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Ozzy Osbourne is facing a copyright lawsuit over alleged social media posts featuring unlicensed photos of a famous rock star: Ozzy Osbourne.
The case, filed Monday in Los Angeles federal court, claims the Black Sabbath frontman illegally posted multiple images — of himself – that were snapped by prolific rock photographer Neil Zlozower.
The photographer’s attorneys say Ozzy posted the images to his massive followings on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) without seeking permission or paying Zlozower a licensing fee.
“The accounts are key components of defendant’s popular and lucrative commercial enterprise,” the lawsuit says. “Defendant has over 12 million followers on [Facebook], and over 6 million followers on [Instagram], and over 5 million followers on [X] — all of which are monetized and provide significant financial benefits to defendant.”
A rep for Ozzy did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations.
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While it might sound unfair to a celebrity, the copyrights to a photo are almost always retained by the person who took it. Simply appearing in an image does not give a celebrity co-ownership of it, nor does it give them a right to repost it for free. To understand why, read Billboard‘s explainer here.
Ozzy is hardly the first celebrity to get sued over that legal reality. Over the last few years, Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Emily Ratajkowski, LeBron James, Katy Perry and others have faced copyright cases after they re-used photos of themselves snapped by someone else.
And in allegedly using photographs snapped by Zlozower, Ozzy picked the wrong guy to test. Since 2016, court records show the litigious photographer has filed nearly 60 copyright cases against a range of defendants over images of Elvis Costello, Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe and more.
In Monday’s lawsuit, Zlozower’s attorneys say Ozzy used several different photos. Five are staged portraits of the rocker standing alongside Zakk Wylde, the lead guitarist for Osbourne’s backing band since 1987; another features Osbourne onstage embracing Randy Rhoads, who served as guitarist on Osbourne’s first two solo albums before dying suddenly in a 1982 plane crash.
Zlozower says his team reached out to Ozzy about the allegedly infringing social posts in June – and then again in August and September. But he says the star “failed to respond,” meaning he was “forced to seek judicial intervention for defendant’s infringing activity.”
Ticketmaster has begun cancelling thousands of tickets for Oasis’ upcoming reunion tour in a crackdown on bots.
Passes for the shows in the U.K. and Ireland went on sale in August 2024, but the on-sale process was marred by long delays and the use of dynamic pricing model, which meant that ticket prices were higher for some fans than expected.
Reports said that over 50,000 tickets ended up on resale sites, despite efforts to restrict touts re-selling tickets at inflated prices.
A statement issued by promoters Live Nation and SJM Concerts at the time read: “Ticket resale is permitted at no more than the price you paid (face value + booking fees). Please only use the official resale partners Twickets and Ticketmaster. Selling tickets through unauthorised resale platforms will breach these T&Cs and those tickets may be cancelled”.
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Now, Ticketmaster have been contacting some ticket holders to inform them that their tickets have been refunded as “it has been identified that bots were used to make this purchase,” meaning they “violate the tour’s terms and conditions.”
“These terms were specifically established to limit resale of tickets on unauthorised ticketing platforms for profit,” the message says. “Fans have been strongly advised by all parties not to purchase tickets from unauthorised resale sites, to protect them from fraud or refunding.”
However some Oasis fans have reported on social media that their tickets have been wrongly cancelled in the efforts, despite abiding the rules of the on-sale process. “If 2025 could actually get any worse – now I don’t even have this to look forward to any more,” wrote one fan on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday (February 7) showing a message from Ticketmaster saying that their tickets had been cancelled.
Another wrote: “So what’s this complete sh-tshow? Sat on my laptop for hours on general sale day to secure just TWO tickets for ONE gig and you’re telling me I’m a bot and a tout!” The post is accompanied by pictures of his ticket buying set-up which includes one device but with multiple tabs.
Reports in the BBC and The Guardian have identified fans who have also had their tickets cancelled, with one telling the former that “it just feels like my dreams have been completely crushed.”
Billboard UK has approached Ticketmaster for comment. On the Oasis Refunds FAQ page, a message reads: “For ticket purchasers who believe they have had tickets refunded in error, refer to the email sent by the relevant agent when informed.”
