Maren Morris is living her best life with a #1 song and top selling album GIRL. For her new single The Bones, Morris took us along her much deserved vacation with husband Ryan Hurd. The video features actual footage of their travels to Hana. In a tweet, Morris remarks that the trek to Hana is much like a relationship. You weather the storms and make it through if the bones are good.
The Road to Hana is beautiful but a hell of a trek… kind of like the most meaningful & lasting human relationships we get to have. This is our journey on film for “The Bones” directed by our friend and Maui aficionado @AlexMFerrari 🌴🌊https://t.co/jSvHhYIFdSpic.twitter.com/imfpc3dNCV— MAREN MORRIS (@MarenMorris) August 15, 2019
Fans for Morris were happy to get a behind the scenes look at “Murd” (the name for Morris and Hurd) and loved the simple video for such a beautiful love song. Go along the Road to Hana with Maren Morris by watching the video here:
Superstar Maren Morris’ new video for “The Bones” premieres today. Directed by Alex Ferrari, the video features footage of Maren vacationing with her husband, singer-songwriter Ryan Hurd. Watch/share HERE.“The Bones” is taken from Morris’ sophomore album GIRL, which shattered the record for the largest-ever debut streaming week for a country album by a woman with 23.96 million streams in its first week. The album debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 and #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and continues to receive rave reviews.The record’s title track, “GIRL,” just hit #1 on country radio, making it the first solo song by a woman to top the Billboard Country Airplay Chart since February 2018 and Morris’ third overall time at #1. Upon its release earlier this year, “GIRL” had the highest debut on Billboard’s Country Streaming Songs chart by a female artist and the highest weekly streams by a female country artist ever.Morris kicks off the next leg of her GIRL: The World Tour later this month with performances at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. She will also support Miranda Lambert on her Roadside Bars & Pink Guitars tour this fall. Visit marenmorris.com for full tour details.
This year Morris received five Grammy nominations and was awarded with a Billboard Music Award for Dance/Electronic Song alongside Zedd and Grey.Morris won a Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance at the 2017 Grammy Awards, was named New Artist of the Year at the 50th Annual CMA Awards, Top Country Female Artist at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards and New Female Vocalist of the Year at the 52nd Academy of Country Music Awards. She was also the most played female artist on country radio in 2017 and 2018.The 28 year-old singer-songwriter from Arlington, Texas got her start playing in bars around her hometown and quickly made a name for herself with her Gold certified debut album Hero and its Platinum-selling “My Church,” Gold-selling “80s Mercedes” and “I Could Use A Love Song.” Hero and its singles topped charts nationwide, set Country radio records, and were some of the most critically acclaimed works of 2016.
Recent critical praise for GIRL:
“A Texas songwriter with a sharp eye, a velvet voice and a mean streak…‘GIRL’ sets the bar high right away. It’s the most ambitious and eccentric song she’s done yet, an emotional powerhouse driven by jagged rock guitar.”—Rolling Stone
“Country’s most innovative young star”—NPR “Seriously soaring vocals” —Esquire
“The country singer has something to say about how her genre handles women, skin and outspokenness.”—Playboy
“Country star Maren Morris is the strongest she’s ever been…Now she’s testing the limits of just how far she can go.”—Women’s Health
“Morris represents a new generation of women in country who are working to transcend the boundaries of their Nashville roots” —TIME
“GIRL is a 14-song collection showcasing Morris at her prime, swerving lanes between genres while maintaining her deep and respectful country roots.”—GQ
“However good Morris and her band sound on recorded tracks, they sound a hundred times better when you’re there in the room with them.”—UPROXX
Swifties have finally learned what all the hype was leading up to Taylor Swift’s mysterious postings with the caption “4.26.” The date of course being April 26. New music was assumed but anything beyond that was speculation. Swift did not do a lot of promo for her last album release of reputation and instead chose to let her music speak for itself. She did not give interviews and she was rarely spotted in public.
