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Sharon Osbourne has revealed that she removed a band from the lineup of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne’s highly anticipated Back to the Beginning concert, set to take place on July 5 at Villa Park in Birmingham, England.
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In a new interview with Metal Hammer, Osbourne explained that the removal followed a contentious dispute with the band’s manager, leading her to feel “the worst way I’ve felt in years.”
“I had a huge, huge to-do with a manager over this celebration for Ozzy and Sabbath,” Osbourne explained. “And it was probably the worst way I’ve felt in years. And I don’t care what this person says about me, thinks about it, because he doesn’t know me. And he’s now going around making up bulls— lies because I threw his band off the bill.”
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While speculation initially arose that the band in question was Iron Maiden after she clashed with Bruce Dickinson during the 2005 edition of Ozzfest, Osbourne swiftly dismissed this.
“Oh god, no. Ozzy only has respect for the guys in Maiden,” she said, clarifying that Ozzy was unaware of Dickinson’s behavior until after the incident. “I never told him, until the night that it happened when it was the last show, and he just looked at me and goes, ‘You’re terrible.’”
Speculation also briefly pointed toward Tool due to their name initially missing from promotional materials for the event’s global livestream. However, it was later confirmed that the omission was merely a design oversight, and Tool is still set to perform.
Osbourne emphasized her indifference to industry criticism, noting, “I don’t care what people say. Because do you know what? I don’t love them. I care about people who love me, what they say about me. You can’t care what an industry says, because you don’t love them, so how can it hurt you? It doesn’t.”
The Back to the Beginning concert is set to be an iconic moment in rock history, featuring the final live performances from both Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne.
In May, Ozzy spoke to Billy Morrison on their SiriusXM “Ozzy Speaks” show to break down what he’s doing to gear up for the July 5 Back to the Beginning show in his hometown.
“I haven’t done any physical work for the last seven, six and a half, seven years,” Ozzy said, promising that “by hook or by crook, I’m gonna make it [to the stage at Villa Park],” where Black Sabbath’s final gig will find them joined by an all-star roster that will also include Metallica, Mastodon, Anthrax, Pantera, Alice in Chains, Gojira, Slayer and a supergroup featuring members of Guns N’ Roses, the Smashing Pumpkins, Limp Bizkit, Judas Priest, Rage Against the Machine and many more.
“I’ve got this trainer guy who helps people get back to normal,” he said of the intense training he’s undergoing following a rough several years that included spinal surgery and a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. “It’s hard going, but he’s convinced that he can pull it off for me. I’m giving it everything I’ve got.”
The best from the Sly Stone-led funk, rock and soul outfit, following its leader’s passing at age 82.
Over two distinct sonic eras, The Doobie Brothers — led by singer-guitarist Tom Johnston and singer-pianist Michael McDonald — have sustained a genre-agnostic, commercially viable career since the early 1970s. That includes nine top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 and 10 top 20 entries on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as hits spanning the rock, adult contemporary, R&B and country charts.
But what truly defines the band is that “it’s a democracy,” according to Karim Karmi, its comanager of a decade alongside Irving Azoff.
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Now, 50 years in, the Doobies are proving just that with Walk This Road, their first album to feature significant contributions from all three principal songwriters (Johnston, McDonald and Pat Simmons). Produced by pop-rock stalwart John Shanks, the project is McDonald’s first appearance on a Doobies album in 20 years and will arrive a week before he, Johnston and Simmons are inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (alongside George Clinton, Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, Ashley Gorley, Mike Love and Tony Macaulay) on June 12. After which, McDonald teases, the Doobies “might even do another” album.
How did working with John Shanks affect your songwriting process for Walk This Road?
Michael McDonald: We found ourselves revisiting old ideas that might have never gotten recorded — in my case, songs that I might have demoed, gosh, 10 years ago, that I would every once in a while run across in my phone. And then some of the stuff was more immediate, where we just sat down with John and came up with a song in a moment.
Tom Johnston: John’s a hell of a guitar player, and he has good ideas on sound. He’s got a place up in the Hollywood Hills overlooking part of the San Fernando Valley and he’s got a lot of toys, so you can try pretty much anything you want to try and that’s liberating.
