Music

Ed Sheeran has appeared in his fair share of movies and TV shows — Game of Thrones comes to mind — but the grand majority of these appearances were either cameos or roles where he played himself.  Now, the “Shivers” singer has landed what may be his biggest role yet.

Complex UK reports that Ed is set to star alongside Absolutely Famous star Jennifer Saunders and Penny Dreadful‘s Danny Sapani in the upcoming action-comedy, Sumotherhood.  

The movie’s director, Adam Deacon, told the outlet he is “so excited” about the upcoming film and teased he “can’t wait to bring these wacky and crazy characters to life.”  The movie will touch upon the “variety of life in East London in 2022,” which will be “darkly authentic, as well as embracing the vibrant and diverse lifestyle of living in an East London council estate,” he added.

Filming is underway now but a release date has yet to be announced.  Ed has yet to talk about his new movie nor has it been revealed the role he’ll play in the film.

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After a tease earlier this week, Machine Gun Kelly has released his collaboration with WILLOW.

The track, titled “Emo Girl,” finds both MGK and WILLOW singing the chorus, “I fell in love an emo girl.” You’ll also hear a reference to Blink-182, as well a sample of Megan Fox‘s “I am a god” line from Jennifer’s Body.

“Emo Girl,” which is available now for digital download, will appear on Kelly’s upcoming album Mainstream Sellout, formerly titled Born with Horns. The record, which is once again produced by MGK’s Tickets to My Downfall collaborator Travis Barker, finally has a release date: March 25.

This weekend, Machine Gun Kelly will be performing during the NHL All-Star Game, taking place on Saturday in Las Vegas. Next Thursday, he’ll head to Los Angeles to play a the Bud Light Super Bowl Music Fest,

(Video contains uncensored profanity.) 

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Michelle Branch is a mom again.  She and her husband, Patrick Carney of The Black Keys, welcomed a baby girl on Wednesday, E! News reports.

The baby’s name is Willie Jacquet Carney: Willie after Carney’s grandmother, and Jacquet after Michelle’s mother’s maiden name.

Michelle retweeted E!’s story and added, “So completely smitten!”

Willie joins her siblings Rhys James Carney, who arrived in 2018, and Owen Isabelle Landau, Michelle’s 16-year-old daughter from her previous marriage.

On Christmas Day of 2020, Michelle announced that she’d suffered a miscarriage, and revealed in August of 2021 that she was expecting again.  Carney and the “Everywhere” singer began dating in 2015 and married in 2019.

Carney will have some time to enjoy the new addition, since The Black Keys’ Dropout Boogie Tour isn’t kicking off until July 9. Tickets go on sale today.

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As promised, Nicki Minaj and Lil Baby dropped their new single, “Do We Have a Problem?”, at midnight Friday. 

Not only did the duo drop the audio, they released a nearly 10-minute long music video that also stars actors Joseph Sikora and Cory Hardrict. 

In the video, Nicki is some sort of operative who is working a case with Sikora as her partner. While interrogating a suspect, she’s solicited to complete a hit on a high-profile target, or else she will become the target. 

After successfully performing the hit, Nicki and Lil Baby drive off, eventually making their way to Cuba as Nicki sings in the chorus, “I got a shooter and I got a driver / They want that heat, I’m the only provider.”

When a concerned Sikora finally catches up with her, it’s revealed that Nicki was playing both sides.

“Do we have a problem,” she asks Sikora as she holds a gun to his head. 

As if a new single and video weren’t enough, Nicki also gave a glimpse into what’s presumably the next single, which has fans thirsting for her next album. 

“WE NEED THAT NEXT SONG ASAPPPP!!!!!!!!” one user wrote on Twitter.

Another chimed in, “THIS ALBUM IS ABOUT TO BE SO [freaking] GOOD.”

“Do We Have a Problem?” is available to stream now. 

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Welcome to your 60s, Axl Rose.

The Guns N’ Roses frontman was born on February 6, 1962, 60 years ago Sunday. He moved to Los Angeles in the early ’80s, and in 1985, Guns N’ Roses was formed with Rose on vocals, guitarists Slash and Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Steven Adler, now referred to as the band’s classic lineup.

Two years later, GN’R released their debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which spawned hit singles in “Welcome to Jungle,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Paradise City,” and went on to become one of the best-selling records of all time.

GN’R followed Appetite with 1988’s GN’R Lies, and then 1991’s Use Your Illusion I and II. By then, drummer Adler had been fired from the group because of his drug use, and the band had earned a bad reputation due to destructive behavior on the road. Stradlin soon left, too.

Guns would release one more album, a covers compilation called “The Spaghetti Incident?”, in 1993, before Slash and McKagan eventually departed the group in 1996 and 1997, respectively.

