genre rock
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Carlos Santana likes to ascribe metaphors to his music. And in the case of his new album, Sentient, that would be floral arrangements.
“When I go to the lobby in hotels in Europe, they always have these incredible flower arrangements,” the San Francisco Bay Area-based guitar hero tells Billboard. “They hire some people to come in and arrange the flowers in the lobby. That’s how this album was made — that’s how I make all my albums. I feel like a florist who is trying to combine the right colors and textures and create a beautiful ornament. That’s what Sentient is, an ornament of flower arrangements — colors, passions, textures, emotions.”
Variety is certainly the hallmark of the 11-track set, which comes out March 28 and is the follow-up to 2021’s Blessings and Miracles. It includes three previously unreleased tracks, while the rest are remastered songs drawn from various points in Santana’s career, including collaborations with friends living (Smokey Robinson, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels and his wife Cindy Blackman Santana) and deceased (Michael Jackson, Miles Davis). The selections might appear random, but Santana promises there’s a unity when they’re brought together.
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“The theme of the story is to bring God out of people,” he explains. “There’s too much fear, there’s too much anger, too much harmony. There’s too much doubt, and the opposite of compassion. I’ve played music since the beginning — and now more than ever — to bring kindness, compassion, generosity, gratitude and divine attributes…elements to take make this world and life more delicious. I trust and believe that God wants something incredible for me to share with people, and that thing is to remind everyone that everyone is worthy of their own divinity and their own light. That’s the message.”
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He adds that featuring collaborations with some of his late friends (“Whatever Happens” from Jackson’s 2001 album Invincible, “Get On” and “Rastafario” with Davis from their collaborations with Italian pianist Paolo Rustichelli for his 1996 album Mystic Man) help illustrate that idea.
“Miles Davis is not here and Michael Jackson’s not here, but they’re in my heart, and it makes me very grateful,” Santana says. “I learned very well from them. I am one of them. It may sound a little this or that, but I’m immortal like them. Like Bob Marley and Bob Dylan, I am here to do the same thing they’re doing, which is to invite people to have a deep sense of self-worth, to look at yourself in the mirror and say ‘I am worth God’s grace. I can create blessings and miracles myself, with my grace.’ That’s the highest thing you do as a musician, to bring God out of people instead of the devil.”
Other tracks include “I’ll Be Waiting” from the Santana band’s Moonflower live album in 1977 and the title track from 1987’s Blues For Salvador, which netted Santana his first Grammy Award, for best rock instrumental performance, the following year. “Please Don’t Take Your Love,” meanwhile, is an earlier take of a track from Robinson’s 2009 album Time Flies When You’re Having Fun, while “Coherence” is a trio track with Blackman Santana and bassist Matt Garrison that’s intended as a preview of the drummer’s own next album.
Santana invokes Jackson again in an unreleased instrumental version of his “Stranger in Moscow,” which Santana recorded with Narada Michael Walden and his band during a club gig in San Rafael, Calif. “We played that on the spot, no rehearsal, and it felt really good,” Santana says. “I had been listening to that particular song for awhile. When I play ‘Stranger in Moscow’ I become Michael Jackson. My fingers become Michael Jackson; I was imagining how he would phrase, how he would sing it, so my guitar became his voice and I learned how to articulate the language, the phrasing. I learned all this from Aretha Franklin, because I play that album, Lady Soul, over and over. I play that album so much I learned the bass, the drums, how to hear her voice.”
After Sentient‘s release Santana will begin a nine-date Oneness Tour beginning April 16 in Highland, Calif., and wrapping May 1 at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. His next residency at the House of Blues Las Vegas runs May 14-25, and a European Oneness Tour leg begins June 9 in Poland and runs through Aug. 11 in Copenhagen.
Santana is working on another performance idea as well — a multi-day, multi-act worldwide festival with the utopian perspective of Woodstock. “With everything that’s happening with this planet, with fear of nuclear war and Korea and China and Russia, the Middle East, I want to create a global concert that goes around the world and (promotes) unity, harmony, oneness,” says Santana, who envisions sites such as San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, New York’s Central Park and Hyde Park in London. “It’ll keep going in Asia, Japan, Singapore, all the way to Australia and New Zealand and end up with a concert in Honolulu,” he says.
