Own is the latest alternative to TikTok to emerge in the market, featuring blockchain technology and a token economy.

TechCrunch All Stage, our founder-focused summit, is gearing up to return to Boston on July 15! We’re doing a last call for exceptional volunteers to join us in bringing this event to life. If you’ve ever wondered about the inner workings of tech events, now’s your chance to get involved. Volunteer spots are limited, so […]

As the Democratic National Committee is rocked by two high-level union resignations, its leadership continues to thrash around for a message and a mission.

Senate unveils its version of One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump reverses pause on raids on illegal farm workers, NAACP doesn't know what fascism is, and more.

In light of the war between Israel and Iran, the media personality has seriously challenged the president on what it means to put America First in foreign policy.

Galatians 6:9, “And let us not grow weary in well doing, for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not.”  I confess today that I’m tired, I’m weary.   But I haven’t grown weary in well doing.  In fact, that’s what gives me the power and strength to get up every day and press on.  But I’m very tired …

Oliver Anthony was in the trenches after he and his wife divorced, inspiring the song “Scornful Woman.” Since the release of his last single, “Scornful Woman,”  Oliver Anthony has received a lot of positive feedback for the song detailing a painstaking divorce. While it’s not as big as his viral breakout single “Rich Men North of Richmond,” this latest single has the same conviction in the lyrical delivery, and can just feel the pain in his voice with every single note. Before the release of “Scornful Woman,” the great Joe Rogan raved about the tune, and shortly after its release, he shared with The Joe Rogan Experience listeners that Anthony’s horrific divorce inspired the lyrics. “He starts making millions of dollars, playing arenas. The wife divorces him. She wants everything. She wants EVERYTHING. She wants more than half. She wants all the money he’s going to be making in the future because she was with him when he was broke. It’s f***** crazy. He’s just tortured. He wants to die. Wants to die — and writes this song.” The story behind Oliver Anthony’s new song “Scornful Woman” pic.twitter.com/WUpPvDB22B — jay plemons (@jayplemons) June 5, 2025 Shortly after Rogan shared this, Oliver Anthony made another appearance on the hit podcast and opened up about many things he experienced over the last year, like his management team dropping him after making a Hilary Clinton comment, how much his first royalty check was from “Rich Men North of Richmond,” and more. He also opened up about how his wife divorcing him put him at one of the lowest points of his life. And while he doesn’t come out and say it for sure, I think we can read between the lines here: “We had just gotten done with touring in 2024, well obviously things are what they are, but there were multiple, different negative things happening all at once, and I got in a post where I did my thing, where I sort of spiraled and was isolating myself. I spent a month-and-a-half or two months in that house. I didn’t do Thanksgiving or Christmas last year. Just really didn’t hardly talk to anybody or anything. It was probably time to write a song like that.” Anthony doesn’t provide many other details about his divorce or updates about the children he shares with his wife, Tiffany Lunsford. However, he did provide some more details about how the song came to be. Anthony penned the tune with fiddle player Billy Contreras, his manager Draven Riffe, and guitar player Joey Davis. One night, during 2024, when he was in the thick of his dark period, Draven Riffe and Joey Davis came over, and the song was written from a therapeutic place, noting that he just needed to get this feeling off his chest. “I said, ‘Well, if you’re gonna write a song … it’s gotta be something that you feel, not something that you can just articulate about. It’s gotta be something that’s in there that’s got to come out.’ We sat there for like 10 seconds, and ‘Scornful Woman’ was the word that was used, and it was specific relationships, but also it was a collection of the experiences that we’d all had. We’d all had horrible relationships in the past.” Within minutes, “Scornful Women” was written. You can feel the raw emotion as Anthony powerfully delivers the lyrics. “She can have all the money And they can keep all the fame I’d go back to being broke as a joke If I could just get a break from the pain…” While there are always two sides to every story, “Scornful Woman” certainly does not paint Tiffany positively; if she ever chooses to share her side of the story, she will have a lot of explaining to do. Take a listen before you leave. If you want to watch the entire Joe Rogan episode, check that out too. The episode is filled with great stories from Anthony, including Anthony butting heads with his publishing company for flagging “Scornful Woman” reaction videos.  It’s a solid episode. The post Oliver Anthony Was Severely Depressed & Isolated Ahead Of “Scornful Woman” – “I Didn’t Do Thanksgiving Or Christmas Last Year” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