Rose, the only remaining original member, continued to work on new GN’R music for a new album called Chinese Democracy, which would become one of the most notorious records in history while sitting in development hell for a decade before finally being released in 2008.

As Rose kept touring GN’R without his old band mates, fans wondered whether a reunion was ever possible. Finally, in 2016, Slash and McKagan rejoined for the Not in This Lifetime tour, a reference to Rose’s previous comments regarding a reunion. The run became the third highest-grossing tour of all time.

In between, Rose fronted AC/DC in 2016 in place of Brian Johnson, who was sidelined due to hearing issues.

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It’s been a couple of years since Dua Lipa last appeared on CBS’ The Late Show, so on Thursday, she and host Stephen Colbert caught up on some of her latest projects, including her Future Nostalgia tour and her new concierge service, called Service 95.

Like most artists, the “Levitating” singer had to put her Future Nostalgia tour on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but oddly enough, the delay worked to her advantage.

“I feel like I know which songs people like, and the future nostalgia tour really is the future nostalgia tour because it predominantly is the songs from the album, where I think before it would have been bits here and there…now it’s like the first combination, the very best of,” she explains.

One of those hits is “Bold Heart,” her duet with Elton John, which he pitched to her in a Facetime chat — a pinch me moment for Lipa.

“Immediately I was like, ‘you’re joking.’ and said, ‘Of course, I’d love to,'” she recalls. “No, no, you listen to it first and decide,” Elton insisted. “Listen to it and let us know afterwards if you want to do the song.”

“I knew I was. Absolutely,” she continues. It’s a remix of “Rocketman” and “Sacrifice,” she says.

Dua also officially launched Service95, a “global style, culture, and society concierge service created to help the reader make sense of the world,” and she told Colbert the newsletter and website which features articles and features curated by Dua herself, grew out of her obsession for lists.

“I also thought, you know, we can have lots of different thoughts, perspectives, stories, articles that are really interesting that maybe you wouldn’t find as easy,” explains. “I wanted to make activism accessible to people who wanted to get involved.”

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While Bastille‘s last album, 2019’s Doom Days, told the story of an apocalypse unfolding over a single night of partying, the “Pompeii” outfit’s newest effort feels like a tale of an apocalypse in slow motion.

Give Me the Future, the fourth studio effort from Dan Smith and company, is essentially a sci-fi film in album form, pondering the dangers that technology and virtual reality might have on real life.

In beginning to write the album, Smith tells ABC Audio he and his band mates “looked at escapism through the lens of the future through the lens of technology, and our relationship with technology and what that then says for our relationships with ourselves and other people.”

“I guess as lockdowns and the pandemic progressed, the idea of making this science fiction album emerged with these songs,” he says.

In looking for a sound to match those themes, Bastille decided to “heavily lean into the retro-futuristic,” turning Give Me the Future into the most electronically-driven album of their career, as heard in the opening track, “Distorted Light Beam.”

But in between those electronics, you’ll hear more organic instrumentation in songs including “Thelma + Louise,” “Shut Off the Lights” and “Club 57,” which Smith says represent important moments on the album.

“We wanted to use the sonics of the album, and the arc of the album, to draw you in and pull you out of it,” Smith says. “It opens with ‘Distorted Light Beam,’ which is very direct, very electronic…Then it goes off and we time travel to early ’90s America for ‘Thelma + Louise.'”

He adds, “I guess the whole album is drawing you back-and-forward, in-and-out of your head, in-and-out of the future.”

Give Me the Future is out today.

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The concept for Thomas Rhett‘s latest single, “Slow Down Summer,” came from a place of honesty. 

Thomas and his team of co-writers, including dad Rhett Akins, were on a retreat in Montana in October, splitting their time between fly-fishing and writing, when they noticed that the leaves were changing as summer faded to fall.  

“Someone said, ‘I wish summer would slow down.’ As a songwriter, you hear words like that and you’re like, ‘Maybe we should try to write that,'” Thomas recollects. “We related it to an emotion that I think a lot of us have been through, of getting out of high school or college dating somebody when you got three months to maybe solidify this relationship or it’s not gonna work.” 

It’s a story that Thomas has truly lived, referencing a time when he and a former girlfriend parted ways at the end of summer as they both went off to different colleges. The country superstar compares the track to his previous heartbreaking hit, “Marry Me,” wherein the lead character watches the love of his life marry someone else.

“I hadn’t put a song like that out in a long time that had that tension of love in it, really since ‘Marry Me’ a couple of records ago,” he notes. “I just love the sentiment of the song, I love the arrangement, the production, and I feel like the music video really helped describe what that emotion was. I thought it was a really neat first single to this next record, and it’s been really cool seeing the reaction of it as well.” 

“Slow Down Summer” is the lead single off Thomas’ new album, Where We Started, set for release on April 1.

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