One of the biggest ongoing feuds in the music industry right now is the one between Taylor Swift and her former label, Big Machine. That relationship isn’t exactly a positive one, and it looks like things have taken a strange turn on that front.

Fans have noticed that Taylor Swift’s artist page on Spotify is in a weird state right now. On the artist page, instead of the regular (or deluxe) versions of Swift’s albums released on Big Machine (everything pre-Lover), the page is populated with “Big Machine Radio Release Special” versions of the albums. These versions of the albums feature all the songs from the original releases, but each track is preceded by a commentary track that spans from about a minute to three minutes in length.

As of this post, the Big Machine editions of the albums appear on Swift’s artist page on the desktop Spotify app, but regular versions of Swift’s albums show up on the mobile app, where the Big Machine editions aren’t present at all. On desktop, the normal deluxe edition of 1989 and the “Platinum Edition” of Fearless are shown. The non-Big Machine versions of the albums are still on Spotify, but can only be found on desktop when searching for them directly.

It appears these “Radio Release Special” versions of Swift’s albums started popping up on Spotify in 2018 before re-emerging to take over Swift’s artist page today. In light of all this, fans have taken to Twitter to share their thoughts about the situation, and the common sentiment seems to be that Big Machine and Scooter Braun are up to no good.

It’s not all bad/weird news for Swifties today, though, as Swift announced this morning that a concert special will be airing on TV soon.

I Know This Much Is True isn’t a TV show that most people would want to bingewatch, especially during our current situation. HBO‘s upcoming drama series starring Mark Ruffalo is rough stuff, the heaviest of the heavy, and based upon Wally Lamb’s 1998, 900+ page novel (an Oprah Book Club title back in the day) of the same name. There’s nothing at all cheery about the lives led by the identical twins portrayed by Ruffalo, and god only knows that he endured a few lifetimes of (pretend) misery to embody these shattering roles. Yet it’s easy to see why he signed onto this project. Ruffalo not only seized the coveted task of playing twins — done in the past with varying degrees of success by Nic Cage, Tom Hardy, Armie Hammer, Christian Bale, Adam Sandler, and Lindsay Lohan (who’s actually done it twice) — but he sends up a pair of award-worthy achievements. Ruffalo also does so within an astonishing example of storytelling.

In adapting Lamb’s tragic book into six episodes, director Derek Cianfrance comes by the challenge honestly. His Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond The Pines are both movies that I admire and appreciate but don’t especially want to watch again. The same goes for I Know This Much Is True, although the grueling plunge did provide the experience of an expansive story and phenomenal performances across the board. Ruffalo’s dual turn obviously takes center stage, and although he’s always been known for possessing true acting chops — far beyond simply Hulking Out for the MCU — he puts himself through the paces here. Part of the challenge was a physical one: after shooting all of his scenes as Dominick, a divorced housepainter, he spent five weeks away from the set and gained 30 pounds before returning to film as Thomas, a paranoid schizophrenic whose illness also holds Dominick in its grips as well.

The story’s an epic one that spans multiple generations and, to a significant degree, explores the idea of inherited (or, at least, passed-on) trauma. It’s a theme that has received other treatments in the past year, including HBO’s Watchmen and Apple TV+’s Defending Jacob (starring Ruffalo’s fellow Avenger, Chris Evans) both putting different spins on the subject. Yet I assure you that there’s been no more visceral recent examination of generational scarring than in I Know This Much Is True. Part of the exploration sources through the mystery identity of the twins’ father, which serves to frame the story and enlist a supporting cast that doesn’t contain a weak link.

Beyond Ruffalo’s domination of the screen, five female supporting players bring their own gravity. In particular, Rosie O’Donnell puts in a rare dramatic performance as a social worker on Thomas’ case. She is so outstanding in the role that it makes me truly wonder if that talk-show path of hers (along with the anger-bear years to follow) wasn’t the wrong detour to take. Elsewhere, Kathryn Hahn makes a multidimensional turn as Dominick’s long-suffering ex-wife, Melissa Leo crushes souls as the twins’ mother, Archie Panjabi is reliably good as a therapist, and Juliette Lewis crashes in as (no surprise here) an offbeat character. She’s the closest thing to resemble sunshine on this series, and again: if you desire comfort viewing, this ain’t it.