Going back to the early days of ZT. Before Zach Top laid down nostalgic ’90s riffs, he traveled the nation with his siblings, picking bluegrass at local fairs and festivals. Top started performing around the age of 7 with his siblings on acoustic guitar. But before Top picked up a guitar, his parents thought he might’ve been a good piano player, which Top claims he “kicked and screamed” through years of lessons before switching to guitar. “I was playing piano before I was playing guitar. But, for whatever reason, I never had a lot of interest in Chopin and Bach and Beethoven and stuff like that. If somebody could have taught me to play piano like (Hargus) ‘Pig’ Robbins, maybe I would have been excited about that, but the style of music I was into, guitar lent itself more to that, I guess. I kicked and screamed through… shoot, seven or eight years it must’ve been of piano lessons, and they (his parents) finally gave up on that, I guess.” Once Top had a guitar in his hand, he became a picking machine. I mean, just look at this video of a 12-year-old Top ripping “Mule Skinner Blues.” After about a decade of touring with the family band, it became apparent that ZT was the only child who wanted to keep playing music forever. He joked with Dale Brisby that he forced his siblings to practice more than they wanted, and while they dragged their feet at times, thankfully, the forced participation did not ruin any of his relationships with his siblings. “Yeah, we ran around 10 years. Luckily, I didn’t ruin any relationships with my siblings ’cause I remember having… we had some brutal band practices. I was definitely the one that wanted it really bad, and I’d sit down there and play guitar three hours a day and then try and get them to, you know, do a little band practice for whatever show we had coming up or something. I was definitely an unpleasant little tyrant a lot of times, I’ll say.” His persistence paid off, as he’s become one of the hottest emerging stars over the last year. Since blowing up, we’ve seen Zach Top return to his bluegrass roots, teaming up with Billy Strings for the Me & Billy EP. The EP showcased a bluegrass version of his songs “Bad Luck” and “Things To Do,” along with a bluegrass classic, “Don’t Cheat In Our Hometown.” However, that is not the first streamable collection of songs that highlights his bluegrass stylings. Although Cold Beer & Country Music was marketed as his debut record, Zach Top released a self-titled album in 2022 before securing his record deal. Zach Top is filled with a sound highlighting the bluegrass roots Top grew up playing. The eight songs (does that make it an EP? What’s the cut off?) on this record highlight the traditional roots of the genre and his silky smooth vocals. Since the release of Zach Top, the “I Never Lie” singer has settled more into reviving the classic sound of ’90s country. However, the boy can pick and can pick GOOD. If you haven’t familiarized yourself with the album, it’s well worth a listen top to bottom. Like with his debut album, every song on the tracklist is a strong contender with no filler songs, making it hard to rank. But if asked to do the near impossible task, here is how I would rank the tracklist of Zach Top. Check it out: 8. “Showboat Gambler” 7. “Like It Ain’t No Thing” 6. “Forget You” 5. “In A World Gone Wrong” 4. “Are You Lonesome Tonight” 3. “Love Someone Like Me” 2. “I Don’t Mind” 1. “Three Sheets To The Wind” The post RANKED: Every Song Off Zach Top’s 2022 Self-Titled Debut first appeared on Whiskey Riff.