Following the original on sale, the band responded to the news that tickets had been on-sale on resale sites for upwards of £10,000 ($12,412)
“We have noticed people attempting to sell tickets on the secondary market since the start of the pre-sale. Please note, tickets can ONLY be resold, at face value, via Ticketmaster and Twickets.
“Tickets sold in breach of the terms and conditions will be cancelled by the promoters.” Twickets shared Oasis’s statement and added their own: “Don’t buy tickets over face value. Official resale will be available on our website/app at face value only.”
Oasis’ reunion tour will kick off at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales on July 4, before heading to Manchester, London, Edinburgh and Dublin across the 19 dates. The tour will then head to North America, Latin America, Australia and Asia later this year.
If you’re planning to see Jack White and hoping for a marathon effort from the musician, it might be time to temper your expectations.
White took to Instagram on Saturday (Feb. 8) to reflect on the attitudes he’s noticed regarding the lengths of the sets he has performed. According to sites such as Setlist.fm, White has an average performance time of 90 minutes, with recent sets ranging from 16 to 22 songs.
“Been hearing a lot of chatter throughout the year of this glorious electric touring about how long our sets are ‘supposed to be’ on stage,” he began. “As if the length of a show determines how ‘good’ it is. I know that we’re living in a current era where people like to say ‘so and so played for 3 hours last night!’, and brag about it the next day hahaha, I’ll let our fans know now that my mind has no intention of ‘impressing’ y’all in that context.
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“The Beatles and Ramones played 30 minute (ish) sets, and If I could, I would do the same at this moment in my performing life,” he added. “That’s actually the kind of show I’d like to put on right now. But there becomes this chatter that the cost of a ticket ‘entitles’ people to some kind of extra long show…uh…ok (hahaha) so I’m bridging the gap. I’m not sure y’all are knowing (or maybe remembering?) what a real rock or punk show is like though if you’re thinking that way, I think you’re talking about an arena laser light show with pyro, huge screens with premade videos, singers flying over the crowd, t shirt cannons, etc, that’s not the kind of shows we’re performing.”
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White’s own history as a touring musician has been peppered with shows of varying lengths. Famously, on July 16, 2007, as a member of The White Stripes, Jack and Meg White performed the shortest show of their career so as to fulfill their goal of playing every province and territory of Canada. The one-note show in St. Johns, Newfoundland was denied inclusion into the Guinness Book of Records, sadly.
However, this short concert is in line with White’s own critique of expectations from audiences. While artists such as Bruce Springsteen may average three-hour sets, and Phish and Dead & Company might be creeping towards four hours on average, White explains it’s all about what best suits the audience gathered before him.
“I’ve seen a plethora of rock and roll gigs that lasted 45 minutes and blew my mind and inspired me beyond belief,” he explained. “Read the room, leave everyone exhausted and inspired (hopefully) and most of all wanting more, without needing 3 hours to do it. That’s like saying a film is supposed to be better cause they spent 300 trillion making it, well I’ve never seen that movie.
“Love to all of our fans, I see your faces every night and you can be assured I’ve never phoned it in in my life, whether its 20 minutes or 2 hours, I’m giving the room what the room is prompting me to do and share and that doesn’t mean if people cheer louder it’s going to be longer either! haha. There’s no setlist, and it’s not a Marvel movie, or a Vegas residency, it’s rock and roll and it’s a living breathing organism.”
White is currently in the midst of a lengthy global tour that began in 2024 in support of his latest solo album, No Name. Much like the length of his live sets, White had initially planned for the majority of his touring plans to be relatively impromptu, though a more concrete run of dates was detailed in November.
Primus has found a new drummer.
About four months after the abrupt departure of longtime percussionist Tim “Herb” Alexander, the veteran band revealed their new timekeeper following a global open call for auditions.
“Hoffington!!! Welcome aboard! @johnhoffmandrums,” Primus singer and bassist Les Claypool wrote on Instagram Friday (Feb. 7), alongside a photo featuring Claypool with new drummer Hoffman and guitarist Larry LaLonde.
