Rising Australian songwriter Indigo Sparke has unveiled the new song “Everything Everything”. Alongside an intimate music video, she’s also announced her signing with Sacred Bones Records to release her debut album Echo, out January 29th. As with all the songs on Echo, “Everything Everything” was produced by Andrew Sarlo and Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief. Over a gentle guitar with occasional piano accents, Sparke sings in an ethereal soprano, which she later undercuts with a section of spoken word. “Everything,” she says, “Everything, everything, everything is dying.” In a statement, Sparke explained how the song came together, writing, “I wrote this song not long after coming back from a magical castle in Italy where a group of us had been making music and soaking in the golden honey days....
Lady Gaga has been tapped to sing the National Anthem at Presiden-Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. The Chromatica popstar will perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” during Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris’ swearing-in ceremony on January 20th (via Variety). It’s a grand honor for Gaga, a culmination of her long-standing support for the Democratic politician, which included stumping and performing at a rally on the eve of the 2020 election. Elsewhere on the inauguration docket is Jennifer Lopez, who is set to perform. National Youth Poet Laureate/activist Amanda Gorman will give a poetry reading, while Andrea Hall, the first woman firefighter to reach the rank of fire captain in Fulton Georgia, will deliver the Pledge of Allegiance. Long-time Biden family friends Father Leo J. O’Don...
“Deebo”, a.k.a. Tommy Lister, in Friday There’s method acting and then there’s Tommy Lister Jr.. Shortly before he died last December, the 62-year-old legally changed his middle name to “Debo” in honor of the character he famously portrayed in the Friday film franchise. According to a death certificate obtained by TMZ, Lister’s middle name is printed as “Debo” in the official document. As his manager tells it, about six months before he passed, Lister decided that since he was best known as Ice Cube’s neighborhood bully in the turn-of-the-century stoner series, he might as well change his middle name to reflect that. The document also implies that he legally changed his first name from Thomas to Tommy at some point, so his final moniker (Tommy Debo Lister) was actuall...
The world’s largest entertainment conglomerates have either very recently grown a backbone or found a convenient excuse to save money. But as The Hollywood Reporter and New York Times report, after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol building, coming mere feet and seconds away from a confrontation with lawmakers, companies such as Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, Hallmark, AT&T, Facebook, and the Motion Picture Association are cutting off political contributions to members of the Republican party. Most of the backlash is centered around the man who is somehow still President, Donald Trump. He’s already received bans from Facebook and Twitter, and other digital platforms including Snapchat, YouTube, Reddit, and Twitch have since followed suit. Now, entertainment heavyweights are cuttin...
Hiss Golden Messenger are back with their first new song since 2019, “Sanctuary”. Written and produced by bandleader M.C. Taylor, “Sanctuary” isn’t exactly a political track, though it does engage with the national mood. “Feeling bad, feeling blue,” Taylor begins, “Can’t get out of my own mind/ but I know how to sing about it.” There’s a tension in the song between uplifting music and lyrical pessimism. At the chorus, backup singers join Taylor, and you might mistake the song for a sunny anthem if you didn’t listen to the words: “You want good news/ You want sanctuary/ But when you try to get real/ They break you on the wheel.” In a statement, Taylor explained how the song came together and paid homage to John Prine, writing, “Over the past year, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we ...
Toby Keith (“American Soldier” music video), Donald Trump, and Ricky Skaggs (photo via flickr/Festival of Faiths) Donald Trump lives in an alternate universe where he never lost the election, never incited an insurrection, and Toby Keith is good. We saw that play out during his second (!) impeachment hearing, when Trump reportedly holed up in the White House’s East Room, pretending it wasn’t happening and giving National Medals of Arts to Keith and Ricky Skaggs. Bloomberg reporter Jennifer Jacobs and NBC News’ Peter Alexander separately broke the news on Twitter. As the House of Representatives voted to impeach, Trump took the time to honor country-bluegrass veteran Skaggs and jingoistic warmonger Keith. As The Hill notes, both had previously offered their support for...
Over the weekend Armie Hammer found himself embroiled in controversy after an anonymous Instagram user posted explicit messages that appeared to show him fantasizing about various acts of sexual depravity. The 34-year-old act has yet to comprehensively address the accusations, but today he did announce his departure from the upcoming Lionsgate film Shotgun Wedding , and he also released a brief statement on the developing scandal. The validity of the Instagram messages have yet to be confirmed, but under the account name House of Effie, a woman posted screenshots of disturbing DMs that she claimed Hammer had sent her over the last few years. The sexually graphic screengrabs show a user who appears to be Hammer talking about his “slave” kink, cannibalism, and other forms of violent sex...
Emerging Irish songwriter Orla Gartland has dropped the new song “More Like You”. Born in Dublin, Gartland began writing music at 14. Her early attempts to play in Dublin’s 18+ clubs were rebuffed, but this rejection turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as she began cultivating an online presence that continues to serve her today. After a pair of buzzy EPs — 2019’s Why Am I Like This? and 2020’s Freckle Season — she started working on her debut album. “More Like You” was co-written by Tommy King, who has toured and collaborated with HAIM and Vampire Weekend. The song channels envy into an effervescent exploration of insecurity of self-love. “I heard it from a woman on the internet,” she sings, “She told me to eat well and try to love myself/ Then maybe I won’t wish that I wa...