Still, this is a fascinating story to watch unfold. Clearly, there’s a massive emotional component involved, but how Ruffalo handled the differences in the twins’ physicalities is notable. Gaining (or losing) a significant amount of weight in a short amount of time certainly isn’t healthy, and it also is jarring in terms of learning how to inhabit a changed body. Ruffalo’s so at-home in both incarnations that he’s striking in those moments where we see him “onscreen” as both twins at the same time. His reactions to and chemistry with himself are all so fluid, it’s practically a masterclass in acting. However, there are a number of story components that make this show a hard sell. It’s stuffed to the brim with shattering events, and it’s almost impossible to accept that two twin brothers can endure so many terrible things in their world. Dominick even makes a comment to that effect toward the end of the series.

Yet it’s not as though this series is unaware of being a bit of a grief parade. The story begins with physical trauma, a self-inflicted one on behalf of Thomas, who does so in a very public way. That lands him in a maximum-security mental institution, and Dominick spends a great deal of the runtime attempting to get him outta there. Throughout the course of six episodes, the story touches upon child abuse, cancer, rape, assault, and racism (that’s not all, but you get the picture). There are glimmers of hope amid all the gloom, but yes, it’s overall bleak stuff. Given what the world’s going through right now, I’d suggest putting this show on your list for when the world gets a little brighter. For sure, it will also be best to parcel out on a weekly basis, just like the HBO scheduling gods are releasing it to the world.

HBO’s ‘I Know This Much Is True’ debuts on Sunday, May 10 at 9:00pm EST.

Pete Davidson is The King of Staten Island, but he wants people to stop visiting his mom’s house in New York’s forgotten borough. Or at least stop bringing her drugs.

The SNL star, who is spending his quarantine in his mom’s basement (“it’s not just” — bloggers), told a story on Thursday’s The Tonight Show about an unexpected visitor he and his mom received. “Me and Judd released this video to try and get it out there that the movie’s coming out, and I mentioned that I wasn’t doing drugs, that I was trying not to,” Davidson said. “And then, literally three hours later, a lady rang my doorbell with a full bag of weed and gave it to my mom and said, ‘I heard your son needs this.’” It was a nice gesture (and a “couple weeks’ worth” of pot), but Davidson didn’t keep the delivery.

Fellow guest Judd Apatow joked that Davidson, who said he will “sell” any future drop-offs, is a “drug dealer now,” but Jimmy Fallon is taking Davidson’s sobriety seriously. “He’s trying, folks, he’s trying! Do not give him drugs,” the host said, before adding, “Oh, my heavens. I love that. Three hours, that’s not bad, dude.” It will surprise no one from the northeast to learn that the weed lady came from Bayonne, the Staten Island of New Jersey.

Watch the interview above. The King of Staten Island comes out on June 12.

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The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Listen to me

Are you looking for a show to watch? Maybe a nice show, with drama and heartwarming stories and real emotions in every direction. A show you can dive all the way into and immerse yourself in? A show that aired its finale just a few years ago and has a terrific ending and aired for a reasonable number of seasons, in the neighborhood of four, total? I bet you are, even if you don’t realize it. And I have good news. There is a show like that. It’s called Halt and Catch Fire and it’s on Netflix.

You’re probably at least aware of Halt and Catch Fire. It was one of those shows that lots of people who are paid to write about television yelled at you to watch. I was one of those people. I still am one of those people, apparently. I will not apologize for this. It’s a very good show. And I don’t mean that like I mean “Zoo is a very good show.” I do mean that, always, and it’s on Netflix too if you’re looking for something completely nuts in which a team of scientists heaves a car into a volcano to save the world. But I mean this for real. Halt and Catch Fire is a beautiful show that not many people watched. You can remedy that. Now. It’s so easy.

The basics of the show go like this: It’s the 1980s. Computers are becoming a thing. The internet is about to become a thing. Our four main characters — Joe (Lee Pace), Cameron (Mackenzie Davis), Gordon (Scoot McNairy), and Donna (Kerry Bishé) — are all involved in the industry. They are entrepreneurs and coders and builders and some of them are dating or married to each other. The first season focuses a lot on Joe and his Mad Men-style Difficult But Brilliant Business Guy escapades. It’s fine. Not great, not terrible, but fine. If you’re an impatient person, you can even just read the basics of the plot on Wikipedia. Don’t tell anyone I told you that, but it’s fine.

Where the show really gets special is its second season. That’s where it shifts focus a little bit, spending less time with Joe and more time with Cameron and Donna as they get a new video game company off the ground. It’s like the show realized between seasons that Mad Men’s secret wasn’t being a period drama about a jerk as much as it was telling stories about interesting people’s lives. From this point on it tracks successes and failures, both professional and personal, and lets you start to know the characters in a way that few shows do. There are straight-up conversations on this show that are more riveting than full-on action sequences in others. Words pack punches like bullets. It’s great.