Primus announced on Oct. 29 that Alexander had resigned suddenly on Oct. 17 via email, citing a “loss of passion for playing” — a reason that Claypool and LaLonde admitted “came as a complete shock.”
Following Alexander’s departure, Primus announced they would be holding auditions for a new drummer. “Taking submissions from all points in the universe for the position of Primus drummer/percussionist,” the band wrote, adding, “Flashy chops are wonderful, but groove, pocket, and the ability to listen, react, and contribute to the musical conversation is a must.”
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Primus took to social media again in late December to warn applicants of scammers who had begun contacting hopefuls ahead of in-person auditions.
Hoffman, a drummer from Shreveport, La., documented his preparation for the audition on YouTube.
“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity,” the drummer wrote on Instagram in late January. “I came and did my thing the way I do it. It went as well as I could have hoped. Maynard James Keenan was sitting directly in front of me and watched my entire audition. He gave me this towel. It’s been one of the most incredible days of my life. I love you all. We did this.”
Primus’ first show since Alexander’s final appearance in August took place as part of the band’s New Year’s Eve celebration at the Fox Theater in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 30. The night began with sets from Claypool’s other projects, Holy Mackerel and Frog Brigade, and concluded with a six-song performance by Primus, featuring Bryan “Brain” Mantia on drums.
Check out Primus’ new drummer announcement on Instagram here.
Twenty One Pilots lead Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart for the first time in three years, reigning on the Feb. 15-dated list via the 2-1 rise of “The Line.”
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The song marks the duo’s 11th No. 1 and first since “The Outside” ruled for three weeks beginning in January 2022.
Since then, the band had notched three chart entries, including two No. 2-peaking tracks in “Overcompensate” and “The Craving” in 2024.
With 11 rulers, Twenty One Pilots, who first led with “Stressed Out” in 2015, rank as the act with the sixth-most No. 1s since Alternative Airplay began in 1988.
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Most No. 1s, Alternative Airplay:15, Red Hot Chili Peppers13, Green Day13, Linkin Park12, Cage the Elephant12, Foo Fighters11, Twenty One Pilots8, U28, Weezer7, The Black Keys7, Imagine Dragons
Of the band’s 11 No. 1s, two have now come from soundtracks to TV or film. “The Line” is featured on the soundtrack to Netflix’s Arcane, which premiered its second and final season in November, while “Heathens” was heard in the 2016 movie Suicide Squad.
Concurrently, “The Line” ranks at No. 17 on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 2.4 million audience impressions in the week ending Feb. 6, according to Luminate. It reached a No. 14 high in December.
The song appeared at No. 28 on the most recently published multimetric Hot Rock & Alternative Songs tally (dated Feb . 8, reflecting data accumulated Jan. 24-30); it hit No. 13 in December. In addition to its radio airplay, “The Line” earned 2 million official U.S. streams in that span.
The soundtrack to Arcane’s second season peaked at No. 24 on the Billboard 200 in December and has earned 220,000 equivalent album units to date.
All Billboard charts dated Feb. 15 will update Tuesday, Feb. 11, on Billboard.com.
This might have been the year that both The Beatles and The Rolling Stones won Grammy Awards, but older demographics who watched the show are wondering why rock music had such a low profile during the televised ceremony.
Sure, rock music had a token presence during the telecast: The show began with an uplifting performance from Dawes covering Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.,” backed by an all-star band consisting of Brad Paisley, John Legend, Sheryl Crow, Brittany Howard and St. Vincent as a tribute to the people of Los Angeles who are still trying to recover from the devastating wildfires in January. Also, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis and Chad Smith presented the best pop vocal album Grammy to Sabrina Carpenter for Short n’ Sweet, while the alternative band Khruangbin played a very abbreviated segment of their shoe-gazing song “May Ninth”; and Coldplay’s Chris Martin played a ballad during the In Memoriam section.
But the awards for best rock album, best metal performance and best alternative music album, among others, were relegated to the non-televised afternoon Grammy Award presentation.
