We’ve already covered theAI tools for resume building. But that’s not the only thing job seekers have to take care of. They also need to prepare cover letters. Both go hand in hand. However, opinions and numbers on this are mixed. Some research shows that77% of hirers consider cover letters useful for learning more about applicants. Other LinkedIn analyses suggest that93% of employers don’t even bother to read them. But these conflicting claims are not a reason to treat your job application letters as an afterthought. That’s where AI tools for writing cover letters come in — they help you hit the balance.
Instead of writing the sentence that opens half the cover letters ever submitted, theseAI tools focus on proving you’re a real, thoughtful person. And what matters most is that they connect what a candidate has actually done with what an employer is asking for.
Let’s look at the top options that await you!
Top Five Best AI Tools for Writing Cover Letters
Cover Letter Copilot
Image Credit: Cover Letter Copilot
Cover Letter Copilot does exactly what its name suggests. It emphasizes creating personalized cover letters that work well with automated screening and hiring managers. Besides uploading a resume, users only need to specify the job title and company name and paste the job description. This lets Copilot tailor the output to the applicant’s actual experience and the target role. What deserves even more attention is the granular control it offers. Users can make adjustments through prompts and dropdown options.
Key Features:
Language, template, and tone customization
Crafting cover letters that match key job requirements
Keyword optimization and ATS-friendly formatting
Pricing:
Free Package
Active Seeker Package – $8 per month
Elite Navigator Package – $12 per month
Real Use Case:
Fresh graduates no longer have to sit through an afternoon building a cover letter from scratch. Cover Letter Copilot lets them upload a resume with internship experience and provide the job posting. It then uses the relevant experience to create a starting letter.
Kickresume
Kickresume comes with a reliable AI cover letter generator. Applicants can use it to write from scratch or enhance an existing one. This tool allows users to upload a resume and paste the job description. That means they’ll get a keyword-rich, well-structured cover letter aligned with the specific role. Kickresume helps job seekers stand out as the stronger fit for the position. What’s more? The seamless integration with its resume builder makes both documents look and read cohesive. Not pieced together from different tools.
Key Features:
Supports multiple languages
Functional cover letter templates to speed up the process
Customization options for every detail
Pricing:
Free Package
Monthly Package – $19 per month
Real Use Case:
Kickresume’s ability to deliver visual consistency can give graphic designers an edge. When applying to creative agencies, they can build both a resume and cover letter using matched template pairs.
Rezi
Image Credit: Rezi
Rezi, much like Kickresume, brings cover-letter writing into an ATS-focused career toolkit. With it, users can generate a compelling cover letter by uploading their resume. Adding job details, such as the company name and position, also helps. Together, they enable Rezi to pull experience and the target job’s keywords into a structured, ATS-aligned letter. Here’s where it gets more interesting: this tool uses industry-specific phrasing. On top of that, applicants have the option to make adjustments to the typography.
Key Features:
Autofill from resume feature to avoid a repetitive process
Extensive control over font size and spacing
Making a cover letter with keyword alignment
Pricing:
Free Package
Pro Package – $29 per month
Enterprise Package – $99 per month/200 users
Real Use Case:
Applicants in keyword-heavy roles can get over the hump with Rezi. They can use it to match their resume with a cover letter echoing the same terminology an ATS is scanning for. This way, both documents reinforce each other.
Resume.io
Resume.io combines guided document creation, templates, and AI assistance. So it’s safe to say the tool is for those who are fine with getting a bit hands-on during the process. Even so, approachability remains. Pick a template, add personal info, and fill in the sections. That’s basically the workflow. But the AI-powered sample sentences deserve even more attention. Quick suggestions that spark ideas. Not to mention the built-in spell-checker and customization options.
Key Features:
Keyword integration and template-based suggestions
Manual control for making adjustments to the template
Cover letter examples and expert guides
Pricing:
Free Trial
Premium Trial Package – $2.95 for 7 days
Paid Package – $49.95 per quarter
Real Use Case:
Non-native English speakers applying abroad can benefit from Resume.io’s AI phrasing suggestions. This helps in smoothing out sentences that read correctly but sound stiff or overly literal. One way to make cover letters fluent-sounding, not just technically correct.
Grammarly
Image Credit: Grammarly
Grammarly now has its own AI cover letter generator. It’s built on the same engine that many trust to handle grammar and tone across millions of inboxes and documents. And the process is very simple. Applicants upload their resume and enter the job title and responsibilities. Plus, even without specialized cover-letter features, it banks on users’ trust in its language-processing capabilities. That means job seekers still have access to its editing tools to help refine clarity, grammar, tone, and wording.
Key Features:
Text adjustments with only a few clicks
Writing clear, professional, and mistake-free cover letters
Natural-sounding first draft
Pricing:
Free Package
Plus Package – $30 per month
Enterprise Package – Custom Pricing
Real Use Case:
Mid-career professionals planning to switch industries can use Grammarly to draft a cover letter explaining the career transition. With its advanced language features, it can make the output more concise and confident. All without stripping away the personal story.
