Rina Sawayama says This Hell “has the blessing of Abba”

Not letting him have the last word!!

EXCLUSIVE: The Writers Lab has set Shari Albert (Fishtown), Stephanie Bast (FrankenFamily), Kelly Campbell (Pyramid Scheme), Shari Lynette Carpenter (Translate), Nic Cohen (Artemis One), Rebecca Dreyfus (Men), Gwen Goodkin (The Plant), Tamara Maloney & Maeve McQuillan (Darkened Room), Arianna Ortiz (Mama, Don’t), Zuri Rice (Green Hill), Roses Urquhart (This Is My Body) and Robin Shanea Williams (Adrienne Is Always Single) as the participants and projects for its eighth annual lab, supporting women screenwriters over the age of 40.

Rina Sawayama has spoken about moving into acting with a role in 2023’s Hollywood blockbuster John Wick: Chapter 4 in a new interview.In 2021, the pop star was announced to be a part of the upcoming sequel, which will premiere next year. She will play the part of Akira in the movie.Speaking to NME for the latest Big Read cover story, Sawayama spoke about scoring the role.

BLACKPINK lead what looks set to be an all-new Official Albums Chart Top 5 this week, with BORN PINK tracking for the top spot.

Rina Sawayama has shared a brand new video for her latest single ‘Hurricanes’ – check it out below.The British-Japanese artist released her second album ‘Hold The Girl’ on Friday (September 16) via Dirty Hit, and shared the new video on the same day.Following visuals for the new album’s title track and ‘This Hell’, the ‘Hurricanes’ video sees Sawayama giving a stormy, energetic performance of the track inside a barn.In the track, Sawayama sings: “April showers finally making way for warmer weather / But yet I still feel the same / Doing yoga just to feel untethered / But my mind keeps running away.”Watch her ‘Hurricanes’ video below.In a five-star album review, NME called ‘Hold The Girl’ “the best British pop album of the year,” writing: “Genres may come and go, but Sawayama’s second album is defined by her ability to fashion each of these sounds into big, brilliant pop songs.”On Friday, the day of the album’s release, Sawayama appeared on the cover of NME for a new Big Read feature about ‘Hold The Girl’, her role in John Wick: Chapter 4 and more.During the interview, the singer revealed that Elton John has offered her some “great advice” regarding some as-yet-unreleased music.Rina collaborated with the legendary musician on a reworking of her song ‘Chosen Family’ last year, which came after the pair struck up a friendship, with John having praised Sawayama’s debut studio record on his Rocket Hour radio show in 2020.

Elton John will perform at the White House next week for an event, A Night When Hope and History Rhyme.”

Rina Sawayama has revealed that Elton John has offered her some “great advice” regarding some as-yet-unreleased music.The British-Japanese artist, who released her second album ‘Hold The Girl’ today (September 16), collaborated with the legendary musician on a reworking of her song ‘Chosen Family’ last year.It came after the pair struck up a friendship, with John having praised Sawayama’s debut studio record on his Rocket Hour radio show in 2020. He’s since been avid fan and supporter of her work.Speaking to NME for this week’s Big Read cover feature, Sawayama spoke further about John assisting her with clearing a guitar riff on her single ‘This Hell’, which bears similarities to the ABBA‘s ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)’.“I was stressed as fuck because I was like: ‘this is our first single, this is our lead single, and I can’t use the guitar riff that I want’,” she recalled, adding that John ended up putting her in contact with the Swedish pop icons.ABBA’s Benny Andersson subsequently gave Sawayama his blessing to keep the original part in the finished track.“Elton is always willing to help.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Rina Sawayama is one of a handful of artists who released an album just as the pandemic was beginning and watched, astonished, as their stars rose during lockdown. The Japanese-British singer’s debut, “Sawayama,” was a wild fusion of Lady Gaga with nu-metal guitars, but also showed a penchant for sentimental ballads amid the power chords and intensity. The album won a co-sign from none other than Elton John, and its videos got her cast in the fourth installment of Keanu Reeves’ “John Wick” series, due in March. In fact, Elton was one of many people who spoke out against Sawayama’s exclusion from eligibility for England’s BRIT and Mercury awards because she isn’t a U.K. citizen, even though she’s lived in England since the age of 5. After #SawayamaIsBritish became a trending topic on Twitter, the British Phonographic Industry changed the eligibility rules to include anyone who lived in the country for at least five years, including her.

Rina Sawayama has shared the final preview of her imminent second album, ‘Hold The Girl’ – a soaring pop-rock anthem titled ‘Hurricanes’.At face value, ‘Hurricanes’ is one of Sawayama’s most upbeat tracks, powering ahead with sharp drum fills, glittery atmospherics and driving electric guitars, over which the artist herself sings with an emphatic, energised gusto.Its lyrics paint a more melancholic picture, though, as Sawayama sings in the first verse: “April showers finally making way for warmer weather / But yet I still feel the same / Doing yoga just to feel untethered / But my mind keeps running away.”Have a listen to ‘Hurricanes’ below:‘Hurricanes’ is the fifth single to come from ‘Hold The Girl’, following the May release of ‘This Hell’, June’s ‘Catch Me In The Air’, the title track in July and ‘Phantom’ last month. The album itself – said to be inspired by the “fake stories” on Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’ – will be out this Friday (September 16) via Dirty Hit.Sawayama will tour ‘Hold The Girl’ in October, starting with a run of shows across the UK and Ireland.

Oh, s**t! Britney Spears just BLASTED her father, Jamie Spears, in a fiery and since-deleted Instagram post all about why she’ll never perform again!! And it’s all because of him and the toxic conservatorship he was in charge of! Buckle up, we’ve got a lot to unpack here!

Britney Spears claimed that she doesn't believe she will perform live again after staging shows under the conditions of her 13-year conservatorship left her "traumatized." The now-deleted Instagram post was seen by The Independent and Rolling Stone and shared a series of thoughts on her past career, including her belief that she only liked one of her music videos (2013's "Work Bitch") as well as commenting on live photographers and dancers. Read Next: Britney Spears and Elton John join forces on “Hold Me Closer” “I’m pretty traumatised for life and yes I’m pissed as fuck and no I won’t probably perform again just because I’m stubborn and I will make my point,” Spears wrote.

Britney Spears is not holding back.

RAYE has covered Kate Bush‘s ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ as part of this year’s Live Lounge Month – check out the video below.The singer visited BBC Radio 1 yesterday (September 7) to record two live tracks, beginning with her recent single ‘Black Mascara’.RAYE then took on Bush’s classic 1985 single, which has seen a huge spike in popularity of late owing to its appearance in Stranger Things 4.For her version, the London artist removed the galloping beat and synths that feature in the original song in favour of piano and stings.“I didn’t feel it was the right thing to change much. We’re bringing it down – no drums, kind of like [a] ballad,” RAYE explained of her moody, stripped-back take on ‘Running Up That Hill’.“[Bush] 100 per cent wrote this record, 100 per cent produced it… she’s like one of my idols.

John Legend thinks some musicians are "afraid" to voice their honest opinions. The 43-year-old star and his wife Chrissy Teigen have both been outspoken about various political and social issues over recent years - but John feels some artists remain afraid of losing fans. He shared: "The artists who feel like they can’t talk about what they believe, they’re probably more stressed than I am - they’re afraid they’re going to lose fans.

Rina Sawayama has claimed that her single ‘This Hell’ received “the blessing of ABBA“, following concerns it too closely mirrored one of the latter band’s biggest hits.In a new interview with the BBC, Sawayama revealed that while she was recording the song, she noticed a distinct similarity between it and the guitar riff to ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)’. She claimed to have “freaked out” when she discovers the parallels, given ABBA’s notoriety for turning down samples of their work – a sentiment shared by her publishers when she informed them.“They were like, ‘ABBA are absolutely going to say no to this, and you have to change it’,” she said. Sawayama did so, but still found herself drawn to the first version she had recorded.

Right at the beginning of The March On Rome, a special screening in the Venice Days section of the Venice Film Festival, Mark Cousins draws our collective gaze to a piece of graffiti saying that cinema is most powerful weapon of all. It isn’t clear — to me, anyway — whether that joyful proclamation dates back to 1922, when Benito Mussolini led a Fascist march from Naples to Rome, or to some other eruption of historical optimism. Cinema isn’t as powerful as all that — if it were, Fascism would have been clobbered to a pulp by Chaplin, Lubitsch and all the other filmmakers who lampooned its vainglorious leaders. But images do matter. They certainly mattered to Italian Fascism.

EXCLUSIVE: Saturday Night Live star Bobby Moynihan is set to join the ensemble cast of Paramount Pictures’ IF, the next original film from John Krasinski. Ryan Reynolds, Krasinski, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Cailey Fleming, Louis Gossett Jr., Fiona Shaw, Alan S. Kim, and Steve Carell are all on board.