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Why weren’t there any artists from that genre rocking out during the telecast? After all, rock music still dominates the live show marketplace. And while there are many ways that various genres can be measured against one another, Luminate’s audio consumption album units genre report shows rock music is still the second biggest genre at 22.3%, Billboard calculates, when unassigned albums are deducted from the total. That’s almost two and a half times as large as Latin, which has an 8.3% market share; and slightly more than twice as large as country, which has a 10.4% market share.
In album units, rock is 50% larger than pop music, which has a 14.8% market share, but pop was featured prominently during the show. As was R&B/hip-hop, which is still the biggest genre at a 27.8% market share.
But even though rock may have a big presence collectively, it also has some missing ingredients that probably make it difficult to include it in the televised Grammy Awards these days.
Age is a factor — not only the demographics of the Grammy show viewers, which undoubtedly plays a role in what artists and music are featured on the TV broadcast, but the age of the rock music that makes up those market share numbers. Luminate tracks releases in two age brackets: current, which counts all sales and streaming activity in the first 18 months after a song or album is released; and catalog, which counts everything older than 18 months.
That is one of rock’s biggest issues: By the catalog category — again using audio consumption units minus activity from titles unassigned to a genre — its 25.5% of the market is comfortably No. 2 in the industry, still behind R&B/hip-hop. But by current releases, rock slips all the way to fourth, at 11.9%, behind R&B/hip-hop (27.2%), pop (18.7%) and country (14.8%) and barely ahead of Latin (10.6%).
And the Grammy Awards are all about current music; in fact, current music is literally written into the eligibility criteria of which music releases can be considered for its awards. For the 2025 Grammys, the Recording Academy only considered recordings released from Sept. 16, 2023, to Aug. 20, 2024. Mathematically speaking, all the releases that meet that criteria to be eligible for a Grammy Award, and thus to be included in the show, would be current releases.
But there could be another, more significant factor as to why rock music wasn’t front and center during the televised portion: The sales and streams for the nominees in the rock categories paled in comparison to those of other genres. Big sales and streaming activity clearly indicate widespread popularity and TV shows are all about drawing big viewing audiences. And the nominees in the rock categories turned in the weakest collective performance when it came to sales and streaming activity among the genres highlighted on the show.
Of the albums nominated for album of the year, only Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft could be remotely considered rock — and alternative at that, or more accurately dark pop. The other albums, not so much: Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of A Midwest Princess and Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet got pop covered; Charli XCX’s Brat represents electro-pop; and Andre 3000’s New Blue Sun and Jacob Collier’s Djesse Vol. 4 are R&B and jazz, with smatterings of funk thrown in. In fact, Beyoncé’s country album, Cowboy Carter, has been cited for bringing other genres into the mix.
Collectively, the eight albums nominated for album of the year averaged 2.043 million album consumption units in 2024, even with the Andre 3000 album only hitting 44,000 units and the Collier album lower, at 33,000 units.
Sales and streaming activity was also a likely distinguishing factor in determining if the big awards of the Latin, pop, country and R&B genres were featured on the televised show. Let’s take best pop vocal album, with the Grammy nod going to Carpenter’s Sweet album, which garnered 2.504 million U.S. album consumption units. Collectively, the five nominees in that category averaged 3.01 million album consumption units, with Swift’s Tortured Poets leading the way with 6.962 million.
In best rap album, Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal won the Grammy, despite having the second-lowest sales/activity of the nominees at 133,000 album consumption units. Collectively, the five nominated albums averaged 712,000 units, led by Future & Metro Boomin’s We Don’t Trust You at 2.046 million units and Eminem’s The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grace) at 1.01 million album consumption units.
In best country album, the Grammy nominees collectively averaged 856,000 album consumption units, with a pair of artists new to the genre leading the way in Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion, with 1.598 million units, and winner Cowboy Carter, with 1.42 million album consumption units.
Shakira, who performed and was acknowledged for her historic role in bringing Latin music to the masses, won best Latin pop album with her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran album, which had 306,000 album consumption units. Collectively, her activity combined with the other four nominees for best Latin pop album averaged 171,000 album consumption units.
