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Lorde has said that her upcoming album Virgin is an extremely vulnerable and transparent work. That definitely seems to be true based on what she said in a new Rolling Stone interview.

The piece notes that on the album’s opening track, Lorde sings, “Some days I’m a woman / Some days I’m a man.” Of her identity, Lorde told the publication:

“[Chappell Roan] asked me this. She was like, ‘So, are you nonbinary now?’ And I was like, ‘I’m a woman except for the days when I’m a man.’ I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, but there’s a part of me that is really resistant to boxing it up.”

The piece notes that per Lorde, her pronouns are unchanged and she considers herself a cis woman while being “in the middle gender-­wise.”

She also said, “I don’t think that [my identity] is radical, to be honest. I see these incredibly brave young people, and it’s complicated. Making the expression privately is one thing, but I want to make very clear that I’m not trying to take any space from anyone who has more on the line than me. Because I’m, comparatively, in a very safe place as a wealthy, cis, white woman.”

Read the full feature here.

Virgin is out 6/27 via Republic Records. Find more information here.

Something Beautiful is not the only name of Miley Cyrus’ new album: It’s also the title of an accompanying film. The “End Of The World” singer released a trailer back in March, and now she’s shared another look at the movie, which is described as “a one-of-a-kind pop opera fueled by fantasy.”

The new trailer showcases some of the album’s 13 original songs, with Cyrus looking glamorous while stepping up to a microphone, making out in the rain, and riding a motorcycle.

Something Beautiful (which Cyrus wrote and directed with Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter) is in theaters for one night only: June 12 in the United States and Canada and June 27 everywhere else. Tickets go on sale on May 22. You can find more information here.

Cyrus called Something Beautiful her “best album” and “my gayest.” She also said the theme is “beauty, but not what beauty represents by a standard of someone else’s idea. It changed my life, with anxiety, when something we label as ‘bad’ happens to greet it with excitement, because it always means that something is on the other side that’s gonna come from it. There’s always a lesson.”

Check out the visually impressive new trailer for Something Beautiful here.

Laufey’s recent single “Silver Lining” was described in a press release as “the first taste of what marks a new Laufey era.” There wasn’t news of a new album at the time, but now there is: Today (May 15), Laufey has announced A Matter Of Time, a new project set for release on August 22.

She also shared the single “Tough Luck.” Laufey said in a press release of the track, “‘Tough Luck’ is a fiery song about love gone wrong. I wanted to reveal an angrier side of myself — a side that this unfortunate relationship brought out in me.”

Laufey also said of the album:

“Every new album for me is a blank book of stories to write. […] I’m constantly thinking about classical and jazz, how to properly preserve them and pay homage. For this album, I just wanted to let my heart wander. […]

People expect a pretty façade of girly clothes, fantastical stories, and romantic music. This time, I was interested in seeing how I could draw out the most flawed parts of myself and look at them directly in the mirror.”

Listen to “Tough Luck” above and find the A Matter Of Time art below.

Laufey’s A Matter Of Time Album Cover Artwork

A Matter Of Time is out 8/22 via Vingolf Recordings/AWAL. Find more information here.

This year’s Met Gala, per usual, was a spectacle. Celebrities showed up in their finest, sometimes-pantsless, sometimes-piano-having outfits. Of course, some looks received criticism, including that of Billie Eilish.

There’s an issue with that, though. The Met Gala was on May 5, and at that time, Eilish was in the middle of a run of concerts in the Netherlands. She actually had a show that night. So, she wasn’t even at the Met Gala, and the outfits some people online were reacting to were from fake, AI-generated images (here are a couple examples). Now, Eilish has seen the discourse and decided to chime in.

Sporting a confused expression as she eats the last few bites of an ice cream cone, Eilish says in a video:

“Seeing people talk about what I wore to this year’s Met Gala being trash… I wasn’t there [laughs]. That’s AI! I had a show in Europe that night [laughs]. Let me be! I wasn’t even there!”

Meanwhile, a few months ago, she spoke about her plans for this year, saying, “Yeah, definitely getting back into the studio and doing stuff. Next 12 months, I want to… I definitely have more tour, lots of tour to do, and probably more than I’m even scheduled for that’s gonna come, which I’m excited about. I feel like [touring], I’ve really made it into something really fun and enjoyable where it’s not always been that way. I’ve really suffered on tour and I feel like it’s gotten to be really, really enjoyable, so I’m excited for that.”

The weather’s getting warmer and there’s a feeling in the air: Hot Girl Summer is upon us once again. And, in the spirit of the season, the star who re-named the best three months of the year, Megan Thee Stallion, showed fans her latest Hot Girl Swim offerings in a colorful photoshoot bearing all the hallmarks of summer fun.

Decked out in a few of the styles that will be available (on May 19), Meg and a trio of models don matching fuschia wigs and pose with an ice cream truck, evoking the summer staple of lounging by the pool devouring a Popsicle (or other frozen sweet treat) with friends. You can check out the Hot Girl Swim photoshoot here.

Meg’s been one busy entrepreneur lately. In addition to launching her swim line this summer, she’ll also be opening her first-ever restaurant franchise with “THEE LITTEST Popeyes ever.” She’s also got the inaugural Pete & Thomas Foundation Gala to plan for, as well as new music on the way, as suggested by the release of her new single “Whatever.” Oh, and she’s partnered with Airbnb to host an “experience” directed at Hotties looking to join her on an anime otaku adventure. It’s a wonder she finds time for it all, but on the bright side, she’s earned that famous feeling.

