All posts tagged: Pop

Lily Allen’s polka dot butt plug is now for sale in her new line of sex toys

Lily Allen’s polka dot butt plug is now for sale in her new line of sex toys

Published by Daniella Wilson

Lily Allen has released a new line of sex toys, and it features a polka dot butt plug like the one referenced in her ‘West End Girl’ album. The singer has joined forces with Lovehoney for the new range, hand picking the items while on her ‘West End Girl Tour’ earlier this year. There are six pieces in the new collection, and one of which is a pale blue polka dot Butt Plug – which comes following her making a reference to a similar item on her song ‘Pussy Palace’, where she sings about finding a “Duane Reade bag with the handles tied/ sex toys, butt plugs, lube inside”. Earlier this year, she also shared a USB with the same shape and blue polka dot design, which was a limited edition release “intended for data storage only”. That was sold alongside some physical copies of the album. Lily Allen X Lovehoney. CREDIT: Press “The butt plug was a reference on the album that we then made into a limited collection of USBs, which became a …

Lena Dunham Is Reviving ‘Girls’ and That’s Not the Craziest Pop Culture News This Week

Lena Dunham Is Reviving ‘Girls’ and That’s Not the Craziest Pop Culture News This Week

Published by Jenni Sidey

The Girls are Back in Town It’s been awhile since we had a notable revival of a truly beloved, once-important property, but Lena Dunham is about to shake shit up with this one. After years of essays, rewatches, and reappraisals by fans arguing that Dunham’s seminal HBO series Girls was actually, despite its lightning rod status, still underrated, Dunham announced plans to return to Greenpoint. The whole gang—Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet, Jemima Kirke and even Andrew Rannells—is set to appear for a five-episode run that’ll start production early next year, a decade after the original’s series finale. Last year, Dunham riffed about how the quartet’s lives might have ended up; let’s see if those ideas hold up. This could go full And Just Like That…, or it could be the “Voice of a Generation’s” grand return. Sam Levinson Parts Ways With HBO Finally, some good news coming out of the greater Warner Bros studio. He’s your problem now, Amazon—we will be there to watch the fire. Ben Shapiro’s Death Row Records Big Ben is moving …

Lucy Sante on Pauline Kael, Film Criticism, and Pop Culture | Lucy Sante, Jarrett Earnest

Lucy Sante on Pauline Kael, Film Criticism, and Pop Culture | Lucy Sante, Jarrett Earnest

Published by Jenni Sidey

In the second season premiere of Private Life, host Jarrett Earnest is joined by the writer and critic Lucy Sante to discuss Pauline Kael’s career, pop culture writing, and Sante’s writing for the Review, where she has been a frequent contributor since the 1980s. The conversation focuses on “The Perils of Pauline” (published in the magazine’s August 14, 1980, issue), Renata Adler’s blistering assessment of Kael’s film criticism; the legacy of staff film critics; and Sante’s relationship with popular music from Elvis to The Velvet Underground.   Click the “Subscribe” link in the player above to follow this podcast on your favorite listening platform. Lucy Sante is the author of Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991), Six Sermons for Bob Dylan (2024), and the memoir I Heard Her Call My Name (2024). Her first essay for the Review, “Relic” (published in the December 17, 1981, issue), reviewed Albert Goldman’s controversial 1981 biography, Elvis. Sante taught writing and the history of photography at Bard College for twenty-four years.  Source link

Spiritbox review – Canadian metal ranges from gothic and guttural to Auto-Tune pop

Spiritbox review – Canadian metal ranges from gothic and guttural to Auto-Tune pop

Published by Sam Flores

At tonight’s Spiritbox show, vocalist Courtney LaPlante addresses the anxiety and isolation of the Canadian band’s origins: “We grew up on Vancouver Island, far away from our dreams.” Now touring Europe in support of their acclaimed 2025 album Tsunami Sea, Spiritbox show no trace of these early struggles, delivering a confident, polished performance of anthemic metal. This UK tour follows a US run opening for nu-metal icons Evanescence, with whom they share a fascination with the musical tension between hard and soft – and in LaPlante, a compelling gothic frontperson. They share a flexible approach to genre with much contemporary metalcore, deftly incorporating elements of drum’n’bass, R&B and industrial music. Circle With Me has Running Up That Hill-esque drums and reverb-laden guitar. The EDM-inflected Crystal Roses doesn’t completely gel, but LaPlante’s Auto-Tuned vocals add an interesting new texture to the mix. Extreme polish … Spiritbox. Photograph: Alana Ann Lopez Flanked by bassist Josh Gilbert and guitarist Mike Stringer, LaPlante is the anchor of the band’s dynamism, known for both her guttural metal scream (exceptional during …