Choosing the Smartest AI Tools for Writing Cover Letters in 2026
Each tool is built for a different sticking point. So no single tool here is the “right” one. Cover Letter Copilot is the specialist. Kickresume combines AI writing with polished templates. Rezi connects the letter to an ATS-focused application strategy. Resume.io is the gentlest on-ramp for a first attempt. Grammarly generates a draft while catching tone issues the others miss.
When choosing, consider the factors that cause your struggles with cover letters. And whatever tool you use, keep the experiences, reasons, and personality unmistakably yours.
To get an overview of the applications that help applicants throughout the hiring process, check out our full guide on theAI tools for job seekers.
Vertical drama is developing a visual language of its own.
Designed to be watched on smartphones and structured around short, fast-moving episodes, the format asks audiences to enter a story almost immediately. Characters have little time to make an impression. Locations need to be understood at a glance. Changes in emotion, atmosphere, and dramatic stakes must register clearly within a narrow vertical frame.
Behind that immediacy is a considerable amount of visual decision-making.
At Crazy Maple Studio, Visual Development Artist Lin Jin has taken on leading creative responsibilities across a growing range of ReelShort productions, helping determine how characters, environments, moods, and narrative concepts are translated into visual worlds built specifically for mobile audiences.
Her work includes Positively Pregnancy, Love Cruise, The Neighbor They Should’ve Left Alone, Reborn to See the Football Stars Ruin Themselves, Sci-fi Show, Veronica, and Prince, Thief to Warrior King—projects that move across romance, contemporary drama, psychological storytelling, sports-related narratives, science fiction, revenge, and fantasy.
On several of these productions, Jin’s responsibilities extend across significant portions of the series. Her visual development work covers Episodes 16–50 of Positively Pregnancy, Episodes 28–50 of Love Cruise, Episodes 31–50 of The Neighbor They Should’ve Left Alone, and Episodes 1–30 of Veronica.
The extent of those responsibilities places her work well beyond the creation of isolated visual assets. Across these episode ranges, Jin helps establish and maintain the characters, environments, atmosphere, and visual direction through which the stories develop.
Her project slate also includes ReelShort productions reaching substantial audiences. Reborn to See the Football Stars Ruin Themselves has reached 38.3 million views, Prince, Thief to Warrior King has reached 5.6 million views, and Positively Pregnancy has reached 963.4 thousand views.
For Jin, those projects are part of a broader creative challenge: defining what effective visual storytelling looks like when drama moves from traditional screens into a vertical, mobile-first environment.
Designing for a Story That Moves Fast
Visual development has always occupied an important place in film and animation, but vertical drama changes the conditions under which those visual decisions are experienced.
A ReelShort viewer encounters a story through a narrow smartphone screen. Episodes are brief. Plot developments arrive quickly. Characters, relationships, and conflicts need to remain legible even as the narrative moves at considerable speed.
That means visual information has to work efficiently.
A character’s appearance needs to communicate personality and remain recognizable from episode to episode. Environments need to establish a place without requiring lengthy explanation. Changes in atmosphere must support the emotional rhythm of a scene. Across a serialized production, all of those elements need enough consistency to feel like parts of the same world.
Jin’s work begins within this set of challenges.
As a Visual Development Artist, she interprets narrative material and develops the characters, settings, moods, and visual concepts through which that material can be translated into production.
It is a role that combines artistic execution with narrative judgment.
Rather than asking only what an image should look like, visual development asks what that image needs to accomplish for the story: what audiences should understand about a character, what an environment should communicate, what emotional tone a scene requires, and how those choices can remain coherent as a series progresses.
For a format built around speed and immediate audience comprehension, those decisions become particularly consequential.
Visual development in vertical drama is not simply a layer of decoration added to a finished story. It is one of the systems through which the story becomes immediately readable on screen.
Taking Responsibility Across ReelShort Series
The scope of Jin’s work becomes clearer through the individual productions she has helped develop.
On Positively Pregnancy, she has been responsible for visual development across Episodes 16–50. The assignment places her creative work across a substantial portion of a series that has reached 963.4 thousand views on ReelShort.
Her responsibilities on Love Cruise span Episodes 28–50, while her work on The Neighbor They Should’ve Left Alone extends across Episodes 31–50.
On Veronica, Jin’s visual development responsibilities cover Episodes 1–30. Working across the opening stretch of a series carries particular visual importance: characters, environments, atmosphere, and the broader identity of the story all need to become recognizable as audiences are first introduced to its world.
Across these projects, the episode ranges also illustrate something important about Jin’s role.
Visual development carried across dozens of episodes requires more than producing a collection of individual images. Characters continue to develop. Locations change. New narrative situations appear. Emotional tone evolves. Yet the production still needs to retain a coherent visual identity.
Jin’s sustained involvement helps support that continuity.
It also requires her to move between markedly different genres.
The visual questions presented by romance are different from those presented by psychological drama. A sports-related narrative brings different expectations from science fiction, while fantasy can require the construction of an entire visual logic beyond familiar contemporary settings.
Jin’s work therefore changes with each production.
What remains consistent is the responsibility to identify the visual characteristics that make a story distinctive and translate them into a direction capable of supporting the larger production.
From Romance to Science Fiction, One Format With Many Worlds
The variety of Jin’s ReelShort projects reveals another challenge facing visual artists working in vertical entertainment: the format may remain consistent, but the worlds inside it cannot.
