May 17, 2024

Review Category : TMZ Music News

U.K. Band Rixton Are Getting Over ‘Lifetime of Broken Hearts’ On Their New EP

Sure, they caught your attention with their catchy, silly parody video but U.K. band Rixton have a whole lot more to offer.

On Tuesday (March 18) the foursome, who gained fame on YouTube with covers of songs by Taylor Swift and Katy Perry and are now MTV's Artist to Watch, released their EP Me and My Broken Heart in the U.S. through Scooter Braun's School Boy Records.

Hooking up with super-producer Benny Blanco, the four-song EP shows off the band's soulful, playful and funky vibe, which could easily be compared to Maroon 5. The standout tracks of the EP have to go to "Hotel Ceiling," a heartfelt ballad that was co-written by fellow Brit Ed Sheeran, and their first official single, "Me and My Broken Heart."

"It's basically a lifetime of broken hearts and desperation of love," drummer Lewi Morgan told MTV News.

Lead singer Jake Roche added, "It was a song that we heard straight away and we fell in love with it, and it's got a cool vibe to it."

The record also sets the tone for what's in store for this up-and-coming group, who are putting the finishing touches on their upcoming debut album. The group revealed their album, which is 90 percent completed and will drop later this year, will "take you on a bit of a journey."

"The album itself is really eclectic. There is a song on there for everyone," Morgan said, with Roche adding, "Like my mom will love it and my nan ... I think that's just because we are related."

The boys are currently ...

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New ‘Maleficent’ Trailer Showcases Angelina Jolie, Dragons And Other Winged Things: Watch Now

We already walked with "once upon a dream, and now we can watch another full trailer for the upcoming Disney reboot, no strolling required.

Yes, today we got two more minutes of the be-horned Angelina Jolie playing the villainous Maleficent, foe of Elle Fanning's Princess Aurora, Sleeping Beauty herself.

In the new clip, there are the old familiar tropes — 16th birthday, curse of the eternal nap, beasties, yadda yadda — but there's also something decidedly new: Hey, look, everyone, Angelina Jolie has wings now!

"I had wings once," she intones darkly. "They were strong. But they were stolen from me."

Whether the following shots of Jolie swooping around on massive, dark wings are a flashback or a foretelling of Maleficent snatching those bad boys right back, one thing is for certain: They are fierce.

Oh, and pardon us while we try and creep away without anyone noticing while she cackles like a crazy person after mentioning the evil, hatred and revenge in the world. Um, bye? Bye!

"Maleficent," starring Jolie and Fanning, and directed by Robert Stromberg, is set to hit theaters May 30.

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EXCLUSIVE: Check Out The Striking Cover For Crisis Of Faith Novel ‘Rumble’

YA author Ellen Hopkins first started conceptualizing her new book "Rumble" — for which we have the exclusive cover reveal — after a fan called her out on Facebook.

"I'm a Lutheran with spiritual leanings, and there were some mosque burnings in the news," she told MTV News. "I posted on my Facebook page, 'We all serve one creator,' meaning Jews, Muslims, Christians, people are agnostic. That's how I feel. And this girl who was 16 came back at me and she said, 'It's awfully arrogant of you to assume that I need to have a belief in anything.'"

The statement fascinated Hopkins, who recalled her own teenage years as being an explorative time in which big questions were asked rather than answered.

"The story grew out of that," she said. "The conflict is that the Atheist falls in love with the Evangelical Christian girl, but the driving conflict is that some of his friends actually bullied his little brother into suicide."

Matthew Turner, the aforementioned Atheist, decides to live with abandon after his brother's death, only to be awoken by a mysterious "rumble" that Hopkins described cryptically as "something that he hears that makes things make sense to him."

"His big thing is that he bears some guilt," she added. "He could have come home earlier to save his brother, but he was with his girlfriend and by the time he got home his brother had done it. So how do you find forgiveness that you really, really need when that person is gone? So the rumble is around that. ...

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Miley Cyrus Loses Bangerz Bus To Fire

Miley Cyrus has had plenty of epic adventures on her Bangerz tour
, but one unexpected surprise on Monday was no party.

Little sister Noah posted a series of videos on Monday night showing a fire raging through one of the Bangerz tour buses, burning it to the ground on the side of the highway.

"This is the bus we were riding on," says a unseen narrator Noah ID'd as "Larry" in another video. "Was the bus we were riding on. I don't think it's bus anymore."