Even dance/electronic music, which ranks sixth with 3.8% in U.S. market share as calculated by Billboard based on Luminate data, made the cut for the televised portion of the show. While its overall market share is meager compared to rock, its collective current album consumption units were bolstered by Charli XCXs Brat album, which garnered 1.159 million album consumption units. In total, the five nominees in the category earned a collective average of 273,000 units.
Rock, in comparison, is a different story. The Rolling Stones won the best rock album award with 91,000 album consumption units for its Hackney Diamonds, while Green Day, which was the category leader, had 158,000 units. Collectively, the rock category nominees averaged just 81,000 units, by far the smallest of the bigger genres.
There may be plenty of reasons why rock was relegated to the back burner at this year’s Grammy Awards — the Stones and the Beatles, after all, are not the hottest names with kids these days. But the numbers certainly tell at least part of that story.
Linkin Park lands its 12th No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, as “Heavy Is the Crown” lifts a spot to the top of the tally dated Feb. 15.
The song is the band’s fourth No. 1 in as many tries dating to 2023, when “Lost” reigned for eight weeks. “Friendly Fire” followed for a week last April and “The Emptiness Machine” ruled for six frames beginning in October.
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With 12 total Mainstream Rock Airplay No. 1s, the sextet ties Disturbed for the eighth-most leaders in the chart’s history (which dates to 1981). Of those, 10 came with vocals from late singer Chester Bennington or rapper/singer Mike Shinoda, while new vocalist Emily Armstrong has taken the reins of the two most recent rulers alongside Shinoda.
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Most No. 1s, Mainstream Rock Airplay:19, Shinedown18, Three Days Grace15, Five Finger Death Punch14, Foo Fighters14, Metallica13, Godsmack13, Van Halen12, Disturbed12, Linkin Park
Linkin Park first led Mainstream Rock Airplay in 2003 with “Somewhere I Belong.” The group first appeared on the survey in 2000, when “One Step Closer” debuted; it peaked at No. 4 in January 2001, marking the band’s first of 21 top 10s.
Concurrently, “Heavy Is the Crown” rises 13-12 on Alternative Airplay. On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, it reigns for a fourth week via 5.3 million audience impressions in the week ending Feb. 6, according to Luminate.
On the most recently published Hot Hard Rock Songs list (dated Feb. 8, reflecting the Jan. 24-30 tracking period), “Heavy Is the Crown” ranked at No. 2; “The Emptiness Machine” led for 21st week. In addition to its radio airplay, the former drew 1.7 million official U.S. streams, up 3%.
“Heavy Is the Crown” is the second single from From Zero, Linkin Park’s eighth studio album and first with Armstrong and drummer Colin Brittain. The set launched at No. 1 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart in November and has earned 287,000 equivalent album units to date.
All Billboard charts dated Feb. 15 will update Tuesday, Feb. 11, on Billboard.com.
The streaming partners of FireAid, the mega-concert that has so far raised more than $100 million for LA wildfire victims, have extended on-demand access to the Jan. 30 concert for a year, with donations made during the streams matched dollar for dollar. Those streaming partners include Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, iHeart, KTLA+, Max, Netflix, Paramount+, Peacock/NBCNewsNow, SiriusXM, TikTok, Veeps and YouTube.
Fans of Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Green Day or any of the dozens of other acts that performed at the five-hour-long concert can also still donate to wildfire relief through FireAidLA.org. Billionaire ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife Connie extended their commitment to match every streaming donation, thereby doubling the fundraising effort.
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The concert, which featured performances from 30 artists at two Los Angeles venues, the Intuit Dome and the Kia Forum, attracted 50 million viewers across 28 streaming platforms on Jan. 30. Organizers of the event said proceeds raised by the shows will go to support the L.A. region’s immediate needs and long-term recovery from a series of wind-whipped wildfires that killed 29 people and destroyed more than 16,000 homes and other structures.
FireAid’s grants advisory committee, led by the Annenberg Foundation and other experienced regional philanthropic individuals, is charged with distributing the aid, and they expect the first phase of grants to be awarded by mid-February, according to a press release.
