Billie Eilish and Finneas performed their James Bond theme song ‘No Time to Die’ at the 2022 Oscars last night. The performance was introduced by Rami Malek, who plays the villain in the latest Bond film. Watch it below.
‘No Time to Die’ won Best Original Song at last night’s ceremony. It beat out Beyonce’s King Richard song ‘Be Alive’, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Encanto track ‘Dos Oruguitas’, Van Morrison’s Belfast song ‘Down to Joy’, and Diane Warren’s ‘Somehow You Do’ from Four Good Days. In her acceptance speech, Eilish thanked Johnny Marr for “taking our song and making it worthy of James Bond.”
‘No Time to Die’ previously won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written For Visual Media as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.
Megan Thee Stallion, Luis Fonsi, and Becky G joined the Encanto cast for the first-ever live performance of the film’s breakout hit ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ at the 94th Academy Awards last night. The song was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who was absent from the ceremony after his wife tested positive for COVID-19. Watch it below.
‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ wasn’t nominated for Best Original Song last night, but another Encanto track, ‘Dos Oruguitas’, was. Billie Eilish and Finneas’ James Bond song ‘No Time to Die’ ultimately won. Encanto took home the award for Best Animated Feature Film.
Earlier this year, ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ became the second Disney song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, spending five weeks at the top of the chart.
Beyoncé opened the Oscars ceremony last night. She delivered a remote performance of ‘Be Alive’, her original song from the film King Richard, from the Compton tennis courts where Venus and Serena Williams once practiced. Venus and Serena introduced the performance, which featured dozens of young dancers, including Beyoncé’s daughter Blue Ivy. Watch it below.
‘Be Alive’ was nominated for Best Original Song, marking Beyoncé’s first Oscar nomination; Billie Eilish’s James Bond theme ‘No Time to Die’ ended up winning. This was Beyoncé’s fourth performance at the Academy Awards, following her 2009 appearance as part of a musical medley with host Hugh Jackman. Her last public performance was at Kobe and Gianna Bryant’s 2020 memorial.
Hans Zimmer took home the award for Best Original Score at the 2022 Oscars last night. His work on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune remake beat out a field that included Nicholas Britell for Don’t Look Up, Germaine Franco for Encanto, Alberto Iglesias for Parallel Mothers, and Jonny Greenwood for The Power of the Dog. Zimmer was not in attendance at the ceremony this year due to being on a concert tour in Europe. Upon receiving the news, Zimmer posted a photo of himself in a hotel bathrobe holding the award, writing, “It’s 2am in Amsterdam, and my daughter Zoë woke me up to go to the hotel bar. Wow!! #Oscars.”
This marks Zimmer’s second Academy Award win; he won Best Original Score for The Lion King back at in 1995. He has 10 other nominations for his work on films including Gladiator, Rain Man, As Good as It Gets, Dunkirk, Inception, and more.
In addition to Best Original Score, Dune won for Best Visual Effects, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Achievement in Sound, and Best Film Editing.
Maren Morris was the musical guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night (March 25), delivering a performance of her recent single ‘Circles Around This Town’. The Nashville songwriter also sat down for an interview, where she talked about having a child during the pandemic. Watch clips from the appearance below.
‘Circles Around This Town’ is taken from Maren Morris’ new album Humble Quest, which came out yesterday. The LP also includes the promotional singles ‘Nervous’ and ‘Background Music’.
Alivenique has shared a new song, ‘Vanguards’, the latest track from her forthcoming album Year of the Statement. Listen to it below.
“The idea of the mythological wolf calls during the intro and chorus was inspired by both my time spent in nature and as a student of wilderness survival, where I would literally spend hours daily in nature observing animal patterns and ecology as well as the incredibly inspired and poetic book by Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype,” Ali Beletic explained in a statement. “If you don’t know her work, she is a really fascinating author and scholar, a Mestiza Latina author who was raised in now nearly vanished oral and ethnic traditions. In the honor of these two inspirations, a portion of the proceeds of this song will be donated to both protecting the wolves and indigenous women’s causes.”
