Rapper and vocal Joe Biden supporter Cardi B, real name Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, has filed for divorce from her rapper husband Offset, real name Kiari Kendrell Cephus, following rumors of his persistent infidelity.
PEOPLE magazine <a href="https://people.com/music/cardi-b-files-for-divorce-offset/?amp=true&amp;utm_campaign=peoplemagazine&amp;utm_content=manual&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_term=5f611c1d37e2570001b4d196&amp;__twitter_impression=true">reported</a> Tuesday: &#8220;The &#8216;WAP&#8217; rapper, 27, filed for divorce at an Atlanta courthouse on Tuesday, saying the marriage is &#8216;irretrievably broken&#8217; and &#8216;there are no prospects for a reconciliation,&#8217; reportedly after finding out the Migos rapper, 28, had been unfaithful yet again, PEOPLE confirms. The pair, who share 2-year-old daughter <a href="https://people.com/parents/cardi-b-offset-welcome-daughter-kulture-kiari/">Kulture Kiari</a>, is due in court Nov. 4.&#8221;
The report noted that the split comes amid rumors of Offset&#8217;s cheating, which have plagued the marriage from the beginning. Back in January 2018, Cardi B &#8220;outwardly confirmed&#8221; that her husband &#8220;was at the center of a <a href="https://people.com/chica/cardi-b-addresses-offset-cheating-rumors-on-twitter/">sex tape cheating scandal</a> after rumors of a video and alleged liaison with another woman surfaced in December 2017, three months after the couple had <a href="https://people.com/music/bet-awards-2018-offset-calls-cardi-b-my-wife/">secretly tied the knot</a>,&#8221; PEOPLE said.
&#8220;No, it&#8217;s not right for a n**** to cheat…But what you want me to do?&#8221; the 27-year-old posted to Twitter. &#8220;Go f*** me another n****? Start all over again and get cheated on again? This s*** happens to everyone and I be too, you too…People handle they relationship different so.&#8221;
Cardi B, a former stripper, has unabashedly promoted the objectification of women in hit songs like &#8220;WAP,&#8221; or &#8220;wet a** p****,&#8221; and publicly <a href="https://people.com/music/cardi-b-offset-celebrate-birthday-strip-club/">visited</a> strip clubs with Offset.
The raunchy &#8220;WAP&#8221; song ironically includes a lyric where Cardi B brags about getting a &#8220;ring&#8221; solely based on her sexuality: &#8220;&#8216;I don&#8217;t cook, I don&#8217;t clean/But let me tell you how I got this ring.&#8221;
Complex <a href="https://www.complex.com/music/2020/08/cardi-b-megan-thee-stallion-wap-essay">lauded</a> the lyric for &#8220;dismantling&#8221; &#8220;gender stereotypes.&#8221;
&#8220;Gender stereotypes are dismantled in the very first verse, as Cardi sings, &#8216;I don&#8217;t cook, I don&#8217;t clean/But let me tell you how I got this ring,&#8217; creating no space for the stereotypical submissive, stay-at-home wife figure,&#8221; the outlet gushed.
Apple Music also praised the song as empowering for women while promoting a round table event with Cardi and other artists.
“It’s no secret that women are making some of the most compelling rap music, but sexism and misogyny continues to pit them against each other and continues to keep many from getting their due,” a caption for the interview reads. “In the spirit of undoing that, Apple Music’s Nadeska Alexis sat down with Cardi B, Mulatto, Rubi Rose, and Sukihana—all of whom feature in Cardi and Megan Thee Stallion’s video for the flirty collaboration ‘WAP’ —for a roundtable tackling these issues head-on.”
“The women offer a glimpse into their experiences within the music industry, from sisterhood and camaraderie to the business side of things and double standards,” the caption adds. “But more importantly, this is just a space for some good ol’ fashioned girl talk.”
The duo have been married for three years.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/candace-owens-says-ben-shapiro-right-about-wap-cardi-b-responds-owens-wrecks-her?itm_source=parsely-api-news">Candace Owens Says Ben Shapiro Right About ‘WAP.’ Cardi B Responds. Owens Wrecks Her.</a>
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

62nd Annual GRAMMY Awards &#8211; Inside

Cardi B Files For Divorce Following Cheating Rumors

Cardi B

Music

During an interview published on Sunday, musical talent CeeLo Green seemingly took a shot at female rappers, namely Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, and Megan Thee Stallion, for their raunchy lyrics and musical failure on a &#8220;moral level.&#8221;
“A lot of music today is very unfortunate and disappointing on a personal and moral level,&#8221; Green <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/ceelo-green-interview-gnarls-barkley-music-today/">told</a> Far Out magazine. &#8220;There was once a time when we were savvy enough to code certain things. We could express to those it was meant for with the style of language we used. But now music is shameless, it is sheer savagery.”
The &#8220;F*** You&#8221; singer said that some modern music indulges too much in “savagery,&#8221; and that artists should hold one another to a higher standard as to not perpetuate harmful stereotypes that become reality.
&#8220;We are adults. There should be a time and a place for adult content,&#8221; he said, adding, “As adults and artists, we should at least attempt to be each other’s accountability partners in some regard. The stereotypes that are celebrated and perpetuated, ultimately make the perception a reality. It is disenfranchising and it has caused a great deal of problems.”
According to Far Out, &#8220;Green feels as though too often a musician or artist can speak not only for a whole genre but a whole business sector.&#8221;
“It’s problematic,&#8221; the 45-year-old explained, &#8220;we suffer from it because there are those that have nothing to do with it, but it is assumed of everyone. One artist’s account does not necessarily speak for everyone. But there is a statement artistically, that one individual could make for all of us, and it would speak volumes.”
“You have the ‘Heads of State,’ like Nicki Minaj or someone who is up there in accolade: success, visibility, a platform to influence. Nicki could be effective in so many other constructive ways, but it feels desperate,&#8221; Green elaborated.
“Attention is also a drug and competition is around,” he continued. “Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, they are all more or less doing similar salacious gesturing to kinda get into position. I get it, the independent woman and being in control, the divine femininity and sexual expression. I get it all &#8230; It comes at what cost?”
“I’m looking at my counterparts and I’m looking at the state of the union and I’m thinking if this is our present, then what is our future gonna be like? I have young grandkids; I’m wondering what examples they will have if we totally forget about our history,&#8221; added Green.
However, on Wednesday, Green posted a statement to Twitter clarifying his remarks and apologizing to the artists he mentioned by name.
&#8220;There seems to be a misunderstanding with a quote taken from and interview I did a few days ago,&#8221; the statement reads, adding that he is an &#8220;advocate&#8221; for &#8220;artistic expression&#8221; and a &#8220;fan&#8221; of Minaj, Cardi B, and Megan Thee Stallion.
&#8220;I would never disrespect them by any means,&#8221; it continues. &#8221; &#8230; I wholeheartedly apologize to each of them for the inconvenience they have been caused due to a snippet of my interview being used as a headline, and in turn creating controversy and disconnect between me and theses ladies as well as their fans.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<a href="https://t.co/96xRxQN4UZ">pic.twitter.com/96xRxQN4UZ</a>
&mdash; CeeLo Green (@CeeLoGreen) <a href="https://twitter.com/CeeLoGreen/status/1293556065112662022?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 12, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

CeeLo Green, Cardi B

CeeLo Green Seems To Rip Raunchy Female Rappers On ‘Moral Level’ During Interview, Posts Statement To Clarify, Apologize

CeeLo Green

If you happened to hear collective shouts of near-orgasmic adulation and delight echoing from sea to shining sea last Friday, it was because Beyonce released a new album. The screams were coming from music critics and others in media who want us to know that &#8220;Black Is King&#8221; is quite possibly the greatest artistic achievement of all time, equaled only by Beyonce&#8217;s other albums, together comprising a catalog of music so breathtaking and awe-inspiring that Beethoven, if he wasn&#8217;t deaf and also dead, would be plunged into despair upon realizing that he could never hope to produce anything as heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
The latest offering from Queen Bey — released as a visual album on Disney+ as a companion piece to last year&#8217;s abysmal &#8220;Lion King&#8221; remake, and also as a traditional album on iTunes — is, according to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/04/898881279/beyonce-black-is-king-review-searches">NPR</a>, a &#8220;sumptuous search for divine identity&#8221; that &#8220;resonates deeply.&#8221; Critics at the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/arts/music/beyonce-black-is-king.html">New York Times</a> were beside themselves with joy, using words like &#8220;overwhelming&#8221; and &#8220;extravaganza&#8221; and comparing Beyonce to &#8220;the rising sun.&#8221; The <a href="https://music.avclub.com/beyonce-s-black-is-king-is-an-unfettered-celebration-of-1844572844">AV Club</a> exclaimed that the pop album inspired by a Disney cartoon is &#8220;an unfettered celebration.&#8221; <a href="https://mashable.com/article/black-is-king-review-beyonce/">Mashable</a> declared that Beyonce is &#8220;the only artist to exist at her level.&#8221; She is, in a word, &#8220;magical.&#8221; Phrases like &#8220;<a href="https://www.whatshesaidradio.com/entertainment/queen-beyonce-the-umbrella-academy-even-better-s2-nic-cage-and-the-stellan-skarsgard-keep-on-truckin-against-the-odds/">a tribute to her artistry</a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href="https://www.masslive.com/entertainment/2020/08/review-beyonces-black-is-king-is-supreme-black-art.html">supreme black art</a>&#8221; have been wielded by gobsmacked critics. Everyone seems to agree that &#8220;Black Is King&#8221; is a <a href="https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/black-is-king-first-reviews-queen-bey-drops-a-masterpiece/">masterpiece</a>.
Coincidentally, we were also told that her <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/04/beyonces-coachella-homecoming-netflix-masterpiece/587371/">last album</a> was a masterpiece. And the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/making-lemonade-inside-beyonces-collaborative-masterpiece-85854/">one before that</a>. And all of the rest of them, all the way back to her <a href="https://www.bet.com/music/2018/08/02/15-years-of-beyonce.html">first album</a> in 2003 which was also a masterpiece. The only possible exception was her eponymous fifth album which was merely &#8220;<a href="https://www.vulture.com/2013/12/jody-rosen-on-beyonce-close-to-a-masterpiece.html">close to a masterpiece</a>.&#8221; Well, even the Queen has her off days.
The only thing more effusive than the praise Beyonce receives for her music is the praise she receives for simply existing. An article in <a href="https://www.wmagazine.com/story/beyonce-writes-her-own-songs/">W Magazine</a>, written to defend her against charges that she doesn&#8217;t write her own music, insists that the pop star is &#8220;an exceptional human being at everything she tries.&#8221; By the way, the defense is that she doesn&#8217;t write her own music but she is &#8220;involved.&#8221; Truly it takes an exceptional woman to be involved in the song that she is singing. Another article <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/beyonce-force-for-change/">calls</a> Beyonce an &#8220;irreplaceable force for inspiring change.&#8221; Elsewhere she is called &#8220;<a href="https://www.insider.com/beyonce-artist-of-the-decade-2010s-2019-12">the greatest artist of the decade</a>&#8221; and, from a more timeless perspective, a &#8220;<a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/10-fierce-superheroes-the-goddess-beyonce-should-play">goddess</a>.&#8221;
The point is clear. Beyonce is an extraordinary artist, an extraordinary woman, an extraordinary human, and everything she does is equally as extraordinary. This is American society&#8217;s Official Beyonce Position and dissent will not be tolerated. Those few who dare commit the unspeakable sin of failing to squeal with delight every time Beyonce does or says anything are, <a href="https://medium.com/the-establishment/white-women-this-is-why-your-critiques-of-beyoncé-are-racist-a431e7e1f672">we are told</a>, &#8220;racist.&#8221; Fellow singer Lana Del Ray was forced to <a href="https://thegrio.com/2020/05/22/lana-del-rey-responds-beyonce-backlash-racist/">defend herself</a> against racism charges after offering mild criticism of Beyonce, because, according to the worshipful masses, you could not possibly have any reason to dislike any aspect of Beyonce or her music unless you simply hate all black people in general. That is the only explanation.
Or maybe not.
Let me offer another potential reason to be slightly less enthused about Beyonce than the reverent critics above: she&#8217;s just not that great. She is not a staggering artistic genius, no matter how often we are instructed to view her that way. Indeed, for better or worse, her music is rather run-of-the-mill pop fare. It is not particularly innovative and it certainly isn&#8217;t insightful. One of the most popular songs on her latest album — a jaw-dropping track and the best on the album, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/9427689/beyonce-black-is-king-performances-ranked">says Billboard</a> — is called &#8220;Mood 4 Eva.&#8221; The lyrics are about what you&#8217;d expect from a song that uses a number in place of a word. Here&#8217;s Beyonce&#8217;s opening verse:
<blockquote>I know my enemy prey on me, so pray for me 
Tick, tick, wait on it 
I&#8217;m keepin&#8217; down my body count 
I&#8217;m finessin&#8217; like a trap bounce, a trap bounce, yeah 
&#8216;Cause every day above ground is a blessing 
I done leveled up now, view panoramic 
None of my fears can&#8217;t go where I&#8217;m headed 
Had to cut &#8217;em loose, now I&#8217;m loose, break the levee, yeah 
I&#8217;m &#8217;bout to flood on &#8217;em, flood on a sinner 
The rain and thunder gon&#8217; fall, go Mutumbo, no, no center 
You can&#8217;t dim my light</blockquote>
This song has 14 credited writers. Admittedly, it&#8217;s practically Virgil in comparison to some of her past lyrics — &#8220;bow down b*tches, bow, bow down b*tches, bow down b*tches, bow, bow down b*tches,&#8221; from the song &#8220;Bow Down,&#8221; comes to mind — but it is very hard to see how this rises to the level of masterpiece.
You could argue that her music, especially on this most recent album, is judged as much by the accompanying visuals as by the songs themselves. Fine, but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJeIZ_5KN5A">the visuals</a> are fairly standard for modern music videos. She&#8217;s a good dancer, certainly, but even as a dancer she isn&#8217;t doing anything that other young pop divas can&#8217;t do. Michael Jackson was a genius dancer because he redefined the art form and moved in ways that seemed almost physically impossible. Beyonce isn&#8217;t doing that. She isn&#8217;t doing anything especially remarkable. She delivers a product that is, visually and audibly, a perfectly acceptable entry into an already existent genre. Her dancing and singing are good, while her lyrics, and the messages they contain, generally straddle the line between vapid and repugnant. In other words, she makes pop music. Nothing less and certainly nothing more.
I wish I could say that this attempt to turn the &#8220;Single Ladies&#8221; singer into pop&#8217;s version of Michelangelo was merely dumb and annoying. It is both of those things, of course, but it&#8217;s also more toxic than that. You can judge a culture in many ways by it&#8217;s most celebrated art. And the people within a culture will judge themselves in many ways through the same lens. Our art is the story that we tell about ourselves. It is how we grapple with the problem of existence. It is how we search for deeper truths. There is a reason why art and religion have been inextricably tied since the dawn of civilization.
Speaking of Michelangelo, the people of 16th century Italy could step into the Sistine Chapel, look up in wonder, and feel themselves and their spirits drawn into a beauty that was, and still is, truly transcendent. This is quite different from the experience modern Americans have when they listen to Beyonce sing: &#8220;Can you eat my skittles, it&#8217;s the sweetest in the middle&#8221; (from the song &#8220;Blow&#8221;, 2013). Beyonce&#8217;s music, like most pop music, is diverting and catchy at its very best. At its worst, it&#8217;s so ugly and stupid as to induce despair.
The point is not that our culture has no great art. Musicians of the last several decades have given us many authentic masterpieces, and geniuses in other mediums like film and television have produced works that will stand the test of time. But the art that we choose to elevate the highest, and praise the loudest, is the art that will influence us — and especially our children — the most, and define our era. I suppose it is appropriate that Beyonce claims that honor, for ours is an era that is loud and extravagant, but empty at is core, and not as impressive as it appears on the surface. If Beyonce is our queen, our empress, then someone has to say that the empress has no clothes (literally, much of the time).
More from Matt Walsh: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/george-floyd-body-cam-footage-is-out">George Floyd Body Cam Footage Is Out. The Story Is Far More Complicated Than Media Led Us To Believe.</a>
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Beyonce

