HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series, House of the Dragon, will live to fight for a second season.
The decision to renew the show comes before the second episode aired, but it’s a bit of a no-brainer: The series, starring Paddy Considine, Matt Smith and Olivia Cooke, drew nearly 10 million viewers for its debut last Sunday night, making it the largest audience for any new original series in the history of HBO.
What’s more, the show was strong on streaming, too: Via HBO Max, Dragon torched all new streaming titles for the week of August 18 through August 24, according to data from the streaming service aggregator app Reelgood.
The show also lit up social media: On premiere day, House of the Dragon was the longest trending topic on Twitter, ranking #1 for 14 hours straight, and trended #1 on Google Trends, according to HBO.
HBO Vice President of Programming Francesca Orsi noted, “Our phenomenal cast and crew undertook a massive challenge and exceeded all expectations, delivering a show that has already established itself as must-see-TV,” adding, “We couldn’t be more excited to continue bringing to life the epic saga of House Targaryen with season two.”
Just when you thought Harry Styles couldn’t possibly play any more tour dates than he’s already planned, he’s expanding his Love On Tour in the U.S. and worldwide.
The star, who’s doing multiple dates in key North American cities, has just added shows in Austin, Texas, and Chicago, Illinois, to the five he was already doing in each city. Tickets for the October 3 Austin concert and October 15 Chicago show go on sale September 1 at 10 a.m. local time.
If you want to see Harry in Europe or the United Kingdom, he’s just announced 19 new shows, which will mark his first full stadium trek there. Those shows, which start May 13, 2023, include two nights at London’s iconic Wembley Stadium, plus a show in Coventry, England, not far from Redditch, where he was born. Wet Leg will open all those European shows.
Visit Harry’s website for a full list of the new tour dates.
Friday night, Harry continues his 15-show stand at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
Death Cab for Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbard has teamed up with Noah Cyrus on a new song called “Every Beginning Ends.”
Cyrus, the sister of Miley, describes herself as a “huge fan” of Death Cab, adding that recording with Gibbard was “such a surreal experience.”
“I kept coming back to it and just basking in her brilliance,” Gibbard tells Rolling Stone of working with Cyrus. “It’s easy to be mysterious. It’s easy to be aloof. It’s easy to be cool. It’s so much harder to be earnest, and it’s so much harder because she’s really opening herself up with a lot of these songs.”
You can listen to “Every Beginning Ends” now via digital outlets. Its accompanying video, directed by frequent Death Cab collaborator Lance Bangs, is streaming now on YouTube.
“Every Beginning Ends” will also appear on Cyrus’ upcoming album, The Hardest Part, due out September 16. That same day, Death Cab will release their new album, Asphalt Meadows.
Lil Nas X is the latest U.S. ambassador for Yves Saint Laurent Beauté.
As part of the new gig, the “That’s What I Want” artist will appear in content featured on YSL Beauté’s digital platforms, promoting both the brand’s men’s fragrance, Y, as well as its new lip color, Rouge Pur Couture: The Bold, and latest eye product, Lash Clash Mascara. There will also be a new, unreleased track from Nas tied into the campaign.
“It’s been a lot of fun working on this campaign with YSL Beauté – they’re such an iconic brand, and I’m happy to be a part of something so unique and groundbreaking in the beauty world,” the rapper said in a statement. “Shout out to YSL for embracing me and my campness and for inspiring change for the next generation of beauty.”
A YSL Beauté exec says in a statement, “Lil Nas X embodies YSL Beauté’s vision for the future of the beauty industry: boundary-breaking, unique, unapologetic, bold.”
Blondie‘s expansive new box set, Blondie: Against the Odds 1974-1982, which focuses on the influential New Wave band’s original heyday, hit stores today.
The retrospective, which is available in multiple formats and configurations, contains remastered versions of Blondie’s first six studio albums, as well as a variety of outtakes, demos, remixes, home recordings and other rarities.
“It’s a great collection,” founding Blondie drummer Clem Burke tells ABC Audio. “The first six albums have been remastered at Abbey Road, which we were happy about, ’cause we weren’t really satisfied with the way they were remastered the first time around…[T]his time we kind of took control of everything and…really kind of made it representative of the history of the band.”
Burke says a cool highlight of Against the Odds is a collection of demos recorded in 1974 and ’75 that includes an early version of Blondie’s chart-topping hit “Heart of Glass” titled “Once I Had a Love.”
Clem points out that besides “Once I Had a Love,” “the rest of the demos…have never really seen the light of day in an official Blondie recording moving forward, so it’s good that they’re on there.”
The box set also comes with a book that includes new interviews with Burke, singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein, as well as with the four main former members who played with the band between 1974 and 1982.
“[I]t’s great that everyone, all original seven members of Blondie, as it were, participated in the interviews,” Burke says.
Meanwhile, Burke explains that the box set’s title partly relates to “the fact that it’s kind of unbelievable that we’re still here and doing shows, and the amount of success that we’ve had over the years…with the music being the legacy of the band.”
If you want to know what God Did for DJ Khaled, just listen to his new album. The 18-track record has officially dropped, marking the producer’s 13th studio album. He spoke to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about the project.
The album title, Khaled revealed, came from one of his repeated motivational sayings in which he declares, “They didn’t believe in us, God Did.” He said he decided on the name after seeing fans’ responses to the statement.
