Country Music Hall of Fame Names Tanya Tucker, Patty Loveless and Bob McDill as 2023 Inductees

Selma Blair is getting incredibly honest about the struggles she faced before she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In a powerful new cover story for Brit

Madness have announced a new UK arena tour taking place this winter, where they will be joined by special guests The Lightning Seeds.Announced today (April 21), the upcoming tour will kick off in Aberdeen at the end of November and hit arenas across the UK, before closing with a performance in Birmingham.It will feature appearances in cities including Glasgow, Nottingham, Manchester and Liverpool, as well as a penultimate slot at London’s O2 arena on December 15. Madness will also be joined by special guests, The Lightning Seeds — you can find all scheduled dates below.“WOT-a-tour this promises to be,” the band said, discussing the newly-announced ‘C’est La Vie’ dates.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic God only knows it was a matter of time until the Recording Academy picked the Beach Boys as the recipient of one of its annual all-star tributes, and the group’s legacy isn’t done any shame with “A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys,” airing Sunday night at 8 ET/PT on CBS (and for on-demand streaming on Paramount+). No wrong harmonies are struck, literally or figurative, in a two-hour show that starts out feeling a little bit by-the-numbers but eventually lands on a series of knockout covers fit for a Wilson. Are you surprised that Brandi Carlile would be the highlight of a tribute special? Then come out from under your rock and do stay up late enough to catch both of her performances on the show, since she is one of a handful of artists granted both solo and duet slots in the setlist. First in the running order, she has a version of “In Your Room” that can’t really be considered “solo,” since she’s joined by bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth for an arrangement that has their modern mastery of three-part harmony paying homage to the Boys’ sub-incarnation as a balladic vocal trio. You hope for something transformative in tribute performances like these, and you know you’re getting the moment Carlile lends her perfectly subtle vibrato to the “roo-oo-oom” and “a-frai-ai-aid” to some of the opening lines. She and the Hanseroths make the bridge feel you’re doing a gentle waltz while enveloping yourself in a self-assuring hug, before the falsetto ending spoils that warmth with a chill down your spine. Yeah, it’s that good.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Muse was making its eighth visit to downtown L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena, frontman Matt Bellamy reminded the audience, shortly into the trio’s return engagement Thursday night — except rather than call it by its current name, he said the venue would always be Staples Center to the band. He added a joking, mumbled reference to “weird fucking con artists,” presumably a reference to his lack of faith in the state of cryptocurrency. Digital assets are fleeting, but office supplies are forever, right? There is some kind of loose analog there — no pun intended — to the situation with Muse, which is forever using futuristic imagery in its shows but reigns as one of rock’s best bands by its rootedness in a slightly pre-digital past.

"Grease" fans: a new series is here.  The new Paramount+ TV musical "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" takes place four years before Sandy Olsson ever attended Rydell High or met any of the Pink Ladies and tells their origin story. It stars Marisa Davila, Ari Notartomaso, Cheyenne Isabel Wells and Tricia Fukuhara as the founders.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A touring production of the stage version of “The Bodyguard” was brought to a halt and canceled in Manchester, England on Friday night after patrons would not stop singing along with the musical’s songs, leading to house lights coming up during the climactic number “I Will Always Love You.” Two women were forcibly pulled out of the theater by security, and several police cars arrived to oversee the evacuation of the theater after what patrons on social media described as “fights in the aisles” and even “a mini-riot.” According to news reports out of Manchester and tweets from those inside the Palace Theatre, the show — based on the hit 1992 film — had already been temporarily halted once during the first act because of the disruptive audience sing-alongs, but was resumed. Later, though, with only about 10 minutes to go before the end, it was put on pause again while its star, Pussycat Dolls member Melody Thornton, attempted to sing the climactic song made famous in the movie by Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You,” over the sound of semi-tuneless howling coming from audience members. Thornton’s mic was cut mid-song, the house lights came up and offenders were evicted — struggling against being pulled out by their shoulders, in video footage captured by attendees — and the show was officially called off.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In 2002, director Sam Jones made what is widely considered a benchmark for 21st century music documentaries with “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco,” a movie that lucked into just about all the subject matter that could make B-roll footage of the making of an album into A-list material. It had conflict within the band, between an auteur and another member of great talent; conflict with the soon-to-be-ex-record label, over the basically unwanted classic-to-be “Yankee Foxtrot Hotel”); and said auteur doing his own demon-wrestling, outside foils notwithstanding. Now, it’s easier to see that Jones’ good fortune in happening upon all that wasn’t all luck. More than 20 years later, Jones has come up with another gold-standard music doc, in the form of “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed,” newly streaming on HBO Max. This time, as the creation of another amazing record — Isbell’s “Reunions” (recorded in late 2019 and released a few months later) — is put under the filmic microscope, there are no record-company bookkeepers as unseen baddies in the backdrop to a making-of. Major labels and the conflicts that come with them are so 2002, right? But one common thread is intra-band tension… as it probably will be in most good rock docs now or 20 years from now. It gets more interesting than that, though. In this instance, the difficult vibes are between bandmates who double as a married couple — Isbell and his fiddler-spouse, Amanda Shires. Here, unlike the by-now iconic beefing between Jay Tweedy and Jay Bennett, we know no one’s ultimately going anywhere, right?