Jaye P. Morgan dead: Entertainer, pop and TV star was 94

Jaye P. Morgan dead: Entertainer, pop and TV star was 94

Published by Sam Flores

NEW YORK — Jaye P. Morgan, one of the top female recording artists of the 1950s with five hits in 1955 alone who later became a frequent talk show guest and game show panelist, infamously taking off her shirt on “The Gong Show,” has died. She was 94. Morgan died Monday of natural causes in Longview, Wash., said Mark Sendroff, longtime attorney and friend. She had been living with her nephew and niece, Duke Morgan Spencer and Peggy Sue Spencer. Morgan’s Top 10 hits were “That’s All I Want From You” and “The Longest Walk.” Her Top 20 hits were “Danger! Heartbreak Ahead,” “If You Don’t Want My Love” and “Pepper-Hot Baby.” She also had two Top 20 hits with Perry Como, “Chee Chee-Oo Chee (Sang the Little Bird)” and “Two Lost Souls,” and a hit with Eddy Arnold called “Mutual Admiration Society” that reached No. 47 on the Billboard singles chart. Later she became a regular guest on “The Tonight Show” and appeared with Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett and Mike Douglas, as well as spots on …

Ariana Grande, Eternal Sunshine review sombre – pop star’s London O2 show felt like a goodbye

Ariana Grande, Eternal Sunshine review sombre – pop star’s London O2 show felt like a goodbye

Published by Daniella Wilson

Ariana Grande has spent the last 18 months talking about disappearing. During podcast appearances in 2024 and 2025, she discussed her plans to slow down and fade out, and described her then-forthcoming Eternal Sunshine tour – her first run of live shows since 2019 – as a “last hurrah”. Often, her own interest in being Ariana Grande has come into question, as she’s seemed to find greater creative bliss in musical theatre and acting – her first loves – than pop stardom. Similarly, she’s hinted in her new music at a tangled, oppressive dynamic with her own fandom. “Is it really my fault,” she sings on her recent No 1 single “Hate That I Made You Love Me”, “you all gave me your hearts of your own accord?” So that slightly hectoring statement from her spokesperson last month, in which Grande announced an indefinite break due to “endless, ongoing public scrutiny”, seemed almost unnecessary. And strange, even, arriving just days after the release of a Grande music video that explicitly referenced weight loss, frustration and …

How Vietnamese pop star Lynda stays in the banh mi game

How Vietnamese pop star Lynda stays in the banh mi game

Published by Sam Flores

Tim Bui scanned the sandwich shop menu, snapped a screenshot and FaceTimed his crew back at the graphic design shop. “Do you want the special or the shrimp cake?” he asked his buddies. The special refers to the “Lynda special,” named for the Vietnamese pop singer who owns this local banh mi institution in the Westminster Super Center on Beach Boulevard. Nicknamed the “Vietnamese Madonna,” Lynda Trang Đài is known for synth-pop ‘80s hits such as “Supermarket Love Affair,” “Jump in My Car” and “Mercedes Boy.” And since opening Lynda Sandwich 15 years ago, she is also known for banh mi. This afternoon marked the Anaheim creative director Bui’s third trip to Lynda Sandwich in two months. He says he’s hooked by the sandwich options — chicken sausage, pork meatballs, fried egg — ranging from $9 to $10. The “Lynda special” bestseller includes pork cold cuts, chả lụa sausage, chicken with pâté and Đài’s secret sauce. The Lynda Special sandwich — cold-cut pork, chả lụa sausage and chicken with pâté and secret Lynda sauce, along …

How Lizzo Became One of Pop Culture’s Great Flops

How Lizzo Became One of Pop Culture’s Great Flops

Published by Sam Flores

This past May, the globally famous pop star Lizzo was spotted on the side of a busy road in Los Angeles, putting up her own posters. Wearing a white crop top and a tiny skirt, she dipped a long brush into a bucket of paste and then used her body to press her new album cover onto a wall. A passing car stopped, and its driver told her that his mom was a big fan. Lizzo asked, “Did she presave my album?” This grunt work, captured in a video posted to Lizzo’s social-media accounts, was part of a marketing campaign emphasizing her own unpopularity. Leading up to the release of her fifth studio album, Bitch, early last month, the 38-year-old singer flooded the internet with posts expressing her irritation that her music wasn’t finding its audience. She accused her label, Atlantic Records, of shirking its promotional duties. She also complained that algorithms, her personal enemies, and the decline of radio were all hindering her success. In the end, Bitch indeed floundered, selling just 2,650 copies …

Why Nostalgia Is Reshaping Pop Culture

Why Nostalgia Is Reshaping Pop Culture

Published by Jenni Sidey

If you’ve recently rewatched an older rom-com, found yourself singing along to an early 2000s song, or felt a strange sense of excitement seeing a familiar cast reunite on your screen, you’re not alone. Nostalgia is often used when describing a feeling of longing and sadness for the past. From a psychological perspective (and according to the American Psychological Association), nostalgia is a bittersweet emotional experience normally triggered by our senses. While often associated with feelings of loneliness, it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of thinking of nostalgia as looking back, it can be used to form a connection with a simpler, seemingly happier version of yourself, to reminisce with others about the past and bring that into the present, or to things you used to like but have not made time for. When used intentionally, nostalgia can function as a way to regulate emotions, helping people return to a more grounded state when the present feels overwhelming. Why familiarity feels easier right now Sitting back and watching “The Devil Wears Prada” again …