For years, Taylor Swift fans have thought that the lyrics of her hit “Blank Space” mentioned “lonely Starbucks lovers.” But what if it was intentional, and Taylor was playing the long game with a seven-year-long Easter egg? Because now, she’s officially teamed up with the coffee chain to promote her new album, Red (Taylor’s Version).
Starbucks has been teasing the partnership for several days now by posting lyrics from various Red songs on social media and announcing, “It’s Red season.” According to People, starting Friday, you can order the star’s favorite drink — a Grande Caramel Nonfat Latte — by asking for “Taylor’s Latte” or “Taylor’s Version” in stores and on the app. The drink labels for those lattes will read “(Tay’s).”
Starbucks also will be playing Taylor’s music in stores, and the company’s put together a playlist as well. In addition, Taylor e-Gift cards are available.
Taylor first hinted at the partnership back in October, when she posted a video declaring her love of all things fall, which pointedly featured her drinking a Starbucks coffee.
Britney Spears‘ younger sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, recently announced that she’s written a memoir, Things I Should Have Said, which recounts the struggles she faced after becoming pregnant with her daughter Maddie in 2007 when she was just 16 years old. She claims those struggles included hiding the pregnancy from Britney.
At the time, Britney’s “condition” was “spiraling into something more concerning,” Jamie writes in an excerpt from the book, according to People. “They were concerned her instability at that time made her untrustworthy.”
“I went along with what my team told me to do because I was a minor and didn’t want to create any more issues,” Jamie continues. “Britney learned of the pregnancy when the article was released. To this day, the hurt of not being able to tell my sister myself lingers.”
The Zoey 101 star, now 30, announced the book in an Instagram post in October and explained that the idea for the memoir came to her in 2017 when her daughter Maddie was involved in a near-fatal ATV incident.
“I owe it to myself, my younger self, and to my daughters to be an example that you should never edit yourself or your truth to please anyone else,” Jamie Lynn explained in the post.
With Chlöe Bailey exploring a solo career and sister Halle Bailey starring in Disney’s upcoming live action The Little Mermaid, fans have been worrying if Chloe x Halle‘s days are numbered.
Chlöe, 23, sensed the mounting trepidation and assured her followers that neither she nor her sister have any intention of disbanding their musical partnership anytime soon.
“Just because we go off and do our own solo things doesn’t mean that we’re broken up,” she recently told Apple Music’s The Dotty Show. “When sis went to London we didn’t break up! In that time we both had separation anxiety and I was like, ‘I miss my sis. What do I do? What do I do?'”
The “Have Mercy” singer explained a lot of good has come from pursuing separate projects.
“I didn’t really know who I was without my sister,” said Chlöe, adding she “had to do a lot of soul searching” during that initial separation so she could “figure out what’s my purpose.”
Says the Grammy-nominated artist, “I had to really find that [purpose,] and… Music has literally saved my life. I say that every time.” What she means by that, she said, is “I found myself in the music and it’s been very therapeutic for me.”
Chlöe said she was “sitting on it and making music” while Halle was overseas, but because they “were apart for so long,” she thought to herself, “I can’t just have it sit on my hard drive… maybe it’s time.”
You don’t have to shut up, but you’ll probably be dancing while listening to WALK THE MOON‘s new album.
The band’s first record in four years, titled HEIGHTS, is out today. As frontman Nicholas Petricca tells ABC Audio, the album deals with two main themes.
“Perseverance, really sticking it out,” Petricca says of the first. “Having that connection to the light at the end of the tunnel, believing that it’s there when you can’t see it.”
The second, Petricca explains, deals with “self-love or self-acceptance.”
“Just coming into a greater awareness and appreciation of who we are, as people and individuals, and that the imperfect, in-between perfect stuff is actually where the juice is, where so much of the beauty is,” he says.
To communicate those themes, HEIGHTS employs lyrics that paint a picture of moving higher in songs such as “Rise Up,” “Giants” and the title track. In that sense, the album hearkens back to past WTM hits including “Shut Up and Dance” and “One Foot,” both of which used the idea of physical movement to overcome mental obstacles.
The idea of bringing movement into lyrics, Petricca shares, is something that regularly comes up in the songwriting process.
