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LGBTQ audiences who wanted visibility in pop culture had it tough for most of 1995, when Morrissey’s “Boy Racer” was about as explicit as things got (“He’s just too good-looking…”). Two years before Ellen DeGeneres came out to a network TV audience of millions, several fresh shoots appeared in an otherwise largely barren field. The political ABC sitcom Spin City boasted a gay Black character, the third- or fourth-funniest cast member. A closeted lesbian chief of staff kept an eye on the hospital in NBC’s megahit E.R.

The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs and Elvis Costello are celebrating Keith Richards’ 81st birthday with a new cover of the (primarily) Keef-penned Rolling Stones cut “Connection.”

Hoffs and Costello’s rendition of the track retains the original 1967 song’s punchy energy, while imbuing it with some more ramshackle jangle, as well as a whole lot of tender, sweet harmonies. Hoffs tells Rolling Stone that she got to do the “Keith part” on the cover (ostensibly referring to the lead guitar riff and vocals), quipping she and Costello “both wanted to do the Keith part,...

The pop-music world, in many ways, has only gotten angstier (it would be hard to imagine a mood-poet chanteuse like Billie Eilish commanding arenas 20 years ago). But even back in the ’90s, Sheryl Crow was the kind of straight-up, middle-of-the-strike-zone, tasty-licks virtuoso of rock ‘n’ roll good times who seemed to have been put on earth to make people happy.

She was at the forefront of a revolutionary wave of women in pop — the Lilith Fair generation, from Alanis Morrisette to Sarah McLachlan to Shawn Colin to Paula Cole — but she was also, you could argue, one of the last great rockers to work in the heart-on-the-sleeve, guitar-riffs-on-air tradition of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. My favorite line of hers has always been the one that comes after “All I wanna do is have some fun…” — namely, “until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard.” With her starburst smile and electrifying vocal bravado,...

Original master tapes and other recordings belonging to 19 artists, including Elton John, Nirvana, Sheryl Crow, Soundgarden, Beck and R.E.M., were lost or damaged in a 2008 fire at a Universal Music Group vault, according to new legal documents obtained by Rolling Stone.

The revelation appeared in a new filing in the ongoing class action lawsuit against Umg on behalf of artists seeking damages related to the fire. It marks the first public confirmation of specific artists who lost recordings in the fire following a New York Times Magazine report...

A little more Dark Knight news for you, as the biggest movie of the year tries to bolster its chances for Academy Awards. But we now know it won't win an Oscar for Best Original Score, because AMPAS has disqualified it from contention.

The Academy also disqualified the Batman Begins score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard three years ago, and it's very particular about its rules for music. Does anyone remember "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge! winning Best Song? Of course not, because AMPAS ruled that since David Baerwald actually wrote it for Romeo + Juliet, even though it was never recorded for that film, it wasn't "original." To me, that's ludicrous, because it's hard to prove that songs are written for a specific movie.

For all we know, Randy Newman wrote that year's winner, "If I Didn't Have You," a long time before Mosnters, Inc. came around...

Fans of David Rabe's controversial play from the 1980s will find special delight in this well-framed, finely acted adaptation from Fine Line Features.

Featuring superb lead performances from Sean Penn and Kevin Spacey and tight direction from Anthony Drazan, "Hurlyburly" should win recognition on the art house circuit. Penn won a deserved best actor honor from the Venice International Film Festival this year for his edgy, contained performance.

Those who may took in the play at the Westwood Playhouse in the '80s will remember it is set in Malibu at the abode of motion picture casting agents Eddie (Penn) and Mickey (Spacey). They're a fractured duo; both are compulsive and cynical and tend to treat people cavalierly and with no small amount of malice. That mendacious tendency, spurred by boozing and drug use, makes them a particularly lethal pair.

Eddie's hostility, in particular, carries over to his personal life, where he emotionally terrorizes the women he knows. At the moment, he's paired with a saucy player named Darlene Robin Wright Penn), whose detached sensibility and survival instincts jar Eddie -- she pretty much behaves as a man, tossing aside the opposite sex as tartly as any Hollywood womanizer.

Naturally, Rabe's acerbic, colorful writing is the highlight of this production. His verbiage is consistently assaultive as the characters thrash out the emptiness in their lives through hedonistic, self-absorbed behavior. The rhythm of the dialogue, counterpointing Eddie's aggressive posturing with Mickey's sardonic aloofness, fleshes out the inner despair these hollow men experience.

The players form a terrific ensemble. Bolstering Penn's central performance in particular is Spacey, who oozes comic cynicism and despair. With his hair dyed a bottled blond and wearing tight-ass suits, we are clued to the conflicts that surge beneath this man's guarded veneer. Chazz Palminteri is similarly strong as the addled screw-up of the bunch, a man so out of touch that he's always on the edge in this steep Mulholland Drive setting. Garry Shandling is convincing as a hanger-on, whose insecurities make him all too willing to please.

Meg Ryan does a smart and somewhat startling turn as a no-holds-barred woman of the evening, and Anna Paquin is moving as a runaway who holes up in this alpha-male lair.

Special praise to Drazan, not only for his work with the superb players but for his succinct visualization of the stage play. In particular, production designer Michael Haller's sharp-edged, metallic look clues us to the harsh coldness of this dissipated world, and cinematographer Changwei Gu's herky-jerky thrusts are perfectly aligned with this "Hurlyburly" world.

HURLYBURLY

Fine Line Features

Producers: Anthony Drazan,

Richard N. Gladstein, David S. Hamburger

Director: Anthony Drazan

Screenwriter: David Rabe

Executive producers: H. Michael Heuser,

Frederick Zollo Nicholas Paleologos,

Carl Colpaert

Director of photography: Changwei Gu

Editor: Dylan Tichenor

Music: David Baerwald, Steve Lindsey

Production designer: Michael Haller

Costume designer: Mary Claire Hannan

Color/stereo

Cast:

Eddie: Sean Penn

Mickey: Kevin Spacey

Darlene: Robin Wright Penn

Phil: Chazz Palminteri

Artie: Garry Shandling

Donna: Anna Paquin

Bonnie: Meg Ryan

Running time - 92 minutes

MPAA rating: R...