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “I carried those bastards for years,” says Mick Mars, telling Variety how he thinks his 41-year history with Motley Crue should not end with him facing off with the other three members in the halls of justice. The veteran band, now down by one original member, has sued to force Mars into arbitration, looking to get a ruling that he is officially a member or shareholder, with any of the rights that confers. They contend that when he announced he was quitting touring, that amounted to a resignation. Mars, 71, counter-sued on Thursday morning, contending that he didn’t give up anything, at all, by announcing last fall that effects of his longstanding arthritic disease made him no longer fit for the road. His legal filing was full of provocative assertions about the others, and so was the response Thursday afternoon from Crue’s lawyers, who believe he gave up all rights by putting away his touring suitcases — and further, the Crue camp maintained, Mars had become an instrumentally erratic drag on the band.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Motley Crue has responded to Mick Mars’ lawsuit alleging that the band is trying to force him out after 41 years, with the group’s attorneys contending that Mars already is out — having resigned, effectively, in their view, when he announced he was halting touring for good. Motley Crue’s attorneys also provided Variety with signed declarations from seven members of the touring crew that was out with the band when they toured with Mars for the last time on 36 stadium dates in 2022, alleging that his performances at the shows were under par and created problems for the entire group. “After the last tour, Mick publicly resigned from Mötley Crüe,” said Sasha Frid, the band’s litigation attorney. “Despite the fact that the band did not owe Mick anything — and with Mick owing the band millions in advances that he did not pay back — the band offered Mick a generous compensation package to honor his career with the band.  Manipulated by his manager and lawyer, Mick refused and chose to file this ugly public lawsuit.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Mick Mars, Motley Crue’s guitarist of 41 years, has filed legal papers bringing deep and apparently hostile divisons between him and the other three members of the band out into the open. The suit only demands that the group hand over relevant documents about their businesses in advance of arbitration. But the wealth of details in Mars’ filing offers a provocative look at the tension between him and the others, in what he says has been a pattern of “gaslighting” in an attempt to kick him out of the group. The paperwork was filed in Los Angeles County’s Superior Court Thursday filed through Mars’ attorney, Edwin F. McPherson, and says the band has deliberately withheld information about the various Motley Crue businesses that he has a 25% ownership share in. Mars says the band has demanded he sign a severance agreement that would divest him of those and other future interests, in return for a 5% stake in the group’s 2023 tour, which is going on without him.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The verdicts on the new Broadway musical-comedy “Shucked” are in, and the critics have asked you to lend them your ears — so to speak — as they’ve cobbled together their reactions to the possible sleeper hit. (Sorry, but once you’ve seen the production, it may take you six months or longer to stop speaking in puns.) Variety’s critic wrote that “with its exuberance, heart and non-stop yucks, ‘Shucked’ is the surprise delight of the Broadway season.” The New York Post’s notice trumpeted it as “Broadways’s best and funniest new musical.” Time Out said the show leaves theatergoers “gorged to satisfaction on a big, tasty bag of Broadway puff.” Entertainment Weekly wrote that “its refreshing embrace of diversity and unapologetically corny sincerity can definitely put a smile on your face.” Even one of the minority that was harder on it, the New York Times’ Jesse Green, begrudgingly admitted of the parade of laughs: “forced into submission,,” he wrote, “you eventually give in.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Tanya Tucker did not let much time slip away after the Country Music Hall of Fame announced her impending induction this week before coming out with an announcement of her own: She has a second album produced by the team of Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings coming soon, following up on a celebrated previous effort that earned Tucker her first two Grammy Awards. The album “Sweet Western Sound” will be out June 2 on Fantasy. A teaser track from the record, “Kindness” is out now. The song was written by Carlile’s bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth. The collection reunites the team that made Tucker’s comeback album, “While I’m Livin’,” a 2019 set that got the singer a Grammys for best country album, and its closing track, “Bring My Flowers Now,” which won best country song.

