Music

If you watched Sir Paul McCartney’s performances on Saturday Night Live on May 16, you may have thought that his female backup singer looked familiar. Well, she should have: It was Ingrid Michaelson.

“The Way I Am” singer has explained on Instagram how she got that gig. “I got a call on a monday [May 11] to fill in in Sir Paul Mccartney’s band for that Saturday for @nbcsnl and proceeded to have 6 days of ‘what is my life????’” she writes.

“What an honor it has been to be inside this music that has shaped me. his band and crew and team are all as lovely as he,” she continues. “[A]nd he is lovely. just as you’d imagine. even lovelier i’d say. I will never forget these 6 days for the rest of my life. I wish my father could see me now. he’d be prouder than punch.”

Ingrid backed the Beatles legend on his new song, “Days Gone By,” as well as the Wings classic “Band on the Run” and his 1980 single “Coming Up.”

Ingrid’s most recent album, For the Dreamers, came out in 2024. That year, the Broadway musical The Notebook, for which she wrote the music and lyrics, premiered on Broadway and received three Tony nominations.

Ingrid is launching her Cozy Fall Trio tour on Oct. 9 in Tucson, Arizona, during which she will sing with Allie Moss and Hannah Winkler.

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Bette Midler is set to lend her voice to Netflix’s upcoming animated film Steps, which reimagines the classic fairy tale Cinderella.

Midler will voice Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother in the flick, which will also feature the voices of Amanda Seyfried as Cinderella and Ali Wong and Stephanie Hsu as her evil stepsisters Lilith and Margot.

“The beloved Fairy Godmother, the wholesome Fairy Godmother — the one with all the good intentions — has been around for a long, long time,” says Midler. “This particular version of the Fairy Godmother has good intentions, but she’s a little bit of a bumbler, and she’s a little bit of a schemer.”

She adds, “I’m thrilled to be part of this film! And I’m thrilled to be with this cast!”

The film reimagines the relationship between Cinderella and her stepsisters, who have to team up to save their kingdom after Lilith’s actions at the Royal Ball put their kingdom under the tyrannical rule of the villainous Priscilla, who has taken over the throne.

The film’s director Alyce Tzue notes, “This story is, at its core, about two very different sisters — one who fits perfectly into this fairy tale kingdom and one who doesn’t — realizing they’re more alike than different.”

Steps is expected to debut on Netflix in 2026.

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The Smashing Pumpkins have announced a U.S. tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of their 1995 album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

The trek, dubbed The Rats in a Cage tour after the lyric from the song “Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” will kick off Sept. 30 in Columbus, Ohio, and concludes Nov. 12 in Los Angeles.

Each show will consist of two sets. The first will feature a full-album performance of Mellon Collin and the Infinite Sadness, and the second will include songs from throughout the Pumpkins’ four-decade career.

“Staging a Mellon Collie-themed show is something we’ve discussed for over a decade, and finally the stars have aligned and exactly on the terms I’d set: which was to build a special night around its most enduring aspirations and ideas,” frontman Billy Corgan says in a statement.

Presales begin Tuesday at 10 a.m. local time, and tickets go on sale to the general public on Thursday at 10 a.m. local time. For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit SmashingPumpkins.com.

Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness marked the third Pumpkins album and spawned the singles “Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” “1979,” “Tonight, Tonight” and “Zero.” It’s been certified Diamond by the RIAA, signifying 10 million units certified.

The Pumpkins teased the tour announcement with a livestreamed concert Sunday, which served as a “funeral” for Corgan’s “Zero” character.

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Noah Kahan’s new album The Great Divide is making great strides on top of the chart.

The new album from the “Stick Season” singer is spending a third week at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart. It’s the first rock album to spend that many weeks on top since 2013, when Noah’s friends Mumford & Sons spent five weeks on top with Babel.

But when it comes to solo artists, Noah’s feat is even more impressive: The last rock album by a solo artist to top the charts for that long was Sleep Through the Static by Jack Johnson, back in 2008.

Noah’s project counts as a rock album because it is eligible for and charted on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart. The songs from the album have also appeared on Billboard’s various pop charts, as well as the Hot 100.

On his Instagram Story, Noah complained that he’d just gotten his “a** kicked” on the soccer field by a “bunch of 47-year-old guys.” But, he noted, “Third week at #1 on the Billboard 200! So, y’know, all is well. I’ll take that. Very, very grateful. Very excited, can’t believe I’m still at #1. It’s f****** crazy.”

“You guys are amazing,” he continued. “It’s all ’cause of you guys streaming and buying s*** and just being dope. So I love you, still grateful … thank you so much.” 