Year of the Statement is due for release on September 22 via Lightning Studios. So far, Alivenique has previewed it with the single ‘Rain’ and the title track.
Taylor Hawkins, the longtime drummer for Foo Fighters, has died. The band were on tour in South America at the time of Hawkins’ death and were scheduled to perform at Festival Estéreo Picnic in Bogotá, Colombia. No cause of death has been revealed. Hawkins was 50 years old.
“The Foo Fighters family is devastated by the tragic and untimely loss of our beloved Taylor Hawkins,” a statement from the band reads. “His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live with us forever. Our hearts go out to his wife, children, and family, and we ask that their privacy be treated with the utmost respect in this unimaginably difficult time.”
Born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1972, Hawkins relocated to Laguna Beach, California with his family four years later. He got his start in music in the mid-1990s, playing drums for the band Sylvia and the rock singer Sass Jordan before becoming the touring drummer for Alanis Morissette from 1995-1997 during her tour supporting Jagged Little Pill.
Hawkins joined Foo Fighters at Dave Grohl’s request in 1997, following the departure of original drummer William Goldsmith during the recording sessions for the album The Colour and the Shape. Grohl had contacted Hawkins seeking recommendations for a new drummer, under the impression that he would not leave Morissette’s band, but was surprised when Hawkins volunteered to join the band himself. “I think it had more to do with our personal relationship than anything musical,” Grohl said in a recent interview with 95.5 KLOS. “And to be honest, it still does. Our musical relationship, the foundation of that is our friendship, and that’s why when we jump on stage and play, we’re so connected because we’re like best friends.”
In his 2021 autobiography, The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, Grohl referred to Hawkins as his “best friend and partner in crime,” writing: “During his stint as Alanis Morissette’s drummer, long before he became a Foo Fighter, we would bump into each other backstage at festivals all over the world, and our chemistry was so obvious that even Alanis herself once asked him, ‘What are you going to do when Dave asks you to be his drummer?’ Part Beavis and Butthead, part Dumb and Dumber, we were a hyperactive blur of Parliament Lights and air drumming wherever we went.”
In addition to playing drums on every Foo Fighters album starting with 1999’s There Is Nothing Left to Lose, Hawkins occasionally provided vocals, guitar, and piano. He sang lead on ‘Cold Day in the Sun’, a single from 2005’s In Your Honour, and ‘Sunday Rain’, from 2017’s Concrete and Gold. He also co-starred with his bandmates in the Foo Fighters’ horror-comedy film, Studio 666, which came out last month.
During his time with Foo Fighters, Hawkins played in various side projects, including Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders, Chevy Metal, and the Birds of Satan. More recently, he teamed up with Jane’s Addiction members Dave Navarro and Chris Chaney for the supergroup NHC, which formed during pandemic jam sessions at Hawkins’ home studio in Los Angeles and released an EP last month.
As a member of Foo Fighters, Hawkins was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Paul McCartney last year. Earlier this week, the band was announced as one of the performers for the April 3 Grammy Awards.
Hawkins is survived by his wife, Alison Hawkins, and their three children, Oliver, Annabelle, and Everleigh.
Cassandra Jenkins and Wednesday have shared new songs as part of the ongoing celebration surrounding Secretly Canadian’s 25th anniversary. Listen to Jenkins’ ‘Pygmalion’ and Wednesday’s ‘Feast of Snakes’ below.
Jenkins recorded ‘Pygmalion’ at Abbey Road, with backing from members of the Scottish band Lylo. “The lyrics in this song revisit the story of Pygmalion, the Greek mythological figure who, scornful towards women, falls in love with an ivory statue of his own making,” Jenkins explained in a statement. “When the sculpture comes to life, they live happily ever after. Through today’s lens, we might view this as a tale of an incel who falls for his ivory sex doll, and one that lacks any trace of the female voice. I wanted to give the statue a chance to speak, and to address Pygmalion directly as he begins to carve her likeness according to his vision.”