Loretta Lynn's granddaughter, Emmy Russell, is honoring the country legend's legacy. "The most advice that she has given me throughout the years was to love God," Emmy told Fox News Digital on the CMT Music Awards red carpet.  "She was such a lover of God and I think it was more of, ‘Listen to him and follow his voice.’" Russell wants everyone to remember Lynn as an "ordinary country girl" who was "everybody's friend." "There was nothing fake," Russell said.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Renée Zellweger has her first co-starring role in a music video, appearing in “Two Steps,” the visual accompaniment for a new song by C M Talkington, a singer-songwriter who is only on his second album. At first glance, at least for those who don’t know their movie credits too avidly, this might seem like a case of a well-known actor doing a favor to help gain some visibility for an up-and-comer making his baby steps into a musical career. And that part is not untrue, exactly. But the backstory to their jointly making this video actually goes back three decades, and involves both parties possibly owing each other one. Because before he started making records, Talkington was (and still is) known as a filmmaker — and it was him that gave Zellweger her first big break, by going to the wall with a production company to cast her in the 1994 feature “Love and a .45,” where the indie film world first met and fell in love with her.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus spent the last few years of interviews generally demurring on when their group, Boygenius, would ever be collectively super again. There’s been a little bit of a Boygenius time-out, of course, since the trio’s fairly spontaneous debut EP came out in 2018 and the release of their first full album as a collective, “The Record,” on March 31. But it hasn’t been for a lack of thought and effort going on behind the scenes, as the waiting world has now learned. As Bridgers says in an interview with Variety, “We realized the other day that we’ve been making this record for longer than we haven’t been, as friends,” since she dates its origin point to the week after she issued her “Punisher” album in 2020.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The wheels are not close to coming off the “Carpool Karaoke” franchise, as a series of new episodes was announced Monday morning for Apple TV+, featuring stars ranging from pop singer Avril Lavigne to TV star Sheryl Lee Ralph to current Broadway queen Lea Michele. The eight new “Carpool Karaoke: The Series” episodes will bow globally on the platform June 23. While most of the installments pair up two stars, three of the episodes promise to incorporate the cast of a series: Netflix’s “Girls5eva,” CBS’ “Ghosts” and Apple TV+’s “The Afterparty.” Some of the partners in carpooling have a joint project to promote. Alison Brie and Danny Pudi, for instance, are not only mutual “Community” alumni but recently reunited for the rom-com “Somebody That I Used to Know.” Not coincidentally, a teaser that was already posted for their “Karaoke” episode has them singing the Gotye song of that same name.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic During the opening monolog at Sunday night’s CMT Music Awards, broadcast from Austin on CBS, there was a comedic bit in which Kelsea Ballerini and Kane Brown exchanged anniversary presents to celebrate their cohosting of the show for the third consecutive time. Brown gave Ballerini a cowboy hat, and she reciprocated by giving him a pink hat to put on in return. At least a few audience members shared a joke about the exchange: By wearing pink, would Brown be breaking Tennessee’s recently passed law that some believe would ban most drag performances in the state, if they were back home? Viewers whose minds went there during that silly opening were just kidding — but Ballerini really went there later in the three-hour telecast, when she chose four “RuPaul’s Drag Race” queens to perform with her as she sang “If You Go Down (I’m Goin’ Down Too).” That song, off her 2022 album “Subject to Change,” is Ballerini’s anthem of female friendship — and, with the way the CMT Awards routine played out, she very much seemed to be counting drag performers as among those friends. The performance was playful and ostensibly non-political, and in a different year might not have raised very many shaved or unshaved eyebrows. In spring 2023, it was hard to read it as anything other than a statement of: If drag queens are brought down, the rest of us will be dragged down with them.