A platform built around serialized storytelling needs differentiation.
If characters, environments, and atmosphere become visually interchangeable from one series to the next, individual stories lose part of what allows audiences to recognize and remember them.
That makes genre adaptability an important part of Jin’s contribution.
Her work across romance, drama, sports-related storytelling, science fiction, revenge narratives, and fantasy requires different approaches to character development, setting, mood, and visual tone.
A contemporary romantic story may need an environment that feels immediate and emotionally accessible. A darker psychological narrative may rely more heavily on tension and atmosphere. Fantasy and science-fiction concepts may require visual development to establish spaces, objects, or environments that have no straightforward real-world equivalent.
The task is not to impose one visual style across every project.
It is to determine what each story needs and develop a visual identity capable of expressing it within the constraints of vertical production.
For Crazy Maple Studio, that versatility matters because ReelShort is built around a continuing slate of stories rather than a single title.
The studio must repeatedly create new visual worlds while maintaining a production model capable of moving those worlds efficiently from narrative concepts toward the screen.
Jin’s ability to operate across genres helps make that process possible.
When Visual Development Meets a Multimillion-View Audience
The reach of Jin’s ReelShort projects provides another way to understand the scale of the productions in which she works.
Among them, Reborn to See the Football Stars Ruin Themselves has reached 38.3 million views.
Jin contributed visual development to the production, working on the visual elements through which its story world, characters, environments, and atmosphere could be communicated to viewers.
The 38.3 million-view audience places that creative contribution within the production process of one of the high-viewership ReelShort titles on her project slate.
Her work on Prince, Thief to Warrior King connects her to another production with a multimillion-view audience. The series has reached 5.6 million views.
And on Positively Pregnancy, Jin’s connection to the production is particularly sustained: her visual development responsibilities cover Episodes 16–50 of a series that has reached 963.4 thousand views.
Viewership on that scale is never the product of a single discipline. Writers, directors, performers, producers, designers, artists, editors, and many other creative professionals contribute to the success of a series.
Visual development, however, addresses some of the most fundamental questions audiences encounter when they watch: Who are these characters? What kind of world are they inhabiting? What should this moment feel like? And does the visual experience remain coherent as the story continues?
Those questions fall directly within Jin’s area of responsibility.
Her role can therefore be connected to audience success in a specific and grounded way. She is not responsible for viewership alone; rather, she contributes to the visual framework of productions that have demonstrated substantial audience reach, including titles viewed millions—and in one case tens of millions—of times.
That distinction is important. It also makes the scale of her work easier to understand.
Why Jin’s Role Matters to Crazy Maple Studio
For Crazy Maple Studio, the challenge is larger than producing a single successful series.
ReelShort depends on the studio’s ability to repeat the process.
New stories require new characters. New genres require new visual approaches. New environments need to be established quickly. And serialized productions need visual continuity across episodes even as the company continues developing additional titles.
Visual development sits near the beginning of that chain.
It creates a bridge between what exists in narrative form and what can eventually become a coherent visual production.
Jin works at that bridge.
Through her development of characters, environments, moods, and visual concepts, she helps convert narrative ideas into visual frameworks that can support subsequent production.
Because her responsibilities extend across substantial episode ranges and multiple titles, the impact of that work is not confined to a single image or scene.
It supports the larger systems through which individual ReelShort productions establish and maintain their identities.
This gives Jin’s role particular importance within Crazy Maple Studio’s production model.
The company needs visual artists capable not only of producing strong individual concepts, but of understanding story, maintaining continuity, adapting across genres, and developing visual solutions that can function within the pace and framing of vertical entertainment.
Jin’s work addresses each of those needs.
Her value to Crazy Maple Studio lies in the combination of sustained project responsibility and adaptability: she helps establish the visual foundations of individual ReelShort series while also supporting the studio’s broader ability to develop distinctive vertical productions across an expanding range of stories.
Building a Production Model for What Comes Next
The growth of vertical entertainment also raises a question facing creative studios across the industry: how can production expand without losing visual consistency?
Jin has participated in Crazy Maple Studio’s exploration of AI-integrated creative workflows aimed at accelerating concept exploration and visual iteration while maintaining artistic direction, character continuity, and visual coherence.
The distinction between speed and useful speed is important.
Producing more visual material does not necessarily make a production process better. Characters still need to remain consistent. Environments need to serve the narrative. Visual ideas need to belong to the same story world. And ultimately, creative judgment still determines whether an image is actually appropriate for the production.
Jin’s experience in visual development gives her a practical perspective on that process.
She can assess emerging workflows according to the requirements she already encounters across ReelShort productions: whether they preserve character identity, whether they support story and atmosphere, whether visual continuity remains intact, and whether the resulting material can actually function within production.
That work connects her role to another aspect of Crazy Maple Studio’s development.
Her contribution is not limited to helping build the visual worlds of current ReelShort series. It also supports the studio’s exploration of how those worlds might be developed more efficiently as vertical production continues to expand.
The People Behind the Vertical Frame
Vertical drama can appear deceptively simple from the viewer’s side of the screen.
