Louis Tomlinson Shares Original ‘Walls’ Demo to Celebrate One-Year Anniversary of the Album

It’s been a year since the release of Walls, Louis Tomlinson’s debut solo album, which arrived on Jan. 31, 2020.

The former One Direction member joined fans on Twitter on Sunday (Jan. 31) to mark the anniversary of Walls. In honor of the special day, Tomlinson also took part in a little fan Q&A, chatting about topics ranging from the making of Walls to post-pandemic plans.

“1 year of my first album Walls. Crazy how quick the time has gone. When I finally get to tour this album it’s going to be f—ing unbelievable! Sending you ALL a massive thank you for everything you do! This is our day!” Tomlinson tweeted.

“I was going to do some merch but I didn’t want to market the day. Just wanted it to be a celebration for us! So you’ll have to wait for new merch!” he added. When someone pointed out that many celebrities might have turned the anniversary into “a cash grab,” Tomlinson commented, “Too many greedy f—ers out there!”

One fan asked, “A year after walls’ release, do you think you could have done something differently?”

“Don’t think so,” wrote Tomlinson. “All part of the process. Still really proud of it.”

In another tweet, he shared that prior to the album’s release, he’d been most excited for listeners to hear “Kill My Mind” and the title track “Walls” for the first time.

When asked whether he’ll eventually go on tour in honor of the Walls album, he replied, “When it’s safe of course!!”

Tomlinson also took a moment to offer some advice to those who are having a hard time amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Remember that everything is going to be better when normality sets back in,” he wrote.

To wrap things up, Tomlinson posted a video featuring the original “Walls” song demo. Check out his tweets and that clip below.

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Taylor Swift Fan on TikTok Predicts What a ‘Folklovermore’ Tour Could Look Like

Taylor Swift now has three albums that haven’t gotten the proper stadium tour treatment due to the pandemic, leaving fans everywhere to daydream about what it might be like to finally experience the material from Lover, Folklore and Evermore live in-person for the very first time.

One of those Swifties dared to parody what one might expect from a Folklovermore Tour by (pretty accurately) impersonating some of Swift’s stage go-tos in a series of TikToks.

“If you know, you know,” @anthonylario winked with a TikTok caption on one of his earlier imitations of Swift on tour.

“Over the past few years, I wrote three very different albums,” he began in his Swift-inspired TikTok sketch with the highest view count, spoofing her usual style of introducing songs on stage.

“And even though we haven’t yet had the chance to hang out and sing them together, I can hear you guys screaming every single lyric. And I write a lot of lyrics. And I’m also just so humbled that after this whole quarantine, you chose to spend one of your first nights in public hanging out with me, so thank you. Even though these three albums are different, I find that there’s three consistent facets: stories of lovers, folklore tales, and nights like this that can hopefully last … forevermore,” Lario quipped before playing the opening chords of Evermore’s title track. (See the whole thing here.)

“I think for me, this quarantine, like a lot of you, was filled with media and music and films and love stories … set in June, July … And love triangles in August,” he said in another video on TikTok set to the fake cheers of an imagined crowd. He then launched into a mashup of “August” (off of Folklore) and “Cruel Summer” (from Lover), mixed in with a 1989 gem, “Out of the Woods.” (View it here.)

He even filmed what might happen the next time Swift invites a special guest to her stage, guessing that it could be Olivia Rodrigo, whose hit song “Drivers License” got an early co-sign from Swift.

“I think for me, one of the most important parts of these unprecedented times was listening [to] and supporting emerging artists, whether it be on social media or … in your car. So, one of my favorite songs to sing is this next song, and I just sang to it today while driving. Through the suburbs,” he said, playing the first verse of “Drivers License” and bringing out “Olivia.” (Watch it in full here.)

Check out his most-watched tour parodies making the rounds with fans on social media, and be sure to view more of his videos directly on TikTok.

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Sabrina Carpenter Teases ‘Skin’ Music Video: Watch

Sabrina Carpenter showed a few seconds of “Skin” on Sunday (Jan. 31).

“SKIN MUSIC VIDEO TOMORROW 2pm PT,” she wrote on Twitter. “going live on my YouTube Channel right before at 1:40pm PT.”

“Maybe we could have been friends,” Carpenter sings in the clip, which shows a quick montage of what seems to be romantic scenes from a relationship.

