Even rock’s biggest names had to start somewhere. Flip through this (way) back catalog of stars’ early projects and you’ll find yourself in a topsy-turvy bizarro-world where Michael Bolton and Billy Joel fronted metal bands, Debbie Harry and the Cars were folked-up singer-songwriters, Madonna was a post-punk drummer and Ronnie James Dio was a Sixties teen idol. By the time you’re done there This article originally appeared on www.rollingstone.com: 30 Fascinating Early Bands of Future Music...
Kendrick Lamar, SZA, ScHoolboy Q, Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, SiR and Lance Skiiwalker will unite for an all-star tour featuring artists from record label Top Dawg Entertainment. “TDE: The Championship Tour” will launch May 4th in Vancouver and conclude June 16th in Pittsburgh. More artists are expected to be announced. General public tickets go on sale Friday, January 26th at noon local time via Ticket Master. American Express Card Members can purchase pre-sale tickets for select dates from Tuesday, January 23rd at...
Camila Cabello became the first female artist in three years to reach Number One with her debut album. The former Fifth Harmony singer’s Camila sold 119,000 copies in its first week of release. By making the leap from a popular group to a chart-topping solo artist, Cabello joins the ranks of female singers like Gwen Stefani, Beyoncé, Stevie Nicks, Diana Ross and Lauryn Hill to accomplish the same feat, Billboard reports. Camila‘s 119,000 copies – 65,000 of which were traditional...
Hall and Oates and Train are teaming up for a summer tour of arenas around North America this summer. Each group will perform its own full-length set, with both Hall and Oates and Train teaming up for a finale. “This is going to be a tour filled with fun as well as great music,” Daryl Hall said in a statement. “I love Train and have a close relationship with Pat Monahan, going back to our Live From Daryl’s House show...
Thousands of Cranberries fans lined up outside of a Limerick, Ireland church – where Dolores O’Riordan was lying in repose ahead of her funeral Tuesday – to pay tribute to the singer who died Monday at the age of 46. According to the Irish Times, fans congregated outside of St Joseph’s Church Sunday, the first public viewing since O’Riordan’s death on January 15th; earlier in the week, a London’s coroner announced they had released the singer’s body back to her...
Troye Sivan made his Saturday Night Live debut on the Jessica Chastain-hosted episode, where the emerging Australian singer performed his two new singles “My, My, My!” and “The Good Side.” Both tracks – the dance-pop hit “My, My, My!” and the ballad “The Good Side” – are earmarked to appear on Sivan’s upcoming, still-untitled second album, the follow-up to his breakthrough 2015 LP Blue Neighbourhood. “I could feeeeeel your love tonight n it got me through. One of the...
Call it “emo rap,” call it “Soundcloud rap,” but its iconoclasm fuels unbounded...
The National mark the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration with the visceral video for “Walk It Back,” a song off the band’s 2017 LP Sleep Well Beast. The video manipulates CSPAN broadcasts (“the primary medium for political and commercial ideology”) of several notable political events – like Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union address and speeches by Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton and Karl Rove – to create a tableau that illustrates “the performance and spectacle of...
Jim Rodford, a founding member of Argent and bassist for the Kinks and the Zombies, died Saturday at the age of 76. Rodford’s cousin and longtime band mate Rod Argent confirmed Rodford’s death on the Zombies’ Facebook page, with Argent adding that Rodford died Saturday following “a fall on the stairs.” “Jim was not only a magnificent bass player, but also from the first inextricably bound to the story of The Zombies. An enormous enabler for us,” Argent wrote in...
Fredo Santana, Chicago drill rapper and cousin of Chief Keef, has died at the age of 27. While no cause of death was officially revealed, TMZ reports that the rapper born Derrick Coleman suffered a fatal seizure Friday night in Los Angeles. Houston rapper Maxo Kream was among the first to post about Santana’s death on social media, “Damn man I’m lost for words right now I’m cryin my ass off Fredo I love yu Bitch RIP a real Savage.”...
