Alanis Morissette - Thank U (Official Video)

Thanksgiving has always been about food.

We suffer through the awkward small talk and often anti-climactic football games for the sake of the meal that awaits us at the end of the day, and even then that "meal" is representative of ethnic cleansing and genocide. But there are a few other pros that lay outside of gorging yourself on mashed potatoes. The holiday always falls on a Thursday, which means you always have a four day weekend. Black Friday is also the following day, so despite whatever infuriating experiences you may have on Thanksgiving with your family, you can at least rest easy knowing you can go out and buy enough stuff to numb the pain.

These reasons alone are enough to warrant celebration. So while you clench your jaw through what is almost guaranteed to be a painfully long afternoon, why not curate some music to help elevate your mood and remind yourself that a four day weekend of relaxation awaits?

Keep ReadingShow less
Culture Feature

Meghan Markle And 10 Other Celebrities Open About Their Miscarriages

Miscarriages are deeply painful and personal. Some brave women have chosen to open up about their miscarriages in order to help others remember they're not alone.

Meghan Markle miscarriage

Frank Augstein/AP/Shutterstock

Miscarriages are incredibly painful, personal events.

They're also shockingly common. Somewhere from 10 to 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriages, according to the Mayo Clinic, though the number may be much higher because many women don't realize they're pregnant.

Celebrities are not immune from reality. Some have eve chosen to share their stories in an effort to make other families feel less alone in their grief.

Keep ReadingShow less
popular

Colbert, Fallon, and Kimmel to Host a COVID-19 Benefit That Could Be the Biggest in TV History

One World: Together at Home is likely to draw a huge global audience

One World - Global Citizen

via YouTube.com

On Saturday, April 18th, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon will be joining late-night forces to host a global television event.

The event, entitled One World: Together at Home, will promote the international fight to end the COVID-19 pandemic and raise money for the World Health Organization. From 8-10PM EST, it will be broadcast live on the big three American TV networks—ABC, CBS, and NBC—as well as around the world and on a number of cable networks and streaming platforms.

Any TV event set to be broadcast on all three of those networks would automatically be a pretty big deal, but with a huge portion of the world currently under some form of shelter-in-place or stay-at-home order—and a lot of TV and movies being shut down or delayed—this event has the potential to draw in a truly historic number of viewers. Of course that depends on whether the organizers can put together the kind of entertainment that will convince people to put down Animal Crossing to tune in. With that in mind, let's take a look at the lineup as it currently stands.

Along with the hosts of The Late Show, The Tonight Show, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the event—which has been curated by Lady Gaga in cooperation with Global Citizen—will feature appearances from Alanis Morissette, Italian opera star Andrea Bocelli, Billie Eilish, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Nigerian singer Burna Boy, Chris Martin of Coldplay, David Beckham, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Elton John, Idris Elba, Colombian Singer J Balvin, John Legend, Kacey Musgraves, Keith Urban, Kerry Washington, Chinese pianist Lang Lang, Lizzo, Colombian Singer Maluma, Paul McCartney, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan, Stevie Wonder and some of the muppets of Sesame Street.

In other words, there will be recognizable stars for just about any part of the world and any age group. While it might not reach the level of the World Cup final—which draws an audience of over 500 million—One World: Together at Home has the potential to far-surpass the viewing numbers of an event like the Oscars. With any luck, it will, because the money raised will go to the WHO's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, which equips healthcare workers around the world and helps to provide food, shelter, and healthcare to people in need.

So tune in on Saturday at 8:00 PM, and donate if you can afford to. Because right now everyone could use the entertainment, and the whole world needs some help.

MUSIC

This Week, Lady Gaga Released the "Chromatica" Album Cover—and Raised $35 Million for COVID-19 Relief

Gaga's album has been delayed, but she's rolling out imagery that reminds us of the fashion that made her famous—and channeling all her time into raising money for coronavirus funds.

Lady Gaga and her dog Asia

Photo via Palace Lee/Shutterstock

Lady Gaga has performed so many different roles over the past decade that it's easy to forget that in her early days, she was a fashion pioneer.

Gaga's wild outfits—from the iconic meat dress to the Haus of Gaga "Bad Romance" music video creations—earned her a front page spot on tabloids and helped launch her pop career.

She's just released the cover art for her new album, Chromatica, and it's as futuristic, complex, and opulent as anything we've seen from her before.

Gaga's album release has been delayed due to COVID-19, which she announced in another Instagram post:

That doesn't mean that the perpetually and often mind-blowingly active star has been taking a break, though. Tonight, she's speaking (virtually) at the World Health Organization's press conference to announce the next #TogetherAtHome virtual concert series, slotted for April 18, which will feature Paul McCartney, Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Alanis Morissette, Billie Joe Armstrong, Common, Kacey Musgraves, J Balvin, and of course, Lady Gaga herself.

The show will be co-hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Stephen Colbert.


