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Coyote vs. Acme Is Finally Real, and the Trailer Looks Great

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Hollywood has no shortage of stories about films that almost didn’t make it, but few have been quite as strange or as public as the saga of Coyote vs. Acme. Warner Bros. Discovery tried to shelve the completed film back in 2023 as a tax write-off, alongside Batgirl, in what became one of the more embarrassing and widely mocked corporate decisions in recent studio history. Social media was not quiet about it. The backlash was real. And now, three years later, the movie has a distributor, a release date, and a trailer that honestly looks like a lot of fun.

The premise comes from a 1990 New Yorker piece by Ian Frazier, formatted as an actual legal document: Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme Corporation for decades of defective products. The film keeps that conceit intact, with Will Forte playing billboard accident lawyer Kevin Avery, who takes on the case and goes up against Acme’s slick corporate counsel Buddy Crane, played by John Cena. Lana Condor plays Kevin’s niece, Luis Guzman is the judge, and all your favourite Looney Tunes characters, rendered in 2D animation, show up throughout. Sylvester, Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn. The whole gang.

What makes this genuinely interesting beyond the novelty is the meta layer baked right into the marketing. The tagline is “The Film Acme Didn’t Want You to See,” which maps perfectly onto the real-life story of Warner Bros. trying to bury it. That’s a rare piece of good fortune for a marketing team, and they’ve used it well. The film is directed by Dave Green and written by Samy Burch, who earned an Oscar nomination for her May December screenplay. That’s a more interesting creative pedigree than you might expect for a Looney Tunes movie.

Ketchup Entertainment picked up the rights in 2025, and the film is now set for theaters on August 28.

Burger King And Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu Are Going to a Galaxy Far, Far Away This May

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If you’ve ever wanted to eat a burger out of a helmet-shaped carton while thinking about bounty hunters, Burger King has heard you. Starting May the Fourth, the chain is launching a limited-time Star Wars menu tied to the theatrical release of The Mandalorian and Grogu, hitting theaters May 22. The timing is, obviously, not an accident.

The headliner is the BBQ Bounty Whopper, a flame-grilled quarter-pounder served in a Mandalorian helmet-shaped carton with Swiss cheese, bacon, pickle chips, and something called Bounty BBQ Sauce. Alongside it are Grogu’s Garlic Chicken Fries in a Grogu-themed carton, Imperial Cheddar Ranch Tots, and Grogu’s Blue Cookie Shake, which is exactly what it sounds like. There are also four collectible cups available with select combo purchases, for anyone who needs another reason to super-size it.

The King Jr. Meal gets the treatment too, launching April 28 with Mandalorian-themed toys while supplies last. For families with young Grogu fans, that’s the move.

It’s a well-executed tie-in from a brand that knows how to do these. Burger King has been leaning hard into big cultural moments lately, and pairing a new Star Wars theatrical release with a May 4th launch date is about as clean a marketing setup as you’re going to find in the QSR space. The force, apparently, is strong with the Whopper.

How to Use Short-Form Video Without Losing Your Sound

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Let me tell you something that should terrify you and excite you in equal measure. The way music gets discovered has changed more in the last five years than it did in the previous twenty. Radio used to be the gatekeeper. Then it was blogs, then YouTube, then streaming playlists. Now? It’s a 17-year-old skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac. That’s not hyperbole, and that’s exactly what happened when a TikTok video featuring “Dreams” sent a 1977 song rocketing back up the charts in 2020. The music industry looked at that moment and collectively said: we need to figure this out.

Here’s where we are right now. 84% of songs that entered the Billboard Global 200 in 2024 went viral on TikTok first. Read that again. Not some songs. Not many songs. 84% of them. According to a MusicWatch study, 68% of social media users now discover new music through short-form video content. The old model of press releases, radio servicing, and music videos isn’t dead, but it’s on life support. The algorithm has become the new program director, and it doesn’t care about your bio or your label deal. It cares whether someone watches your video to the end.

But here’s the trap so many artists fall into: they panic, chase the algorithm, and accidentally kill the very thing that made them interesting. I’ve watched it happen. An artist with a genuinely weird, uncommercial sound starts chopping their music into fifteen-second hooks, softening the edges, and writing for trends instead of for themselves. Suddenly they sound like everyone else. They got the views. They lost the plot. Short-form video is a tool, and like any tool, it can build something or wreck something depending entirely on how you use it.

