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Lil Nas X was recently honored by the Songwriters Hall Of Fame with the Hal David Starlight Award, which recognized the significant impact he’s made on the music industry in his relatively short time in the spotlight. However, it doesn’t look like he’s letting that success go to his head. He’s still got the same absurdist sense of humor he came into the music business with, as illustrated by his low-key reaction to the recognition on social media.

Tweeting a screenshot of a Variety tweet reporting on the Songwriters Hall Of Fame honor, Nas accompanied the image with another screenshot taken from the lyrics scroll of his new song, “Late To Da Party” with YoungBoy Never Broke Again, from Apple Music. The lyric in question reads: “Farted on these n****s [fart noise] / Oops, I think I sh*tted,” undercutting the austerity of receiving an award for songwriting with an example of just how silly his songwriting can be. It’s Nas showing that he doesn’t take himself too seriously — a trait that will probably help him remain grounded in an industry that can quickly make artists lose touch.

However, he also seems to appreciate his position in the business. During his speech at the Songwriters Hall Of Fame 51st Annual Induction And Awards Gala in New York earlier this month, he said, “This award means a lot to me for the simple fact that, somehow, I keep just doing things and it keeps working out. I don’t know why the universe is letting me have these moments, but thank the universe.”

George Miller has an entirely unique filmography. After directing three gritty and violent Mad Max movies and the best segment in the Twilight Zone: The Movie, he made: a talking pig movie that was nominated for Best Picture; a “nutso” sequel to the talking pig movie; an animated film about dancing penguins; another dancing penguin movie for children; and Mad Max: Fury Road, arguably the best movie of the 2010s.

Fury Road could have been the remarkable capper to an unpredictable career, but the 77-year-old has a new movie coming out this year, Three Thousand Years of Longing, in which Idris Elba plays a genie, and he’s also working on Furiosa, a prequel to Fury Road centered on Imperator Furiosa. The younger version of the character made famous by Charlize Theron will be played by Anya Taylor-Joy; the film also stars Chris Hemsworth.

Warner Bros. has released the synopsis for Furiosa, which you can read below:

As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland they come across the Citadel presided over by the Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.

“Warlord Dementus” instantly ranks in the top 10 of Best Mad Max Names, along with Toecutter, the Lord Humungus, and Rictus Erectus.

Furiosa is expected to come out on May 24, 2024.

(Via Collider)

Last week, news broke that a Game of Thrones sequel series centered on Jon Snow is in the works and that Kit Harrington would reprise his role as the now-exiled hero. While initial reports had very little in the way of details, Thrones author George R.R. Martin has now confirmed the series’ development in a new post on his official blog. Martin also offered updates on the series’ current status as well as its working title.

According to Martin, the sequel series is currently titled Snow, and the author is surprised that its existence is only just now being leaked because it’s been in development nearly as long as the other numerous Game of Thrones spinoffs. Martin also confirmed comments by Emilia Clarke that the series is actually Harrington’s idea.

Via Not A Blog:

Yes, it was Kit Harrington who brought the idea to us. I cannot tell you the names of the writers/ showrunners, since that has not been cleared for release yet… but Kit brought them in too, his own team, and they are terrific.

Various rumors are floating around about my involvement, or lack of same. I am involved, just as I am with THE HEDGE KNIGHT and THE SEA SNAKE and TEN THOUSAND SHIPS, and all the animated shows. Kit’s team have visited me here in Santa Fe and worked with me and my own team of brilliant, talented writer/ consultants to hammer out the show.

Despite Harrington and Martin’s involvement, the author cautioned Game of Thrones fans that Snow is still in the “script stage” and “nothing has been green lit yet.” In other words, the sequel series is anything but a sure thing at the moment.

“There are all sorts of reasons pilots never get picked up to series, all sorts of reasons scripts never got shot as pilots, all sorts of reasons great treatments never get sent to script,” Martin wrote. “That’s the way the business works.”

(Via George R.R. Martin)

In May, when reports of Roe v. Wade potentially being overturned started to surface, Phoebe Bridgers shared that she had an abortion herself in 2021, writing, “I had an abortion in October of last year while I was on tour. I went to planned parenthood where they gave me the abortion pill. It was easy. Everyone deserves that kind of access.”

Now, in a new interview with The Guardian, she has spoken more about it, saying the process “wasn’t f*cking emotional at all.” (The interview was published this morning, shortly before the Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade.)