It’s even better in its fourth and final season, one of the honest-to-goodness best final seasons I’ve ever seen. You are going to feel things, man. Lots of things, good and bad and warm and a little heartbreaking. Please do not let that dissuade you. It’s not a stressful watch. It won’t bum you out. You might cry a little here and there (I’m a crier; I cried), but only because you’re so invested. You’re on this ride with them. You will become so attached to Scoot McNairy’s character, even as he does a collection of stupid things. This may or may not become an issue. And just when you think things are getting a little intense, just when the emotions are getting too real, blammo, surprise flailsplash.

I probably should not have shown you that. It’s such a good moment. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. If it helps, I will not give you any of the context or tell you when it happens. The context makes it so much better. Dumb physical comedy in sitcoms is funny. Dumb physical comedy that smashes through a heavy emotional moment will leave you gasping, just because it came out of nowhere. I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed harder. As hard? Sure. But not harder.

And again, it’s sitting right there on Netflix. All of it. You can get started right now, or at least once you finish reading the rest of this column. Just do it. Stop scrolling through shows and movies like a zombie. Click on it. Do the Wikipedia thing if it makes you feel better. Enjoy things. Feel things. Treat yourself. Make up for your past mistakes. Watch Halt and Catch Fire. It is so good.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — What a terrific week for completely insane announcements

I don’t know what it is, exactly. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe it was coordinated in a way to please me, personally. Maybe it’s because everything is weird right now. Whatever the reason, or lack thereof, this week was packed full of powerfully weird announcements about upcoming television and film projects. The Blacklist is going to be partially animated now. Kevin James is playing a Neo-Nazi who tortures Joel McHale and is apparently thwarted by a flamethrower-wielding teenage girl. And neither of those stories cracked the top three weirdest stories of the week, which I will now rank.

3. Gary Busey is set to star in a judge show titled Pet Justice:

The series stars Judge Gary Busey as he presides over the fates of litigant pet owners. Each half-hour show presents two cases with a veritable menagerie of animals including monkeys, goats, birds, dogs, meerkats, turtles, robot raccoons, and more. Is Gary Busey a real judge? Absolutely not. Does he know anything about pet law? Probably not. Can he look into your soul and suss out your spirit animal while delivering a verdict with a trademark Buseyism? You bet your sweet ass (the donkey kind).

Will I watch this show? Of course. At least a little. My curious nature will not allow me to skip it completely. I hope goes mad with power and tries to sentence a parrot to death by the electric chair.

2. Tom Cruise and Elon Musk are making a movie in outer space:

Tom Cruise and Elon Musk’s Space X are working on a project with NASA that would be the first narrative feature film – an action adventure – to be shot in outer space. It’s not a Mission: Impossible film and no studio is in the mix at this stage but look for more news as I get it. But this is real, albeit in the early stages of liftoff.

People did not make as big a deal out of this as I expected, partially because Elon Musk made bigger news this week and partially because, I mean, I guess it was always coming to this in a way. It was either going to be “Tom Cruise and Elon Musk make a movie in outer space” or “Tom Cruise and James Cameron make a movie at the bottom of the ocean.” But still, think about this: Deadline posted the story as an “I hear this” scoop and it was confirmed by NASA. And this is still only number two. Because…

1. Cage.

Nicolas Cage is set to star in a scripted series centered on Joe Exotic, the subject of the Netflix docuseries “Tiger King,” Variety has learned exclusively.

The eight-episode series is being produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios. It will be taken to market in the coming days. It is based on the Texas Monthly article “Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild,” by Leif Reigstad.

This is one of those things where it’s almost too perfect to be fake, let alone too perfect to be real. Like, if I had called you up and said “Nicolas Cage will play Joe Exotic in a drama based on the article that inspired Tiger King,” you would have told me to get lost. You would have been justified in doing so. And then there’s the thing where the actual real-life story in Tiger King reads like the plot of a straight-to-VOD Nicolas Cage movie. It’s all incredible. We did it. Look at us.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Betty rules

Do you guys know what’s shaping up to be a very fun/chill television show? I’ll tell you. Betty is shaping up to be a very fun/chill television show. This is admittedly more of a co-sign than a breaking development, as Uproxx’s Kimberly Ricci already told you it was good and interviewed some of the stars, who are much cooler than I ever will be. It’s still worth noting here, if only because I’m not allowed to go out and tell people on the street. Let’s note it again: Betty whoops ass.