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A couple of members of a fresh generation of country music — Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson — came away as the top victors at Sunday night’s CMT Music Awards, broadcast live from Austin for the first time. But the biggest winners may have been CMT and CBS, putting the three-hour telecast on the map as a show packed with enough performance firepower that it does merit having made the move from a cable platform to major broadcast premiere as of last year. However much the official winners may delight a core country crowd happy to see young radio and streaming favorites get rewarded, the big draw for the CBS audience was likely a series of collaborations between country stars and their pop or rock counterparts, as has been the custom for years on the rival CMA Awards. Most notable were the all-female collabs that had Carly Pearce dueting with Gwen Stefani on No Doubt’s “Just a Girl,” or Alanis Morissette trading lines with a slate of young female artists that included Lainey Wilson, Ingrid Andress, Morgan Wade and Madeline Edwards. The all-star teamings spread to those who presented, too, with Megan Thee Stallion providing the most enthusiastic introduction imaginable for “my new besty,” Shania Twain.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The vibe surrounding Joni Mitchell being bestowed with the Gershwin Prize in Washington, D.C. earlier this month — as seen in a new PBS special — couldn’t have been more harmonious, from all accounts. And that’s a good thing, because under less loving circumstances, there could have been a turf war over who would get to sing “Both Sides Now,” the song that was Mitchell’s first hit in 1967 and might still stand as her signature song, if someone had to pick one with a gun to their head. The victor, in this quiet, bloodless battle: the inimitable Annie Lennox, who performed at the tribute to Mitchell just months after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Eurythmics.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When an all-star cast of musicians came together to rehearse their salute to Joni Mitchell for a Washington, D.C. tribute concert in February, in honor of her being the latest annual recipient of the Gershwin Prize for songwriting, executive producer Ken Ehrlich had an early epiphany about where Marcus Mumford’s cover of “Carey” should go. “During the rehearsal, it was obvious to me: that was the opening number.” As you watch the remainder of “Joni Mitchell: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song,” though — as it premieres on PBS tonight, and is available thereafter for streaming on PBS.org and the PBS app — you won’t see Mumford disappearing from the stage for very many extended periods. Mumford has been part of the parties at Mitchell’s home the last couple of years, and participated in the “Joni jam” at the Newport Folk Festival last summer, so he is well familiar with her and her catalog at this point. And so, as Ehrlich explains it, “When I reached out to him, it probably wasn’t a half hour before he got back to me and said, ‘Of course I’d love to do this.’ And then he quickly followed with: ‘Can I play with the band?’ And he became the resident percussionist, which I didn’t have.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A short film that actor-turned-director Kristen Stewart made with the group Boygenius got an official Hollywood sendoff Thursday night at the El Rey Theatre, with a film premiere that also doubled as a launch party for the indie-rock trio’s new album, “The Record.” Stewart did not participate in the Q&A that Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus did with members of the press and public after the screening, but she stepped out to introduce the short film, which is essentially an interlocking combination of music videos for three songs from the new album: “$20,” “Emily I’m Sorry” and “True Blue.” The imagery is sometimes sentimental, sometimes bracing and vivid. Bridgers sings “Emily I’m Sorry” in front of a monster truck rally. Palms are cut for a blood oath. And there is some lip-locking through copious blue paint. The framing device is sweet, though, beginning with one band member sleeping fitfully in bed and waking up at the end embraced in a group cuddle.