Song You Need: Llainwire’s cybernetic dancehall

Charlie Simpson has revealed he chose his rhino costume on The Masked Singer as a nod to his wife’s childhood and family.The 37-year-old Busted star won ITV’s secretive singing competition on Saturday evening after he performed three songs including Lewis Capaldi’s Before You Go. Following his win, Simpson explained the story behind his cowboy-inspired rhino costume choice saying: “My wife grew up in Kenya so I spend a lot of time in Kenya, and we spend a lot of time on safari. “I actually walked with rhinos, and some of the rhinos, there’s only a handful of them left.They’re really endangered and they have to be guarded by military personnel now, so the poachers don’t get them and I actually got to go and walk around with them, with these guards, it was incredible – with some of the last few remaining (rhinos) on Earth.

This is for the gals and the gays! Everyone else can keep it moving!

In Lalalaletmeexplain's hit column, readers ask for her expert advice on their own love, sex and relationship problems. With over 200k Instagram followers, Lala is the anonymous voice helping womankind through every bump in the road. An established sex, dating and relationship educator, she’s had her fair share of relationship drama and shares her wisdom on social media to a loyal army of followers.

Alexander Stewart is a name you're going to want to get used to.

Do you hear the hearts of fan girls breaking all over the world? Niall Horan has officially dashed any chances of us hearing a collaboration with his friend Lewis Capaldi any time soon. 

Marcel Sabitzer was keen to praise Manchester United teammate Jadon Sancho after the England international scored in the Premier League win over Leicester City on Sunday.

Pete Doherty has announced his first solo acoustic tour of the UK and Ireland in a decade – see ticket details and dates for ‘The Battered Songbook Tour’ below.The tour is set to begin in April and will feature career-spanning setlists incorporating songs from The Libertines, Babyshambles and Doherty’s solo projects.Of what to expect from the shows, a statement read: “Peter promises to take audiences on an unforgettable ride into his strange and fascinating world where nothing is as it seems and life itself is an intense euphoric dream. Friends and special guests are expected to join him on occasion across these seventeen dates.”‘The Battered Songbook Tour’ begins in Belfast on April 13, ending on May 5 with a huge London gig at the Royal Albert Hall.See the full list of dates below.

A magistrate judge in a court in Texas has recommended that a song-theft lawsuit against Nickelback be dismissed, because the plaintiff’s explanation for how the band might have had access to his earlier track is insufficient.Kirk Johnston, vocalist with the band Snowblind Revival, went legal in 2020, claiming that Nickelback’s 2005 track ‘Rockstar’ ripped off a song he had written with the same title four years earlier.Unsurprisingly, the members of Nickelback – who deny having ever heard of the earlier song or Snowblind Revival before Johnston went legal – called for the song-theft lawsuit to be dismissed.But magistrate judge Susan Hightower, when initially considering the case, said that she wasn’t convinced there were grounds for dismissal.Though, she added at the time, the credibility of Johnston’s theory for how Nickelback might have accessed the earlier song was still to be determined. That would depend on what evidence he could provide to back up his claim that his song had likely reached Nickelback via some record label execs he had played it to.If the evidence backing up that theory was strong, she went on, there were sufficient similarities between the two ‘Rockstar’ songs for Johnston’s claims of copyright infringement to go before a jury.However, Hightower says in a new written opinion on the case published last week, Johnston has failed to provide good evidence to back up his grand theory.

RELEASESNiall Horan has released new single ‘Heaven’ and announced that his new solo album ‘The Show’ will be out on 9 Jun. “There’s so much pressure for people to hit certain milestones by a certain age – you get married at this age, buy a house at that age, have kids at some other age”, he says of the new track.

Naman Ramachandran For Indian filmmaker Sreemoyee Singh, world premiering her Iran documentary “And, Towards Happy Alleys” at the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand is the culmination of a journey that began in 2015. Singh completed a masters degree in film studies at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India and went on to pursue a PhD on The Exiled Filmmaker in Post Revolution Iranian Cinema, with the objective of understanding the source of “impossible hope” in Iranian films. The filmmaker was also introduced to the poetry of Iran’s Forogh Farrokhzad during the course and “connected deeply” to her verses. A desire to read Farrokhzad’s verses in the original Persian led Singh to learn Farsi.

Former Celtic star Kris Commons reckons Michael Beale showed a naivety by wading into a public spat with Chris Sutton.

