In terms of festivals, it doesn’t get any better than Sea.Hear.Now. Remove the uncomfy camping vibe that’s borderline abusive, and all the intensity of large-scale festivals located in remote areas…and you’ll have SHN.
An oasis nestled in Asbury Park, New Jersey — you won’t get a better experience than a concert on the sand. With local food, an easy-going crowd, and plenty of shopping opportunities, there’s something for everyone at this festival.
This year, Sea.Hear.Now 2024 is garnering more excitement than ever thanks to their star-studded lineup. With headliners Noah Kahan and New Jersey’s own, Bruce-The-Boss-Springsteen. Springsteen — the Sunday headline act — will have an extra-long, 3-hour set.
We attended the festival last year, and I was most surprised by how terrific the food was. I even heard people raving about the seafood at SHN. Admittedly, I’ve only eaten one Korean corn dog in my life…but this seemed to be a pretty good intro.
If you’re going to buy VIP tickets for any festival, this is the one where you’ll get the most bang for your buck. A guaranteed good view for Noah Kahan and The Boss, exclusive merch and food stands where you’ll have less of a line…and of course, my favorite: private bathrooms!
Sea.Hear.Now is only a few days away…But if you’re last-minute-spontaneous, tickets are still available on resale sites. If you want to know more about one of my favorite festivals, here’s the inside scoop for Sea.Hear.Now 2024!
Sea.Hear.Now 2024 Lineup
Sea Hear Now
The crowd at Sea.Hear.Now isn’t your typical festival crowd. The locals bring a certain informal atmosphere, and since there’s such a wide variety of performers, the crowd is just as diverse.
On Saturday, Noah Kahan, The Black Crowes, Grace Potter, and Joe P are names to watch out for. Sunday features megastars like Norah Jones, Joy Oladokun, and Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band.
Since the festival is only 2 days long, it’s more manageable than a 3 or 4-day taxing experience. While I always have the time of my life at festivals, I’m often ready to go home earlier than anticipated.
Transportation at Sea.Hear.Now
I definitely would not take an Asbury Uber or Lyft during this festival. Last year, I wasted hours in Ubers just sitting in traffic (I think it’s because I wasn’t staying in Asbury Park). But even if you are: don’t use a rideshare service.
There’s a train that runs into Asbury Park itself, which I’d highly recommend. Go with the option where you won’t stuck in traffic, wishing you were home. Believe me.
Plus, rideshare prices will surge due to demand. Our Lyft driver last year charged us close to $100 extra because she took a different route and we ended up in more traffic. A train ticket is never market-based.
The Food
Surf Taco
Sea.Hear.Now features some of the best food from the Jersey Shore area. I’m addicted to Surf Taco — especially the eponymous fish taco which is a Jersey shore delicacy. Looking for food that’s absolutely delish and not just a mass-produced, high-caloric, flavorless mess? Surf Taco is for you.
Other favorites include Dank Dogs, Local 130 Seafood, and Lobster Rolls & More. Normally, I’d warn against the seafood options at a festival…but we’re literally at Sea.Hear.Now. It’s necessary.
Now, I’m not going to say that these food options will be the best meals in your life…or the cheapest. However, when it comes to festival life, pick your battles. Remember, the food is never the star of the weekend.
The Drinks
At every festival, there’ll be those random alcoholic beverage stands featuring familiar brands like Twisted Tea, Hendricks Gin, Aperol Spritz, and Tito’s.
These booths are my favorite stops because they offer photo ops left and right, exclusive brand merch that’s super cute. Last year, the Aperol Spritz sun hats were all the rage, and don’t forget the cute cocktails.
This year, keep an eye out for Bud Light, Mamitas, White Claw, Hendrick’s Gin, Twisted Tea, and more! I loved the Hendrick’s cocktails last year — and I’m not even a gin gal.
The Stages
Sea Hear Now
It’s not easy to get lost at Sea.Hear.Now, which is good news. The festival setup is truly manageable, you can stroll around and easily find each stage without getting overwhelmed or exhausted.
The 3 stages — the Surf Stage, Sand Stage, and Park Stage — are pretty self-explanatory. The Surf and Sand Stages are located across from one another right on the beach, while the stands are on the other side of the boardwalk.
Then, the Park Stage is between stands and the Sand Stage. Sprinkled throughout the festival are some of Asbury Park’s most famous bars and restaurants. Across from the Surf Stage — where Bruce Springsteen will be performing — stands The Stone Pony — the iconic music venue where Springsteen launched his career.
So, if you’re weary of the festival and simply want to rest somewhere and absorb all the fantastic sensations…there are plenty of places where you enjoy the glories that Asbury Park has to offer!
If you’re still looking for Sea.Hear.Now tickets, it’s not too late! Grab them here.