No dates or solid details have yet been determined, but Santana says he’s already reached out to some acts to participate, including Eric Clapton, Metallica, Earth, Wind & Fire and others. “Everybody I talked to, they want to do it,” he says. “It starts and begins with me. This is my vision. This is my aspiration, and I’m not afraid to manifest what I learned from Bill Graham and (Woodstock co-producer) Michael Lang and Clive Davis. I’ve learned from the best, and I believe it’s not impossible to create a global event of this magnitude…and celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. Instead of fear. Celebrate — with joy.”
Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World, AFI and Jawbreaker will headline the Four Chord Music Festival at EQT Park in Pittsburg/Washington, PA on Sept. 13-14. The 11th annual edition of the event will also featuring Hot Mulligan, Bowling For Soup, State Champs, Set Your Goals, Knuckle Puck, Homegrown, Eternal Boy, Driveways, Charly Bliss and others joining Blink and Jimmy Eat World on night one.
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Night two will host Say Anything, Face to Face, The Wonder Years, Drug Church, Punchline, Koyo, Deathbyromy, Sincere Engineer and others warming up the stage for AFI and Jawbreaker.
“We’ve worked hard to make this year’s festival something special, not only with this incredible lineup, but by making it more accessible for our fans than ever before. We can’t wait to celebrate with everyone at EQT Park!,” founder Rishi Bahl said in a statement.
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A general public on-sale will launch on Friday (March 28) at 11 a.m. ET; The festival is also introducing a ticket layaway plan this year. In addition to single-day general admission and VIP options, Four Chord will also offer up a deluxe VIP option for both days that incudes access to a climate-controlled VIP lounge area, VIP acoustic performances, an exclusive VIP shirt not available to the public, unlimited water refill stations and a Four Chord water bottle, unlimited snacks, a custom VIP holographic commemorative ticket and early entry into the venue and early access to merch, as well as front row access to the main stage and a deluxe VIP lounge overlooking the field, up to three free alcoholic drinks, a parking pass, free storage a merch concierge and private, temperature-controlled bathrooms.
Check out the Four Chord lineup poster below.
One of the indisputable perks of being a rock star is the ability to rock out with other rock stars when they swing through your hometown. Just ask Paramore singer Hayley Williams, who hopped up on stage with the Deftones during their headlining set at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on Wednesday night (March 26) to […]

Evanescence has stepped into the animated world of Devil May Cry.
The rock band has contributed the new track “Afterlife” to the upcoming Netflix animated series based on the popular Capcom video game. From showrunner and executive producer Adi Shankar, the show’s description reads that “sinister forces are at play to open the portal between the human and demon realms. In the middle of it all is Dante, an orphaned demon-hunter-for-hire, unaware that the fate of both worlds hangs around his neck.”
Evanescence’s Amy Lee wrote “Afterlife” with Mako (real name Alex Seaver), and while she wasn’t familiar with the Devil May Cry series before, she tells Billboard, “I absolutely love the show, art and story.”
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She adds, “I have always loved good anime. Right from the first scene of the show, I knew it was going to be good. Creative and thought-provoking, horrific and beautiful, classic.”
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As for “Afterlife,” Lee says she wanted to capture a particular feeling through the Mako, Nick Raskulinecz and Tyler Demorest-produced track. “For me, the song is both the pain and the resolve. From the perspective of someone who has lost so much, and will always carry the marks of that, but also someone who has reached the point of being past the fear. No trepidation, no hesitation in your quest when you have committed to the fight and have nothing left to lose.”
Shankar, meanwhile, knew immediately that Evanescence was the perfect fit for the Devil May Cry musical universe. “Amy and her squad own this space. Evanescence sculpts entire emotional landscapes,” he says. “Their sound is alchemy — gothic grandeur meets raw vulnerability, a fusion of cinematic and anthemic. Amy Lee is a frequency that cuts straight to the soul. The way Amy Lee’s voice carries pain, power, and transcendence in a single note is exactly what Devil May Cry needed. To me, it wasn’t about picking a band—it was about recruiting the only band that could make this moment immortal.”