Now that her music has come out into the world, all the clues she has been giving us are finally making sense. Her new single titled “ME!” features Brendon Urie from Panic! At The Disco. It’s not the first time we have seen the song title either. The earliest being on Swift’s birthday in 2017 when BFF Selena Gomez posted a caption saying “You write all the thoughts some aren’t able to articulate. (ME!)” Swift also posted the song title herself with the exclamation point a couple of months ago.
Although a song is usually out before the music video, Swift decided to release the two at the same time and even had a Q&A on YouTube before the official premiere. She revealed that yes, Gomez has heard most of the album and she is the best keeper of secrets and Queen of her heart! She also created so much buzz that the 24-hour YouTube viewer counter was broken and there were millions of views within the first two hours!
The first single of a new era does not usually tell us what the rest of the album will be like, however, the music video does! The song itself is usually one of the more catchy “ear-worm” type songs that often elicits strong reactions. There were many who did not like the sound of “Look What You Made Me Do” but it broke all kinds of records when it was released. It created a spectacle. That did not mean there were not songs on the album that weren’t heartfelt. Swift herself shared that “ME!”
“This album is a pretty big story. There’s a lot to say, there’s a lot that is said. It goes pretty in-depth in lyrics that I’m really proud of. And like I said, a lot of the time I’ll pick a first single because I like the feeling that it conveys knowing that there’s a lot more on the album that’s very different from this single. that’s something the fans have picked up on at this point, but it’s really about like, ‘What song did I want to pick that I’ll go out into the world we get to go perform it and have fun with it?’ With the album, I’m just really excited for more to get revealed about it and I want to be able to do that with the fans, to the fans, and explain to them where I was coming from with it.” – Taylor Swift
The video for “ME!”, the lead single off her still-untitled 7th album was full of whimsy, colors, references, all things happy and so many clues about what’s ahead this era. Although the official name of the album hasn’t been released, Swift took to twitter to say that the name of her album and the next single are in fact in the video and that no one has found it yet. We have broken down the video to provide as much insight as possible along with possible album names!
Swift has since said that there have been fans who have guessed the name correctly but she is still not going to reveal it just yet!
“Yeah definitely there are a few people who have gotten it. I can’t tell you who. I haven’t told them yet, but um, I mean I think they’ll know when I tell them what it is and they’ll be like ‘I was right, I knew it’” – Taylor Swift
Now further analysis of the music video! There’s a lot to unpack here so let’s take a deep breath and dive in.
“They like to play games with music, they like for it to be a scavenger hunt, or little easter eggs foreshadowing moments. So that makes it even more fun for me because I like for music to be much of an event as possible.” – Taylor Swift to HITS UK RADIO
“‘How can we make the best visual effects out of this?’ And every single choice was essentially to foreshadow something that will happen in the course of the album. So everything in that video is basically an Easter egg.” – Taylor Swift
The video opens with a pastel snake on a rainbow chalk road. The snake is similar to the one she used at the beginning of the reputation era but a pastel color instead of dark.
The chalk road also reminds us of her poem during the rep era “Why She Disappeared” that says “When she fell, she fell apart. Cracked her bones on the pavement she once decorated as a child with sidewalk chalk.” She is continuing her story and showing us what happened after she fell, how she went back to her home base to get re-centered and come back alive. Swift also posted a photo of her sidewalk chalk months ago with the caption “Take me home.” ‘Home’ is one of the possible album name theories!
The snake doesn’t stick around long, it bursts into colorful butterflies (also known as a kaleidoscope, another album name contender)! Swift has been hinting at butterflies in posts and the day of the premiere she surprised fans at a ME! butterfly mural.
She shed her snake skin and emerged into a beautiful butterfly! This isn’t the only note to her past eras, more on that to come as we dive deeper into the video.
