Music

Kane Brown has earned a spot TIME magazine’s prestigious TIME100 list, honoring the 100 most influential people of 2021. Darius Rucker penned the touching tribute to Kane.

“Kane Brown has that unquantifiable ‘it’ factor,” Darius praised. “He’s so laid-back and doesn’t take himself too seriously, but he also really cares about his craft and other people. And when it comes to his music, he can do that low, cool, borderline-rapping thing, and then he sings and his vocal ability just blows you away.”

Darius made great strides as a Black man in country music, strides that Darius sees Kane also achieving.

“I’m sure there are kids looking up to Kane right now just like when I looked up at Charley Pride,” Darius says. “One of the most pivotal moments of my career was when Charley shared some of the lessons he learned over the years with me … Kane is setting the bar so high for the next generation. I hope kids see him and now think, ‘I can do that.'”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Good news for customers of StubHub: You’re getting your money back.

The ticket resale platform has agreed to give refunds to customers who purchased tickets to events canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. When concerts and other events first started being canceled, StubHub initially stopped honoring its refund guarantee, instead offering customers credits to be used for future events.

On Wednesday, several state attorneys general announced a settlement with StubHub that forces the ticket reseller to reverse the policy and honor refunds for tickets purchased prior to March 25, 2020. The settlement also requires StubHub to be more forthcoming about its refund policies and honor those policies when events are cancelled.

The company will be able to avoid paying a multi-million-dollar penalty if it promptly coughs up the refunds owed to customers. Instead of refunds, StubHub had tried to offer credits of $120% of ticket purchase prices for future events.

The multistate investigation began after several customer complaints, and Stubhub’s “lack of responsiveness” to the inquiries, the attorneys general said.

Now, the bad news: The settlement only involves StubHub customers in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Lady Gaga will promote her new duets album with Tony Bennett, Love for Sale, with a TV takeover.

The two will star in three different specials, one of which will air on CBS, one of which will air on MTV, and a third which will stream on Paramount+.

The first special is titled One Last Time: An Evening with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, which will air on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend in November at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The hour-long special was filmed during the two shows Gaga and Bennett did in August at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, which were the 95-year-old crooner’s final public performances.

Then, sometime this winter, an MTV Unplugged special will air, which Gaga and Bennett filmed together in New York in August.  It was Bennett’s 1994 appearance on the original MTV Unplugged — captured on a hit album that went on to win the 1995 Grammy for Album of the Year — that revived his career.

Finally, a documentary called The Lady and the Legend will stream on Paramount+ in 2022; no premiere date has yet been announced.  It’ll include footage from the Love for Sale sessions, as well as from the duo’s first album, 2011’s Cheek to Cheek.

Love for Sale arrives October 1.  A video for the title track will premiere on Friday at noon ET.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

TIME magazine is out with its annual list of the 100 Most Influential People, and some of music’s biggest stars made the list, including Billie Eilish, Lil Nas X and Britney Spears.

TIME has tapped fellow celebs to pen essays about each honoree. Meghan Thee Stallion writes of Billie, “[She’s] a unique soul, with a voice, style and attitude all unapologetically her own…She is a rare spirit who speaks from her heart with no pretenses….one who is strong, but still learning and still growing. A woman who stands up for herself and advocates for women everywhere.”

Rapper and actor Kid Cudi writes of Lil Nas X, “What he’s doing is what we need right now. To have a gay man in hip-hop doing his thing, crushing records — that is huge for us and for Black excellence. The way he’s unafraid to make people uncomfortable is so rock ’n’ roll. He’s a true rock star.”

Britney’s old pal Paris Hilton writes of the newly engaged star, “When I think of Britney Spears, I see the sweetest soul. A mother. A friend. A fighter. A young woman who grew up in the tabloid culture of the 2000s, when the paparazzi machine was accepted, unforgiving and cruel.”

“Despite the darkness that has surrounded her life, Britney embodies joy and shares the light of her beautiful heart, forever the superstar, Paris adds. “So we stand by her and root for her as she turns pain into purpose, her unwavering spirit stronger than ever.”

Miley Cyrus is also featured, penning a tribute to her godmother, Dolly Parton. “Dolly is not only my idol because of her incomparable career — she’s also my role model because of her steadfast morals and values,” Miley writes. “At her core, she is the definition of a humanitarian.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Scotty McCreery is sharing another song from his upcoming Same Truck album. The American Idol alum dropped “Damn Strait,” one of only two songs he did not write on his new record.

“Every now and then you hear a song that sounds so much like you,” Scotty says of the song, which was written by Trent Tomlinson and Jim Collins. “I grew up as a huge George Strait fan, and when I heard this song, I raised my hand to say, ‘I want this one.’ Every country fan has a George Strait story, and everyone has a memory attached to their favorite songs.”

It was George, along with a couple of other country music legends, who inspired Scotty to become a singer.

