12 Stories, the first full-length album by country singer-songwriter Brandy Clark, will be officially released in the fall. I managed to get to my hands on a copy a few weeks ago; I’ve been listening nonstop. Pound for pound, song for song, it’s my favorite album of 2013, and I’ve heard some good ones.
Clark is 35 and from Washington State. She’s been in Nashville for several years and, recently, has begun to make a name for herself on Music Row.
Oh, you like podcasts? Sign up for Vulture’s new recommendation newsletter 1.5x Speed here. Oh, you like podcasts? Sign up for Vulture’s new recommendation newsletter 1.5x Speed here. Search Engine, the new podcast series from PJ Vogt, has a premise so simple and familiar that it’s almost generic. Each episode sets out to find an answer to a question, one that has either caught his interest or comes in from a listener.
Feel free to decorate with a few Ally Sheedy–style dandruff flakes.
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See The Breakfast Club Commemorated in Needlepoint ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7t8HLrayrnV6YvK57kWloaWdhZXyktMScopinpamstbTIrJabqpWWuKet0q2WnKSll3pvtNOmow%3D%3D
Sister Act isn’t trying for anything newfangled: It’s barely fangled at all. Fangles cost money, after all, and this show is a stripped-down affair that reflects the new austerity over at Disney Theatricals. It looks penuriously designed, possibly by Paul Ryan, and it’s lit like a Baghdad suburb. True, this Sister has jettisoned its source movie’s San Francisco locale for grittier Philadelphia, but golly, it looks like Oslo. Never south of the 38th parallel have I see such persistently hypoxic blues and bruised purples.
Slow Horses Boardroom Politics Season 2 Episode 5 Editor’s Rating 4 stars **** «Previous Next» « PreviousEpisode NextEpisode » Slow Horses Boardroom Politics Season 2 Episode 5 Editor’s Rating 4 stars **** «Previous Next» « PreviousEpisode NextEpisode » Right off the top, let’s give a salute to Alex, our surprise cicada from Upshott, for knowing how to tie a really strong knot.
For Wicked’s 20th birthday, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel reunite to talk about high notes, low rumors, and onstage emergencies. Photo: Mark Seliger Photo: Mark Seliger There’s something familiar about watching Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth have a conversation — the way that one of them tends to be a bubbling extrovert, the other more introspective but observant and ready with a joke. After a long day in workshops for their respective musical projects, the two of them slip into the familiar language of longtime collaborators, with inside jokes and catch-ups.
Over the last several years, Scarlett Johansson’s output has been impressive in its variety: The Avengers, Hitchcock, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway, Don Jon, Her, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Under the Skin. This weekend, she stars in the Luc Besson–directed action movie Lucy as a drug mule who finds herself able to access increasingly large portions of her brain’s capacity. Vulture spoke with Johansson about playing hyperintelligent beings, avoiding her own acting tics, and her favorite sandwich.
Hear ye, hear ye! Taylor Swift has a new man dating rumor in her life. Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce set his sights on Taylor Swift during the U.S. leg of her Eras Tour, delighting everyone who likes to make sports puns and/or Swift lyrics references in daily conversation. Kelce made the first attempt at contacting Swift, reaching out at her tour’s KC stop and trying to give her his number.
Crews. On Tuesday, Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Terry Crews appeared in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about his own story of sexual assault and to advocate for the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights. “I guess that’s why we have this full room today,” the committee’s ranking member Dianne Feinstein quipped, introducing Crews as part of a hearing on legislation to codify sexual assault survivors’ rights.
The Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights would codify certain rights for people reporting assault, like having their rape kits preserved and forensic testing subsidized, in all 50 states.
As much as I enjoyed the first few episodes of High Fidelity, the new Hulu series based on Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel and the 2000 film that followed, I didn’t fully grasp how necessary it was until the fifth episode. In a scene toward the middle of “Uptown,” Rob, the crate-digging record-shop owner played by Zoë Kravitz, and her kinda-maybe suitor, Clyde (Jake Lacy), get into a conversation with a middle-aged guy named Tim who is just as obsessed with music as Rob is.