Our new music feature Origins seeks in depth details about new songs from the artists who create them. Today, new wave legend Gary Numan wants you to hear that “I Am Screaming”. Intruder, Gary Numan’s upcoming 18th studio album, picks up the narrative of 2017’s Savage (Songs from a Broken World) from a different point of view. While that previous LP depicted a barren future wrecked by global warming, the new wave icon’s latest effort takes on the perspective of Mother Earth herself. “If Earth could speak, and feel things the way we do, what would it say? How would it feel?” Numan explained when announcing the album. Although the entirety of Intruder seeks to answer those questions, perhaps no track does so more directly than the new single “I Am Screaming”. What begins as a mournful bubbli...
South Korean superstars BTS lit up the Grammys during Lil Nas X’s unforgettably star-studded “Old Town Road” medley last year. The Recording Academy revealed on Sunday (March 7) that the Bangtan Boys will be headed back for round two, set to hit the stage at the 2021 Grammys along with a host of other dynamite performers. Though the award show typically rolls out its performer announcements gradually, the Recording Academy did things a little differently this year by announcing them all at once. The lineup is stacked, including Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, and Roddy Ricch, each of whom has six nominations. Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Bad Bunny, DaBaby, Doja Cat, and Post Malone will also perform. After being delayed due to coronavirus concerns, it became...
There’s perhaps no more classic anthem for International Women’s Day than the late Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me”. So to celebrate today’s festivities, Matt and Kim have flipped their name to Kim and Matt for a cover of the 1963 hit. Out via FADER, the duo’s cover of “You Don’t Own Me” sees drummer Kim Schifino providing lead vocals (natch). The home recording updates the song’s instantly recognizable R&B balladry with electronic drums and fuzzy synths. It captures all the norm-defying independence of the original for a modern audience that feels like it’s finally beginning to change those norms. “This song has always resonated with me lyrically, ever since I was a kid,” Kim said in a statement. “My dad raised me to not take shit from anyone and live the life I want to live. It break...
Helen Ballentine has announced the next project under her Skullcrusher banner. The Storm in Summer EP drops April 9th via Secretly Canadian, and has released the title track as an early preview. The five-track follow-up to her 2020 Skullcrusher EP finds Ballentine reeling from the spotlight after experiencing some unexpected success. As she explained in a statement, “I wrote ‘Storm in Summer’ after releasing the first Skullcrusher EP. Over that summer I thought a lot about what it means to really put myself out there and share something personal. I felt so vulnerable and overwhelmed by the fact that these songs I had written in private were exposed and likely being misinterpreted or disliked. I think the song really tries to communicate these anxieties in a cathartic way whi...
Eddie Murphy reclaimed his acting throne last week with the release of Coming 2 America, a sequel to the 1988 comedy flick. In it, Murphy stars as the iconic Prince Akeem Joffer of the fictional country of Zamunda, and he lives in an enormous palace with his ultra royal family. Not everything is as it seems in the movie, though. As it turns out, Zamunda was recreated in Georgia, not Africa, and the stunning mansion is the real-life home of Rick Ross himself. Ross’ home is a casual 45,000 square-foot mansion in Fayetteville, Georgia with 235 gorgeous acres surrounding it. There are 12 bedrooms, a dining room that seats up to 100 people, and a gold ceiling trim throughout the entire mansion. It’s an absurdly ornate palace both internally and externally, and the team behind Coming 2 America w...
For the first time since 2000, a newly released album has failed to appear in the Billboard Top 10 for three consecutive weeks. Per Billboard, Foo Fighters’ Medicine at Midnight and Pooh Shiesty’s Sheisty Season were the most recent albums to have cracked the Top 10 upon their first week of release — back on February 20th. In the three weeks since then, the charts have been dominated by older releases, including Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Dangerous Album, which has now spent eight straight weeks at No. 1, as well as Ariana Grande’s Positions, Pop Smoke’s Shoot For the Stars Aim for the Moon, Lil Durk’s The Voice, The Weeknd’s After Hours, and Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia. Many of these releases — such as Grande’s Positions, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, and BTS’s BE — have been fuel...
We’ve officially lived a full decade without the existence of Rilo Kiley. Since the band split, singer Jenny Lewis and lead guitarist Blake Sennett have only reunited once, when the latter joined the former on stage at Coachella in 2015 for “Portions for Foxes”. Nearly six years later, it’s finally happened again, as the pair reunited over the weekend to take part in Linda Perry’s Rock-N-Relief livestream event. Lewis and Sennett delivered what could be their first-ever performance of “Let Me Back In”, a single from the 2013 compilation LP RKives. With a masked Sennett playing his acoustic guitar behind her, and a sweet little floof of a puppy on her lap, Lewis sang to camera, checking an off-camera lyrics sheet every so often. Memorized or not, it was a darling pre-recorded rendition, and...
One of the biggest voices of this century is following one of the biggest voices of the last, as Brittany Howard has shared a new cover of “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher” by Jackie Wilson. Released in 1967, “Higher and Higher” is not for the faint-hearted or pitch-challenged. “Mr Excitement” Wilson had a four-octave range, and on this, his signature song, he kept his voice moving. That’s no problem for Howard, whose picture you can find in the dictionary under “Powerhouse.” If anything, the rendition by the leader of Alabama Shakes has a little extra ferocity. Howard’s “Higher and Higher” skips over the original’s hand drums and prominent bass riff, preferring a drum kit and guitar-forward sound. She also uses a heavenly choir to a put a little extra height on those “Highe...
Over the weekend, Julien Baker appeared on CBS This Morning to promote her latest album, Little Oblivions, with a three-song set featuring the singles “Hardline”, “Faith Healer”, and “Heatwave”. Backed by a full band, the Tennessee native delivered a typically powerful and stirring performance filmed in Nashville. The Saturday Sessions set follows recent late-night appearances on Seth Meyers and Colbert. During an appearance on Consequence of Sound and Sound Mind Live‘s Going There with Dr. Mike, Baker discussed how music has helped her understand, experience, and express her emotions while coping with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The revealing episode is currently available to stream on all major podcast platforms. Check out all three of Baker’s CBS This Morning perf...
BTS, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and HAIM are among the artists slated to perform at the 2021 Grammy Awards, which goes down next Sunday night — March 14th. Also slated to perform are Harry Styles, Post Malone, Bad Bunny, Brandi Carlile, Miranda Lambert, Brittany Howard, Chris Martin, DaBaby, Lil Baby, and John Mayer. Most of this year’s performers are nominated for Grammys; Swift, Dua Lipa, HAIM, Post Malone, and Coldplay are all vying for Album of the Year, while K-pop kings BTS earned their first-ever Grammy nomination for Best Pop/Duo Group Performance. Record of the Year contenders include Eilish, Dua Lipa, Post Malone, and Megan Thee Stallion (who is also nominated for Best New Artist). You can see the full list of nominations h...
King Crimson co-founder Robert Fripp and his wife Toyah Willcox are using the latest installment of their “Sunday Lunch” performance series to pay homage to Britney Spears. The couple described their quarantine cover of Spears’ 2004 single “Toxic” as a “love letter” to the pop singer amid her ongoing conservatorship battle with her father. To that point, the hashtag #freebritney appeared in the upper right corner of the video, and Fripp and Willcox closed their performance by holding up signs that read, “Britney We C You”. Watch the footage below. Since launching their “Sunday Launch” series last year, Robert and Toyah have covered a wide array of artists, including Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell”, Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle”, the Joan Jett ...