WALSH: Beyoncé Is Not An Artistic Genius; We Should Stop Pretending She Is

Rolling Stone recently reached out to over a dozen famous names in the music industry to get their take on returning to the stage amid ongoing fears about COVID-19 and got a wide range of responses, including some saying they aren&#8217;t willing to die &#8220;for Trump&#8221; and others speaking candidly about the &#8220;disastrous&#8221; impact on the industry from the lockdowns. The most &#8220;radical&#8221; case for playing shows again, vaccine or no vaccine, was former Van Halen lead singer Sammy Hagar.
In a quote that has created some buzz online, Hagar, 72, said he&#8217;s all in for reopening concerts without a vaccine because if we don&#8217;t save the economy, we are &#8220;going to kill more people in the long run.&#8221;
&#8220;I’ll be comfortable playing a show before there’s a vaccine, if it’s declining and seems to be going away,&#8221; Hagar told <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/veteran-touring-artists-on-life-without-concerts-1015398/">Rolling Stone</a>.
&#8220;I’m going to make a radical statement here,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;This is hard to say without stirring somebody up, but truthfully, I’d rather personally get sick and even die, if that’s what it takes.&#8221;
&#8220;We have to save the world and this country from this economic thing that’s going to kill more people in the long run,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;I would rather see everyone go back to work.&#8221;
&#8220;If some of us have to sacrifice on that, OK,&#8221; he added. &#8220;I will die for my children and my grandchildren to have a life anywhere close to the life that I had in this wonderful country. That’s just the way that I feel about it. I’m not going to go around spreading the disease. But there may be a time where we have to sacrifice. I mean, how many people die on the Earth <a id="auto-tag_earth" href="https://www.rollingstone.com/t/earth/" data-tag="earth"></a>every day? I have no idea.&#8221;
&#8220;I’m sorry to say it, but we all gotta die, man,&#8221; he concluded.
Creedence Clearwater Revival founder John Fogerty, 75, had a far different response, telling Rolling Stone that &#8220;coronavirus is so real and so scary and life-threatening&#8221; and that he&#8217;s &#8220;not dying for Donald Trump&#8221; or the economy.
&#8220;I don’t think any of us will really be ready until after we have a vaccine and people feel safe again,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I’m an older person, and a lot of people my age have died. Maybe some other guy thinks it’s a good idea, but I’m not dying for Donald Trump. I’m not dying for the economy.&#8221;
Crosby, Stills &amp; Nash&#8217;s David Crosby, 78, also spoke with the magazine and got raw about how personally damaging the lockdowns have been.
&#8220;I’m not making any money from anywhere and [my house] is in jeopardy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I’m not whining about it, though — it’s what we have to do, or we can’t beat the coronavirus. But I don’t think most people know what it’s done to the music business. It’s everyone that I know. They’re completely out of work, and a lot of them don’t make a lot of money.&#8221;
Those believing that all rockers are coasting through the crisis, he suggested, don&#8217;t understand the reality of most of their lives. &#8220;It’s a godd*mn disaster,&#8221; he said. For him personally, as an older musician, taking a year-long break is &#8220;a b*tch,&#8221; he said.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Sammy Hagar

Sammy Hagar: Willing To ‘Personally Get Sick And Even Die’ To Save Economy

Coronavirus

COVID-19

Economy

Members of the Christian band Hawk Nelson have responded to lead singer Jon Steingard&#8217;s recent confession that he no longer believes in God.
In a statement to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/christian-hawk-nelson-band-lead-singer-announcement-instagram">Fox News</a> on Wednesday, the band said that they have always considered Steingard a best friend and have no ill will toward him.
&#8220;God is still for Jon and he still matters &#8230; that truth doesn&#8217;t change just because we question it,&#8221; bandmates Daniel Biro, David Niacaris, and Micah Kuiper said. &#8220;One of our best friends, one with whom we have walked, worked and lived alongside for 20-plus years revealed some of his innermost feelings on his faith journey this past week.&#8221;
&#8220;We are called to love one another unconditionally, as God loves us,&#8221; the band said while noting that their mission is &#8220;to inspire and encourage all people with the truth that God is for them and not against them.&#8221;
The band then cited Romans 8:38, which says that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. &#8220;I am convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love … nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord,&#8221; it said.
&#8220;Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,&#8221; the band concluded. &#8220;Ever thankful and grateful for how God has used this band, the music and the relationships and how He continues to do so.&#8221;
In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lead-singer-of-christian-rock-band-hawk-nelson-says-he-no-longer-believes-in-god">lengthy Instagram post</a> last week, Steingard said he always had an inherent problem with Evangelical Christian culture, even as a child growing up in a pastor’s home, which then blossomed into a problem with the Bible itself as he grew into adulthood.
“I remember being uncomfortable with certain things,” he said in his youth. “Praying in public always felt like some kind of weird performance art. Emotional cries such as ‘Holy Spirit come fill this place’ always felt clunky and awkward leaving my lips. A youth conference I attended encouraged every team to sign a pledge that they would ‘date Jesus’ for a year. It felt manipulative and unsettling to me. I didn’t sign it.”
Despite those concerns in his youth, he still ended up pursuing music and genuinely found some peace with the band Hawk Nelson. However, as time grew on, Steingard increasingly had trouble with the concept of evil.
“If God is all loving, and all powerful, why is there evil in the world? Can you not do anything about it? Does he choose not to? Is the evil in the world a result of his desire to give us free will? OK then what about famine and disease and floods and all the suffering that isn’t caused by humans in our free will? If God is loving, why does he send people to hell?” were all questions that plagued him.
<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CAbHm10lt7w/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:500px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);">
<div style="padding:16px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CAbHm10lt7w/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" background:#FFFFFF; line-height:0; padding:0 0; text-align:center; text-decoration:none; width:100%;" target="_blank"> 
<div style=" display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;">
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div>
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div>
<div style="display:block; height:50px; margin:0 auto 12px; width:50px;"><svg width="50px" height="50px" viewBox="0 0 60 60" version="1.1" xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><g stroke="none" stroke-width="1" fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd"><g transform="translate(-511.000000, -20.000000)" fill="#000000"><g><path d="M556.869,30.41 C554.814,30.41 553.148,32.076 553.148,34.131 C553.148,36.186 554.814,37.852 556.869,37.852 C558.924,37.852 560.59,36.186 560.59,34.131 C560.59,32.076 558.924,30.41 556.869,30.41 M541,60.657 C535.114,60.657 530.342,55.887 530.342,50 C530.342,44.114 535.114,39.342 541,39.342 C546.887,39.342 551.658,44.114 551.658,50 C551.658,55.887 546.887,60.657 541,60.657 M541,33.886 C532.1,33.886 524.886,41.1 524.886,50 C524.886,58.899 532.1,66.113 541,66.113 C549.9,66.113 557.115,58.899 557.115,50 C557.115,41.1 549.9,33.886 541,33.886 M565.378,62.101 C565.244,65.022 564.756,66.606 564.346,67.663 C563.803,69.06 563.154,70.057 562.106,71.106 C561.058,72.155 560.06,72.803 558.662,73.347 C557.607,73.757 556.021,74.244 553.102,74.378 C549.944,74.521 548.997,74.552 541,74.552 C533.003,74.552 532.056,74.521 528.898,74.378 C525.979,74.244 524.393,73.757 523.338,73.347 C521.94,72.803 520.942,72.155 519.894,71.106 C518.846,70.057 518.197,69.06 517.654,67.663 C517.244,66.606 516.755,65.022 516.623,62.101 C516.479,58.943 516.448,57.996 516.448,50 C516.448,42.003 516.479,41.056 516.623,37.899 C516.755,34.978 517.244,33.391 517.654,32.338 C518.197,30.938 518.846,29.942 519.894,28.894 C520.942,27.846 521.94,27.196 523.338,26.654 C524.393,26.244 525.979,25.756 528.898,25.623 C532.057,25.479 533.004,25.448 541,25.448 C548.997,25.448 549.943,25.479 553.102,25.623 C556.021,25.756 557.607,26.244 558.662,26.654 C560.06,27.196 561.058,27.846 562.106,28.894 C563.154,29.942 563.803,30.938 564.346,32.338 C564.756,33.391 565.244,34.978 565.378,37.899 C565.522,41.056 565.552,42.003 565.552,50 C565.552,57.996 565.522,58.943 565.378,62.101 M570.82,37.631 C570.674,34.438 570.167,32.258 569.425,30.349 C568.659,28.377 567.633,26.702 565.965,25.035 C564.297,23.368 562.623,22.342 560.652,21.575 C558.743,20.834 556.562,20.326 553.369,20.18 C550.169,20.033 549.148,20 541,20 C532.853,20 531.831,20.033 528.631,20.18 C525.438,20.326 523.257,20.834 521.349,21.575 C519.376,22.342 517.703,23.368 516.035,25.035 C514.368,26.702 513.342,28.377 512.574,30.349 C511.834,32.258 511.326,34.438 511.181,37.631 C511.035,40.831 511,41.851 511,50 C511,58.147 511.035,59.17 511.181,62.369 C511.326,65.562 511.834,67.743 512.574,69.651 C513.342,71.625 514.368,73.296 516.035,74.965 C517.703,76.634 519.376,77.658 521.349,78.425 C523.257,79.167 525.438,79.673 528.631,79.82 C531.831,79.965 532.853,80.001 541,80.001 C549.148,80.001 550.169,79.965 553.369,79.82 C556.562,79.673 558.743,79.167 560.652,78.425 C562.623,77.658 564.297,76.634 565.965,74.965 C567.633,73.296 568.659,71.625 569.425,69.651 C570.167,67.743 570.674,65.562 570.82,62.369 C570.966,59.17 571,58.147 571,50 C571,41.851 570.966,40.831 570.82,37.631"></path></g></g></g></svg></div>
<div style="padding-top: 8px;">
<div style=" color:#3897f0; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:550; line-height:18px;"> View this post on Instagram</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;">
<div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 8px;">
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div>
<div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: auto;">
<div style=" width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div>
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div>
<div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div>
</div>
</div>
</a> 
 <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CAbHm10lt7w/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">I’ve been terrified to post this for a while &#8211; but it feels like it’s time for me to be honest. I hope this is not the end of the conversation, but the beginning. I hope this is encouraging to people who might feel the same but are as afraid to speak as I am. I want to be open. I want to be transparent with you all &#8211; and also open to having my heart changed in the future. I am not looking for a debate at all &#8211; just a chance to share my story in the hopes some good can come from it. I love you all.</a>
<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/jonsteingard/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> Jon Steingard</a> (@jonsteingard) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2020-05-20T20:51:26+00:00">May 20, 2020 at 1:51pm PDT</time>
</div>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

