Due to overwhelming fan demand, Coldplay have announced additional second shows in Vancouver, San Diego, and Los Angeles for their Music Of The Spheres World Tour
The band announced Monday (January 30th) that the newly-added shows take place at Vancouver's BC Place on September 23th, San Diego's Snapdragon Stadium on September 28th, and Los Angeles' Rose Bowl on October 1st.
Tickets are on sale now.
As part of his ongoing Meat Free Monday vegetarian campaign, Paul McCartney has unearthed a collaboration between him and Jeff Beck from back in 1994. The music, performed by the two legends, was originally used the following year as part of McCartney's Oobu-Joobu syndicated radio series.
McCartney posted on the official MeatFreeMondays.com website a message about the clip: "With the sad passing of Jeff Beck -- a good friend of mine, and a great great guitar player -- it reminded me of the time we worked together many years ago on a campaign for vegetarianism. It's great guitar playing, cause it's Jeff!"
The clip featuring Beck's voice-over, "Highlights the damage caused by deforestation to create more land for cattle grazing, as well as some of the harmful knock-on effects from this. On top of the benefits to animals and personal health, there are also many environmental advantages to eating more plant-based meals."
Jeff Beck died on January 10th from a bacterial meningitis infection at age 78.
It was 60 years ago today (January 31st, 1963), that the Beach Boys completed recording their first Top 10 hit, "Surfin' U.S.A." The group's Brian Wilson lifted the tune from Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen," and once again was inspired by his younger brother Dennis Wilson's "live every moment as though it's your last" philosophy. Brian, who vicariously used many of Dennis' life experiences to help craft the Beach Boys' sound, wrote the words around Southern California's hippest pastime.
Wilson recalled after the single's release that, "My brother Dennis came home from school one day and said, 'Listen you guys, it looks like surfing's gonna be the next big craze.' He said that I should write a song about it. So I wrote a song just due to Dennis' suggestion." The song was polished off on January 31st, 1963 between 8 and 11 p.m. at Hollywood's Western Recorders. The track features the searing guitar work by Carl Wilson and David Marks, Brian Wilson on bass, piano and organ, Mike Love on lead vocals, and, despite speculation that he didn't actually play on the track, Dennis Wilson on drums. All five are featured on the song's famous "Inside -- Outside -- U.S.A." backing vocals.
We asked Mike Love if he felt that David Marks played an integral part to the band's sound in the studio and on the road: "Well yeah! I mean, he worked his ass off in the original -- in the first four or five albums. Driving around in a U-Haul and a station wagon, settin' up and breaking' down our own equipment -- that's before we found out there was this thing called 'roadies.'"
David Marks says that life on the road during the early days of the group were far from luxurious. He recalls that although the Beach Boys' early-'60s tours were exciting, the physical toll it took on the band was severe: "When we first started in the early-'60s, it was kind of hellish. You really couldn't keep a pace up like that for very long. I mean, you're crowded in a station wagon and you're towing a U-Haul with the amps and you have another car with a couple of the band members. And that's how you travel. You play four sets at a dance and drive 800 miles."
By the end of the 1960's, with their hit-filled days behind them, Brian Wilson admitted that he secretly believed that the Beach Boys still might make the long haul to legendary status: "Actually, looking back on it now, I thought. . . I had the feeling we were going to do it, but I didn't think in my brain that we were going to keep going, going and going for 40 more years. It would be impossible to conceive of."
"Surfin' U.S.A." was released on March 2nd, 1963 and peaked at Number Three on the Billboard Hot 100.
Over the years the song has been a mainstay of the group's shows, usually appearing at the end of the concert or during one of the group's encores.
Despite what you may have heard, Adele has no plans to skip the Grammy's.
She addressed the online rumor at her Las Vegas show on Friday (January 27th), saying, "Whoever started that rumor is a dickhead, ‘cause I am going to the Grammys. I would never miss the Grammys. I would never be as disrespectful to the Grammys or to other artists, and whoever started that little story needs to go and touch some grass, alright? Go and get some fresh air, alright darlings?"
Hits Daily Double reported last week that the "Hello" singer would be skipping the awards show.
The 2023 Grammy Awards will take place on Sunday, February 5th.
Harry Styles' pants ripped while he was performing at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles Thursday (January 26th) night.
While singing "Music For a Shushi Restaurant," he knelt down at the edge of the stage and busted open the crotch of his custom leather Gucci pants.
TikTok videos of the event show that he grabbed a towel to cover up before promptly apologizing to audience members.