Bridgers said:

“I’ve always found comfort in talking to people in passing — when someone’s mom says, ‘I had an abortion when I was a teen.’ It normalized it for me. I was, ‘All right, it’s time to throw my hat into that pool’… That’s not a phrase, I just made that up. But I didn’t think about it, really, at all. […]

As a white, upper-middle-class woman from California, even if it were to be overturned, I will always have access. I have a friend who went to medical school — every time I need a doctor, I say, ‘Do you have someone that you recommend?’ So I would just go, ‘Hey, where do I go for the thing? Wink-wink.’ The people with access will always have access. What pisses me off is that we’re not talking about me. It’s so easy: I played in Texas the same week, and then I went home and was like, ‘Oh my God.’ Made the appointment. It was 12 hours of my life.”

She also noted she was bothered by “people with good intentions saying, ‘Don’t say it was easy for you to make that decision – it was clearly really emotional.’” She continued, “And I wasn’t f*cking emotional at all. Hormonally crazy! But I don’t think you should assign ‘it tore me up’ to me. No! I don’t think about it as a baby, of course not.”

Read the full feature here.

Billie Eilish may be one of the youngest stars to break into stardom as of late, but she’s definitely one of the wisest. The “Bad Guy” singer has always been vocal about her qualms with the music industry, like when she was reluctant to accept her Grammy because of the accusations of unfair voting and a toxic culture at the organization. In a new interview with NME, she discussed the lack of representation for women at music festivals.

“It’s so cool to be a young woman and headline festivals, because it’s so male-dominated,” she said. “I went through a rough patch in 2017 and 2018, feeling hopeless about the future of women in music. I would see these line-ups for festivals and it was all dudes. And it was all artists I liked, but it was just like, ‘When will women be involved?’”

She added: “Women have to have a million back-up dancers and a million costume changes and their hair done, and crazy costumes and stage set-up. I love male performers, but they barely have to do shit to have a show that people like, and women are expected to have the biggest show. I’m tired of feeling like we have to do that to feel adequate. If you want to do that, then that’s so great, but I remember thinking that I would never be able to headline anything because of those expectations.”

If you engage with pop culture on any level at all, you likely know that there’s a new Minions movie on the way. While your reception of this news largely depends on how you feel about the Minions as characters — and whether or not you have kids, the determining factor in how likely you are to end up in a movie theater to see the little yellow creatures on July 1 — there is one universal good that comes with the new film: Its soundtrack.

For whatever reason, the Despicable Me cinematic universe has always had absolutely stellar music. While some of that music gets run into the ground — even Pharrell got sick of “Happy” — Illumination, the studio behind Gru and his gibberish-speaking allies, undoubtedly churns out banger after banger for their films from covers to original songs.

This is, in part, because they secure some great collaborators for them. While Pharrell worked on the soundtrack for Despicable Me 2, the soundtrack for Minions: The Rise Of Gru is produced by Jack Antonoff, featuring contemporary artists covering 1970s soul, funk, and pop hits. The latest one to surface is a cover of Sly And The Family Stone’s signature hit “Dance To The Music” performed by the multitalented HER.

Listen to HER’s cover of Sly And The Family Stone’s “Dance To The Music” above. The full soundtrack, which also features Brittany Howard, Brockhampton, Caroline Polachek, Diana Ross, Gary Clark Jr., Jackson Wang, Kali Uchis, RZA, St. Vincent, Tierra Whack, and Thundercat, is also out on 7/1 via Decca and Verve.

Soccer Mommy’s Sophie Allison quickly became one of the buzziest indie songwriters with her 2018 debut, existing at the nexus of ’90s indie, alt-rock, and 2010s DIY music. On this week’s Indiecast episode, hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen discuss her new album, Sometimes, Forever, and debate whether it’s an instant Album Of The Year contender or if it missed the mark.

Along with discussing Soccer Mommy, Indiecast talks about news from arguably the two biggest names in music: Beyoncé and Drake. Both celebrities announced new albums just hours apart from each other, with Drake’s house-leaning Honestly, Nevermind debuting the next day.

In the Recommendation Corner this week, Ian tells listeners to check out Candy, a Richmond, VA metalcore band who have leveled up their music in recent years. Steven shouts out Kentucky songwriter S.G. Goodman, whose sophomore album Teeth Marks is out now.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 94 below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Earlier this year, pop punk queen Avril Lavigne released her seventh studio album Love Sux, a return to form. Today, she covered Adele’s “Hello” for the Spotify Singles series and unveiled a stripped-down version of her song “Love Sux.” The rendition of Adele’s hit is emotive and powerful, and the new version of “Love Sux” is even more poignant than the original version.

