The Daily Drop

'The Black Dog': Taylor Swift Announces Final Variant of Upcoming 'Tortured Poets Department'

Following the surprise announcement of her 13th album, 'The Tortured Poets Department,' at last month's Grammy Awards, Swift has decided to give us not one but four versions of said album -- or variants, as the official lingo would have it -- all of which will be released on April 19

Never Heard of Zenana? Turns Out Their Forgotten 1986 Song Might Just be Europe's Next Club Banger

The all-female trio, made up of Anita Gabrielle Tedder, Penny Griffiths and Ruth Elder, have been signed to an Amsterdam record label nearly 40 years after releasing their sole recording – and the only single they released together is proving a smash in clubs across Europe. Zenana, whose name is Persian for "of the women", formed in 1983 and after building a cult local following around Milton Keynes, signed with the independent record label PRM and in 1986 recorded their sole single, "Witches", a synth-heavy number that drew on the emerging Chicago House sounds while keeping a firmly poppy sensibility (imagine Bananarama after a visit to the Hacienda). Abbot began playing the song at his own DJ nights, before sharing the single with other DJs, where it picked up a following in clubs in Los Angeles, Vienna, Paris and Amsterdam… and has now led to the Dutch label Rush Hour signing Zenana on a fresh deal.

Miley Cyrus and Pharrell Team Up Again for a New Single, 'Doctor (Work It Out)'

The twosome last worked together in 2014 on "Come Get It Bae," a song from Pharrell's 2014 album, G I R L. but both artists have been teasing this new collaboration for a bit now, with Pharrell playing a bit of the track during a Louis Vuitton show in late January and both he and Miley posting snippets on Instagram earlier this week

Adele Postpones 10 Vegas Shows Due to Illness

Adele cancelled ten upcoming shows on her ongoing Las Vegas residency on February 27, citing strain from a recent illness. The Weekends With Adele residency at the Caesars Palace was scheduled to run through June; it is not yet clear when or if the shows will be rescheduled. In a message posted to Instagram, the British singer said that she had been sick during the last leg of her residency, and hasn't yet had a chance to fully recover. "I hadn't quite gotten the chance to get back to full health before shows resumed and now I'm sick again, and unfortunately it's all taken a toll on my voice." At the height of her initial fame following the blockbuster 21 album, Adele was forced to cancel substantial tour dates due to a vocal cord hemorrhage in 2011, later undergoing surgery. Adele's Vegas residency kicked off in November of 2022, after being postponed for nearly a year due to the Covid pandemic. She has since extended the show's run twice, with the current spate of dates initially scheduled to wrap on June 15. It's unclear how the postponements will affect Adele's plans to stage a ten-date series of "one-off" shows in a specially-constructed venue in Munich, Germany next August. Adele announced the Munich shows in January, writing: "So a few months ago I got a call about a summer run of shows. I've been content as anything with my shows in London's Hyde Park and my residency in Vegas, so I hadn't had any other plans."

'American Idol' Auditionee Emmy Russell Reveals Herself as Granddaughter of Country Music Legend Loretta Lynn

Unsurprisingly, Luke Bryan was the first to ask the identity of Russell's grandmother, a revelation which takes place at the 0:44 mark of the below YouTube clip and is worth watching not only because it subsequently includes Russell's performance but also because you can literally see Katy Perry's eyes bug out of her head when she hears the name "Loretta Lynn." After viewers got a quick tour of Lynn's house, with Russell revealing that she basically grew up on her grandmother's tour bus, Russell explained, "I think there's a reason why I think I am a little timid, and I think it's because I want to own my voice.