News

There are changes coming as the decade winds down and we head into the Roaring 2020s. The Billboard 200 charts, the standard for ranking of what’s doing well in music, will now recognize music videos as a regular part of the experience.

Also on the move is the Recording Academy. A 47-page report issued to a committee led by #MeToo head Tina Tchen is recommending that the voting methodology for the top four categories in the Grammys be changed, and that the organization become more diverse.

Then there’s the weekly Taylor Swift complaint about her back catalog. Surprisingly, she named liberal activist George Soros as one of the guilty parties who had a hand in exploiting the West…er, I mean, her back catalog.

This week in music:

Taylor Blames Soros For Troubles: Taylor Swift spoke out against liberal causes investor George Soros at Thursday’s Billboard Women in Music.

Marie Fredriksson, half of the Swedish pop rock duo Roxette and whose hit single “It Must Have Been Love” was featured in the 1990 film Pretty Woman, died Monday following a lengthy battle with cancer. Her management company confirmed her death to news outlets. Fredriksson was 61.

Fredrikkson joined with Per Gessle to form Roxette in 1986, a duo that went on to achieve international success with their albums Look Sharp! (1988) and Joyride (1991). Their breakout single “The Look,” reached number one on the Us Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1989. Their follow-up single “It Must Have Been Love” became the duo’s third number one hit in the U.S. after it was featured in the soundtrack of the 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman, starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. It ultimately became one of their best-selling releases, being certified gold or platinum in a number of countries. You can listen to the song in the clip from the film below.

Marie Fredriksson — the Swedish vocalist who scored a string of late-Eighties and early-Nineties hits with Roxette — died Monday following a 17-year battle with cancer. She was 61.

Fredriksson’s management company, Dimberg Jernberg Management, confirmed her death. Her Roxette bandmate, Per Gessle, also issued a statement on social media and via Dimberg Jernberg, saying, “Time goes by so quickly. It’s not that long ago we spent days and nights in my tiny apartment in Halmstad, listening to music we loved, sharing impossible dreams. And what a dream we eventually got to share!

Freshly independent Tinashe is back with the party-ready new song, “Die A Little Bit,” featuring South London rapper Ms Banks. The singer/dancer parted ways with RCA earlier this year.

Over a throwback Nineties house beat, Tinashe uses her breathiest vocals to sing about partying as a form of release; she doesn’t want to waste her time on people who don’t deserve her. In the video, she’s spotted in a lounge with a large group of friends, dancing and hanging out.

Tinashe and RCA split up earlier this year.

Tinashe is no longer signed with the record label RCA, according to her longtime manager, Mike Nazzaro.

Contrary to reports circulating on the internet, “she wasn’t dropped,” Nazzaro says. “We initiated for her to be released. It was a positive split for her. It’s giving her back creative control.” He says the exit “took a little while to figure out,” but has been final for “a month or so.”

RCA did not respond to repeated requests for comment. However, Tinashe is no longer listed on the label’s roster page on its website.

R&B artist Tinashe is joining the 27th season of “Dancing with the Stars” just a few months after the release of her latest studio album “Joyride,” but she’s not only a singer. She also has an extensive dance background. Will that help her dazzle the judges and viewers at home? The new season begins on September 24, so before Tinashe and her competitors take the stage, let’s consider her pros and cons as a contestant.

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Pros

Tinashe joins the ranks of past “DWTS” contestants like Mya, Heather Morris and Normani Kordei with significant dance experience. By the age of 4, Tinashe was studying ballet, tap and jazz and competed in various styles as part of a dance company until she was 18, so she’s a ringer. With so much training and competition under her belt, she should easily become one...

Tinashe is going dancing. E! News has learned Tinashe, born Tinashe Jorgensen Kachingwe, is slated to compete on the upcoming season of Dancing With the Stars, season 27. We hear she's partnered with Gleb Savchenko. Tinashe has released three albums as a solo artist, Aquarius, Nightride and Joyride, recently released a single, "Like I Used To," in July 2018. She appeared on remixes of Britney Spears' "Slumber Party" and Nick Jonas' "Jealous," and also acts, with roles in The Polar Express, Empire and Two and a Half Men. ABC does not comment on Dancing With the Stars casting rumors. The full cast will be announced on Wednesday, Sept. 12 on Good Morning America. However, there are...

Three months after Joyride, Tinashe is back with a surprise new single “Like I Used To,” which the singer dropped onto digital music services Friday.

The lyrics find Tinashe ruminating on the tail end of a relationship over a sleek, shimmery beat, with fans already speculating whether the single is about her recent TMZ-probed breakup with NBA player Ben Simmons.