The show follows a group of female teen skateboarders as they make their way through a sweaty New York summer. It’s funny and relaxed and poignant and entirely its own thing. The premiere aired last week. The only things that happened were, one, someone got their backpack stolen, and two, some people smoked weed in a van. It was still completely captivating. A big reason for that is Kirt, one of the skateboarders, who is kind of like — I am admittedly stealing this from Variety’s Caroline Framke — if The Dude from The Big Lebowski were a teenage girl. She’s the best.

My only complaint about Betty is that it’s a little painful watching people be outside together on beautiful summer days right, eating ice cream cones and slugging iced tea from the jug. Maybe I’ll just live vicariously through them.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Get him, Axl

As I’ve stated a number of times before, this is a politics-free zone. Very rare exceptions will be made very rarely, though. One of those was when Danny Trejo appeared on the official Twitter account for the Governor of California to tell people to stay inside during a pandemic. Another one is Guns N Roses lead singer Axl Rose getting into a Twitter feud with the sitting Treasury Secretary. Which happened. This week. Look.

The interesting thing about this is… well, everything. But especially this thing, via Variety…

According to screen shots posted by White House correspondent Philip Crowther and other eagle-eyed Twitter followers, the treasury secretary’s first tweet included an emblem for the flag of Liberia, not the United States. (Although they look similar in miniature, the Liberian flag has one star where the American has, of course, 50.)

… which led to this.

Just an incredible situation all-around. One I can’t improve on in any substantial way. So I won’t even try. Instead, I’ll just leave you with these three notes:

— My favorite part of the video for “November Rain” — my favorite part of any music video, really — comes just before the seven-minute mark, when the rain starts and wedding guests flee for cover and one madman dives over a table and straight through the wedding cake. Please do picture yourself at a real wedding where this happens. Picture how mad everyone is. Because not only did he ruin the fancy cake, but now no one gets cake. A disaster in every way.

— This is as good an excuse as any to link to John Jeremiah Sullivan’s fantastic GQ story about Axl Rose, so let’s do that.

— Speaking of things Axl Rose has tweeted…

This was a good section. I take very little credit for that, but it’s true. The real heroes here are Axl Rose, Taco Bell, and the maniac who dove through that cake.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — It remains the position of this column that the best interview subjects are aging celebrities who no longer have any interest in sugar-coating things, which brings us to Judi Dench

To be clear, I am cherry-picking here. The source this quote comes from is a lovely profile of Dame Judi Dench that appeared in Vogue UK. You should read the whole thing. Judi is charming and profane and seems like a great time at a party. But cherry-picking is fun. And it can get you important paragraphs like this one, in which Dame Judi Dench describes her outfit in Cats using just about the most colorful imagery you can imagine.

“The cloak I was made to wear!” she cries. “Like five foxes f**king on my back.” Filmed in green screen, and with her eyesight impaired, Dench has yet to see the film in full but was far from pleased at how her Old Deuteronomy turned out looking in the pictures she’s seen. She’d hoped she would look rather elegant. Instead: “A battered, mangy old cat,” she says, appalled. “A great big orange bruiser. What’s that about?” I reassure her that irony-loving younger audiences can’t get enough of it, and she nods. “I had a very nice email… no, not an email.” A text? “Yes, a text, from Ben Whishaw [the actor], who just doted on it. So sweet. So lovely.”

Everything about this is great. Please, everyone, gets microphones in front of aging celebrities who no longer give a crap about pulling punches. No more bland, publicist-approved interviews with hot young stars. Fewer of them, at least. And more of these. Let’s shoot for a 1:1 ratio from now on.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Amanda:

You’ve been writing a lot about the … interesting behavior of celebrities in quarantine. This got me wondering — is there any celebrity you would like to see do a video in character as someone they’ve played in the past? I ask because my husband once mentioned how much he would love for Hank Azaria to release videos where he calls old baseball games as Jim Brockmire. Once he mentioned it, I wanted it so badly, I became actively angry that these videos didn’t exist.

The only other similar video I wish for is a PSA in which Danny McBride, in character as Kenny Powers, admonished South Carolina residents to “stay f—in’ in!”

What is your dream in-character video?

Oh man. Oh, this is tough. This is almost unfair. Dammit, Amanda. How dare you ask such a good question.

I think…

I think I have two answers. The first answer is Roger Sterling from Mad Men. I would like to see how he deals with a quarantine, both in the 1960s setting of the show and if we transported him to present-day. I have this image in my head of him chain-smoking on a fancy couch, wearing a crisp suit, and guzzling gin. Somehow, his hair is still perfect. As are his one-liners. I really miss Mad Men.