Mark Schilling Japan Correspondent One of Japan’s most commercially successful and highly acclaimed animators, Shinkai Makoto has been called a successor to anime titan Miyazaki Hayao. Known for his mix of photo-realistic visuals and gorgeously realized fantasies, Shinkai surpassed the master when his 2016 smash “Your Name” became the highest-earning Japanese film of all time worldwide, beating Miyazaki’s 2001 “Spirited Away.” (That record was later broken by the 2020 anime sensation “Demon Slayer.”) His latest film, “Suzume,” about a teen girl’s quest to halt an apocalypse triggered by the opening of magical doors all over Japan, is also the first Japanese animated feature to screen in the Berlin competition since “Spirited Away” in 2002. Variety sat down with Shinkai to hear his views on his own work and the state of the anime industry.

Brendan Rodgers thinks Marcel Sabitzer should have been sent off for his knee-high challenge on Wout Faes in Leicester's 3-0 defeat against Manchester United.

Todd Gilchrist editor Composer Nicolas Godin is part of the creative team responsible for “Fire of Love,” the Oscar-nominated documentary directed by Sara Dosa about volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. As one half of the electronic group Air, he’s no stranger to collaboration: between 1995 and 2016, he and partner Jean-Benoit Dunckel released six albums and two soundtracks that sold millions of copies and earned them worldwide accolades as the downtempo counterparts of French contemporaries like Daft Punk. But even if he and Dunckel haven’t recorded anything completely new together since “Music for Museum,” their work for a 2014 art project at France’s Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, the sound they created lives on just as vividly in their solo work, echoing the lush cinematic aesthetic they first premiered on their debut LP “Moon Safari.”

The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.

The Blessed Madonna (aka Marea Stamper) has linked up with Chicago house producer Jamie Principle for a collaborative new single titled ‘We Still Believe’.It’s an old cut made new again with the help of Principle, with Stamper playing and recording the original some years back featuring her own warped voice. Pulsing with a deep undulating beat and playful electronic accents, the new version features Principle’s smooth vocals weaving across the song as he croons: “It doesn’t matter about your colour/your sexual identity/it’s just about being free/we still believe.”Check it out below.“I wrote and recorded a version of this alone in my attic over a decade ago, writing the lyrics on the back of a record sleeve and recording them into a blackberry under a blanket.

Thania Garcia Months after its Dec. 9 release, SZA’s “SOS” is still riding high. This week, the 23-song set tops the Billboard 200 for the ninth week — the highest tally for a female-led album in almost seven years. The last two albums by women to achieve nine or more weeks at the summit in the last decade were Adele’s “25,” which boasted 10 nonconsecutive weeks in 2015-16, and before that, Taylor Swift’s “1989” dominated for 11 weeks in 2014-15. In the week ending Feb. 16, SZA’s sophomore release earned 93,000 units in the U.S. and 127 million streams according to data by Luminate. Following Rihanna’s highly-anticpated return to the stage for the Super Bowl halftime set on Feb. 12, the star’s 2016 release “Anti” rebounded to No. 8 on the chart (from its prevous No. 50 position) with 36,000 album units sold. On Spotify, her streams spiked more than 640% across the U.S, while streams for the set’s opening track, “Bitch Better Have My Money,” surged by over 2,600%.

Elliot and Kat look all cozy on the dance floor while playing chaperones for the school dance in a sneak peek of tonight’s The Way Home.

Former World of Sport presenter Dickie Davies has died at the age of 94.

Katie Reul editor Feb. 19 marks a celebratory milestone for multi-hyphenate Victoria Justice, and not just because the former “Victorious” actor is turning 30. After a year of promising fans new music, Justice will debut her long-awaited single, “Last Man Standing,” today. “I’m stepping into my 30s in this place of feeling empowered,” Justice tells Variety of timing the release to her birthday. “I feel like this song really captures a lot of that energy, and it’s fun, and it’s kind of sexy, and it’s got these very strong themes of female empowerment, so it just felt like a really good fit.” “Last Man Standing” features intoxicatingly upbeat vocals from Justice set to a breezy, four-chord riff on the acoustic guitar. The performer’s talent is on full display in the song’s chorus, for which she sings in an ethereal high register. Cementing her place in pop iconography, the track is a welcomed follow-up Justice’s previous tracks, like 2021’s “Too F*ckin’ Nice” and 2020’s “Treat Myself.”

Richard Gere is reportedly on the mend after suffering with a bout of pneumonia while vacationing in Mexico with wife Alejandra Silva and their two young songs.

