Music News
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Ozzy Osbourne was once invited to audition for a role in Pirates of the Caribbean—but the opportunity was shut down by his longtime manager and wife, Sharon Osbourne.
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During a recent appearance on Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast, Sharon revealed what she considers the “biggest mistake” she ever made on the legendary Black Sabbath frontman’s behalf. “He got offered to go and read for Pirates of the Caribbean, and I’ve never said this to anyone,” she admitted to the Smashing Pumpkins frontman. “And I said no. Now wouldn’t he have been perfect?”
Corgan immediately agreed, responding, “He would have been perfect! Maybe it’s not too late, but God bless.”
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While it remains unclear which character Ozzy was being considered for, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has a history of casting rock legends. The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards famously played Captain Teague, the father of Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow, in At World’s End (2007) and On Stranger Tides (2011).
Paul McCartney also made an appearance in Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) as Jack Sparrow’s uncle, Uncle Jack. Given Ozzy’s unmistakable persona and theatrical stage presence, it’s easy to imagine him fitting right into the swashbuckling world of the blockbuster franchise.
Beyond his near brush with Hollywood, Ozzy has remained active in music despite ongoing health struggles. In recent years, he released Patient Number 9 (2022), which earned a Grammy for Best Rock Album, and announced his retirement from touring due to health concerns. Meanwhile, Black Sabbath’s final reunion show is set to take place on July 5 in Birmingham, featuring appearances from Guns N’ Roses, Tool, and even actor Jason Momoa.
While Ozzy never got his shot at the high seas, his legacy as the Prince of Darkness remains untouchable—onstage and, perhaps, in an alternate timeline, on the big screen.
Drake’s Anita Max Win Tour in Australia continues to deliver viral moments—this time, with the rapper handing out $30,000 to a pregnant fan at his Sydney show at Qudos Bank Arena on Wednesday night (Feb. 19).
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During a break in his set, Drake was scanning the crowd for signs when he spotted one that read: “I’m 20 weeks pregnant.” In a video circulating social media, the “Hotline Bling” rapper immediately reacted with disbelief.
“Are you 20 weeks pregnant? Get out of the pit. Get outta there,” Drake told the fan, later identified as Tiana Henderson, before instructing security to move her to VIP seating. “Give her some VIP tickets immediately and like $30,000,” he added before jokingly asking, “Who the f—brings a baby to a mosh pit?”
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Henderson and her friend were then escorted out of the packed general admission area to a more comfortable spot in VIP.
Drake’s latest giveaway is just one of many on his Anita Max Win Tour, where he has been handing out cash to fans throughout Australia. At his Melbourne show earlier this month, he reportedly gifted a fan $25,000 after noticing a sign referencing his son, Adonis, and another $20,000 to a concertgoer celebrating her birthday. While performing in Perth, he handed out $40,000 to two fans, including one waving the Canadian flag.
Earlier this week, he made headlines again by giving $30,000 to a fan in Sydney who held up a sign asking for help to quit their job at McDonald’s. The rapper played into the Australian slang, repeating the request in an exaggerated Aussie accent: “Help us quit Maccas, mate.”
In addition to his on-stage giveaways, Drake has been using the tour to promote $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, his newly released joint album with longtime collaborator PARTYNEXTDOOR, who has joined him on-stage during his Australian tour.
Released on Feb. 14, the project has been a commercial success, earning over 56.6 million first-day streams on Spotify—making it the second-highest debut of the year. $ome $exy $ongs 4 U also broke the record for the biggest R&B/Soul album in Apple Music’s history by first-day streams worldwide.
Drake and Party are set to headline the first day of this year’s Wireless Festival in London with special guest Summer Walker in July. Drake will also headline the next two days with “The Mandem,” Burna Boy, and the Worl’ Boss Vybz Kartel by his side.
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Touring can bring its fair share of unexpected adventures, but for British rockers The Wombats, a night out in Rio de Janeiro took an unnerving turn when an argument with the wrong person led to a high-stakes chase back to their hotel.
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Frontman Matthew “Murph” Murphy explained the incident to The Daily Star’s Wired column, revealing that drama unfolded during a night out when tensions escalated between someone in the band’s group and a local they had unknowingly crossed paths with.
“We got chased in Rio by a gang. We were out, someone said the wrong thing, we were doing the wrong thing,” Murphy told the newspaper as per Music-News. “Somebody – I won’t say who got into an argument with this other guy, and didn’t realise who he was, or what he was in.”
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The moment of confrontation quickly turned into something more sinister. As the band piled into a taxi, they realized they were being followed. “Our taxi was chased back to the hotel by these two Land Rovers,” Murphy revealed. “I ran up to my hotel room, and our tour manager had to diffuse the situation.”
He added, “Apparently, it was pretty freaky.”
While the Rio incident might have been their most alarming encounter, it wasn’t the only dramatic moment the band faced while touring in Brazil. Just days earlier, The Wombats had to cut their set short in São Paulo after a cyclone wreaked havoc mid-performance.
“When we played in São Paulo, a freak cyclone hit the stage in the middle of our third track and completely soaked us,” Murphy told NME in Oct. “Wrote off all the gear. Some steel split, and the stage we were on had folded down.”