The second is Coach Steve from Big Mouth. On his diaper barge. Trying to figure out how to use a webcam.

I’m sure I’m missing a few. I almost said Lalo Salamanca from Better Call Saul but I realized he’s not as fun if he’s not interacting with people and being his charming/terrifying self. But this feels like a solid start.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Sacramento!

The Modesto CHP arrested [a man] after he allegedly jumped on a moving tanker truck carrying bulk red wine, climbed under its belly to unscrew a valve, and drank the wine as the truck traveled up Highway 99.

Easily the best sentence I’ve ever read. Probably the best I’ll ever read. Definitely better than anything I have written or will ever write. It’s both thrilling and depressing, in a number of ways. I’m so happy for everyone involved.

I don’t see how this can get any better.

The truck driver pulls over, believing he may have a mechanical problem, only to see [the man] get out with only his underwear on. The camera shows [him] running to the passenger side of the truck and out of view.

Ahhhh. Of course. I apologize. This is my fault. I definitely should have seen “with only his underwear on” coming. I promise to do better going forward.

The truck driver allegedly found [him] in an unusual position. [He] had unscrewed a valve underneath the truck, as it was traveling north on Highway 99.

That sent the tanker’s wine gushing, and [the man] gulping as much as he could.

Listen, we’re all a little fried right now. Sometimes things bubble over. I feel like any lawyer worth his cufflinks could get these charges dropped. I’m not even sure this is a crime, to be honest. A reasonable argument could be made that, just from the athletic spectacle of it all, this a sport. NASCAR started out with bootleggers fleeing cops through dusty Southern roads and now it’s a billion-dollar industry. How is that any different than this? The man is not a criminal. He’s an innovator, a groundbreaking pioneer.

I rest my case.

Now that Kid Cudi has his long-awaited collaboration with Travis Scott out of the way, it looks like he’s setting his sights even higher for his next rap partnership. “The Scotts,” which debuted in the last week of April and earned Cudi his first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 a week later, appears to have given the veteran rap crooner a taste of the top, so it’s only natural he’d want to return there as soon as possible. Maybe that’s why Cudi reached out to the “rap god,” Eminem, with a tweet asking for help yesterday.

Eminem certainly has plenty of experience hanging out in the Billboard top ten; earlier this year, he broke the record for most No. 1 albums in a row, and last year, he tied Jay-Z for the third-most Top 10 Hot 100 appearances. He surpassed that number in relatively short order with songs from his album, Music To Be Murdered By, which produced the high-speed hit “Godzilla.”

A few years ago, Cudi’s Em-signal might have met little more than ridicule from the notoriously prickly old head, who spent most of the two albums before Music To Be Murdered By railing against any rapper more than 10 years younger than himself. But Em seems to have loosened up lately, employing a few more melodic hip-hop artists on his latest project; late Chicago rapper Juice WRLD, who was known almost more for his singing as his rapping, appeared on the aforementioned “Godzilla,” so an Em verse on a Cudi song may not sound as out-of-place as it once might have. If Cudi received a positive response, it’s almost a sure thing we’ll all find out about it soon.

Listen to Cudi’s latest, “The Scotts” with Travis Scott, above.

Coronavirus has turned all touring musicians into housebound music fans. “I haven’t been home this long in 15 years,” Matt Berninger wryly confesses. When reached by phone earlier this week, The National frontman chatted a bit about what’s keeping him occupied lately, including a recently completed solo album, Serpentine Prison, produced by Booker T. Jones. But more than anything he’s been spending his quarantine time listening to familiar favorites. “I’m really gravitating to Willie Nelson for some reason. I’m finding so much comfort in his stuff. And Sufjan Stevens,” he says. “I find a lot of solace in Carrie & Lowell.”

As for me, I tell him I’ve been playing “Lemonworld” on a loop. One of the many highlights of The National’s great fifth album, High Violet — which turns 10 on May 11, an occasion marked with a new anniversary edition due out June 19 — “Lemonworld” is a tragicomic pop song spiked with dirty guitars, about a person who escapes home in order to spend time at a mysterious country getaway. I’ve always loved the song, but now the opening lines turn my blood cold:

So happy I was invited
Gave me a reason to get out of the city
See you inside watching swarms on TV
Livin’ and dyin’ in New York, it means nothing to me

That’s not the only song on High Violet that sounds like it could have been written last month. Apocalyptic imagery abounds in Berninger’s lyrics — the “swarm of bees” in “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” the emotionally zombified person who fears he will “eat your brains” in “Conversation 16,” the flood in “Runaway.” While Berninger doesn’t claim to have had any prescience about 2020 a decade ago, he’s not surprised that High Violet might have contemporary resonance for listeners.