“The first country music concert I ever went to was George Strait, Reba [McEntire] and Lee Ann Womack,” Scotty says. “When I saw that show, I said, ‘I’m gonna do that one day.’”

Same Truck will be released on Friday, September 17. Scotty’s current single from the album, “You Time,” is currently in the top 5.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A scary situation erupted right outside Ariana Grande’s Hollywood Hills home last week.

TMZ reports that a man, identified as 23-year-old Aaron Brown, showed up at Ari’s house around 2 a.m. local time on Friday and waved a knife at her security when they tried to give him the boot.

According to the report, Brown demanded an audience with the “Positions” singer and when security told him to scram, he brandished the knife, forcing security to call police.

Brown was arrested after the altercation and is now facing a felony charge.

It is unclear if Ariana was home at the time of the incident, but TMZ reports that she applied for a temporary restraining order against Brown, which was approved by a judge.  The protection order will be in effect until an upcoming hearing, which will determine if the order will remain in effect.

The date of the upcoming hearing was not disclosed.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Just days after announcing her engagement, Britney Spears has disappeared from Instagram — but have no fear, she’s only taking a breather. 

Taking to Twitter on Tuesday, the 39-year-old pop icon addressed concerns surrounding why her account on the social media app went missing, tweeting, “Don’t worry folks … just taking a little break from social media to celebrate my engagement [ring emoji] [wink face emoji] !!!!”

“I’ll be back soon,” she promised.

Spears’ absence from Instagram comes a few days after she revealed that she got engaged to her 27-year-old boyfriend, Sam Asghari. The pair, who first met while filming Britney’s 2016 music video, “Slumber Party,” shared the exciting news with the world on Sunday that the two are one step closer to marriage.  

While the “Toxic” singer’s Instagram shows a broken link, Asghari’s Instagram is still active.

Don’t worry folks … just taking a little break from social media to celebrate my engagement 💍😉 !!!! I’ll be back soon 💋🌹✨

— Britney Spears (@britneyspears) September 14, 2021

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

This week, Thomas Rhett claims his 18th #1, as “Country Again” tops the chart. While his last dozen singles have made it to #1, that wasn’t always the case. 

“Minus the sunglasses, I wanted to be Eric Church,” he admits. “I used Eric’s producer. I tried to sing like him… My first two singles… did not do anything at all. My first two number ones… were songs that my dad wrote…”

“I put this song out called ‘Make Me Wanna,’ which was very strange to the radio at that point in time,” he continues. “It was like seventies-disco-meets-country-lyric. I was like, ‘Should I put this song out?’ My manager Virginia said, ‘If you’re okay with this song dying at number 40, then that should be your gut feeling and you should go with it.'”

That, it turns out, made the difference.

“It sat at 40 for like 20 weeks,” TR recalls, “and then all of the sudden, it started to catch. And then it became a hit, and that gave me the confidence to put a song out like ‘Crash and Burn.'”

“And then [it] kind of changed this whole trajectory for me,” he reflects. “I was in this lane, and then all of the sudden, I kind of veered left. And it kind of just gave me this confidence to put out songs that may or may not have worked.”

Ultimately, TR hopes he’s helped country’s next generation.

“I followed my gut on a lot of the releases,” he declares. “And I hope that… made a way for a lot of other artists to be able to put some of these songs out… as well, because people like Eric Church and Brantley Gilbert and Jason Aldean did that for me.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Dave Grohl appears on the cover of the latest issue of Rolling Stone, revealing a number of interesting tidbits about the Foo Fighters frontman’s past, present and future.

For one, Grohl shares that he’s playing drums on an upcoming Miley Cyrus song.

“I was going to [producer] Greg Kurstin‘s studio to deliver him a snare drum for his kid,” Grohl recalls. “He’s like, ‘Do you have five minutes? I’m trying to program drums on this new Miley Cyrus song, but I suck. Can you just, like, do a couple takes?’ So I think I’m on a new Miley Cyrus record!”

An appearance on a Miley tune would mark his second collaboration with a major pop star of late — he also drummed on a song off Halsey‘s new album, which was produced by Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Nirvana and Kurt Cobain pop up throughout the interview, given the upcoming 30th anniversary of Nevermind. Speaking about Cobain, Grohl explains how his late band mate inspired the 2011 Foos song “Walk.”

“It kind of comes from the day after Kurt died,” Grohl says. “Waking up that morning and realizing, ‘Oh, s***, he’s not here anymore. I am. Like, I get to wake up and he doesn’t’…That was a big revelation to me.”

As for Foo Fighters, Rolling Stone reports that they have “vague ideas” about the direction of their next record to follow this year’s Medicine at Midnight, though nothing’s been written yet.

“Every album that we’ve made is a response to the one we made before,” Grohl says. “So now there are whispers of making an insane prog-rock record.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.