“Often I’ll be, like, ‘There’s just there’s not enough movement, there’s not enough inertia,'” he says. “I need to have an image, need to have something visceral, something with motion and action.”
Teyana Taylor kicked off her farewell concert tour Sunday night in San Francisco, and as she approaches her retirement from the stage, the MTV VMA winner is feeling very optimistic about her future.
“I’m feeling phenomenal!” Teyana told Essence. “If life were looked at as a book, you wouldn’t be afraid of turning the pages. You’d flick through effortlessly entering new chapter after chapter, curiously looking forward to seeing what’s next. That’s exactly how I feel. In so many instances, the best [is] yet to come!”
After releasing three solo albums on Kanye West’s GOOD Music label, Teyana has decided to step away from music. However, she will remain very busy in her role as Creative Director of the fashion company PrettyLittleThing. Taylor will also continue her acting career, including a role in the holiday film Miracles Across 125th Street, directed and starring Nick Cannon, which premieres December 20 on VH1.
Teyana’s 12-city tour runs through November 30 in Philadelphia. She was originally scheduled to perform Friday in Houston; however, the show was canceled following the Astroworld festival tragedy last weekend. The Coming 2 America star had that fatal event in mind during her tour’s second show, held Monday in Los Angeles. As seen in a viral video, when the 30-year-old entertainer saw a fan in distress, she immediately stopped the show. Then she made sure the fan was safe, sitting on the edge of the stage.
Meanwhile, as a mother of two daughters, ImanJr., 5, and Rue, 13 months, the versatile performer says she enjoys the challenge of juggling many roles.
“It’s all about drive and understanding your why,” Taylor says. “My why is my family. They’re my number one priority. I also believe if you put God first, everything else will fall into place.”
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The second installment of Taylor Swift‘s re-recording project has arrived: Her new version of her hit 2012 album, Red. Coming in at an impressive 30 tracks, Red (Taylor’s Version) includes every song that Taylor wrote for the original version of the album, including the ones that didn’t make the final cut.
Among the 30 tracks are “Better Man,” which became a hit for the country group Little Big Town in 2016; “Babe,” which was a hit for the country duo Sugarland in 2018; “Ronan,” which Taylor originally released to iTunes as a charity single; and three new duets — one with Ed Sheeran, one with Chris Stapleton and one with Phoebe Bridgers. Also included: the near-mythological 10-minute version of “All Too Well,” which gets its own short film that premieres tonight at 7 p.m ET.
Looking back on Red now, Taylor says of the project, “Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end.”
Upon releasing the album Friday, the singer took to Instagram to pen a sincere thank-you to her fans. “Just a friendly reminder that I would never have thought it was possible to go back and remake my previous work, uncovering lost art and forgotten gems along the way, if you hadn’t emboldened me,” Taylor shared. “Red is about to be mine again, but it has always been ours. Tonight we begin again.”
Taylor kicked off her promotional TV blitz for the album by stopping by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers, both on Thursday night. During her appearance on Fallon, the singer shared the true story of how the extended version of “All Too Well” came to be. Taylor, who believes she was about 21 at the time, said she was “going through a bit of a sad time” when rehearsing for her upcoming Speak Now tour.
“I just was really upset and sad and everybody could tell. It was really not fun to be around me that day,” she admitted, so she picked up her guitar and began playing “the same four chords over and over again.”
Taylor said the song that became “All Too Well” flowed from her organically as she “started ad-libbing what I was going through and what I was feeling.” As she vented through her music, the band joined in “and the song kept building and building and building in intensity.”
“The song just went on for 10 to 15 minutes,” Taylor explained, and credited her mother for checking at the end of rehearsal if “my sound guy” managed to capture the profound moment on tape.
“He was like, ‘Yep!’ and handed her a CD,” Taylor grinned. “The ten-minute version of ‘All too Well’ is what was originally written for the song before I had to cut it down to a normal-length song.”
Taylor revealed that releasing the original version of “All Too Well” is “the thing I’m the most excited about.”
