Music News

19 Jan 2024

Mariah Carey’s 2023 Holiday Tour Scored Her Best Concert Attendance in 25 Years

Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas One and All! tour grossed $29.6 million and sold 214,000 tickets according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. On a per-show basis, the tour’s 15 dates sold more tickets than any Carey tour in 25 years, dating back to the Butterfly World Tour in 1998.

Carey released Merry Christmas in 1994, featuring the iconic and evergreen smash single, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” That would be enough to cement her status as the Queen of Christmas, but Carey has put in the work each year and assumed her throne on stage as well. For every year since 2014 (except for the 2020-21 COVID years), she has toured and/or held mini residencies honoring her holiday material.

For four years, Carey played a stint at New York’s Beacon Theatre, building from 16,200 tickets in 2014, to 20,700 in 2015, and to 23,400 in 2016. She cut down to just three shows at the Beacon in 2017, before rebuilding at Madison Square Garden in 2019, 2022 and 2023. Her two shows there in December sold a combined 28,700 tickets and grossed $4.5 million, both of which are bigger than ever.

Not only has Carey increased her efficiency in New York, she’s built out across the country and into Europe. What began as a NYC-only event in 2014, expanded to Europe in 2017 and 2018, plus more North American cities in 2019. After last year’s post-pandemic return focused on just New York and Toronto, the 2023 tour boasts Carey’s biggest holiday routing yet, never playing to fewer than 12,500 fans across the U.S. and Canada. Holiday classics or not, it’s her first such major arena tour since 2006.

Considering “All I Want for Christmas Is You” re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 based on the tracking week of Nov. 10-16, and stayed at No. 2 through the first week of 2024, it’s possible she could expand beyond the Nov. 17-Dec. 17 window of this year’s run.

The Merry Christmas One and All! tour averaged $2 million and 14,200 tickets per show. Those revenue figures are Carey’s biggest ever, dating back more than 30 years since she crashed the Billboard charts.

But while a bustling concert economy and decades of inflation can explain some of her recent success, Carey’s reach – the sheer number of tickets she sold – is also sky high. That 14,200 average is the best per-show attendance for any of her tours since 1998, when she was supporting the previous year’s Butterfly.

Leading up to that 1998 tour, Carey amassed four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and 12 No. 1 songs on the Hot 100. Since then, there have been another two No. 1 albums and seven No. 1 songs, including 14 weeks on top, spread across the last five holiday seasons, for “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” In 2019, one month before that track reached the summit, Carey ranked No. 4 on Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Artists chart, leading among women and Black artists.

Still, Carey has never toured with the same intensity as many of the acts that surrounded her on that list, such as Elton John, Madonna or Taylor Swift. Her first three concert tours, in the midst of her ‘90s chart-topping spree, each lasted for no more than 11 shows, almost one eighth of Swift’s calendar for 2024.

It’s encouraging that Carey has arguably been busier than ever on the road in the last decade, including her annual holiday series, two Las Vegas residencies and three international tours. Far removed from releasing her last chart-topper, her 2023 upswing in concert attendance, not to mention the all-time-high grosses, tells a positive story about Carey’s legacy as the Queen of Christmas, using her unique niche (and 19 No. 1 hits – a record among soloists – expanding their presence in the holiday show setlist) to fill arenas.

19 Jan 2024

Lizzo Teases She’s Working on New Music: ‘The Magic Is Back’

Lizzo is getting back to business. The 35-year-old hitmaker teased on Instagram Thursday (Jan. 18) that she’s working on new music, sharing a muted video of herself recording vocals at a studio setup. 

In the clip, the “Truth Hurts” artist appears to sport a simple black Yitty hoodie and headphones as she passionately belts inaudible lyrics into a microphone. And while viewers can’t hear what she’s singing, Lizzo does give a clue as to the style of music she’s working on, audibly saying after she finishes her take, “I felt like Gwen Stefani in the ’90s.” 

“To my dearest lizzo fans, the magic is back?,” she captioned the video. 

Aside from her Barbie soundtrack piece “Pink” and her 2022 holiday song “Somebody at Christmas,” Lizzo hasn’t released music since her July 2022 album Special, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and spawned the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “About Damn Time.” When she does officially make her return, it’ll be her first project since she was hit with a major lawsuit from several of her former backup dancers alleging sexual harassment and hostile work conditions.  