McDonald: It’s every musician’s fantasy man cave — literally every kind of keyboard, keyboards I never even knew existed.
A sense of social conscience is central to the band’s music, especially on this album’s title track with Mavis Staples. Do you feel a responsibility to address current times in your writing?
Johnston: The civic duty bit that you express when writing, that’s something that you just feel — it’s an organic thing.
McDonald: With “Walk This Road,” I think John had the original idea for the title — of us getting back together, here we are still trudging the same road all these years later. But it immediately took on a bigger meaning, and I think bringing Mavis onto the track cemented that idea because she is an ambassador of the gospel of humanity. The sound of her voice and her intent made it clear what we might be talking about in the bigger sense, which is, we’re all here together. As a band, we hope to appeal to the collective better nature of people.
You have a long track record on the Billboard charts. What does it take to write a hit?
Johnston: When you’re writing a song, you’re not thinking about that; you’re just trying to put into it what you feel at that moment. The only time I ever even thought [about] that was on “Listen to the Music.” You just want to do the best you can.
McDonald: We came up in the middle of the ’60s and the ’70s, when recording artists were starting to exercise a lot more latitude in terms of style and genre, and the Doobies were always a very eclectic band; we were free to do what we wanted or whatever we thought we could be sincere at portraying musically. I always felt fortunate that we came up in a time when there were a lot less limitations set on artists to stay in their lane.
HBO’s Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary highlights that aspect of you and your contemporaries — as well as your habit of turning up in unexpected places, Mike, both in the Doobies and as a solo artist. What’s the most unexpected place or collaborator you’ve found yourself around recently?
McDonald: I wrote a couple songs recently with a kid named Charlie Puth, who’s a really talented musician. And I find that I’m being taken more places than I would ever have gone on my own. I’ve been trying to co-write with people, which I always do with a little bit of mixed feelings. I never really know if what I’m writing is good or not. You start to compare yourself to everything else, and it gets a little scary sometimes. But I do like co-writing because it gets me out of the house and it makes me do something rather than watch another episode of HGTV. (Laughs.)
This story appears in the June 7, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Billboard cover star “Weird Al” Yankovic takes us through a day in his life and shares how his versatility has allowed him to perform on iconic stages like Coachella and beyond. The legendary parody artist opens up about his chart-topping hits on the Billboard Hot 100, teases an exciting Broadway musical in development, discusses how he prepares for tours, his collaboration with Dave Way on his polkas, the creative process behind his parody of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” why he’s stepped back from creating parodies and more.
“Weird Al” Yankovic:
Hey, Billboard, how are you doing? I’m “Weird Al” Yankovic, and you’ll be spending the entire day with me, but first, let’s have lunch at Crossroads Kitchen.
Rebecca Milzoff:
We’re at Crossroads in LA. This is a place you’ve been coming to for a long time, right?
Yeah. I mean, this is my favorite upscale vegetarian restaurant in Los Angeles. And I just remember when Impossible burgers weren’t a thing. There were only three restaurants in all of America that had Impossible burgers, and this was one of them. And I was very, very excited to have an Impossible burger here. And literally, within six months, they’re selling them at White Castle.
Well, it’s funny to be sitting at a vegan restaurant with the king of singing about junk food. It’s interesting that food has been such a continuous theme in your canon, as it were. Is that something that, along the way of songwriting, you realized it was just fruitful material and it always proved to be funny? Or why did you keep coming back to it as a theme?
It’s just something that doesn’t get covered in pop music that much. I mean, most songs are about love and relationships and things like that. And nobody writes that many songs about tacos. So I just figured somebody had to, like, you know, fill that vacuum. And I just thought of it in a business way, that if I wrote a lot of songs about food, then I could write off my grocery bill on my taxes because it’s all, you know, it’s all inspiration.
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The Oasis drum seat has been filled by a number of time keepers, from original drummer Tony McCaroll, to longtime member Alan “Whitey” White, Steve White, Zak Starkey and Chris Sharrock. But when the reunited group finally hits the stage on July 4 for the first show on their anticipated Oasis Live ’25 tour, none of those men will be holding down the rhythm.
