Few country stars can write a tender love song or a reflective ode to family life quite like Thomas Rhett. But even the sweetest balladeer likes to crank things up with a party song now and again, and that’s exactly what the singer does with his newest song, “Redneck Be Like.”
From eating fresh-caught catfish and skinny-dipping in a farm pond to blowing past small-town stop signs in a lifted truck, Thomas namechecks all the high points of living life out in the middle of nowhere.
“This song is all about summertime and getting a chance to unwind and let loose,” he explains. “We wrote it about the towns where I grew up in Georgia and Tennessee, and honestly every town we live in for the night when we go on tour. We can’t wait to see y’all on the road and turn this one up.”
A lyric video for “Redneck Be Like” shows a montage of scenes from Thomas’ live show, and for good reason: The country star is anxiously anticipating the return of his The Center Point Road Tour, which re-launches next week.
Music and football unite as Ed Sheeran is set to play the NFL’s Kickoff Experience.
Before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers face off against the Dallas Cowboys on their home turf at Raymond James Stadium on September 9, Ed will perform a free concert at Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park in Tampa at 7 p.m. ET.
It turns out the British-born singer is a longtime fan of American football. Ed shares with Today that when he moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 2013, he purchased a pair of pajamas at Walmart displaying the logo of local NFL team the Tennessee Titans, solidifying him as a fan.
“I’m really excited. First time I’ve done anything really musically for the NFL, and I’m a big fan,” he says, adding that he’s still a loyal follower of the sport. “It’s quite difficult to watch American football in England because it’s on so late, but I’m committed.”
A portion of the “Shape of You” singer’s set will air as part of pregame coverage, in addition to streaming on NFL.com, the NFL app and the official NFL Facebook page.
The Doobie Brothers have unveiled plans to release a brand-new studio album called Liberté on October 1, and in advance of the record, the band has issued a self-titled digital EP featuring four of the new songs.
Liberté, which you can pre-order now on CD and digital formats, features 12 new original tunes by the group’s core members — Tom Johnston, Pat Simmons and John McFee — produced and co-written with John Shanks, who’s previously collaborated with Bon Jovi, Stevie Nicks and many others.
Liberté is The Doobie Brothers’ 15th full-length studio effort and their first album of new original tunes since 2010’s World Gone Crazy.
The EP, which features songs titled “Oh Mexico,” “Cannonball,” “Don’t Ya Mess with Me” and “Better Days,” is available now as a digital download and via streaming services.
Meanwhile, The Doobie Brothers, who were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year, are finally preparing to launch their 50th anniversary tour, which was postponed from 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As previously reported, the trek, which sees former singer/keyboardist Michael McDonald rejoining the group, kicks off August 22 in Des Moines, Iowa. The 2021 portion of the two-leg outing is mapped out through an October 29 concert in Allentown, Pennsylvania, while a second leg runs from a June 2, 2020, show in West Palm Beach, Florida, through a June 30 performance in London, Ontario, Canada.
Fans who purchased a ticket-album bundle for shows to the tour between December 2019 and November 2020 will receive a copy of the Liberté CD starting on September 17 of this year.
Here’s Liberté‘s full track list:
“Oh Mexico”*
“Better Days”*
“Don’t Ya Mess with Me”*
“Cannonball”*
“Wherever We Go”
“The American Dream”
“Shine”
“We Are More Than Love”
“Easy”
“Just Can’t Do This Alone”
“Good Thang”
“Amen Old Friend”
Idris Elba and Daniela Melchior say they got a rare opportunity to cultivate the characters they portray in the new DC Comics superhero film The Suicide Squad.
Elba, who plays mercenary Robert DuBois, aka Bloodsport, tells ABC Audio that he and his other cast members learned “very late in the process” that although the script was written, the character with the “central storyline” had yet to be defined.
“We didn’t know. [It could] be any one of a number of characters from the DC Universe,” he says. “So, eventually we found that it was Bloodsport.”
From there, Elba says his “first stop” was to “understand” his character’s background and motivation.
“Where he’d come from, why he’s in jail in beginning of the movie, and such,” he explains. “And then…you pull apart this story [and see] he’s the guy that put Superman in intensive care and that becomes like, ‘Kaaah! What is that about?'”