Soon after, a designer who worked on the Grammy winner’s Special Tour last year sued Lizzo for perpetuating a “culture of racism and bullying” during the trek. Lizzo has emphatically denied the accusations in both suits. 

In November, Lizzo told fans that she is working “on music, myself, relationships with people and food, my anxiety, my body, my business.” “And my trust issues with the world,” she added. “They are deep now, deeper than they’ve ever been.” 

See her post below: 

19 Jan 2024

Jeffrey Wright Recalls the Time David Bowie Asked If He Wanted to Hear Some Unreleased Tunes: ‘Sure, Put in Your Little Disc’

Like many of us, David Bowie was one of American Fiction actor Jeffrey Wright’s all-time heroes. But unlike most of us, Wright not only got meet the late rock legend, he also had the opportunity to act alongside him in the 1996 biopic Basquiat, in which he played neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat alongside Bowie as pop art figurehead Andy Warhol.

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On The Kelly Clarkson Show on Friday (Jan. 19), Wright recalled meeting Bowie on the film in reaction to a picture Clarkson put on the big screen from a photo shoot the actor did with the “Space Oddity” singer to promote the biopic about the talented street-artist-turned-international-phenom.

“He meant the world to me,” Wright said of Bowie, who died of liver cancer in 2016 at 69. “There were periods of my life where his music was the soundtrack.” Wright describe the intense prep he did for the film — directed by artist Julian Schnabel — in which the actor painted for six months in Schnabel’s studio in the presence of dozens of original Basquiat paintings to get into character.

One day while working on a canvas, Wright said the door opened and Bowie — who also dabbled in painting, as well as quite a bit of big screen acting — walked in unexpectedly. “He kneels down next to me and he says, ‘do you mind if I watch?’,” Wright said Bowie asked. “And I said, ‘well, I think I’m gonna have to get used to it, yeah.’”

Wright recalled that they had a laugh and for the remainder of the shoot Bowie was “so generous and so smart and funny… and he couldn’t have been cooler to me.” In fact, one day he was in the hair and makeup trailer with Gary Oldman — who played a fictional composite character modeled on Schnabel — and Bowie walked in with a most incredible query. “‘Do you want to hear some music?’” the singer asked them.

“And we’re like, ‘huh?!’,” Wright remembers responding in gleeful shock. “And we’re like, ‘yeah David Bowie we’ll tolerate your music, yeah sure! Put in your little disc.’” What Bowie cued up were tracks from his then-unreleased new album, the arty concept song cycle Outside, which included some songs that ended up in the film.

“And we’re listening to it and we’re like, ‘Whoa!’ and David’s sitting there air-guitaring to his own music… and it was like, you know, the cool guy at school who found some obscure record somewhere and brought it in,” Wright recalled thinking. “Except the cool guy was David Bowie!”

American Fiction — about a struggling Black novelist horrified by the smash success of a racially charged book he wrote as as joke — is in theaters now.

Watch Wright talk about Bowie below.

19 Jan 2024

Dolly Parton Can’t Stop Rocking, Releases ‘Rockstar’ Deluxe Edition With 9 Bonus Tracks

If you thought Dolly Parton was done rocking, think again. The country icon and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer celebrated her 78th birthday on Friday (Jan. 19) by dropping a deluxe version of her debut rock album, Rockstar.

“It’s my Birthday so I’m going to give you a present!” Parton wrote on X. “I’m releasing four never released songs for my birthday, to go with the Rockstar album, and a few others that you may have heard before that were not on the album. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope you all have a happy birthday for me! LOL.”

The nine fresh tracks include a live version of her originals “Rockin’ It,” “Mama Never Said” and the golden oldie Sylvester Stallone-featuring “Stay Out of My Bedroom” from the 1984 Rhinestone soundtrack.

Other bonus tracks include her take on Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” Eddie Money’s “Two Tickets to Paradise,” a take on her classic “Jolene” with leather and lace Italian rockers Måneskin, as well as covers of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Billy Joel’s “The Entertainer” and the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).”

Five of the bonus tracks appeared on previous digital and limited edition versions of the album that debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in late November and No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Album Sales chart, marking her first leader on the 32-year-old tally.

See Parton’s announcement and listen to the bonus tracks below.