During her interview, Taylor also discussed how she mastered the art of hiding Easter eggs, and encouraged fans to keep their eyes peeled when watching the short film version of “All Too Well,” starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien, which premieres tonight at 7 p.m. ET. Taylor also revealed that she’ll premiere the short film at the AMC 13 Theater in New York City’s Lincoln Square on Friday afternoon.
Taylor’s late-night tour will continue tomorrow, when she serves as musical guest on Saturday Night Live — and hints that she may perform the 10-minute version of “All Too Well” in its entirety.
Here’s the full track listing for Red (Taylor’s Version):
“State of Grace (Taylor’s Version)”
“Red (Taylor’s Version)”
“Treacherous (Taylor’s Version)”
“I Knew You Were Trouble (Taylor’s Version)”
“All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)”
“22 (Taylor’s Version)”
“I Almost Do (Taylor’s Version)”
“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (Taylor’s Version)”
“Stay Stay Stay (Taylor’s Version)”
“The Last Time (Taylor’s Version)”
“Holy Ground (Taylor’s Version)”
“Sad Beautiful Tragic (Taylor’s Version)”
“The Lucky One (Taylor’s Version)”
“Everything Has Changed (feat. Ed Sheeran) (Taylor’s Version)”
“Starlight (Taylor’s Version)”
“Begin Again (Taylor’s Version)”
“The Moment I Knew (Taylor’s Version)”
“Come Back…Be Here (Taylor’s Version)”
“Girl at Home (Taylor’s Version)”
“State of Grace (Acoustic Version) (Taylor’s Version)”
“Ronan (Taylor’s Version)”
“Better Man (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”
“Nothing New (feat. Phoebe Bridgers) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”
“Babe (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”
“Message in a Bottle (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”
“I Bet You Think About Me (feat. Chris Stapleton) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”
“Forever Winter (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”
“Run (feat. Ed Sheeran) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”
“The Very First Night (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”
“All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”
The former Beatles drummer’s class, which is scheduled to premiere on November 22, will feature him teaching drumming and creative collaboration.
The announcement of Starr’s MasterClass took place during a special event held this week at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City that included videos previews of the upcoming classes, a live performance by pop superstar Christina Aguilera and DJ sets by Questlove of The Roots.
Other music artists who also will host upcoming MasterClass sessions include Aguilera and Mariah Carey, whose classes will both debut in the spring of 2022.
A video featuring highlights of the announcement event and previewing the various forthcoming tutorials can be viewed at the official MasterClass YouTube channel.
For a $180 annual payment, viewers can access all available tutorials. For more information, visit MasterClass.com.
Well-known musicians who have hosted previously released MasterClass sessions include Carlos Santana, Metallica, Tom Morello, Sheila E., Herbie Hancock and Questlove.
The Doors‘ Robby Krieger, The Cars‘ Elliot Easton, Randy Bachman and Guns N’ Roses‘ Slash are among the many artists featured on an upcoming compilation paying homage to late Mountain frontman Leslie West.
Krieger teams up with current Rainbow singer Ronnie Romero for a version of “The Doctor.” Easton and Romero contribute a rendition of “Sittin’ on a Rainbow.” Bachman joins forces with his son Tal for a medley of “Money (Whatcha Gonna Do)” and “By the River.” Slash plays guitar on a version of Mountain’s signature song, “Mississippi Queen,” with vocals from Marc LaBelle of the up-and-coming band Dirty Honey.
Other artists contributing to the album include Twisted Sister‘s Dee Snider and Eddie Ojeda, Quiet Riot bassist Rudy Sarzo, ex-Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre, Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse, former Rainbow singer Joe Lynn Turner and many more.
Legacy initially had been planned as West’s next album project, which was to feature him playing new versions of standout songs from throughout his career with some guest artists. Unfortunately, Leslie died at age 75 in December 2020, two weeks before the sessions were scheduled to start. Instead, it was decided to make the record a tribute album.
“We really didn’t have to reach out to many people,” says West’s widow, Jenni. “They came to us. What’s really amazing is, if Leslie himself had whispered into my ear and told me who he would want on this record, these would be the people he would have requested.”