In a recent briefing, Gaga announced that along with Global Citizen, she's raised $35 million in the last week for The Who's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.


In the meantime, while we wait for Chromatica, we can rewatch the futuristic "Stupid Love" video and bask in the glory of Gaga's "kindness punks" dance cult.

Lady Gaga - Stupid Love (Official Music Video)www.youtube.com

Music Reviews

Halsey Fails to Find Herself On "Manic"

"Manic" features BTS' Suga, Alanis Morissette, Dominic Fike, and many different versions of Halsey.

Halsey 'Sing 2' film premiere

Photo by MediaPunch (Shutterstock)

Halsey's new album might be called Manic, but though its lyrics often reference the symptoms of mania in bipolar disorder—impulsivity, hyper-social behavior, and intense euphoria—it sounds calculated and weary, like someone taking stock in the midst of a comedown, looking over the scars and broken glass from last night's party.

Keep ReadingShow less
Photo by: Gwen King / Unspalsh

Jagged Little Pill, a new Broadway musical, is an inconsistent but ultimately triumphant reimagining of Alanis Morrissette's iconic 2019 album of the same name.

Show-writer Diablo Cody spun Morrissette's contradictory and conflicted odes to youthful angst into the story of the Healys, a picture-perfect Connecticut-dwelling family who—of course—have a few secrets. There's Mary Jane, an overachieving mom who finds herself in the midst of an opioid addiction; Steve, the father, a typically overworked lawyer; Nick, the beloved prodigal son who gets into Harvard but (shockingly) feels unfulfilled, and Frankie, the adopted youngest child, a budding activist struggling with being adopted and one of the few people of color in a mostly white and very wealthy town. Wealth hangs over the musical in a form that is never really addressed, but then again, Jagged Little Pill fundamentally bites off more than it could reasonably chew.

“Head Over Feet" Official Music Video | Jagged Little Pillwww.youtube.com

As a character-driven musical, Jagged Little Pill shines and falters in this department. The three best-crafted characters in the show are Frankie, Mary Jane, and Frankie's best friend (with benefits), Jo, who struggles with her gender presentation (and her Christian mother's resistance to it) throughout the show. In a show so totally packed with disparate plotlines, the characters aren't always given the chance to fully grow into their personalities, and Jo's storyline could easily have been expanded. (Still, Lauren Patten's breathless rendition of "You Oughta Know" does make up for everything, despite being cut short by a dramatic revelation).

The show's overwhelming, kaleidoscopic nature may be be intentional. The musical was meant to be a maximalist work, one that reflects Morrissette's jam-packed songs by exploring tons of different social issues and the ways they intersect and bleed into each other. The show manages to tackle gun violence, sexuality, race and colorblindness, bullying, and—very prominently—#MeToo. Often the characters erupt into protests, holding signs that resemble those you might see at the next Women's March. For a show that tackles so many sensitive issues, Jagged Little Pill avoids the cringe-factor admirably, mostly focusing on the way the issues manifest themselves in characters' lives instead of excessively preaching.

Seeing the Present From the Future: "Jagged Little Pill" As a 2010s Time Capsule

Heading into 2020, it's intriguing to imagine how people might look back on this decade. Jagged Little Pill offers a window into what 2010s period pieces might look like: portraits of a time fraught with identity politics and addiction, whene the climate crisis and inequality loom large and yet at the same time, differing identities like queerness are becoming more and more accepted, and women's voices are finally being heard (in certain contexts) regarding assault and rape.

Despite the uniqueness of this time period, we're all still human, and the burning angst of Morrissette's songs meshes well with the chaos of the show's contemporary setting. The musical does an admirable job of threading Morrissette's slippery, elusive, cathartic songs into its narrative. Lyrically, Jagged Little Pill-era Morrissette works in contrasts and knots, and though the show's characters can feel underwritten at times, they're given permission to dive deep into their emotions and traumas through the music. Dance also features heavily; a battalion of athletic dancers often serve as physical manifestations of the same uncontrollable emotions that the music tries to express when the characters cannot.

Jagged Little Pill is at its best when it proves what we all know: that the people around us must be going through internal storms while smiling on the outside. Though unlike teen-angst-musical forefathers like Spring Awakening and Bare, it refrains from diving too deep into darkness, focusing instead on growing pains.

In the end, despite its roots in the present, this is the ageless story of an estranged mother and daughter. For Mary Jane, her arc is about letting go of her need to keep up appearances and addressing the pain and need for love that live under the ice sheath of perfectionism that cloaks her WASPy heart. For Frankie, it's about learning that she deserves to be seen for who she is—and that her race and her beliefs and her body shouldn't be swept aside. In the end, it's a tale of a mother and daughter both discovering themselves, setting themselves free in the present by confronting demons of the past. Their voices, like the best declarations of rage and hope, ring out a long time after the curtain closes.

Our Journey, Our Story | “You Learn" | Jagged Little Pillwww.youtube.com