Earlier this week, Red Bull released the latest episode of its Spiral Freestyle series featuring Ab-Soul, Big Sean, and Joey Badass. The episode has since gone viral for Joey’s competitive verse, which picked up the threads laid down by his spicy early 2025 singles, “The Ruler’s Back” and “Sorry Not Sorry.”

The combative energy did not go unrecognized or unchallenged. When “The Ruler’s Back” dropped, Top Dawg Entertainment rapper Ray Vaughn responded a fiery follow-up to his battle rap track, “Crashout Heritage.” Once again, Vaughn responded to Joey this week with “Hoe Era,” a witty, wordplay infused diss track playing on the name of Joey’s old band Pro Era.

Vaughn recently released his own debut project on the label, The Good The Bad The Dollar Menu, so the timing couldn’t be much better for his name to be going viral — hopefully, all the attention he gets from “Hoe Era” will translate into spins for his excellent debut, because he’s certainly worked to earn them.

“Standing next to Soul ain’t gonna save you,” Ray jabs in his verse, nodding to the fact that Ab-Soul also participated in some friendly back-and-forth with Joey during their Spiral freestyle. It looks like the Long Beach native wants to compete, and even his own teammates won’t stand in the way of the fade.

You can listen to “Hoe Era” above.

Last week, Sound Check host Jeremy Hecht took his first L during a livestream with YouTuber DDG. This week’s episode, however, takes him back to Dreamville Festival, where he previously took on the challenge with Ludacris, for another encounter with a 2000s Southern rap legend: Juvenile.

Naturally, Juvie’s choices include songs from his former group, Hot Boys, his longtime bandmate, Lil Wayne, and New Orleans musical pioneers, including The Neville Brothers and Louis Armstrong. Asked to choose between “I Need A Hot Girl” and “We On Fire”; “A Milli” and “Hustler Muzik”; and “Brother John/Iko Iko” and “What A Wonderful World,” Juvie came up with some answers that might surprise you. They certainly gave Jeremy a sense of Juvenile’s musical taste.

Here’s how it works: Jeremy plays two songs for the guest artist, who has to choose one and explain their choice, giving Jeremy a chance to learn their musical taste. Jeremy then has to guess the artist’s life anthem, the song they’d take to a desert island, which the guest wrote down earlier on a piece of paper. Our production team has also given him a decoy song, and Jeremy has to guess which is correct based on what he’s learned in the previous rounds.

Does he redeem himself this time around? Watch the episode above to find out.

Sometimes, you just want to watch a robot who loves to watch soap operas. And Murderbot is here to fuel that want.

Apple TV+’s status as the streaming sci-fi king will only continue to grow with this Alexander Skarsgård-starring series adaptation of Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries. The show takes a comedic approach to a Sec Unit gone rogue with a bang-up cast that includes David Dastmalchian, who is in almost every TV series worth watching these days.

The question remains, however, when you can watch the deadpan robot juggle his bingewatching stints and humanity-saving heroics.

When Do Murderbot Season 1 Episodes 1 & 2 Come Out?

May 16. From there, the 10-episode first season will roll out weekly until July 11. If you haven’t caught the series trailer yet, it’s damn cute, and the synopsis ain’t bad, either:

“Murderbot” is an action-packed sci-fi series, based on the award-winning books by Wells, about a self-hacking security android who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable “clients.” Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe.

The cast also includes Tamara Podemski, Sabrina Wu, Akshay Khanna, and Tattiawna Jones. And good on Murderbot for finding time for recreation while still getting his job done. Robot goals.

JID is back, and the apocalyptic video for his new single, “WRK,” follows a similar format to the trailer for his upcoming album, God Does Like Ugly, depicting conflict in a devastated version of his hometown, Atlanta.

Mixing the haunted aesthetic of post-apocalyptic shows like The Walking Dead and The Last Of Us with the scavenged future punk tribal discord of the Mad Max series, the “WRK” video explores a version of A-Town where something very bad has apparently happened, splitting the denizens into two factions. One, a hazmat-clad authority group, faces off against the other, a group of residents gone feral, as JID raps in the wreckage of an abandoned skyscraper.

Toward the end of the video, a cobbled together museum of artifacts holds the city’s history, from the bandana worn by the late Young Scooter, to a 20-inch auto wheel, to a videotape of God Does Like Ugly, which a young survivor pops into a VCR, presaging the coming of the album of the same name.

JID first previewed “WRK” at Dreamville Festival after turning in the long-awaited album despite his manager joking that the album would never come out. Thank goodness he was wrong.

You can watch the video for “WRK” above.

Ahead of the release of her new album Lotus, Little Simz has shared her latest single-word song. First, it was “Flood,” then “Free,” and now comes “Young.”

The posh punk (not pop punk) track comes with a video directed by Dave Meyers that finds Little Simz as a bass-wielding granny. “I was able to tap into a character. That was fun for me,” she wrote in a statement. “It’s just a moment of light heartedness.”

Little Simz also announced a pair of headlining dates in the fall: Manchester’s Co-Op Live on October 16 and London’s The O2 on October 17. Tickets are on sale here.

Lotus was originally scheduled to come out on May 6 before it was delayed to to June 6. “That time has come and unfortunately I’m having to push my album back due to scheduling of shooting a movie that just came in. Not ideal for me or you I know, trust me I’ve tried many ways around it but just means I can’t do the film otherwise,” Little Simz wrote on Instagram in April. “If there was ever a time I ask for your grace and patience it is now.”

You can watch the “Young” video above.

Lotus is out 6/6 via AWAL Recordings. Find more information here.