Here’s Legacy: A Tribute to Leslie West‘s full track list:
“Blood of the Sun” — featuring Zakk Wylde
“Nantucket Sleighride (To Owen Coffin)” — featuring Joe Lynn Turner & Marty Friedman
“Theme for an Imaginary Western” — featuring Dee Snider, Eddie Ojeda, Rudy Sarzo, Mike Portnoy, Francesco Saglietti
“For Yasgur’s Farm” — featuring Joe Lynn Turner & Martin Barre
“Why Dontcha” — featuring Steve Morse & Ronnie Romero
“Sittin’ on a Rainbow” — featuring Elliot Easton & Ronnie Romero
“Never in My Life” — featuring Dee Snider & George Lynch
“The Doctor” — featuring Robby Krieger & Ronnie Romero
“Silver Paper” — featuring Charlie Starr
“Money (Whatcha Gonna Do)/By the River” — featuring Bachman & Bachman
“Long Red” — featuring Yngwie Malmsteen & Teddy Rondinelli
“Mississippi Queen” — featuring Slash & Marc LaBelle
A new Christmas song by Michael Bublé will be featured in a movie called Silent Night, due out next month.
The movie is being produced by Matthew Vaughn, who brought you hit films like Rocketman, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Kick-Ass and more. As Deadline reports, Vaughn has started a music arm of his production company, Marv Music, to create original music for movies, and this holiday song by Michael is one of the first releases.
The song, called “The Christmas Sweater,” will be included on the Super Deluxe 10th Anniversary Box Set version of Michael’s album Christmas. As for the movie, it concerns a family that gets together for Christmas “on the eve of an environmental apocalypse.” It stars Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode and Kirby Howell-Baptiste and will be out December 3.
Marv Music will also be releasing the original music that Dua Lipa is creating for Vaughn’s upcoming film Argylle, in which she’ll also star.
Founding Moody Blues drummer Graeme Edge died today, according to separate messages posted by his longtime band mates Justin Hayward and John Lodge. He was 80.
“It’s a very sad day. Graeme’s sound and personality is present in everything we did together and thankfully that will live on,” Hayward wrote in a message posted on the band’s official website. “When Graeme told me he was retiring I knew that without him it couldn’t be the Moody Blues anymore. And that’s what happened. It’s true to say that he kept the group together throughout all the years, because he loved it.”
Justin added, “In the late [1960s] we became the group that Graeme always wanted it to be, and he was called upon to be a poet as well as a drummer. He delivered that beautifully and brilliantly, while creating an atmosphere and setting that the music would never have achieved without his words.”
In his own tribute, Lodge wrote on his Facebook page, “To me he was the White Eagle of the North with his beautiful poetry, his friendship, his love of life and his ‘unique’ style of drumming that was the engine room of the Moody Blues…I will miss you Graeme.”
Edge co-founded the band in 1964 and was the only original member to play with the group throughout its entire history. The Moody Blues stopped touring at the end of 2018, several months after the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
While Graeme was probably the least prolific of the band members with regard to songwriting contributions, he was best known for writing the poetic interludes that appeared on many of the group’s albums, most famously “Late Lament,” the spoken-word segment recited by keyboardist Mike Pinder that’s heard at the end of “Nights in White Satin.”
Back in March 2018, Edge talked with ABC Audio and revealed some of the things he was most proud of with regards to his long career, including the fact that he wasn’t involved in any scandals, The Moodies sold out Madison Square Garden five times in one week, and the band had the reputation of being “proper professionals” with its fans and promoters.
Graeme continued, “I’m proud of the music we’ve done. I bear not too much responsibility for that, but Justin and John and Ray [Thomas] and Mike have written some sterling songs, and it was just a privilege to play with them.”
Edge also noted, with a laugh, “I’m proud and grateful for the career that we’ve had, which has been successful but not made me too rich. You know, I think I could have been an a**hole if I’d have been too rich.”
Edge is the second member of The Moody Blues’ classic lineup to pass away, following Thomas, who died in January 2018 at age 76.
![Teyana Taylor looks forward to the future following her farewell tour: “The best [is] yet to come!”](https://s3.amazonaws.com/syndication.abcaudio.com/files/2021-11-12/Getty_TeyanaTaylor_111121.jpg "Teyana Taylor looks forward to the future following her farewell tour: “The best [is] yet to come!”")