Shankar describes Devil May Cry as a “melancholic rock & roll Shakespearean tragedy — an operatic dance between fate, loss, and the relentless pursuit of redemption,” noting that “Afterlife” resonates with “two pivotal narrative threads” leading up to “several” season 1 plot twists. “Trauma is not just an event; it is an imprint, a fracture in time that the psyche never stops trying to mend,” the showrunner says. “When part of the child dies through heartbreak, the adult self is sentenced to an unending quest — seeking to reclaim what was lost, to heal a wound that has shaped them in ways they may never fully understand. In that sense, ‘Afterlife’ is not just a song in the story; it is the echo of a soul reaching for what once was, and perhaps, what could still be.”
Watch the “Afterlife” music video exclusively via Billboard below. Devil May Cry premieres April 3 on Netflix.
A new documentary about Billy Joel is set to air on HBO this summer, it has been confirmed.
As Deadline reports, the two-part series, titled And So It Goes, will be produced and directed by Susan Lacy, who is best known as the creator of the long-running American Masters, and for directing HBO documentaries such as Jane Fonda in Five Acts and Spielberg. Producer Jessica Levin – who produced the latter documentaries – is also slated to co-direct.
The forthcoming documentary is reportedly set to provide “an expansive portrait of the life and music of Billy Joel,” while focusing on the love, loss, and personal struggles that have informed his creative process. Filmmakers have also been given access to previously unseen performances, home movies, and photographs for the production.
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“For those who think they know Joel’s story, as well as those who are not as familiar, I believe this two-part film is both a revelation and a surprise,” Lacy stated in a press release. “I was drawn to his story as someone who knew little at the outset, and was astounded at how autobiographical his songs are and how complex his story is.”
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Billy Joel: And So It Goes arrives via Lacy and Levin’s Pentimento Production, Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner’s Hazy Mills Productions, and Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman’s Playtone for HBO Documentary Films. The documentary also credits Hanks, Goetzman, Milliner, Hayes, Steve Cohen, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller and Sara Rodriguez as executive producers
News of the documentary also comes just weeks after Joel announced he would be postponing a number of tour dates due to a need for recovery and physical therapy necessitated by a recent surgery for an undisclosed medical condition
“While I regret postponing any shows, my health must come first,” Joel said in a statement posted to Instagram. “I look forward to getting back on stage and sharing the joy of live music with our amazing fans. Thank you for your understanding.”
Joel will return to the stage at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh on July 5.
The respective children of Dean Ween (aka Mickey Melchiondo) and Gene Ween (aka Aaron Freeman) are set to perform together this weekend, but make no mistake, the duo are adamant they “are not Ween.”
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The performance was announced on social media on Tuesday (March 26) by Michael Melchiondo, who also performs as Bugger. The event takes place on Saturday (March 29) at the Soupcon Gallery in Lambertville, NJ, and features Hover and Rubix Pube on a lineup that also names Ashton Freeman.
“My good friend Ashton Freeman has asked me to join them in playing a show this Saturday in Lambertville,” Melchiondo. “We’ve come up with a very unique collaborative set. So come and witness the genetic duo merge our sounds… We are Not Ween.”
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The pair have previously made music separately, with Melchiondo sharing a photo of his father on social media last week, pairing it with the caption, “in the studio with dad, feeling great and making music.” His current project includes Bugger, while previous music was also released under the name Veal Marsala. Freeman, meanwhile, has released a small handful of releases under their own name between 2016 and 2020.
Ween were first formed by the elder Melchiondo and Freeman in 1984 as teenagers, with a large array of independent releases preceding the arrival of debut album GodWeenSatan: The Oneness in 1990. The group would largely escape widespread commercial success over the next 22 years, with final album – 2007’s La Cucaracha – giving them their career peak of No. 69 on the Billboard 200.
The group would announce their disbandment in 2012, though reformed again in 2015. In late 2023, it was announced that Ween would undertake a 40th anniversary tour the following year that would also double as a 30th birthday celebration for their fourth album, Chocolate and Cheese.
A number of those tour dates were cancelled in March 2024, with Dean Ween citing a need to preserve his “mental and spiritual wellbeing.” The band would later return to the road, though they announced in August that “Ween must make the decision to step away from the stage for the foreseeable future,” adding that “it’s become clear that touring and performing is too taxing on Deaner’s mental health to continue.”
Currently, no further news in regard to Ween’s return to the live stage has been announced.
