Music

Weezer is kicking off spring with “A Little Bit of Love.”

The new song, available now via digital outlets, is the lead single off Rivers Cuomo and company’s SZNZ project, a series of four EPs corresponding with the begging of each of the year’s four seasons.

“A Little Bit of Love” will be featured on the first EP, SZNZ: Spring, which drops on March 20, fittingly the first day of the season.

Weezer will celebrate the spring equinox with a performance on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday, March 21. They’ve also announced a “seasonal residency” with the show, meaning they’ll be back to perform throughout 2022 to mark the releases of the Summer, Fall and Winter SZNZ EPs.

SZNZ follows Weezer’s two 2021 albums, OK Human and Van Weezer.

Here’s the SZNS: Spring track list:

“Opening Night”
“Angels on Vacation”
“A Little Bit of Love”
“The Garden of Eden”
“The Sound of Drums”
“All This Love”
“Wild at Heart”
“Across the Meadow”*

*Included on vinyl release only.

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Billie Eilish is up for an Oscar March 27 for her No Time to Die James Bond film title song that she co-wrote with her brother, FINNEAS.  But Billie says she wasn’t thinking about super-spies when she wrote the haunting theme.

“I wrote the song from the perspective of somebody I had hurt,” she explained to Deadline. “We never think about how our own actions are perceived from other people’s point of view. Or, we do, but we don’t do it enough.”

Billie said composing “No Time to Die” was a “really interesting situation” because it challenged her to step out of her comfort zone.

“It taught me a lot, to put myself in somebody else’s shoes, and it was fun, too, because you can create a character and write about something other than yourself,” Billie explained. “You don’t have to expose yourself; you don’t have to be telling your truth.”

“It was actually kind of fun to write… Sometimes writing songs is a horrible experience,” Billie admitted. “What was cool about writing a song from the perspective of the movie itself was that we love writing characters and narratives into our music, and I feel the music we’re most proud of is the music where we’ve come up with a plot for the song ahead of writing it.”

The “bad guy” singer revealed she doesn’t normally enjoy the process of writing music, which is why “No Time to Die” was a singular experience for her.  

“I feel like people always say making music is therapeutic, and I genuinely don’t agree. I don’t really enjoy it. I only enjoy it afterwards, when I play it,” admitted Billie. “I love listening to what I’ve made.”

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Tank has done it again. The singer has racked up his sixth #1 on R&B radio with “I Deserve.”

The song, which Tank also wrote and produced, is the second single off his upcoming 10th studio album, R&B Money. It follows his previous #1 R&B hit, “Can’t Let It Show.”

“I feel like Jordan in ’98 winning his sixth title with the Chicago Bulls! I’m so grateful to all the R&B music lovers because this couldn’t happen without you,” Tank says in a statement about “I Deserve” hitting #1. “This is a blessing, and I’m here to share more with the fans as I gear up for the release of R&B Money.”

R&B Money is due out later this year. In the meantime, Tank has some performances lined up, including shows at Orlando’s Soul Festival, Cincinnati Music Festival, and Club Quarantine Live in Las Vegas over Labor Day Weekend.

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Garth Brooks is adding another stop to his Stadium Tour for 2022. The superstar will play at Charlotte, North Carolina’s Bank of America Stadium, which is the home of the Carolina Panthers.

It’ll be Garth’s first time playing the venue, and his first show in Charlotte in more than 20 years. It’s a make-up date of sorts: He first planned a Stadium Tour date in Charlotte in 2021, but that show was one of five that got canceled after a resurgence of COVID-19 cases.

Before that show had to be pushed, over 70,000 fans had purchased tickets, selling out the venue. Between all the canceled dates, over 350,000 tickets were refunded to Garth’s pushed 2021 shows; he’s been mounting a return to the dates he wasn’t able to make last year. Recently, Garth also announced 2022 dates at Nashville and Cincinnati, two cities he wasn’t able to hit last year.

Tickets for Garth’s Charlotte show go on sale March 25 at 10 a.m. ET, and the concert itself will take place July 16. As always for Garth’s Stadium shows, the concert will feature in-the-round seating, and tickets retail for $94.95 apiece, all-inclusive.

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Jack Harlow is ready to launch his second studio album, announcing the title and release date on Wednesday.

The rapper’s Come Home the Kids Miss You album is due out May 6, he told Rolling Stone.  He also admitted “Nail Tech” is “probably my least favorite song on the album” because his upcoming work is “more serious” to reflect the journey he is on.

“I want to be… the face of my generation, for these next 10 years,” he explained. “We need more people in my generation that are trying to be the best, and you can’t do that with just ear candy, vibe records. You got to come out swinging sometimes… I got to dig deeper this time.” 