“I’m listening to so much music and every third song I feel like was written for this very, very unique time that we’re going through,” he says.

For The National, High Violet signifies a pivotal moment in their history. Formed in 1999, they spent their first several years in the shadow of flashier New York City bands as they struggled to find their own voice on their first two albums. In 2005, they became a critical darling with Alligator, and then 2007’s Boxer made them a popular indie favorite. High Violet represents the period when The National finally became a mainstream act. Suffused with a musical grandiosity that blows far past its more introverted predecessors, High Violet debuted in the top 5 in the US and UK and permanently ushered them to headliner status in large theaters and arenas.

Looking back, Berninger says the making of the record was fueled by an anxious desire to not slide back into obscurity.

“High Violet did feel like, ‘Oh, we can maybe be any kind of band.’ We were always trying to learn how to be a band at all,” he says. “Every single thing we did, it was live or die. If we didn’t make some kind of a splash with that record, it did feel that we would die on the vine.”

In the following interview, Berninger talks about the making of the record, and gives his takes on some of High Violet‘s most loved tracks, including “Lemonworld,” “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” and “Terrible Love,” which he admits the band might have screwed up for the original studio version.

What is the significance of “Lemonworld” for you personally?

That’s one of my favorite songs. That song was a struggle to figure out how to get it right for whatever reason. Every time we cooked it, it didn’t taste right. Somebody said to me we had 80 versions of the song; I think we probably had 20 actual different versions. We probably worked harder on that song than any single song, and I don’t even know if we ever figured it out right.

To me that song could have been written about this health crisis, and people fantasizing about escaping the city.

There are a lot of National songs that are about escape and about feeling on the outside and watching it from afar. There are two or three songs on every record that are about that. “Lemonworld,” specifically, it’s sort of a weird garden of Eden. It’s a place of freedom and silliness and sexiness and flowers and alcohol and nature and all that stuff. I guess whenever I think of “Lemonworld,” I think of an Italian Villa or something with lemon trees and all that kind of shit.

Our basic desires for connection, desires to be understood, and desires to be heard and seen or to escape, I think artists are always writing about it. And so when something like this happens, good art just resonates.

As a songwriter, do you think about how context changes what songs mean to the listener?

Certainly. That happens a week after the record is finished, I hear a song differently. I think songs evolve the way we evolve. The song I go back to over and over is “Famous Blue Raincoat.” I probably have to say it’s my favorite song, Not that I listen to it the most. It’s just the one that evolves the most for me. I’m trying to figure out the relationships in that song all the time.

You mentioned how hard it was to get “Lemonworld” right. Would you say High Violet was one of the most difficult albums for The National to make?

Yes. I mean, they’re always really hard and there’s always a lot of anxiety. There’s also a lot of joy. But there was so much pressure and so much emotion and people had so much invested in every sketch. Aaron and Bryce, they would name songs after people’s kids. They did that because they knew I would have to go work on a song called “Cora,” because Cora is [our engineer] Nick Lloyd’s kid. I don’t know if “Cora” ever turned into a song.

I felt like we were depleted when we started making that record. I got a really bad sinus infection and then my eardrum ruptured when I flew home to Cincinnati for my grandmother’s funeral. And then when I came back, I couldn’t hear in one ear. And so we had to stop and start. But I remember it being artistically really satisfying. I feel like we saved most of our conflict for the art. We were fighting to make the songs work and nobody would give up, which is good. That’s why we did so many versions of “Lemonworld.”

You were described at the time as the dad of the band. Do you feel like that was true?

Yeah. Maybe because I’m older, I’m a little more assertive or something. But there was a role that I played, which I didn’t necessarily like playing.

I remember interviewing the band around the time that Trouble Will Find Me came out, and it seemed like by then you had learned how to live more comfortably as a band after the High Violet experience.

Yeah. I still sometimes think, I can’t imagine five more different people. Like, having brothers in the band and all that stuff comes into it. And tribalism and egos and fear of having to go back to real jobs. When you start getting attention for something, when that dream comes true, becoming famous for making art, the idea of losing it is terrifying. You just have to keep making the dream stay true.

“Bloodbuzz Ohio” was the breakout hit from High Violet. Did it seem like the album’s big song when you made it?