Carpenter, who recently signed with Island Records, surprise-released the song on Jan. 22. Fans speculated it was a response to Olivia Rodrigo’s hit single “Drivers License,” due to rumors of a love triangle involving Rodrigo, Carpenter and Joshua Bassett. (In “Drivers License,” Rodrigo sings, “And you’re probably with that blonde girl/ Who always made me doubt/ She’s so much older than me/ She’s everything I’m insecure about.” In “Skin,” Carpenter sings, “Maybe you didn’t mean it/ Maybe ‘blonde’ was the only rhyme.”)

But in an Instagram post last week, Carpenter said “Skin” “isn’t calling out one single person. some lines address a specific situation, while other lines address plenty of other experiences I’ve had this past year.”

“i wasn’t bothered by a few lines in a (magnificent) song and wrote a diss track about it,” she wrote. “i was at a tipping point in my life for countless reasons. so i was inspired to do what i usually do to cope, write something that i wish i could have told myself in the past. people can only get to you if you give them the power to. and a lot of people were trying to get to me.”

Watch the “Skin” music video preview below, and tune in to see the full visual at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT on Monday (Feb. 1).

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Republic Records Has Top Four Albums on Billboard 200, First Label to Rule Nos. 1-4 Since 1996

Republic Records achieves a rare feat on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Feb. 6), as the company is the distributing label of the Nos. 1-4 albums. It’s the first time a label has monopolized the top four since 1996.

Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album (released via Big Loud/Republic) is No. 1 for a third week, while three former leaders trail the set: Pop Smoke’s Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon (Victor Victor Worldwide/Republic) is steady at No. 2, Taylor Swift’s Evermore (Republic) rises 4-3 and The Weeknd’s After Hours (XO/Republic) climbs 8-4.

The last time a label held court in the top four was on the Dec. 7, 1996, chart, when Interscope ruled with Bush’s Razorblade Suitcase (Trauma/Interscope), Snoop Dogg’s Tha Doggfather (Death Row/Interscope), No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom (Trauma/Interscope) and 2Pac’s first posthumous album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (Death Row/Interscope), released under the pseudonym Makaveli. 

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Feb. 6, 2021-dated chart (where Dangerous holds at No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard’s website on Feb. 2. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

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Lenny Kravitz Pens Tribute to Godmother Cicely Tyson, ‘A Black Queen Who Showed Us How Beautiful Black Is’

Lenny Kravitz shared an emotional note about Cicely Tyson, the pioneering Black actress and his godmother, who died on Jan. 28 at the age of 96.

“With inimitable style and grace, my dear Godmother Miss Cicely Tyson made her grand exit to the heavens,” Kravitz wrote on Friday (Jan. 29), a day after Tyson’s family and manager issued a statement about her death. “She lived a remarkable life up to the last moment.”

Kravitz lauded his godmother as “a true pioneer, who bared her heart and soul so we could witness the spirit of the characters she so brilliantly portrayed, which continue to move and inspire generations. A Black queen who showed us how beautiful black is.”

Among her many accomplishments, including being the recipient of three Emmy Awards, Tyson was the first African-American to win a lead actress Emmy, for her performance portraying a woman from the 1850s to the civil-rights era in the 1974 CBS telefilm The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. She notably received an Oscar nomination for her role in 1972’s Sounder, and she won a Tony award in 2013 for her work in The Trip to Bountiful.

“The love between us was and is tremendous,” Kravitz said in his post. “As long as I have had consciousness, I’ve known Godmother. She and my mother were kindred spirits. Sisters. And after my mother passed, Godmother’s role in my life was amplified. I constantly felt her spirit over me. She always gave me unconditional support. She came to my shows, came over for holidays, met me for dinners, stayed with me in Paris when I first moved there, and never let me too far out of her sight. Our phone calls went on sometimes for hours.”

“We spoke just a few nights ago and talked about everything. She had just sent me her book that has been sitting on my nightstand where it will remain. She did it all, wrote the book, and then God called her. I can hear Godmother saying ‘ok, now y’all can read about it, I’m going home.’ Rest peacefully, Godmother. You did it all exquisitely,” wrote Kravitz, referring to her just-published memoir, Just As I Am.

See his full note in honor of Tyson, as well as a series of personal photos, on Instagram.

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