A phone is opened, an episode begins, and within moments the audience is inside a new relationship, conflict, environment, or fictional world.
Making that experience feel immediate requires many creative disciplines working behind the frame.
Visual development is one of them.
Across ReelShort, Jin’s work demonstrates how much responsibility can sit behind the visual choices audiences absorb almost instantly.
Her visual development responsibilities span Episodes 16–50 of Positively Pregnancy, Episodes 28–50 of Love Cruise, Episodes 31–50 of The Neighbor They Should’ve Left Alone, and Episodes 1–30 of Veronica.
Her broader ReelShort slate includes projects ranging from romance and contemporary drama to science fiction, fantasy, sports-related narratives, and revenge stories.
And her work has contributed to productions reaching substantial audiences, including Positively Pregnancy at 963.4 thousand views, Prince, Thief to Warrior King at 5.6 million views, and Reborn to See the Football Stars Ruin Themselves at 38.3 million views.
Together, those projects illustrate why Jin’s role has become important within Crazy Maple Studio.
She works at the point where stories begin acquiring a visual identity, where characters and environments become more than descriptions on a page, and where creative decisions need to remain coherent enough to support dozens of episodes.
For a company building its success around mobile-first serialized entertainment, that is a critical part of the production process.
As ReelShort continues to reach large audiences with vertical stories across increasingly varied genres, Jin’s leading visual development work helps Crazy Maple Studio do something essential to that growth: repeatedly turn new narratives into distinctive, coherent visual worlds built for the vertical screen.
At the 2020 Nirvana reunion show, in what was not even her first highly publicized performance, 13-year-old Violet Grohl joined Krist Novoselic, Pat Smear, and her father Dave for a memorable rendition of ‘Heart-Shaped Box’. By 2025, when the surviving members of Nirvana reunited once again for the Fire Aid benefit concert and she handled vocals for ‘All Apologies’, Grohl already had one thing in common with Kim Gordon, the Sonic Youth legend who was performing alongside her: they’d both made an album with producer Justin Raisen. (Gordon, in fact, had made two, and a third was well on the way.) Inspired by hours-long conversation as well as playlists that spanned everything from trip-hop to Scandinavian black metal, Grohl took her lifelong love of songwriting into the collaborative space of Raisen’s LA studio, experimenting with songs that are by turns naturally grungy, hauntingly ethereal, and altogether dynamic. Now, a few months after the release of her debut album, Be Sweet to Me, and following a brief run of shows that included opening for the Breeders, she’s about to go on her first headlining tour, beginning this Friday in Berlin and stretching through November, before another set of dates supporting beabadoobee.
We caught up with Violet Grohl to talk about her debut album, working with Justin Raisen, her upcoming tour, and more.
Has Be Sweet to Me taken on a new resonance for you since its release? Are there parts of it that have come to light in a different way?
It’s just a new experience for me. It’s rooted in a world that I’ve grown up in and I’ve been around my whole life, but having first-hand experience and going out there and doing it has been really exciting. But the music has definitely taken on new meaning, and my perspective on certain songs has totally shifted. I wrote the album when I was 18, and we did it two years ago, and it kind of sat in the files for a while while we were figuring out all the logistical things behind the scenes. Now it totally feels like something completely different to me, and it feels like a reflection of my life at the time, and even experiences that were prior to that period of my life.
The song that I always think about whenever I think about the meanings changing is ‘Mobile Star’. When I wrote that song, I was so tired that day. I had been in the studio for a couple of weeks at that point, and we had pauses in between, and then we would come back and we would just kind of hammer it out in the studio. And that one was a really laid-back day. It was pretty much me, my producer Justin, Joe Kennedy, who played guitar and played some keys on the record, and our engineer Brad [Lauchert]. We were trying to come up with something, and I had this vague idea of what I wanted the song to sound like instrumentally, but I just didn’t have a clear concept in my head, which isn’t very typical when I’m in the studio space. I usually have a very clear picture, and it all comes together pretty quickly. But that day, I was just really foggy, and the melody that we had written for the keys and the drum beat all felt kind of sleepy to me. I think it really reflected how I was feeling that day, but I know we were all exhausted at that point. And then all of a sudden, I had this visual, kind of a mind’s-eye picture of a baby bassinet with these golden, almost iridescent stars spinning around, and I just started writing about that.
Throughout that recording session, Justin and I were talking a lot about Ian Curtis from Joy Division, and there was this really weird, dark parallel with his passing, the visual I saw, and the lyrics that were coming out. The puzzle pieces fell into place, and it felt like a really disassociated song with the weight of expectations from the outside world, and from people who are trying to look in. But as I’ve gone on, it ended up kind of becoming like a “mobile” [holds up phone] star, and I wasn’t thinking of that when I wrote it, but it kind of started to feel like a song almost about bed rotting going through an existential crisis in your room. Having visions of what you wish the world could look like, but it’s unattainable, and all you’re doing is just sitting in your bed and complaining about it, and a hopeless feeling. But that song has totally evolved and morphed as time has gone on. It becomes different things. But I love that song, and I’m super stoked with the way that it’s been able to move and grow.
I wanted to ask about the vocals on that track, too, because you’re singing so intimately into the mic, and that sense of exhaustion comes through even in the detail of dragging out the word “end.” Were you conscious of exposing your voice in that way in that moment?