While wearing a gay pride flag over the front of his pants, the former One Direction singer said, "Its necessary to aplogize to a certain few of you right now...I mean, this is a family show. I promise this is not part of the show, okay. It's a family show...or is it?"
To make matters worse, The Independent reports that Jennifer Aniston was in the crowd – the person Styles once cited as his first celebrity crush.
Sam Smith released Gloria, their fourth studio album, Friday (January 27th).
The official video for the artist's new single, "I'm Not Here To Make Friends," dropped at the same time, and it's stirring up controversy.
The visual includes a lot of sexualized content, including Smith wearing pasties, causing several right wing pundits to call for the video to be given an age restriction limit on YouTube.
However, their defenders claim the "Unholy" singer is only under attack because they don't conform to stereotypical body standards.
One Twitter user commented, "You know if a skinny straight man wore this you would be be saying he's subverting gender norms and pioneering for the queer community."
U2 has released a 2023 remake of their 1987 chart-topper, "With Or Without You." The song is one of 40 reimagined versions of the band's classics re-recorded for their new album, Songs Of Surrender, which drops on St. Patrick's Day -- March 17th. The set is a companion piece to frontman Bono's memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.
Back in 2017, bassist Adam Clayton revealed he wasn't sure that the band's first chart-topper, "With Or Without You," would be a hit 30 years later. Clayton, who was chatting with Rolling Stone about the band's then-upcoming 30th anniversary tour behind The Joshua Tree, was asked about the 1987 classic making a dent on the charts today, to which Clayton explained, "I think you could put it out. I think you'd have to Melodyne (autotune) the vocal. I think you'd have to squeeze and program the rhythm tracks. Eventually you'd get something that sounds familiar on the radio and it would research well, and you might get a bit of traction and it might be a hit. But I think if you put it out just as it is, it would get lost in the noise and bubble of that particular sound that's popular at the moment."
A while back, guitarist The Edge told us the band is confident its audience will be receptive to whatever the band chooses to release: "I feel there's a certain trust there between the band and the, our audience that, in the end, we are concerned about communicating. It's not just a, a case of us being self-indulgent at the expense of the people buying the records."
Britney Spears is "alive and well" following reports that police performed a wellness check on the singer last week.
On Saturday night (January 28th), the embattled pop star posted images of herself at the gym, living her "best life." She wrote, "Yep that's me … I'm alive and well."
She added in a Twitter thread, "I'm shocked as hell that when I took my Instagram down fans got worried and sent the cops to my house 🚔 ... it really was uncalled for ... l adore my fans but for those who did that aren't real fans and I honestly felt like it was a way to make me look bad !!!"
Fans began requesting wellness checks after Spears deleted her Instagram account Wednesday (January 25th).
A Ventura County Sheriff's Office spokesperson subsequently told Page Six, "I can confirm that we did get calls into our dispatch, and essentially, I can confirm that we don't believe that Britney Spears is in any kind of harm or any kind of danger."
It was 45 years ago today (January 30th, 1978) that Journey released Infinity -- its first album with frontman Steve Perry. The band had released three albums since its formation in 1973 by two former members of Santana -- co-founding keyboardist Gregg Rolie and guitarist Neal Schon, with Rollie handling vocals for the band to middling success. After an aborted attempt with temporary frontman Robert Fleischman -- later of the Vinnie Vincent Invasion -- Steve Perry signed on at the urging of Journey's then-manager Herbie Herbert.
Infinity, which also featured co-founding bassist Ross Valory, was the band's final set to include co-founding drummer Aynsley Dunbar, who left Journey due to the new, more commercial direction the group was heading in.
Infinity was produced by Roy Thomas Baker -- then best known for his work with Queen and the Cars -- and went on to peak at Number 21 on the Billboard 200. The album featured such ongoing FM staples as "Wheel In The Sky" (#57), "Lights" (#68), and "Feeling That Way / Anytime."