Little Simz has been praised for a “breathtaking” performance of ‘Heart On Fire’ at the 2023 BAFTAs.Simz took to the stage at London’s Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre tonight (February 19) alongside guitarist and rock musician Joan Armatrading for a powerful rendition of ‘Heart On Fire’, taken from her surprise 2022 album ‘No Thank You’.Little Sims released ‘No Thank You’ alongside a statement that read: “Emotion is energy in motion. Honour your truth and feelings.

Manchester United fans loved the celebration between Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho after the latter scored the Reds' third goal against Leicester City on Sunday.

For almost four years of siege in the 1990s, the city of Sarajevo concussed from shelling, the rumblings of armored vehicles and the repeated pop of sniper fire.

David de Gea's clean sheet in the victory over Leicester City on Sunday means that the goalkeeper has now recorded the joint-highest clean sheets for Manchester United.

Netflix’s February rotation has much more to offer than just romance movies, though if you’re looking to extend the Valentine’s Day mood, several options like the Reese Witherspoon rom-com “Your Place Or Mine” from “The Devil Wears Prada” scribe Aline Brosh McKenna will warm your heart. “La La Land” could also satisfy the longing for a love story, but self-love is the most important, and “Eat, Pray, Love” can help you with that. For those not feeling the love, “Lyle Lyle, Crocodile” promises fun for the whole family with the help of music from “La La Land” composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.

Singer Pink is revisiting her feud with fellow popstar and "Lady Marmalade" collaborator Christina Aguilera, more than twenty years after the song was originally recorded. While ranking her music videos, Pink seemingly shaded the "Beautiful" singer, saying the shoot was not enjoyable due to "personalities" on set.The song also features rapper Lil' Kim and Mya with intros and outros by Missy Elliot. "It wasn't very fun to make," she told Buzzfeed UK in a video shared to TikTok.

Pink wants to make it clear she was not trying to shade Christina Aguilera with her recent comments about their song Lady Marmalade!

Swansea winger Morgan Whittaker is rapidly fading from Russell Martin's first-team plans - less than a month after the English Championship side slammed the door shut on a move to Rangers.

James Bay has said he’s begun work on a new album which he hopes will “showcase his guitar playing”.The artist has said he is set to return to his more guitar-oriented roots for the follow-up to last year’s ‘Leap’, harking back to his days of playing open mic nights when he was first starting out as a musician.In an interview with Guitar.com, he said: “With all my heroes, a lot of my favourite work of theirs was recorded in the first or second take. It had that sort of carefree [nature], ‘Let’s just do it. Emote and move on to the next thing.’ I’m trying to do that at the moment.”He continued: “[Recording an album] piece by piece by piece? I’ve done that a lot.

Scotland hero Graeme Souness has taken a swipe at the Auld Enemy by claiming that Harry Kane is their only real 'world class' player.

Chris Brown isn’t too happy about the negative response towards his upcoming collaboration with Chloë Bailey.

Most big Korean action movies are backloaded, wrapping up with three to five endings, but Byun Sung-hyun’s Kill Boksoon, which premiered as a Berlinale Special, has everything going on up front. So much so that it initially seems too much, to the extent that it sometimes feels as though there’s actually a mini-series in there bursting to get out. Surprisingly, that’s not such a crazy idea, since, once you get past the far-fetched premise—an underground network of professional contract killers, presided over the glossy conglomerate MK Ent—there’s a lot of rich character work to supplement the superbly choregraphed violence that we’ve come to expect from the region.

Leicester City midfielder James Maddison spoke openly after the Foxes' defeat to Manchester United on Sunday, suggesting that the away side 'needed to score' when they were on top in the game.

The Used have announced details of their ninth studio album ‘Toxic Positivity’ and shared new single ‘People Are Vomit’ – check it out below.‘Toxic Positivity’ is the follow-up to 2020’s ‘Heartwork’  and will feature The Used’s 2022 single ‘Fuck You’ alongside the recently released ‘People Are Vomit’.That fiery new The Used track sees vocalist Bert McCraken screaming “This future’s fucked before it got started…This world’s disgusting, people are vomit.”Speaking about the track, McCracken said: “We think this song is fun and cute. We hope you love it too.”Sharing the song on social media, The Used also quoted Oscar Wilde: “The truth is rarely pure and never simple,” they wrote.‘Toxic Positivity’ is due for release May 19, 2023 via Hassle Records/Big Noise – pre order it here.Speaking about the anger and frustration that The Used were singing about on ‘Heartwork’, McCraken told NME: “That’s the perfect place for rock music to live.

A fashion power couple! Pharrell Williams and designer Helen Lasichanh have been together for more than a decade — but they were purely friends to start.