Music

As the 2022 ACM Awards quickly near, country stars are doing everything they can to look and feel their best for the big night — and for many of country’s hottest names, that makes booking a workout with trainer Erin Oprea.

Known as country music’s own personal fitness guru, Erin has played a pivotal role in the health and well journeys of A-Listers like Carrie Underwood, helping Carrie safely keep her fitness levels up even as she recovered from a November 2017 fall that left her with a broken wrist and 40-50 stitches in her face.

Erin was also there for Maren Morris every step of the way through her pregnancy with her son, Hayes, keeping her feeling her best with pregnancy-safe workouts.

Oprea’s known for dreaming up creative workouts, both for her celebrity clients and the fans watching from home. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Eric kept things lighthearted by creating a leg day workout set to her client Kelsea Ballerini’s “Hole in the Bottle.”

Want to train like your favorite country stars? You can download Erin’s app, called Pretty Muscles.

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Wage War has joined Slipknot‘s Knotfest Roadshow tour in place of Jinjer, who dropped off the lineup due to Russia’s invasion of their home country of Ukraine.

The “Circle the Drain” outfit will join In This Moment to open the first leg of the tour, running from March 16 to April 17. The second leg, which stretches from May 18 to June 18, features support from Cypress Hill and Ho99o9.

Jinjer announced Friday that they were canceling all their North American tour dates, which included the Knotfest Roadshow dates as well as headlining shows. They’re currently selling two new t-shirts to raise funds for their fellow Ukrainians in need of medicine, food and water amid the invasion.

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Alice Merton has announced her sophomore album.

The record is called S.I.D.E.S., and will arrive June 17. It features the previously released songs “Vertigo,” “Island” and “Hero.” A fourth cut, titled “Same Team,” is out today via digital outlets.

“The last two years have been challenging for everyone in some way or another,” Merton says. “Friends and family were lost, restrictions were enforced for the first time since I’ve been alive, and mental strength had been tested to its limit.”

She continues, “S.I.D.E.S. tells my story of how I experienced these past years. It’s a summary of the ups and many downs, the psychological challenges I faced, and somehow realizing that there will always be another side to the story — the question is just how and when do you get there.”

S.I.D.E.S. follows Merton’s 2019 debut album Mint, which includes her breakout single, “No Roots.”

Here’s the S.I.D.E.S. track list:

“Loveback”
“Island”
“Future”
“Same Team”
“Blurry”
“Everything”
“Blindside”
“Shiny Things”
“100 Stories”
“Hero”
“Mania”
“Vertigo”
“Breathe in, Breathe Out”
“Letting You Know”
“The Other Side”

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Remember when everybody lost their minds over those orchestral versions of pop songs in season one of the Netflix hit Bridgerton?  Well, get ready for more in season two.

In season one, fans were delighted to hear classically-inspired arrangements of songs like Taylor Swift‘s “Wildest Dreams” and Ariana Grande‘s “thank u, next.”  This season, “artists themselves were actually reaching out to us, wanting covers of their songs to be played on the show,” series creator Chris Van Dusen tells People.

This season, according to People, you’ll be hearing orchestral versions of everything from Rihanna‘s “Diamonds” and Miley Cyrus‘ “Wrecking Ball” to Madonna‘s “Material Girl” and Harry Styles‘ “Sign of the Times.”

Other songs to listen for include Nirvana‘s “Stay Away,” Robyn‘s “Dancing on My Own,” Alanis Morissette‘s “You Oughta Know” and Pink‘s “What About Us.”

“There are fun Easter eggs for fans to learn and find within the song selection this season,” says Van Dusen, noting that in several cases, the original song’s lyrics sum up what’s happening in the scene, but you won’t hear them, of course. 

Bridgerton returns to Netflix on March 25.  As Lady Whistledown would say, it’s the social event of the season.

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Up-and-coming actress Candace Maxwell landed a role in her first-ever feature film, A Madea Homecoming, and, although she was nervous to join the Tyler Perry production, Maxwell says she’s “honored” to have been a part.

“It’s Black history, it’s Black film history, and now it’s American history,” the actress said to ABC Audio. “It’s an honor for it to be my first feature. Hopefully, one of many to come, but a dream come true.”