Steve Perry recalled to us what it was like to witness Journey onstage prior to being asked to join them: "When I was living in Los Angeles, I was looking to get a record deal, trying my very best. It was tough to get signed at those times. And I would always go to the Starwood to see Journey perform because these guys had the most amazing musical ability. I'd never seen a band like that in my life. So, every time they'd go to the Starwood club, I had to go watch with amazement. Though their musicianship was absolutely par to none (sic), there was one instrument that was flying above the entire city of Los Angeles -- that was the magic fingers of Neal Schon's guitar! (Cheering)"
During the band's heyday, Neal Schon and Steve Perry co-wrote such Journey classics as "Don't Stop Believin'," "Stone In Love" "Lights," and "Any Way You Want It." Steve Perry explained to us that Neal Schon literally had uncut gems flowing from his fingers: "It was challenging, because Neal Schon is a goldmine of potential ideas and he doesn't know, really, which are the best or not -- 'cause they're all interesting to him. But in come my set of ears and he'd play stuff and I'd hear melodies, I'd say, 'Wait, what was that?!' And (he'd say) 'Oh, I don't know, it's just 'diddle-a doh' over this with a fifth. . .' I'd say, 'I don't care what you call it -- what was that?' 'I don't know, it's just an idea I came up with last night.' I'd say, 'Well, why don't you keep playing that for a second while I come up with a melody?'"
Journey, led by Neal Schon, is currently on the band's 50th anniversary tour with special guests Toto. They next perform on February 4th in Allentown, Pennsylvania at PPL Center.
R.I.P. - TELEVISION'S TOM VERLAINE
Punk icon Tom Verlaine, the guitarist and songwriter for the highly influential band Television, died on January 28th at the age of 73 following a brief illness. Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of Patti Smith, told Rolling Stone, "He died peacefully in New York City, surrounded by close friends. His vision and his imagination will be missed."
Verlaine will forever be remembered for the Television's groundbreaking 1977 debut album Marquee Moon.
R.I.P. - MOTOWN'S BARRETT STRONG
Motown songwriter, producer, and artist Barrett Strong died on January 29th at 81. Strong, who often worked along fellow label legend Norman Whitfield, was behind such hits as his own "Money (That's What I Want)" -- Motown's first bonafide hit, which was later covered by the Beatles, Edwin Starr's "War," the Undisputed Truth's "Smiling Faces Sometimes," and Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine."
Strong was also responsible in part for a string of Temptations classics, including "I Wish It Would Rain," "Just My Imagination," "Cloud Nine," "Psychedelic Shack" and the Grammy-award winning "Papa Was A Rolling Stone."
Berry Gordy, Jr. issued a statement that read:
I am saddened to hear of the passing of Barrett Strong, one of my earliest artists, and the man who sang my first big hit "Money (That's What I Want)" in 1959. Barrett was not only a great singer and piano player, but he, along with his writing partner Norman Whitfield, created an incredible body of work, primarily with the Temptations. Their hit songs were revolutionary in sound and captured the spirit of the times like "Cloud Nine" and the still relevant, "Ball Of Confusion (That's What The World Is Today)."
My heartfelt condolences go out to his family and friends. Barrett is an original member of the Motown Family and will be missed by all of us.
R.I.P. - THREE DOG NIGHT'S FLOYD SNEED
Original Three Dog Night drummer, Floyd Sneed died on January 27th at age 80. Sneed is best known for his drumming on such seminal group hits as "Joy To The World," "One," "An Old Fashioned Love Song," "Black And White," "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)," "Shambala," "Celebrate," and "Never Been To Spain," among many others.
Three Dog Night co-founder Chuck Negron posted a tribute on Facebook, which reads: "A wonderful man, friend, and musical peer has passed on to the next part of his journey. Floyd Sneed was a unique and powerful drummer and more importantly a kind and special human being. I will always cherish the times he stayed with my wife Ami and I at our home and the hours we spent spinning tales of our youth when we were Kings. I love you Floyd and I will keep you in my heart always."
Kanye West is under investigation after he allegedly yanked a woman's phone out of her hand and tossed it when she refused to stop filming him. According to TMZ, the incident went down at his daughter North's basketball game. Ye noticed that a woman was recording him. He confronted the woman, saying, "You didn't have to run up on me like that. If I say stop, stop with your cameras!"
After the woman said she could film him because he is "a celebrity," Ye allegedly reached into her car, grabbed her phone and threw it. Cops arrived at the scene shortly after and the woman was later seen leaving the sheriff's department.
Coming on April 7th in Kiss' ongoing "Off The Soundboard" archival series is Live In Poughkeepsie 1984. The custom, mustard yellow double-LP set features one of only two full concerts guitarist Mark St. John ever played with the band. The November 28th, 1984 Animalize tour show from the Mid-Hudson Civic Arena in Poughkeepsie, New York comes only weeks before St. John was permanently replaced by Bruce Kulick on December 8th, 1984.
Mark St. John, who replaced Vinnie Vincent and played on 1984's Animalize, developed reactive arthritis and although toured with the band -- stood off-stage while his understudy -- longtime Kiss associate Bruce Kulick actually played all but two-and-half of the tour's eventual 119-date tour.