5th Annual KLOVE Fan Awards At The Grand Ole Opry House &#8211; Arrivals

Christian Band Hawk Nelson Responds To Lead Singer’s Newfound Atheism

Christianity

Hawk Nelson

Singer and songwriter Cady Groves, know for songs like &#8220;This Little Girl&#8221; and “Oil and Water,” died on Saturday night at the age of 30, her family disclosed via social media.
Groves, who recently struggled with her health, is believed to have died of natural causes, brother Cody Groves said on Sunday.
&#8220;[Cady Groves] has left this world,&#8221; Cody posted to Twitter. &#8220;Details are limited right now but family is trying to get them and will keep people updated. Rest In Peace little sis.&#8221;
&#8220;Hope you’re reunited with [Kelly Groves] and Casey,&#8221; he added, referencing their two passed brothers, who died in 2007 and 2014, respectively, according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/country-singer-cady-groves-dead-at-30">Fox News</a>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<a href="https://twitter.com/cadygroves?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@cadygroves</a> has left this world. Details are limited right now but family is trying to get them and will keep people updated. Rest In Peace little sis. Hope you’re reunited with <a href="https://twitter.com/kellydgroves?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@kellydgroves</a> and Casey. <a href="https://t.co/l4S3tqWYFy">pic.twitter.com/l4S3tqWYFy</a>
&mdash; Cody Groves (@Codywaynegroves) <a href="https://twitter.com/Codywaynegroves/status/1257015013224714240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
After Cody&#8217;s initial tweet, he felt compelled to clarify his statement, noting that rumors had circulated over his sister&#8217;s cause of death.
“I hate that I even have to do this, but apparently the world and internet is a cluster of twisted misinformation. In my original post I had stated we had no information to try and prevent that, but to expel rumors I will provide an update” he said. “The medical examiner has completed autopsy and there was no indication of foul play or self harm. Simply put, Cady Groves died of natural causes.”
“She had some medical problems last fall and our best guess at this point until further testing is complete is that they had resurfaced. Please respect her name and family before sharing information that did not come directly from here,&#8221; he added.
<div class="image-ct inline">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Since Tweets are limited&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/Ad3bhfegI5">pic.twitter.com/Ad3bhfegI5</a>
&mdash; Cody Groves (@Codywaynegroves) <a href="https://twitter.com/Codywaynegroves/status/1257069141984514055?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
During a 2015 interview, Groves told <a href="https://arena.com/article/cady-groves-is-turning-tragedy-into-triumph" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Arena</a> of her brothers&#8217; passings: &#8220;[O]ne of my brothers was murdered six years ago, and my life stopped when that happened, and I spent five years of my life becoming a terrible person, not to other people, but to myself,&#8221; she revealed. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t love me anymore, and I was just so sad. My other brother just died about a month ago, and when he died, it&#8217;s so weird to say this, but it brought me back to life.&#8221;
&#8220;When my first brother died it killed me,&#8221; the country singer continued, &#8220;and then when [my second brother] died it brought me back to life because at his funeral all his friends were telling all these crazy stories about how he was like the funniest person they ever met in their entire life, and I got jealous while I was sitting at the funeral just broken down, because he was my best friend on the whole planet, everyone knew it, and I was just sitting there crying, thinking wow, I want to be that person for other people. I want to be funny, and I want to tell people stories, and I want people to remember me [in that way]. It kinda just woke me up, so for the last month I&#8217;ve been this whole new person, and I&#8217;ve just been trying to go with it.&#8221;
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.  
</div>

39th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards &#8211; Rehearsals Day 1

Country Singer Dead At 30, Brother Releases Statement

Celebrities

It&#8217;s the eternal debate: Who&#8217;s better, The Rolling Stones or The Beatles?
Paul McCartney, 77, says it&#8217;s clearly The Beatles.
In an interview with Howard Stern on his Sirius-XM radio show last week, McCartney said &#8220;I love the Stones but The Beatles were better.&#8221;
&#8220;Their stuff is rooted in the blues, whereas we had a lot more influences. Keith [Richards] once said to me, &#8216;You were lucky man. You had four singers in your band. We got one.'&#8221;
McCartney, who sang and played bass and piano for the group, and wrote dozens of the group&#8217;s songs, said The Stones sometimes copied The Beatles. &#8220;We started to notice that whatever we did the Stones sort of did it shortly thereafter,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;We went to America and had huge success, then the Stones went to America,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We did Sergeant Pepper and the Stones did a psychedelic album. There was a lot of that.&#8221;
But Mick Jagger, 76, the lead singer for The Stones, said his band was better &#8212; and still is.
Appearing on  Zane Lowe’s Apple Music show on Friday, Jagger said there was &#8220;obviously no competition&#8221; between the two, adding about McCartney, &#8220;He is a sweetheart. I’m a politician.&#8221;
&#8220;The big difference, though, is that The Rolling Stones is a big concert band in other decades and other areas when The Beatles never even did an arena tour,&#8221; Jagger said. &#8220;They broke up before the touring business started for real&#8230; They did that [Shea] stadium gig [in 1965]. But the Stones went on.&#8221;
The Beatles stopped touring early in their rise to stardom, reportedly because the screaming and carrying on from fans got out of hand. The boys from Liverpool hit the big time with their 1963 release of &#8220;Please Please Me,&#8221; but they broke up in 1970, with McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison all going their separate ways. Lennon was murdered in 1981 at age 40, while Harrison passed away from cancer in 2001 at age 58.
The Stones, meanwhile, have been one of the largest touring bands every decade since the 1970s. All the members &#8212; Jagger, Richards, 76, Charlie Watts, 78, and Ron Wood, 72 &#8212; are out on the road every couple of years with a new show, which feature elaborate sets and amazing light shows.
&#8220;We started stadium gigs in the 1970s and are still doing them now,&#8221; Jagger said. &#8220;That’s the real big difference between these two bands. One band is unbelievably luckily still playing in stadiums and then the other band doesn’t exist.&#8221;
Zing!
The tiff came just as The Stones hit another milestone. The band soared to No. 1 on the iTunes chart more than 40 years after their last No. 1 hit. Their single, &#8220;Living In A Ghost Town,&#8221; surpassed huge stars like Travis Scott, The Weeknd and Drake.
<iframe title="The Rolling Stones - Living In A Ghost Town (Official Video)" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LNNPNweSbp8?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">subscriber</a>.

The Concert for New York City at Rehearsals

Mick Jagger Tells Paul McCartney The Rolling Stones Are Better Than The Beatles: One Band ‘Still Playing Stadiums, The Other Band Doesn’t Exist’

Rolling Stones

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has walked back its decision to furlough nearly 100 members of the symphony orchestra despite receiving a $25 million federal bailout, a move that prompted the affected musicians to file a lawsuit against the performing arts center. 
According to <a href="https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/kennedy-center-strikes-deal-to-pay-orchestra/">The Washington Free Beacon</a>, the center has offered the musicians pay cuts and a wage freeze instead of furloughs, and the union representing the orchestra’s musicians has, in turn, decided to drop a lawsuit against the center for allegedly violating a contract, which prohibits layoffs without six weeks notice. 
As a result of the agreement, the Kennedy Center told the news agency that the organization will save $4 million and approximately $2.5 million in payroll through September 2020.
The decision to avoid musician furloughs comes a week after lawmakers moved to revoke the center’s $25 million bailout, calling the provision in the massive stimulus package “frivolous spending,” as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lawmakers-move-to-rescind-stimulus-for-kennedy-center-after-musician-layoffs">The Daily Wire</a> previously reported. 
“Some in Washington felt it was important to spend $25 million of taxpayer dollars on the Kennedy Center when there are obviously bigger needs right now. This is frivolous spending in the midst of a national emergency. Coronavirus requires a serious and targeted response,” said Congressman Brian Steil (R-WI), who authored the legislation to revoke the bailout. 
“If an organization is receiving assistance from the federal government, we expect them to take care of their workers,” said House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), one of the bill’s 13 co-sponsors. “As we take further Congressional action to fight the Coronavirus’ devastating impact on families and our economy, I call on Speaker Pelosi to finally put the American people, not special interests, first.”
“While everybody else was working together, Republican and Democrat, with President Trump, who was solely focused on fighting for jobs for American families,” argued Scalise in an interview with <a href="https://twitter.com/RepBryanSteil/status/1244981696690257920">Fox News</a>. “Nancy Pelosi literally held the bill up for days to get her pet projects, including the money for the Kennedy Center.”
President Trump has supported the bailout, arguing that he “didn’t have a big problem with it” because the center has “tremendous deficits that are built up,” reports <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/27/why-kennedy-center-got-money-bailout-bill/">The Washington Post</a>. 
“I haven’t spent time there because I’m far too busy. I’d love to go there evenings, but I’m too busy doing things,” said Trump, according to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lawmakers-move-to-rescind-stimulus-for-kennedy-center-after-musician-layoffs">The Hill</a>. “The Kennedy Center, they do a beautiful job, an incredible job.”
In addition to the buzz over the stimulus bailout, an online rumor has been circulating that the Kennedy Center donated $5 million to the DNC. As <a href="https://checkyourfact.com/2020/04/06/fact-check-kennedy-center-donate-5-million-democratic-national-committee/">The Daily Caller</a> reports, the source of the original claim appears to be a viral tweet where the poster then clarified that the statement was intended as a “next-step hypothetical.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The Kennedy Center Timeline:
Completes a $250 M renovation 
2019: Receives $41 M from taxpayers 
Yesterday: Gets $25 M from Relief Bill 
Today: Tells musicians it will stop paying them 
Donates $5 M to the DNC
The Kennedy Center launders taxpayer money for the Democrats.
— Cari Kelemen (@KelemenCari) <a href="https://twitter.com/KelemenCari/status/1243966035969085440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
To clarify, my original tweet should have said: 
*Tomorrow* donates $5 M to the DNC. 
It was meant as a next-step hypothetical based on the way the DNC has used Planned Parenthood to launder taxpayer money in the past. I did not intend to confuse anyone. Apologies if I did.
— Cari Kelemen (@KelemenCari) <a href="https://twitter.com/KelemenCari/status/1244360938754580481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2020</a></blockquote>
A spokesperson for the center told The Daily Caller that the center has made no donations to the DNC. The news agency reports that, as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Kennedy Center is prohibited from making political donations.