This time around the seat will be filled by veteran drummer Joey Waronker, who has worked with everyone from Beck to R.E.M., Elliott Smith and Thom Yorke’s Atoms For Peace side project. Singer Liam Gallagher seemed chuffed by the addition to the group after a fan asked last week what he thought about the musician and if he is “appropriate for the Oasis sound?”
Liam was unequivocal in his praise, responding, “He’s the best and we’re lucky to have him I’ve enjoyed all our drummers but this guy is special.” Waronker will join Liam and brother/songwriter and occasional vocalist Noel Gallagher, as well as bassist Andy Bell and, reportedly, guitarists Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Gem Archer.
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Anticipation has been building for the group’s first shows in 16 years, with Liam forced to apologize to fans on Monday morning (June 9) after raising anticipation for more major news with an X post that read, “BIG ANNOUNCEMENT 6.30 am.” The wild speculation quickly unfurled, with fans guessing that Gallagher may have been hinting at warm-up gigs or additional dates.
When Gallagher responded a short time later with “I WORK OUT,” the fury went up 10 notches, with one fan complaining, “you played with our feelings,” as another raged, “I F–KING HATE YOU,” to which Gallagher quipped, “Hate is such a strong word.”
Soon enough the singer appeared to genuinely regret the wind-up, writing, “Gotta admit that was good craic gotta you all riled up to ras,” then sincerely apologizing for the false alarm. “If I caused any distress and upset anyone this morning I’m deeply sorry that wasn’t my intention I thought it was a bit of fun I got it wrong please forgive me,” he wrote. Oasis will criss-cross the U.K. in July before heading to North America in August for shows in Toronto, Chicago, New Jersey, Pasadena and Mexico City, then moving on to Asia and Australia in the fall and Argentina, Chile and Brazil in November.
New music from Tame Impala appears to be on the way, with Kevin Parker giving fans a preview of fresh material during a DJ set in Barcelona.
Parker – who formed the Tame Impala project in Perth, Western Australia in 2007 – gave his dedicated fans a taster of new music while in Spain over the weekend. Having made an unannounced appearance at Primavera Sound on Friday (June 6), Parker performed a surprise DJ set the following night at Barcelona’s Nitsa Club.
It was during this latter set that Parker turned his focus to previously unheard material. “You guys want to hear a new song? “You want to hear a new Tame Impala song?” he asked.
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“You’re going to be the first ones to hear it, you realize? There’s no going back from this point on, you realize?” he added. “Alright, let’s do it; get comfortable.”
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Notably, the resulting tune was somewhat removed from what dedicated fans may have expected from the project, with it maintaining many of the dreamy, psychedelic rock influences that have become synonymous with Parker’s music, though adding club-ready beats into the mix.
As it stands, it’s been five years since the last full-length release from Tame Impala. In February 2020, The Slow Rush became the project’s fourth studio record, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. This was one position higher than the previous album, 2015’s Currents, which served as a commercial breakthrough for Parker.
In the time since the last record, Parker has been busy with myriad other projects. In 2023, second album Lonerism would receive a tenth anniversary reissue, and would be followed by the release of the track “Journey to the Real World” for the Barbie soundtrack.
Additionally, Tame Impala would also be credited with remixes of songs from Crowded House and Elvis Presley, and would appear as a guest artist on cuts from Diana Ross and Gorillaz.
In 2024, Parker would serve as a producer and guest musician for Dua Lipa‘s Radical Optimism album, and would also serve as a guest artist on two tracks from French outfit Justice‘s Hyperdrama album. One of those collaborations, “Neverender,” would see Parker win his first Grammy for best dance/electronic recording in 2025.
The U.K.’s summer of live music kicked off in earnest this week with a number of huge tour debuts throughout major cities, particularly in London. Over at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Thursday (June 5), Beyoncé brought her Cowboy Carter tour to these shores for the first time, and a day later, Robbie Williams was […]
The Funeral Portrait goes 2-for-2 atop Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, lifting to No. 1 on the June 14-dated survey with “Holy Water.”
The track, which features Five Finger Death Punch vocalist Ivan Moody, is the band’s second Mainstream Rock Airplay ruler in as many entries, following the one-week reign of “Suffocate City,” featuring Ice Nine Kills’ Spencer Charnas, last November.