In the 2016 audio book for his memoir, Face The Music, Paul Stanley spoke about the problems regarding Mark St. John's brief and troubled tenure in Kiss: "After we'd shot the cover photos showcasing Mark, he came down with a rare arthritic condition. It often effects people's knees but in Mark's case it struck his hand. Mark couldn't move his fingers. 'My doctor says it'll go away in two weeks,' he told, us. I called him every day -- 'Any better?' -- 'No."
Mark St. John -- whose real name was Mark Leslie Norton -- died at age 51 on April 5th, 2007, due to a brain hemorrhage brought on by an accidental overdose of methamphetamines.
The full lineup to CBS' A Grammy Salute To The Beach Boys has been rolled out. Appearing at the February 8th event are Grammy-winning artists and past and current Grammy nominees including Weezer, Beck, Brandi Carlile, Michael McDonald, St. Vincent, Fall Out Boy, Hanson, Norah Jones, Lady A, John Legend, Little Big Town, Mumford & Sons, My Morning Jacket, Pentatonix, Charlie Puth, LeAnn Rimes, and Take 6.
Tickets are available for the event at L.A.'s Dolby Theatre, which will air on CBS later this year.
Decades after first laying down their voices on tape, Beach Boys co-founde Brian Wilson says he still values the group for their contribution to his music throughout the years: "I think the magic is Mike Love's vocal performances on our songs, and Carl (Wilson) and Dennis (Wilson), and Bruce (Johnston) and Al (Jardine) and I should be congratulated for some really good background singing."
It was 54 years ago today (January 30th, 1969) that the Beatles performed for the last time in public, on the roof of their Apple headquarters building in London. For the better part of that January, the group had been filming their rehearsals for a planned comeback concert, before band politics forced them to abort the plan and concentrate on recording a new album, tentatively titled Get Back.
The film crew continued filming the recording sessions for what eventually became the Let It Be album and movie, and on January 30th, the Beatles finally gave in to director Michael Lindsay-Hogg's request for a live concert finale for the film. Rather than the various exotic locations that had been tossed around for the group's first public appearance in nearly two-and-a-half years, such as a cruise ship, a mental asylum, or a Roman amphitheater, the group had their equipment set up on top of their business offices at 3 Saville Row for a brief lunchtime set -- similar to the ones they used to do years earlier in Liverpool's Cavern Club.
The Beatles and keyboardist Billy Preston, who were decked out in winter coats, played for about 42 minutes for a handful of fans, their wives, office workers and their personal staff. They performed a total of nine full songs: three versions of "Get Back," two versions of "Don't Let Me Down," two versions of "I've Got A Feeling," and one each of "Dig A Pony," and "One After 909" -- which was one of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's earliest compositions, dating back to the 1950's.
Not long before his November 2022 death, the late-Ken Mansfield -- former U.S. manager of Apple Records -- published his latest memoir on his time with working with the Beatles, titled The Roof: The Beatles' Final Concert. Mansfield was among the handful of insiders present at the rooftop concert that day. He recalled prior to the lunchtime gig walking in on the four Beatles who were using one of the Apple offices as a makeshift dressing room: "It was like walking in on a band, a nervous bunch of guys getting ready to do an audition. I don't know if it's because they hadn't played together, or whether they were trying to put the set together, but it was one of those kind of tense things where they were nervous. When we locked the doors upstairs, and the minute they started playing -- and y'know all the. . . everything that was going down, all the stuff. It's like it all went away and I really believe in my mind that they forgot everything and they were what they were. They were the Beatles."
In between songs, while the film crew was busy setting up, the Beatles briefly ran through a few standards, including a few bars of "Danny Boy," "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody," and "God Save The Queen."
George Harrison had made it clear prior to the impromptu concert that none of his songs would be played on the roof. Toward the end of the Beatles' set, the police were called and politely demanded that the group quit disturbing the peace, as dozens of office workers had begun crowding around in the streets near the Beatles' headquarters to hear the band play.
At the end of the final performance of "Get Back," Lennon uttered the immortal line, "I'd like to thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition." It was the last time that the Beatles would ever perform in public.
Most of the Beatles' "Rooftop Concert" had been widely bootlegged over the years. The Beatles themselves have also issued a lot of the rooftop concert over various releases. 1970's Let It Be album featured edited live performances of "Dig A Pony," "I've Got A Feeling," and "One After 909." The group's final performance of "Get Back" was included on 1996's The Beatles Anthology 3 album, and the 2003 Let It Be. . . Naked collection included new composite takes from different versions of "Don't Let Me Down," and "I've Got A Feeling." For the past 20 years, in one form or another, at least one version of all the songs from the group's final performance was va been officially released.
