Save your tears, Ariana Grande fans. The pop star is definitely back in the studio, as confirmed in photos she posted on Instagram Wednesday (April 8) amid speculation she’s gearing up to release her eighth album.

Some of the captionless snaps show Grande sitting behind the booth and recording her own vocals into a microphone, while others find the Wicked star producing and editing audio files on her computer. The only non-studio picture in the bunch is what appears to be a dark, greenish gray print of pressed flowers — possibly hinting at the aesthetic of whatever she’s been working on.

Naturally, the post got fans revved up in the comments. “Yes, please!” fellow hitmaker Lizzo wrote.

“ITS HAPPENING,” commented one Arianator, while another wrote, “AG8 IS COMING.”

Grande hasn’t released an album since 2024’s seventh studio effort, Eternal Sunshine, which spent three weeks atop the Billboard 200. Last year, she added several new tracks to the project for a deluxe version.

But while two years might seem like a long wait for some music fans, Grande’s listeners had thought that the star would be taking a long break from dropping albums to focus on acting projects. The Victorious alum herself had hinted as much in numerous interviews over the past year, but earlier in April, fans noticed that she’d changed her Brighter Days hotline’s outgoing message to include a possible hint about her coming out with another album after all.

“Our staff here at Brighter Days are so looking forward to continuing our mission of bringing happiness and healing to as many as we can this summer in person,” she says in the message, referring to her fast-approaching Eternal Sunshine tour kicking off in June. “We’re counting down the 8s — oops! I mean, the days.

Black Label Society rules Billboard’s Top Hard Rock Albums chart for the fourth time, debuting at No. 1 on the April 11-dated tally with Engines of Demolition.

In the week ending April 2, Engines of Demolition earned 24,000 equivalent album units in the United States, according to Luminate. The vast majority of that sum — 22,000 in all — are via album sales.

Black Label Society first reigned on Top Hard Rock Albums, which began in 2007, in 2010 with Order of the Black. The Zakk Wylde-led band’s other rulers include Catacombs of the Black Vatican in 2014 and Grimmest Hits in 2018.

In between Grimmest Hits and Engines of Demolition, Black Label Society also made the chart with Doom Crew Inc., which peaked at No. 7 in 2021.

Concurrently, Engines of Demolition bows at No. 31 on the all-genre Billboard 200, the band’s 14th time on the survey, dating to 2002’s 1919 * Eternal.

Engines of Demolition’s lead single, “Name in Blood,” leaps 28-21 on Mainstream Rock Airplay. It’s Black Label Society’s top-performing song on the ranking in more than a decade, since “My Dying Time” peaked at No. 17 in 2014.

“Name in Blood” also returns to the multimetric Hot Hard Rock Songs chart at No. 25 after debuting at No. 22 in January. It earned 602,000 radio audience impressions and 397,000 official U.S. streams.

One other song from the LP reaches Hot Hard Rock Songs: “Ozzy’s Song,” a tribute to Wylde’s late former bandmate Ozzy Osbourne, which starts at No. 20 (440,000 streams, 1,000 downloads). The track also debuts at No. 3 on Hard Rock Digital Song Sales.

You might think reigning CMA entertainer of the year Lainey Wilson just blew up out of nowhere over the past few years. But to hear the Baskin, La. native tell it, that’s ignoring the years and years of hard-grinding, road-dogging blood, sweat and tears she’s put into becoming one of country music’s biggest stars.

“I busted out of my britches, that’s how you know it’s gonna be a good night,” Wilson says of splitting the seams on her skin-tight blue jeans in the opening frame of the trailer for her upcoming Netflix documentary Keepin’ Country Cool. The chronicle of the “Heart Like a Truck” singer’s rise to fame is detailed in the two-minute preview that dropped on Wednesday morning (April 8), including her saying, “I think a lot of people think that this was an overnight success. I’ve been here 14 years … so, a 14-year overnight success.”

The Grammy-winning star describes spending a decade being the “one you didn’t see coming,” and how she’s gone all-in to make sure you never forget her name. The trailer features adorable home video footage of Wilson at five-years-old dancing and performing on stage and playing any and every gig she could, from school events to a gig on top of an AC unit, for which she was paid with free hot dogs for the rest of her life. “That is one of the biggest flexes I will ever have,” she jokes about the Oscar-Meyer compensation.

The trailer touches on her relationship with fiancé Devlin “Duck” Hodges, her decision to freeze some of her eggs in hopes of being a mother some day and the daily grind it takes to rise to her level of fame. “I think it’s important to show people that, like, I don’t have my s–t all together,” she says.

Bottom line? “People keep sayin’ country’s cool again,” Wilson states near the end of the trailer. “Well, I say it never stopped being cool … the world just caught up.”

The film, directed by Amy Scott (Sheryl, Counting Crows: Have You Seen Me Lately?), will premiere globally on Netflix on April 22.

Watch the Keepin’ Country Cool trailer below.

Composer Theodore Shapiro is set to receive the BMI Icon Award at the 2026 BMI Film, TV and Visual Media Awards on May 13 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Shapiro has won two Primetime Emmys for outstanding music composition for a series for his work on Severance. He also received a Grammy nod earlier this year for best score soundtrack for visual media for season two of that hit Apple TV+ show.

“We’re thrilled to present Teddy with the BMI Icon Award,” Tracy McKnight, BMI vp, creative, film, TV & visual media, said in a statement. “Teddy has spent over two decades elevating every storyline he’s touched, and his scores have become synonymous with some of the most beloved and enduring films and TV series of our time.”

Shapiro has won 25 BMI Awards for his scores for films and TV programs. His career as a composer includes both comedies (The Devil Wears Prada and 13 Going on 30) and dramas (Bombshell and The Eyes of Tammy Faye). He received his first Primetime Emmy nod in 2012 — outstanding music composition for a miniseries, movie or a special for HBO’s Game Change.

Most recently, he scored the 2025 thriller The Housemaid, directed by Paul Feig. Shapiro scored The Devil Wears Prada 2, due in theaters May 1, as well as Focker in Law, out Nov. 25, as well as the Apple TV+ miniseries The Off Weeks, starring Ben Stiller, Jessica Chastain and Richard Gere.

Previous BMI Icon Award recipients include Terence Blanchard, Mychael Danna, Alexandre Desplat, Ramin Djawadi, Harry Gregson-Williams, James Newton Howard, Christopher Lennertz, Thomas Newman, Rachel Portman (PRS), Mike Post, Atticus Ross, Alan Silvestri, Brian Tyler and John Williams.

The May 13 ceremony will also salute the composers of the previous year’s top-grossing films, top-rated primetime network television series and highest ranking cable and streamed media programs. McKnight will be joined in hosting the event by BMI CEO Mike O’Neill and BMI evp, chief revenue & creative officer Mike Steinberg.