The dream team. Of course, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers famously worked together for decades, and were beloved both individually, and as a pair, by country music fans everywhere. They had a natural, undeniable chemistry, and of course, teamed up for one of the most iconic country songs of all-time, “Islands in the Stream,” in 1983. That song was written by the Bee Gees and released in August 1983 as the first single from Rogers’s fifteenth studio album Eyes That See in the Dark, and it eventually peaked at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, giving each of Rogers and Parton their second pop number-one hit (Rogers had one with “Lady” in 1980 and Dolly had one with “9 to 5” in 1981). Because they had such an obvious connection, many fans wondered over the decades if there was anything beyond an innocent friendship between them, and in an interview many years ago with Dan Rather, Kenny told how the story of “Islands In The Stream” became a duet with Dolly. It had originally been written for an R&B singer, and after they passed on it, Kenny was going to sing it solo, but he could never get it quite right on his own: “Well, something special, but not what it sounds like. ‘Islands In the Stream’ was written by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, and he brought me this song. He didn’t write it for me, he wrote it for an R&B singer that didn’t do it. And he brought it to me and he said, ‘I really wanna do this song.’ I had a recording studio in LA at the time, And I sang that song for four days and I finally just said, ‘Barry I don’t even like this song anymore.’ And he said, I swear it’s like an epiphany, ‘We need Dolly Parton.’ And I thought, I had met Dolly but I didn’t really know her, and Ken Craig and who was my manager, said, ‘I just saw her downstairs.’ I said ‘Well, go get her and let’s see if she likes it.’ Well, only as Dolly can do, she marched in the room, And once she came in, the song was never the same. I mean, it was really that different when she sang with me then when I sang it by myself. It had a different meaning, a different set of values to it and musically it was so much better.” Because they were on the subject of Dolly, Rather asked point blank if they ever had a fling or more romantic type of relationship, implying that it was pretty clear they weren’t just professional acquaintances. Rogers said “from the bottom of his heart” nothing ever went on, and he explained that they just “flirted with each other for 30 years,” which made it so “electric.” He felt that if they would’ve ever “consummated” the relationship in any way, it would’ve ruined the magic and that’s all it was: “I’m telling you, from the bottom of my heart. I met her husband, first of all, and I was married to Marianne through that whole time. What we did was, we flirted with each other for 30 years and it was much more electric. I think once you consummate a relationship like that, it loses something. And she and I both believe that theory. So we did some massive flirting in front of the nation, but there was never anything more than that.” I actually totally understand where he’s coming from there, thought I don’t know if I completely believe him… but I guess I have to take him at his word and go with that. I think fans just want to believe something like that is true, and it helped them sell a lot of records, so why not play into it, right? Kenny and Dolly remained friends until the end when he passed in 2020, and in the interview, he talked about how Dolly has “no filter” and you always know exactly what’s on her mind, which is what he loved about her: “You know, I love her. The thing with Dolly, and I don’t know whether like this expression or not, but we just did a new song called ‘You Can’t Make Old Friends,’ that was written for us by Don Schlitz, who wrote ‘The Gambler.’ And it was written for us about our relationship and our career. And it’s wonderful and it’s very touching. It’s like, ‘what will I do when you’re gone,’ and it goes into all this stuff. ‘Once Saint Peter opens the gate,’ it’s very touching and in the middle of the song, Dolly comes over and puts her… my theory is that Dolly has no filter. If it goes in her mind, it comes out her mouth. She doesn’t stop to think, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say that.’ She came over and put her arms around me and she said, ‘Kenny, I just want you to know something. I could never sing at your funeral.’ And I was like, ‘So we’re assuming I’m going first? Is that what you’re saying?’ But she just … that’s what’s so wonderful about her. If she thinks it, she says it. You know what’s on her mind. But she’s she’s a wonderful girl. And we’ll go three or four years without seeing each other, I mean every night someone asked me where is Dolly? You know, like we talk every day. And I’m just gonna start giving them her home phone number and say ‘Call her and ask her where she is.’ She’s a sweetheart.” Two of the best two ever do it, and they made a heck of a pair as artists and duet partners, and friends. They worked on countless songs and projects together, and Kenny wasn’t the only country star who ever had a crush on Mrs. Dolly… Merle Haggard was very public about his love for her, and I can’t say that I blame their one of them in the least. Like I said, I’m taking Kenny at his word, but I will probably always remain just a little bit skeptical… they either have more will power than any other two humans on the planet, or they’re two of the best actors. I guess we’ll never know, and that’s the point. You can watch the full interview here: “Islands In the Stream” The post Kenny Rogers Once Said His Relationship With Dolly Parton Was “More Electric” Than An Affair: “We Flirted With Each Other For 30 Years” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.