The version of "Get Back" that closes the Let It Be album, which was long thought to be a live take, is actually a cheat -- Lennon and McCartney's pre and post-song comments were tagged by producer Phil Spector onto an abbreviated version of the studio-recorded single version.
In 1970, after Mick Jagger's barbs about the Beatles' supposed inadequacies as a live band, John Lennon set the record straight, telling Rolling Stone: "Our best work was never recorded, y'know? We were performers -- in spite off what Mick (Jagger) says about us -- in Liverpool, Hamburg, and around the dance halls, y'know? And what we generated was fantastic, when we played straight rock. And there was nobody to touch us in Britain, y'know?"
Paul McCartney admitted that the footage of the Beatles performing together underlines the core strength of "John, Paul, George, and Ringo": "The Beatles were the best. And, y'know, the thing about the Beatles is (they're) a very good little rock band. It really was a little rock band. Four guys, who when we played something -- we locked in. And because we worked so much in Liverpool, then in Hamburg, and then in England, and America -- we could read each other. So, yeah, I think we were the best (laughs)."
The Beatles' complete rooftop performance was featured as part of the winning Peter Jackson-directed The Beatles: Get Back documentary -- with the full audio from the legendary final performance released digitally as The Beatles: Get Back - Rooftop Concert.
Coming on September 12th is Bernie Taupin's long-awaited memoir, Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, And Me. The book by Elton John's longtime collaborator promises a non-holds barred look at his life writing the lyrics to Elton's biggest hits and the life-changing trip he stumbled upon as the pair became, arguably, the most popular and successful songwriting team of the 1970's.
Rolling Stone ran an excerpt from the book's official announcement, which states: "Readers visit Los Angeles with Bernie and Elton on the cusp of global fame. We spend time in Australia at an infamous rock n' roll hotel in an endless blizzard of drugs and spend late-night hours with John Lennon, Bob Marley, and Frank Sinatra."
It goes on to say, "Beyond the world of popular music, we witness memorable encounters with writers like Graham Greene, painters like Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, and scores of notable misfits, miscreants, eccentrics, and geniuses, known and unknown. And of course, even if they're not famous in their own right, they are stars on the page, and we discover how they inspired the indelible lyrics to songs such as 'Tiny Dancer,' 'Candle In The Wind,' 'Bennie And The Jets,' and so many more.
Bernie Taupin in a statement:
It was never my intention to write a traditional A-to-Z autobiography. I began a few years back composing essays and observations on my life that ultimately gained momentum and started to look like a book. . . It's contemplative, self-assessing, and attempts to stay off the beaten path in not regurgitating what's already been written. Nonlinear, it's an exploratory trip bouncing back and forth along the decades.
Bernie Taupin told us that although his and Elton John's songs have become pop standards over the years, that shouldn't take away from the quality of the work: "First and foremost, we are good songwriters. And there's nothing wrong with writing a great song -- providing it retains elements of passion, and whatever. As long as it's not just a surface thing. And I think these songs are very commercial and there's nothing wrong with being commercial, yet they are at the same time very passionate."
Elton John told us that his songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin has given him great strength and proved to be one of the strongest relationships in his life: "It's been a remarkable partnership in the fact that we've never broken up -- although it was rumored that we did break up -- we didn't, we just had a break from each other and wrote with other people. Y'know, you can't suffocate each other. And the fact that we're still writing, and loving writing with each other -- we root for each other. And too often in this business, people get jealous, y'know, people break up a great thing over the most stupid thing. And he's been my brother without the music, he's been my brother with the music. He became the 'Brown Dirt Cowboy,' I became 'Captain Fantastic'-- we lived out. . . y'know, that album was very prophetic, that's what we became"
Foo Fighters are taking the place of Pantera at two German festivals, according to Ultimate-Guitar.com. Due to some of frontman Phil Anselmo's "past controversies" regarding his stance on race and culture, the Foos will step in on June 2nd at Nürburgring's Rock Am Ring and on June 4th at Nürnberg's Rock Im Park.
Longtime Foo Fighters bassist Nate Mendel told us a while back what he thinks has been a key to the Foos' longevity: "Well, one of the things, I think, that's made the band work so well is how we kind of structured it in the beginning and the opportunity we had, because Dave had been in Nirvana, to do things the way we wanted to do it. We didn't have the pressure that a lot of bands do of having to write the hit song. I mean, thankfully Dave's a good songwriter and able to write catchy songs, but we don't have that pressure where you have somebody breathing over your shoulder, and I think that really is something that destroys a lot of bands."
