List of All Articles with Tag 'b'

Barry Manilow doesn't see himself as a singer and can't believe he's still performing all these years later.

The loose flesh that hangs from a turkey’s neck isn’t the most attractive part of the bird—to humans, at least.

Taylor Swift's re-recorded 2014 album 1989 has dropped just in time for diehard fans to enjoy a weekend filled with nostalgia. The album marks an era when the star transitioned from country to pop muic, and saw her bag a Grammy for Album of the Year. Alongside her impressive spanning career in the limelight, comes trash talk. More specifically, years of misogynistic "slut shaming" surrounding Swift's dating history. Subsequently, Swift took a break from dating for two and a half years – which meant she naturally spent more time with her female friends. From doing so, baseless online rumours were birthed about her sexuality. Now, in a letter written for the re-release of the album, Swift shared her inspiration behind writing 1989, and in doing so, thanked fans for not leaning into claims online. "The voices that had begun to shame me in new ways for dating like a normal young woman? I wanted to silence them," the star wrote. "You see – in the years preceding this, I had become the target of slut shaming – the intensity and relentlessness of which would be criticized and called out if it happened today. The jokes about my amount of boyfriends. The trivialization of my songwriting as if it were a predatory act of boy-crazy psychopath. The media co-signing of this narrative. I had to make it stop because it was starting to really hurt." Swift continued: "It became clear to me that for me there was no such thing as casual dating, or even having a male friend who you platonically hang out with. If I was seen with him, it was assumed I was sleeping with him. And so I swore off hanging out with guys, dating, flirting, or anything that could be weaponized against me by a culture that claimed to believe in liberating women but consistently treated me with the harsh moral codes of the Victorian era." She went on to say that she assumed she "could fix this" by changing her behaviour. "I swore off dating and decided to focus only on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships," she explained. "If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalize or sexualize that – right? I would learn later on that people could and people would." Swift went on to thank fans who didn't buy into spiralling rumours online and who "knew that maybe a girl who surrounds herself with female friends in adulthood is making up for a lack of them in childhood." How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

1989 (Taylor's Version) is finally here, and fans are reliving the 2014 album like it's the first time again. It was Taylor Swift's first proper jump into pop music, and the new and improved version features five tracks from the vault. However, despite the first album being erased from history for Swifties, the singer's excitement for its release during her promo interviews were arguably some of fans' favourite moments, including appearances on the likes of The View, Ryan Seacrest, and a Victoria's Secret Fashion Show performance. Click here to sign up for our newsletters.

Taylor Swift has released her long-awaited re-recording of her 2014 hit album '1989.' The new release is Swift's fourth re-recorded album, following on from 'Fearless (Taylor's Version),' 'Red (Taylor's Version), and 'Speak Now (Taylor's Version). Swift's purpose in re-recording her back catalogue is so that she can own the copyright to all of the new recordings. This '1989' era marked a swift shift in music genre from country to pop for the singer, a risk that ultimately paid off as '1989' propelled Swift further into mainstream stardom and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2015. From the feel-good 'Shake It Off' to the anthemic tracks of 'Blank Space,' 'Out of the Woods' and 'Style' to the heartful and cathartic notes of 'This Love' and 'Clean,' Swift explores every avenue of pop. A journey that continues with the five 'From the Vault' tracks with 'Slut!', 'Say Don't Go,' 'Now That We Don't Talk,' 'Suburban Legends,' and 'Is It Over Now?' Now, indy100 is here to listen to '1989 (Taylor's Version) along with you, with commentary on every song as well as fun facts about the album. Welcome to New York October 27, 14:12 Taylor Swift performs at New Year's Eve 2015 at Times Square on December 31, 2014 in New York City. The opening track 'Welcome To New York' gave listeners a glimpse into Swift’s new pop sound with the electronic pop synths kicking things off. Not only does it reflect a change in music genre but also Swift’s literal move from Nashville to New York almost a decade ago as she shared how she fell in love with the city. "I approached moving there with such wide-eyed optimism and sort of saw it [New York] as a place of endless potential and possibilities,” Swift told Good Morning America about the song at the time. “You can kind of hear that reflected in this music and this first song especially." While the lyrics “And you can want who you want/ Boys and boys and girls and girls,” have been interpreted as Swift supporting the LGBT+ community, before she was vocal about her political views. The re-recorded version stays true to the original track with little tweaks to the production as Swift sings with a mature voice.

