Chris Willman-Senior Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift fans don’t always love delayed gratification, but they have embraced it in the case of “Cruel Summer,” a 2019 song they have finally driven to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, four years and two months after it made its first appearance on the chart. The track from the “Lover” album — or era — first reached the top 10 in early July, and had hovered there since, becoming a consensus pick among many for 2023’s “song of the summer,” even though it came out four autumns ago.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Dusty Street, a DJ familiar to Southern Californians as one of the seminal personalities in the early days of KROQ, and one of the pioneering female voices in rock radio, period, died Saturday at age 77 in Eugene, Oregon. With her sultry voice and deep knowledge of the music she played, Street was not just an essential personality in L.A. rock radio history.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When I spoke with Robbie Robertson over the phone in the last week of July, it was at what everyone might have expected would be the beginning of a great victory lap for the musician. His work with the Band in the late ‘60s through mid-‘70s had been properly commemorated, through a memoir and documentary that covered those crucial years. But the film work that had consumed so much of his attention in the decades since, almost all of it as a close collaborator with, and close friend, to Martin Scorsese? There hadn’t really been a proper nexus point to fully celebrate and explore that.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Lainey Wilson, the breakout country star who leads the pack in this year’s CMA Awards nominations, has announced a headlining tour that will take her across the U.S. in May through November of 2024. The singer and “Yellowstone” actor will celebrate her string of No.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic There aren’t a lot of precedents in pop music for the pairing of Billie Eilish and Finneas, when it comes to brother-and-sister performing or songwriting duos. But in the world of music for films, it might not be too soon to start considering a comparison with a very famous married duo: Alan and Marilyn Bergman, the long-reigning king and queen of movie theme songs.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The making of the Rolling Stones‘ forthcoming album, “Hackney Diamonds,” is explored in a new one-hour TV documentary, “The Stones: Still Rolling,” produced by Fulwell 73 and Mercury Studios. Mercury is looking to sell the project at Mipcom, taking place this week in Cannes.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic For anyone in southern California who had experienced FOMJ (fear of missing Joni) when Brandi Carlile led “Joni jams” with Joni Mitchell last year at the Newport Folk Festival or earlier this year at the Gorge, there was finally an antidote for that. Mitchell was — as hoped — one of the guests at the “Brandi Carlile and Friends” show Saturday night at the Hollywood Bowl, singing her classics “Circle Game, “Ladies of the Canyon” and “Shine” along with the full cast of participants gathered around her.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Darren Aronofsky‘s Sphere film, “Postcard From Earth,” is responsible for establishing all kinds of historic cinematic firsts — like the fact that it is the only movie ever to be released in 18K resolution on a screen that spans 160,000 square feet. But movie buffs will particularly enjoy one first that doesn’t fully reveal itself until the very last 90 seconds or so of the 50-minute running time, in the massive Las Vegas dome where the film just premiered.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “Song of the Summer” is not an official Grammy category, of course, but the soundtrack to America’s collective life during those halcyon warm-weather months is definitely a harbinger. And although that distinction has never previously gone to a country song, most independent observers agreed that 2023’s title belonged to Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night.” After becoming the first country song by a solo male to top the Hot 100 in 42 years, it became the second longest-running single of any genre to top that Billboard chart, with an astonishing 16 non-consecutive weeks at No.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Any fan seeing “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” won’t be in for a huge number of surprises when it comes to the movie setlist, which largely follows the template that was locked into place — with a few exceptions or switch-outs — through the entire five-month 2023 U.S. tour. But there are a few choices that couldn’t exactly have been predicted.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Who will be the anti-hero of the 2024 Grammys? Well, if that question sounds a little bit rigged, it’s not far from the truth: Taylor Swift enjoys a level of cultural dominance that few other performers have approached (including monopolizing National Football League coverage in recent weeks). Her fall 2022 album “Midnights” isn’t full of obvious swing-for-the-fences smashes like “1989” or seen as more of an art project like “Folklore” (her last two album of the year winners), but it’s got huge hits and a unique, late-night, bringing-the-club-home feel that will appeal to voters who like artists who don’t make the same album twice.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “When will Taylor Swift’s film career take off?” has been a question lurking in the back of a lot of people’s minds ever since she started getting her feet wet with bit parts in “The Giver” and “Valentine’s Day”… and then further limited herself to keeping her toes damp with “Cats” and “Amsterdam” cameos. But do we finally have an answer to that question now, or what? Nobody should suppose that “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” doesn’t count as establishing her as a movie star, just because it’s a straightforward rendering of an ongoing concert tour that’s soon to become the most successful in history.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic For the millions who loved him, John Prine was an angel from Illinois. The singer-songwriter had a 50-year career trajectory that went the full distance from being part of the “next Dylan” brigade in the early ’70s to inspiring Next-John-Prines by the thousands before his death in April 2020.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In an intimate performance and conversation in Los Angeles Monday night, Olivia Rodrigo admitted that there were tears shed during the making of her new album, “Guts.” But she and producer/co-writer Dan Nigro clarified that it wasn’t just about the emotion in the lyrics. Some of those were tears of frustration as they obsessed over songs and struggled to get her all-important sophomore release just right over its 10-month creation. “We cried just because we were frustrated.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic U2 struck a topical, tragic note in the band’s show Sunday at Sphere in Las Vegas, adding “Pride (In the Name of Love)” to the set and dedicating it to the hundreds of music fans killed at a music festival in Israel, referring to them as “stars of David” in rewritten lyrics. “Sing for our brothers and sisters — who they themselves were singing at the Supernova Sukkot festival in Israel,” Bono said. “We sing for those.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Halsey has joined the production of “The Nightmare Before Christmas” coming to the Hollywood Bowl for a three-night stand just prior to Halloween, singing the role of Sally on the first two nights of the engagement, before the movie’s original voice actor, Catherine O’Hara takes it over on the third. The dates Halsey will appear are Oct. 27-28.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The most appreciative audience for “Dicks: The Musical” may be the Venn-diagram overlap between viewers who think the envelope for raunchy language in R-rated comedies doesn’t get pushed nearly hard enough and people who saw “Les Miserables” on Broadway three times. In other words, the warning not for every taste has never applied more.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Olivia Rodrigo may spill just a little more of her guts at a one-off performance in downtown Los Angeles this week, as American Express announced Sunday morning that the singer-songwriter is set to do an intimate show for its cardholders at the Theatre at Ace Hotel on Monday night. Said cardholders will have to be quick on the draw. Following the 9 a.m.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When it comes to how big a movie experience can get, Sphere has answered that question once and for all: The sky is the limit. The first film to play in the enormous, immersive new space in Las Vegas, Darren Aronofsky‘s “Postcard From Earth,” has plenty of blue-screen, so to speak — that is, vast skies that stretch to fill the dome that towers 366 feet over the venue’s floor level.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The songs and score of the new film “Dicks: The Musical” are deadpan, but about as far away from dead and humanly and musically possible. It sounds like a fully fleshed-out Broadway musical brought to vibrant life on the big screen, even though it went directly from being a two-man mini-show in a New York comedy club to a movie with a traditonal-sounding, fully orchestrated song score, the scope of which is matched only by the gleeful vulgarity of the lyrics.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be back on the street soon enough. After recently pushing back all of his remaining concerts for 2023 due to a health issue, Springsteen’s camp has announced the makeup dates for the rescheduled shows set to take place in 2024. The new dates come in two clumps — a month-long swing taking place in mid-March through mid-April, followed by a second month’s worth of shows in mid-August through mid-September.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The Los Angeles music scene has long had “folk music,” in its many permutations and offshoots, as a key part of the famous sounds the city has been most often associated with. But a festival with that as part of the moniker and definition? Not so often, though some locals with long memories will remember a Troubadours of Folk Festival at UCLA in 1993 that included everyone from Joni Mitchell to the Folksmen.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The process of guts-spilling was the focus of a conversation between Olivia Rodrigo and veteran songwriter-producer Linda Perry at the Grammy Museum Wednesday night, before the young pop champion took to piano and acoustic guitar to sing solo versions of three hits and/or fan favorites from her new album, “Vampire,” “Making the Bed” and “Lacy.” Although the conversation inevitably skewed more toward the mechanics and philosophy of writing than personal details, Rodrigo kept the fan base on hand in the intimate auditorium rapt with mentions of how she came to write several of the new songs. There were passing revelations, too, like the fact that she took a poetry class at USC last year, which helped generate one of the most talked-about songs on the new “Guts” release, or that St. Vincent is a previously unmentioned collaborator on the bonus track “Obsessed.” “In this time of music where we’re getting fed a lot of different styles, I’m not buying a lot of it,” said Perry — famous as part of 4 Non Blondes and for her work with Pink, Christina Aguilera and Dolly Parton — in kicking off her questioning of Rodrigo.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Country star Hardy announced on social media Tuesday that he is canceling or postponing his next three concerts, due to what he described as “serious anxiety” and panic attacks that have “landed me in the hospital.” He indicated that these conditions have “taken over my life” over the last two weeks, and represent delayed trauma from a bus accident a year ago. The singer noted that he expects to be in better shape in nine days, when he will resume his fall headlining tour on Oct. 12 in Jonesboro, AR.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Record Store Day has announced a lineup of more than 170 exclusive titles for its annual Black Friday event this fall, with the “black” almost being a misnomer for this particular Nov. 24, 2023 rollout — given the amount of purple, gold, red, blue, green, marble, clear and splatter-colored vinyl variants on the list.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Stories about nonverbal autistic teens rarely galvanize the public imagination. But when one such youth has made the transition in a few short years from having a limited ability to communicate to having co-written a symphony, people are going to take notice, and be touched.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Spectacle is underrated. This is pretty much the antithesis of any accepted, traditional rock ‘n’ roll orthodoxy. It is also the natural human reaction to just about any or all of “U2:UV Live at Sphere Las Vegas,” the greatest-show-on-earth that opened Friday night in an enormous dome just off the Strip.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The first date of U2‘s 25-night run at Las Vegas’ Sphere is on the books, and for anyone who doesn’t mind spoilers, the makeup of the setlist can be revealed — although there is a mid-section that, judging from what Bono said, may be different each night during the run. The setlist for “U2: UV Live at Sphere Las Vegas” includes all of the classic 1991 “Achtung Baby,” as promised, but split into two sections.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony will be streamed live for the first time in November, as Disney+ has picked up rights to let viewers see the event as it happens, a marked change from the years in which music fans had to wait weeks to see an edited broadcast. The Disney+ livestream will go out coast-to-coast from Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Nov. 3 at 8 p.m..

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic How much is Paul Westerberg like Bob Dylan? That’s a provocative question — maybe one we need to save for when we know each other better. So let’s just start a related, but easier, one.