19 Jan 2024

It’s All Happening! Justin Timberlake Posts Snippet of Rehearsal Footage on Eve of Free Memphis Club Show

With just hours to go before Justin Timberlake takes the stage at the Orpheum Theater in his hometown of Memphis tonight (Jan. 19), the singer posted a five-second sneak peek of what is expected to be the preview of his return to music. “SEE YOU TOMORROW” Timberlake wrote on X on Thursday night in advance of the free underplay show he announced last week.

Even better, the post came with a brief video of Timberlake walking onto the theater’s stage, which was bathed in orange light illuminating a full band playing a slinky R&B groove as the “Mirrors” singer crooned what sounded like “it’s all that I saw.” It was unclear at press time if the groove was from a new song, but Justin’s increased activity lately has ramped up speculation that the JT6 era is imminent.

In addition to the show, Timberlake will be back in the friendly confines of The Tonight Show next Thursday (Jan. 25), where he is booked to appear as a guest alongside Molly Ringwald and musical guest Flo Milli. Timberlake and host Jimmy Fallon are old friends, so fans have been hoping that the singer will use the opportunity to announce his as-yet-untitled new album; at press time Timberlake had not officially confirmed speculation that he’s prepping the follow-up to 2018’s Man of the Woods.

There have been a number of clues that something is up, including Timberlake wiping his social media feeds over the past week before posting a series of pictures that appear to be from a music video shoot, captioned “EITIW.” The latter spurred suggestions that his new single will be called “Everything I Thought I Was,” with eagle-fingered Redditors tracking down a trademark application filed by a mystery LLC early last year for that phrase, as well as for “Everything I Thought I Was… A Sonic Film.”

At press time a spokesperson for Timberlake had not returned a request for comment on his upcoming plans.

In September, Timberlake reunited with his old bandmates in *NSYNC to release “Better Place” from the Trolls Band Together soundtrack, marking the group’s first musical release since 2002’s Neptunes remix of “Girlfriend” featuring Nelly.

Check out Timberlake’s post below.

19 Jan 2024

‘Tonight Show’ Posts Official Video of Green Day’s Ripping Subway Pop-Up Concert

Green Day are in full promotional blitz mode to support their just released new studio album, Saviors. In addition to talk show and radio appearances, the veteran pop-punk trio also went undercover, and underground, to film a bit for The Tonight Show earlier this week with host Jimmy Fallon in a New York City subway station.

The surprise concert was extensively documented on social media by the many fans who crowded onto the 50th Street station platform to watch the band rip through some classics and new songs. But on Thursday night (Jan. 18), Fallon finally aired the official footage from the punk pop-up on his show, beginning with the group and the host setting up to busk while wearing adorably unconvincing disguises.

If the lighting rigs and cameras didn’t give away the bit, surely Fallon’s flowing blonde weird beard and matching shoulder-length cascade of crimped hair and drummer Tré Cool’s unconvincing soul patch beard and nerd glasses tipped some eagle-eyed fans off. The quartet warmed up commuters with a run through Bad Company’s 1975 power ballad “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” with Fallon handling lead vocals and tambourine.

Singer Billie Joe Armstrong — rocking a fake blonde mustache, green wool beanie and red shades — sang backup and strummed an acoustic guitar for the swaying crowd as it swelled upon recognition of the one-of-a-kind subway surprise. Fallon drew huge cheers as he ripped off his disguise and the band tore into a raucous, acoustic run through their beloved 1994 smash “Basket Case” with the host sharing a mic with bassist Mike Dirnt and adding backing vocals and tambourine during the commute-destroying gig.

The show also posted a bonus online-only nine-minute extended video featuring runs through the new Saviors songs “Dilemma” and “Look Ma, No Brains!” and another classic, “American Idiot.” On the latter, Billie Joe once again poked followers of one-term former president Donald Trump with his by-now-familiar lyrical eye poke at the “MAGA agenda,” a line the mass of strap hangers lustily shouted along to in the midst of a campaign season in which the four-times indicted Trump is daily bouncing between courtrooms and campaign events.

Green Day’s 14th album is out today (Jan. 19) and the group is gearing up to hit the road this summer to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their major label debut, Dookie, and the 20th anniversary of American Idiot by playing both albums in full on a massive stadium tour that kicks off its North American leg on July 29 in Washington, D.C. at Nationals Park; Rancid, the Smashing Pumpkins and the Linda Lindas will open the North American shows.

