Music

Things are about to get Heavy for Mitchell Tenpenny. 

The hit singer has announced that his third studio album, This Is Heavy, will be released on September 16. He teased the announcement with an Instagram video with a graphic of a UFO beaming a light down to Earth as the phrase “are y’all f****** ready for album #2” scrolls across the screen.  

The album will feature 20 tracks, including his current hit, “Truth About You,” which is climbing up the top 10 on country radio, as well as the unreleased “Always Something With You.” The full track list will be unveiled on Friday. 

After “Truth” went viral on TikTok last summer, Mitchell featured it on his 2021 EP, Midtown Diaries, and released it as an official single. 

“I hope the fans are as excited as I am that this music will be out soon. I spent an enormous amount of time writing during the pandemic and sharing bits and pieces of what I was working on along the way. The fans really showed up for me by giving me feedback on what they were liking,” Mitchell said in a statement. “Their direction helped shape this album and stretched me as a songwriter and artist.”

Heavy follows the release of the Nashville native’s 2018 sophomore album, Telling All My Secrets, which featured “Drunk Me,” his debut, chart-topping single that has now been certified Platinum. Additionally, Mitchell has amassed 1.3 billion career streams thus far. 

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Will Muse be the first band to chart with an NFT album?

According to the U.K.’s Official Charts Company, a non-fungible token version of Muse’s upcoming record Will of the People will be eligible for the Official Albums Chart upon its release later this month.

The NFT, which was created in collaboration with the platform Serenade, is described as a “digital pressing” of the album. Part of what makes it chart eligible, as opposed to past NFT albums, is that the Will of the People “digital pressing” is a standalone release, instead of, as the Official Charts Company describes it, “being part of a wider release ‘bundle.'”

“To date, while previous albums have been made available bundled with an NFT … no release has yet charted with the album itself being in NFT format,” the Official Charts Company reports.

Will of the People, then, could become the first NFT album to achieve that feat.

Artists including Kings of Leon and Linkin Park‘s Mike Shinoda have previously released NFTs alongside their music. One of the KoL NFTs became the first to be played in space as part of the Inspiration4 mission in 2021.

Meanwhile, you can still listen to Will of the People via non-NFT formats, including digital, CD and vinyl, when it drops August 26.

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Killer Mike and 2 Chainz are speaking out about a proposed ordinance they believe may negatively affect minority-owned nightlife businesses in Atlanta. According to Billboard, the rappers appeared at a city council meeting Monday, where they griped about the proposed legislation, introduced to city officials as a way to reduce crime in the area. The bill, per WGCL, would allow the closure of any establishment deemed a “nuisance” after two or more violent conduct reports.

“I’m very blessed and I also like to be a blessing to others, and that’s what my businesses have allowed me to do,” said 2 Chainz, who addressed the crowd using his birth name, Tauheed Epps. He owns two businesses –Escobar and Escobar Seafood — in the city. “They need to retract some of the things they have on the ordinance,” he said. “And I think crime is up everywhere, not just in Atlanta.”

2 Chainz then passed the mic to Killer Mike, who questioned the city’s support for local businesses. Mike previously expressed his dissent for the bill in a May 10 meeting and noted that not much has been done since then. He said that nightlife was inevitable in a city with rapid development and argued that people should be allowed to choose among a group of clubs that include minority-owned businesses.

Mike highlighted that politicians “oblige” rappers/business owners when asking for donations to their campaigns and noted that the bill would “wipe out opportunity” for these businesses if passed.

City leaders have delayed a vote on the nuisance ordinance to further review the matter and will cast their votes in two weeks.

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Katy Perry‘s daughter, Daisy Dove, turns 2 on August 26. Ahead of the milestone birthday, the “Roar” hitmaker previewed what her little one has been up to.

Katy, who shares Daisy with fiancé Orlando Bloom, says her daughter is already walking in her parents’ shoes. “She’s a ham,” the American Idol judge told People. “She likes to dress up. She’s not very shy.”

As for the kind of performer Daisy could become one day, Katy thinks she could be a dancer. “She loves ballet,” the singer said. “She goes to tutu school and she loves it. It’s all very adorable.”

Katy also reflected on how her life changed since she welcomed Daisy in 2020, saying she is “just so blessed” she’s a mom. The experience has also been eye-opening, with Katy adding, “You just never thought there was that capacity for love.”

“It was just such an interesting thing having a child during COVID because everything paused besides that,” she expressed. “I love the experience I’m having with my daughter now.”  

Naturally, fans are curious if the singer wants more kids, to which she teased to People in a separate interview, “We’ll see!”

Katy explained she’s “a planner” and is open to the idea of growing her family “hopefully in the future.”

The singer also praised her fiancé for helping her find balance as a mom and a singer because they share turns being the “#1 parent.”

“We do this funny thing where I go and visit him for a month while he’s making a movie and then when he’s not making a movie, he kind of takes charge on being #1 parent,” she dished. “Then I go and do all my business stuff, so we really are just tapping each other in and out.”