The artists who are actually winning at this understand one crucial distinction: you’re not making content for the platform, you’re making a window into your world. Many musicians now focus on creating strong hooks within the first 15 to 30 seconds of a song, knowing that snippet will likely be featured in short videos. That’s not selling out. That’s understanding how ears work in 2026. The hook was always the point. Chuck Berry knew it. Motown built an empire on it. You’re not betraying your art by leading with your best moment. You’re just doing what great songwriters have always done, only now the window is smaller.

Look at the proof. Doechii uploaded a demo called “Anxiety” back in 2019, and it sat dormant until the TikTok community discovered it in 2025 and called for an official release. She re-recorded it, dropped it, and the rest is history. That is not a story about compromise. That is a story about a piece of music finding its audience on its own timeline, with a little algorithmic help. Meanwhile, Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” generated over 15 million TikTok video creations, directly driving her album Short n’ Sweet to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. These aren’t flukes. These are the new mechanics of the music industry working exactly as designed.

So what does this mean practically, for the artist sitting in a bedroom studio in Hamilton or Halifax trying to figure out their next move? A few things. First, don’t just post your song. Post the story around your song. Behind-the-scenes footage, a lyric breakdown, the mistake that turned into the best part of the track. TikTok’s BehindTheSong movement gave fans an exclusive look into the stories behind 2024’s most popular tracks, with songwriters and producers sharing insights into their creative processes. Audiences don’t just want the music anymore. They want to feel like they were in the room when it happened. Give them that.

Second, understand that TikTok and Instagram Reels are not the same animal. TikTok excels at viral discovery among Gen Z, while Instagram Reels provides broader demographic reach and superior monetization tools. If you’re trying to reach a new audience cold, TikTok is your battering ram. If you’re trying to convert that attention into something durable like merch sales, concert tickets, or a loyal fanbase, Instagram is where you build the relationship. Use both. Use them differently. Think of TikTok as the show and Instagram as the backstage pass.

Third, and I cannot stress this enough: do not let the platform change your sound. Post consistently, yes. Use trending audio strategically, sure. But the artists who build lasting careers out of short-form virality are the ones who had a genuine, irreplaceable identity to begin with. TikTok-correlated artists see an 11% week-over-week streaming growth rate compared to just 3% for other artists, but that growth has to land somewhere worth landing. A viral moment with nothing behind it is a tourist attraction. An artist with a real point of view turns that moment into a destination.

The music industry has been through this before. Every new technology, from the phonograph to FM radio to MTV to Napster to Spotify, was greeted with a mix of panic and opportunism. The artists who survived each wave weren’t the ones who abandoned their identity to fit the new format. They were the ones who figured out how to carry their identity through it. Short-form video is just the latest chapter in that story. The platform will change. The algorithm will shift. But if you know who you are sonically and you’re smart about how you show up, fifteen seconds at a time, you’ll still be standing when the next disruption comes along.

Traffic Co-Founder, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and “Feelin’ Alright” Writer Dave Mason Dies at 79

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Dave Mason, the Worcester-born singer, songwriter, and guitarist who co-founded Traffic, wrote some of classic rock’s most enduring songs, and left his fingerprints on recordings by Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, George Harrison, and dozens more, passed away peacefully on Sunday, April 19, at the age of 79. According to a statement from his family, Mason had just cooked dinner with his beloved wife Winifred, sat down in his favourite chair in the Carson Valley he loved, and drifted off. His daughter Danielle survives him. He was preceded in death by his son True and his sister Valerie Leonard.

The family’s statement said it plainly: “Dave Mason lived a remarkable life devoted to the music and people he loved.” For anyone who followed his career, that’s not a summary. That’s an accurate description of how the man moved through the world, from the earliest days of Traffic to his final years as a tireless live performer who played every room, large or small, with the same conviction.

Mason came to prominence in 1967 as a founding member of Traffic alongside Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, and Chris Wood. In his brief but impactful tenure with the band, he wrote and sang “Hole in My Shoe,” which hit No. 2 on the UK charts, and “Feelin’ Alright?,” a Traffic album cut that Joe Cocker later transformed into one of rock radio’s most recognizable songs. It’s a quirk of music history that Cocker removed the question mark, fundamentally altering the meaning. Mason himself noted with good humor in 2014 that the song was actually about not feeling very good at all. But without Cocker’s version, he acknowledged, the song might never have reached the audience it deserved. That generosity of spirit defined him.

His session work during this period remains staggering in scope. He played 12-string acoustic guitar on Jimi Hendrix’s recording of “All Along the Watchtower” on ‘Electric Ladyland,’ appeared on the Rolling Stones’ ‘Beggars Banquet’ playing shehnai and bass drum on “Street Fighting Man,” and contributed to George Harrison’s landmark ‘All Things Must Pass.’ He also played on early sessions for Derek and the Dominos, appeared on records by Graham Nash, David Crosby, Paul McCartney, and Wings, and dueted with Michael Jackson on his 1980 single “Save Me.” The list reads like a who’s who of rock’s most significant recordings, and Mason was simply there, instrument in hand, doing the work.