“When I came up with the title, it resonated with me to the point where I had to let it out, my soul, and spread it to the world,” said Khaled. “What happened was it resonated with the fans, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, they feeling what I’m feeling,’ and that’s when I said, ‘It’s going to be the name of my album,’ because I had another name for my album … When I said, ‘They didn’t believe in us, God Did,’ I felt like I was speaking for all of us.”
As for the features, God Did has over 30, including Jay-Z, who Khaled thanked for being on the album.
“I’ve always been a fan not just from his music, just from his moves,” he told Lowe. “For him to bless my album the way he blessed my album … That was such a blessing and that meant so much to me, because not only does he trust me, he know it’s special.”
God Did is available on streaming services. In honor of its release, Khaled launched an augmented reality Lens experience that’ll bring the album cover to life. Fans who scan the artwork or a Times Square billboard with their Snapchat camera will see Khaled’s portrait reciting the lyrics to “Grateful.”
The producer will also release music videos over the next week.
Joji, whose song “Glimpse of Us” has become a global hit, will release his third album, Smithereens, on November 4. It’s now available for preorder.
The album is the follow-up to 2020’s Nectar and features “Glimpse of Us,” as well as a new song that’s available today: “Yukon (Interlude).” It comes with a video that, unlike the clip for “Glimpse of Us,” actually features Joji. In fact, it’s his first music video appearance in nearly two years.
The Japanese-born singer kicks off his sold-out North American tour September 1 in Palo Alto, California. It’s set to wrap up October 22 in Miami, Florida.
Muse has premiered the video for “You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween,” a track off the band’s new album, Will of the People.
The clip follows a group of masked figures who sneak into a house, only to find out it’s haunted, with references to a number of classic horror works, including The Shining and It.
At one point, there also appears to a nod to one of Corey Taylor‘s Slipknot masks. Frontman Matt Bellamy previously told Apple Music 1 that Slipknot influenced some of the heavier moments on Will of the People.
You can watch the “You Make me Feel Like It’s Halloween” video streaming now on YouTube.
Will of the People, the ninth Muse album, is out now. It also includes the singles “Won’t Stand Down” and “Compliance.”
Muse will play a brief run of U.S. shows in support of Will of the People in October.
(JACKSON HOLE, Wyo.) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell vowed to fight inflation “forcefully” in remarks on Friday at the central bank’s annual summer gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
The Fed is weighing whether a large rate increase will be necessary at the central bank’s meeting next month, Powell said, adding that a reduction in the pace of rate increases will likely take hold “at some point.”
“Price stability is the responsibility of the Federal Reserve and serves as the bedrock of our economy,” Powell said. “Without prices stability, the economy doesn’t work for anyone.”
The Fed has instituted a series of borrowing cost increases in recent months as it tries to slash near-historic inflation by slowing the economy and choking off demand. But the approach risks tipping the U.S. into a recession.
Powell acknowledged that further rate increases will “bring some pain to households and business” but said persistent elevated inflation threatens even worse pain.
At meetings in each of the past two months, the central bank has increased its benchmark interest rate by 0.75% — dramatic hikes last matched in 1994.
The rate increases may have contributed to a slowdown in price hikes. While still elevated, price increases last month waned from the near-historic pace reached in June, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
July’s consumer price index, or CPI, rose 8.5% over the past year, a marked slowdown from a 9.1% year-over-year rate measured in June, the bureau said.
Price hikes also slowed last month as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, or PCE, a measure of inflation closely watched by the Fed, according to a release from the Commerce Department on Friday.
The PCE rose 6.3% in July from a year earlier after recording an increase of 6.8% year-over-year in June, the data release said.
Fed officials have signaled in recent days that the central bank intends to continue a series of rate hikes, aiming to bring inflation back down to its target of 2%.
Last Thursday, San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly told CNN that a 50- or 75-point basis hike at the central bank’s meeting next month would be “reasonable” and that rate hikes would continue into at least 2023.
As it sets policy, the Fed faces mixed economic data.
Inflation remains near a 40-year high and GDP has slowed, raising the specter of stagflation, a damaging combination of high prices and anemic growth.
But observers can take solace in employment data, which persists at robust levels, as the economy added a blockbuster 528,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate stands at 3.5%.
While acknowledging the mixed economic data, Powell said the economy “continues to show momentum.”
He said the Fed will do what it takes to bring inflation down to its 2% target.
“We must keep at it until the job is done,” he said.
Lauren Alaina has been a brand ambassador for fashion line Maurices for a while, and now she’s upping her partnership with the company with a new, limited-edition line of T-shirts.
The collection, which features styles for the fall and upcoming holiday season, is packed with Lauren’s signature personality and features slogans from her songs.
One design features the phrase “Two Hearts Tequila Talking,” which comes from a lyric in Lauren’s song “Written in the Bar.” That track comes off her 2021 project, Sitting Pretty On Top of the World.
Another shirt features the slogan “Trust Your Rebel Heart,” a line from Lauren’s 2016 hit single, “Road Less Traveled.”
Anyone who follows the singer on social media knows that she’s a huge fan of punning and wordplay, so a third tee reads “Bull Shirt,” along with a graphic of a steer embellished with a floral design.
