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Yahoo Entertainment
The It List: Shark Week kicks off with Mike Tyson fighting a Great White, Luke Bryan drops new album, Seth Rogen teams with Seth Rogen in 'American Pickle' and the best in pop culture the week of Aug. 3, 2020
During the coronavirus pandemic, when most of us are staying at home, we’re going to spotlight products that you can enjoy from your couch, whether solo or in small groups, and leave out the rest. With that in mind, here are our picks for Aug. 3-9, including the best deals we could find for each.
Yahoo Music
'Pee-wee's Big Adventure' composer Danny Elfman assumed he'd never work in Hollywood again: 'I thought the score would get thrown out'
Thirty-five years ago marked the beginning of one of the most creative musical partnerships in cinema, but Elfman never thought he’d have a career in music at all.
Variety
Brandy Is Back With ‘B7,’ Her First Album in Eight Years
After an eight-year hiatus, Brandy has returned to music with her seventh album "B7," which released July 31 via her record label Brand Nu and eOne Urban. The 15-track album is co-written and co-produced by Brandy and includes collaborations with Chance the Rapper, Daniel Caesar and her daughter, Sy'rai. After a five-year legal battle with […]
Variety
Toni Braxton to Release Tenth Album, ‘Spell My Name,’ in August
Toni Braxton is set to release her tenth studio album, “Spell My Name,” on August 28 through Island, a Universal Music Group label. The album’s new single, “Dance,” is a feel-good disco stomper and follows on the heels of “Do It,” co-written with longtime collaborator Babyface, which was the most added song at adult R&B […]
Rolling Stone
Beyoncé Drops Vibrant ‘Already’ Video Ahead of ‘Black Is King’ Visual Album
Song featuring Major Lazer and Shatta Wale appears on The Lion King: the Gift
Pitchfork
Watch Alanis Morissette Perform “Ablaze” on Fallon
Morissette was joined by her daughter during the remote episode of The Tonight Show
Rolling Stone
Billie Eilish Drops ‘My Future’ in Time for Finneas’s Birthday
Grammy-winning artist's new single is her first quarantine release
USA TODAY Entertainment
Post Malone talks UFOs, mushrooms and wearing masks on Joe Rogan podcast
What happens when you mix Post Malone and psychedelic mushrooms? A nearly four-hour long podcast episode of the "Joe Rogan Experience."
The Daily Beast
Taylor Swift Remains Silent as Fans Doxx and Harass Music Critic Over ‘Folkore’ Review
The calls started around 2 in the morning—an hour after Pitchfork senior editor Jillian Mapes’ review of Taylor Swift’s eighth album, Folklore, posted on the site. It was a largely positive review. But it was not positive enough for a certain subset of fans, who began to use some of the internet’s dirtiest and most dangerous tactics to harass the writer who’d dared to scorn their queen with insufficient praise.Mapes’ even-handed review deftly and artfully expressed Folklore’s strengths and weaknesses—and given Pitchfork’s historical skepticism toward popular artists, the piece might as well have been a rave. But certain lines didn’t sit well with Swift’s most rabid fans. And perhaps more importantly, the 8.0 numerical score that accompanied Mapes’ review—a metric determined not by the reviewer, but from multiple staffers’ ratings—threatened to drag down the album’s aggregated Metacritic score. That, apparently, was an intolerable insult.Various tweets, some of which have now been deleted or removed and some of which still remain, included Mapes’ address and phone numbers old and current. Some have included photos of Mapes and even her home. Users have “joked” about burning her house. Others have posted screenshots of a Halsey tweet responding to a bad review earlier this year—in which the singer wrote, “can the basement that they run p*tchfork out of just collapse already.” Halsey deleted the tweet at the time after realizing that Pitchfork is, in fact, run out of One World Trade Center.Swift’s representative did not respond to multiple requests for comment.No, Tom Hanks Did Not Flee to Greece to Avoid Pedophilia Charges, You SickosTaylor Swift, The Chicks, and Music’s Fierce Women Deliver the Soundtrack to Our Lockdown-Era MadnessDespite these fans’ insistence that their concern is the fairness and quality of the reviews Folklore receives, they really appear fixated on the album’s Metacritic score. Specifically, many lamented the possibility that Folklore could drop below a 90. At the time of writing, the album’s Metascore is an 89.Music stans have begun using elaborate methods to boost new releases from their favorite artists in recent years. They coordinate streaming parties and create hours-long playlists and pool money to buy as many fans digital copies of new releases as possible. All of this aims to boost albums’ and songs’ chart positions by getting as many people listening for as many hours as possible, on as many platforms as possible.But in targeting a journalist like this, some fans have taken things to a dangerous extreme. And perhaps more importantly, this is not the first time that Swift’s most zealous fans have