With the release of '1989 (Taylor's Version)' today, comes five 'From the Vault' tracks for Swifties to enjoy - but there is one vault song in particular that was teased nearly 10 years ago. (We're talking before the original '1989' was released). The second of the five vault tracks called "Say Don't Go," was written by Swift and legendary songwriter Diane Warren and the heartfelt pop track has been a hit with Swifties. Warren has written some of the biggest hits in music for other notable female artists such as Cher, Beyoncé, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. In January 2014, Warren herself spoke to Billboard about collaborating with Swift on a "great song,” adding that she was “excited" about it. When the interviewer commented on the fact Swift had said the songs for 1989 had come along quicker than expected, Warren replied: "Yeah I have no idea... I have no idea what she [Swift] has done but I'm excited about the one [song] that we did it's pretty cool." Though when October 27 rolled around that year, the collaboration didn't feature on the album. Luckily for us, this “pretty cool” track finally got to see the light of day. Of course, Swifties are praising both Swift and Warren about "Say Don't Go." Taylor Swift's '1989 (Taylor's Version)' is out now. How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Duran Duran have released their Halloween album 'Danse Macabre'.

Bella Hadid has issued a heartbreaking statement online amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, saying that Palestine "cannot afford our silence". The 27-year-old model asked her 60.5 million followers to "forgive" her for her silence, after receiving "hundreds of death threats daily" when her phone number was leaked, leaving her family feeling in danger. "I can not be silenced any longer," she wrote. "Fear is not an option. The people and children of Palestine, especially in Gaza, cannot afford our silence. We are not brave - they are." Speaking about the aftermath of the airstrikes in Gaza, Hadid said her "heart is bleeding with pain from the trauma I am seeing unfold, as well as the generational trauma of my Palestinian blood." The model, of Dutch and Palestinian descent, continued: "I mourn with all the mothers who have lost children and the children who cry alone, all the lost fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, friends that will never again walk this earth." She went on to highlight her own family's history, with her father and grandparents being "expelled" from their homes in Palestine just nine days after his birth. This happened the same year as the Nakba in 1948, which saw over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs flee and be expelled from their homes. Before the Nakba, the UN noted that Palestine was a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society. The result of the war forced more than half of the Palestinian population to be displaced. The UN General Assembly called for refugee "return, property restitution and compensation," however 75 years later, despite countless UN resolutions, "the rights of the Palestinians continue to be denied." In the Instagram post, Hadid candidly shared: "My family witnessed 75 years of violence against Palestinian people - most notably, brutal settler invasions which led to the destruction of entire communities, murder in cold blood and the forcible removal of families from their homes. The practice of settlements on Palestinian land still continues to this day. The pain of that is unimaginable." Ultimately, Hadid called for "humanity and compassion" and for people to "keep pressure on our leaders, wherever we are." "I stand with humanity, knowing that peace and safety belong to us all," she concluded. Thousands flocked to the post to praise the model for using her platform to raise awareness, with her mother Yolanda Hadid writing: "Brave, honest and from the heart, I love you." Another wrote: "I love you. You said it so perfectly. Free our people." A third added: "One of the first major celebs to speak out against Genocide. You will be remembered in history, thank you." How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Britney Spears has put her music career on pause to lead a slower life.

Following the release of Britney Spears' memoir, a hilarious clip of her teaching the Loose Women panellists how to dance has resurfaced online. In the clip from 2016, the likes of Janet Street-Porter and Colleen Nolan get up to learn a sexy routine with the pop queen, but struggle to keep up with her moves. "We'll just do the basics", Spears told the hosts, who looked out of their depths. "It's like a pony", Ruth Langsford joked of the dance. Click here to sign up for our newsletters.

Friends is full of celebrity appearances but forJean-Claude Van Damme, he described how "ashamed" he is of his acting skills for his "strange" episode on the popular show. In the 1996 episode, called 'The One After the Super Bowl: Part 2,' the Belgian martial artist and actor played himself in the sitcom where Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Monica (Courteney Cox) both fancied him which led the besties to fight over him after they spotted the "Muscles from Brussels" shooting a movie in the Big Apple. The fight between Rachel and Monica occurs when Monica doesn't have the confidence to shoot her shot with Van Damme so Rachel does it for her - only for Van Damme to be interested in Rachel. Twenty-seven years on, Van Damme is highly critical of his performance. “My acting is so bad. I look so like a ham. Like, ‘Hey, girls.’ […] It’s like, I’m ashamed of myself," the 63-year-old told The New York Post. “So then I was on the set, and those girls, they go and they kiss me and they kiss me on the lips. I didn’t know what to do, how to do … It was strange. They were very nice.” While Van Damme may not be a fan of the episode, viewers at the time certainly were as it became the most-watched episode in the history of Friends with 52.9 million viewers watching after the Super Bowl. Despite the success of the show, Van Damme didn't know much about Friends before appearing as a guest star. “I didn’t know much about the show. So when I go to the show, I see those two beautiful girls and they say this is the hottest show right now in the world. So I was very glad,” Van Damme said. “And my agent said, ‘You have to do an episode with them. So you’re going to play this guy.'” Overall, the actor described the experiences as a "good memory" and also praised Aniston and Cox. “They [Aniston and Cox] were very open because they did the show every day. So for them, I enter into a place where everything is working like a very well-trained mechanic engine,” he continued. “It was amazing.” How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

After the sequel in the witch series was a streaming smash for Disney+. it’s been confirmed a third ‘Hocus Pocus’ film is still in the story development phase.