There’s no simpler medicine for mundane blues other than seeing a cute pooch. Feeling bummed out? Just go for a walk and look at all the beautiful local doggos on your block. They’re so cute and ignorant to the vast horridness of this modern world. How nice! Now, Knottingham’s No Peeling have a short-and-sweet soundtrack for the moment you have to approach a stranger and cooly insist: “Can I Pet That Dog?”
“Worst song ever made.” Eight days ago, a guy in Seattle named Justin Boldaji tweeted those words along with video of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros performing “Home” in an NPR Tiny Desk concert. In the footage, Jade Castrinos (hair cropped short, wearing a T-shirt, her shoulders emphatically swaying) is locked into a loving gaze with Alex Ebert, whose appearance (long-haired, bearded, shirtless under a white suit jacket) was recently summed up by journalist Jeremy Gordon with the phrase “Father John Misty as a cult leader.” Most days, I feel like this song’s charms outweigh its hokey affectations, but both “Home” and this specific performance are shamelessly earnest in a way that might strike you as and cloying.
Over the last few years, there’s been a boom of interest in corridos tumbados, the genre that fuses regional Mexican music with American trap. That combination has led artists like Peso Pluma and Fuerza Regida to stardom, and it essentially started with Natanael Cano, a prolific 24-year-old artist from Sonora, Mexico. On Sunday, Cano had a very bad night.
Kaytranada, a giant in the dance world, released the guest-heavy Timeless, his most recent album, a little more than a year ago. Since then, he’s dropped collaborations with Justine Skye and FLO. This fall, he’ll head out on a huge North American tour with fellow dance stars Justice. Now, Kaytranada announces that he’ll have a new album out long before the tour kicks off. We won’t have to wait very long for Ain’t No Damn Way, the next Kaytranada LP. It’s coming out on Friday.
A few hours ago, it became clear something was afoot. After a mysterious teaser Monday morning had fans speculating about the arrival of a new orange-colored album, Taylor Swift confirmed she would appear this Wednesday on New Heights, the podcast hosted by her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce, and his older brother, fellow Super Bowl champion Jason Kelce. Meanwhile, a countdown appeared on Swift’s website, set to expire at 12:12 a.m. ET today, Aug. 12.
In 1986, Carly Simon released the song “Coming Around Again” for the film Heartburn. Now, Alanis Morissette has covered the hit for the new film My Mother’s Wedding, and it features the original vocalist on backing vocals.
Finally, former influencer Alex Warren’s breakthrough hit “Ordinary” has been bumped from its #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Taking its place is “Golden” by HUNTR/X, the fictional girl group from Netflix’s animated musical KPop Demon Hunters that came out in June. According to Billboard, it’s the first Hot 100 chart-topper by any act with a fictional background since “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from Disney’s 2021 animated musical Encanto.
Last week, the Colombian star Maluma was performing at Mexico City’s Palacio De Los Deportes when he noticed that someone in the crowd had a one-year-old child without hearing protection. That’s generally a bad idea. Even without the huge noise level of a live show, a concert environment can be an overwhelming sensory experience for a little kid. Maluma paused his live show to chastise the people who brought the little kid to his show.
In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.
No, seriously, how long must we sing this song? For a band who’s made one of the most beloved protest songs out there, U2’s stance on Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people tends to take a frustrating both-sides approach. Frontman Bono, for example, has spent the past three years advocating for Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion, but he has a hard time condemning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without first criticizing Hamas. Now that Netanyahu has voiced his intentions to seize control of Gaza as he simultaneously subjects its people to full-fledged starvation, we’ve seen some previously-quiet celebrities and public figures finally speak out in support of a free Palestine. Today, U2 have shared an updated message about their stance.