US-ENTERTAINMENT-ITALY-MUSIC-NOSEDA

Kennedy Center Agrees To Pay Orchestra After Lawmakers Move To Rescind Bailout

Last Thursday, at midnight, on March 26, Bob Dylan let the hard rain fall, ending his longest lasting drought between original music releases with a new, 17-minute-long ballad, titled, “Murder Most Foul.” His first original release since 2012’s The Tempest, the song was released with a heartfelt message from the folk-rock star, “Greetings to my fans and followers with gratitude for all your support and loyalty across the years. This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant, and may God be with you.”
Most Dylan songs find themselves at home in one of two places. Songs in the first camp, upon first listen, often leave listeners awed but intellectually addled in a sea of similes. In songs like “Desolation Row” and “Ballad of a Thin Man” Dylan paints vivid, descriptive imagery; but his paintings are abstract, and like Kandinsky’s Compositions, are bereft of an obvious subject. In the second camp we have songs like “Hurricane” – a song about the unjust conviction of an innocent black man – or the more recently recorded “Tempest” – about the sinking of the Titanic. In the lyrics of these songs, Dylan paints his ideas as an impressionist; beneath his metaphors and poetic frills there is an overarching theme, ripe for picking, and you would be hard-pressed to miss it. Along these lines comes his latest studio release, “Murder Most Foul.”
The song opens with a vivid recount of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963: “It was a dark day in Dallas, November &#8217;63; A day that will live on in infamy; President Kennedy was a-ridin&#8217; high; Good day to be livin&#8217; and a good day to die.”
Dylan meanders through the annals of the American songbook, skillfully weaving references to cultural milestones through his recount of JFK’s demise. In the second verse, he sings about the Beatles’ arrival in America: “The Beatles are comin&#8217;, they&#8217;re gonna hold your hand,” but first, he prefaces the lyric with a consoling sentiment, “Hush, little children, you&#8217;ll understand.” In the 60s, the arrival of the Beatles and British Invasion rock-and-roll was a cultural rebirth and a much-needed revival of a natural dynamism in the youth; a dynamism that, until then, was sorely lacking in an atmosphere defined and darkened by the then-recent presidential assassination and escalating war in Vietnam.
Dylan likely wrote and recorded this song some time back and stashed it away, only to be recently unearthed. And what time more appropriate than amid a global pandemic; a near nation-wide quarantine that has shuttered businesses and derailed lives; a pandemic that – like the JFK assassination of 1963 – has draped a dark, dreary atmosphere over a nation, engulfing and consuming the news.
The song continues down this course, against a backdrop of red, white, and blue, name-dropping cultural figureheads in a steady stream of consciousness that goes on for the 17-minute run time of the song, expressing flashes of Americana as they occurred through the past decades. It’s an epic ballad in the style of Don Mclean’s “American Pie” – or even Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire” – albeit less karaoke-able and twice as long; its lyrics contain a more fruitful history lesson than the majority of college classrooms in the country.
In the final verse, Dylan races through the American songbook, weaving artists into a soundtrack spanning decades and genres. He invokes Chet Baker and Don Henley and Carl Wilson and Elvis Presley and Oscar Peterson and Stan Getz and so much more. If Jack Kerouac’s cross-country hitch-hiking American road trip, “On the Road,” was scored to music, this would be it.
The orchestration in “Murder Most Foul” is minimal: it first sets the tone with dark, crooning piano chords and, shortly after, accompanies them with the lush string harmonies of violin and subtle percussion. The instrumentation never overpowers Dylan’s vocals, but rather complements them amiably. Dylan’s voice ages like a fine leather, recording the passage of time on its surface, changing in tone and texture. It exudes a unique characteristic that can only be defined by the years it has endured and the stories it has told. But despite having a long and indelible career spanning eight decades, Dylan’s style in “Murder Most Foul” is as distinctly Dylan as anything. His forced rhyming style of spoken word puts you in a hypnotic trance and keeps you hanging on for every word.
“Murder Most Foul” is Bob Dylan at his masterful storytelling best. It’s a worthy addition to the latter portion of Dylan’s cannon, coined as his late, renaissance-era period. And if nothing else, his newest song, in all its lyrical density, is a worthy reminder of Dylan’s eminence as the contemporary bard of a generation, who, in the words of the Swedish Nobel committee, “created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
Listen to the new song on YouTube below:
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3NbQkyvbw18" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Follow Harry Khachatrian on <a href="https://twitter.com/Harry1T6">Twitter</a>

Bob Dylan.

KHACHATRIAN: Bob Dylan Releases New Song, “Murder Most Foul,” For The Quarantine Blues

Bob Dylan

quarantine

In February, legendary rock icon and Black Sabbath founder Ozzy Osbourne – also known by his more theatrical names: The Prince of Darkness and the Godfather of heavy metal – released his twelfth solo album, Ordinary Man.
Commanding a career that began in 1968 under the banner of Black Sabbath, Ozzy, influenced by blues and early rock, birthed heavy metal. Though the genre’s origins are endlessly debated and discussed, it’s reasonable to say that Black Sabbath, in 1970, released one of the first (if not the first) heavy metal album. Like most new art movements, it wasn’t spawned out of thin air, it was born out of the influences that fed the hungriest artists of the era – artists who yearned not only to play the music they loved, but who dared to explore, push the envelope, and test listeners’ limits for experimentation. They were influenced by hard-rock and blues-rock, and the acid-fueled romp of the ‘60s. As Sabbath prodded their instruments in search of new sounds, their distorted amps expunged the flowery, colorful tones that defined and soundtracked the 60s. Just listen to the opening on their self-titled debut: a heavy deluge of rain bucketing down on the paved road as thunder roars in the background over the haunting church bells ringing out, followed by a thick, distorted G power chord. This was dark, creepy stuff, unlike almost anything that was being written and recorded in the era. Judas Priest’s singer, Rob Halford, described it as the “most evil track ever that’s been written in metal.”
A decade later, as drug addiction consumed him, Ozzy was fired from the band he founded, but went on to have one of the most successful solo careers of any frontman. This is no easy feat. Think of your favorite bands; bands with a bevy of hall-of-fame hits (in Sabbath’s case, “Iron Man,” “Paranoid,” “War Pigs,” – and these are all from just one record). Now think of a case where the founder was fired for self-destructive tendencies and, in response, launched a solo career with hits that, at the very least, are on par with their former band’s. Ozzy’s solo debut, Blizzard of Ozz, charted higher than Sabbath’s first record without him, Heaven and Hell, both released in the same year. This would have been like Brian Jones, after being fired from the Rolling Stones, going solo and releasing a record bigger than Sticky Fingers.
Though not officially announced, Ordinary Man is likely the final official studio release from Ozzy – but who knows what the record label will spend years churning out as they comb every inch of his vaults for demos and recordings, years after he’s gone. The album features a slew of collaborations, starting with Ozzy’s newest producer, Andrew Watt. The two began their partnership last year when Ozzy cowrote and appeared on Post Malone’s “Take What You Want,” for his record, Hollywood&#8217;s Bleedin, which, at the time, Watt was producing. The much younger Watt, a millennial born around the same time Nirvana released their first record, was steeped in rock and roll from a young age, and is no stranger to working with decorated rock stars; in 2013, he founded his own band with Led Zeppelin descendant, Jason Bonham, and Deep Purple’s Glenn Hughes.
The rest of the roster on Ordinary Man is no slouch either, with some heavy hitters hailing from an era closer to Ozzy’s: Slash and Duff McKagan from Guns N’ Roses, Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine and Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers all make appearances, in addition to Elton John.
With the recent news of a Parkinson’s diagnoses and thereafter cancellation of the No More Tours tour, it can’t help but feel like the end of the road for the esteemed ambassador of heavy metal, who, for generations, quenched teenage thirst for parental disapproval. In fact, Ordinary Man feels, in many ways, like David Bowie’s Blackstar. It is not only the final chapter of a discography, but its lyrics and arrangements bear acknowledgement of the fact. In “Lazarus,” Bowie sang while staring down his despondent cancer diagnoses with not anger or sorrow, but acceptance, “Look up here, I&#8217;m in heaven; I&#8217;ve got scars that can&#8217;t be seen.” Ozzy, in “Ordinary Man,” echoes a similar poignancy, “Don&#8217;t forget me as the colors fade; when the lights go down, it&#8217;s just an empty stage.” Nearly every song on the album hints at the inevitable.
Ordinary Man is a deeply introspective statement from Ozzy. It strips the façade carefully curated by record labels and marketing gurus to hawk his music at angsty teens, eschewing self-mythologizing for something far more meaningful: realism. In “Holy For Tonight,” when Ozzy sings, “I&#8217;m runnin&#8217; out of time; forever I know I&#8217;m someone that they won&#8217;t remember,” he isn’t the larger-than-life “Prince of Darkness” belting out the chorus from “Crazy Train,” but a weathered man in his later years who has come to terms with his own mortality and is ready to face it head-on.
The opening number on Ordinary Man, &#8220;Straight to Hell,&#8221; is your textbook Ozzy Osbourne stadium rocker. Though Ozzy is a frayed 72 and lacks the same dynamism that fueled him in the 1980s, you wouldn’t know it from listening to this track. Andrew Watt’s production pitches his vocals slightly forward, putting him front and center. Slash supplies the solos on this track, going up and down the scales as Ozzy wails, “Straight to hell; We’re going straight to hell tonight.”
“Do they sell tea in heaven?” Ozzy’s dark, British humor and religious allusions end off “Goodbye,” a song which, in tone, is reminiscent of Sabbath’s 1971 album, Master of Reality. This song – and most of Ordinary Man, such as “All My Life,” “Under the Graveyard,” or “Holy for Tonight” – is adorned with references to Christianity and faith. But unlike the lyrics in Master of Reality, “Goodbye” is written at a much different period in Ozzy’s life.  In his heyday, he sang of faith idealistically, “Well I have seen the truth, yes I&#8217;ve seen the light and I&#8217;ve changed my ways; and I&#8217;ll be prepared when you&#8217;re lonely and scared at the end of our days.” Here, truly near the end of his days, Ozzy’s songs are far more personal and poignant; they are brooding, rife with self-reflection and retrospect. In “All My Life,” he sings, “I was standin&#8217; at the edge, looking down at myself as a child; And he looked back at me, crying tears of defeat from his eyes; He said I know all the lies that you hide behind every fake smile; Am I gonna be lonely like you.”
Ozzy didn’t have to look far for inspiration on Ordinary Man. His most personal hopes and deepest fears are etched and recorded in the inner grooves of this LP. In “Under the Graveyard,” Ozzy again alludes to the end of his life, “Ashes to ashes, watch me disappear; closer to home because the end is near.” He suggests that his closeness to the end has brought him closer to that which really matters. The record’s religious overtones shine through in the chorus as he sings, “Everything you are; can&#8217;t take it when you go.” Further stripping down his deity-like persona, Ozzy acknowledges that at the end of his life, his awards and riches mean little. He just wants what most people want: to be remembered not as the Prince of Darkness, but as a good husband, and a good father.
A standout on this album is the title track, “Ordinary Man.” Before even diving into the lyrics, the title itself is strikingly solemn. Continuing to chip away at and wear down his larger-than-life persona, Ozzy reveals the bare “Ordinary Man” in the Prince of Darkness’ robe. This song reminds me of an older Ozzy record, “Goodbye to Romance,” a retrospective look at his life (in 1980), and what was then the end of a significant chapter of his life: Black Sabbath. It was about his firing from his band and the start of his solo career. In “Ordinary Man,” Ozzy once again digs back, but this time much further, reflecting on an entire career of wild thrills, conquests, and even some duds. The arrangement is elevated beautifully by the lush piano frills and harmonics of Elton John. Slash plays here as well, with a seething solo that could live comfortable in his early 90s Use Your Illusion recordings, right next to “November Rain.”
If there’s one song here where Andrew Watt’s modern-production brush strokes are most apparent, it’s “Today is the End.” And I don’t mean that in a good way. The recording, particularly the chorus, which sounds like a painful pastiche of early 2000s garage rock off MTV, is entirely detached and foreign from Ozzy’s heavy-metal and bluesy roots. Things do pick up with “Scary Little Green Men,” a silly song about an alien invasion from which it is fruitless to try and wrest meaning. Just enjoy it for what it is: the kind of neck-pain-inducing headbanger Ozzy can knock off effortlessly. Along the same lines is “Eat Me” – somewhat reminiscent of Sabbath’s “The Wizard” with its bluesy harmonica opening – another light-hearted rocker that may or may not be written from the perspective of a bat – among Ozzy’s many accomplishments, biting the head off a live bat, on stage, is more relevant now than ever.
In rock-and-roll, it’s the norm that late career records end up as footnotes in the discographies of artists from a bygone era. They are listened to by fans who’ve grown up with them, but seldom cause ripples in the culture. By the time artists have matured and grown past their prime, the culture has moved on. For better or for worse, it has changed and evolved. The culture is driven by the youth, and the youth of today would rather listen to the newest Billie Eilish single than Ozzy Osbourne’s latest LP. Whether Eilish will be remembered and celebrated for as long as Ozzy, or fade away as an ephemeral fad, only time will tell. Very few artists have stayed in tune with the culture over the course of their entire career. While the Beatles or Led Zeppelin or Nirvana are rare cases of artists disbanding at the peaks of their respective careers, most artists continue well into their nadir years yearning to rekindle their relevance after cementing their legacies. Ozzy Osbourne cemented his legacy twice. First through the ‘70s at the helm of Black Sabbath, and then again as a solo artist through the ‘80s and ‘90s. His final album, Ordinary Man, is more than a yearning for relevance; it’s a yearning for redemption.
Follow Harry Khachatrian on <a href="https://twitter.com/Harry1T6">Twitter.</a>