Once we had the song written and all of those puzzle pieces were in place, I just kind of went into a daze, and I went into the song. I tend to close my eyes – not always when I’m singing, but especially when I’m recording, because I really like to just feel the music, and I get visuals and colors and stuff like that. But there were just a few little things, lyrically, that I wanted to emphasize; you picked up on holding out, “As we begin, so shall we end.” It was something I was doing consciously, but at the same time, it just was what I heard in my head, and it felt like the way that I had to sing it. But that one’s really special to me, and that whole day was definitely a standout from the rest of them. It was a different energy from all of the other sessions that we did for this album.
I read that you were initially supposed to meet Justin Raisen at an Elliott Smith tribute concert where you were going to perform, but you got sick. Was he one of the artists you talked about when you did get to hang out for the first time? What do you remember about that conversation?
The first time meeting Justin was a trip. I mean, he’s a trippy dude. He’s a perfect caricature of the mad scientist kind of archetype. He’s always running around, he always has an idea, constantly working. But he’s so sensitive and just has that real artistic antenna that can tap into wherever it is that we as creatives pull from when we make art. But he’s just really in tune to that, and he’s able to translate these visual concepts that I’ll come up with into the exact sonics that I’m hearing in my head but I can’t exactly describe properly, or that would take me 30 minutes to find myself on a synth, and he just gets it. Him and I jokingly call it “The Shining,” where we’ll both have the same idea at the same time. We’ll look at each other or we’ll be sitting across the room from each other and brainstorming lyric ideas, and we’ll basically write down the same thing. It’s just this special something that he and I have where the flow of creativity really moves through us when we get together, and when we’re with all of our friends and musical partners.
But the initial hang, we talked about music for anywhere from 6 to 8 hours in his little back studio. We just talked and talked and talked. Elliott came up a lot in the beginning talking about that tribute show that I had missed, and I was so devastated about it. It was truly gonna be one of the highlights of performance for me, and to have it fall apart because I got pneumonia, of course, is just stupid. I was actually supposed to do ‘Everything Reminds Me of Her’ at that show, and so we had talked about that song a lot, because that song is just so emotionally potent. You can just feel his suffering and the pain that he was going through at the time. It’s just engraved into that song, it’s so palpable.
We talked about Elliott’s influence on my songwriting and, you know, growing up around people who knew him. Over time, when I was getting ready for that, I had talked to a bunch of people about him, and I found out that my aunt had seen him at Largo in LA before. I had no idea that she’d ever seen him play, and they hung out at a bar once. It was just so beautiful to hear all these stories about him. Everyone just has this deep appreciation for him, for his art, and just for who he was as a person. I just find that so admirable and so special that even through death, his legacy has left such a massive impact on the people around him, and then newer generations and generations to come. It’s really special.
You talked about your visual approach to lyric writing, which is something that stood out to me while listening to ‘Applefish’. How did your approach to writing lyrics develop as a result of working on this record, and doing so collaborative?
Yeah, I’ve always been a very visual person. I’ve done creative writing since I was a kid. My dad’s mom was an English teacher, and it was always something that was encouraged – I don’t want to say pushed upon me, because it wasn’t forced, but it was always, “This is a really beautiful tool that you have access to, and everyone has access to. Hone in on that, and use it to your advantage.” I started writing songs when I was 12. It started out as a form of journaling, because I’ve never found the release from writing out, “This is what I did today, this is how it made me feel.” That doesn’t get it out of me – it just puts it somewhere else temporarily. But music and songwriting really help to get whatever I’m feeling out, and to express it in a way that is truer to how I feel. I guess I’ve always drawn inspiration from things I see around me, places I’ve been, and little objects around me. As a kid, when I wanted to just write poetry for fun, I would pick objects in my room, or in whatever room I was in, and I would just write about those objects and try to build a story around what I was looking at and how I was feeling.
I think with this album, it made me realize that I was doing that. I wasn’t fully aware of my process – it was just a habitual thing that I did because I needed to do it. Being in a room with other people and writing with other people for the first time, and jamming with the intent to write my music, made me more aware of it. Having people around me, like Justin interpreting those visuals and putting music to those visuals that I’m giving them, was just so eye-opening. It also really helped me let go of these negative attachments and mental blocks that I had when it came to songwriting, and even to singing, doing vocal takes. Since I was 12, I had a little laptop bedroom set up with a MIDI keyboard, an interface, speakers, and a mic. I would literally sit in my room after school for hours doing vocal takes. I would just go back and try to do it over and over again, and I would stop myself eventually and give up because I would get so frustrated that I wasn’t getting what I wanted.
Being in the studio with other people for the first time helped me let go a bit and, you know, do three takes, and out of those three, there will be one that will work. Even if there aren’t three that I like, I can always do one more, and it’s no problem. It made it less frustrating for me. I still come down pretty hard on myself, but not as hard as I used to, and I’m able to actually follow through with projects I’m working on rather than just giving up and scrapping them entirely.
Keeping that memory in mind of singing alone in your bedroom, how do you feel in light of these upcoming shows? What kind of significance does it have for you to take your own songs on the road, especially at festivals like Reading?