There has been no word as to who'll be filling the drum slot for the Foos following Taylor Hawkins' death last year.
UPDATED: Foo Fighters tour dates (subject to change):
May 26 - Boston, MA - Boston Calling Music Festival
May 28 - Columbus, OH - Sonic Temple Arts & Music Festival
June 18 - Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival
June 2 - Nürburgring, Germany - Rock Am Ring
June 4 - Nürburg, Germany - Rock Im Park
September 9 - Sao Paulo, Brazil - The Town
On Thursday (1-26) Taylor Swift posted the words "Meet me at midnight," encouraging fans to stay up late to be the first to watch her new video for "Lavender Haze."
Adding to the excitement of the video, this is one of the few songs she's ever explicitly confirmed is about her longtime boyfriend, Joe Alwyn.
About the song title, she said, "I happened upon the phrase Lavender Haze when I was watching Mad Men, and I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool." She explained that it was a common phrase used in the '50s where "they would just describe being in love, like, you were in the lavender haze."
This marks the third video released from her tenth studio album, Midnights.
TL;DR:
Niall Horan of One Direction has announced that he'll release a new single next month that he co-wrote, called "Heaven." This will be his first new solo material in almost three years.
Horan teased "Heaven" on TikTok, where he has amassed over 100 million views since last October. In the days leading up to the official announcement, fans around the globe began receiving boxes containing a candle, lyrics from the chorus, and the QR code that led to Horan's website.
The official release date is February 17, just weeks before he becomes the new coach on NBC's The Voice.
TL;DR:
Ozzy Osbourne, Joan Jett, and blues guitarist Gary Clark, Jr. all appear in a Super Bowl commercial for the software company, Workday. A clip from the spot has gone viral, featuring Ozzy in an office scenario compete with bland, short sleeve dress shirt and tie asking, which co-worker wants a piercing.
Variety reported, "Workday has a clever concept that it hopes will make people more aware of the software it licenses to corporations that helps manage finances and human resources."
According to the report, Fox, which airs the big game, is asking for between $6 to $7 million for each of the Super Bowl commercials.
Over the years, Ozzy has appeared in commercial for Pepsi and Best Buy.
The 1975 and Lewis Capaldi played a joke on the band's audience when Capaldi made a surprise appearance at this week's show. Fans first saw him on the jumbo screen as he came through the backstage door. They started screaming when the name Harry Styles popped up on screen and got even louder when they saw it was actually Capaldi. He once again caught the audience off-guard by performing a cover of Taylor Swift's "Love Story."
Coldplay has been announced as musical guest for the February 4th episode of Saturday Night Live. Look for promos to run throughout the week, as this will mark the band's seventh appearance. The show will be hosted by Pedro Pascal who stars in The Last of Us on HBO.
Doja Cat made an appearance arriving at the Jean Paul Gaultier show during Haute Couture Fashion Week in Paris this week. She was also in the front row as Valentino unveiled its Haute Couture collection. Doja was seated alongside other stars such as Anne Hathaway, Sam Smith, and Dove Cameron.
Fall Out Boy debuted two new singles to a small audience in their hometown of Chicago this week. After playing stadiums around the world, they chose the stage at the legendary Metro, with a capacity of just over 1,000, to give their first live public debut of "Love From the Other Side" and, "Heartbreak Feels So Good."
They performed as a trio in the absence of guitarist Joe Trohman, who last week announced that he was taking a mental health break. Patrick Stump pulled double-duty on lead vocals and electric guitar. To help fill in the gap, longtime guitar tech Ben Young, played six-string near the stage wings on a few songs.
Both songs they debuted are from their upcoming eighth studio album, So Much (For) Stardust , to be released on March 24.
TL;DR:
The B-52's have announced spring and summer Las Vegas residencies at the Venetian Resort. The group, which features co-founders Kate Pierson, Fred Schneider, and Cindy Wilson, are set to play a five-night stand in May with another taking place at the end of August and beginning of September.
The group is currently working with director Craig Johnson on the definitive documentary of their career, which is expected to finally see release this year.
We asked singer Kate Pierson how the B-52's have been able to keep the show on the road so smoothly after all these years: "We learned to accept each other with all our, y'know, wonderful things, and flaws, and attributes (laughs). Y'know, we really accept each other; we're still like a family. We still make each other laugh -- that's the key thing. Of course I'm not saying there aren't ups and downs, but I think it's still amazing that we can still make each other laugh, we still hang out after the show. Y'know, we really have fun together."
