Morgan Wallen May Get Shut Out of Grammys Again — But the Reasons Are Complicated

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In advance of Thursday’s release of the recently completed “Now and Then,” which is being billed as the final new track that will ever be finished and released under the Beatles‘ name, fans are hearing portions of the song — and more of the story behind it — in a 12-minute mini-documentary, “Now And Then – The Last Beatles Song,” that premiered on Disney+ Wednesday afternoon. The doc includes footage from the 1995 recording session in which Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison first had a quickly aborted go at adding parts to a John Lennon demo that had been supplied to them for Yoko Ono.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The second round of performances announced for the 2023 CMA Awards includes two collaborations scheduled for the genre’s reigning superstar, Morgan Wallen — one a medley of country classics with Post Malone and Hardy, and the other with a guest duet partner being held back as a surprise. Also planned for the Nov.

Thania Garcia The top 10 of the albums on the Billboard 200 this week would make for a genre-expansive medley with fresh releases from Blink-182 and the Rolling Stones hitting the top five, Drake at No. 2, Bad Bunny at No. 4 and Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” at No.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic There are quite a few things Jessi Colter, of “I’m Not Lisa” fame, is not — besides Lisa. The country music veteran laughs at the idea that she is an “outlaw queen,” even though one of her claims to fame is being one of the four participants included on the trending-setting 1976 album “Wanted! The Outlaws,” along with her husband Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Tompall Glaser.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic It was a very good year, 1989 was. And by 1989, of course we mean 2014.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift‘s big year is being further commemorated with a leading 20 nominations for the 2023 Billboard Music Awards, followed by SZA and Morgan Wallen, who each have 17 nominations in a total of 16 categories. Other stars with a big look in the BBMAs nominations include the Weeknd, a finalist for 16 awards with 17 entries; Drake, who’s up for 14 awards; and first-time finalist Zach Bryan, who’s contending with 14 nominations in 13 categories. The winners in the data-driven awards will be revealed Nov.

Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen, SZA, The Weeknd, Drake and Zach Bryan are top of the list in 2023 Billboard Music Awards nominations revealed Thurdsay, with Swift leading the charge as a finalist in 20 categories, the most of any artist this year.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Devo was, and is, the ultimate future-proof band. When they first entered the public consciousness in the late ‘70s, Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale and company seemed impossibly ahead of their time — in a primitive-futurist kind of way — and they still do. There’s very little that you could consider dated about the 50 cuts on their new career retrospective, “50 Years of De-Evolution 1973-2023,” since their worldview always kind of seemed to be trained on offering up dystopianism with a smile and a jacked-up synth-rock beat.

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.

As if she needed any reason to be any hotter right now, Nashville sensation Lainey Wilson — who leads the nominees for the Nov. 8 Country Music Awards with nine nods — is getting ready to take her show on the road.The 31-year-old singer announced on Friday that she will launch her “Country’s Cool Again” Tour in 2024, beginning with a date at Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater on May 31.The highly anticipated trek for the “Yellowstone” star will include a June 26 date at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.“Nothing gets me buzzin’ like putting on a show and singing along with the crowd,” Wilson told the Post.“I want to give a big thank you to all of the fans who have continuously showed up and showed out this year.

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 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 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 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.

Thania Garcia Morgan Wallen has the No. 1 album in the United States for the 16th non-consecutive week this year. Wallen meets the mark after his 36-song juggernaut spent 12 consecutive weeks leading the list following its debut in March, and after spending 31 total weeks in the top four of Billboard’s all-encompassing 200 albums chart.

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 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 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.