She continued: “The result is short & bittersweet, expressing part menace, sarcasm, and exhaustion, and part lucidity. I wrote it in a moment when I was frustrated by a relationship, and recorded it while I was on tour (at Abbey Road Studios). I was thinking about how easy it is to box each other into molds, and to impose our solipsistic ideals upon other people, only to be disappointed when they exhibit their true character. In that equation, everyone misses out, and there’s so much more to be gained from burning down ancient ideals. This song aims to strike the match.”
Elaborating on ‘Feast of Snakes’, Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman explained:
I 100% ripped off the chords for this song from Jason Molina’s ‘Almost Was Good Enough’. When I wrote it I had just finished reading his biography Riding With The Ghost which has a ton of information about Molina’s music and by extension the beginnings of Secretly. I thought channeling his music for our contribution to SC25 would be fitting!
The lyrics are inspired by Harry Crews’ novel Feast Of Snakes. So much of the darkness in that book is reminiscent of Molina lyrics. We wanted to keep the instrumentation pretty sparse and scary so it’s just me on vocals and guitar and Xandy [Chelmis] on steel and banjo.
Cassandra Jenkins and Wednesday both released their sophomore albums last year: An Overview of Phenomenal Nature and Twin Plagues, respectively. More recently, Wednesday issued the covers collection Mowing the Leaves Instead of Piling ‘Em Up.
The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn has announced a new solo album titled A LEGACY OF RENTALS. The follow-up to 2020’s All These Perfect Crosses is set for release on May 20 via Positive Jams/Thirty Tigers. Along with the announcement, Finn has shared a new song called ‘Messing With the Settings’. Check it out and find a trailer for the album below.
A LEGACY OF RENTALS was produced by Finn’s longtime collaborator Josh Kaufman and engineered by D. James Goodwin. “The title A LEGACY OF RENTALS acknowledges that we can never completely hold any of our possessions, and that our bodies are merely a temporary residence for our souls,” Finn explained in a statement. “All moments are fleeting. After the destruction of the past few years, I believe that there is joy in each and every living action, however mundane — walking to the kitchen, missing a train, spilling coffee, cleaning it up, meeting a friend for a meal. We all want to be remembered. We all want our time here to be consequential. In taking these daily actions, we engage in hope, and we guarantee our unique place in history.”
Speaking about ‘Messing With the Settings’, he added: “Memory is a major theme through A LEGACY OF RENTALS, and I wanted the first song on the record to open on that note. This song is literally a eulogy. It’s delivered by someone who has lost touch with the recently deceased but still finds them important. Musically, it really explores the line between talking and singing, which was something we leaned into on this record. We wanted to make this song an incantation of sorts. It also features the beautiful 14-piece string section that played on a lot of these songs. I wanted to it have a cinematic feel, like Gone With The Wind or something like that.”
The Hold Steady’s most recent album, Open Door Policy, came out last year.
LEGACY OF RENTALS Cover Artwork:
LEGACY OF RENTALS Tracklist:
1. Messing With The Settings
2. The Amarillo Kid
3. Birthdays
4. The Year We Fell Behind
5. Due To Depart
6. Curtis & Shepard
7. Never Any Horses
8. Jessamine
9. A Break From The Barrage
10. This Is What It Looks Like
Atlanta rapper Latto’s new album 777 has dropped today (via RCA). The LP includes a new collaboration with Lil Wayne and Childish Gambino called ‘Sunshine’. Check it out below.
777 is the follow-up to Latto’s 2020 debut Queen of da Souf. Ahead of the album’s release, she shared the singles ‘Big Energy’, ‘Soufside’, and ‘Wheelie’. In addition to Lil Wayne and Childish Gambino, the record features guest appearances from 21 Savage, Lil Durk, Nardo Wick, and Kodak Black.