Elba says learning about who DuBois was helped him to authentically embody him.
“It was a really good place to come from,” Elba says.
His co-star Melchior, who plays Cleo Cazo, aka Ratcatcher 2, agrees, noting that it was a relief that she could have “creative freedom” and not just “go after” her father, Ratcatcher, the man who taught her how to control rats.
“And I love the fact my approach and [director] James [Gunn‘s] approach for this character — it’s really different,” she says. “And I’m really excited to know…if the fans like it, because… not all supervillains have to be born being supervillains.”
The Suicide Squad, also starring Viola Davis and John Cena, is in theaters nationwide and streaming on HBO Max.
Forget the jungle: Guns N’ Roses are back in the studio.
The reunited rockers have released an official version of the song “Absurd,” which they previously debuted live earlier this week during a concert in Boston. While nominally a “new” song, “Absurd” is actually a reworked version of the GN’R rarity “Silkworms,” a track written during the infamously long sessions for Chinese Democracy but that was never released.
According to the song’s credits, “Absurd” was produced by Axl Rose and Chinese Democracy producer Caram Costanzo, and features drums by Bryan “Brain” Mantia, who played in Guns from 2000 to 2006. The credits also list “Absurd” as being performed and written by Guns N’ Roses — neither Slash nor Duff McKagan, who rejoined Rose in 2016 after a 20-year absence from the group, are explicitly mentioned.
“Absurd” is now available via digital outlets. It follows the 2018 release of the unearthed Appetite for Destruction B-side “Shadow of Your Love.”
Guns’ most recent album, of course, is 2008’s Chinese Democracy, which featured Rose as the only original member.
Can you imagine what a Deadpool x Bambi crossover might look like? Ryan Reynolds did, only Disney didn’t bite.
Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox gave them the rights to the Deadpool franchise, and gave Reynolds — who plays the titular character — an idea for a short film that would have the wisecracking mercenary crossing over with the classic animated Disney movie.
“I wanted to do a short film of Deadpool interrogating the hunter who killed Bambi’s mom. But the whole gist of it is that Deadpool is actually just a huge fan,” Ryan explained in an interview with IGN. “He’s not interrogating — he just wants to know how he could be the most loathed Disney character in the history of Disney.”
Disney’s response, according to Reynolds was, “Well, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.”
However, the studio did accept Reynolds’ next pitch for the crossover piece featuring Deadpool and Korg — the CG-body that Taika Waititi voiced and motion-performed in Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame — which served as marketing for Reynolds’ upcoming film, Free Guy.
“We wrote the Deadpool-Korg piece…and we sent it to them, and they said, ‘yes!’,” Reynolds recalled. “So, my next call was to Taika and Taika was in. He’s also in Free Guy, so it wasn’t that hard…Taika’s an actual genius, so I was thrilled to collaborate with him as this kind of character.”
Reynolds says putting Deadpool and Korg in the same room was “amazing.”
Britney Spears is giving fans an update — and it seems things are looking up for her.
In a short video posted Thursday, the 39-year-old pop star took to Instagram to address fans who may have been concerned about her amid her battle to end the 13-year-old conservatorship run by her father, Jamie Spears.
“I’m sure a lot of you are wondering how I’m doing and because the cat is out of the bag — literally, out of the bag — and you guys know my situation,” Britney begins, as she lounges in a red bikini top and white sunglasses.
“I do want to let you guys know that things are way better than ever anticipated,” Spears reveals, before going to answer a few non-conservatorship-related questions, like what’s her favorite clothing store, favorite Miley Cyrus song, and favorite lotion scent. The answers are J. Crew, “We Can’t Stop,” and vanilla, respectively.
The “Baby One More Time” singer cheerfully captioned the snippet, “Since this beautiful world makes it so easy to share with you guys … I’m here today trying to matter like all of us do on any given Thursday … have a good day beautiful people !!!!”
(TOKYO) — American sprinter Allyson Felix has made history in her last individual Olympic race. Felix took the bronze in the women’s 400-meter on Friday, her 10th career medal.
If she wins another, she’ll smash another record.
The 35-year-old U.S. track star had won nine medals across four Olympics — the most out of any female athlete in U.S. track and field history — heading into the games.