It’s all such a whirlwind, but at the same time, I’m doing things that I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid. Actually getting into the studio and making music, which is something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember, and playing shows with people that I love, like The Breeders, and with a band of people that I love so much and that I made my record with. It’s all really special, and it’s all happened in a way that I’m just beyond grateful for. I’ve been really, really fortunate to be in the position that I’m in, to work with the people I work with, and to make the music I make. But it’s so exciting – and also, I don’t want to say daunting, but it’s a big task to have to really open up and drop the armor, and let those songs come out the way that they’re supposed to come out and the way that they’re written, basically. Not exactly note for note, but the feeling, the meaning, and the intention behind it all.
And that’s honestly the thing that I have the most anxiety about: Am I performing these songs in a way that people will really be able to feel and understand what I’m trying to get across, and what these songs mean to me? I always love hearing people’s interpretations of not just my music, but music in general, and I’ve always loved the way that music and memory are so closely linked, and songs can bring up feelings from a couple days ago or 20 years ago. I just want to be able to provide a real musical experience, because that’s what matters – just the music and how it makes people feel. It’s been so much fun getting all the music ready for tour. We have a blast rehearsing. I’m excited and I’m nervous, and I guess I’m trying not to think about it too deeply, because if I do, then I’ll really psych myself out. [laughs] But this is a really big moment for me. This is something I’ve wanted to do my whole life.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
An endearing rom-com is doing numbers on Netflix, and this one has a crime-thriller twist. Our Sticky Love premiered in early August and is currently among the most-watched non-English series on the platform.
With 3.2 million views last week, the Korean production also claimed the #1 spot in two countries. Could this mean that a follow-up is on the way? Here’s what we know so far.
Our Sticky Love Season 2 Release Date
At the time of writing, there’s no news about a potential Our Sticky Love season 2.
That said, the show is listed as a limited series on Netflix, and K-dramas rarely get sequels. Plus, the story wraps up nicely by the time the end credits roll. In other words, it looks like 12 episodes are all we’re going to get.
Our Sticky Love Cast
Jung Hae-in as Jang Tae-ha
Ha Young as Go Eun-sae
Heo Sung-tae as Baek Sang-gil
Jeon Bae-soo as Hong Do-yeop
Seo Jung-yeon as Do Jeong-hwa
Lee Jae-won as An Gi-jun
Choi Yu-ju as Min Su-ji
Kim Young-ok as Go Yeon-hong
What Is Our Sticky Love About?
Our Sticky Love revolves around Go Eun-sae, an ambitious prosecutor who wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. Before she can figure out what’s what, rugged boxing coach Jang Tae-ha shows up and tells her they are together. While Eun-sae isn’t sure that everything adds up, she reluctantly follows Tae-ha to his home in a quirky countryside village.
Once there, Eun-sae realises that Tae-ha’s story is fishy, to say the least. As they are forced to live together, his warmth gradually wins her over, and their fake relationship starts to feel genuine. However, Tae-ha has a past that involves a dangerous crime boss, and Eun-sae is in danger. Viewers get traditional rom-com elements, plus a mystery that isn’t afraid to get dark.
While Our Sticky Love season 2 is unlikely, the limited series wraps up the story in a satisfying manner. You don’t have to worry about cliffhangers or unanswered questions. Whether or not the two protagonists end up together, though, you’ll have to find out for yourself.
Chicago-based five-piece Marital Bed have announced their debut self-titled album, which is set to arrive on December 4. Check out a video for the disquieting lead single ‘Ghost’ below.
“Instead of it focusing on heart break or boys, the lyrics explore a young woman uncovering the fact that a rich powerful man she is having an affair with is in communion with a dark, sinister force,” singer-songwriter Charissa Jene Lindquist said of the new track in a statement. “I wrote it after having a vivid nightmare about Elon Musk and Grimes. This was during the peak of the Jeffrey Epstein drama surrounding Trump’s 2nd election, which I assume was a major subconscious influence on the lyrics.”
Marital Bed Cover Artwork:
Marital Bed Tracklist:
1. Real Life Romance
2. Our Favorite Game
3. Incompatible
4. Boys In the Band
5. Ghost
6. Goodbye
7. He or She
8. Simulacrum
Japanese unconventional dating series Badly in Love is back. With a new cast and a change in scenery, it promises an explosive batch of fresh episodes sure to appeal to genre fans.
In fact, the show is already trending on Netflix. With 3.3 million views last week, Badly in Love is among the most-watched non-English series on the platform, as well as the #1 show in three countries. Does that mean a third installment might be on the way? Here’s what we know so far.
Badly in Love Season 3 Release Date
At the time of writing, there is no official news about a potential Badly in Love season 3.
That said, viewership numbers are good, and the premise seems to appeal to fans. As long as people keep tuning in, new episodes could be here before you know it. Perhaps in early 2027?
A Japanese reality dating series, Badly in Love offers an unusual spin on the popular genre. The cast features participants known as “yankii,” a Japanese term associated with rebellious youth and delinquent culture.