The butterflies lead into Swift’s ‘apartment’ where she is in a very heated melodramatic argument with Urie, in French. The opening scene is reminiscent of Panic! At The Disco’s video for “Better If You Do” where he had a smiliar argument scene in the beginning of the video. The French language and Parisian architecture brings us back to her “Begin Again” video. An apt title for this era if there ever was one. It also reminds us of the melodramatics of the “Blank Space” music video and the way she was flinging her arms while saying “I am calm” in french.
The apartment solves a lot of the clues from Swifts mysterious Instagram posts:
The chickens in sunglasses? Well, they are some cool chicks that make up a fun wall collage. One of the cool chicks on the wall was actually a picture of The Dixie Chicks! Is a collab coming up on the album? Only time will tell. Swift did bring out the lead singer Natalie Maines during the 1989 tour. The Dixie Chicks also tweeted a picture of eyes to Swift, who replied that she will always be a stan! Swift did explain in a recent interview that she simply put their picture in there because she is a big fan, but who knows, maybe something will happen in the future!
Smallzy: There are some rumors about some collaborations on the album… Why are the Dixie Chicks on the wall? Can you say anything?
Taylor: I can ‘cuz that is really just sort of me loving the Dixie Chicks and having written the line There’s a lot of cool chicks out there. So I wanted to pay homage to the coolest chicks in the world which are the Dixie Chicks because I’m such a hardcore fan and I always will be.
There were also some new clues planted in the scene.
There’s a Christmas tree in the corner of the room that Swift herself said is a clue. As some of you may know, Swift grew up on a Christmas tree farm. She visited her childhood home last year and posted about it on Instagram, perhaps another clue? Many believe the title of her album is ‘Home,’ a motif that appears again and again in the video. Or possibly just returning to her roots. There’s a lot of reminiscing about past music videos, inspirations and musicals. So this era could be just a celebration of everything she’s done.
After insisting she is calm by exclaiming “Je Suis Calm!”, Swift heads out of the apartment and sings the opening line. “I promise that you’ll never find another like me.” Her flirty inflection is a callback to her hit “Blank Space” but also combines a dress similar to the one she wore during “Treacherous” on the Red Tour.
Urie looks out the window and nearby is a clock. Now, the clock could just be there as part of the apartment décor, but with Swift, everything is usually a clue. The clock was set to 8:30 which might possibly be an album release date (but doesn’t match the calendar stamp theory date for August, which was the 13th.)
As Swift travels to the door she encounters 13 snake clouds and makes it through unscathed (despite one of them trying to swallow her whole), leaving her darkness behind. Also, behind her are shadows of her former selves fighting, an iconic scene from the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video. She doesn’t need to battle anymore, she knows her identity. To quote the song, “I’m the only one of me” and proud of it.
Next, we find Swift outside in a bright yellow suit, another Instagram reveal! She is also surrounded by 7 women, possibly relating to this being her 7th studio album. The number can’t be a coincidence!
She isn’t dancing on any street, it’s a rainbow road straight out of this post.
It looks like a frame from her music video “Begin Again” and the neon lights (which spell out ‘Lover’) have us thinking of the musical Moulin Rouge. Fans are also speculating it may be the title of a future song. Another title could be “Blue Eyed Lover.”
This scene shows us a view of London, which is a possible nod to where Swift has been spending a lot of her off time since her boyfriend of 2.5 years, Joe Alwyn lives there. We can also clearly see the backdrop, which some think is a chrysalis, and others a mosaic heart. We are leaning towards the mosaic heart since hearts seem to be a theme throughout the song.
Urie pleas to get Swift back with flowers and a ring, possibly in relation to all the news that she was getting engaged, which she brushes off. He finally wins her over with an adorable kitten, who became Swift’s real-life pet, Benjamin Button.
This might be the biggest real-life reveal in the music video. As Swift confirmed, the video shows something she’s been keeping a secret for months! She later introduced us to him!
Happy and in love, Urie exposes his heart and the camera zooms inside. The kaleidoscope heartbeat under his coat is literally a “Welcome To New York” lyric come to life! It’s also an image Swift has reblogged on tumblr, making others further think it’s a possible album name contender.
