genre rock
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Lucy Dacus reaches No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums and Americana/Folk Albums charts for the first time as a soloist, debuting atop the April 12-dated surveys with Forever Is a Feeling. Dacus’ fourth solo LP bows with 30,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending April 3, according to Luminate. […]
Metallica dropped the first trailer for their upcoming fan-focused documentary on Tuesday (April 8). Metallica Saved My Life, directed by the band’s longtime collaborator, Grammy-winner Jonas Åkerlund, will be screened in select cities on the band’s ongoing M72 world tour.
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In a statement, the group wrote, “Not quite finished yet, we want YOU to be among the first to see our latest film project by award-winning director Jonas Åkerlund, all about the lifeblood of this band: the fans. This documentary explores our world through the lives of fans who have supported each other through highs, lows, trials, and triumphs for over four decades.”
In the one-minute preview, drummer Lars Ulrich states, “Metallica is a state of mind” over mournful piano as the band’s other members begin the sentence “Metallica is…” as a series of fans offer up their thoughts on what the group means to them. “Unapologetically real, and vulnerable,” says one man, while a woman adds, “hope, freedom, escape.”
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A montage of long-time die-hards then open up about how the band gave them an identity as they describe themselves, variously, as a “dork… loner… a weirdo,” with one Black fan recalling how people would ask him, “why are you listening to this white people music?”
“I wanna hear ’em, I wanna hear ’em all,” singer/guitarist James Hetfield says of the variety of stories in the film directed by Åkerlund, who was also behind the camera for their 1998 video “Turn the Page,” as well as 1999’s “Whiskey in the Jar” and 2016’s “ManUNkind.” “Whatever you want to put on that… religion, cult, family, whatever label. I don’t care. It’s a gathering of like-minded people that are there to celebrate life.”
In a statement the band said, “As a few of you may know, we’ve been working behind the scenes the last couple of years on a new film that will be released later this year starring you guys! Metallica Saved My Life explores our world through the lives of fans who have supported each other through highs, lows, trials and triumphs for over four decades. And yeah, we’re in it a little bit too.” The full doc, which will feature all four band members as well as actor Jason Momoa, is slated for release later this year.
Click here to find out more details about the locations and dates for the North American screenings of the unfinished film from April through June, which will be phone-free and have a two ticket per person limit.
Metallica will get back on the road for the continuation of the M72 tour on April 19 at the JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse, N.Y. This week the band also announced a collaboration with the American Red Cross for blood drives on their upcoming 2025 U.S. dates. Donors of all blood types are encouraged to make an appointment to give by clicking here; donors must be 17 in most states (or 16 with parental consent where allowed by state law) and weigh at least 110 pounds and be in general good health to be eligible to donate.
Check out the trailer for Metallica Saved My Life below.
A slot on the 1994 Lollapalooza lineup was almost relegated to Green Day‘s boulevard of broken dreams when festival founder Perry Farrell supposedly tried to block the band from performing — after which frontman Billie Joe Armstrong and his bandmates eventually got the last laugh when they did end up joining the tour 30 years ago.
In excerpts from Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour’s new book, Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival, published by People on Tuesday (April 8), the “American Idiot” singer recounts the story of how Farrell — apparently writing the punk rockers off as a “boy band” — pushed back against Green Day’s inclusion on the ’94 traveling festival’s bill.
“It was going to be [Japanese noise band] Boredoms on the first half, and us on the second half as the opening band,” Armstrong recalls. “And then all of a sudden, [Farrell] comes back in and he’s like, ‘I don’t want them on the bill.’”
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Calling Farrell’s dislike of his group “disappointing,” as Green Day had looked up to the festival pioneer, Armstrong adds, “I think that made us want to play even more, actually, because we wanted to prove that he had his head very far up his own a–.”
“I can’t think of a single time that Perry pushed back or vetoed a band — except for Green Day,” remembers stage manager Rubeli, who eventually found a way to convince Farrell to let the group onto the lineup. “To Perry’s credit, I was able to go through [Green Day’s] history in the Bay Area and how they had released indie records and eventually he said, ‘Okay, they can do half the tour, but I want the Boredoms on the other half.’”