Ozzy Osbourne

KHACHATRIAN: Ordinary Man: Ozzy Osbourne’s Farewell

In a lengthy Instagram post published Wednesday, British singer Duffy revealed that her sudden departure from the music industry in the late 2000s was due to a traumatic experience in which she was allegedly drugged, raped, and held captive for multiple days.
&#8220;You can only imagine the amount of times I thought about writing this,&#8221; Duffy started the post. &#8220;The way I would write it, how I would feel thereafter. Well, not entirely sure why now is the right time, and what it is that feels exciting and liberating for me to talk. I cannot explain it.&#8221;
&#8220;Many of you wonder what happened to me,&#8221; she continued, &#8220;where did I disappear to and why.&#8221;
After a journalist contacted her, the singer explained, &#8220;he found a way to reach me and I told him everything this past summer. He was kind and it felt so amazing to finally speak.&#8221;
&#8220;The truth is, and please trust me I am ok and safe now, I was raped and drugged and held captive over some days,&#8221; revealed Duffy.
&#8220;Of course I survived,&#8221; she said. &#8220;The recovery took time. There’s no light way to say it. But I can tell you in the last decade, the thousands and thousands of days I committed to wanting to feel the sunshine in my heart again, the sun does now shine.&#8221;
Duffy said she only came forward now to tell her story because she &#8220;did not want to show the world the sadness in my eyes.&#8221;
&#8220;I asked myself, how can I sing from the heart if it is broken?&#8221; the post continued.  &#8220;And slowly it unbroke.&#8221;
The singer revealed that the audio interview she recorded with the unnamed male journalist will be released in coming weeks.
&#8220;I have a sacred love and sincere appreciation for your kindness over the years. You have been friends. I want to thank you for that,&#8221; the singer signed off, adding: &#8220;Please respect this is a gentle move for me to make, for myself, and I do not want any intrusion to my family. Please support me to make this a positive experience.&#8221;
As noted by <a href="https://variety.com/2020/music/news/duffy-british-pop-sensation-reveals-assault-reason-absence-1203515398/">Variety</a>, Duffy had a budding career in the late 2000s, seemingly &#8220;poised for the kind of massive neo-soul career that Adele has enjoyed in her wake.&#8221; But since her departure from music, until now, Duffy &#8220;usually ended up pointing to statements she made during and after the promotion cycle of her second album about her disaffection for all that came with being a star&#8221; to explain her absence from the industry.
Duffy is best known for her 2008 hit single “Mercy,” which peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/singer-duffy-raped-drugged-held-captive-days">Fox News</a> reported, adding that the musical talent earned a Grammy award for best pop vocal album for “Rockferry&#8221; in 2008. Duffy also stacked up two &#8220;two more nominations in the same year for best new artist and best female pop vocal performance with &#8216;Mercy,'&#8221; Fox noted.
Duffy released another album in 2010, titled &#8220;Endlessly,&#8221; before largely leaving the industry, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/26/entertainment/duffy-instagram-post/index.html">CNN</a> noted.
<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8_95uYhFMQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:500px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);">
<div style="padding:16px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8_95uYhFMQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" background:#FFFFFF; line-height:0; padding:0 0; text-align:center; text-decoration:none; width:100%;" target="_blank"> 
<div style=" display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;">
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div>
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div>
<div style="display:block; height:50px; margin:0 auto 12px; width:50px;"><svg width="50px" height="50px" viewBox="0 0 60 60" version="1.1" xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><g stroke="none" stroke-width="1" fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd"><g transform="translate(-511.000000, -20.000000)" fill="#000000"><g><path d="M556.869,30.41 C554.814,30.41 553.148,32.076 553.148,34.131 C553.148,36.186 554.814,37.852 556.869,37.852 C558.924,37.852 560.59,36.186 560.59,34.131 C560.59,32.076 558.924,30.41 556.869,30.41 M541,60.657 C535.114,60.657 530.342,55.887 530.342,50 C530.342,44.114 535.114,39.342 541,39.342 C546.887,39.342 551.658,44.114 551.658,50 C551.658,55.887 546.887,60.657 541,60.657 M541,33.886 C532.1,33.886 524.886,41.1 524.886,50 C524.886,58.899 532.1,66.113 541,66.113 C549.9,66.113 557.115,58.899 557.115,50 C557.115,41.1 549.9,33.886 541,33.886 M565.378,62.101 C565.244,65.022 564.756,66.606 564.346,67.663 C563.803,69.06 563.154,70.057 562.106,71.106 C561.058,72.155 560.06,72.803 558.662,73.347 C557.607,73.757 556.021,74.244 553.102,74.378 C549.944,74.521 548.997,74.552 541,74.552 C533.003,74.552 532.056,74.521 528.898,74.378 C525.979,74.244 524.393,73.757 523.338,73.347 C521.94,72.803 520.942,72.155 519.894,71.106 C518.846,70.057 518.197,69.06 517.654,67.663 C517.244,66.606 516.755,65.022 516.623,62.101 C516.479,58.943 516.448,57.996 516.448,50 C516.448,42.003 516.479,41.056 516.623,37.899 C516.755,34.978 517.244,33.391 517.654,32.338 C518.197,30.938 518.846,29.942 519.894,28.894 C520.942,27.846 521.94,27.196 523.338,26.654 C524.393,26.244 525.979,25.756 528.898,25.623 C532.057,25.479 533.004,25.448 541,25.448 C548.997,25.448 549.943,25.479 553.102,25.623 C556.021,25.756 557.607,26.244 558.662,26.654 C560.06,27.196 561.058,27.846 562.106,28.894 C563.154,29.942 563.803,30.938 564.346,32.338 C564.756,33.391 565.244,34.978 565.378,37.899 C565.522,41.056 565.552,42.003 565.552,50 C565.552,57.996 565.522,58.943 565.378,62.101 M570.82,37.631 C570.674,34.438 570.167,32.258 569.425,30.349 C568.659,28.377 567.633,26.702 565.965,25.035 C564.297,23.368 562.623,22.342 560.652,21.575 C558.743,20.834 556.562,20.326 553.369,20.18 C550.169,20.033 549.148,20 541,20 C532.853,20 531.831,20.033 528.631,20.18 C525.438,20.326 523.257,20.834 521.349,21.575 C519.376,22.342 517.703,23.368 516.035,25.035 C514.368,26.702 513.342,28.377 512.574,30.349 C511.834,32.258 511.326,34.438 511.181,37.631 C511.035,40.831 511,41.851 511,50 C511,58.147 511.035,59.17 511.181,62.369 C511.326,65.562 511.834,67.743 512.574,69.651 C513.342,71.625 514.368,73.296 516.035,74.965 C517.703,76.634 519.376,77.658 521.349,78.425 C523.257,79.167 525.438,79.673 528.631,79.82 C531.831,79.965 532.853,80.001 541,80.001 C549.148,80.001 550.169,79.965 553.369,79.82 C556.562,79.673 558.743,79.167 560.652,78.425 C562.623,77.658 564.297,76.634 565.965,74.965 C567.633,73.296 568.659,71.625 569.425,69.651 C570.167,67.743 570.674,65.562 570.82,62.369 C570.966,59.17 571,58.147 571,50 C571,41.851 570.966,40.831 570.82,37.631"></path></g></g></g></svg></div>
<div style="padding-top: 8px;">
<div style=" color:#3897f0; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:550; line-height:18px;"> View this post on Instagram</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;">
<div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 8px;">
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div>
<div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: auto;">
<div style=" width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div>
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div>
<div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div>
</div>
</div>
</a> 
 <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8_95uYhFMQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">You can only imagine the amount of times I thought about writing this. The way I would write it, how I would feel thereafter. Well, not entirely sure why now is the right time, and what it is that feels exciting and liberating for me to talk. I cannot explain it. Many of you wonder what happened to me, where did I disappear to and why. A journalist contacted me, he found a way to reach me and I told him everything this past summer. He was kind and it felt so amazing to finally speak. The truth is, and please trust me I am ok and safe now, I was raped and drugged and held captive over some days. Of course I survived. The recovery took time. There’s no light way to say it. But I can tell you in the last decade, the thousands and thousands of days I committed to wanting to feel the sunshine in my heart again, the sun does now shine. You wonder why I did not choose to use my voice to express my pain? I did not want to show the world the sadness in my eyes. I asked myself, how can I sing from the heart if it is broken? And slowly it unbroke. In the following weeks I will be posting a spoken interview. If you have any questions I would like to answer them, in the spoken interview, if I can. I have a sacred love and sincere appreciation for your kindness over the years. You have been friends. I want to thank you for that x Duffy Please respect this is a gentle move for me to make, for myself, and I do not want any intrusion to my family. Please support me to make this a positive experience.</a>
<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by @<a href="https://www.instagram.com/duffy/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> duffy</a> on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2020-02-25T18:12:57+00:00">Feb 25, 2020 at 10:12am PST</time>
</div>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>

British Singer Duffy

Singer Duffy Reveals Sudden Departure From Music Industry: ‘I Was Raped And Drugged And Held Captive’

