Music

It’s been a minute since we’ve gotten a live Lady Gaga concert, but it’s finally happening on August 31: The Oscar winner is returning to Las Vegas for her Jazz & Piano residency at Dolby Live at Park MGM, and according to her, she’s excited.

On her Instagram Story, Gaga posted a makeup-free photo of herself in a car with the caption, “I’m so excited to go back to Vegas!!!!” She then shared three posts to Instagram in succession.

One shows Gaga in a car with the caption, “Before rehearsal……” The next includes four shots of Gaga, hair and makeup done, in her dressing room, greeting her band and looking at the sheet music for the standard “The Best Is Yet to Come.” It’s captioned, “During rehearsal.” 

The last post includes photos of Gaga in a dress, heels and fedora sitting on the floor outside the studio and walking around outside. It’s captioned, “After rehearsal….I love you in advance to everyone who bought a ticket to our show.”

After opening on August 31, Gaga will perform the Jazz & Piano shows — which feature her singing standards with a full orchestra — on and off through October 5. She’ll likely be paying tribute to her late friend Tony Bennett, a master of the Great American Songbook, during these shows.

Gaga’s last live concert was September 17, 2022, the final date of her Chromatica Ball tour.

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Black Stone Cherry has released a new song called “Smile, World,” a track off their upcoming album, Screamin’ at the Sky.

“Smile, World” is available now via digital outlets, while the video featuring fan-submitted footage is streaming now on YouTube.

Screamin’ at the Sky, the follow-up to 2020’s The Human Condition, arrives September 29. It also includes the previously released songs “Nervous,” “Out of Pocket” and the title track.

Meanwhile, Black Stone Cherry has announced a U.s. tour in support of Screamin’ at the Sky. The outing, which also includes Giovannie & The Hired Guns on the bill for select dates, runs from November 2 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to November 19 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Tickets go on sale Friday, August 25. For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit BlackStoneCherry.com.

(Video contains uncensored profanity.) 

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If you’re wondering what Olivia Rodrigo‘s highly anticipated album GUTS sounds like, well, just read The New York Times. The publication has declared that on the album, Olivia’s “largely opted out” of pop, adding, “She is simply a rock star.”

Olivia tells the Times that she decided to move in a more rock direction after recording “Brutal,” the last song she wrote for her debut, SOUR. “It was super-heavy we were rehearsing it,” she explains. “I remember tears welling up in my eyes and being like, this is so powerful. This is what I wanted to see when I was a girl scrolling YouTube when I was 14.”

Olivia notes that she’s “always loved rock music, and always wanted to find a way that I could make it feel like me, and make it feel feminine and still telling a story and having something to say that’s vulnerable and intimate.” 

The artists she admires — everyone from Gwen Stefani and Joni Mitchell to St. Vincent and riot grrrl legends Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney — are “using rock music, but they’re not trying to recreate a version of rock music that guys make.”

As for the subject matter, the Times notes that there are plenty of takedowns of Olivia’s exes.  

“I had such a desire to live and experience things and make mistakes and grow after SOUR came out, I kind of felt this pressure to be this girl that I thought everyone expected me to be,” she said. “And I think because of that pressure, maybe I did things that maybe I shouldn’t have — dated people that I shouldn’t have.”

So GUTS, she says, is “about…realizing the core of who I am and what I want to be doing and who I want to be spending my time with.”

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Zendaya is ready to step into the next chapter of her career. 

The Emmy winner opened up to Elle about entering a new risk-taking era of acting.

“From a character perspective, I want to find things that will push me,” she said. “As I get older, you know, I can’t play a teenager for the rest of my life.”

Her leading role in the upcoming film Challengers will see her in a new light. 

Zendaya joked that audiences are “more ready” than she is to see her play a cutthroat femme fatale, but she finds the career move to be a necessary one. 

“I felt like it was a good step into a more, I guess you could say, ‘grown-up’ role and into that next phase,” Zendaya said. “It was a little bit scary to take on, which I think is a good feeling. To be like, ‘Ooh, can I do this?’ You could run from that feeling and stay safe and comfortable, or you can go, ‘You know what, f*** it.'”

Despite those reservations, she knew taking on the gig was a rare opportunity. 

“What was important to me was that [the character] was unapologetic,” Zendaya said. “Sometimes characters who are messy and conflicted and wield power over other people are reserved for [actors] who don’t look like me, so when I get an opportunity to play a character like that, I’ma take it!”

Elle‘s September 2023 issue featuring Zendaya hits newsstands nationwide on August 29.

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Saving Abel has premiered the video for their latest single, “Fire.”

The clip finds frontman Jared Weeks, who returned to Saving Abel in 2021, trying to talk to and impart wisdom on a younger version of himself. You can watch it now streaming on YouTube.

“Fire” is one of two new Saving Abel songs that dropped this year, along with “Baptize Me.” The tracks mark the first fresh material with Weeks back in the band since his departure in 2013.

Saving Abel is launching a U.S. headlining tour in October.

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Yungblud is releasing a new song called “Hated,” which reflects a traumatic childhood experience.

“When I was seven years old I was molested by a doctor,” Yungblud writes in an Instagram post. “I never told anyone until I told my producer when this song started to come out.”

“This is the most personal thing I’ve ever released,” the English musician continues. “That’s not to say it’s soft or gentle. Far from it. It’s a rallying cry and an exposition of the soul.”

Yungblud adds that “Hated” is “ultimately about freeing yourself from bad experiences and trauma,” “finding inner strength,” “acknowledging your past” and “accepting the pain and having the courage not to let it define your future.”

“You’ve got to kill somebody to be somebody to be who you want to be,” Yungblud writes. “You’ve got to hit rock bottom and live through all of the s*** nobody believes. You’ve got to hurt some people but first some people will thirst on watching you bleed. And that’s when you know that you’ve made it. When you’re hated.”

“Hated” will premiere Thursday, August 24, at 10 a.m. ET.

If you are affected by abuse and needing support, or know someone who is, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). You can also chat online at thehotline.org or online.rainn.org, respectively.  

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