Lollapalooza would have been just three years old in 1994, with Farrell starting the now-iconic music event in ’91 as a small farewell tour for Jane’s Addiction that quickly evolved into what it is today: one of the world’s biggest annual popular music festivals with multiple iterations across the world. After finally winning their place on the bill, Green Day got the last laugh against Farrell when Armstrong dedicated the band’s Dookie track “Chump” to him onstage.
“I’m like, ‘I’m not going to take any f—ing sh– from anybody,” Armstrong recalls in Bienstock and Beaujour’s book. “I’m not going to take any sh– from anybody as much as Perry Farrell’s not going to take any sh– from anybody.’ He had minions that would come up and say, ‘Perry Farrell’s really angry that you dedicated “Chump” to him.’ And I’m like, ‘Tell him to stop acting like one.’”
“But I never met the guy until we played Woodstock ’94,” he adds. “He was there and we shook hands.”
Lollapalooza has come a long way since its days as a fringe gathering place for alternative rock and other developing genres. Some of the biggest names in music now play the event every year, with this year’s Chicago iteration expecting Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and Tyler, the Creator as headliners in addition to dozens more performers on the lineup.
And in 2010, Green Day’s beginnings with the festival came full-circle when the band headlined alongside Lady Gaga, Soundgarden, Arcade Fire, The Strokes and Phoenix.
Arcade Fire‘s seventh studio album is on its way, with the band announcing that new LP Pink Elephant is set to arrive this spring and dropping lead single “Year of the Snake” Tuesday (April 8).
Featuring 10 tracks recorded at married bandmates Win Butler and Régine Chassagne’s Good News Recording Studio in New Orleans, the project is described as a “cinematic, mystical punk” offering that “invites the listener on a sonic odyssey” exploring themes of light, darkness, inner beauty and “the perception of the individual.” The album’s title apparently refers to the paradox of actively trying to suppress a certain thought, and in doing so, making that thought impossible not to think about.
As shared in a post on Arcade Fire’s Instagram, Pink Elephant will arrive May 9. The band also unveiled its cover art: a photo of a small elephant-shaped candle burning against a hot pink backdrop.
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Fans’ first taste of the album via “Year of the Snake” is chill, contemplative alt-rock, with Butler and Chassagne singing together over a thrumming bass line and anthemic glimmers, “It’s the season of change, and if you you feel strange, it’s probably good.” The song comes third on a tracklist that also includes the titles “Open Your Heart or Die Trying,” “Pink Elephant,” “Circle of Trust,” “Alien Nation,” “Beyond Salvation,” “Ride or Die,” “I Love Her Shadow,” “She Cries Diamond Rain” and “Stuck in My Head.”
Pink Elephant will mark Arcade Fire’s first LP since 2022’s We, which reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200 and climbed to the summit of the Top Rock Albums chart. It’ll also be the band’s first release since Butler was accused by multiple former fans of sexual misconduct, after which the frontman released a statement denying that any part of his relationships with those women was nonconsensual — though he did also apologize to “anyone who I have hurt with my behavior.”
A few days prior to the album announcement, Arcade Fire also rolled out a new app called Circle of Trust, where fans can now access special content including music, videos, early access to tickets, exclusive merch and more. This week, the band shared exclusive song “Cars and Telephones” — billed as the first composition Butler ever played for Chassagne — on the app.
See the Pink Elephant album cover and listen to “Year of the Snake” below.
When they relocated to New York in 2023, Pierre and Henry Beasley of alt-pop duo Balu Brigada certainly didn’t expect they’d end up sounding like a Big Apple band from 20 years earlier.
“I used to be kind of cynical of that idea,” Henry says of the notion of a band’s music sounding like the place where it’s made. But as the brothers — originally from Auckland, New Zealand — started to record their new album in Harlem, they had to acknowledge that it didn’t sound like the music they had been making seven time zones over.
“You can hear the difference between [how the] aggression and tension and grit comes out in New York — and then New Zealand’s rolling hills kind of giving you a little more space to breathe,” Henry explains. (“More beachy vibes,” Pierre adds.)