“The committee has been listening daily to affected communities, assessing local resource gaps to ensure aid reaches those most in need, and researching the handling of other fire disasters, such as those in Maui and Northern California,” according to the statement.
FireAid was organized by Shelli and Irving Azoff and the Azoff family, Live Nation, and the Los Angeles Clippers, with Joel Gallen of Tenth Planet serving as executive producer and Rick Krim as talent producer.
Dream Theater‘s new Parasomnia is titled after a specific category of sleep disorders. But it’s also an album that’s made dreams come true for fans of the 40-year-old progressive metal quintet.
Parasomnia marks the recording return of drummer and co-founder Mike Portnoy to the band’s ranks for the first time since 2009’s Black Clouds & Silver Linings. It reunites him with guitarist (and album producer) John Petrucci and bassist John Myung, who started Dream Theater as Majesty in 1985, after meeting at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Vocalist James LaBrie came on board in 1991, while Jordan Rudess joined in 1999.
That quintet released six studio albums prior to Portnoy’s departure, and Petrucci acknowledges to Billboard that “we fully understand the gravity of Mike coming back and us being together again.”
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From Portnoy’s perspective, “As Dorothy once said (in The Wizard of Oz), there’s no place like home. It’s not the original lineup, but it is the ‘classic’ lineup. I think the era this band made albums, basically ’99 through 2009, that was in a lot of ways the golden age of this band and…a musical blueprint that is such a big part of Dream Theater’s history. For this particular lineup to be reunited, it’s really special.”
While Portnoy acknowledges that “some fences had to be mended” from his departure, he and Petrucci worked together on the latter’s 2020 solo album, Terminal Velocity, and toured together; the two joined Rudess and bassist Tony Levin for a third studio album as Liquid Tension Experiment in 2021. But, Petrucci says, “those weren’t intended as any indication that (Portnoy) might be returning. Mike Mangini [Portnoy’s replacement] was very strong in the band…even if he couldn’t escape the ‘When’s Portnoy coming back?’ question that was constantly asked. We had just come off our first Grammy win [best metal performance in 2022 for “The Alien”] and everything was going great with touring.
“For whatever reason the stars aligned in that moment, in the fall of 2023. We did understand that making the announcement that not only was (Portnoy) coming back, but that we’d be going into the studio again, the excitement would be crazy — for us, too. I think you can hear it on the album.”
The eight-track, 71-minute set — out Friday (Feb. 7) and recorded at Dream Theater’s DTHQ studio on Long Island — is the band’s 16th overall, and the follow-up to 2021’s A View From the Top of the World, which debuted at in the top 10 of Billboard‘s Top Hard Rock Albums, Top Rock Albums and Independent Albums charts. With its intricate arrangements, explosive dynamics, virtuosic playing and long-form compositions (six songs are over seven minutes and a closing epic, “The Shadow Man Incident,” clocks in at a heady 19:32), Parasomnia is everything Dream Theater envelopes while sounding decidedly present-day.
“I wanted it to sound modern but also classic,” Petrucci explains. “Some of the albums made between 1999 and 2009 or so, that’s a period that’s so beloved by our fans. So having Mike rejoin, I think there’s hope for some of that nostalgia coming back — and it pretty much did. You can hear it on the album. It definitely has that vibe. But as a producer I’m going in wanting to make an album that sounds better than anything else we’ve done before. So you try to push the envelope with ways of recording. It’s a combination of using modern techniques but using vintage audio equipment to do it and mash those up in a perfect way. And of course using great personnel — Jimmy T (Meslin) our engineer, Andy Sneap, Mark Gittins — these guys are helping to bring it into the future, into a modern sound. It’s a perfect balance of old and new.”
Petrucci says Parasomnia‘s concept is not based on any real-life sleeping disorders within the band. He first heard the term a few years ago and “kept it in my back pocket. I love the sound of that word. I love the tie-in to dreams and Dream Theater, and I loved that the subject matter could be so creepy and dark and heavy.” He researched the various parasomnias — including sleepwalking, night terrors and night paralysis — and used them as the basis for songs; one, “Dead Asleep,” was even drawn from a true story about a man who accidentally strangled his wife in bed while dreaming that he was fighting a home intruder.