“Riding down Hollywood, I’m cruising / Can’t be stagnant, gotta keep it moving / I gave up all my love but you abused it / Now you just something I checked off my to-do list,...

Welcome back to another installment of Panel Discussion – this time featuring a rundown of my picks of the Top 50 comics released in April 2018. This is part one, a countdown of books 50-26… But first the caveats:

First and foremost this is simply my list and with that comes a great deal of subjectivity. Any art form is a subjective medium and taste plays a major role. So if you feel my rankings are way off you probably have a legitimate point. My hope is to simply to highlight great books that deserve attention. We too often focus on the negative so why not take some time to celebrate the positive.

Since this is my list that also means I can only rank issues I have actually read. There may be a book that is in your top five that does not make the cut. Please let me know. I try...

Exclusive: Producer Ellen Rakieten has teamed with Los Angeles Media Fund — the financing and production vehicle of Jeffrey Soros and Simon Horsman — to launch Very Tall Productions. The new company will develop, finance and produce unscripted and scripted content for television and digital platforms. Very Tall Productions will also produce documentaries and films as well as live events around the world.

Rakieten, who’s Very Tall Productions’ CEO, is the prolific 13-time Emmy winner who produced The Oprah Winfrey Show over two decades, The Marriage Ref with Jerry Seinfeld, the Jillian Michaels-starrer Losing it with Jillian, the Emmy-winning Food Network show Trisha’s Southern Kitchen, Welcome Back Potter (Hgtv), All About Sex (TLC), Zoe Saldana Presents My Hero (AOL), Joyride (Esquire), Car Matchmaker (Esquire/NBC Sports), and Undateable for NBC, latter based on a book co-written by Rakieten.

One of Very Tall Productions’ first projects is the multi-generational series,...

Renowned Films, the Critical Content-owned UK production company behind Bravo’s forthcoming reality series Backyard Envy, has hired a number of senior executives as it steps up its next stage of growth including a major focus on the U.S.

The company, which was set up by Max Welch, Duane Jones and Tim Withers in 2012, has hired former Channel 4 exec Mark Raeburn as Chief Operating Officer and Lizzie Wingham as Senior Development Executive.

Raeburn was previously Head of Content Finance at C4, where he financially managed the Channel 4 annual content budget of £700m (Us$958M), while Wingham was Deputy Editor of youth-skewing network BBC Three, and has worked on series including Married at First Sight and George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces. Raeburn has been tasked with overseeing the operational activity of the business including strategy, legal and human resources, while Wingham has been hired to “amplify” its development and...

Janna Kollefrath and Josh Lightfoot join Mike Hassler and Andy Triefenbach on Episode 17 of the We Need to Talk About Horror podcast to talk about Happy Death Day!

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Show Notes:

00:00:50 – What We’ve Been Watching

Josh – Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Leatherface, Massacre Mafia Style, Innocent Blood, Carrie

Janna – Wild Zero, Silent Night, Deadly Night (courtesy of the Scream Factory Blu-Ray), Messiah of Evil, Deadly Games (aka 3615: Code Pere Noel – see Andy’s writeup), Night School, Silent Hill

Mike – Psycho Cop Returns, Bright, Mom and Dad, Polybius, Mommy Dead and Dearest

Andy – Good Time, Wind River, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Terror Train, Colossal, Atomic Blonde, Opera, Mayhem, Matinee (courtesy of the Shout Factory Blu-Ray)

00:30:00 – #GetUpInDemGuts: Happy Death Day (read Jeremy’s review)

01:14:45 – Horrorlimination – 2012, 2010 & 1980

02:05:12 – Killer Track: “Joyride” from Silver Bullet by Jay Chattaway (Sung by Rob B.

Gemini Rising is a new sci-fi thriller starring Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Amy Hathaway (Joyride) and Dave Vescio (House of Flesh Mannequins). The film takes place partially in deep space and also on Earth. Alien technology has given a ruthless Colonel (Henriksen) too much power. Now, he is using an alien being and its knowledge to develop science for warfare. All of this can be seen in the film's first official trailer. The clip is below and fans can expect partially computer generated imagery and action scenes. A release date is still to be announced, but fans of film can take a look at the shadowy alien and the characters inside. Director: Dana Schroeder. Producers: Peter Tunney, Fabian Winkelmann, Cyril O’Reilly and John Rogers. Cast: Lance Henriksen, Amy Hathaway, Brian Krause, John Savage, Dave Vescio and Art Evans. The film's trailer is here: The film's fan page is below: Gemini Rising...