Anthony Raneri says the person least surprised that his band Bayside is still around to celebrate its 25th anniversary may be the teenage version of himself, the one from Queens, NY, who knew he wanted to be a rock star.
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“I was just so sure it was gonna happen,” Raneri, 42, tells Billboard. “You could ask me (at a different age) and I would be shocked there was a version of me still doing this. But at 15 or something, I was just so sure. I started this band so young that reality never factored in. I was a kid. I was a dreamer. Bills weren’t part of my life. It was all hopes and dreams at that point. I was too young to know better. And now fast forward…and it’s actually happened.”
Raneri and Bayside — which still includes first-album member Jack O’Shea on guitar, with Nick Ghanbarian on bass since 2004 and drummer Chris Guglielmo since 2006 — will be celebrating the group’s overall 25th anniversary this spring with The Errors Tour. The three-leg outing kicks off March 29 in Buffalo, NY, and all but one of its 23 stops will be two-night affairs with completely different setlists; the first show will feature songs from Bayside’s first four albums, and the second from the subsequent five titles, leading up to last year’s There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive.
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“We conceptualized this years ago, and we decided the 25th anniversary was the right time to put it into place,” Raneri explains. “Every tour we try to shake things up a little bit. It can’t just be the same show all the time. At this point in our career, with the back catalog we have, so many singles over the years, it’s hard to get songs into the setlist. That means track eight on our first record or track five on our fifth record, when do you ever get to that? So this way, if we can dedicate an hour and a half to just the first four records and then the next night to the next five, we get to those deeper cuts and songs that have been left out, which makes it more interesting for us and, I think, for the fans.”
Not surprisingly, Raneri says preparations for the tour have been “very intense” for the quartet. In addition to its own choices Bayside solicited fan requests via social media, which yielded surprises such as “Indiana,” a B-side from 2014’s Cult that also appeared as a bonus track on a deluxe edition of the album.
“We’ve bought into the concept,” Raneri says. “The cool thing about our band, and something we’re so insanely lucky with, is that we can pull something like this off. There’s a lot of bands that exist that have as many records as we do that couldn’t dedicate nights of a tour to newer albums. But we’re lucky that people like and buy and still enjoy our new albums. Our anniversary doesn’t mean we have to go out and just play old records.”
Bayside has, of course, scored some must-play hits from its nine albums as well as EPs, including “Devotion and Desire” from its self-titled 2005 set and “Sick, Sick, Sick,” a top 40 Alternative Airplay chart hit from 2010’s Killing Time. “The second night might not have ‘Devotion and Desire,’” Raneri notes, “but ‘Sick, Sick, Sick,’ it’s crazy to think that’s in the second half of our career, and ‘Already Gone’ and ‘Go To Hell.’ I think there’s plenty to keep people happy either night, if you don’t come for both.”
Raneri feels he and his bandmates have become “more proficient” players during the intervening years, while diving deep into the catalog has given him a perspective on why Bayside has been able to maintain a loyal following for all this time.
“I just think there is an honesty in what bands from our world have always done that’s different than other genres,” he explains. “What we do, it’s not image stuff. With other genres, there’s a lot of things that are of their time. You look at A Flock of Seagulls or something like that, and it’s just so ’80s; they look like the time, they sound like the time, the lyrics are of the time. Same thing with hair metal: [Cinderella’s] ‘Hot and Bothered’ is a bad-ass song when you’re in high school, but when you’re 40 or 50 does it still connect like that? Do you still wear your hair like that? Do you still dress like that? Of course not. I think our scene, it’s earnest as a pillar of its identity. The emotions are more timeless and not as much about the moment the (songs) were made in.”
Raneri and company plan on adding to Bayside’s catalog soon. The group is concentrating on The Errors Tour for the time being, but the frontman promises that “the day after our big, final 25th anniversary show on Long Island (Sept. 26), I’m writing the new record, and that will be our main focus. All of next year we’ll be working on a new record.
“I always start with finding influences,” Raneri explains, “so I’m just listening to a lot of music, and I’m writing down ideas. When I hear a song that I think would be a cool inspiration for something, I write it down. I have notepads around my house with my ideas, notes apps in my phone, playlists that I’ve made of songs I want to take inspiration from for the next record. I’m not at a stage where I know what that inspiration turns into, but I’m shaping. It’s almost like I’m making this very large Pinterest board in my head, and then when it comes time to actually put pen to paper, I’ll have that board to reference.”