Maxwell was cast in the small yet important role of Ellie, Madea’s granddaughter and a local neighborhood cop. While a bit fearful to portray such a role, Maxwell says it was important for her to honor the characters she plays.

“There was fear for me because I want to do a great job,” she explained. “I was nervous because even in the comedic sense, I want to make sure that I’m doing this person justice.”

Maxwell was humbled to join the mega-hit Madea franchise, but says the “mind-blowing” part of it all was receiving the job offer from the studio directly.

She said, “I did not audition…that’s every actress’s dream to know that the work that they did before on a previous set or that they impacted casting — that the studio had to then come directly to me. That’s an honor.”

The best part of the experience, she said, was sharing the set with some of the many Madea favorites, like Tamela and David Mann.

Excitement for the film has come not only from Maxwell but from fans all over. Perry took to his Instagram to share news that the Netflix comedy-drama hit number one in the U.S. during its debut weekend, and that it reached the top 10 in films streaming in 33 countries a few days after.

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Midland are taking fans on a road trip to the very fringes of country and rock ‘n’ roll with their full-length The Last Resort: Greetings From album, due out May 6.

The original Last Resort contained five songs, including “Sunrise Tells the Story,” the country trio’s current radio single. On their next project, they’ll expand that track list to 12 songs in total. One of them, “Longneck Way to Go,” is a duet with Jon Pardi.

“It’s about more than the roots. Because that makes you think of something that’s buried, which this music shouldn’t be,” describes frontman Mark Wystrach, speaking about Midland’s free-wheeling, traditionalist-leaning style.

“It’s about creating country music that’s pure in a different kind of way, that draws on some of what’s been left behind but shouldn’t be,” he continues. “Some of these songs are pure Gary Stewart, others are the earliest Eagles stuff when they really were country.”

The Last Resort’s title track is out now; the project also lends its name to Midland’s current run of tour dates.

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Camila Cabello laughs off heartbreak in the video for her new Ed Sheeran collab, “Bam Bam.”

Though the video begins with Camila crying and getting drunk outside a convenience store while yelling “F***!,” she soon cheers up and hit the dance floor with a bunch of female friends. Meanwhile, Ed, sporting a black eye, tosses down a shot at the bar and then grabs his guitar and joins in the fun.

Back on the street with her pals, Camila face-plants but keeps on smiling and singing as they wheel her and her bandaged face around in a shopping cart. She and her friends then run into a laundromat where they strip down and dance in their underwear.  Camila ends the video by walking into a yoga class, sitting down on the mat, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

Speaking to Apple Music 1‘s Zane Lowe about the song, Camila explains, “I think what we were trying to get across in the verse is just that things change and things take really unexpected turns and just showing that through the actual details of it.”

She adds, “So this song is mostly just about like, ‘Okay, how do I make a song that shows the cycles of love, and life, and…whatever it is that’s going on in your life, whether it is a breakup, or a divorce, or…a friend breakup, or you’ve just gone through something that just is really s***ty, hopefully, this can make you be like, “It is that way now. But things are always taking crazy turns.”‘”

While acknowledging that the song is about her breakup with Shawn Mendes, Camila told Zane, “I f**king love Shawn. And I feel like there is literally nothing but love for him.”

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Beyoncé is celebrating Bobbi Kristina Brown on what would have been her 29th birthday, by posting a baby picture of the late star on her official website.

“Happy Heavenly Birthday Bobbi Kristina Brown,” reads the message on the homepage of Beyonce.com.

Bobbi Kristina, daughter of legendary musicians Bobby Brown and the late Whitney Houston, died an untimely death on July 26, 2015 at age 22, six months after being found unconscious and immersed in water in a bathtub in her Atlanta home, after which she remained in a vegetative state.  An autopsy report obtained by ABC News revealed that the aspiring actress and singer died from lobar pneumonia and lack of oxygen, themselves a result of her bathtub accident, as well as drug intoxication.

In a special edition 20/20 interview, Bobby Brown opened up about his daughter’s passing, saying, “We should have been better…We could have been better.”

On the fourth anniversary of her death in 2019, Brown penned a special message to his daughter and announced the newly found Bobbi Kristina Serenity house in her honor.

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