The suite-like “The Shadow Man Incident,” meanwhile, is based on a pre-waking phenomenon of feeling the presence of “demons or dark figures,” according to Petrucci.
“It is a thematic, concept album,” he acknowledges, “so there are some Easter eggs throughout, (musical) themes that repeat themselves that I think hardcore fans will pick up on. We love doing stuff like that. I think it takes the album to another level. It makes it more epic, more classic, more special. And it’s so much fun.”
Portnoy, meanwhile, takes credit for pushing Dream Theater in the conceptual direction on Parasomnia. “It’s such an important album for us that I thought it needed to be something more than just a collection of songs,” he says. “That’s when we started creating the album, thinking of it in terms of one piece of work that you digest from start to finish, like watching a movie or reading a book. Once we decided to go in that direction it really opened the doors to make this a very special album.”
Dream Theater preceded Parasomnia‘s release with the tracks “Night Terror,” “A Broken Man” and “Midnight Messiah,” along with accompanying videos. The band returns to the road on release day in Philadelphia, with dates currently announced through a sold-out March 22 stop at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Petrucci says the trek will feature a couple of songs from the new album but is mostly designed to continue a celebration of Dream Theater’s 40th anniversary — which began last year, overseas — with a more Parasomnia-centric tour planned for later this year. Portnoy adds that Dream Theater hopes to play the new album in its entirety at that time.
“It’s pretty incredible I’m still in the same band with a guy I met when I was 12, in middle school, and a guy I met when I was 18, just starting at college,” Petrucci notes. “We all love doing it. We’re driven. We love playing our instruments, we love writing music together, recording music together, we love touring together. The chemistry and brotherhood we have as people is just so strong. And on top of that is a fan base that’s international and widespread and loyal and dedicated and devoted. We don’t take that for granted.
“Not every band survives, right? Bands break up, members leave. We know how lucky we are to have a 40-year career and that a member can leave and come back and rejoin with such happiness and excitement around it. That’s a testament to everybody’s love for doing it, and love for each other.”
Oasis are prepping a 25th anniversary reissue of their fourth studio album, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, which will be released in a pair of limited-edition vinyl versions on Feb. 28.
The fourth album from the Britpop superstars was released in February 2000 and marked a left-turn into more electronic-based psychedelic sound featuring drum loops, electric sitar, Mellotron, synthesizers, backwards guitar and samples layered into their signature heady, Beatles-inspired rock sound on the bull rush opening track “F****n’ In the Bushes” and the swirling “Put Yer Money Where Yer Mouth Is.” The collection also featured one of their classic acoustic ballads, the single “Go Let It Out,” as well as singles “Where Did It All Go Wrong?,” “Who Feels Love?” and “Sunday Morning Call.”
Friday’s (Feb. 7) announcement came just 147 days (but who’s counting?) before formerly battling brothers singer Liam and guitarist/songwriter/occasional singer Noel Gallagher kick off their eagerly anticipated 2025 reunion tour.
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The anniversary edition of the album will be issued in silver vinyl and an official store-exclusive blue and purple marble edition on the anniversary of the LP’s original release on Feb. 28, 2000. They also teased a new lyric video for “Go Let It Out,” slated to premiere at 11 a.m. ET on Friday.
A press release announcing the reissue noted that the album marked a new era for the group, with “Go Let It Out” the first release on the Gallaghers’ Big Brother Recordings Ltd. label, established after the sudden shuddering of their former label, Creation Records.
Oasis are slated to kick off their 2025 stadium tour on July 4 with the first of two dates at Cardiff, UK’s Principality Stadium, after which they will criss-cross the UK and Ireland before hopping over to North America on August 24 for a show at Rogers Stadium in Toronto. They will hit Chicago, New Jersey and Los Angeles before moving on to Mexico City, South Korea, Japan, Australia and South America, winding down with a Nov. 23 show in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
See the reissue announcement below.