Bayside
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Bayside’s The Errors Tour itinerary includes:
(with Sincere Engineer)3/29 – Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom3/30 – Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom4/1 – Toronto, ON @ The Opera House4/2– Toronto, ON @ The Opera House4/4 – Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues4/5 – Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues4/6 – Chicago, IL @ House of Blues4/7 – Chicago, IL @ House of Blues4/9 – Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre4/10 – Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre
(with Smoking Popes)6/6 – Denver, CO @ Summit Theater6/7 – Denver, CO @ Summit Theater6/8 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot6/9 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot6/11 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox6/12 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox6/13 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall6/14 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall6/16 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall6/17 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall6/19 – Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues6/20 – Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues6/21 – Las Vegas, NV @ Fremont Country Club6/22 – Las Vegas, NV @ Fremont Country Club6/24 – Mesa, AZ @ The Nile6/25 – Mesa, AZ @ The Nile6/27 -Austin, TX @ Emo’s6/28 -Austin, TX @ Emo’s
(with The Sleeping)9/6 – Lake Buena Vista, FL @ House of Blues9/7 – Lake Buena Vista, FL @ House of Blues9/8 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade (Hell)9/9 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade (Hell)9/11 – Nashville, TN @ Main Stage at Eastside Bowl9/12 – Nashville, TN @ Main Stage at Eastside Bowl9/13 – Charlotte, NC @ The Underground9/14 – Charlotte, NC @ The Underground9/16 – Philadelphia, PA @ Brooklyn Bowl9/17 – Philadelphia, PA @ Brooklyn Bowl9/19 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza9/20 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza9/21 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club9/22 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club9/24 – Asbury Park, NJ @ Stone Pony9/25 – Asbury Park, NJ @ Stone Pony9/26 – Huntington, NY @ The Paramount
Sleep Token scores its first No. 1 on a Billboard multimetric chart, topping the Hot Hard Rock Songs tally dated March 29 with “Emergence.”
“Emergence” rises to No. 1 after debuting at No. 2 on the March 22-dated list via just one day of tracking data after being released on March 13. (It earned 2 million official U.S. streams, 211,000 radio audience impressions and sold 1,000 downloads that day, according to Luminate.)
In the week ending March 20, its first full seven days of tracking, “Emergence” accumulated 9.9 million streams, 528,000 impressions and 2,000 downloads.
The band’s Hot Hard Rock Songs reign follows a No. 2-peaking song in 2023 in “The Summoning.” “Emergence” became Sleep Token’s seventh top 10 on the ranking upon its debut, tying it with Ghost and I Prevail for the eighth-most top 10s since the list began in 2020.
Most Top 10s, Hot Hard Rock Songs
19, Bring Me the Horizon
17, Linkin Park
13, HARDY
10, Falling in Reverse
10, Five Finger Death Punch
10, Foo Fighters
8, Metallica
7, Ghost
7, I Prevail
7, Sleep Token
“Emergence” also rules Hard Rock Digital Song Sales for a second week and bows at No. 1 on Hard Rock Streaming Songs. It’s the band’s first ruler on the latter, eclipsing the No. 16 peak of “The Summoning,” and marks the survey’s first No. 1 debut since Linkin Park’s “The Emptiness Machine” in September 2024.
“Emergence” concurrently vaults 30-7 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, Sleep Token’s first top 20 (“The Summoning” peaked at No. 22), and starts at No. 57 on the all-format Billboard Hot 100, the band’s maiden appearance. Its 9.9 million streams are even enough for a No. 50 debut on Streaming Songs, the first hard rock song to reach the list since Linkin Park’s aforementioned “The Emptiness Machine.”
As the lead radio single from Even in Arcadia, Sleep Token’s upcoming fourth studio album (May 9), “Emergence” debuts at No. 31 on Mainstream Rock Airplay, equaling the peak of “Granite,” the band’s only previous appearance on the ranking, from 2024.
Even in Arcadia is the follow-up to 2023’s Take Me Back to Eden, which debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the Top Hard Rock Albums chart dated June 3, 2023, and has earned 744,000 equivalent album units to date.