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Jake Owen has the #1 song in country music this week, and he couldn’t be more excited about it. 

Jake scored his 10th #1 hit with “Best Thing Since Backroads,” the lead single from his forthcoming album. “Having the #1 song in America is unbelievable,” Jake says in a celebratory video filmed on his Nashville property, thanking the songwriters, his team, his fans and his family. 

“I’ve been seeing you sing this song all summer. We’ve been kicking our show off with it. You are the best thing since back roads, you’ve given me this life,” he told the fans.

Having 10 #1 singles also brought to mind the first time he topped the charts with “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” in 2011. 

“I have 10 #1 songs; I can’t even wrap my head around that. It took me seven years to get my first #1 song, ‘Barefoot Blue Jean Night,’ and to think all these summers later we’re thankfully still cranking them out,” he said, also lending praise to his peers in the genre. “You guys make country music what it is and I’m proud to be a part of it.” 

Among his peers who shared congratulatory messages in the comments are Cole Swindell, Dustin Lynch and Parmalee. 

Jake will resume his Up There Down Here Tour later this month. 

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August 1 marks Luke Combs and wife Nicole‘s second wedding anniversary, and Luke is celebrating with a sentimental Instagram post.

The country superstar shared a candid photo from their wedding day that shows the couple laughing on the beach just after saying “I do.” 

“Can’t believe it’s been 2 years since I got to marry this angel. @nicolejcombs you make everyday of my life better than the one before,” the groom shares alongside the photo with the sunset and ocean visible in the background. “I love you so much and I can’t wait for all the good times still to come with you and our little family.” 

Luke and Nicole married in a private ceremony with close family and friends at their home in Florida in 2020. They welcomed their first child, son Tex Lawrence, on June 19. 

Nicole serves as inspiration for several of the hitmaker’s songs, including “Forever After All,” which shot to the top of the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 and claimed the #1 slot on the Billboard Country Airplay chart after its release in 2020. 

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The Trinity of Terror tour is certainly living up to its name.

The triple-headlining bill of Black Veil Brides, Motionless in White and Ice Nine Kills has announced a third round of dates together. The newly added run, which will also feature Atreyu, kicks off Halloween night in El Paso, Texas, and will conclude December 12 in Seattle.

Tickets go on sale this Friday, August 5, at 10 a.m. local time. For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit TrinityofTerrorTour.com.

The Trinity of Terror tour, which features each of the three bands alternating who plays the closing set, first launched in March. The second leg is scheduled to begin August 30 in Denver.

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Blink-182‘s Mark Hoppus says “there’s no news to share” amid speculation that Tom DeLonge could be rejoining the band.

“There’s no announcement,” Hoppus writes in a post on his Discord page, as seen by Rolling Stone.

Blink fans began speculating about a lineup change after current guitarist/vocalist Matt Skiba commented on his Instagram about his current status with the group, sharing, “Your guess is as good as mine.” Further fuel was added to that fire after DeLonge shared a throwback photo of him, Hoppus and Travis Barker, and updated his Instagram bio to include Blink-182 along with his Angels & Airwaves project.

In his Discord, Hoppus assures fans that any official announcement regarding Blink will be made on “the official Blink-182 outlets.”

“Not teased on a radio station like ‘tune in for a major announcement…Tom tagged Mark in a photo from two decades ago,'” Hoppus says.

Meanwhile, Blink-182 just launched a new collection of merch to celebrate the band’s 30th anniversary. Hoppus and DeLonge co-founded Blink in August 1992 alongside drummer Scott Raynor, who was later replaced by Barker. DeLonge left the group in 2015 and was replaced Skiba.

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Season two of the drug, sex, and financial drama Industry debuted Monday night on HBO, with the junior investment bankers at Pierpoint & Co. back for their second year of deals and debauchery.

Despite what’s shown on-screen, Myha’la Herrold, who plays Harper, admits that behind the scenes, it can get “a little bit messy.”

“Especially when you’re snorting things and then also doing intimacy,” she tells ABC Audio. “In between takes, you’re, like, blowing your nose and then going and kissing.”

Explaining one particular scene, Marisa Abela, who plays Yasmin, adds that it’s more awkward when you’re fully clothed and someone else is naked.

“There was a scene where…we were doing some drugs and a guy came in and took all clothes off complete and was like stark naked,” she explains. “So I kept being like, ‘do you want a snack? Do you need anything?'”

Nakedness aside, the most challenging part of the gig was understanding the financial jargon.

“It’s like another language. It is so difficult,” Herrold admits. “You really have to know the words by heart in your sleep, so that once you get [on set], you can let the words fall out and you can play the intention.”

And when it comes to getting things right, Herrold says that she’s had “a lot of particularly Black people in finance reach out and say how seen they felt by every character.”

What Herrold loves most about the show though is that none of the characters are “stereotypical” or “archetypal.”

“For Harper particularly, she goes left every time you assume a young Black American woman would go right,” says Herrold. “And whether or not you like it or it’s morally correct is beyond the point. It’s that she’s a human being and she’s multifaceted and she is different.”

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