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.
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</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>
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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

Music

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.
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<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>
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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>.  
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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

Coronavirus

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>
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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.
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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.
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</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>
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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:
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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>
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&#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. 
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“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>
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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;
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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>
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The Tweet in question was this one, promoting &#8220;South Park&#8217;s&#8221; 300th episode.
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🎉 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>
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&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.

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

Native Americans

Smithsonian Museum

Bruce Springsteen&#8217;s &#8220;Born in the U.S.A.&#8221; marks its 35th anniversary this June. The American rock icon&#8217;s seventh studio album was met with massive commercial success upon release, featuring seven top-ten singles; it was certified as a three-times platinum record within a year of its release, and has sold over 30 million copies just since 2012.
Working with remnant recordings from sessions off of his then-previous record release, &#8220;Nebraska,&#8221; Springsteen reunited with the E-Street Band and producer Jon Landau to assemble his most pop-infused album since &#8220;Born to Run.&#8221;
In &#8220;Born in the U.S.A.,&#8221; Springsteen pooled a flourishing gamut of themes and ideas explored in previous records: The poignant depths of the human spirit on the verge of collapse from &#8220;Nebraska&#8221; (1982); the hardship of lost love and heartbreak from &#8220;The River&#8221; (1980); and the eminence of one&#8217;s roots and upbringing in &#8220;Born to Run&#8221; (1975).
In honor of the album&#8217;s anniversary, here&#8217;s a deeper dive into a few key songs that, 35 years later, have stood the test of time, and carry themes as relevant today as they were in 1984.
Born in the U.S.A.
The eponymous opening track, &#8220;Born in the U.S.A.&#8221; sets the tone for the album, kicking off as the most anthemic rocker in Springsteen&#8217;s discography since &#8220;Born to Run.&#8221; Set against a backdrop of red, white, and blue, it&#8217;s easy to see why the album&#8217;s title track is oft misinterpreted as either a paean to patriotism and America or as an anti-war harangue.
In fact, it&#8217;s neither of the two. If anything, it leans closer to the upbeat celebration of Americana than its browbeating. In standard Springsteen style, the song is a story, telling the tale of a wounded combatant who, at no choosing of his own, was sent off to fight in Vietnam and then returns home to find his town left hung out to dry.
<blockquote>
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man said &#8220;son if it was up to me&#8221;
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said &#8220;son, don&#8217;t you understand&#8221;
</blockquote>
There&#8217;s a widespread consensus now that the Vietnam War was largely a tragic boondoggle. It isn&#8217;t a controversial position. And Springsteen, in his lyrics, doesn&#8217;t focus on the vagaries of Vietnam; he instead lends his voice to the neglected and abandoned veterans of the conflict.
No Surrender
Springsteen&#8217;s affection for the downtrodden veterans of Vietnam has its reprise on the opening track of the record&#8217;s B-Side (the flip-side of the record), &#8220;No Surrender.&#8221; The track ties the album back to its namesake theme.
<blockquote>
Well, we made a promise we swore we&#8217;d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Like soldiers in the winter&#8217;s night
With a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender
</blockquote>
The song &#8220;No Surrender&#8221; is about camaraderie and staying true to oneself in the face of adversity. Springsteen communicates this idea soulfully:
<blockquote>
Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in
There&#8217;s a war outside still raging
You say it ain&#8217;t ours anymore to win
I want to sleep beneath
Peaceful skies in my lover&#8217;s bed
With a wide open country in my eyes
And these romantic dreams in my head
Once we made a promise we swore we&#8217;d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Blood brothers in a stormy night
With a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender
</blockquote>
Life is unpredictable. But even in the thick of battle, amid raging war when all one wants to do is go to sleep and dream of a more idyllic era, one has to stay true to himself and to those around him. No retreat, baby, no surrender.
Downbound Train