On the other side, Swift is looking like a 60’s queen, dancing with hearts and cupids. The backdrop of the stage might be another hint, it looks like it spells out home. or could they actually be 13s? The dancing is also similar to that of Hairspray, another musical!
The pair wave off to the next scene, in which Swift and Urie are in full marching band gear to perform the bridge. The lyrics are quirky but we can all agree spelling is fun, especially if you play Scrabble. Fans have also adopted this mantra as possibly being the “1, 2, 3 Let’s Go B*tch” they screamed out last tour during “Delicate.” When talking about that line, Swift said she added it so people would know the song wasn’t a serious love song.
“So the lyrics, that’s a tone decision that we mad in the studio. Like, we literally were like, “Okay, let’s say, ‘Hey kids, spelling is fun!'” Because we want everyone to know that this song is not really serious because it’s not, like, a serious love song. It’s about embracing and owning that you at times feel like, you know, you’re irreplaceable and I want those times to be more often when they hear this song and it gets stuck in their head. I think with a pop song you have the ability to get something stuck in people’s heads and I just want it to be a mantra that kind of is much more self-love than what we often times feel which is self-loathing and insecurity.” – Taylor Swift
The choreography and sheer happiness could be straight out of the video for “Shake It Off” as Swift is lifted up in a similar manner to her cheerleading move.
Urie and Swift then run off to the end of the road together, to a rainbow tower. The bright lights and outfits als make it look like Emerald City, another nod to Wizard of Oz, as Dorothy’s last stop before going home.
The pair wind up dancing in what can only be described as a glowing rainbow tunnel and they look infectiously happy. Swift is wearing her classic ‘old Taylor’ cowboy boots. We definitely missed this wardrobe staple! This is another nod to her roots and getting her start in Country Music.
The video ends with Swift and Urie dancing in the rain, not just any rain though, this is rainbow rain! Dancing in a blue dress in the rain is nothing new to Swift if you remember her “Delicate” music video. The umbrella choreography is a clear nod to Singin’ in the Rain, another classic musical.
There seems to be a lot of musicals in this video. Swift did get her start for singing and acting performing musical theater when she was younger. She starred in musicals like Bye, Bye Birdie, Annie, Grease, and The Sound of Music. She will also be starring in the movie version of the musical CATS that comes out in December. Fitting right?
This video was magical and will definitely be on repeat! Not just because of the catchy tune but to get a closer look at all the clues. Swift herself confirmed the next single and album title are hidden in the video, which fans have yet to discover, or has yet to be confirmed by Swift.
So… the new album title is actually revealed somewhere in the video AND so is the title of the second single, but I haven’t seen people finding them yet… 🕵️♂️🕵️♀️ #MEmusicvideohttps://t.co/cdxQ6dFiar
So far the theories of album names with strong connections seem to be Home, Kaleidoscope, Daisy (the flowers he gives, the flowers on her dress, the new merch she has put out), Metamorphosis, Heart (or variation like Heartbeat). Could 13, Angels, Daylight or Lover be contenders? Maybe the next single? Is the next single also the album title or are there two different clues?
Swift said she would tell us all when she tells us and she respects all the theories so much. She just needs us to calm down a little before she does.
WATCH: Taylor Swift ft Brendon Urie in the “ME!” Music video
Taylor Swift. The name itself speaks volumes, so it’s no wonder she was named one of Time Magazine‘s “100 Most Influential People.” Shawn Mendes wrote an essay about the iconic Swift and how she effortlessly creates honest, masterful music and connects with her fans on a level that hasn’t been seen before. The list was released the same week she announced *something* is coming on April 26th.