His solo career produced several genuine classics. ‘Alone Together,’ his 1970 debut, went gold and peaked in the Top 25 on the strength of “Only You Know and I Know.” The 1977 album ‘Let It Flow’ went platinum behind “We Just Disagree,” co-written with Jim Krueger, which reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has remained a staple of classic rock radio ever since. His 1987 duet with Phoebe Snow, “Dreams I Dream,” reached No. 11 on the adult contemporary charts. These weren’t a lucky streak. They were the output of a songwriter who understood melody, storytelling, and the emotional weight a well-placed vocal could carry.

A curious and often overlooked chapter in his story came in the mid-1990s when longtime friend Mick Fleetwood invited him into a rebuilding Fleetwood Mac. Mason appeared on the 1995 album ‘Time’ and toured with the group, contributing songs, guitar, and vocals to a lineup navigating a complicated transitional moment. The reunion of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks eventually rendered that lineup a footnote, but Mason was typically gracious about it: “They got Stevie and Lindsey back in the band, which was pretty much for the best.” That’s the kind of man he was.

Beyond music, Mason invested deeply in causes he believed in. He was an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, providing free instruments and lessons to public school children across the United States. He co-founded Rock Our Vets with longtime friend Ted Knapp, an all-volunteer charity supporting homeless veterans, continuing education for vets, and suicide prevention. He also co-founded RKS Guitars in 2004 with industrial designer Ravi Sawhney, building one of the earliest sustainable electric guitar designs, work that earned two Silver IDEA Awards from the Industrial Designers Society of America and a case study from Harvard Business Review.

Mason was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 as a founding member of Traffic, with Dave Matthews doing the honours. Health challenges in his final years forced him to retire from touring in September 2025, though he made clear he wasn’t done with music entirely. His most recent show had been in August 2024. He spent his final months in the Carson Valley, at peace, surrounded by the landscape he loved. “I love playing,” he once told the Newark Advocate, “so why not keep doing it while I can?” He did, right up until the end, and the music he left behind will keep doing the same.

The Charlatans UK Return to North America Behind Acclaimed New Album ‘We Are Love’

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The Charlatans UK are heading back to North America, and they’re arriving with one of the strongest albums of their career behind them. ‘We Are Love,’ their 14th studio album, is out now via BMG, and the North American tour kicks off September 3 at The Observatory in Santa Ana before wrapping September 26 at Brooklyn Steel. Presale begins Wednesday, April 22 at 10 AM local time, with general on-sale Friday, April 24 at 10 AM local time.

The album was recorded at Wales’s legendary Rockfield Studios and the band’s own Big Mushroom studio in Middlewich, Cheshire, with producers Dev Hynes (Blood Orange), Fred Macpherson (Spector), and Stephen Street, the man behind some of The Smiths’, Blur’s, and The Cranberries’ most important records. That’s a production team that understands how to serve a band’s identity while pushing it forward. Mojo awarded it four stars, calling it “joy-sparking” with “sudden psychedelic sun-spots and experimental flares.”

The West Coast opening shows on September 3 and 4 are the ones to watch. The Observatory in Santa Ana and the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles both feature support from The Dandy Warhols and additional special guests still to be announced. To mark the tour announcement, the band has also released a remix of the single “We Are Love” by Ride’s Mark Gardener, adding another layer to an already strong release cycle.

Tim Burgess, Martin Blunt, Mark Collins, Tony Rogers, and Pete Salisbury have built one of British rock’s most durable catalogs: 22 Top 40 UK singles, three number one UK albums, and era-defining tracks like “The Only One I Know,” “North Country Boy,” and “One to Another.” ‘We Are Love’ doesn’t lean on that legacy. It moves alongside it, with Hammond organ-driven singles like “Deeper and Deeper” and the celebratory title track already earning live outings on Later…with Jools Holland.

The UK and EU leg is already well underway, with multiple sold-out dates and festival appearances at Degusta Fest Armilla, Forest Fest, Lakefest, and Roseshire Festival filling out the summer. The North American run arrives at the end of a long, busy year for a band that clearly has no interest in slowing down.