It started with a little mandolin sketch from Padma Newsome, almost like this little folky thing. Maybe I was drawn to it because we had just come off tour with R.E.M., and we watched them do “Losing My Religion.” I feel like it was written really fast and kind of easy. And then Bryan started playing the beat, and it suddenly went from sort of a nice little bouquet of flowers into this big, muscular tree. And that’s when we were like, “Holy fuck. This thing is big!”

That’s another song with apocalyptic imagery. A “swarm of bees” is almost biblical.

There’s always some sort of nature that invades the urban or domestic world in my songs. Either that or some sort of destruction. And it’s just a fear of death, right? I think I like to flirt with suicide, flirt with the apocalypse, with total romantic devastation. Everything. Just like look into the center, look into the darkness, look into the abyss. Because with rock ‘n’ roll, you’re never going to get hurt. The way you get closest to and understand life is to look at your own potential lack of it.

One of the best songs on High Violet is “Terrible Love.” I remember seeing you guys play it on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and thinking it was the greatest music that The National had ever made up to that point. And then the album came out, and it seems like you purposely took the grandness out of it. What was the thinking there?

Well it’s funny, because when we played it live on Fallon, we realized we’d fucked up the record version. We were like, “Holy shit!” And then we listened to the record version and were like, “Yeah, we should’ve cooked that.” But I do think there was a sense of trying to make things uglier. Maybe to hide the ambition. Maybe we were embarrassed by the ambition of it all. “Love” is a real dangerous word to use in the song. If you don’t use it right, it sounds canned.

We spent a lot of time getting those shitty sounding guitars. The way we were describing what it should sound like, they were not musical terms. We wanted it to sound like wet pine or wooly, or more like sludge and more like tar, more like saltwater. It was like, “Make it sound more like lemons.” And then we had to figure out what the hell that meant. So a lot of times we were adding lemons, and adding fuzz, and adding whatever. We tried really hard to make it sound like we weren’t trying.

When I heard the original album version, I assumed that you were skittish about sounding too much like U2.

I’m a huge Guided By Voices fan. The notes are a little flat, or a little sharp, and they haven’t figured out the bridge yet. Early versions so often have surprising honesty. It’s like seeing a picture of somebody with zits on their face. You kind of get to know them a little better. They’re not all airbrushed yet.

I think I was always really trying to make things sound worse. That wasn’t always smart. And “Terrible Love” is a great example of that. I don’t know if that one’s particularly my fault. I think we were all like trying to push it that way.

“Sorrow” was given a new life when The National played it for six hours straight during an art installation in 2013. Did playing it so many times in a row change your perception of it?

That song really grew on us all. You would think that we get sick of playing it again after playing it, I think, 105 times. But that experience sort of made us appreciate that song. When you do something like that over and over again, it’s a real mind fuck. Every line of it, you start to hear something new every time it comes around.

I remember writing most of that song in one field somewhere. I don’t know where the fuck I was. And I remember thinking like, “Oh, this is really something that means a lot to me.”

Is it unusual for you to write a song that quickly?

It used to be. “I Need My Girl” was written really fast. “About Today” I remember was just … done. But it used to be a real slow process of building a song and putting the words together, and finding the lines that would bounce off each other the right way. I just write less consciously now. It spills out faster. It’s no better, it’s just there’s a lot more. And then I go back and throw 75 percent of it away and cherry-pick that. But I write really fast. Songs like “Not in Kansas,” I’ll write in an hour and then maybe come back the next day and finish it in an hour.

I love “Not In Kansas” because of how loose it is, and all of the references you pull in. It reminds me of a Dylan song.

I mean, Dylan is such a master of that, of taking you to 500 places, rooms, roads, rivers, just inside his head, inside his soul, on a motorcycle. It doesn’t matter. He’ll take you all those places in such beautifully bizarre, just free-associative language.

What did you think of “A Murder Most Foul”?

I have not listened to the whole thing. [Laughs.] I just wasn’t in the mood to be taken through the assassination of JFK. It’s just like, “Fuck man.” But I love Maximalism. That’s just great. I like breaking the form and saying a 15-minute single is cool. But I haven’t absorbed it all.

I know you’re planning to release a solo album and have other projects in the works. But in terms of The National, have you started thinking about the next LP?

We don’t talk that much about albums. We all have folders filled with ideas, and then we’ll start sending things back and forth. We’ll have it 60 to 75 percent cooked and then we’ll be like, “Oh, we should probably go into the studio.” That’s the way The National kind of always works.