In case you haven’t been keeping up, Taylor Swift is on the brink of a new era that’s rumored to be full of dreamy colors and imagery. True to her new aesthetic, Swift stepped out and attended the event in a gorgeous, airy, pink and yellow gown (Designed by J. Mendel with Taylor Swift herself). She wore her hair in a romantic up-do, with the whole look reminiscent of her 2008 Love Story music video. She attended the gala with childhood friend Abigail Anderson, along with Ashley Avignone, Martha Hunt, and Dr. Jari.
Swift didn’t just attend the gala, she also performed her hits “Style,” “Delicate,” “Love Story,” “New Years Day,” and “Shake It Off.” Those in attendance were on their feet, dancing for the last song!
Always gracious, and speaking with candor, Swift spoke to the audience in-between songs
She shared how honored she was to be there:
“I’m so completely honored to perform for this room of incredible, very influential human beings. Thank you so much for wanting to like, be there, while I’m here, doing this…I am honored to be with you while you’re honored it’s just a whole honor…thanks guys.”
She also shared some thoughts on influence in writing…
“I think the reason why I would be on the list is because of the things I write, predominantly songs, occasionally open letters [apple], an odd op-ed, a lengthy Instagram caption or something.”
How songwriting helps her cope…
“I’ve always looked at writing as sort of a protective armor, which is weird because you’d think that writing about your life, that’s usually likened to vulnerability. But I think that when you write about your life, it gives you the ability to process your life, and to kind of – I use it as a way of justifying things that happen to me, whether they’re good or bad. You know, I like to honor the good times and really process the bad times when I write.”
“You can turn your lessons into your legacy,” she said, before performing “Delicate.”
In true Swift fashion, she didn’t hold back on letting the audience know what was going on onstage. Before performing “Love Story” at the piano Taylor kicked off her heels remarking, “They are velcro, I’m 5 years old.” I think velcro heels are a fashion statement we can all get behind.
Off-stage, Taylor took full advantage of the night and mingled with the other honorees. She lived her best fangirl life: chatting with Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke.
We wish we could’ve heard that conversation! It’s a known fact Taylor loves Grey’s Anatomy, she even remarked that Sandra Oh’s presence “shook her to her very core.”
Well, Taylor’s dream came true when the two got to chatting up close and personal. True to form Swift let her fans live out their dreams by bee-lining for the barricade and taking photos with fans when she could. It was a magical night for everyone involved.
The biggest night in country music gave us plenty to talk about at the water cooler this week. The performances were on fire, (some literally, like Miranda Lambert) they had us singing along, dancing, laughing, and even tearing up. Reba was the “Hostess with the mostest” as she delivered some zingers throughout the night and laid down some truths about women in the industry.
Speaking of zingers, how about this truth bomb from Reese Witherspoon.
It may be hard out there for a female country artist, but boy do they look good doing it! The red carpet and stage were filled with looks we loved. Spring has sprung with the theme of pastels and bright colors, which gave us major style inspo. Check out our favorite looks below:
Abby Anderson is a breakout pop-country artist, rising star, and ball of sunshine. Her new single, “Good Lord,” is a playful ode to her brown-eyed boy and has us falling in love too! The instrumentals are infectiously upbeat and you can hear her smile as she sings:
“Every long kiss, every slow dance. Got me raisin’ both my hands”.
The romantic lyrics have us blushing as we dance around the room singing:
“You leave me letters, on little yellow Post-its, I paint my nails a new color, and you always notice”.
We all hope to find a love like this and the godsend man who notices the little things, like when we change our nail polish.
LISTEN TO “GOOD LORD”
Co-written by Anderson, Josh Kerr and Jordan Minton.
Anderson may be thanking the Good Lord for her man but we are all thanking Him for this song! All over social media people are sharing their praises for this “certified bop.” Check out what they have to say:
One fan is sidestepping to Church!
“When you listen to ‘Good Lord’ your ears will be blessed! Abby is a country powerhouse! This song is fabbylous and instantly makes your heart happy! I belong to the church of Fabby! It’s time to sidestep raise your hands, and stream ‘Good Lord’!”