This time around, The Funeral Portrait’s trip to No. 1 is one week quicker; “Holy Water” rules in its 18th frame on the chart.
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Moody reaches No. 1 on Mainstream Rock Airplay as a solo act for the first time, having exceeded his No. 10 peak as a featured vocalist on Cory Marks’ “Outlaws & Outsiders,” alongside Travis Tritt and Mick Mars, in 2020. Five Finger Death Punch, with him as frontman, boasts 15 leaders, third-most dating to the ranking’s March 1981 inception.
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Concurrently, “Holy Water” places at No. 11 on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 2.5 million audience impressions, up 8%, in the week ending June 5, according to Luminate. The song reached a No. 8 high a week earlier and marks The Funeral Portrait’s first top 10 on the tally, having passed the No. 11 best of “Suffocate City.”
“Holy Water” is the second single from The Funeral Portrait’s 2024 album Greetings From Suffocate City. Released in September, the set has earned 25,000 equivalent album units to date. The collection is the second full-length from the group, which formed in Atlanta more than a decade ago.
All Billboard charts dated June 14 will update Tuesday, June 10.
Sombr scores his first No. 1 on a Billboard airplay chart, as “Back to Friends” completes a 10-week trip to the top of the Alternative Airplay list dated June 14. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news By taking 10 weeks from debut to reign, “Back to Friends” […]
Fifty years ago, in the Billboard issue dated June 7, 1975, Elton John did something no one had ever done before: He entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1. He achieved the feat with his ninth studio album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.
The album dislodged Earth, Wind & Fire’s That’s the Way of the World, which had spent the three previous weeks at No. 1. It was potent enough to hold Wings’ Venus and Mars – the band’s follow-up to its classic album Band on the Run – to the No. 2 spot for four consecutive weeks before Wings finally moved up to No. 1 for one week.
In the nearly two decades between the introduction of the Billboard 200 in March 1956 and Captain Fantastic’s history-making accomplishment, the highest any album had entered the Billboard 200 was No. 2. Van Cliburn’s Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 debuted in the runner-up spot in the issue dated Aug. 4, 1958 (which, coincidentally, was the same week the Hot 100 debuted, with Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool” as the inaugural leader).
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How was a classical album able to get off to such a fast start? Cliburn had achieved global fame when he won the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 near the height of the Cold War. A cover story in TIME (May 19, 1958) proclaimed him “The Texan Who Conquered Russia.” His album topped the Billboard 200 for seven weeks, won a Grammy for best classical performance – instrumentalist and received an album of the year nod.
Since the Cliburn album was a little far afield, let’s go deeper. The highest that a contemporary pop or rock album had debuted prior to Captain Fantastic was No. 3. That was the debut position for The Beatles’ Hey Jude (March 21, 1970) and a pair of Led Zeppelin albums: Led Zeppelin III (Oct. 24, 1970) and Physical Graffiti (March 15, 1975). Three more contemporary pop or rock albums had debuted in the top five prior to Captain Fantastic: the Woodstock soundtrack (No. 4, June 6, 1970), George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass (No. 5, Dec. 19, 1970) and Elton’s previous studio album Caribou (No. 5, July 6, 1974).
Captain Fantastic was Elton’s sixth No. 1 album in less than three years. His 1972 album Honky Chateau reached No. 1 in its fifth chart week. A pair of 1973 albums – Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – both reached No. 1 in their fourth weeks. A pair of 1974 albums – Caribou and Greatest Hits – both reached the top spot in their second weeks. Elton was steadily getting hotter year-by-year, as you can see.
Captain Fantastic’s debut at No. 1 received considerable media attention and contributed to Elton’s status as the Greatest Pop Star of the Year – years before Billboard officially recognized such a thing.
In calendar year 1975, Elton had three No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 (one a carryover from 1974) and three No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 (plus an uncredited, but prominent, featured role on a fourth – Neil Sedaka’s “Bad Blood”); had a cameo as The Pinball Wizard in the hit movie adaptation of The Who’s Tommy; made the cover of TIME (the inevitable cover line: “Rock’s Captain Fantastic”); and became the first artist since The Beatles to play a concert (two, actually) at Dodger Stadium.
