Pharrell Williams may be a music mogul today, but his first job at McDonald’s wasn’t exactly a resounding success.

Reflecting on his early days, the 51-year-old—now a Grammy-winning artist and fashion entrepreneur worth an estimated $250 million—recalled how his love for McNuggets landed him in trouble during his fast-food stint.

“McDonald’s was my first and only job,” he told BBC Radio 2. “I got fired three times. I was eating the chicken nuggets.”

Pharrell admitted that his McDonald’s career was short-lived. “The first two times it was just because I was lazy,” he explained. “The third was like, ‘What are you doing? You’re just sitting there eating nuggets?’”

While his time in fast food ended quickly, Pharrell would go on to achieve monumental success on the Billboard charts.

As one of the defining artists of the 2000s, Pharrell has topped the Billboard Hot 100 four times, including a remarkable run with his single “Happy,” which held the No. 1 spot for 10 consecutive weeks in 2014.

Despite his early struggles at McDonald’s, “Happy” demonstrated Pharrell’s knack for creating a hit, leading Billboard’s Digital Songs Sales chart with 402,000 downloads in one week. It also marked his first No. 1 as a lead artist—a milestone that took 12 years and one week from his debut entry, setting a record for the longest wait for a Hot 100 No. 1 as a lead artist.

Pharrell’s talent for creating hits extends beyond his solo work. In 2013, he made Billboard history by holding the No. 1 and No. 2 spots simultaneously with “Blurred Lines” and Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” making him only the 12th artist ever to achieve this feat.

His work on these chart-toppers solidified his reputation, earning him the title of Billboard’s “Producer of the Decade” in 2010. His illustrious career has earned him 1,544 weeks across 68 different Billboard charts.

Beyond music, Pharrell’s influence has reached fashion with his Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream labels, and in 2023, he was appointed as the men’s creative director for Louis Vuitton.

After almost two decades of searching, and five years as a viral internet phenomena, the search for ‘The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet’ may finally be over.

For years now, music fans have been attempting to track down the authorship of a forgotten new wave song which had been recorded off German radio in the mid-1980s. The search first began in 2007 when an internet user by the name of Lydia took to online forums to try and identify the song, which had been recorded to cassette by her brother Darius decades earlier.

Following some modest attention, it wasn’t until 2019 that the search began in earnest, with users on social media and sites such as YouTube focusing their efforts on identifying the track, which had been dubbed “Like the Wind” in accordance with what appeared to be its opening lyric.

Over the past five years, a number of impressive discoveries were made, including researchers determining the likely recording date of the song due to the release of other songs on the tape and the presence of a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer (which was released in 1983), and confirming the veracity of the recording by identifying a frequency present within German broadcasts of the era.

However, on Monday (Nov. 4), Marijn1412, a user of the Reddit community dedicated to the search claimed that the song had been identified as “Subways Of Your Mind” by German band FEX.

According to the user, the song was discovered during research of contemporary German music event Hörfest, which FEX had been involved in. After contacting a member of the group, the song was reportedly confirmed as belonging to FEX, with the band member claiming a re-release was in the works.

Michael Hädrich, the keyboardist, guitarist, and backing vocalist of FEX, spoke to German publication Tz, claiming that the band knew nothing of the viral search until he was contacted.

“We hadn’t noticed all this internet phenomenon at all, mainly naturally, because the title of the song was not known on the Internet and was therefore no relation,” Hädrich explained. As he continued, he noted it was only when the Reddit user requested copies of his old material that the rediscovery of the song was made.

“Only then did he point me out whether I didn’t realize that the song ‘Subways of your Mind’ is the ‘Most Mysterious Song on the Internet’.”

Currently, the song is in the process of being verified, with Hädrich claiming that he and the group have numerous materials on hand which can prove the song is theirs, including the original recording session, statements, live recordings, and witnesses who were present for the initial session.

If found to be true, the discovery marks another successful discovery in the field of what has been dubbed “lostwave”, or music whose origins are unknown.

In April, another viral lostwave search came to an end, with the song dubbed “Everybody Knows That” being identified as Christopher and Phillip Booth’s “Ulterior Motives”, which had been originally composed for a pornographic film in the 1980s.

The Strokes’ frontman Julian Casablancas has taken to social media to note his refusal to vote in the 2024 U.S election, and explaining his reasoning for doing so.