used doxxing and death threats to punish people they feel have wronged her.Last fall, after Swift urged her followers to “let Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun know how you feel” about their efforts to keep her from using and performing old hits, her fans doxxed both men.Swift’s request might have seemed reasonable to some at the time, given the rights issues at hand. But doxxing is more than an innocent prank, and both Instagram and Twitter have policies prohibiting the practice. Once a person’s private information has been distributed, it’s impossible to make it private again—and given the potentially lethal ways it can be used, that’s a harrowing prospect.On another occasion last summer, furious Swifties also sent death threats and racial slurs to comedians Desus and Mero for “body-shaming” Swift with a joke about the singer having a “very long back.”As Mero told The Daily Beast’s Matt Wilstein, “The FBI called my house. Well actually, they called my local precinct... Somebody had sent me a message saying, ‘I know you have four kids and I know where they go to school.’ And I screen-grabbed it and I was like, ‘I wish you would, motherfucker! Come to my house, I got a rusty machete waiting for you.’”Swift does not appear to have commented on these incidents, either.Musicians have faced backlash in recent years for attacking critics they felt had done them wrong. Last year, Lana Del Rey and Lizzo both drew ire when they attacked critics over reviews they didn’t like. But this case stands out both because the fans themselves are behind the attacks and, most confusingly, did so over a largely positive review.Despite the real and genuinely frightening harassment Mapes has received—including, as she noted in a series of tweets posted Tuesday, repeated phone calls and physical threats—these fans have largely laughed at articles and social media users calling them out for their behavior. As one fan put it, “our impact is unmeasurable it’s so funny pls.”“tell me people don’t actually take ‘threats’ from swifties seriously- half of us are depressed and the other half are dumb do y’all really think we’re gonna hurt you in any way,” another account wrote.But when threats come from faceless Twitter accounts, and are accompanied by real harassment, it’s hard to know how any writer is supposed to determine what is and is not a legitimate threat. Especially as newsroom shootings and threats of violence against journalists become the norm, making light of threatening to burn down a writer’s home is a callous, juvenile “joke” at best.In this context, Swift’s continued silence essentially becomes tacit permission for her fans to continue harassing anyone they please. It’s perhaps not the best look for a pop star who once had a hit all about overcoming bullying—and who last year wrote about fearing for her safety after her personal information was repeatedly shared online.In a tweet posted Tuesday, Mapes wrote that she’s received “more Twitter threats to roll up and harm me than I could stomach to go through.”“I’ve gotten too many emails saying some version of, ‘you are an ugly fat bitch who is clearly jealous of Taylor, plz die,’” Mapes wrote in a thread, “which is not the first time I’ve heard that from pop stans...It sucks to be scared of every person milling about outside or feel like you can’t answer the phone. That said, I am safe and doing fine.”Mapes wrote that her posts were not meant to deride “the Swiftie hive,” but to clarify what had actually happened to prevent misinformation from spreading. (Mapes declined to comment for this story, but provided The Daily Beast permission to quote her tweets as her account remains private.) And indeed, it’s worth noting that Swift fans themselves have, in many cases, joined in urging their fellow fans against spreading misinformation and apologized on behalf of the broader fandom.It’s understandable that longtime Swift fans might be a little sensitive about how their favorite artist is perceived and ranked compared to other artists. For a long time, she and her music could often be dismissed as teenage fluff for screaming tweens. In some arenas, that stereotype prevails.But pop has since risen to astronomical influence since Swift’s earlier years, and garnered more serious consideration than in years past. And especially since 1989, netting her a second Album of the Year Grammy, critics have taken Swift seriously as an artist and lyricist. The fact that Pitchfork, which once made a habit of ignoring pop artists altogether, even bothered to review Folklore—and then gave the album a solid 8.0—expresses that fact better than perhaps anything. So in the words of Swift herself: Anyone throwing temper tantrums on her behalf needs to calm down.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
Yahoo Music
The Go-Go's talk partying past, Hall of Fame snub, and 'emotional' documentary: 'You can't deny what we've done'
"We were the first of our kind. We put ourselves together. We wrote our own songs. We played our own instruments. We came from absolutely nothing. We came out of the garage. We had 100 percent artistic control."
