After dissing Pete Davidson in a song in January, Kanye West has once again taken aim at the “Saturday Night Live” star, who’s dating his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian. On West’s newly released “City of Gods,” a collaboration with Fivio Foreign and Alicia Keys, he raps, “This afternoon, a hundred goons pullin’ up to ‘SNL’ /
Music
Hugh Jackman dazzles as Professor Harold Hill, the charismatic con man who fires up an entire Midwestern town, in this abso-tootin’-lutely smashing revival of Meredith Willson’s adorably corny 1957 musical “The Music Man.” Tired of COVID and lockdowns and dining in street gutters? Yearning for the pre-pandemic days when masks were something you only wore
Thirty years since her debut album asked the question “What’s the 411?,” and mere days before appearing as the (lone) female in the Super Bowl LVI halftime show, Mary J. Blige proves that the shine on her crown as the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul goes untarnished. Her reign is undiminished and even furthered, as there’s
A rare acetate of the Beatles’ 1964 concert at the Hollywood Bowl sold for $23,838 in an auction held by Boston-based firm RR Auction. The disc, one of just three known to exist, features the full 12-song, 29-minute concert, along with stage comments from the group. According to the announcement, the acetate was cut directly
As omicron begins to fade, and Americans shake off the coronavirus winter blues, advertisers are returning to the Super Bowl with big, bold campaigns. This year’s soundtrack veers from 2021’s tonal themes — muted, soulful or comforting — offering uplifting, and even humorous, usages. For this weekend’s Super Bowl LVI, some advertisers chose iconic songs
Adele addressed the abrupt postponement of her Las Vegas residency and revealed that she plans to have a child with partner Rich Paul in a pre-recorded interview on Britain’s “Graham Norton Show” that aired Friday in the U.K. and is slated to run on BBC America next week. “I tried my hardest and really thought
Motown founder Berry Gordy had a galaxy of star executives helping him build the company into the powerhouse it became, but not many of them shone as brightly as Suzanne de Passe. Joining the company relatively late in its heyday, de Passe moved from her native Harlem to Detroit in 1968 and soon convinced a
Rani Hancock, the recently appointed executive vice president and head of Columbia Records’ A&R department, took a bold and uncommon course into the music industry — uncommon for a woman, anyway. She studied to become a recording engineer at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. “I’d started out trying to be a musician but realized
Ten years ago today, the world lost Whitney Houston. She was 48 years old and on the precipice of a long-awaited comeback that was tragically cut short the night before the 2012 Grammy Awards. But she’s far from forgotten, thanks to the work of Houston’s estate and its partners at Primary Wave Entertainment, who continue
Jenna Raine, who went viral on TikTok in 2021 with wide-eyed ballad “See You Later (Ten Years),” has inked a deal with Warner Records and signed on with SB Projects. The 17-year-old’s major-label debut EP, also called “See You Later,” arrives today. It includes a new version of the titular hit featuring JVKE and an
Ian McDonald, a multi-instrumentalist who was part of the founding lineups of the art-rock group King Crimson in the late 1960s and the more commercial Foreigner in the mid-’70s, died Wednesday at age 75. No cause of death was immediately given but a spokesperson said he “passed away peacefully” surrounded by family at his home
Taylor Swift has been generous lately about jumping on as a featured artist for duet versions of some of her BFFs’ existing tracks. She did it last year by joining a remix of Haim’s “Gasoline,” and she’s doing it now, in a higher-profile way, by lending not just her voice but some new lyrics to
UPDATED: Kanye West took to Instagram on Thursday to call out Billie Eilish for comments she made at a recent show about concert safety, which West apparently perceived were targeted at rapper and Astroworld Festival founder Travis Scott. Despite Eilish never having mentioned Scott, West posted on Instagram a screenshot from hip-hop account @RapSeaTV that
John Mayer briefly paused his concert mid-song Wednesday at the Hollywood Palladium, his first since the beginning of the pandemic, to call for medical assistance after noticing a fan who appeared to be unconscious. “Stop for a second,” Mayer told his band halfway through a performance of his song “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.”