He added that he’ll have to “hit the treadmill” this week to get back into “soccer shape.”

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Teddy Swims’ new single, “Mr. Know It All,” may sound like a standard breakup song, but he’s actually singing about a phenomenon first identified by sociologist Robert K. Merton.

Merton coined the term “self-fulfilling prophecy,” along with its flip side, the “self-defeating prophecy,” also known as “the prophet’s dilemma.” Imagine doctors predicting a flu outbreak, prompting everyone to run out and get vaccinated. Because so many people get the flu shots, the outbreak never happens — and the doctors, the “prophets,” are criticized for being wrong.

In “Mr. Know It All,” Teddy applies those ideas to love. He becomes convinced his girlfriend is going to break up with him, so he either subconsciously sabotages the relationship — the self-fulfilling prophecy — or tries so hard to save it that it creates problems — the self-defeating prophecy. Either way, the outcome is the same: She leaves him.

“If you see the future coming, like something falling apart, you can have the … That’s So Raven effect, right? Where you do everything you can to keep it from happening and that’s why it happens,” Teddy tells ABC Audio. “Versus maybe the other side is self-fulfilling … because you see it happening and that’s what happens. And so it’s like you’re kind of doomed if you do, [doomed] if you don’t.”

“Love is kind of its own contradiction in a way, that way,” he explains. “You can protect it too hard and lose it or you can know it’s coming and just lose it. … So I just kind of got obsessed with that sort of prophet’s dilemma, and that’s ‘Mr. Know It All.'” 

Sociology concepts aside, “Mr. Know It All” is the first single from Teddy’s still-unannounced new album.

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The 61st Academy of Country Music Awards took place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Sunday, with Shania Twain hosting.

Here’s the complete rundown of the winners:

Entertainer of the year
Cody Johnson

Female artist of the year
Ella Langley

Male artist of the year 
Cody Johnson

Group of the year 
The Red Clay Strays

Duo of the year
Brooks & Dunn

New female artist of the year
Avery Anna

New male artist of the year 
Tucker Wetmore

Album of the year
Parker McCollum, Parker McCollum

Song of the year
“Choosin’ Texas,” Ella Langley (Ella Langley, Luke Dick, Miranda Lambert, Joybeth Taylor)

Single of the yer
“Choosin’ Texas,” Ella Langley

Music event of the year
“Don’t Mind If I Do,” Riley Green feat. Ella Langley

Visual media of the year
“Cuckoo,” Stephen Wilson, Jr.

Songwriter of the year
Jessie Jo Dillon

Artist-songwriter of the year
Ella Langley

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Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith reprised his role as Will Ferrell’s doppelgänger during Saturday’s episode of Saturday Night Live.

Smith took the stage as soon as the show began with the announcer introducing Ferrell as the host. He pretended to be the Anchorman star and launched into the opening monologue before the real Ferrell appeared and demanded Smith leave.

The episode’s musical guest, Beatles icon Paul McCartney, then joined Ferrell onstage, but kept insisting that the real Ferrell was actually Smith, telling him, “Get back behind the drums where you belong.”

Smith did indeed get back behind the drums to play alongside McCartney for his performances of “Band on the Run” and the new song “Days We Left Behind.”

As many have pointed out, Smith and Ferrell do bear a striking resemblance to each other, which they previously played into when they competed in a drum battle on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon back in 2014.

(Videos contain uncensored profanity.) 

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Paul McCartney was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live where he performed a new song, two classics and even got to show off his comedy chops.

The two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer gave fans a preview of his upcoming album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, dropping May 29, by performing the album’s first single, “Days We Left Behind.” He then broke out the classic Wings track “Band on the Run” for his second performance. He returned for a third song, performing “Coming Up” over the closing credits, with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith backing him on the drum kit for all three songs.

Smith, who many people think looks awfully similar to the night’s host Will Ferrell, also played a part in McCartney’s first comedic moment. He came out to start the monologue pretending to be Ferrell, before Ferrell kicked him off the stage. The real host then took questions from the audience, going right to McCartney who asked Ferrell, “What do you think you’re doing, Chad?”

Ferrell then called McCartney up to the stage where he listed all the great songs he has written, all the while the former Beatle continued to think he was Smith, at one point telling him, “Get back behind the drums where you belong,” an obvious nod to The Beatles song “Get Back.”

McCartney later returned for another sketch, Mechanics, which poked fun at how it feels to talk to a mechanic. McCartney played the chief mechanic alongside Ferrell and Marcello Hernandez, who all badly explain to a couple what’s wrong with their car and how much it costs. 

(Videos includes uncensored profanity.)

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