Watch the subway show below.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=rNhypzrTQFk&version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

18 Jan 2024

Green Day Shares the Blessings With New ‘Saviors’ Album: Stream It Now

No need to traverse a boulevard a broken dreams, a new Green Day album has finally arrived. Nearly four years since their last studio LP — 2020’s Father of All… — the iconic rockers are back with a brand new set featuring a slew of singles including the Rock Airplay chart-topper “The American Dream Is Killing Me.”

Saviors marks a return to the thematic bent of “American Idiot,” which bassist Mike Dirnt addressed in a recent Rolling Stone interview. “‘The American Dream Is Killing Me’ was written by Billie [Joe Armstrong] almost four years ago. But we all knew it was just low-hanging fruit. We’re not a parody of who we are, and songs like that need time to be fleshed out. If that means just sitting back and letting life happen, so be it. And it was one of the last things we recorded.”

In addition, “The American Dream Is Killing Me,” the band also released single such as “Dilemma,” “Bobby Sox,” “One Eyed Bastard” and “Look Ma, No Brains!” Every track on Saviors was written and composed by Dirnt, Armstrong and Tré Cool. To promote the new record, Green Day played an impromptu show in the Rockefeller Center subway station on Tuesday (Jan. 16) for an upcoming late night segment on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Starting July 29 at Nationals Park, Washington, D.C., Green Day will kickoff their worldwide stadium tour in support of Saviors. The tour will celebrate both the 30th anniversary of Dookie and the 20th anniversary of American Idiot, and feature support acts such as The Smashing Pumpkins, Rancid and The Linda Lindas.

Green Day has scored nine entries on the Billboard Hot 100, including the top 10 hits “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” (No. 2) and “Wake Me Up When September Ends” (No. 6). Over on the Billboard 200, the band has logged 11 top 10 entries, including the chart-toppers American Idiot (2004, three weeks), 21st Century Breakdown (2009, one week) and Revolution Radio (2016, one week).

Stream Saviors here.

18 Jan 2024

Reneé Rapp Is So ‘Mother’ in New ‘Saturday Night Live’ Promos With Jacob Elordi

We’re guessing 6-foot-5 actor Jacob Elordi isn’t often called “baby girl,” but that’s just what Reneé Rapp and Bowen Yang label him in new Saturday Night Live promos, released Thursday night (Jan. 18).

“Reneé, you were so right. He is so baby girl,” SNL castmember Yang says after Elordi announces his hosting gig, to which musical guest Rapp responds: “I know. That’s what I said. He is so baby girl.”

“Me? I’m a baby girl?” Elordi asks. “So what’s Reneé?”

“Oh, I’m mother,” Rapp responds — citing a moniker she’s often given by her adoring fans on social media. “And I’m big, wrinkly son!” Yang proudly declares.

Elordi is hosting the NBC sketch comedy show for the very first time this weekend after starring in his two biggest films to date last year: playing Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla and the irresistible Felix in Emerald Fennell’s black comedy Saltburn. Rapp will also make her SNL debut this weekend as the musical guest, a week after the release of the Mean Girls musical movie, in which she reprises her Broadway role as Regina George.

Elsewhere in the promos, Yang plays off Elordi’s heartthrob status, saying as he fans himself: “More like ‘Jacob Oh Lordy!’ Am I the first person to say that?”

Elordi lets Yang know that he’s not even the first person that hour to make the pun, with Rapp imploring him: “Bowen, just stop.”

“Wow, Reneé! You really are a Mean Girls,” Yang shoots back — awkward plural and all.

SNL returns on Saturday night at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC. Watch the promos below:

18 Jan 2024

Sony Renames Music Building After John Williams as Hollywood Legends Turn Out to Pay Tribute

On Thursday afternoon, the history-filled Sony lot in Culver City — which was the MGM lot during Hollywood’s Golden Age, home to “more stars than there are in heaven” — welcomed film composer John Williams, after whom the studio’s musical building was being renamed.

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Williams, 91, who is best known for the scores of Star Wars and 29 Steven Spielberg films — 20 of which were scored in the structure that will henceforth be known as the John Williams Music Building — was on hand, as were many of his collaborators (Spielberg, J.J. Abrams and Spielberg’s producers Frank Marshall and Kristie Macosko Krieger) and colleagues (including fellow film composer Thomas Newman).

Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra kicked off the festivities by noting how much “magic was made right here in this building.” Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group chairman and CEO Tom Rothman then argued that the greatest of all time in many fields is debatable, citing the examples of Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James, Jack Nicklaus vs. Tiger Woods, Claude Monet vs. Vincent van Gogh and Stanley Kubrick vs. Spielberg — but that when it comes to film scoring, “There is no argument: John Williams is the GOAT,” adding, “I’m very sure that 100 years from now the name that will go on this building today will still be the name of the greatest of all time.”

Abrams spoke next, addressing Williams, “Johnny, you’ve filled our lives with some of the greatest art ever produced by mankind,” and the other attendees: “How lucky are we to be alive at the same time as John Williams?”

Then it was Spielberg’s turn. “Johnny, I have grown up with you,” the filmmaker said, recalling how struck he had been listening to the album of Williams’ score for the 1969 film The Reivers, vowing, “If I ever got the chance to make a movie, I would want the guy who wrote this.” The two met ahead of Spielberg’s feature directorial debut, 1974’s The Sugarland Express, and have rarely worked apart since.

“It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Spielberg said, before turning to Williams: “What you did for me was something I had never been able to imagine any single creative collaborator would ever be able to do for me or the stories I was telling, and that is when I thought I’d gotten to know a film really well, by the time I turned my films over to you, I knew what my movies were, I knew what they meant to me. Then you would musically do the final draft of my films, the final rewrite, and you would bring every movie I’ve ever made to a level that I didn’t recognize it as me, I recognized it as us. The films suddenly became informed by wherever you get your inspiration… Without you, the films are running around with no clothes on; with you, they’re completely finished. I’ve often said that if my movies can bring a tear to your eye, your music makes that tear fall down the face. And it’s happened on film after film after film. This alley is where all my stress dissipates, when I finally get to this stage of a production and I know that I am in your capable hands.”

Spielberg then invited the prior speakers and Williams to the stage, took a conductor’s baton and motioned towards a sheet-covered portion of the building, and upon his cue the sheet lifted and the new name of the building was visible.

Williams then stepped up to the podium and cracked, “This is the alley where Steven destresses. This is the alley is where I stress!” He then shared that his history at the building that now bears his name dates back long before his professional career: “The first time I came to this studio was 1940 when my father brought me here to show me the stage. I was about 9 or 10 years old, and I thought [he joked], ‘Someday this will all be mine!’ It’s finally come to be — it’s only taken me 92 years to get here! [His 92nd birthday is on Feb. 8.]” He added with a chuckle, “This place, I have reverence for it. I love it. Is it perfect? No. Tom, we could use a couple more bathrooms for the orchestra.”

Williams closed by asserting, “My hope and even prayer for this hall and for future people coming into it is a hope and it’s also a challenge: that they should do as well the next 100 years as the people who have been here for the last 100 years. They need to get to work and make some good music. And that is a challenge because they are standing on very big shoulders.”

As guests posed for photographs and headed over to a buffet lunch, Rothman escorted a fellow journalist and I into the John Williams Music Building, where another great composer, Oscar winner Dario Marianelli, was scoring, with a full orchestra, the upcoming Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, as director Gil Kenan looked on. Rothman notified them, during their session, that the name of their building had changed.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.

18 Jan 2024

Judge Quotes ‘Les Misérables’ Lyrics While Blocking JetBlue & Spirit Airlines Merger

A U.S. District Court judge blocked JetBlue’s proposed $3.8 billion acquisition of Spirit Airlines this week, and got a little musical in the process.

At one point in his 109-page ruling, Judge William G. Young of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts quoted lyrics of “Master of the House” from Les Misérables to attack junk fees on airlines: “Reasonable charges / Plus some little extras on the side! / Charge ’em for the lice, extra for the mice / Two percent for looking in the mirror twice / Here a little slice, there a little cut / Three percent for sleeping with the window shut / When it comes to fixing prices / There are a lot of tricks I knows / How it all increases, all them bits and pieces / Jesus! It’s amazing how it grows!”

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Young ultimately sided with the Justice Department in deciding that the merger would reduce competition in the airline business. If it had gone through, a merger between JetBlue and Spirit Airlines would have created the United States’ fifth-largest airline following American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines — who control about two-thirds of the market, per the New York Times.

The Justice Department argued that smaller, lower priced airlines like Spirit help reduce fares for customers. The Department also added that allowing JetBlue to purchase the company would harm consumers as JetBlue typically offers higher prices for their flights. Judge Young agreed, ruling that the merger would “likely incentivize JetBlue further to abandon its roots as a maverick, low-cost carrier.”