JUST ANNOUNCED: The B-52's tour dates (subject to change):
May 5, 6, 19, 12, 13 - Las Vegas - The Venetian Resort
August 25, 26, 30 - Las Vegas - The Venetian Resort
September 1, 2 - Las Vegas - The Venetian Resort
It was 53 years ago today (January 27th, 1970) that John Lennon recorded "Instant Karma." Lennon had already recorded several experimental albums and two singles under the name the Plastic Ono Band. "Instant Karma," however, was released under the name John Ono Lennon, the name he'd created when he legally changed his middle name from Winston to Ono the previous April. Although the public didn't know it, Lennon had quit the Beatles in September 1969, which is reportedly why he had the single's sleeve featured his name in bold, black letters, to announce himself to the world as a solo artist.
Lennon wrote the song in a single afternoon, recorded it within a week, and originally hoped to release it the following week. At the time, Lennon told Britain's music paper Melody Maker that he wanted to be able to release music as easily as issuing newspapers. Lennon talked about what the song meant, explaining, "Whenever you do something, there's a reaction to it. Even if you cough, you cough germs out all over the place. If you cough love out, out goes love. That's what 'Instant Karma' is."
The song was recorded between 7:00 p.m. on January 27th and 4:00 a.m. the following morning at London's Abbey Road Studios. At the suggestion of George Harrison, legendary "Wall Of Sound" creator Phil Spector produced the song. Harrison also played guitar and piano on the session. There's still some disagreement as to who actually performed on the backing track, with several reports listing Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, and Badfinger's Pete Ham overdubbing parts as well. Future Yes drummer Alan White -- who had made his live debut with Lennon the prior September in Toronto -- handled the drums. At the end of the session, the Beatles' road manager Mal Evans rounded up the patrons of Hatchett's, a nearby nightclub, to help supply backing vocals. Longtime "Fab Four" confidante and solo Beatles sideman, Klaus Voormann handled bass duties.
The late-Alan White, who was only 20-years-old at the time of the session, shed light on his iconic drum part on "Instant Karma": "I played most of the shuffle rhythm with my right hand on a 16-inch tom to my right -- that was covered by a towel that was taped on (laughs). And, so, I was hearing (in my headphones) pretty much what you hear (on the record). And. . . obviously, when they mixed it, they added more echo to some of those drum breaks and stuff like that."
Klaus Voormann recalled that John Lennon never made apologies for his emotions: "John writes always about himself and it doesn't mean that he means that the rest of his life -- like talking about Paul in that song -- he felt like this at this particular moment. He uses the words, it's so strong, and it's always something he did himself. Something out of himself. He's very egotistical, you could say. Well, why not?"
"Instant Karma" was released to radio on February 22nd, several weeks ahead of the Beatles' "Let It Be" single. The two songs battled each other all the way up the Billboard Hot 100.
On April 10th, 1970, Paul McCartney issued a press release announcing his split from the Beatles, effectively ending the group. The next day "Instant Karma" peaked at Number Three behind the Jackson Five's "ABC," which held the Number Two spot while the Beatles were on top with "Let It Be."
Like "Let It Be," "Instant Karma" will forever be tied into the Beatles' breakup, with the single peaking at Number Three the week the group's split was announced. Lennon explained that the Beatles broke up simply because they had grown stale: "We didn't breakup because we weren't friends, we just broke up out of sheer boredom, y'know? And boredom creates tension. It was not going anywhere. We'd stopped touring, and we just said 'time to make an album.' Y'know, the same four of us, we'd be looking at each other and playing the same licks. We were very good friends and we'd known each other since we were 15, y'know? And we got over all the actual fighting."
Although 'Instant Karma' was originally only a single-only release, it has turned up on a number of Lennon compilations over the years, including Shaved Fish, Lennon Legend, Working Class Hero: The Definitive Lennon, Power To The People: The Hits -- and most recently in remixed form on the Sean Lennon-produced 2020 Working Class Hero collection. An early-version -- featuring George Harrison supplying key arrangement suggestions -- was released in 2021 on the super deluxe version 50th anniversary edition of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.
John Lennon's 1972 live version of "Instant Karma" can be found on the posthumously released collection Live In New York City.
It was 39 years ago today (January 27th, 1984) that John Lennon's first original posthumous album, Milk And Honey, was released. Lennon's tracks were culled from the summer 1980 sessions recorded at New York's Hit Factory during the same time as that year's Double Fantasy collection. The unfinished, live-in-studio takes were never intended for release in such primitive form, but were held back for a 1981 release once it was decided that Double Fantasy would feature half original songs from Yoko Ono. Milk And Honey featured an alternate color shot from the same photo session as 1980's Double Fantasy.
Unlike Double Fantasy, which features songs all recorded in 1980, several of Yoko's tracks were then-recent songs recorded in Manhattan and San Francisco. Milk And Honey, was the only musical Lennon album released on the Polydor label. The previous December, Ono and Polydor released the spoken word collection, Heart Play - Unfinished Dialogue. The album featured edited excerpts from David Scheff's 1980 interview with the Lennon's for Playboy.
Following both Lennon's death and the 1981 Album of The Year Grammy Award for Double Fantasy, the chart placings for Milk And Honey were disappointing -- with the album failing to crack the Top 10 in the U.S., stalling at Number 11 and peaking at Number Three in the U.K. To date the album has only been certified Gold for sale of 500,000 units.
Despite co-producing Milk All Honey, Jack Douglas was not credited for his work, and sued Yoko Ono for his rightful compensation -- along with back royalties for Double Fantasy. In his 2019 memoir, titled Me, Elton John revealed that Yoko had adamantly urged him to complete what he felt were the unfinished Milk And Honey songs -- which Elton declined to do.
The highlight of the set was the album's lead single, "Nobody Told Me." The tune, which had begun life back in 1976 under the title "Everybody's Talkin', Nobody's Talkin'" was originally intended for Lennon's unrealized Between The Lines album, which was sidelined upon the former-Beatle devoting his time to raising his newborn son Sean.
Under the title "Nobody Told Me," Lennon ran through the song during the summer 1980 Double Fantasy sessions at Manhattan's Hit Factory, and was among the tunes earmarked for Ringo Starr's upcoming 1981 solo album, which would feature contributions and productions from Paul McCartney and George Harrison. After Lennon's murder, Ringo ultimately felt it would be in poor taste to record either of Lennon's tracks.
"Nobody Told Me," which marked the fourth straight Lennon Top 10 from the Hit Factory sessions, was Lennon's final hit. The album's subsequent singles included the under-performing "Borrowed Time" -- which didn't even chart -- and "I'm Stepping Out," which limped to Number 55.
In 1980 John Lennon spoke about how he picked certain songs for Double Fantasy, while others were earmarked for its followup: "We've done 22 of songs -- basic tracks. So, then it was like having a lot of movie film; the way the film two movies? And it was a matter of which scene started where, and which scene works with the next. . . There's been a lot of shuffling around, as you can imagine."
In early-1981 Ringo Starr chatted with Barbara Walters and recalled the last time he saw John Lennon during a fall 1980 visit to Manhattan. At the time, Lennon gifted Ringo two demos for his upcoming sessions -- "Nobody Told Me" and the sadly ironic "Life Begins At 40 -- neither of which, Ringo ever recorded: "I saw him on the 15th of Novem. . . I was staying at the Plaza, we went over to New York for a little while. And I hadn't seen him in a little while, because, we see each other wherever we are, and he came over with Yoko for an hour. And we had such a great time, 'cause they stayed five hours. And it didn't matter it was a year between we hadn't seen each other; it was always fine when we did. But it was particularly great time that I had, anyway."
Milk And Honey featured Lennon's 1980 home demo of "Grow Old With Me. At the time of its original 1984 release, Yoko described Lennon's plans for the track as being, "(a) standard, the kind that they would play in church every time a couple gets married, with horns and other arrangements."
"Grow Old With Me" was inspired by a poem penned by Robert Browning, titled "Rabbi ben Ezra," as well as a Yoko Ono song, "Let Me Count The Ways," which in itself was inspired by a poem by Browning's wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Over the years, "Grow Old With Me" has been covered by several artists, most notably Mary Chapin-Carpenter and Glen Campbell, respectively.
Back in 1994, Yoko Ono gave the surviving Beatles one of Lennon's demos of the song as a possible choice for their Anthology reunion tracks, but the group passed on it at the time. Four years later, the late-George Martin provided a new string section over Lennon's original demo, which went on to close 1998's John Lennon Anthology box set.
2019 saw the release of Ringo Starr's 20th solo studio album, titled What's My Name, which featured a version of him and Paul McCartney teaming up on "Grow Old With Me." The new version of "Grow Old With Me," which was produced by Ringo, features Paul McCartney on bass and backing vocals, with Lennon's Double Fantasy producer, Jack Douglas, having supplied the orchestration for the track.
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