On Friday, she won her 10th medal in Tokyo, her first bronze, to become the most decorated woman in Olympic track and field history, besting the record held by Jamaica’s Merlene Ottey.
Felix finished with a time of 49.46 seconds. Bahamian runner Shaunae Miller-Uibo, the Rio gold medalist, dominated the race with a personal best to defend gold.
If Felix wins two medals at the games, Felix would have the most medals out of anyone in U.S. Olympic track and field history, surpassing legend Carl Lewis’ record of 10.
She also is a member of the relay pool, meaning she could run on the 4-x-400 meter relay Saturday.
The Los Angeles resident competed in the 400-meter after finishing second at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for track and field in June with a season-best time of 50.02 seconds.
Felix qualified for Friday’s 400-meter final after placing second in her semifinal heat this week with a time of 49.89 seconds.
The U.S. women’s 400-meter relay team also advanced to the medal round after winning their heat on Thursday. She did not run in the heats, but Felix could run in Saturday’s final.
The U.S. team also competed in the 4-x-400 mixed relay final on July 31 — minus Felix — winning bronze. She had been considered a possibility for that race.
The legendary athlete is one of the most decorated in her sport. She has won six golds and three silvers in sprinting events at the games, starting with silver in the 200-meter in her Olympic debut as a teenager at the 2004 Athens Games.
Even if she wins medals in the 400 and 4-x-400, totaling 11, she’ll come up one shy of Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi, who holds the all-time record for track and field medals with 12.
In 2019, just 10 months after giving birth to her daughter, Felix broke the record for most gold medals of any athlete at the track and field world championship, when she clinched her 12th and 13th world titles.
The mom has been a prominent voice against gender inequality in sports. Writing in The New York Times in 2019, Felix detailed her lack of maternity protections with her then-sponsor Nike after giving birth to her daughter, Camryn. Following the publication of the opinion piece, Nike announced a new maternity policy for all sponsored athletes.
She recently launched a lifestyle brand, Saysh, that she says was inspired by her experience with “gender injustice” during her journey to motherhood.
She also has teamed up with apparel company Athleta and the Women’s Sports Foundation to launch The Power of She Fund: Child Care Grants, which help cover child care costs for professional mom-athletes traveling to competitions.
Taylor Swift fans know all too well that she loves a good riddle. So it was no surprise that the singer chose a word scramble to clue her fans into what to expect from Red (Taylor’s Version), the re-recording of her 2012 album, Red. It’s also no surprise that Swifties cracked the code in no time.
On Thursday, Swift shared a short video teaser that showed several jumbled words emerging from a burgundy vault.
“*presses post* *cackles maniacally*,” the 31-year-old “willow” singer captioned the post. “Level: casually cruel in the name of being honest.”
What the scrambled letters revealed were 10 track titles and the names of the three artists — Ed Sheeran, Phoebe Bridgers and Chris Stapleton — who will be featured on the album.
Here are the bonus track titles that fans decoded:
“Ronan”
“Better Man”
“Nothing New,” featuring Phoebe Bridgers
“Babe”
“Message in a Bottle”
“I Bet You Think About Me,” featuring Chris Stapleton
“Forever Winter”
“Run,” featuring Ed Sheeran
“The Very First Night”
“All Too Well” 10-minute version
Jennifer Anistontook to Instagram Stories to defend herself against fans who took issue with her recent interview comments that she cut off “a few people” in her life who “refused or did not disclose” that they’d gotten the COVID-19 vaccine.
One fan opined of Aniston, “But if [she’s] vaccinated she’s protected correct? Why be worried about [having unvaccinated people] around her?”
Showing a picture of herself wearing a mask apparently in her home, Aniston replied Thursday, “Because if you have the [Delta] variant, you are still able to give it to me I may get slightly sick but I will not be admitted to a hospital and or die. BUT I CAN give it to someone who does not have the vaccine and whose health is compromised (or has a previous existing condition) — and therefore I would put their lives at risk.”
She added, “THAT is why I worry. We have to care about more than just ourselves.”
The 52-year-old former Friends star then displayed a picture of a cross stitch embroidery that read, “What doesn’t kill you mutates and tries again.”