In other words, the contestants have complicated pasts. Think gang culture, fighting, or bad personal circumstances. On the show, they aim to spark genuine romantic connections, but friendship is also a big part of the mix. For a period of time, the singles live together and get to know each other while taking part in various activities. Since they all have strong personalities, sparks fly along the way. So does conflict.
The second season introduces a new group of contestants and moves to tropical Okinawa. Everyone arrives craving a fresh start, which makes the show particularly engaging.
While Badly in Love season 3 isn’t a sure thing yet, the final episodes of season 2 drop on August 18. Can people accustomed to living by their own rules let someone else into their lives? Tune in to find out.
One of Matthew McConaughey’s greatest strengths is that he makes charisma feel effortless. Whether you know him from his long list of romantic comedies or his more dramatic work, you can’t deny that he brings a hefty dose of swagger to each performance.
McConaughey’s talent helped him become a sought-after performer with a career that spans over three decades. As a result, his net worth should be substantial by now, right? Here’s what we know about the actor’s earnings.
A big chunk of it is thanks to his lucrative acting career. His breakthrough came in 1993 with a supporting role in Dazed and Confused. He quickly transitioned to leading man territory with A Time to Kill, while also making sure to choose a variety of projects that helped him showcase his range.
In the early 2000s, he moved into action films with titles like U-571 and Reign of Fire. He also became a major romantic comedy star. You might have seen him in iconic titles like The Wedding Planner, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, or Failure to Launch.
However, McConaughey grew tired of being typecast and decided to reinvent his career. He starred in The Lincoln Lawyer in 2011, followed by standout supporting and leading roles in Magic Mike and Mud. His dramatic peak came with Dallas Buyers Club, which earned him an Academy Award. He further cemented his prestige with The Wolf of Wall Street and HBO’s acclaimed series True Detective.
In 2014, he starred in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, one of his biggest global hits. McConaughey continued to balance voice work in animated hits like Sing with live-action roles such as Gold, The Beach Bum, and The Gentlemen. More recently, he made a cameo appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine and starred in survival thriller The Lost Bus.
Besides acting, McConaughey has built an unusually broad portfolio of side gigs. He worked as a producer, became a bestselling author with his 2020 memoir Greenlights, launched a tequila company, and worked with various brands as both ambassador and creative advisor. McConaughey also teaches courses at the University of Texas.
Matthew McConaughey Salary
Actor salaries are generally kept under wraps. Still, given McConaughey’s track record, it’s safe to assume that his paychecks are impressive.
Last year, he revealed in an interview that he once turned down a $14.5 million offer to star in a comedy because he wanted to take his career in a different direction.
His other ventures pay well, too. McConaughey reportedly gets $12,000 for every class he teaches at the University of Texas, and Salesforce are rumoured to have paid him $10 million a year to serve as a creative advisor.
McConaughey’s highest-grossing movie as a lead is Interstellar, which made $681 million on original release. Deadpool & Wolverine made a whopping $1.338 billion at the box office, but he only has a voice cameo there. Speaking of voice work, animated movies Sing and Sing 2 have also been big earners.
Next up, fans of McConaughey can catch the actor in The Rivals of Amziah King, debuting in cinemas this August.
Wild Pink have shared the title track of their new album, Still Coming Down, ahead of its release on Friday (August 21). “I used to be pure/ I just try to be good now,” John Ross sings on the track, which features guitar from Meg Duffy (of Hand Habits) and Landon George on fiddle. It follows previous offerings ‘500 Is the New 250’, ‘Box Store’, and ‘Round of Applause at the End of the World’. Check out it out via the accompanying video below.
“This is my favorite song on the record right now so I’m glad this one is out today,” Ross said in a press release. “I love Meg Duffy’s sinewy, slow motion fretless guitar playing and Landon George’s fiddle in the middle. This song isn’t about any one single thing but it’s mostly about my son and feeling overwhelming love.”
Fontaines D.C. have announced their fifth album, Dopamine Chamber. The follow-up to 2024’s Romance is out October 16 via XL. Here’s everything we know so far.
When did Fontaines D.C. first tease the album?
On August 16, the band posted a 26-second video on social media that shows a spinning blue planet transforming into a blue iris. The phrase “Dopamine Chamber” then appears, followed by “2026.” The clip is soundtracked by ‘Six Shot Morning’, one of two songs they debuted during their first headline show of 2026 on August 8 in Cádiz, Spain.
What does the album cover look like?
What about the tracklist?
The full tracklist was not shared upon the album’s announcement, but we do know the record spans 11 tracks.
Have any singles from the album been released?
The band shared the lead single ‘Marianne’ along with the announcement.
What has the band said about the new album?
Before the album’s announcement, the band mostly shared updates about the record. “We’ve been writing, it’s been fun,” guitarist Carlos O’Connell said in an interview back in January. “We’re at Reading & Leeds and there are a couple of shows before that. I think if the music is there, it could get busy.”
“The album itself is a dopamine chamber,” frontman Grian Chatten said in a statement. “You step inside and we test these different mind- or mood-altering pieces of music on you.” He added: “There’s a poignant sense of us being on the brink of some other kind of form of humanity, or non-humanity.”
What are some of the inspirations behind the new record?