Toward the end of the album&#8217;s A-Side is one of Springsteen&#8217;s darkest and most melancholy tunes: &#8220;Downbound Train.&#8221; A drumbeat to deprivation and hardship, the song&#8217;s lyrics paint a bleak picture of economic anxiety.
<blockquote>
I had a job, I had a girl
I had something going, mister, in this world
I got laid off down at the lumber yard
Our love went bad, times got hard
Now I work down at the car wash
Where all it ever does is rain
Don&#8217;t you feel like you&#8217;re a rider on a downbound train
</blockquote>
The song follows a middle-class worker who loses his job and watches his life spiral down into penury &#8212; on-board, as Springsteen dubbed it, a downbound train.
Bobby Jean
Bruce Springsteen&#8217;s retrospective on life fills the grooves of the album&#8217;s B-side. With &#8220;Bobby Jean,&#8221; Springsteen tackles heartbreak and loss of friendship. The song&#8217;s malleable lyrics lend themselves to a slew of settings. Recovering from the slums of a breakup with your high school sweetheart? The song&#8217;s first verse channels this cliché.
<blockquote>
Well, I came to your house the other day
Your mother said you went away
She said there was nothing that I could have done
There was nothing nobody could say
Me and you, we&#8217;ve known each other ever since we were sixteen
I wished I could have known
I wished I could have called you
Just to say goodbye, Bobby Jean
</blockquote>
Growing up, if you had a childhood friend you felt was the only one who truly understood you and shared your interests, then the grief of losing such a friend is immeasurable. Springsteen captures that sorrow seamlessly in the latter verses.
<blockquote>
Now, you hung with me when all the others
Turned away, turned up their nose
We liked the same music, we liked the same bands 
&#8230;
Now, we went walking in the rain,
Talking about the pain that from the world we hid
Now there ain&#8217;t nobody, nowhere, nohow
Gonna ever understand me the way you did
Maybe you&#8217;ll be out there on that road somewhere
In some bus or train traveling along
In some motel room there&#8217;ll be a radio playing
And you&#8217;ll hear me sing this song
Well, if you do, you&#8217;ll know I&#8217;m thinking of you
And all the miles in between
And I&#8217;m just calling you one last time
Not to change your mind, but just to say I miss you, baby
Good luck, goodbye, Bobby Jean
</blockquote>
Glory Days
Of the next song, &#8220;Glory Days,&#8221; Springsteen said, &#8220;The first verse actually happened. The second verse mostly happened, and the third verse, of course, is happening now.&#8221; Springsteen&#8217;s lyrics transport the listener back to his halcyon high school days. Most importantly, the lyrics serve as a reminder that nostalgia is a powerful drug that blunts the painful realities of the present.
<blockquote>
Well there&#8217;s a girl that lives up the block
Back in school she could turn all the boy&#8217;s heads
Sometimes on a Friday I&#8217;ll stop by
And have a few drinks after she put her kids to bed
Her and her husband Bobby well they split up
I guess it&#8217;s two years gone by now
We just sit around talking about the old times
She says when she feels like crying
She starts laughing thinking bout
Glory days, well they&#8217;ll pass you by
Glory days, in the wink of a young girl&#8217;s eye
Glory days, glory days
</blockquote>
My Hometown
The album&#8217;s coda is among Springsteen&#8217;s finest compositions: A wistful ballad you can listen to with your eyes closed, as the transcendent lyrics transport the listener to his childhood town. Springsteen masterfully alludes to the treasured childhood memory of most: The first time being hoisted behind a seemingly giant steering wheel of a car.
<blockquote>
I was eight years old and running with a dime in my hand
Into the bus stop to pick up a paper for my old man
I&#8217;d sit on his lap in that big old Buick
And steer as we drove through town
He&#8217;d tousle my hair and say &#8220;Son, take a good look around
This is your hometown.
</blockquote>
In &#8220;My Hometown,&#8221; Springsteen circles back to his roots which he fervently fought to flee in &#8220;Born to Run.&#8221; &#8220;This town rips the bones from your back; it&#8217;s a death trap, a suicide rap. We gotta get out while we&#8217;re young; cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run.&#8221; But he doesn&#8217;t stop there. In the same song, Springsteen tackles racial tensions and conflict, before returning to another of the album&#8217;s key themes: Economic anxiety.
<blockquote>
In &#8217;65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights &#8216;tween the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night
In the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed, then a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come to my hometown
To my hometown
Now Main Street&#8217;s whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain&#8217;t nobody wants to come down here no more
They&#8217;re closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says &#8220;These jobs are going, boys
And they ain&#8217;t coming back
To your hometown.&#8221;
</blockquote>
With &#8220;Born in the U.S.A.,&#8221; Bruce Springsteen crafted a cohesive, unified pop-rock album. Though not his best album (that spot is forever reserved for the venerable &#8220;Born to Run&#8221;), &#8220;Born in the U.S.A.&#8221; made &#8220;The Boss&#8221; a worldwide superstar, sending Springsteen to the summit of his commercial success. Though no other album of his would ever reach such stardom, Springsteen can always look back to 1984, smiling, and thinking &#8216;bout glory days.
Follow Harry Khachatrian on <a href="https://twitter.com/Harry1T6">Twitter</a>.
Writer&#8217;s note:
Here is the writer&#8217;s personal comprehensive ranking of the top 10 Bruce Springsteen studio albums:
1. Born to Run (1975)
2. Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
3. The Wild the Innocent &amp; the E Street Shuffle (1973)
4. Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)
5. Nebraska (1982)
6. The River (1980)
7. Born in the USA (1984)
8. The Rising (2002)
9. Tunnel of Love (1987)
10. The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)

Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ Turns 35

Bruce Springsteen

Legendary musician Sir Elton John has come to the defense of the straight actor who plays him in the forthcoming film &#8220;Rocketman.&#8221;
Taron Egerton was chosen to play the musical icon despite being heterosexual, and many people are complaining that John, who is gay, should have been played by someone from the LGBT community. John himself pushed back on such criticism in an <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/9100258/elton-john-rocketman-taron-egerton-straight-gay/">exclusive interview</a> with The Sun&#8217;s Dan Wootton.
John, when asked about the criticism Egerton received, apparently waved his hand &#8220;dismissively&#8221; and told Wootton: &#8220;That&#8217;s all bulls***, I&#8217;m sorry.&#8221;
&#8220;If people don&#8217;t like it, review-wise, or it doesn&#8217;t make one dollar, it&#8217;s the movie I wanted to make and that&#8217;s all that counts,&#8221; John added. &#8220;I can look back and say, &#8216;You know what, I love it. I can live with it.&#8217;&#8221;
Before being asked about the criticism, John had praised Egerton.
&#8220;I was very emotional just now as well. The movie floored me. But I&#8217;m very high. Taron is beyond belief. It&#8217;s like watching me. It&#8217;s quite extraordinary, he&#8217;s so me-like. He&#8217;s a megastar,&#8221; the famed singer said. &#8220;He was schooled by George Martin&#8217;s son Giles and he&#8217;s done the most amazing job. I wanted it to be a movie where the actor sang &#8212; and he sings.&#8221;
The film takes a hard look into John&#8217;s meteoric rise and battles with alcoholism, drugs, and sex addiction. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Thursday night.
John told Wootton he wasn&#8217;t nervous about a film which highlighted some of the &#8220;darkest moments&#8221; &#8211; Wootton&#8217;s phrase &#8211; of his life.
&#8220;No, I&#8217;m pretty open about things like that,&#8221; he said. &#8220;When Tantrums And Tiaras came out, it was the most honest documentary you could watch.
&#8220;Tantrums and Tiaras&#8221; is a 1997 documentary directed by John&#8217;s husband David Furnish. It contains footage from John&#8217;s 1995 world tour and behind-the-scenes footage.
In another <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/elton-john-sobriety-rocketman-cannes-1203218427/">interview</a>, with Variety, John said it was difficult to watch the parts of that film that dealt with his family life.
&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to watch the family stuff. The drugs stuff I can handle because I did it, but the family stuff is touching,&#8221; he said.
In that same interview, John opened up about the self-doubt that he has even though he is an international superstar.
&#8220;I think every artist does [have self-doubt],&#8221; he said. &#8220;Every creative artist does have doubt and has moments of, &#8216;Am I doing the right thing? Am I good enough?&#8217; And that&#8217;s what turns us into monsters as well because I think you become unreasonable and of course the chemical substances and the alcohol doesn&#8217;t help anything, and you lose touch with reality.&#8221;

Elton John: It’s ‘Bulls***’ To Criticize A Heterosexual Man For Playing A Homosexual Man In A Film