Nominees for the 12th annual Guild of Music Supervisors (GMS) Awards have been revealed, recognizing the craft of music supervision in film, television, games, advertising and trailers. Among the film nominees for the 2022 edition of the GMS Awards are “Encanto,” “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” and “Being the Ricardos,” each of which also scored
Nearly 50 years after his passing, 2022 Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Lefty Frizzell remains one of the indisputable pillars of country music. His influence on another country music giant, the late Merle Haggard, is both profound and clear to anyone with ears. Haggard’s vocal style developed in the 1950s when Frizzell’s impact
Wayne Bell’s score for Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is in a word unsettling. Bell and Hooper worked together to conjure up aural elements that mix creepy sound effects with a synth-heavy staccato married with a keyboard that brings the chainsaw to life. For Leatherface’s 2022 reboot, Colin Stetson came on board
The maxim “everything’s bigger in Texas” most definitely applies when it comes to having an outsized per capita concentration of brilliant songwriters. So, it’s almost surprising to realize that it took until 2005 for a Texas Heritage Songwriters Association to be formed, for the purpose of finally founding a Hall of Fame. One key figure
The nominations for the 2022 Academy of Country Music Awards hold plenty of surprises, including having Chris Young, a performer who has not previously dominated the field, as the frontrunner in this year’s crop. Young, who has never won an ACM Award before, despite picking up nominations going back to 2007 (and who has also
As long expected, Universal Music Publishing has acquired 17-time Grammy Award winner Sting’s career catalog of music. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but in recent months the artist was said to be seeking around $350 million. Sting joins Bob Dylan, whose catalog was acquired by UMPG for close to $400 million in late
Singer-songwriter-producer Betty Davis, an icon of future-funk, fashion and bold sexuality in the 1970s, died Wednesday at age 76 in her longtime home of Homestead, Pennsylvania. Davis, who was once married to and collaborated with jazz legend Miles Davis, died of natural causes, Allegheny County communications director Amie Downs told Rolling Stone. The singer was
Rapper-entrepreneur Snoop Dogg, who rose to fame during the 1990s on Death Row Records, has acquired the label’s brand from MNRK Music Group, which is controlled by private equity funds managed by the investment firm Blackstone, the firm announced on Wednesday. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, however, a source close to the situation
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Beyonce’s newest Ivy Park drop with Adidas is finally here, just in time for Valentine’s Day. The love-themed collection named “Ivy Heart” features dozens of trendy silhouettes, all in red and pink colorways and
As the Prince estate moves forward after years of confusion following the singer’s 2016 death, the six heirs are divided into two camps: the three siblings who sold their interests to Primary Wave, and the three who have retained their holdings. With the value of the estate recently determined at $156.4 million, the two parties
With the Super Bowl taking place in Los Angeles for the first time in over 30 years, celebrities, NFL stars and musical acts will be descending onto the city for a week of parties, concerts, galas and private VIP events. But one can’t forget omicron. While the 2022 Super Bowl weekend once seemed like something
Kevin Liles is a name that people in the music industry have been hearing for more than 30 years, for an impressive variety of reasons. He was a top executive at Def Jam and Warner Music, he managed Mariah Carey, D’Angelo and Trey Songz, and he was even a recording artist who had one of
Welcome to this week’s “Just for Variety.” Add Hannah Waddingham to the list of actors who would love to be in a superhero movie. “Why do you think I’ve done sci-fi things in the past?” says the “Ted Lasso” star, whose credits include the television adaptation of “12 Monkeys” and “Krypton,” a Syfy series about
Veteran rapper Talib Kweli and roots-ish rock band Dawes are set to headline the inaugural Pure Imagination festival, to be held in the geological wonderland of the Granite Dells at Watson Lake in Prescott, Arizona on Saturday, May 21. The lineup also features three-time Grammy-winning blues artist Fantastic Negrito, Rising Appalachia, Atlas Genius, Katie Pruitt,
Motown Records and Google have announced a partnership in pursuit of elevating women of color within the music industry. The Motown Records Creator Program Supported by Google will find and fund the next outstanding woman content creator, videographer, or creative producer/director and offer an opportunity to collaborate with Motown Records’ executives and its roster of
Harry Styles’ success as an arena headliner was celebrated with an award for major tour of the year Tuesday night at the Pollstar Awards, held annually to honor the tours, festivals, venues, promoters, agents, managers, talent buyers and others judged to have achieved the greatest success in the live music sphere in the past year.