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Ashley Markle
It is one of those more aggressive, tense and gritty songs that has taken Balu Brigada from a cult act trying to find its major-label footing stateside — the brothers signed to both Warner Music Australasia and Atlantic Records simultaneously in 2022 — to chart-topping radio hitmakers. “So Cold,” a spiky, slinky and above all Strokes-y single the duo released in June 2024, reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart in March — a ranking more often dominated by legacy acts than a breakout outfit like Balu Brigada.
“So Cold” slotting in so easily in retro-dominated alt-rock radio playlists hardly happened by accident. Pierre recalls he and Henry (both multi-instrumentalists who share singing duties) loading up their YouTube accounts with videos of bands like The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand for inspiration while creating the song, which Pierre says originally had more of a The Police feel. “[We were watching] those guys playing big festivals, and having these big guitar riffs that people chant,” he recalls. “We leaned into that.”
Still, it took more than the spirits of such frontmen as Julian Casablancas and Alex Kapranos to turn the song into a No. 1 hit. First, the band posted an Instagram reel of “So Cold” in spring 2024, with a red jumpsuit-clad Pierre playing the bass while sitting in his Auckland bedroom. The clip caught fire on social media and attracted a ton of industry attention.
“We got so many crazy calls just from this one reel,” says Goldie Management’s Amy Goldsmith, who’s been with the band since seeing them play at a New Zealand barbecue in the late 2010s. “[Recording Academy CEO] Harvey Mason jr even rung [about] the boys and was like, ‘What is this band? I’m so excited about them.’ ”
Henry (left) and Pierre Beasley of Balu Brigada photographed March 19, 2025 in New York.
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The reel also soon got the attention of Chris Woltman, longtime manager of alt-pop superstars Twenty One Pilots. “It was pretty obvious that [‘So Cold’ was] a smash,” he says of his first impression. That inspired him to dig deeper into the band’s streaming catalog — which includes a steady run of singles dating back to 2016, along with 2019’s Almost Feel Good Mixtape and EPs I Should Be Home (2021) and Find a Way (2013).
“I quickly found out over the next couple of days that it wasn’t just one song — they’d been writing these amazing tracks,” recalls Woltman. “It raised this question of, ‘This is an amazing song, and there’s all these other amazing songs. How can this band not be getting noticed?’ ”
From there, Woltman not only signed the band to his and Twenty One Pilots frontman Tyler Joseph’s newly launched ARRO label, but hitched Balu Brigada to the Pilots’ then-upcoming Clancy worldwide arena tour. (ARRO has an artist venture with Atlantic for Balu Brigada, but Woltman says the label is otherwise independent.)
“We all came together and said, “There is something really compelling going on: They’re making great music. They have a vision that we think can be driven with discovery with our fanbase; they have a song in ‘So Cold’ that is the tip of the spear. If we come in and are their greatest advocate [and introduce] them to the Twenty One Pilots fanbase… we thought, ‘You know what, let’s give this a shot.’ ”
Despite the risk of attaching a relatively unproven band to such a major tour, they quickly demonstrated themselves to Woltman as highly capable: “I think what they just needed is a little bit of time on the field,” he says.
They got that playing time in the form of 66 shows, taking them all over North America, Latin America, Oceania and Europe, and putting them in front of over a million total Twenty One Pilots fans — known as Clikkies — who quickly took to the junior alt-pop duo. “There’s something special about the way that the fanbase has adopted Henry and Pierre,” Goldsmith says. “I think with the passion that the Clikkies have, they’ve [taken to Balu Brigada as] kind of like, ‘These are our new baby-band boys.’”
In the meantime, “So Cold” was starting to catch on at streaming services — helped by a music video with some winkingly White Stripes-influenced fashion and camera zooms, and a September synch in soccer video game EA Sports FC 25, after which the song’s weekly streams doubled. (To date, it has 12.2 million on-demand official U.S. streams through April 3, according to Luminate.) And Woltman and the team started pushing the song to alternative radio, sensing an opportunity to expand its success there. “In the alternative mix today, I think that radio still plays a role,” he says. “ ‘So Cold’ felt like it could be a big alternative radio track.”
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A few weeks after Balu Brigada brought “So Cold” to Jimmy Kimmel Live! — the duo’s first appearance on American television — the song topped the Alternative Airplay chart dated March 29, in its 24th week on the listing. Woltman sees its success as validation of a long-term strategy that was nearly a year in the making.