Per press materials, Chatten spent time in Venice, Vienna, and Sicily looking for lyrical inspiration. “I think Romance was maybe 60 per cent human and 40 per cent corrupted by automation, and a loss of feeling,” he explained. “This one feels more like 60 per cent corrupted – the mask is wearing the face a little more. I felt it would be more powerful to leave the hope out and reflect the ugliness honestly. This one needed to feel more like a catastrophic warning.”
“Our albums have always questioned a sense of place,” bassist Conor Deegan added. “First Dublin, then being away from Dublin, and then trying to find the romance elsewhere. On this record, the question became: where do you escape to?”
Who produced the album?
The band reunited with producer James Ford, who helmed Romance, for the new album. It was recorded between London, the English countryside, and Palermo, where Chatten tracked vocals in a makeshift booth built from mattresses and cushions.
Ballet has always had a close relationship with fashion, but in 2026, the connection feels more visible than it has in years.
Luxury brands are increasingly turning to ballet dancers, companies and choreographers as collaborators, campaign stars and cultural partners. From major fashion houses working with leading ballet institutions to dancers appearing in high-profile campaigns, the art form has become an increasingly attractive part of fashion’s search for authenticity, movement and cultural relevance.
Fashion has spent much of the past decade trying to create moments that feel culturally significant rather than simply commercial.
Ballet already comes with that history.
Its combination of technical discipline, theatricality and visual storytelling gives brands access to an artistic language that feels markedly different from a conventional advertising campaign. Clothing also takes on another dimension when it is seen in motion rather than presented in a static editorial.
That has made dance particularly valuable for designers interested in shape, fabric and movement.
Brands including Chanel, Armani, Burberry and Paul Smith have all developed connections with ballet or prominent dancers, while major cultural institutions such as the Royal Ballet and Opera have become increasingly attractive partners for the luxury sector.
Ballet dancers are becoming fashion figures
The relationship is also being driven by the dancers themselves.
Modern ballet stars increasingly exist outside the traditional boundaries of the stage, appearing in fashion shoots, campaigns and social media content that introduces them to audiences who may rarely attend a classical performance.
British ballerina Francesca Hayward, for example, has worked with major fashion houses including Burberry, Armani and Chanel, illustrating how naturally the two industries now overlap.
The appeal is different from using a conventional celebrity ambassador.
Professional dancers bring a physical understanding of clothing that few models or actors possess. Every garment becomes part of a performance, whether through the line of an arm, the movement of a skirt or the relationship between fabric and choreography.
Gen Z is rediscovering ballet aesthetics
Fashion’s renewed interest in ballet also arrives alongside a wider cultural revival.
Elements associated with ballet have repeatedly appeared across contemporary fashion: wrap cardigans, ballet flats, leg warmers, ribbons, sheer fabrics and soft rehearsal-inspired silhouettes have all moved between runways, social platforms and high-street collections.
Yet the current relationship goes further than the familiar “balletcore” aesthetic.
Younger audiences are showing an increasing interest in ballet itself, while musicians and pop culture figures have helped introduce elements of classical dance to audiences far beyond traditional theatre spaces. Vogue notes that artists including Olivia Rodrigo and Rosalía have contributed to ballet’s growing visibility within contemporary popular culture.
That matters for fashion brands looking for cultural spaces that feel both established and newly relevant.
Culture increasingly moves between digital niches
Ballet’s renewed visibility also reflects a wider change in how cultural trends develop online. Fashion, music, entertainment and lifestyle communities no longer exist in completely separate spaces, with audiences increasingly discovering trends through highly specialised platforms and publications. This fragmentation can be seen across the wider digital landscape, where everything from independent fashion communities to Finnish comparison sites using terms such as verovapaa kasino can reach clearly defined audiences. What begins inside one niche can quickly travel into another through social media, creators and algorithm-driven recommendations.
For fashion, this creates an environment in which references once considered highly specific, including ballet rehearsal clothing, performance aesthetics and classical dance imagery, can move rapidly into mainstream visual culture.
Fashion shows are becoming performances
The influence works in the opposite direction too.
Runway presentations increasingly borrow from theatre, contemporary dance and performance art. Rather than simply sending models down a catwalk, designers are experimenting with choreography and movement to create shows that exist somewhere between fashion presentation and live performance.
Issey Miyake has been among the labels to explore movement particularly directly, using performance to demonstrate how clothes behave around the body.
Social media has made such presentations even more valuable.
A choreographed fashion moment can be viewed far beyond the invited audience, with a short piece of movement potentially becoming more memorable online than dozens of conventional runway photographs.
A natural partnership rather than another microtrend
Fashion has a habit of absorbing cultural aesthetics and moving on quickly. Its current relationship with ballet, however, appears deeper than another short-lived visual trend.
Both industries depend on craft, detail and the ability to transform physical movement into something emotionally resonant. They also share an obsession with presentation: how a body occupies a space, how fabric reacts to movement and how an audience experiences a carefully constructed image.
That makes ballet particularly useful at a moment when luxury fashion is trying to offer consumers something beyond another product launch.
Rather than simply borrowing ballet’s shoes, ribbons and silhouettes, fashion is increasingly investing in the culture that created them.
And that may be why the partnership suddenly feels less like a trend and more like a natural reunion.