Since Elton’s through-the-roof 1975, we’ve seen such artists as the Bee Gees (1978), Michael Jackson (1983-84) and Taylor Swift (2023-24) experience this same “how-much-hotter-can-they-get” phenomenon.
Captain Fantastic was a loosely autobiographical concept album about the struggles that John (Captain Fantastic) and his longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin (the Brown Dirt Cowboy) experienced in the early years of their careers in London from 1967 to 1969, leading up to John’s eventual breakthrough in 1970.
Captain Fantastic spent its first six weeks at No. 1 before yielding the top spot to Wings’ Venus and Mars and then Eagles’ One of These Nights (which had five weeks on top). In late August, Captain Fantastic returned for a seventh week at No. 1. Only two other John albums ever logged seven or more weeks at No. 1: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (eight weeks on top in 1973) and Greatest Hits (10 weeks on top in 1974-75).
Captain Fantastic received two Grammy nominations: album of the year (John’s third in that category, following Elton John and Caribou) and best pop vocal performance, male. He lost both awards to Paul Simon for Still Crazy After All These Years. (Fun Fact: Simon had also won album of the year, in tandem with Art Garfunkel, for Bridge Over Troubled Water five years earlier, when the Elton John album was nominated.) Gus Dudgeon, who produced John’s album, received a Grammy nod for producer of the year, non-classical. (He lost to Arif Mardin.)
Just one single was released from Captain Fantastic: “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” Despite its length and somber tone, the song reached No. 4 on the Hot 100, a reflection of Elton’s popularity at the time. Clocking in at 6:45, “Someone Saved” was the longest song to crack the top five on the Hot 100 since The Temptations’ symphonic soul smash “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” (6:53), a No. 1 hit in December 1972.
Of course, even though just one single was released from Captain Fantastic, Elton was blanketing pop radio at the time. The week Captain Fantastic debuted, John’s previous single, the marvelous, disco-accented “Philadelphia Freedom,” rebounded to No. 10 on the Hot 100, having reached No. 1 in April. And though it was never released as a single, John’s rendition of “Pinball Wizard” from the Tommy soundtrack was played on many pop radio stations with the frequency of a hit single.
The Billboard staff included three songs from Captain Fantastic on its 2022 list of the 75 Best Elton John Songs, timed to coincide with the star’s 75th birthday. “Tower of Babel” ranked No. 73, “Curtains” was No. 29, and “Someone Saved” was way up at No. 3, with Billboard‘s Melinda Newman saying of the latter song, “The song has more drama than a made-for-Lifetime movie, including allusions to John’s first suicide attempt in 1968. With a heavy, slow, and instantly unforgettable piano-pounding melody that matches the theatrical storytelling … ‘Someone’ is like slowly walking through molasses in the best possible way, Sugar Bear.”
In November 1975, just five months after Captain Fantastic became the first album to debut at No. 1, Elton’s follow-up album, Rock of the Westies, became the second. Unlike Captain Fantastic, Rock was led by a highly commercial single, the zesty funk-reggae smash “Island Girl,” which topped the Hot 100 for three weeks.
In October 1976, Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life became the third album to debut at No. 1. No other albums debuted in the top spot for a little more than a decade, until Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s Live/1975-85 achieved the feat in November 1986. The following year, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson started on top with their hit-laden albums Whitney and Bad, respectively.
In May 1991, Billboard began compiling the Billboard 200 based on actual units sold. As a result, No. 1 debuts became much more common. Between June and December 1991, seven albums entered the chart at No. 1 – slightly more than the six albums that had achieved the feat over the previous 16 years. (Since December 2014, the chart has ranked titles by equivalent album units, incorporating streaming and sales, with albums continuing to regularly soar in at No. 1.)
In 2006, John recorded a sequel of sorts to Captain Fantastic. That album, The Captain & the Kid, reached No. 18 on the Billboard 200.
Two songs from Captain Fantastic were featured on the 2018 tribute album, Revamp: Reimagining the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin. Mumford and Sons covered “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.” Coldplay took on “We All Fall in Love Sometimes.” That album reached No. 13 on the Billboard 200.