Pitchfork
The Killers Investigating Sexual Misconduct Claim Against Touring Crew
The band says it’s taking allegations that touring crew members behaved inappropriately on a 2009 tour “extremely seriously”
Rolling Stone
The Roots Rapper Malik B. Dead at 47
"May he be remembered for his devotion to Islam, his loving brotherhood, and his innovation as one of the most gifted MCs of all time," Questlove and Black Thought say
Yahoo Celebrity
Sam Hunt explains DUI arrest, says alcohol is 'a cheap trick in country music'
Country music star Sam Hunt talked about his 2019 arrest in a new interview with HITS Daily Double.
SPIN
Neil Young Rips Trump in New Version of ‘Lookin’ for a Leader’
Neil Young hasn't held back from unleashing his anger on President Donald Trump in recent weeks. First, there were tweets, then several letters, and now, an updated version of a fiery song. The Godfather of Grunge released a new version of "Lookin' for a Leader," a track that, in its original form, appeared…
Yahoo Music
Simon Cowell stunned by twin act's 'bonkers' Bieber cover on 'AGT': 'I actually liked it!'
Simon red-X'd this campy duo at their first audition, but this week, they seemed to win him over.
Variety
Emmy Music Nominations Include Dual Score/Song Nods for Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Labrinth; Nathan Barr Earns Three (See Complete List)
This year's Emmy nominees in the seven music categories include such familiar scoring names as Ludwig Göransson, Pinar Toprak, Nicholas Britell, Mark Isham and Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross as well as figures from the pop world like Pharrell Williams, Dawes' Taylor Goldsmith, Ingrid Michaelson, Sheila E and the RZA. Labrinth joined Reznor and Ross […]
Rolling Stone
Miss Mercy, Frank Zappa Muse and GTO Co-Founder, Dead at 71
Band was famously featured in Rolling Stone's “Special Super-Duper Neat Issue” in 1969
Yahoo Music
Richard Butler talks Psychedelic Furs’ comeback album, the real story of ‘Pretty in Pink,’ and how he got that voice
The Furs have triumphantly returned with their first album in 29 years, but frontman Butler admits that their cinematic success in the '80s was a "double-edged sword."
Engadget
Lollapalooza 2020 will be online with new and old performances
Perhaps also unsurprising is the fact that there will be a massive Lollapalooza livestream in its place. As reported by the Chicago Tribune, Lolla2020 will take place over the same four days as the original festival, Thursday July 30th through Sunday August 2nd, but it’ll all be streaming on YouTube. Past Lollapaloozas have also been livestreamed on YouTube, but this is naturally the first that has no in-person event at all.
Deadline
Lollapalooza Goes Virtual July 30-Aug. 2 On YouTube With Live Sets, Classic Headliners & Michelle Obama
The iconic Lollapalooza music festival is morphing into a free, four night YouTube broadcast from July 30-August 2 with live performances, headlining sets from previous fests and appearances by Michelle Obama and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot -- in conversations with festival co-founder and Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell and LL Cool J. The live music […]
Yahoo Entertainment
The It List: 'Sky High' turns 15, Beyoncé drops 'Black Is King,' Katie Holmes stars in 'The Secret: Dare to Dream' and the best in pop culture the week of July 27, 2020
During the coronavirus pandemic, when most of us are staying at home, we’re going to spotlight products that you can enjoy from your couch, whether solo or in small groups, and leave out the rest. With that in mind, here are our picks for July 27 - Aug. 2, including the best deals we could find for each.
Yahoo Music
The Chainsmokers called 'straight up irresponsible' after crowd packs in for charity concert
Saturday's “Safe & Sound Drive-In Fundraiser Concert” in Water Mill, N.Y., was advertised as a drive-in event, but photos showed large crowds of people standing in close proximity
Reuters
Japan fashion designer who outfitted David Bowie dies at 76
Japanese fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto, known for his flamboyant creations and work on costumes for singer David Bowie - especially "Ziggy Stardust" - has died of leukemia.
SPIN
Chuck D, Ice-T and More Send Well Wishes to Hospitalized Biz Markie
Biz Markie has reportedly been hospitalized due to complications from type 2 diabetes.
NBC News
Twitter 'walkout' planned after rapper's anti-Semitic tirade
"You choose to allow it on here. So we say: NoSafeSpaceForJewHate," said Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle.

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