LGBT

Green Day, apparently still around and making music, announced Wednesday that it&#8217;s issuing its first &#8220;graphic novel,&#8221; a &#8220;handbook&#8221; for the modern American woman and &#8220;every woman who refuses to capitulate&#8221; &#8212; and feminists aren&#8217;t amused.
The graphic novel, titled &#8220;Last of the American Girls,&#8221; will hit store shelves in October and is billing itself as an indispensible guide for women looking to maintain and cultivate that punk rock edge in a decreasingly punk rock world, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062964106/last-of-the-american-girls/">according to the novel&#8217;s publisher, Harper Collins</a>. It is &#8220;a rallying cry for all rebel girls.&#8221;
The team behind the novel is, of course, entirely male. Green Day&#8217;s lead vocalist and guitarist is Billie Joe Armstrong, joined on bass by Mike Dirnt, and drums by the aptly named Tre Cool, who has been with the band since the early 1990s, before they hit it big with their 1994 rock-and-punk album, &#8220;Dookie.&#8221; The band hired a male illustrator, cartoonist Frank Caruso, to do the inkwork.
It&#8217;s not clear exactly what &#8220;advice&#8221; the book will give today&#8217;s liberated woman, but &#8220;Last of the American Girls&#8221; is the title of one of the band&#8217;s songs, off their most recent album, &#8220;21st Century Breakdown.&#8221; It could just be the song lyrics with illustrations, or it could be a comprehensive guide to third wave feminism written by a team of men.
Feminists, of course, not typically ones to give the benefit of the doubt, immediately assumed &#8220;Last of the American Girls&#8221; will be the latter, and, accordingly, took to social media to voice their concern.
&#8220;What rebellious everywoman among us has not longed for an inspiring handbook authored and illustrated by four men and zero women,&#8221; wrote one.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
What rebellious everywoman among us has not longed for an inspiring handbook authored and illustrated by &lt;checks notes&gt; four men and zero women <a href="https://t.co/tWNHpnpZZK">https://t.co/tWNHpnpZZK</a>
&#8212; andi zeisler (@andizeisler) <a href="https://twitter.com/andizeisler/status/1113221611950301184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
&#8220;Yeah that&#8217;s what we need, a handbook for female rebellion&#8230;written by men,&#8221; wrote another.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Yeah that&#8217;s what we need, a handbook for female rebellion&#8230;written by men.
&#8212; Maddy Rizzo (@maddydrizzo) <a href="https://twitter.com/maddydrizzo/status/1113148291150176256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
&#8220;boys i love u with all of my heart and would happily take SEVERAL bullets for you but dont you think the main &#8221;rule&#8221; to being an independent woman in punk should be to, well, not be told how to live their lives by men who have no experience in what its like to live as a woman??&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
boys i love u with all of my heart and would happily take SEVERAL bullets for you but dont you think the main &#8221;rule&#8221; to being an independent woman in punk should be to, well, not be told how to live their lives by men who have no experience in what its like to live as a woman??
&#8212; lina (@wedrovenorth) <a href="https://twitter.com/wedrovenorth/status/1113122377028775936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
Although several outlets reached out to Green Day for clarification on the subject of whether they are dropping a graphc novel about feminism written entirely by men, neither the band nor their publicist have responded.
Being on the wrong side of the &#8220;woke&#8221; is likely a new experience for Green Day, whether the criticism is warranted or not. The band has hailed itself as something of a punk rock protest band in recent years, after penning their &#8220;rock opera&#8221; titled &#8220;American Idiot&#8221; as a way of fighting back against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars back during the George W. Bush years.
The trio eventually turned &#8220;American Idiot&#8221; into a successful Broadway musical, and after staying largely silent during the Obama Administration, which continued to prosecute both the Afghanistan and Iraq war and expand the American role in conflict across the globe, often turning to questionably ethical drone warfare, resurfaced recently to protest President Donald Trump.
At one point, lead singer Armstrong even <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/billie-joe-armstrong-tells-trump-supporting-fan-to-stop-listening-to-green-day-2204587">demanded that Trump supporters stop listening to Green Day&#8217;s music</a> after a fan noted that Armstrong&#8217;s virulent anti-Trump tweets would do little to change the mind of fans who support the president. They even included an anti-Trump protest song, &#8220;<a href="https://consequenceofsound.net/2017/11/donald-trump-is-a-terrifying-zombie-in-green-days-new-song-video-back-in-the-usa-watch/">Back in the USA</a>,&#8221; as a bonus feature on their 2017 greatest hits album.
But even the wokest among us are not wokest for long.

