AI-Generated Fake ‘Drake’/’Weeknd’ Collaboration, ‘Heart on My Sleeve,’ Delights Fans and Sets Off Industry Alarm Bells

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic It makes her happy, in case you were wondering — this Rock & Roll Hall of Fame honor that was announced Thursday for Sheryl Crow, making her part of the class of 2023 that is set for induction this November in New York. The singer-songwriter says she is pleased to be going in alongside her old pal Willie Nelson, with whom she just sang for his 90th birthday party at the Hollywood Bowl, along with fellow female powerhouses of contemporary music like Kate Bush (who she grew up on) and Missy Elliott (whose production skills she particularly admires). Never mind those who rode into the hall before her: A scan of the plaques on the walls in Cleveland may read like a discography of people Crow has already sung with over the last three decades.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Willie Nelson just got an only slightly late 90th birthday present: an impending induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The country music legend was one of seven music figures announced Wednesday morning as having been voted into the hall, along with Kate Bush, Rage Against the Machine, Missy Elliott, Sheryl Crow, George Michael and the Spinners. There are six more inductees beyond that list, with the distinction of being selected by a select Hall of Fame committee to join the seven performers who were voted in via general balloting. These are singer Chaka Khan, instrumentalist-producer Al Kooper and lyricist Bernie Taupin, all in the “musical excellence” category; pioneering rock guitarist Link Wray and hip-hop originator DJ Kool Herc in the “musical influence” division; and “Soul Train” TV host Don Cornelius as the recipient of the annual Ahmet Ertegun Award.

Twitter post of the doctored photo has gained 13.8 million views, 25,800 retweets and 300,100 likes — and keeps gaining traction.It appears that the photoshopped picture has Gomez’s face on Lily James’ 2022 Met Gala look by Versace, with the outfit edited to a different shade of blue.Aside from the fact that the “Look At Me Now” singer didn’t attend the Met Gala, there are a few glaring inconsistencies in the photo that were immediately noticeable to fans.Most notably, the red carpet Gomez is photoshopped onto is not the Colgate-toothpaste-looking one from this year.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The Jonas Brothers have announced a 35-date tour of North America for this summer and fall, taking place mostly in arenas but also touching down in a few key stadiums, including Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Wrigley Field in Chicago and (as previously announced) Yankee Stadium in New York. The gambit for the tour is that the sibling trio will play five of their albums each night. Obviously, their releases have not all been hour-plus excursions, but it should still make for a lengthy set. This format plays off of and expands the conceit of the group’s recent run in a Broadway theater, in which each night focused on a different one of those five albums (albeit with copious amounts of extra material filling out those single-album shows as well).

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “Thanks for coming to my dad’s birthday party,” said Micah Nelson, a few songs into an all-star tribute to Willie Nelson at the Hollywood Bowl, attended by a sold-out house happy that Willie had found a way to schedule the 90th anniversary of his birth on a Saturday night. With roughly seven decades of songwriting and recording to commemorate, though, the party is stretching over two nights, bundled together and sold as a single ticket, where by the end of Sunday night everyone will have heard about 50 artists perform a total of about 75 songs. Ironically, one of the first numbers performed Saturday evening was young Texas country artist Charley Crockett doing a cut that Nelson had a hit with as a budding songwriter in the late ’50s: “The Party’s Over.” That title proved as un-prescient for Nelson’s career 65 years ago as it proved unprophetic for the scope of the Bowl celebration this weekend. But a little irony is always welcome in Willie’s world.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The trial settling the case of whether Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” plagiarized the Marvin Gaye hit “Let’s Get It On” will never likely slip into concert mode, but it came about as close as it’s likely to during the pop star’s testimony on Thursday, when he picked up a guitar and briefly sang for the Manhattan courtroom. Sheeran performed a bit of what he said was the first version of “Thinking Out Loud,” as he and co-writer Amy Wadge developed it together at his home in England. The song’s hook lyric was then — as he sang it — “I’m singing out now,” according to musical testimony reported by ABC News. “When I write vocal melodies, it’s like phonetics,” he testified, according to Reuters’ report, showing out “singing out now” became “thinking out loud,”

in a viral Reddit thread after telling contestant Michael Williams that he might be going home following his performance of Selena Gomez’s “Lose You to Love Me.” “You sang ‘Lose You to Love Me,'” said the host. “We might lose you tonight.” The comment sparked an immediate backlash against the TV personality and mogul. “‘We might lose you tonight’ was so nasty omg,” commented one Reddit user.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “Red” was unfortunately more than just a metaphor for Taylor Swift over the weekend, as fans took to social media after her Houston three-night stadium stand wrapped up to share photos and video of what looked like a gnarly injury to her hand midway through the second of three concerts in the city. On Monday, Swift took to social media and acknowledged the injury, while downplaying it, much as she had done by going on with the show Saturday despite suffering what appeared to be a bloody incident during an off-stage costume change. “For those asking how I cut my hand,” Swift said in a tweet, “I’m totally fine and it was my fault completely — tripped on my dress hem and fell in the dark backstage while running to a quick change — braced my fall with my palm. It was all very Mercury in retrograde coded. Don’t worry about me I’m gooooood,” she added, blowing fans an emoji kiss.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Comes a time when even Neil Young is going to set foot on a stage again after the pandemic, and the recently gig-shy legend turned in his first substantial live performance in almost four years Saturday night at a benefit concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. Young shared much of his time on stage with Stephen Stills, in a show that relied so much on material from their first run as fellow band members in the 1960s, it almost amounted to a true “Buffalo Springfield revisited” show. The two longtime cohorts’ appearances apart and in tandem would have been draw enough to fill the Greek Saturday for the “Autism Speaks Light Up the Blues 6 Concert,” a sixth edition of the recurring autism benefits hosted by Stills and his wife Kristen, this one postponed by three years from its original spring 2020 date. But there was plenty of star power besides, including sets by Willie Nelson, making a brief but impactful appearance in advance of his 90th birthday celebration next weekend at the Hollywood Bowl, and Joe Walsh, who ensured that Stills and Young did not have the guitar heroism to themselves.

Justin Bieber feels for his wife.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic There could probably be no better evangelist for anything than the immensely respected Rhiannon Giddens, and the banjo is lucky to have her. The singer and multi-instrumentalist has been spreading the gospel of that instrument generally and its roots in Black culture specifically for years, in her live performances and as a member of a banjo-driven all-star ensemble, Our Native Daughters. Now, she’s taking a much deeper dive than ever with an outstanding 10-part limited series, “The Banjo: Music, History and Heritage With Rhiannon Giddens,” which has her and some guests who are pickers and/or academics exploring the twisted, fascinating journey of what she considers the quintessential American instrument. The series covers everything from the instrument’s roots in the African diaspora to its role in slavery to its adaptation as a staple of “hillbilly” music, on up to its resurgence as a staple of the Americana music scene today — and how, in Giddens’ view, it has been a reflection of divisiveness and unification in the U.S. over a period of centuries.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic If the 14th annual TCM Classic Film Festival had an official focus, it was on the 100th anniversary of Warner Bros., from the opening night premiere selection of a restoration of “Rio Bravo” to a celebration of the 50th anniversary of “The Exorcist.” Almost equal in emphasis, though, by virtue of the guests brought in, was a celebration of the ingenues-turned-leading-ladies of the 1960s, who now represent the elder guard of a Hollywood golden age — Angie Dickinson, Ann-Margret and Shirley Jones. Dickinson had the highest profile of any star at the festival, being the belle of the ball at the Thursday screening of “Rio Bravo” in the big house at the TCL Chinese Theatres, where most of the screenings were held. But there was just as much outpouring of affection for Ann-Margret, who turned up for a Q&A (and birthday cake) following “Bye Bye Birdie” on Saturday, and Jones, who was joined by her son Shaun Cassidy and a slew of grandchildren after a showing of 1962’s “The Music Man” as the festival neared its end Sunday.

A song using Drake and The Weeknd's vocals, generated using artificial intelligence (AI), has gone viral on TikTok. The song, titled "Heart on my Sleeve," seemingly cloned the two rappers' voices to create a song about Selena Gomez, The Weeknd's ex-girlfriend.The creator of the song goes by @GhostWriter on TikTok and has shared multiple videos on the account using the new song. The original video announcing the song currently has 10 million views.Three other videos shared by @GhostWriter each have just over a million views.

some healthy competition for Selena Gomez. The model debuted a new cooking show “What’s in My Kitchen?” featuring recipes for her favorite dishes on Wednesday on YouTube. It’s a move that got some critics fired up, harking comparisons to Gomez’s HBO Max show “Selena + Chef” and calling Bieber a culinary copycat.“Hailey really needs to stop copying Selena and she should focus on herself,” one user posted on Twitter.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In a development that may land somewhere between Woodstock 1999 and “Staying Alive” on the list of all-time unnecessary sequels, Billy McFarland is promising that there will be a “Fyre Festival II,” even though there was never a Fyre Festival I. “Fyre Festival II is finally happening,” the promoter posted on Twitter alongside a flame emoji. “Tell me why you should be invited.” The immediate responses or quote-tweet comments includes such remarks as “Imagine having this level of audacity,” “I’ll just wait for the documentaries” and “Because I hate myself.” McFarland was released from prison in 2022 after doing four years of a six-year sentence as a result of pleading guilty to charges involving defrauding investors and scamming ticket buyers. He was fined $26 million, as well, and has vowed to find a way to pay the investors he owes.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Brandi Carlile has been added as a participant in the NAMM Show in Anaheim, Calif. Thursday, where she will be interviewed about the insights she has gleaned into record production over her career. The biggest annual conference for musicians is taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center Thursday through Saturday. Her session, “Brandi Carlile on Producing and Uncovering the Artist in the Studio,” will take place Thursday from 1-1:50 p.m. and will have the singer-songwriter-producer being interviewed by producer/engineer/mixer Dave Way, who has worked on Fiona Apple’s “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” and “Extraordinary Machine” as well as albums by Ringo Starr, Pink and others.

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?

We’ve heard of bleached brows… But what about NO brows??

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 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.