Taking to Instagram on Tuesday (Nov. 5), the vocalist shared an image of a sticker which read “I Protested” instead of the typical “I Voted” illustration. In the caption, Casablancas explained that his post had been prefaced by a discussion with his mother, who expressed her disagreement with his decision to abstain from the democratic process.

“My beautiful sweet amazing mom just told me ‘I agree with you but right now vote at lease to keep trump from winning. Think of your children’,” he wrote. “I understand and respect that viewpoint of marginal incremental betterment, but respectfully do not think it is the path…

“Like I told her, I am thinking of my children. The 2 parties are a joke… a horrible lie,” he continued. “The military and oil companies and banks are who we are voting for – and the media is their propaganda/entertainment wing. [And] with the way they cheated Bernie I see little point in choosing between these puppets… They want you to think it matters. That way nothing will change but it has to change.”

Casablancas’ post was met with widespread criticism in the comments, with fans on sites such as Reddit noting they were “super disappointed” in his decision. Fans on the same site were quick to point out that Casablancas’ bandmate, bassist Nikolai Fraiture, had shared his own sticker from his early voting experiences on Oct. 31.

Casablancas also caught the attention of music fans earlier in the week when he spoke to The Guardian for their ‘Honest Playlist’ feature in support of The Voidz’ new album, Like All Before You. In the discussion, Casablancas reflected on The Strokes’ discography, noting that their breakthrough single “Last Nite” (which peaked at No. 5 on the Alternative Airplay chart in 2002) is a song he can “no longer listen to”.

“‘Last Nite’ by the Strokes is pretty dead to me. I’m not sure why,” he stated. “There are some others like ‘Reptilia’, ‘Hard to Explain’, ‘Someday’, ‘Take It Or Leave it’, ‘New York City Cops’ that are comparable in terms of crowd reaction that I’m not quite as sick of. If I heard it on the radio, I’d probably turn it off.”

‘Tis the season, and Kelly Clarkson is helping ring in the holidays. The superstar is set to return for her second year as host of NBC’s annual Christmas in Rockefeller Center telecast.

She announced the exciting news during Tuesday’s (Nov. 5) episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show. “Let’s talk about this incredible time of year. The city is so magical. I love the holidays in New York,” she told the audience. “Living here during Christmas is like you’re in a movie. There’s nothing like it in the world, especially the tree lighting ceremony, which is an iconic tradition.”

She continued, “I got to host it last year, and I thought, ‘Oh, this will be fun.’ […] Then, the tree lit up, and you would’ve thought, like, I don’t know, I found out I was going to survive something. I bawled. It’s so beautiful when you’re standing there. I’m especially excited though, because for the second year in a row, I’m going to host Christmas in Rockefeller Center.”

Besides hosting, Clarkson is also set to perform some festive hits at the tree-lighting ceremony. The three-time Grammy winner will have a host of holiday tracks to choose from for her performance, including beloved holiday classics and originals from her two Christmas albums: 2013’s Wrapped in Red and 2021’s When Christmas Comes Around… Additional performers for the special will be announced at a later date.

Christmas in Rockefeller Center will air Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 8 p.m. ET on NBC and will stream on Peacock.

Watch Clarkson’s announcement in the video above.

Andrea Swift is just as big of a Kansas City Chiefs fan as her daughter is.

Taylor Swift’s mom attended the NFL game at Arrowhead Stadium with the “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” singer and her son Austin on Monday night (Nov. 4), where she was seen cheering on Tay’s boyfriend, tight end Travis Kelce, and she was seen rocking some adorable Chiefs gear.

In photos from the game circulating X (previously known as Twitter), Andrea is seen sitting inside the VIP suite wearing a black zip-up jacket with “In my Chiefs Era” written in Kansas City’s signature red font. Of course, the slogan is both in reference to the NFL team and her daughter’s record-breaking Eras Tour.

See the photo here.

Taylor, meanwhile, arrived to the game rocking a black tank top and cut-off black denim shorts tied with a belt. She completed the look with an oversized, racer-style Chiefs leather jacket and fold-over, knee-high black boots. See her look here.

In fan videos, she was seen waving and blowing kisses to fans after the game wrapped up. She also jokingly mouthing to the crowd that the game was “stressful” — which makes sense given that the Chiefs beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 30-24 in overtime.