When the nominations for the 2024 Country Music Awards were released, everyone was expected to see one name: Beyoncé. The pop megastar released her Country album Cowboy Carter on March 29th of this year. The album is a meditation on the meaning of Country music and a comprehensive study of the genre that takes Beyoncé back to her Texas roots.
Yet, despite Cowboy Carter being one of the best albums of the year, it received a grand total of 0 nominations.
Fans were outraged, saying Beyoncé had been “snubbed.” But this was no oversight. It was a clear message to Beyoncé saying: you are not welcome here. It’s the same message she received for that famed performance with The Chicks (more on that later), and the same message that spurred her to write the album.
But the album is not some meek request for acceptance. It’s a defiant assertion that the gatekeepers of the Country music industry can’t bar her from the genre. So, of course, the Academy of Country Music didn’t like it. It was a diss track about them. Nominating her would be like Drake cheering for Kenrick Lamar at the 2025 Super Bowl. So, the CMA’s shutout isn’t surprising, but the deeper questions it provokes are intriguing.
Why didn’t Beyoncé get nominated for the CMA awards?
Simply put, the 2024 CMA Awards were never going to nominate an album that so blatantly calls them out. And it’s not just the Academy that shut out Cowboy Carter. Despite the commercial and critical success of the album literally everywhere else, Country music radio pretty much refused to play it.
They were the only ones. Cowboy Carter spent four weeks on top of Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart — a historic achievement that marked her as the first Black woman to accomplish that. The album’s lead single “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which she surprised us with after the 2024 Super Bowl, was also a record-setter. It made her the first Black woman to hit the top spot on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart ever — where she stayed for 10 whole weeks. The single and album also dominated the all-genre Billboard chart, with 7 other songs on the 28-track album landing on the Country charts.
Yet, many Country radio stations refused to play it. To me, that’s a sign that Beyoncé is on the right side of history (as if we needed proof) — Country music radio stations refused to play The Chicks, too, but look at them now.
So, when it came down to voting for the CMAs, the jury was out. The process works like this: The CMAs nominations and subsequent wins are voted on by members of the Country Music Association. This committee includes artists, executives, songwriters, musicians, publicists, touring personnel, and assorted members of the Country music mafia. To qualify, the work must have been first released or reached peak national prominence during the eligibility period (July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024).
Beyoncé qualified to be nominated for categories like: Single of the Year, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, and Music Event of the Year. It was clear that she deserved to win all of these categories, but would she? Would she even be nominated, we asked? The main contention was whether or not she would nab a nomination for Entertainer of the Year. This is the CMAs biggest award and is typically awarded to Country acts who have held a strong presence in the genre for years. But with this blazing album and the Country tinges of songs like “Daddy Lessons,” which landed her that fateful spot with The Chicks in 2016, Beyoncé was in the running for a nod at the very least.
Would the Country Music Association side with the critics and the culture? Or with … racism.
Unsurprisingly, they chose to continue the tradition of excluding Black women from the halls of Country music. In the words of social media realtor and cultural critic Blakely Thornton, “Duh.”
“No numerical achievement could make these people want us in a room,” said Thornton in a recent video reacting to the news. “And quite frankly, f**k ‘em, because I don’t want to be there.”
Beyoncé has been there and done that — singing at the CMAs was what traumatized her enough to write this album in the first place. But Cowboy Carter is not merely a protracted diss about the CMAs and the genre’s current gatekeepers. It’s about something the Country Music Academy probably wants to pretend doesn’t exist: institutionalized racism and a Black woman’s lived experience.
What is Cowboy Carter about?
Cowboy Carter is Beyoncé’s pettiest project yet. The first track is a masterclass in storytelling, a compelling abstract for the album that is to come. In “American Requiem,” Beyoncé begins with the lyrics: “It's a lot of talkin' goin' on / While I sing my song.” This direct address makes it clear who and what the album is criticizing. Here’s the context.
In 2016, Beyoncé shocked the crowd at the CMAs by singing “Daddy Lessons” from her acclaimed surprise album Lemonade. Alongside The Chicks, she graced the CMA Awards stage and was met with utter disrespect. While most of us would do pretty much anything to snag a Beyoncé ticket — people liquidated their 401ks to go to Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour — this crowd was downright rude, talking through her performance.
But the backlash didn’t end there. Country music fans were in uproar for weeks after the event and to this day, the performance is scrubbed from the CMA website. Some people even threatened to boycott Beyoncé, which she mocked by making “Boycott Beyoncé” tee shirts for her fans.
But clearly, our Virgo queen had much more to say. And she’s saying it through this album.
When she announced Cowboy Carter in March, she said: “This album has been over five years in the making. It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive.”
With meditations on what the genre is or means and a deep exploration of the rich roots of Country music, the album was a hit for Country and non-Country fans alike, except for the CMA.