‘Woke’ Band Green Day Is Writing A Handbook For Feminists. Feminists Are NOT Having It

Feminism

Oprah Winfrey is leading the cultural shift in the wake of &#8220;Leaving Neverland,&#8221; an explosive documentary that alleges pop icon Michael Jackson sexually abused young boys throughout his long and fruitful career as an entertainer.
Speaking with Jackson&#8217;s two main accusers on her OWN network &#8212; Wade Robson and James Safechuck &#8212; Winfrey said that the fallout over the documentary &#8220;transcends Michael Jackson&#8221; and she hoped it will open a broader conversation about sexual abuse. The interview, &#8220;Oprah Winfrey Presents: After Neverland,&#8221; also featured other sexual abuse survivors, like actor Anthony Edwards of &#8220;ER.&#8221;
&#8220;I know people all over the world are going to be in an uproar and debating whether or not Michael Jackson did these things and whether these two men are lying or not lying. But for me, this moment transcends Michael Jackson,&#8221; Winfrey said. &#8220;It is much bigger than any one person. This is a moment in time that allows us to see this societal corruption. It&#8217;s like a scourge on humanity. . . . If it gets you, our audience, to see how it happens, then some good would have come of it.&#8221;
&#8220;Here&#8217;s the reason why I am here: In 25 years of &#8216;The Oprah [Winfrey] Show, I taped 217 episodes on sexual abuse,&#8221; Winfrey said, according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/oprah-winfrey-on-explosive-documentary-leaving-neverland-this-moment-transcends-michael-jackson">Fox News</a>. &#8220;I tried and tried and tried to get the message across to people that sexual abuse was not just abuse, it was also sexual seduction.&#8221;
&#8220;And it&#8217;s happening right now and it&#8217;s happening with families. We know it&#8217;s happening in churches and in schools and sports teams everywhere. So, if it gets you, our audience, to see how it happens, then some good would have come of it,&#8221; she concluded. &#8220;I hope we can get past Michael Jackson, the icon. Stop staring into the sun and do what is necessary to heal our children and heal ourselves.&#8221;
At one point in the interview, Oprah asked Michael Jackson&#8217;s accuser, Wade Robson, if he thought what he experienced was abuse when Michael Jackson molested him.
&#8220;As young boys, these two men did not feel abuse until much later on in life,&#8221; Winfrey explained. &#8220;Were you thinking about it as abuse then? Did you know you were being abused, and you were just defending Michael?&#8221;
&#8220;From night one of the abuse, of the sexual stuff that Michael did to me, he told me it was love,&#8221; Robson said. &#8220;He told me that he loved me and God brought us together. &#8230; Anything Michael would say to me was gospel.&#8221;
Safechuck echoed that sentiment: &#8220;Michael drilled in you, &#8216;If you&#8217;re caught, we&#8217;re caught, your life is over, my life is over.&#8217; It&#8217;s repeated over and over again, it&#8217;s drilled into your nervous system. It takes a lot of work to sort through that.&#8221;
Oprah received significant criticism from some of Jackson&#8217;s die-hard fans on social media for agreeing to interview Safechuck and Robson.
&#8220;So many in media, inc <a data-mentioned-user-id="19397785" data-scribe="element:mention" href="https://twitter.com/Oprah">@Oprah</a>, blindly taking <a data-query-source="hashtag_click" data-scribe="element:hashtag" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LeavingNeverland?src=hash">#LeavingNeverland</a> at face value, shaping a narrative uninterested in facts, proof, credibility,&#8221; wrote Jermaine Jackson on Twitter. &#8220;We faced similar &#8216;graphic&#8217; claims + trial-by-media in &#8217;05. Jury saw through it all. Trial-by-law proved Michael&#8217;s innocence long ago. Fact.&#8221;
Another Twitter user said: &#8220;I&#8217;m done with Oprah but she&#8217;s going to get dragged internationally. I&#8217;ll worry about Queen Sugar and Greenleaf later. I can&#8217;t believe this is happening, I never thought I would <a data-query-source="hashtag_click" data-scribe="element:hashtag" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/muteoprah?src=hash">#muteoprah</a>.&#8221;
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Music

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’

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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’

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