Rape

Famed singer Taylor Swift, who uses her fame to promote left-wing activism and Democratic politicians, took a shot at billionaire Democrat mega-donor George Soros this week while accepting an award, saying that he was behind an effort to take the intellectual property rights to essentially everything she has created in her professional career.
Swift&#8217;s attack comes as she battles music executive Scooter Braun, who she says was bankrolled by Soros and others when Braun bought the rights to her music.
&#8220;In November, Braun blocked the singer from performing a medley of her hits at the American Music Awards,&#8221; The Washington Free Beacon <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/taylor-swift-calls-out-george-soros-in-award-speech/">reported</a>. &#8220;Like Soros, Braun is a major Democratic donor with a history of backing liberal causes. Braun and actor George Clooney backed the ostensibly student-led 2018 March For Our Lives rally for gun control in Washington, D.C.&#8221;
&#8220;We now find ourselves fully immersed in a vast frontier that wasn&#8217;t around last decade and that is the streaming world,&#8221; Swift said as she accepted the Woman of the Decade award during Billboard’s 2019 Women in Music event. &#8220;I&#8217;ve spoken out in the past about the future of revenue flow for creators and the songwriters and producers who are being left behind due to these rapid shifts and changes.&#8221;
&#8220;I still don&#8217;t think that record contracts or producers agreements have fully caught up and I hope that in the next decade we can keep searching for the right solution for producers, songwriters, and creators, don&#8217;t you?&#8221; Swift continued. &#8220;Lately there&#8217;s been a new shift that has affected me personally and that I feel is a potentially harmful force in our industry and as your resident loud person I feel the need to bring it up and that is the unregulated world of private equity coming in and buying up our music as if it is real estate, as if it&#8217;s an app or a shoe line.&#8221;
Swift continued, &#8220;This just happened to me without my approval, consultation, or consent. after I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalog was sold to Scooter Braun&#8217;s Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I&#8217;m told was funded by the Soros family, 23 Capital, and The Carlyle Group.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Last night Taylor Swift revealed in her Billboard “Woman of The Decade” speech that billionaire Dem donor George Soros funded the deal to buy the rights to her music. <a href="https://t.co/RoHe8abHv6">pic.twitter.com/RoHe8abHv6</a>
&mdash; Alex Clark 💖🇺🇸 (@yoalexrapz) <a href="https://twitter.com/yoalexrapz/status/1205377467080269824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Yet to this day, none of these investors have ever bothered to contact me or my team directly, to perform their due diligence on their investment, on their investment in me, to ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art, the music I wrote, the videos I created, photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs,&#8221; Swift concluded in her remarks about the subject. &#8220;And of course, Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale or even when it was announced.&#8221;
Swift has promoted Democratic politicians during elections and has endorsed far-left activist groups like March For Our Lives, which advocates for restricting Americans&#8217; constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Swift wanted to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election but decided not to because she did not think that her endorsement would be helpful.
The Hill <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/459141-the-evolution-of-taylor-swifts-political-activism">added</a>, &#8220;Swift charged ahead by sharing her political views in 2019, writing in an essay for Elle magazine that she is now &#8216;finding [her] voice in terms of politics&#8217; and wants to &#8216;do more to help&#8217; ahead of the 2020 presidential election.&#8221;

Taylor Swift George Soros

Taylor Swift Blasts George Soros For Exploiting Her Music Without Her ‘Consent’

George Soros

Taylor Swift

Rolling Stones.

KHACHATRIAN: The Rolling Stones’ ‘Let It Bleed,’ Altamont, And The End Of The 1960s

1960s

ABC aired The American Music Awards on Sunday, Nov. 24, and the big surprise was that none of the featured pop stars launched into a political diatribe about the horrors of the Trump era. The shock factor was reserved for one of the most vicious assaults on God ever projected by Hollywood.
One of today&#8217;s most popular singers among teenagers is Camila Cabello, and she performed her song &#8220;Living Proof,&#8221; which suggests God is found in her lover&#8217;s raunchy moves. &#8220;Like a choir singing &#8216;Hallelujah&#8217;/ When my body&#8217;s crashin&#8217; right into ya,&#8221; she sang. &#8220;Ooh, there&#8217;s God in every move/ Ooh, and you&#8217;re the living proof.&#8221; In the second verse, Cabello added, &#8220;Show your demons, and I might show you mine/ One at a time.&#8221;
The lyrics were illustrated onstage with a set of male and female dancers around the singer, all dressed in lacy costumes. Some costumes were white lace, and some were black, and they wore implied wings on their backs, suggesting a blurring of angels and demons. But it ended with these spiritual dancers thrusting their bodies into one another while surrounded by flames. The audience got the hint. One tweeted: &#8220;Thank you for the giant stage orgy! It was beautiful!&#8221;
That, believe it or not, wasn&#8217;t the worst of it.
Pop star Ke$ha performed her song &#8220;Raising Hell,&#8221; which is loaded with profanity and sex talk: &#8220;I&#8217;m all f—-ed up in my Sunday best/ No walk of shame &#8217;cause I love this dress/ &#8230; Only God can judge this holy mess/ B——, I&#8217;m blessed.&#8221; She begged her lover to &#8220;Bounce it up and down where the good Lord split it.&#8221; She boasted, &#8220;mama raised me well/ But I don&#8217;t wanna go to Heaven without raising Hell.&#8221;
For the ABC show, Ke$ha brought along rapper Big Freedia, a deep-voiced gay male who dresses like a drag queen and uses &#8220;she/her&#8221; pronouns. While Ke$ha skipped the Federal Communications Commission-discouraged profanity, she sang in front of rainbow-colored stained-glass windows, suggesting a pro-LGBTQ vibe. Her troupe of dancers wore hot pink pajama-like outfits with Roman collars, as if the performance were an Episcopalian-priest disco slumber party. And she began the performance by saying, &#8220;Welcome to our Sunday service.&#8221;
The Hell theme continued with 17-year-old songstress Billie Eilish, who offered her song &#8220;All the Good Girls Go to Hell.&#8221; It begins with the words &#8220;My Lucifer is lonely.&#8221;
This dark song is touted as a rant against climate change, but it carries the message that Heaven is a prison: &#8220;Pearly gates look more like a picket fence/ Once you get inside &#8217;em/ Got friends but can&#8217;t invite them.&#8221; She paints God as a woman who desperately needs the devil. &#8220;All the good girls go to Hell/ &#8217;cause even God herself has enemies,&#8221; she sang. &#8220;And once the water starts to rise/ and Heaven&#8217;s out of sight/ She&#8217;ll want the devil on her team.&#8221;
This angry child won two awards including best new artist. American teenagers tend to know more song lyrics than prayers, and that&#8217;s especially sad when the lyrics of the hottest songs try to tear God into pieces.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Billie Eilish.

BOZELL & GRAHAM: ABC Broadcasts Pop Music From Hell

American Music Awards

Billie Eilish

Ke$ha

The British band Coldplay is taking the woke up a few notches in its latest album &#8220;Everyday Life,&#8221; which will tackle such hot-button issues as gun control and police brutality.
In a review, USA Today&#8217;s Patrick Ryan said that &#8220;Everyday Life&#8221; offers the same sentimentality that Coldplay fans have become accustomed to, and that it occasionally deviates from that formula with mixed results and on-the-nose pronouncements.
&#8220;When they deviate from the formula, results are a mixed bag,&#8221; <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2019/11/22/everyday-life-review-coldplay-gets-political-but-still-plays-safe/4260431002/">writes Ryan</a>. &#8220;Martin seems out of his depth singing with a gospel choir on &#8216;BrokEn,&#8217; a hand-clapping spiritual hymn asking for God&#8217;s light. Attempts at social consciousness on the tongue-in-cheek &#8216;Guns&#8217; and police brutality-focused &#8216;Trouble in Town&#8217; are good-intentioned but on the nose. It&#8217;s impossible not to feel at least slight discomfort listening to the latter, as Martin softly coos lyrics like &#8216;they hung my brother brown&#8217; and &#8216;I get no peace, and I just get more police.'&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s ambitious without being risky: [D]ipping into a variety of genres and topical issues but hewing closely enough to the band&#8217;s feel-good, hits-filled catalog to satisfy longtime fans,&#8221; continues Ryan. &#8220;For the rest of us, it&#8217;s mostly the musical equivalent of a shrug.&#8221;
The song &#8220;Guns&#8221; essentially amounts to little more than a pro-gun control anthem that could have been sung at the March for Our Lives protest. Lyrics below:
<blockquote>Take it from the playgrounds and take it from the bums 
Take it from the hospitals and squeeze it from the slums 
All the kids make pistols with their fingers and their thumbs 
Advertise a revolution, arm it when it comes 
We’re cooking up the zeros, we’ve been doing all the sums 
The judgment of this court is we need more guns
Meltdown all the trumpets, all the trombones and the drums 
Who needs education or A Thousand Splendid Suns? 
Poor is good for business, cut the forests, they’re so dumb 
Only save your look-alikes and f*** the other ones 
It’s the opinion of this board that we need more guns</blockquote>
Coldplay going woke with its latest album follows the band&#8217;s recent announcement to postpone a tour due to environmental concerns.
&#8220;We’re not touring this album. We’re taking time to see how our tour can be actively beneficial,” 42-year-old front man Chris Martin <a class="x5l" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-50490700" target="_blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer">told</a> the BBC. “All of us have to work out the best way of doing our job. Our next tour will be the best possible version of a tour like that, environmentally. We would be disappointed if it’s not carbon neutral.”
Most recently, singer Lana Del Rey released her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-lana-del-rey-sings-about-looking-america-paul-bois">own anti-gun anthem</a> in which she hoped for an America without guns.
“Came back early from Montecito with my brother this morning and asked Jack Antonoff to come into town because I had a song on my mind that I wanted to write,” Del Rey said in an Instagram post at the time. “Now I know I’m not a politician and I’m not trying to be, so excuse me for having an opinion — but in light of all of the mass shootings and the back to back shootings in the last couple of days which really affected me on a cellular level I just wanted to post this video that our engineer Laura took 20 minutes ago. I hope you like it. I’m singing love to the choruses I recorded this morning. I’m going to call it ‘Looking for America.&#8217;”

Coldplay Concert In Argentina

Coldplay Tackles Gun Control, Police Brutality In Newest Album

Guns

Police

Pastor Adam Tyson revealed during a podcast last week that musical talent Kanye West told him he almost stopped rapping soon after being save by God because he thought rap was “the devil’s music.” 
Tyson, the pastor at the California-based Placerita Bible Church that West began attending in mid-May, encouraged the pro-Trump performer to continue with the genre, but to do so in a way that glorifies God. 
“One time, he (West) told me that he wasn’t going to rap,” Tyson told Christian outlet <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&amp;v=YDUmbkdQksU">Apologia</a>, <a href="https://www.xxlmag.com/news/2019/10/kanye-west-considered-quitting-rap-devil-music/">XXL</a> magazine reported. “I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘Well, that’s the devil’s music.’ I said, ‘Hey, man. Rap is a genre. You can rap for God.’ I think he was already thinking about it a little bit, but I just definitely said, ‘Hey, bro. I think you need to use your talents that God’s given you and use that platform for God.’”
West announced Monday that his highly-anticipated “Jesus is King” album is set for release on October 25. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
“JESUS IS KING” OCT 25th <a href="https://t.co/Ug4ghlQYk7">pic.twitter.com/Ug4ghlQYk7</a>
&mdash; ye (@kanyewest) <a href="https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/1186149413846052864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Tyson told Apologia that West was connected to his church through a young couple who knows the rapper and his wife Kim Kardashian. The young man who knows West told Tyson that the artist kept asking him questions about God, some of which he couldn’t answer. Tyson and others at the church prayed for West and suggested the couple invite him to the church, knowing it was a long shot. 
But in May, West started attending Placerita Bible Church and soon revealed to Tyson that he had recently been “radically saved.”
“[Kanye] said, ‘About five weeks ago, I got radically saved,&#8217;” Tyson said, according to XXL. “He just started telling me a little about his testimony.”
According to Tyson, West told him that he was raised as a Christian but began “chasing all the things of this world” after hitting it big in the music industry. “He would say the devil basically brought him to a place where he just felt like he was in bondage to his sin. So he said, ‘I got delivered,'&#8221; Tyson recalled.
As reported by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-kanye-confronts-kim-over-her-sexy-outfits-hurting-his-soul-and-spirit">The Daily Wire</a> last week, West confronted Kardashian over her sexy outfits during a recent episode of E!’s “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” West explained to Kardashian that while he used to think his wife should look like other girls who constantly show off their bodies, he now realizes that Kardashian’s revealing looks are negatively “affecting” his “soul and &#8230; spirit.”
“The corset, underwear, all of that vibe,” West said of Kardashian’s Met Gala dress, “I just feel like I went through this transition from being a rapper, looking at all these girls, and then looking at my wife like, ‘Oh, my girl needs to be just like these other girls, showing her body off, showing this, showing that.’”
“I didn’t realize that that was affecting my soul and my spirit as someone that’s married and loved, the father of what’s about to be four kids,” he continued. “A corset is a form of underwear. It’s hot. It’s like, it’s hot for who though?”
“You are my wife, and it affects me when pictures are too sexy,” West added after Kardashian protested. 
As reported by The Daily Wire in July, West said that his “radical obedience to Christ” helped stabilize his mental health. Moreover, earlier this year, the rap icon created “Sunday Service” events that include gospel music.
“It’s honestly more like a healing experience for my husband. It’s just music; there’s no sermon. It’s definitely something he believes in – Jesus – and there’s a Christian vibe. But there’s no preaching. It’s just a very spiritual Christian experience,” Kardashian told Elle magazine of the services.
WATCH (relevant comments begin at the 23:40 mark): 
<iframe title="Special Event: Interview w/ Kanye&#039;s Pastor" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YDUmbkdQksU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Kanye West

‘Radically Saved’ Kanye Called Rap ‘The Devil’s Music,’ Almost Quit Industry, Pastor Reveals

Kim Kardashian

Musician Pharrell Williams recently expressed regret over his 2013 &#8220;rapey&#8221; hit song &#8220;Blurred Lines,&#8221; which he collaborated on with singer Robin Thicke and rapper T.I.
Sitting down with <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/pharrell-new-masculinity-cover-interview">GQ</a> for an interview published on Monday, the singer claimed he didn&#8217;t understand that the song&#8217;s lyrics could have an adverse affect on women until well after the song took off. According to the 46-year-old, he now realizes that we have a &#8220;chauvinist culture in our country.&#8221;
While discussing the &#8220;new conversation&#8221; surrounding masculinity, Williams explained that things that used to be kosher in society &#8220;would never fly today,&#8221; such as &#8220;[a]dvertisements that objectify women,&#8221; and &#8220;song content&#8221; &#8212; including some of his own. 
&#8220;Some of my old songs, I would never write or sing today,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I get embarrassed by some of that stuff. It just took a lot of time and growth to get to that place.&#8221;
&#8220;I think &#8216;Blurred Lines&#8217; opened me up,&#8221; Williams said. At first, the artist explained, he didn&#8217;t see the issue with the song due to how much women seemed to enjoy the hit.
&#8220;I didn&#8217;t get it at first. Because there were older white women who, when that song came on, they would behave in some of the most surprising ways ever. And I would be like, wow. They would have me blushing,&#8221; the musician explained. &#8220;So when there started to be an issue with it, lyrically, I was, like, What are you talking about? There are women who really like the song and connect to the energy that just gets you up. And I know you want it – women sing those kinds of lyrics all the time. So it&#8217;s like, What&#8217;s rapey about that?&#8221;
&#8220;And then I realized that there are men who use that same language when taking advantage of a woman, and it doesn&#8217;t matter that that&#8217;s not my behavior,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Or the way I think about things. It just matters how it affects women. And I was like, Got it. I get it. Cool. My mind opened up to what was actually being said in the song and how it could make someone feel. Even though it wasn&#8217;t the majority, it didn&#8217;t matter. I cared what they were feeling too.&#8221;
&#8220;I realized that we live in a chauvinist culture in our country,&#8221; Williams told the magazine. &#8220;Hadn&#8217;t realized that. Didn&#8217;t realize that some of my songs catered to that. So that blew my mind.&#8221;
Williams also spoke of masculinity, which he claimed &#8220;is the essence of you that understands and respects that which isn&#8217;t masculine.&#8221;
&#8220;If you ask me,&#8221; he said, &#8220;when we talk about masculinity, it&#8217;s also very racial, this conversation. Because the dominant force on this planet right now is the older straight white male. And there&#8217;s a particular portion of them that senses a tanning effect. They sense a feminizing effect. They sense a nonbinary effect when it comes to gender.&#8221;
One song Williams certainly doesn&#8217;t regret is &#8220;Happy.&#8221;
&#8220;And then here comes &#8216;Happy,&#8217; a record that I didn&#8217;t write for myself, that I ended up being on, that made people feel happy,&#8221; he said, noting that the song &#8220;made me cry. It literally made me cry. Like, I was on the Oprah show for my birthday, and she showed me a video of people around the world singing that song, and that s*** f***ed me up. Bad. I was never the same. So I don&#8217;t beat on my chest. I haven&#8217;t been the same since any of that music.&#8221;

Pharrell Williams

Pharrell Williams Expresses Regret Over ‘Rapey’ ‘Blurred Lines’ Hit: ‘We Live In A Chauvinist Society’

Hollywood

Sexism

Grammy-winning electronic music superstar Zedd says he&#8217;s been &#8220;permanently banned&#8221; from China after liking a single Tweet from &#8220;South Park&#8217;s&#8221; official account.
DJ Zedd, who is German, tweeted about the incident on Saturday, noting on the social media platform that, &#8220;I just got permanently banned from China because I liked a <a class="PrettyLink profile customisable h-card" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/SouthPark" data-mentioned-user-id="23504870" data-scribe="element:mention">@SouthPark</a> tweet.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I just got permanently banned from China because I liked a <a href="https://twitter.com/SouthPark?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SouthPark</a> tweet.
&mdash; Zedd (@Zedd) <a href="https://twitter.com/Zedd/status/1182376966495838208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Tweet in question was this one, promoting &#8220;South Park&#8217;s&#8221; 300th episode.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🎉 It&#39;s our 300th episode tonight! Which is your favorite episode and why? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/southpark300?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#southpark300</a> <a href="https://t.co/OH25s1qAFr">pic.twitter.com/OH25s1qAFr</a>
&mdash; South Park (@SouthPark) <a href="https://twitter.com/SouthPark/status/1181966500246278144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/grammy-winner-zedd-permanently-banned-from-china-after-liking-south-park-tweet-musician-claims">Fox News reports</a> that the DJ&#8217;s publicist confirmed the permanent ban on Saturday night; “This is true, yes, but we don’t have any more info to give you at this time,&#8221; he told CNBC.
Zedd, whose real name is Anton Zaslavski, did not immediately elaborate on what a &#8220;permanent ban&#8221; from China entails, but following a &#8220;South Park&#8221; episode where the main characters flout Chinese censorship laws, the cartoon&#8217;s creators found that &#8220;South Park&#8221; was essentially scrubbed from the internet in China. Clips of the show were removed from the country&#8217;s YouTube clone site, discussions about the show were shut down on internet message boards, and the show&#8217;s Chinese social media presence vanished overnight.
Fox News reports that Zedd&#8217;s music is, at least, still available in China as of Saturday night, and that his catalog of music hasn&#8217;t been pulled down from Chinese streaming services. <a href="https://edm.com/news/zedd-china-travel-ban-confirmed">EDM.com</a>, which tracks electronic music acts as they travel the globe, reports that concert promoters have been forced to cancel Zedd&#8217;s upcoming performances in China.
Zedd confirmed that report in an Instagram post, adding that his &#8220;permanent ban&#8221; is &#8220;not a joke:&#8221; &#8220;&#8230; this is NOT a joke. The government informed our promoters that if they don&#8217;t cancel my scheduled shows in China, they would pull their cultural permits.&#8221;
&#8220;South Park&#8221; creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, took aim at China in the show&#8217;s most recent season premiere, targeting China over reports that the Communist country is holding more than one million ethnic Chinese Muslims in concentration camps, and skewering major corporations like Disney for accepting Chinese censorship in exchange for access to the Chinese market.
One of the show&#8217;s main characters ends up on a Chinese &#8220;re-education&#8221; camp for selling marijuana while on a business trip. At the same time, the South Park kids form a band that becomes an overnight global sensation; their musical act breaks up after members are told they must rewrite their songs in order to gain access to Chinese audiences.
&#8220;South Park&#8217;s&#8221; 300th episode, which airs this week, will take aim at the anti-vaccination movement, not necessarily Chinese censors, but the show&#8217;s creators, Parker and Stone, promise the episode will have more to say on the issue of Chinese meddling in American art.
The episodes could not have come at a better time, of course. The NBA recently issued a groveling apology to China after the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. NBA players and coaches — and the league&#8217;s commissioner, Adam Silver — have since avoided making any strong statements on China, apparently at the behest of Chinese censors who have threatened an economic boycott of the NBA.

Zedd

Electronic Music Superstar Zedd Claims He’s Been ‘Banned’ From China Over ‘South Park’ Tweet

China

&#8220;Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones.&#8221; These thundering words precede a pantheon of rock and roll that takes its place on stage as tens of thousands of fans, whose ages span several generations, look on in anticipation and joy.
It all started for the big, bad progenitors of rock and roll back in 1962. At London&#8217;s Marquee Jazz Club where, one summer night, the Rolling Stones played their first ever gig. At the time, their roster featured founder and multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire, Brian Jones; vocalist Mick Jagger; guitarist Keith Richards; and keyboardist, Ian Stewart. United by their passion for American blues, the unparalleled ensemble set off to bring the music of Chuck Berry, Muddy Mutters, et al. to Europe. As Richards explains in his autobiography, Life, &#8220;the British invasion was really an invasion of American music into Europe.&#8221; The four were joined a few months later, in January, by bassist Bill Wyman and jazz drummer Charlie Watts, thus completing the lineup.
In May of 1963, with a producer on board, the Rolling Stones were signed by Decca, the record label notorious for passing on The Beatles. In June, the Stones released their first single, &#8220;Come On,&#8221; a Chuck Berry cover.
They have been at it ever since, performing more than 2,000 concerts around the world, with grueling, nearly nonstop touring through the 1960s and early 1970s. They have claimed the title of top-grossing tour four separate times and amassed the world&#8217;s highest-grossing tours in both the 1990s and 2000s.
Now, showing no signs of stopping, the Stones are in the last stretch of their latest tour, &#8220;No Filter,&#8221; spanning two continents, and 45 shows. But the tour has not been without turbulence. A brief scare postponed the last set of shows, as Jagger had to undergo emergency heart surgery. However, Jagger — who just celebrated his 76th birthday — recovered from heart surgery at around the same rate that most adolescents recover from having their wisdom teeth pulled out. Within mere weeks, he announced he was back to his usual exercise routine and had a clean bill of health from his doctor. The tour was back on.
I, myself, saw the Rolling Stones play in their one Canadian show, and suffice it to say, every minute of the six hours spent standing still against the stage-front barricade was worth it for the spectacle that followed. The Stones regaled spectators with fan favorites, the majority of the set-list being drawn from the band’s famed, four sequential chef d&#8217;oeuvres: Beggars Banquet (1968), Let it Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971), and Exile on Main St. (1972).
Lesser-known records were played as well, especially thanks to the audience having a say in the set-list via online voting. Contenders were picked from a bag of forgotten hits and esoteric cuts off earlier albums: &#8220;Mercy Mercy&#8221; from 1965&#8217;s Out of our Heads – played for the first time in 50 years; &#8220;Under My Thumb&#8221; from 1966&#8217;s Aftermath; and the one I got to see, &#8220;She’s a Rainbow.&#8221; It was a welcome revival of a colorful, pop-ballad from the Stones&#8217; oft-overlooked, early-era Pink Floyd inspired album, Their Satanic Majesties Request.
The Stones opened the show with the energetic, lively paean to protest: &#8220;Street Fighting Man.&#8221; Jagger emerged, draped in glam and glitter, his bellowing vocals filling the field, Richards in his usual debonair, driving the main riff, Ronnie Wood and Darryl Jones commanding the band&#8217;s tight rhythm, and Watts keeping the beat, as a bona fide human metronome. Any remaining qualms concerning the Stones&#8217; ability to perform at peak performance were henceforth quashed.
As the evening went on, the syndicate of septuagenarians showed no signs of slowing down. Tearing through bread-and-butter staples like the twangy &#8220;Tumbling Dice,&#8221; and demonstrating their range by beautifully elevating the mellow, &#8220;You Can&#8217;t Always Get What You Want&#8221; to its grandiose proportions, the Rolling Stones of 2019 have remained largely unchanged from their disheveled adolescence in the epoch of the 1960s. They still run like a well-oiled machine, engineered to play the blues. A lead guitarist amongst the members is rarely identifiable, as Richards and Wood interweave their instruments while playing off Watts&#8217; drums and Jones’ bass to create a cohesive, unified sound. It&#8217;s a product far greater than the sum of its parts, and it&#8217;s the magic behind the Rolling Stones&#8217; sound.
Midway through the show, seeking to recreate the more intimate aura from the band&#8217;s early days playing in smaller clubs – like Toronto&#8217;s El Mocambo Tavern in 1977 – Jagger and company moved to a smaller stage, set amidst the crowd. From here they played their acoustic love ballad, &#8220;Angie&#8221; — though a more fitting track would have been &#8220;Salt of the Earth,&#8221; their stirring — and some might argue, sardonic — salute to the working class; the commoners who surrounded their stage. &#8220;Say a prayer for the common foot soldier; Spare a thought for his back breaking work.&#8221;
As the Stones made their way back to the main stage, an orchestral arrangement of a snare drum, maracas, and congas began to play. The field filled with the haunting echoes of &#8220;woo-woo!,&#8221; scenes of fire and brimstone were projected above, creating the macabre backdrop to &#8220;Sympathy for the Devil.&#8221; I have heard this song more times than I can count, every beat and guitar note is forever etched into my memory, but hearing it live, for the first time, as soon as Mick Jagger opened with those iconic introductory pleasantries, &#8220;Please allow me to introduce myself, I&#8217;m a man of wealth and taste,&#8221; I just couldn’t help but smile in awe. &#8220;Woo-woo!&#8221;
Jagger then handed the reigns to Richards, to front his 1989 ode to old age, &#8220;Slipping Away&#8221; from the album Steel Wheels. Wrinkled but not withered, like a finely aged wine, Richards&#8217; performance was imbued with layers of complexity.
A highlight of the show came in the encore: &#8220;Gimme Shelter.&#8221; What other songs can perfectly capture and recreate the atmosphere of the late 1960s in four-and-a-half minutes? Everything from the Kennedy assassination, to the draft and Vietnam War, is encapsulated in this record.
But what makes this song shine is the chorus. Backup singer Sasha Allen (perfectly filling Mary Clayton&#8217;s shoes from the original recording) delivered the best vocal performance of the night, a duet with Jagger. Her soulful, gospel cries and screams of &#8220;RAPE! MURDER!&#8221; elevated the song to its epic proportions, draping the audience in its creepy, ghastly ambiance.
The Rolling Stones could have retired a long time ago, in the early &#8217;70s, and have still enjoyed heaps of accolades, lauding their legacy. But touring until today — in their 70s — they refuse to rest on their laurels. Jagger, when asked in a <a href="https://youtu.be/iiF-DRdGfnk">1965 interview</a> how much more fuel the Rolling Stones had to burn, replied, with a sanguine smirk, &#8220;I think we&#8217;re pretty well set up for at least another year.&#8221; Fifty-four years later, in 2019, the Rolling Stones &#8220;No Filter&#8221; world tour rolls on with concert dates scheduled through the end of August. Is this the last tour of the last true remnant of rock and roll&#8217;s heyday? Well, this could be the last time; this could be the last time; maybe the last time; I don&#8217;t know, oh no, oh no.
Follow Harry Khachatrian on <a href="https://twitter.com/Harry1T6">Twitter</a>
Writer&#8217;s note – Here is my personal, comprehensive ranking of the Rolling Stones&#8217; UK studio discography:
1. Let It Bleed (1969)
2. Beggars Banquet (1968)
3. Exile on Main St. (1972)
4. Sticky Fingers (1971)
5. Some Girls (1978)
6. The Rolling Stones No. 2 (1965) (UK)
7. Between the Buttons (1967) (UK)
8. Aftermath (1966) (UK)
9. Black and Blue (1976)
10. Tattoo You (1981)
11. Goats Head Soup (1973)
12. Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)
13. The Rolling Stones (1964) (UK)
14. Blue and Lonesome (2016)
15. Out of Our Heads (1965) (UK)
16. It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (1974)
17. Emotional Rescue (1980)
18. Voodoo Lounge (1994)
19. A Bigger Bang (2005)
20. Steel Wheels (1989)
21. Bridges to Babylon (1997)
22. Dirty Work (1986)
23. Undercover (1983)

The Rolling Stones

KHACHATRIAN: The Rolling Stones: Still The Greatest Live Rock And Roll Act In The World​

The &#8220;woke culture&#8221; of the 2010s has finally come for its biggest target yet: the hippie culture of the 1960s and its all star cast of outspoken leftists, including legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie.
Oddly enough, the &#8220;hippie movement&#8221; and its counter-cultural push is the natural predecessor of today&#8217;s &#8220;woke&#8221; progressives, who believe they&#8217;re only continuing the work begun by Vietnam War-era feminists, cultural agitators, anti-war protesters, change agents, and the occasional domestic terrorist (the ones who were just blowing things up to make a point, of course).
But there comes a point when children begin to recognize the limits of their parents&#8217; and grandparents&#8217; progressivism, and <a href="https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/this-land-is-whose-land-indian-country-settler-protest">according to the Smithsonian publication, Folklife</a>, that moment has finally come for Guthrie over his classic song, &#8220;This Land is Your Land.&#8221;
Guthrie penned the song back in 1940, as a way of deliberately countering more theistic, less &#8220;inclusive&#8221; patriotic songs, like &#8220;God Bless America.&#8221; He abandoned it after composing a few verses, took it back up in the mid-1940s, then passed it on to prominent folk singers of the 1960s, like Bob Dylan and the group, Peter, Paul &amp; Mary, who sang the most famous rendition.
It&#8217;s widely recognized as a protest song. Just&#8230;not the right kind. At least, not anymore.
In a grueling 3,000-word article for Folklife, Native rights activist Mali Obomsawin calls the song an embarrassment for liberal culture, and admits to being &#8220;shaken up like a soda can&#8221; every time she hears the lyrics &#8212; to the degree that she believes the song itself should either never be played again, or come with a trigger warning about Guthrie&#8217;s limited, mid-20th century view of American culture.
&#8220;These lyrics shake me up like a soda can every time I hear them. As an activist, folk musician, and songwriter (in Lula Wiles), and recent label-mate of Woody Guthrie on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings,&#8221; she says, &#8220;my social circles tend to worship Guthrie as the father of all musical protest. But as a Native person, I believe &#8216;This Land Is Your Land&#8217; falls flat.&#8221;
The problem is that Guthrie simply wasn&#8217;t woke enough about &#8220;this land.&#8221; Although one of the founding fathers of protest music, Guthrie somehow missed that the land he was singing about &#8212; the United States &#8212; was, in fact, land stolen from Native Americans, so it wasn&#8217;t really &#8220;his land&#8221; at all.
&#8220;In the context of America, a nation-state built by settler colonialism, Woody Guthrie&#8217;s protest anthem exemplifies the particular blind spot that Americans have in regard to Natives: American patriotism erases us, even if it comes in the form of a leftist protest song,&#8221; Obomsawin says.
&#8220;This land &#8216;was&#8217; our land,&#8221; she continues. &#8220;Through genocide, broken treaties, and a legal system created by and for the colonial interest, this land &#8216;became&#8217; American land. But to question the legitimacy of American land control today instantly makes one the most radical person in the room&#8211;even in leftist circles. And because Indigenous critiques of this country are so fundamental, our voices are often marginalized to the point of invisibility.&#8221;
Guthrie, she says, can almost be forgiven. After all, he was raised in a less woke era and inculcated in an American culture that he may have resented, but which brainwashed him with certain values, anyway, like imperialism and, yes, white supremacy and white nationalism.
That&#8217;s right, by penning one of the earliest and most famous protest songs in history, Woody Guthrie inadvertently contributed to the spread of white nationalism. And it&#8217;s not only up to modern leftists to reject &#8220;This Land is Your Land,&#8221; out of concern for their Native bretheren, it&#8217;s required that they make amends and alter their outlook so that they don&#8217;t repeat Guthrie&#8217;s crimes.
&#8220;By critiquing &#8216;This Land Is Your Land,&#8217; I don&#8217;t mean to imply that Guthrie himself promoted conquest, but the song is indicative of American leftists&#8217; role in Native invisibility,&#8221; Obomsawin says, &#8220;The lyrics as they are embraced today evoke Manifest Destiny and expansionism (&#8216;this land was made for you and me&#8217;). When sung as a political act, the gathering or demonstration is infused with anti-Nativism and reinforces the blind spot.&#8221;
Sure.

Menu

Music

Cardi B Files For Divorce Following Cheating Rumors

CeeLo Green Seems To Rip Raunchy Female Rappers On ‘Moral Level’ During Interview, Posts Statement To Clarify, Apologize

WALSH: Beyoncé Is Not An Artistic Genius; We Should Stop Pretending She Is

Sammy Hagar: Willing To ‘Personally Get Sick And Even Die’ To Save Economy

Christian Band Hawk Nelson Responds To Lead Singer’s Newfound Atheism

Country Singer Dead At 30, Brother Releases Statement

Mick Jagger Tells Paul McCartney The Rolling Stones Are Better Than The Beatles: One Band ‘Still Playing Stadiums, The Other Band Doesn’t Exist’

Kennedy Center Agrees To Pay Orchestra After Lawmakers Move To Rescind Bailout

KHACHATRIAN: Bob Dylan Releases New Song, “Murder Most Foul,” For The Quarantine Blues

KHACHATRIAN: Ordinary Man: Ozzy Osbourne’s Farewell

Singer Duffy Reveals Sudden Departure From Music Industry: ‘I Was Raped And Drugged And Held Captive’

Taylor Swift Blasts George Soros For Exploiting Her Music Without Her ‘Consent’

KHACHATRIAN: The Rolling Stones’ ‘Let It Bleed,’ Altamont, And The End Of The 1960s

BOZELL & GRAHAM: ABC Broadcasts Pop Music From Hell

Coldplay Tackles Gun Control, Police Brutality In Newest Album

‘Radically Saved’ Kanye Called Rap ‘The Devil’s Music,’ Almost Quit Industry, Pastor Reveals

Pharrell Williams Expresses Regret Over ‘Rapey’ ‘Blurred Lines’ Hit: ‘We Live In A Chauvinist Society’

Electronic Music Superstar Zedd Claims He’s Been ‘Banned’ From China Over ‘South Park’ Tweet

KHACHATRIAN: The Rolling Stones: Still The Greatest Live Rock And Roll Act In The World

This Land Is NOT Your Land: Woke Culture Now Demanding Woody Guthrie Be Canceled Over Folk Music Faux Pas

Menu

Music

Cardi B Files For Divorce Following Cheating Rumors

CeeLo Green Seems To Rip Raunchy Female Rappers On ‘Moral Level’ During Interview, Posts Statement To Clarify, Apologize

WALSH: Beyoncé Is Not An Artistic Genius; We Should Stop Pretending She Is

Sammy Hagar: Willing To ‘Personally Get Sick And Even Die’ To Save Economy

Christian Band Hawk Nelson Responds To Lead Singer’s Newfound Atheism

Country Singer Dead At 30, Brother Releases Statement

Mick Jagger Tells Paul McCartney The Rolling Stones Are Better Than The Beatles: One Band ‘Still Playing Stadiums, The Other Band Doesn’t Exist’

Kennedy Center Agrees To Pay Orchestra After Lawmakers Move To Rescind Bailout

KHACHATRIAN: Bob Dylan Releases New Song, “Murder Most Foul,” For The Quarantine Blues

KHACHATRIAN: Ordinary Man: Ozzy Osbourne’s Farewell

Singer Duffy Reveals Sudden Departure From Music Industry: ‘I Was Raped And Drugged And Held Captive’

Taylor Swift Blasts George Soros For Exploiting Her Music Without Her ‘Consent’

KHACHATRIAN: The Rolling Stones’ ‘Let It Bleed,’ Altamont, And The End Of The 1960s

BOZELL & GRAHAM: ABC Broadcasts Pop Music From Hell

Coldplay Tackles Gun Control, Police Brutality In Newest Album

‘Radically Saved’ Kanye Called Rap ‘The Devil’s Music,’ Almost Quit Industry, Pastor Reveals

Pharrell Williams Expresses Regret Over ‘Rapey’ ‘Blurred Lines’ Hit: ‘We Live In A Chauvinist Society’

Electronic Music Superstar Zedd Claims He’s Been ‘Banned’ From China Over ‘South Park’ Tweet

KHACHATRIAN: The Rolling Stones: Still The Greatest Live Rock And Roll Act In The World​

This Land Is NOT Your Land: Woke Culture Now Demanding Woody Guthrie Be Canceled Over Folk Music Faux Pas

Don't miss a beat of our coverage.

KHACHATRIAN: The Rolling Stones: Still The Greatest Live Rock And Roll Act In The World