That’s because its definition of Country music is tied up in the politics of race and Black womanhood. We live in an era where half the states streaming Morgan Wallen are trying to ban Black history, and some of the Country musicians being honored in Beyoncé’s place have been documented using racial slurs. Of course, Beyoncé’s deep dive into race theory didn’t resonate with them.
The New York Times called Cowboy Carter a “Rosetta Stone for the hidden racial politics in Country's aw-shucks exclusion that the C.M.A. performance put on display.”
But despite its deeper concerns, Cowboy Carter does what all Beyoncé albums since Lemonade have mastered: blend the personal and historical into something infectiously fun to listen to. Cowboy Carter makes me want to learn line dancing. It makes me want to pull a Bella Hadid, wear a Cowboy hat and move to Texas. It’s also bursting with features from Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Linda Martell, Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, Shaboozey, and more, and interpolations of classics like The Beatles’ “Blackbird” and Parton’s “Jolene.”
It’s a smart album, a heart-stirring album, a dance-ready album, and arguably the best damn Country album of all time. The CMAs were never going to get that. And at this point, I don't think the Grammys will recognize it either. But the culture does. And that’s what matters.
Who got nominated for the CMAs?
If Beyoncé didn’t snag a CMA nomination, who did?
Unsurprisingly, a whole lot of white men. The most nominated artist was Morgan Wallen, with the white boy song of the summer: “I Had Some Help,” featuring Post Malone. Wallen racked up 7 nominations overall, closely followed by Chris Stapleton and Cody Johnson, who each earned 5 nods, while Malone and last year’s Entertainer of the Year Lainey Wilson picked up 4 apiece.
The question of who will be Entertainer of the Year is still at the top of people’s minds. Four of five nominees went up for the title last year: returning champion Wilson, plus Combs (who won in 2021 and 2022), Stapleton (who’s been nominated seven times but never won), and Wallen. The dark horse is Jelly Roll, the newcomer on the block who’s had an explosive year.
While Post Malone’s song with Wallen, “I Had Some Help,” is the most-nominated song, his debut Country album, “F-1 Trillion,” was released too late to qualify for this year’s awards. However, despite being a rap artist first, Malone has been embraced by the Country community far more than mainstream radio. I wonder why…
There’s one beacon of light: the undeniable talent of Shaboozey. Beyoncé collaborator Shaboozey — who got a major boost in streaming numbers after appearing on two Cowboy Carter tracks — scored his first-ever CMA nominations. He’s having an amazing year. Nominated for best new artist and single of the year for “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which has been at the top of the Hot 100 chart for 9 weeks and the top of the Country chart for 13 weeks. And he’s Dolly Parton's godson — some people have it all.
Since Beyoncé wasn’t nominated, I can only hope Shaboozey brings her out to sing during his performance at the CMAs. But either way, in the words of Issa Rae, I’m rooting for everybody Black.
American Actor And Mississippi Native James Earl Jones Has Died
“Death Is Okay, It Happens To All Of Us” — James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones, whose career on stage, film and television spanned over six decades, died on Monday, September 9, at the age of 93.
Known the world over as the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise and as Musafa, King of the Pride Lands in the animated film The Lion King, Jones was one of the rare actors to have garnered EGOT status, winning Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards in his lifetime.
With nearly 200 screen credits to his name, Jones was instantly recognizable by his distinctive, mellifluous voice. Beyond Star Wars and The Lion King, he lent his dulcet tones to numerous commercials for many of America’s blue chip companies. He was especially known for: “Thank you for using a Verizon payphone.”
A great deal of his life was spent onstage. Lucky audiences would have seen him on Broadway as Howard Sackler’s The Great White Hope, in which he played Jack Jefferson, a character based on the Black boxing legend Jack Johnson; South African playwright Athol Fugard’s A Lesson from Aloes and MASTER HAROLD...and the Boys; August Wilson’s Fences; and D. L. Coburn’s The Gin Game. Off-Broadway work included many appearances in plays by Shakespeare, Chekov, and Brecht.
His work in the theatre garnered Tonys, Obies, Drama Desk and Outer Circle Critics’ Awards. His shelf of prizes also includes Emmys, a Grammy, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and, in 2011, an Honorary Oscar.
His film appearances run the gamut from the sublime (he made his cinematic debut in Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove) to the ridiculous (wild-eyed British comedian Marty Feldman’s The Last Remake of Beau Geste). That miraculous bass voice still appears in dozens of commercials and video games and cartoons.
Over the course of his life, James Earl Jones was devoted to civil rights. Growing up in a segregated America, he experienced firsthand the injustices of racial discrimination. He spoke out against racism and inequality and worked to promote diversity and inclusion in American theater.
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