’t Swim
Mk.gee
Montell Fish
Alemeda

Rock En Seine 2025 Lineup For Friday, August 22

Anyma
Aurora
Caribou
Empire Of The Sun
Marc Rebillet
Good Neighbours

Rock En Seine 2025 Lineup For Saturday, August 23

Justice
Jamie xx
Jorja Smith
Artemas
Dabeull
Luidji

Rock En Seine 2025 Lineup For Sunday, August 24

Queens Of The Stone Age
Fontaines DC
Last Train
Stereophonics
Wallows
Kneecap
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory