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Taylor Swift makes it a month on top in Australia with The Tortured Poets Department (Universal), while Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help” featuring Morgan Wallen roars to No. 1 on the national singles chart.
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Swift’s record-shattering Tortured Poets completes a fourth week at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart, published Friday, May 17, holding off Troy Cassar-Daley’s fast-starting Between The Fires (Sony).
Cassar-Daley, a homegrown country legend, recorded the new album at his old family home in Halfway Creek, northern New South Wales, where his beloved mom died. Between The Fires is Cassar-Daley’s 14th studio album, and his most personal to date. With its debut at No. 2, Fires becomes Cassar-Daley’s equal highest-charter with 2013’s The Great Country Songbook, his collaborative recording with Adam Harvey. Until now, his highest charting solo album was The World Today, which peaked at No. 3 in 2021, one of his six top 10 LPs. Across a 30-year career, Cassar-Daley has collected five ARIAs and 40 Golden Guitar awards.
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Following the announcement of her Australian arena tour later this year, Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album Guts (Geffen/Universal) rebounds 10-3, and her debut Sour (Interscope/Universal) lifts 11-4. Both albums have led the ARIA Chart. The domestic leg of Rodrigo’s GUTS World Tour (produced by Live Nation) expands to eight shows, spread across Sydney and Melbourne.
Angus & Julia Stone nab a top 5 debut with Cape Forestier (Sony), new at No. 5. All five of the sibling act’s studio albums have reached the top 10, including leaders with 2010’s Down The Way and 2014’s Angus & Julia Stone.
Meanwhile, U.S. rock veterans King of Leon land at No. 20 with Can We Please Have Fun (Interscope/Universal), their ninth studio album. All told, six KoL LPs have cracked Australia’s top 10, four of them hitting No. 1: Only By The Night (in 2008), Come Around Sundown (2010), Mechnical Bull (2013) and When You See Yourself (2021). Can We Please Have Fun led the U.K.’s midweek chart.
Over on the ARIA Singles Chart, Malone’s country-tinged “I Had Some Help” (via Universal) featuring Wallen opens at the penthouse. Posty recently enjoyed a stint at No. 1 with “Fortnight,” his duet with Taylor Swift, while Morgan logged eight weeks at No. 1 last year with “Last Night,” lifted from his ARIA Chart-topping LP One Thing at a Time.
Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” (CONC) and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (EMP) are unchanged at No. 2 and 3, respectively.
Finally, Kendrick Lamar’s controversial diss track “Not Like Us” (Interscope/Universal) is on fire, improving 5-9. According to ARIA, it’s Kdot’s his first top five appearance since “Die Hard” went to No. 5 in 2022.
Mother’s day has been and gone. Not for Wiz Khalifa. Every day is like mother’s day for the hip-hop artist, who accompanies his mom literally everywhere. Including strip joints.
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When he taped an interview for The Jennifer Hudson Show, Khalifa gave viewers more than they bargained for when he discussed his friendship with mom, Peachie.
“Me and my mom do everything together. We go to strip clubs together. We went to Mexico. We went to Coachella together,” he tells the show’s host, Jennifer Hudson. “We do everything.“
With that cat out the bag, the “See You Again” rapper shared more Khalifa family matters, from snaps of his son’s “west coast gangsta” themed birthday party, tales of his early days making music with his dad and uncle, and his formative years spent abroad, including Germany and the U.K., thanks to his folks serving in the military.
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On the music front, Khalifa is preparing the release of Kush & Orange Juice 2, a sequel to his “cult classic” mixtape from 2010. “I wanted to revisit that, just put some new flavor on it and get the fans something to have fun to,” he explains. “That’s what I’m known for, having a great time. So that same vibe I have in the studio I like to bring that outside.”
That studio vibe, he explains, is created with lighting up candles, incense and other items he chose not to go into.
Khalifa has landed 35 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including six top 10s and a pair of leaders, 2010’s “Black And Yellow,” and Furious 7 soundtrack from 2015 “See You Again,” featuring Charlie Puth, which led the chart for a whopping 12 weeks. The 36-year-old dad also boasts five appearances on the Billboard 200, including a No. 1 with 2014’s Blacc Hollywood. A release date for Kush & Orange Juice 2 has yet to be announced.
The Grammy Award-winning artist’s full interview airs Friday, May 17 on The Jennifer Hudson Show, produced by Warner Bros. Unscripted Television and Telepictures. Watch snippets below.
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They’re all grown up, but New Kids on the Block are still kids.
The iconic Boston boyband returns with Still Kids, their first studio album in more than a decade and first through BMG.
Spanning 14 tracks, the LP was led by the mid-tempo single “Kids,” which was co-written and co-produced by David Stewart (BTS, Jack Harlow) and Luke Batt (Katie Melua) and is “full of pop anthems, dance tracks, love songs and grooves that will become fast favorites for the Blockheads,” reads an earlier statement.
Formed in 1984, NKOTB features brothers Jonathan and Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, and Danny Wood.
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NKOTB racked up the hits through the late 1980s and early 1990s, with career album sales topping 80 million, according to BMG. The pop act landed 13 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including nine top 10 appearances and a hattrick of No. 1s: 1989’s “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever),” 1989’s “Hangin’ Tough” and 1990’s “Step By Step.”
Still Kids is the followup to reunion album 2013’s 10, which peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200, one of the group’s six top 10 appearances on the tally, a list that includes two leaders, 1988 sophomore effort Hangin’ Tough and 1990’s Step By Step.
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The quintet got Blockheads in a tizzy last year with the 15th anniversary of their reunion album, The Block, by way of a special edition The Block Revisited, including remixes and guest collaborations.
As we now know, that just a teaser for a full reactivation across touring and recordings, orchestrated through a new label deal.
“We promise 2024 is going to be a big year for NKOTB and our blockheads,” the pop outfit announced in February, following their signing to BMG. “New label, big tour, we are just getting started.”
That trek, NKOTB’s Magic Summer 2024 tour, gets underway next month.
Stream Still Kids in full below.
Slash has the blues these days. And he’s happy about it.
Orgy of the Damned, the Guns N’ Roses guitarist’s new solo album (out Friday, May 17 on Gibson Records), is a set comprised mostly of blues covers and filled with A-list guests — Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Demi Lovato, Chris Stapleton, Gary Clark, Jr., Iggy Pop, the Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson and AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, to name a few.
The 12-track set takes the guitarist back to his youthful roots, touching on standards by Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf and others and also branching out into the psychedelic blues of Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher” and Motown favorites such as the Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” and Stevie Wonder’s “Living For the City.”
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“I’m a blues guy,” Slash tells Billboard via Zoom from his home base in Los Angeles. “That’s been the underpinning of my style ever since I picked up a guitar. But everybody knows me as a hard rock guy” — primarily from what he calls “more serous career choices” such as GNR, Velvet Revolver, Slash’s Snakepit and Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators. “So I’m not gonna about-face and go, ‘Oh, I’m a blues guy now and this is my serious blues record.’
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“But I’ve always thought, ‘God, it would be cool to do a record like this,’ sort of a just-for-fun kind of f***-around thing. But I never really had time to do something like that.”
During the past couple of years, however, Slash says he’s “been listening to a lot of old blues record and blues guitar playing and I still wanted to do that kind of album. It’s just something fun that I really needed to get off my chest, and I wanted to have a good time with it.”
Slash’s longtime manager Jeff Varner of Revelation Management adds that timing proved to be fortuitous for Orgy of the Damned as well as for the 29-date S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Blues Festival tour; Slash embarks July 5 in Bonner, Montana. “Prior to last year we were mapping out the next 24 months and this idea came up again,” Varner recalls. “He said, ‘I’m thinking about doing a blues record,’ and I said, ‘Funny, I’ve been thinking about doing that, making a tour property around it.’ It was a serendipitous moment of, ‘OK…’ Obviously he leads the charge, but we felt like there’s a real opportunity here and now’s a good time to do it.”
For the album, Slash recruited onetime GNR touring keyboardist Teddy Andreadis and bassist Johnny Griparic, who he played with in an ad hoc band called Slash’s Blues Ball during the late ’90s in Los Angeles. They added Michael Jerome on drums and started working on material with the idea of having fun at the top of the agenda.
“I never wanted it to be taken too seriously and have it be this serious blues record like people are putting out these days,” explains Slash, whose sole original on Orgy of the Damned is the closing instrumental “Metal Chestnut.” “Most good musicians have a certain amount of integrity, so you take it seriously in that context but at the same time it was really just fun. I think that’s one of the reasons why the idea of having different singers was born, so as to keep it from being a ‘serious’ blues record.”
It’s not the first time Slash has taken the all-star approach, of course; his self-titled 2010 effort also featured a diverse roster of guest vocalists (Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Grohl and the Cult’s Ian Asbury to Fergie and Maroon 5’s Adam Levin). It also included Myles Kennedy and provided the impetus for the Conspirators band, which has released four studio albums. For Orgy of the Damned, Slash says he “picked the song first and just thought about who would sound good doing that song. The key thing for any of them was if the person I thought of related to the song and had any kind of history with it — if it meant something to them. That was the criteria for actually going forth and recording it.
“Fortunately for pretty much everybody on the record, the song they’re on really had some deep meaning to them or they really loved it or it had an influence on them.”
Nowhere was that more true than on the acoustic rendering of Hopkin’s “Awful Dream” with Pop, who had also appeared on a track for the Slash album. “I read that Iggy had always wanted to do a blues record or project or whatever and I gave him a call,” Slash remembers. “I talked to him and he said that he’s never had the opportunity to do a blues thing. So I asked him, ‘If you were gonna do a blues song, which song would you do?’ and without missing a beat he said ‘Awful Dream,’ and there was something in the way he said it that sounded like it was really special to him.
“We set up an appointment at the studio for the following week and he came down and we just sat on a couple of stools, facing each other, and played it a couple time straight through and I said, ‘That’s good enough.’ And he was great, man. It was really special to do it with him ’cause it felt like it was something he’d been wanting to do but never had a chance to do it. So that really opened it up to him.”
That’s just one of many magical music moments on Orgy of the Damned. Slash goes toe-to-toe with Clark Jr. on Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” (closer to Cream’s reimagination than the original “Crossroad Blues”) and with Gibbons on Dixon’s “Hoochie Coochie Man.” AC/DC’s Johnson was Slash’s first choice for Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor,” and Tyler on harmonica was a bonus. “We were talking one day and I told him what we were doing and he offered to play harmonica on it — and came down that same day. It was a good hang.” Lovato’s appearance on “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” may surprise some, but not in the wake of the rock direction of her own recent music.
“People don’t think of her in that capacity, but she’s absolutely amazing on it…and it’s cool to see her in a little bit of a different light,” manager Varner notes.
“All the songs are songs I was influenced by from when I was really little, up until recently,” says Slash, who used the album to explore different aspects of his playing technique. “In the various bands I’ve been involved in there’s a lot of improvising and stuff that goes on but they’re bands with very defined songs and arrangements and stuff,” he explains. “I go out and jam a lot with different club bands that will let me sit in all over the country, if not all over the world, just ’cause I happen to be in the neighborhood, and you get to play with some really good players that have a nice, greasy feel. There’s something about that that you don’t get to do in the bands.
“Even in doing the record, it was more laid back and you play from the heart and you don’t have the pressure of feeling like you’re trying to make sure you’re playing everything properly. It’s a lot looser and a lot more improv and laid back.”
The S.E.R.P.E.N.T. tour (Solidarity, Engagement, Restore, Peace, Equality N’ Tolerance) was a logical outgrowth of Orgy of the Damned, meanwhile. The trek will include a rotating cast of guests including the Warren Haynes Band, Samantha fish, Eric Gales, Keb’ Mo’, Robert Randolph, ZZ Ward, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Larkin Poe and Jackie Venson, and Slash predicts that “there’s gonna be any number of different jams going on” during the dates.
Slash adds that he’s open to making more blues albums in the same manner as Orgy of the Damned, while Varner predicts that the S.E.R.P.E.N.T. tour could become a recurring theme in the future. “I think from our standpoint this is a fun project that’s pretty flexible and nimble,” he says. “I can definitely see doing more of the S.E.R.P.E.N.T. festival either here or in Europe, different versions of it. Our goal here is to create something that can be evergreen, something he can have as an additional outlet — not that he needs any more things on his plate.”
That’s a juggle Slash says he’s happy to maintain.
“It’s just fun for me,” he says. “As a player that’s really what I enjoy doing. So having all these different sorts of opportunities to be able to play and record and to go out on the road, I really relish it. Just having this different variety of things to do is healthy. It’s very motivating for me, inspiring.”
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It’s Thursday, May 16th, and the House of Representatives have passed the TICKET Act. This bill will require ticket sellers (including sellers on the secondary market) to clearly and prominently disclose at the beginning of the transaction, and prior to the selection of a ticket, the total ticket price for the event and an itemized […]
Kendrick Lamar enters the top 10 of the TikTok Billboard Top 50, but is Lay Bankz going to keep her No. 1 spot for a fourth week? Keep watching to learn more! Tetris Kelly:We’ve got a new leader and two new faces climbing into the top 10. Tommy Richman makes his way to No. 1 […]
Australians are getting more of Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS.
The U.S. pop-rock superstar adds four more shows to the GUTS swing, doubling her original itinerary for Australia.
Produced by Live Nation, the GUTS World Tour Australian dates now includes concerts at Melbourne’s 15,000-capacity Rod Laver Arena on Oct. 13 and 14, and Sydney’s 22,000-capacity Qudos Bank Arena on Oct. 21 and 22. New Zealand alt-pop artist Benee is support on the Australia shows.
The “drivers license” singer last week announced her first-ever run of Asia and Australia, adding nine regional dates to her global jaunt, taking in Bangkok, Thailand; Seoul, South Korea; Hong Kong; Tokyo, Japan; Singapore; and Australia’s two biggest cities, Melbourne and Sydney.
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Rodrigo had Australia on her schedule last September for what was meant to be her first ever promotional trip, though the visit was subsequently canceled.
In the end, it didn’t matter.
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Rodrigo’s sophomore album, GUTS, blasted to No. 1 on the ARIA Chart, and logged two weeks at the summit. All 12 tracks from it appeared in the top 50 on the ARIA Singles Chart, including “Vampire,” which logged a week at No. 1, and “Bad Idea Right?,” which peaked at No. 3.
Rodrigo’s debut 2021 LP SOUR spent eight non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 in Australia, and launched the chart-toppers “Drivers Licence” and “Good 4 U.”
The superstar singer is currently on the road in the U.K. and Europe, following her initial run of shows in North America, which featured stops in Palm Springs, Calif., New York City, Toronto and more cities. Though aged just 21, Rodrigo handled a potentially embarrassing wardrobe fail like a seasoned pro during her show Tuesday (May 14) at London’s O2 Arena.
Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS World Tour – Australia Dates:Oct. 9 – Melbourne – Rod Laver ArenaOct. 10 – Melbourne – Rod Laver ArenaOct. 13 – Melbourne – Rod Laver Arena *Oct. 14 – Melbourne – Rod Laver Arena *Oct. 17 – Sydney – Qudos Bank ArenaOct. 18 – Sydney – Qudos Bank ArenaOct. 21 – Sydney – Qudos Bank Arena *Oct. 22 – Sydney – Qudos Bank Arena *
Willie Nelson is cooking with a new collection of pot-infused recipes. The country superstar and legendary stoner joins forces with his wife Annie Nelson for Cannabis Cookbook: Mouthwatering Recipes and the High-Flying Stories Behind Them, due out Nov. 12 through a collaboration with Gallery Books.
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“Over a lifetime of study,” he remarks in the cookbook, “I learned that pot is more than pleasure. Its positive properties are limitless. It’s a blessing and a blast. It’s good fuel.”The Nelsons co-authored the publication with David Ritz, Mia Tangredi, and chef Andrea Drummer. Those mouthwatering recipes are said to be drawn from meals enjoyed on tour, at their ranch, at home, and in their favorite cities, and are accompanied by Willie’s food-related tales.
It’s a feast for the eyes (and the brain), with a how-to on Buffalo wings, chocolate cake, fried chicken and more, all with that special touch of herb.Also, reps say, a chapter is dedicated to cannabis-infused base ingredients, from cannabutter to finishing oil, simple syrups, sugars, salts, and tinctures, and more, making it “a comprehensive guide for both novice and experienced cannabis enthusiasts.”A 12-time Grammy winner, Nelson has collected many lifetime achievement awards, including one from the Recording Academy in 1999, another from the Country Music Association in 2012 (which named the award in his honor), induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, a Kennedy Center Honor in 1998 and the Library of Congress’ Gershwin Prize in 2015, and, in 2021 the Clio Cannabis Lifetime Achievement Award.Long before the green stuff gained mainstream acceptance, Nelson made the case that its dangers were greatly exaggerated and its benefits were scarcely mentioned. He turned his passion for the stuff into a business, Willie’s Reserve. “The cannabis culture is a way of life for him,” reads the blurb on the official site. “And he has always operated under a simple philosophy: my stash is your stash.”
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The 90-year-old is the subject of the five-part documentary Willie Nelson & Family, which debuted last December on Paramount+ after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
Clock is out of time on The Masked Singer, as the fancy timepiece was unmasked and the Grammy Award-winning artist behind it was ousted Wednesday night (May 15).
With her elimination, Clock completes a podium finish for this 11th season of Fox’s whacky singing contest, ending up in third place behind Gumball and Goldfish in this semi-final.
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The episode opened this week with each of the three remaining celebrities in a battle royal to “Higher Love” by Kygo featuring the vocals of the late Whitney Houston (“Higher Love” was originally recorded by Steve Winwood). Clock went on to perform “Dancing In The Street” by Martha and The Vandellas for a spot in the finale, Goldfish hit “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette.
When the votes were counted, time was up for Clock. Behind the mask was Thelma Houston, the“Don’t Leave Me This Way” singer.
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Panelist Rita Ora guessed right.
Houston admitted she came on the show to introduce herself to a new generation. “I would like to just say I had a wonderful time,” she told the audience following the big reveal. “I do thank my family for being my support system for all these years. And I’m amazed at the reception I got through these weeks, it’s been wonderful.”
The Motown legend also confirmed a rumor that, during the night of the Grammys, for which she was nominated, Houston stayed home to clean. It was the wrong job on the wrong night; she won for best female R&B vocal performance, back in 1978.
Gumball and Goldfish progress to the final of The Masked Singer.
Houston as Clock follows the exit of Chrissy Metz (as Poodle Moth), Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken (as The Beets), Jenifer Lewis (Miss Cleocatra), Kevin Hart (Book); restauranteur Joe Bastianich (Spaghetti & Meatballs); TV personalities Savannah Chrisley (Afghan Hound), Billy Bush (Sir Lion) and Colton Underwood (Lovebird); NFL Hall of Famer DeMarcus Ware (Koala); singer Sisqó (Lizard) and others.
According to producers, constants for the current season boast a combined 22 Grammy nominations, 11 platinum albums, 33 Teen Choice nominations, 108 million records sold, 326 film appearances and 1.7 billion streams accumulated on Spotify.
Watch Clock’s performances and unmasking below.
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It’s Wednesday, May 15, and Feid & Yandel got shut down in Miami for throwing an impromptu concert on their yacht. Cardi B says she will not be releasing a new album this year, Megan Thee Stallion is kicking off her tour and Saweetie posted her freestyling in the car. Sam Hunt shares how he […]