“None of this is about an overnight moment,” he says, “as is always the case when you’re trying to build a legitimate alternative rock band. It’s not about a song; it’s not about a TikTok moment; it’s not about an influencer moment — it’s about the everything else.”
Currently, Pierre and Henry are putting the finishing touches on their debut album, expected later this year, which takes the band to new territory — including “some real emotional sensitive jams” and “some real obnoxious like pseudo-EDM stompers,” Henry says. But even though they’re nearly a year removed from the release of “So Cold,” and getting a step closer to their Strokes and White Stripes fantasies with their own upcoming headlining U.S. tour, they’re still enjoying following their breakout hit on its way up.
“Every day, it’s hitting a new peak,” Pierre says. “We’re both proud to watch our baby continue to be recognized.”
A version of this story appears in the April 19, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Turnstile has announced its first album in four years: Never Enough, the long-awaited follow-up to the hardcore band’s 2021 breakthrough Glow On, will be released on June 6, the band revealed on Tuesday (April 8). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In addition, Turnstile shared a preview […]
Blink-182 announced the dates for their 2025 Missionary Impossible U.S. tour on Tuesday morning (April 8). The late summer/fall trek will hit arenas, amphitheaters and stadiums across the country. The Live Nation-promoted outing is slated to kick off on Aug. 28 at the Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, FL and will include stops in Tampa, […]
Metallica will be teaming up with the American Red Cross for blood drives on the upcoming spring 2025 U.S. dates on the band’s ongoing M72 tour. The band announced on Monday (April 7) that its foundation, All Within My Hands, will be encouraging fans at select shows on their spring run to give blood to […]
As Tracy Chapman reissues her debut album on vinyl for its latest anniversary, the acclaimed musician has opened up about her preference of avoiding streaming services.
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Speaking to the New York Times this week, Chapman was asked about her current listening habits, admitting that while she does still indeed check out new music, she doesn’t “listen to as much as [she] used to.”
“I’m maybe going to date myself now, or someone’s going call me a Luddite, but I don’t stream music,” Chapman explained. “I only buy music in physical form. Artists get paid when you actually buy a CD or the vinyl. That’s important to me. So to some extent, it limits what I listen to, because it’s a physical commitment of going out into the world and finding things, but I still do go out.”
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Chapman’s comments come about at a rather pertinent time in her recent career. Over the past 15 years, her debut single “Fast Car” has experienced massive success on streaming platforms thanks to covers from names such as Michael Collings, Jonas Blue, and Luke Combs.
In the case of the latter, the track topped the Adult Pop Airplay, Country Airplay, and Hot Country Songs charts, while peaking at No. 2 on the Hot 100. It also won both single and song of the year at the Country Music Association Awards, making her the first African American woman to take home a CMA award.
In June 2023, it was determined that the track had generated $500,000 in global publishing royalties across the previous three months. In February 2024, it was noted that Chapman’s performance at the Grammys resulted in a total of 949,000 official on-demand U.S. streams the day following the performance. Digital sales, meanwhile, exploded 38,400% from a negligible amount to nearly 14,000. Earlier this year, it was announced that the original track had surpassed more than one billion streams on Spotify.
Notably, despite rises in the appetite for physical media, Chapman’s original song had long been far more accessible on streaming services as opposed to the more popular vinyl format. Part of that inaccessibility was what led to the recent reissue of her debut self-titled 1988 album on vinyl for its 35th anniversary (though it officially arrived on the 37th anniversary).
“We might have talked about it at 25 years or 30 years, and then it just seemed like, ‘OK, this is a moment to do it because people have this renewed interest in vinyl and obviously this record was so extremely important to me and my career as a songwriter,’” Chapman told Billboard recently.
Alongside her discussion of streaming services, Chapman was also asked about the current artists she appreciates, ultimately pointing to “all the young women in all their variety, doing their things” at the recent Grammys, specifically looking toward Chappell Roan and Charli XCX.
“It’s not music that I would make, but I appreciate that we’re in this moment where there’s a path for artists like that, and they can even have success,” Chapman noted.