Whenever we say, “Let’s make a plan,” it just creates a deadline or anxiety or some sort of abstract stress in the future. So we just stopped making plans. And as soon as we stopped making plans, these records started coming faster and songs started happening faster. It’s a weird thing. But we are talking all the time and we really miss each other. We all really, really have learned to love performing. We’re healthier, and we’re just nicer to each other in general and we’re better. We’re a better band than we were 10 years ago for sure. We’re a better band than we were when we made High Violet. And so we have no plans to fucking take it for granted or fuck it up.

The High Violet 10th anniversary reissue is out on June 19 via 4AD. Get it here.

Life around the world has changed for just about everybody during the coronavirus pandemic. While these times can be discouraging, Rhye believes it’s important to be open to finding beauty, and now he is trying to encourage that with his new single, “Beautiful.”

In addition to the song, which slots nicely into the subtly funky Rhye oeuvre, he is also presenting an endeavor called “A Beautiful Weekend.” The project has taken the form of a livestream of various video clips as “Beautiful” plays over them. Over the first ten hours of the broadcast (it went live at midnight ET), there has been footage of nature, kids enjoying time in the pool, empty city streets, and other scenes. As of this post, a panda eating bamboo is being broadcast.

Rhye says of the “A Beautiful Weekend” project:

“As we all share in this collective crazy moment that is quarantine, there are many ways to deal with the isolation, many ways we can truly fall into ourselves. For me, celebrating the beauty that is my partner has been a huge inspiration for me and a saving grace. Beauty is something we truly need to be open to in this moment. Find it in music, art, your loved ones, or yourself.”

Listen to “Beautiful” above.

The WWE Universe hasn’t seen Roman Reigns on TV since March. Reigns was scheduled to face Goldberg for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 36 but pulled out of the match shortly beforehand as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the country. Many people assumed the reason behind Reigns backing out of the event and all subsequent WWE shows being taped during quarantine was due to his potential status as an immunocompromised person, having been diagnosed with leukemia twice in his life. Reigns took to Instagram a few weeks ago to deliver a message to his fans that really didn’t clear up the why of the whole thing.

Now Reigns has come forward to fully explain his decision. Speaking with TMZ, the future Hall Of Famer said the following about his health:

“A lot of people, they think that it was based off of my heath and the history of my fight against leukemia. Talking to my doctors and stuff, I actually am fine and my immune system is good. The drugs that I take to fight the leukemia, they don’t attack your immune system. Not everybody knew because I’ve been trying to keep it private in this crazy world.”

So Reigns wasn’t concerned for his health, what made him decide to stay home? One word: Fatherhood. Reigns continues:

“We just had newborn twin boys. They’re eight weeks old. I had to make a decision for them… It’s my family, it’s my children, they are my legacy. No matter what I do in this world, my children are gonna be the ones to represent my name and carry our name forward. So I had to make that choice for them, to protect them being so young.”

Reigns said he is currently in “daddy mode” and doesn’t have a return date in mind, but he did mention he has been watching the product, commenting:

“It’s weird to see the show in front of no one. It’s strange, because we sell the atmosphere.”

While we don’t know when to expect Reigns back inside a WWE ring, at least we know he and his family are healthy, and that’s what matters most right now.

James Gunn is a busy man, insomuch as anyone in the entertainment business can be considered “busy” right now. The filmmaker is not only writing and directing the Jared Leto-less The Suicide Squad, he’s also doing the same for Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, one of the better sub-franchises in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The DC former is further along with an earlier release date (August 6, 2021 — for now) than the Marvel latter, but on Twitter last night, Gunn offered a promising GotG, Vol. 3 update.

“Writing a first draft of a screenplay is like a zebra. I knew a guy once who had a pet zebra. It was pretty tame, he’d pet it and nuzzle it, feed it carrots and stuff. I said, ‘What is it, just like a horse?’ He told me no,” Gunn tweeted. “He said he had to interact with the zebra every single day for an hour, or else it would go back to being completely wild. That’s what a first draft is like for me. Staying in the groove. I have to write every single day for a few hours, or else the screenplay goes back to being an untamed thing, and I feel like I have to start all over again.” When asked by one of his followers if the first draft he was referring to was Guardians, Gunn replied:

Gunn previously assured Marvel fans that “right now the plans with Vol. 3 are also exactly the same as they were before coronavirus,” which, coupled with his tweet above, is promising. And if a zebra joins the Guardians in Vol. 3, now you’ll know why.

(Via Twitter/James Gunn)