The Charlatans UK 2026 North American Tour Dates:

September 3 – Santa Ana, CA – The Observatory (with The Dandy Warhols and Special Guests TBA)

September 4 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium (with The Dandy Warhols and Special Guests TBA)

September 5 – San Diego, CA – House of Blues

September 7 – San Francisco, CA – The Castro Theatre

September 10 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom

September 11 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom

September 12 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox

September 16 – Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line

September 17 – Chicago, IL – Park West

September 19 – Detroit, MI – El Club

September 20 – Toronto, ON – Danforth Music Hall

September 21 – Montreal, QC – Fairmount Theatre

September 22 – Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club

September 23 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer

September 25 – Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore Silver Spring

September 26 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel

Chayanne Brings “Bailemos Otra Vez” Back to the US With 22-Date Arena Run

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Chayanne is bringing “Bailemos Otra Vez” back to the United States, and this time the run is a full 22-date arena tour stretching from late August through the end of October. Promoted by Cárdenas Marketing Network, the tour kicks off August 28 at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum and closes October 31 at Orlando’s Kia Center. Presale registration is open now at cmnevents.com/registration/chayanne/, with presale beginning April 23 at 10 AM local time and general on-sale opening April 24 at 10 AM local time.

The routing hits major markets coast to coast: Newark’s Prudential Center, Boston’s Agganis Arena, UBS Arena at Belmont Park, Chase Center in San Francisco, the Honda Center in Anaheim, Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas, and Kaseya Center in Miami, among others. For an artist of Chayanne’s stature, these are exactly the rooms the music calls for.

With more than 20 albums behind him and iconic hits like “Tiempo de Vals,” “Dejaría Todo,” and “Torero” woven into the fabric of Latin music, Chayanne remains one of the genre’s most enduring and beloved live performers. This isn’t a nostalgia run. It’s a victory lap from an artist who has never stopped connecting with audiences at the highest level.

“Bailemos Otra Vez” US Tour Dates:

August 28 – Milwaukee, WI – Fiserv Forum

August 29 – Rosemont, IL – Allstate Arena

September 4 – Greensboro, NC – First Horizon Coliseum

September 6 – Hartford, CT – PeoplesBank Arena

September 10 – Fairfax, VA – EagleBank Arena

September 12 – Newark, NJ – Prudential Center

September 13 – Belmont Park, NY – UBS Arena

September 18 – Boston, MA – Agganis Arena

September 20 – Atlanta, GA – State Farm Arena

September 24 – Fort Worth, TX – Dickies Arena

September 26 – Houston, TX – Toyota Center

September 27 – San Antonio, TX – Frost Bank Center

October 1 – El Paso, TX – UTEP Don Haskins Center

October 3 – Hidalgo, TX – Payne Arena

October 7 – Ontario, CA – Toyota Arena

October 8 – Anaheim, CA – Honda Center

October 11 – San Francisco, CA – Chase Center

October 17 – Las Vegas, NV – Michelob Ultra Arena

October 18 – Glendale, AZ – Desert Diamond Arena

October 24 – Miami, FL – Kaseya Center

October 30 – Tampa, FL – Benchmark International Arena

October 31 – Orlando, FL – Kia Center

David Byrne Expands “Who Is The Sky” Tour With Asia Leg and Hollywood Bowl Dates

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David Byrne is extending the “Who Is The Sky” tour in a significant way, adding an Asia leg and a fresh round of North American dates that include two nights at the Hollywood Bowl and a stop at Forest Hills Stadium. The new dates follow a European run wrapping in July, keeping Byrne on the road deep into the fall.

The Asia leg opens August 7 at The Star Theatre in Singapore, moves through Bangkok’s UOB Live and Seoul’s Kyunghee University Peace Hall, and includes headline appearances at Summer Sonic in Tokyo and Osaka. Five dates across four countries, all in August, before the tour swings back to North America.

David Byrne ‘Who Is The Sky’ Tour New Dates:

August 7 – Singapore – The Star Theatre

August 10 – Bangkok, Thailand – UOB Live

August 15 – Tokyo, Japan – Summer Sonic Festival

August 16 – Osaka, Japan – Summer Sonic Festival

August 21 – Seoul, South Korea – Kyunghee University Peace Hall

August 27 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Union Open Air Theatre

August 28 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl

August 29 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl

September 17 – Saratoga, NY – Saratoga Performing Arts Center

September 19 – Queens, NY – Forest Hills Stadium

Noah Kahan Finally Gets His Tiny Desk Moment

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It took a while, but Noah Kahan has finally taken his seat at the most famous desk in music. The Vermont singer-songwriter, whose 2022 breakthrough ‘Stick Season’ turned him into one of folk-rock’s most talked-about artists, delivered his Tiny Desk Concert for NPR Music, and it’s exactly the kind of performance the format was built for. Raw, intimate, and built around the kind of songwriting that has been rattling around the internet for the better part of a decade, this is Kahan in the setting he deserves.

mgk and Fred Durst Unleash “Fix Ur Face” and Bring the Lost Americana Tour Back to the US With Wiz Khalifa

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mgk and Fred Durst just dropped one of the most viscerally satisfying rock singles of the year. “Fix Ur Face” is out now, a hard-hitting fusion of 1990s nü-metal grit and mgk’s genre-bending alternative edge, with Durst delivering exactly the kind of peak performance that made Limp Bizkit impossible to ignore. The visual premiered on MTV Live, MTVU, and the Paramount Times Square billboards, and it hits as hard as the track itself.

