Arlo Parks has shared a cover of KAYTRANADA’s ‘You’re the One’. It’s part of a special edition of the Spotify Singles series celebrating the Best New Artist category at the 2022 Grammys, which take place on Sunday, April 3. It comes alongside a new rendition of her latest single ‘Softly’. Both tracks were recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Take a listen below.
“Why it was such a joy to record my Spotify Singles session in the studio, I felt somehow part of the legend,” Parks said in a press release. “Syd’s voice in ‘You’re the One’ always had this effortless beauty to it in my eyes and I wanted to cover it to expose the romance and yearning behind the lyrics. It was an honour to be able to sing my new song ‘Softly’ too, to highlight the beginning of a new and beautiful chapter in my career and celebrate being nominated for Best New Artist.”
Earlier this month, Finneas covered Bon Iver’s ‘Flume’ as part of the Spotify Singles x BNA series.
Throughout the week, we update our Best New Songs playlist with the new releases that caught our attention the most, be it a single leading up to the release of an album or a newly unveiled deep cut. And each Monday, we round up the best new songs released over the past week (the eligibility period begins on Monday and ends Sunday night) in this best new music segment.
On this week’s list, we have Soccer Mommy’s new single ‘Shotgun’, which is at once intoxicating and vulnerable, exploding into soaring choruses without quite disguising its melancholy; Jane Inc.’s hooky, propulsive new track ’2120’; ‘Skinty Fia’, the ominous, mutating title traxk from Fontaines D.C.’s upcoming LP; Let’s Eat Grandma’s irresistibly euphoric latest single ‘Levitation’; ‘Lost’, the strikingly epic first offering from Zola Jesus’ next album; ‘Jealous’, an emotional highlight from Camp Cope’s just-released third album; ‘Warm Chris’, the enchantingly intimate title track from Aldous Harding’s new LP; and ‘Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?)’, the pummelling, furiously chaotic opener to Soul Glo’s landmark new record.
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Questlove’s film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, won the Oscar for Best Original Documentary at the 94th Academy Awards. Its competitors included Attica, Flee, and Writing With Fire.
“This is such a stunning moment for me right now,” Questlove said. “But this is not about me. It’s about marginalized people in Harlem that needed to heal from pain. Just know that in 2022, this is not just a 1969 story about marginalized people in Harlem.” He then took a pause, saying he was too overcome by emotion to continue speaking. Watch his acceptance speech below.
The award was presented to Questlove by Chris Rock, who had just been struck by Will Smith over a joke at Jada Pinkett Smith’s expense.
Summer of Soul is also up for Best Music Film at this week’s Grammy Awards.
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.