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Judging from interior pictures, the devastation seems almost complete, with little left except some dangling wires and the charred remains of the bus' kitchen. It was unclear at press time if anyone was injured in the fire.

In keeping with the Cyrus family sense of humor, Noah noted that one of the casualties of the inferno was mom Tish's Cracker Barrel stuffed bunny.

While Miley reposted one of Noah's "tour bus down!" tweets, she hasn't officially commented so far and at press time MTV News could not reach her spokespeople for further details on the incident.

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Charlie Brown And Snoopy In 3-D? You Have To See This ‘Peanuts’ Teaser

The first teaser trailer for a new computer-animated "Peanuts" movie has hit the web, and I can already feel the outrage brewing. But in reality a CGI Charlie Brown and Snoopy isn't as bad as you might imagine.

The short clip opens with a riff-on "2001: A Space Odyssey" — you know, for the kids — and zooms out until we see the nearly bald head of Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy, Charlie Schulz's most famous creations.

The look of animation is somewhere between 2-D and 3-D, and the characters move around in what look like purposely jerky motions, perhaps a throwback to the older movies. In fact, everything about the trailer seems like it was done with reverence to Schulz's work... with an added dimension.

Speaking with USA Today, producer Paul Feig ("Bridesmaids," "The Heat") suggested that we wouldn't see sacrilege on the levels of "The Smurfs." "Snoopy will not be rapping. No one will be twerking," he said. "We're in good hands."

But there's still the sense that the Peanuts are being needlessly modernized. If the computer animation is being handled in a way that respects the original format of the characters and their first movies, why take the extra step to render out the background with depth and add small hair details to Snoopy? The teaser looks good enough, but doesn't exactly justify itself.

Count me as undecided, but I would like to know what you think. Do the Peanuts look great in all three dimensions, or is this just too different? Tell me in the poll below.

What ...

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The Best ‘Divergent’ Moment You Won’t See In The Film

For fans of Veronica Roth's "

But also: Blaaargh, the torment of worrying that some of those scenes aren't going to make the cut.

Fortunately, a new Vulture interview with director Neil Burger has the advance scoop for avid "Divergent" fans on which moments from the literary source material they can look forward to seeing onscreen — and which ones, alas, did not make the final cut.

Keep reading for a roundup of the scenes you'll be sorry to miss, and the ones you'll be thrilled to see. Needless to say, there are spoilers ahead for those who haven't read the book.

The Unkindest Cut
First, the bad news: The gruesome, graphic scene from the book in which Dauntless initiate Edward wakes up with a butter knife in his eyeball? That was one thing that every fan of the book got chills imagining onscreen — and it's one thing you won't be seeing.

Though the scene was shot, Burger revealed that time and narrative constraints kept it from making it into the final product. The good news is, there's still a chance that you'll get to enjoy that eye gouge someday; it is, after all, some primo material for a DVD extra.

Everybody Into The Chasm!
Meanwhile, the deadly, whitewater ravine that bisects the underground lair of the Dauntless faction — and the scene in which Christina is nearly thrown into it by Eric — did make it into the movie. You can thank the director for insisting on that; the original script didn't include it, but he felt it was ...

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How Much Is. M.I.A.’s Super Bowl Middle Finger Going To Cost Her?

You know how sometimes you get into a jam and ask your friend with a swanky job to help you out, you know, with a bit of a loan?

Well, M.I.A. is in just such a jam, except her loan is major, like $16 million major and her pal just happens to be Madonna.

You see, the controversy-loving
 singer was hit with a $1.5 million fine for allegedly breaching her performance contract and tarnishing the reputation of the NFL when she flashed her middle-finger salute
 during a halftime performance of Madge's "Give Me All Your Luvin'" at the 2012 Super Bowl.

Now, according to the Hollywood Reporter, in addition to that fine, the league has added another claim, seeking $15.1 million more in "restitution" due to the alleged value of public exposure M.I.A. received by appearing during approximately two minutes of the Madonna performance.

The NFL arrived at that math based on what they said advertisers would have paid for spots during that time. M.I.A.'s lawyers, however, said those figures make no sense. "The claim for restitution lacks any basis in law, fact, or logic," her lawyers said in response papers filed on Friday. The Reporter said that M.I.A.'s lawyer, Howard King, has been trying to undercut the league's argument that its reputation has been damaged in the incident. He's even set up a special e-mail address (NFL#khpblaw.com) for the public to weigh in on what he says in the NFL's lack of wholesomeness.

As examples, he cites a number of "profane, bawdy, lascivious, demeaning and/or unacceptable behavior by ...

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