“I love Adele’s song ‘Hello’ and have been dying to do a cover of it,” the singer said. “The ‘Spotify Singles’ sessions were a fun opportunity to finally do this cover as well as reimagine my own song ‘Love Sux’ as an acoustic version.”

The star recently got engaged to the artist Mod Sun. About the proposal, she explained, “We were in Paris on a boat in the Seine River. We had a violin player, champagne, and roses. It felt like time stood still, and it was just the two of us in the moment.” She added, “I knew we had a very strong unstoppable connection from the first week of writing and working together in the studio. Immediately. He made every day better. It was like I had known him forever. As time went on, things kept getting better, and it felt incredibly natural.”

Listen to the Spotify Singles recordings below.

The first reactions are in for Thor: Love and Thunder, Chris Hemsworth‘s fourth turn as the God of Thunder and director Taika Waititi‘s second entry after shaking up the character with Thor: Ragnarok. This time around, Natalie Portman rejoins the series thanks to Waititi promising the actress that she’ll have a “less boring time” as the Mighty Thor. Christian Bale also joins the cast as the villainous Gorr the God Butcher, and his performance is being favorably compared to Danny Devito’s Penguin in Batman Returns.

On top of the all-star cast bringing it, Love and Thunder apparently goes heavy on the Guns n’ Roses, and the critics are here for the Dad Rock vibes.

“THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER is the greatest MCU movie, or, for that matter, any movie ever made because it has a direct reference to COCKTAIL (that part not a joke) and in my own pantheon of references, those are the rules I set long ago so I must abide by them,” Uproxx‘s Mike Ryan tweeted. “(Also I have no doubt this will be Axl Rose’s favorite movie of all time because I can only assume he got points for how many GnR songs show up.)”

“If you, like me, take delight in watching Christian Bale slurp up the scenery while gobbing out that black ink Danny DeVito had in Batman Returns, then #ThorLoveAndThunder is for you,” The Ringer‘s Joanna Robinson wrote.

“Holy shit. #ThorLoveandThunder is the perfect blend of Taika at his best with comedy and a punch to the gut all in one,” The Mary Sue‘s Rachel Leishman tweeted. “I left this movie emotionally satisfied while also sobbing and just perfection. We stan a dad rock soundtrack. In the words of my new favorite characters: AHH.”

“#ThorLoveAndThunder is electric!” Collider‘s Perri Nemiroff wrote. “A wacky, high energy delight with a cast full of aces crushing one scene after the next. LOADS of laughs (my face legit hurts), menace of Christian Bale’s Gorr is chilling, but most of all loved that it’s a film brimming with good vibes & heart.”

“#ThorLoveAndThunder is like what I imagine living in the mind of Taika Waititi might be like,” io9’s Germain Lussier tweeted. “It’s wild, funny, a little all over the place in the middle but by the end it all comes together in a surprising, touching, satisfying way. So much Guns n Roses too. So much.”

You can see more Thor: Love and Thunder reactions below:

Thor: Love and Thunder rocks into theaters on July 8.

[This post contains spoilers for Stranger Things 4]

The most talked-about episode of Stranger Things season four is also among the show’s finest episodes. IMDb users voted “Dear Billy,” the episode where Sadie Sink’s Max is nearly killed by Vecna before being saved by her friends (and Kate Bush), the show’s second best episode with a 9.5 rating, behind only “The Massacre at Hawkins Lab” (9.7). But unlike the midseason finale, “Dear Billy” could break an Emmys record.

“Dear Billy” has been submitted for seven Emmys categories: Outstanding Directing (Shawn Levy), Outstanding Guest Actor (A Nightmare on Elm Street legend Robert Englund), Outstanding Stunts, Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing, Outstanding Music Supervision, Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup, and Outstanding Cinematography. If the episode wins all seven awards, “it will set a new record as the most awarded episode in Emmy history,” according to Gold Derby. The current record of six is held by “Battle of the Bastards” from Game of Thrones and the pilot episode of Boardwalk Empire.

It takes sky-high production values for an episode to rack up that many wins, and Stranger Things is indeed a lavish production, though the show as a whole has yet to win six or more awards for a single season, let alone for a single episode.

Stranger Things has won seven Emmys total, all in the technical categories, so seven Emmys for a single episode is a tough ask. But even tougher is trying to understand why Sink apparently wasn’t submitted for her performance in “Dear Billy”. She’ll remember the snub, all too well.

(Via Gold Derby)