In order to be “one of the best in my generation,” the “Industry Baby” singer decided to make a few life changes.  One included quitting alcohol, which he did a year ago. Though he didn’t have a drinking problem,  Harlow said simply didn’t like how he felt the day after drinking and so decided to ditch “boyish things.”

“I’m sick of waking up with a dry throat, sick of feeling bloated, I’m sick of the decisions I make on it,” he explained. “I’m in my well-oiled-machine era. Because I can see my future right in front of me. And I feel there’s so many people counting on me outside of myself.”

As one of the few white men in the rap game, Harlow says he hasn’t been asked if its “right” for him to be in the genre, because “people see I have an innate passion for rapping, so they don’t ask me that question.”  Instead, he plans on “honoring the competition.”

“I’m gonna go out on that court and play as hard as you’re playing,” he vowed. 

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Another country star is off the market! 

Kassi Ashton is now engaged to Travis Myatt, general management of Nashville-based publishing company Twelve6 Entertainment, after five years of dating. The “Dates in Pickup Trucks” singer posted about the magical moment on Instagram, revealing that her now-fiancee popped the question in Key West, FL on the pier where they first met. He organized it so that her family was also part of it, secretly waiting on the beach to congratulate them after she said “yes.” 

“He surprised me with this trip, my dream ring, my dream antique ring box, and my dream photographer, @ktcrabbphoto. I asked him how I was to repay him and he said, ‘marry me,'” she describes in the caption alongside a gallery of photos that show Travis down on one knee with a ring in hand under the stars, Kassi falling to her knees in tears. “It’s almost as if you and fate planned this all along. I love you so much @jtmyatt.”

“I was in love with her before she knew my first name… now she’s taking my last name,” Travis wrote in his own post wherein Kassi is showing off the massive diamond on her engagement ring. 

Travis Denning, Little Big Town‘s Karen Fairchild, Grammy winning songwriter Lori McKenna and Jon Pardi‘s wife Summer were among the many people who shared congratulatory messages in the comment section. 

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Ed Sheeran is many things — a father, Grammy-winning singer, actor and even a “super busker” — but there is one thing he apparently isn’t: a smoker.  And no, that doesn’t mean cigarettes.

Speaking to Australia’s Nova radio, Ed explained how partying with rapper The Game in 2013 showed him that he would made a very bad pothead. 

“I remember I was in the studio once in, like 2013. I was doing some records with The Game and he took me to Compton… And we were in studio and we probably made like 13, 14 songs,” Ed recalled.

A few of the rapper’s friends came to the studio as the session was winding down and, says Ed, “It starts being a bit of a party.”

The “Shivers” singer said he decided to hang — cracking, “When in Rome!” — but reveals that probably wasn’t one of his best decisions. “I took a tiny, tiny, tiny puff on something and I was out,” he laughed. “I had to go home. I don’t really do that at all.”

Ed recently announced he is coming to Australia and New Zealand as part of his upcoming tour to promote his latest album, = (Equals), and said he is crossing his fingers he gets to do it. 

“I got the final plans for it the last day of the Divide tour, and they’ve been building for three years,” he explained. “It’s a big financial risk. I hope that there’s not another pandemic, touch wood.”

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The Interrupters and Flogging Molly are teaming up for a U.S. co-headlining tour this summer.

The joint outing launches June 7 in Indianapolis, and concludes September 21 in Paso Robles, California.

“We can’t wait to sing together, dance together and celebrate live music with everyone!” The Interrupters say. “See you all very soon!”

Tickets go on sale this Friday, March 18, at 10 a.m. local time. For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit WeAreTheInterrupters.com or FloggingMolly.com.

The Interrupters’ most recent album is 2018’s Fight the Good Fight, which spawned the group’s breakout single, “She’s Kerosene.” Last summer, they opened for Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer’s U.S. Hella Mega tour.

Flogging Molly, meanwhile, just released a new track called “These Times Have Got Me Drinking” last week, marking their first fresh tune since their last album, Life Is Good, dropped in 2017.

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Rihanna is counting down the days until she welcomes her first child with boyfriend A$AP Rocky and, in a new interview, teased how she plans to approach motherhood.

ELLE asked Rih, “which Real Housewives mom are you most looking towards now that you’re going to be a mom?” Rihanna’s answer: Teresa Giudice.  

“She will flatten you about those kids. And that resonates with me a lot because I feel like that’s the type of mom I’m going to be. Psycho about it,” said Rih. The singer added she will do more than “flip a table” if her child’s privacy is violated. “You talk about my kids, it’s over,” she promised. 

Rihanna is heavily guarding information regarding her unborn child and has not publicly revealed the gender, name or exact due date of her little one.

She also shared the best advice she’s received now that she’s inching closer to her rumored spring due date: “Sleep now because I won’t get much later.” She added, “I need to work on that before it’s a thing of the past.”

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