Drake dropped a pair of new tracks with no warning as the rapper’s “God’s Plan” and “Diplomatic Immunity” premiered on streaming services Friday night. The two songs form Drake’s new EP Scary Hours. 50 Best Albums of 2017 Taylor Swift clapped back, Kendrick Lamar got personal, Lorde threw a high-concept party and more The synth-laden “God’s Plan,” produced by frequent collaborators Yung Exclusive, Boi-1da, Cardo, and Noah “40” Shebib, charts Drake’s ascent in the...
Lin-Manuel Miranda teams with New York rappers Nas and Dave East and singer Aloe Blacc for the new video “Wrote My Way Out,” the January offering from the Hamilton star’s “Hamildrops” series. The black-and-white video features the four artists performing the Hamilton Mixtape cut atop a New York building interspersed with snapshots of kids living in Manhattan’s northern neighborhoods, like Harlem and Miranda’s native Inwood. “I picked up my pen like Hamilton / And wrote my way out of the...
After months of speculation, a medical examiner has ruled that Tom Petty died of an accidental overdose, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner. The Hall of Fame musician had taken several pain medications, including Fentanyl (including acetylfentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl), oxycodone and generic Xanax. Other medications included generic Restoril (a sleep aid) and generic Celexa (which treats depression). TMZ reported that he’d been prescribed the drugs to treat emphysema, knee issues...
For years, Def Leppard were well situated among the ranks of Garth Brooks and Tool as holdouts on streaming services – artists with large, multiplatinum catalogues that still didn’t feel comfortable with the pros and cons of subscription-based music schemes. The hard rockers had long been at war with their label, Universal, about the topic, even recording self-described “forgeries” of “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and “Rock of Ages” that were self-released so they would earn what they considered a...
Lucius will release Nudes, a collection of acoustic recordings, on March 2nd. The band’s Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig currently sing backup for Roger Waters on the Pink Floyd bassist’s still-ongoing Us + Them Tour. They recorded the 10-track album during gaps in Waters’ tour. Lucius’ new album features covers of Tame Impala’s “Eventually,” Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down the Line” and the Lead Belly-popularized “Goodnight Irene,” featuring Roger Waters....
Since forming in 2000, the Bad Plus have grown from upstart into institution, one of the few contemporary jazz acts to show up on the mainstream radar in the years before the To Pimp a Butterfly watershed. The trio’s early buzz centered on their sometimes radically reworked covers of rock and pop standards (from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to “Heart of Glass” and “Iron Man”), but from the beginning, their real greatness shone through in the members’ own compositions. In...
Fall Out Boy, ManiaThe shape-shifting quartet’s seventh album is “a re-affirmation of their ability to fuse over-the-top oversharing and Queen-ly operatic stomp with an elastic vision of pop,” writes Jon Dolan. “It’s more proof of why they’re masters at turning meltdowns into jock jams.”Read Our Review: This article originally appeared on www.rollingstone.com: 10 New Albums to Stream Now: Fall Out Boy, Lanco, First Aid Kit and More Rolling Stone Editors’...
Femi Kuti protests war and promotes worldwide peace with his new video for “One People One World,” the title track from his upcoming 10th LP out February 23rd. In the vibrant clip, the Afrobeat bandleader performs onstage at Nigeria venue The Shrine, which he built as a memorial to his father, musician Fela Kuti. The video blends raw stage footage with brief animation and visual effects, incorporating shots of protestors, peace signs and falling bombs. “Let’s settle the differences; it’s...
Fall Out Boy’s seventh LP comes with a tense back story that befits their emo roots: The band scrapped Mania last year at the last minute and built it again from scratch. But the album is less a reboot than a re-affirmation of their ability to fuse over-the-top oversharing and Queen-ly operatic stomp with an elastic vision of pop – swerving from EDM grind (“Young and Menace”) to bubblegum trap swing (“Hold Me Tight or Don’t”) to Police-style reggae glide...
Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan’s cause of death will not be revealed until at least April, a London coroner’s office announced Friday. The coroner’s officer Stephen Earl provided more details about the circumstances of O’Riordan’s death on January 15th at the age of 46. “The London ambulance service was contacted and verified her death at the scene,” Earl told The Guardian; O’Riordan was found unresponsive in her London hotel room Monday. “Subsequently, the Met police attended...