Written and produced alongside longtime mgk collaborators SlimXX, BazeXX, RookXX, Nick Long, and No Love For The Middle Child, “Fix Ur Face” carries a cross-generational rawness that sits apart from virtually everything else out right now. Director Sam Cahill shot the black-and-white video across Berlin, Dublin, Düsseldorf, London, Prague, Cologne, Nashville, and Los Angeles during the lost americana tour, capturing unfiltered fan moments with no distance between artist and audience. Street artists Lugosis and Strato created the Berlin wall mural featured in the video, while Slawn Olaolu designed the character face and jackets. It’s a visual document of a tour that has been operating at full intensity.

The mgk and Fred Durst connection runs deep. They’ve shared stages and bills going back more than a decade, including mgk’s 2014 run with Limp Bizkit. “Fix Ur Face” is the natural product of that history, two artists with a genuine rapport making something that sounds like neither of them held back. mgk first teased the track during the European leg of the lost americana tour before performing a snippet on the Australian run, building anticipation the right way.

‘lost americana’ arrived last year as mgk’s third consecutive No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart. The album has produced a run of strong moments, from the inescapable “cliché” and its Jonas Brothers remix to the fan-favourite “times of my life” and music videos for “starman” and “goddamn” built from tour footage. “Fix Ur Face” adds another sharp entry to that catalog.

The lost americana tour returns to the US on May 15 with Wiz Khalifa on support. Dates and tickets are available now at mgk’s official site. After a European and Australian run that generated this much noise, the US leg arrives with serious momentum behind it.

Oklahoma Rockers Hillbilly Vegas Team Up With Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Paul Rodgers on New Single “Mr. Midnight”

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Hillbilly Vegas just landed one of the more remarkable collaborations in recent rock memory. The Oklahoma rockers have dropped “Mr. Midnight,” the second single from their upcoming album ‘A La Mode,’ and it features Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Paul Rodgers on vocals. The track hits hard: heavy electric blues-rock with slinky guitar riffs that evoke late-night Beale Street energy, anchored by Rodgers’ unmistakable voice and the swagger that defined classic 1970s rock.

The song has a story behind it. Rodgers wrote “Mr. Midnight” during a prolific period that produced his ‘Midnight Rose’ album for Sun Records, but the track didn’t make the final cut. Inspired by a sleek black rescue cat named Jasper, belonging to his wife Cynthia, the riff came first and the song built around it. When Hillbilly Vegas recorded it, Rodgers was impressed enough to step in and deliver. His words cut to it: “Steve did such a great job, I felt they had it well covered. I did not want to disturb the flow, but I had made a promise to the boys in the band, so I sang some lines, and it turned out very well.”

Hillbilly Vegas frontman Steve Harris doesn’t understate what the collaboration means: “Being part of something like this with Paul, who’s had such an impact on how we all hear rock and roll, was an incredible experience that we still can’t quite believe happened. His voice, his phrasing and the way he approaches a song, that’s the blueprint.” The video, filmed in the band’s Oklahoma warehouse and directed by Jon Wright, features Rodgers on screen as well, adding another dimension to an already significant release.

The band’s lineup carries serious pedigree. Guitarist Geraldo Dominelli is a Loverboy and Paul Rodgers alumnus, while bassist Todd Ronning comes out of Rodgers’ solo band and Bad Company. That history gives ‘A La Mode’ a connective tissue to classic rock’s lineage that goes beyond a single guest appearance. The band is managed by David Spero, who has handled Joe Walsh, Cat Stevens, and Bad Company.

‘A La Mode’ arrives May 8 via Quarto Valley Records across digital, CD, and vinyl formats, featuring 11 tracks. Pre-orders are live now. Tour dates in support of the album kick off in August. With their first single “I Hope You Know” sitting at #20 on the Rock Radio charts and still climbing, and “Mr. Midnight” adding Paul Rodgers to the story, Hillbilly Vegas are building serious momentum heading into this release.