Despite the mayhem, the festival carried on, with The Strokes headlining later that night under far-from-ideal conditions.
Murphy explained, “We were on the other stage, but it was facing the main stage where The Strokes were headlining. They went on that night, but all the drapes had come off, there was no screen, they were just playing against scaffolding. It was pretty ridiculous.”
The Wombats will soon kick off their upcoming arena run across the U.K. in March 2025. The band will take the stage in cities including London, Nottingham, Cardiff, and Manchester, with additional festival appearances lined up later in the year, following the release of their sixth studio album, Oh! The Ocean.
Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus is hitting the road this April, though this time he’ll be promoting his new book instead of a new record.
The bassist and vocalist of the enduring Californian pop-punk band announced in late 2024 that he would be releasing his forthcoming memoir, Fahrenheit-182, on April 8. Co-authored with Los Angeles-based journalist and author Dan Ozzi, the book takes an in-depth look at Hoppus’ storied life, detailing his childhood in the ‘80s, a formative obsession with punk rock, skateboards and MTV, and how it all led towards his co-founding Blink-182 in August 1992.
“Threaded through with the very human story of a constant battle with anxiety and Mark’s public battle and triumph over cancer, Fahrenheit-182 is a delight for fans and also a funny, smart, and relatable memoir for anyone who has wanted to quit but kept going,” a description reads.
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“This book has everything,” Hoppus himself said in a promotional clip for the book. “A young man, born in the California desert, joins a punk rock band and goes on to conquer the world! It’s got skateboarding! It’s got punk rock clubs! It’s got ’90s music! But that’s not all! Pre-order now and we’ll throw in with no extra cost to you: Anxiety! Depression! Band breakups! Loss of self! Suicidal thoughts and ideation! And of course everyone’s favorite: cancer! This shit gets dark.”
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Now, Hoppus will be taking the book to the people, announcing a seven-date tour which will see him in conversation with a moderator as he discusses its writing and contents, and pairs it all with his trademark humor. The tour launches in New York City on April 9, and visits Somerville, MA; Washington D.C.; Philadelphia and Chicago, before wrapping up with two dates in California as he visits El Cajon and Los Angeles.
Tickets for Hoppus’ tour are on sale as of Feb. 21, with the musician urging audiences to buy up to ensure they “don’t miss out on all the small things.”
Hoppus’ tour comes following a busy couple of years for Blink-182 which saw them touring the world in support of their ninth studio album, One More Time…. The record was their third to peak atop the Billboard 200, and their first to feature co-founding guitarist and vocalist Tom DeLonge since his 2022 return, having split with the group for a second time seven years earlier.
This week also saw Hoppus announce the impending auction of a rare Banksy artwork that he acquired in 2011. The painting will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London on March 4, and is expected to sell for up to $6.3 million.
Mark Hoppus 2025 Book Tour Dates
April 9 – Brooklyn Paramount, New York, NYApril 10 – Somerville Theatre, Somerville, MAApril 12 – The 9:30 Club, Washington D.C.April 13 – The Fillmore, Philadelphia, PAApril 16 – Park West, Chicago, ILApril 18 – The Magnolia, El Cajon, CAApril 20 – The Wiltern, Los Angeles, CA
A private funeral service for Murder Inc. co-founder Irv Gotti was held Wednesday (Feb. 19) at the Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral of New York. Among those in attendance, according to TMZ, were Murder Inc. artists Ja Rule, Ashanti, Lloyd, Charli Baltimore and Vita. Also at the service, in addition to Gotti’s family, were Jay-Z (sitting […]
Kansas frontman Ronnie Platt revealed on Saturday (Feb. 15) that he’s been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. He took to his social media, writing, “For all of you asking, Tuesday [February 11] I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer but before everyone gets all excited, it has a 99% survival rate, it has not spread. It’s contained to […]
Live Nation is ending its “concerts all summer long” program at the company’s amphitheaters and plans to replace the multi-show offering with something different, company officials tell Billboard. On Tuesday (Feb. 18), the Live Nation Lawnie Instagram page announced the end of the six-year-old program, in which music fans paid a flat fee for a […]
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s Beverly Hills house was burglarized on Friday night (Feb. 14), law enforcement told The Los Angeles Times. The couple was thankfully not home at the the time of the incident. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Officers reportedly responded to a report […]
Sony Music Entertainment is asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit brought against the company by Patrick Moxey‘s Ultra International Music Publishing late last year, claiming the suit was an act of “retaliation” against the major label after it filed its own lawsuit against the publishing outfit two years prior.
Ultra International Music Publishing and Ultra Music Publishing Europe brought the lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment and its subsidiaries — including Ultra Records, which Moxey sold his remaining 50% share of to Sony in 2021 — last November over allegations of copyright infringement, claiming Sony and its affiliates had been using Ultra Publishing’s compositions without a license. Filed in New York federal court, the complaint alleged that Ultra Publishing had conducted an audit finding that Sony had been underpaying royalties to the publisher and its songwriters “for years” — but that after bringing the results of the audit to Sony’s attention, the major label “failed” and “refuse[d]” to pay Ultra Publishing the royalties it was due.
Ultra Publishing claimed that after Sony’s alleged refusal, it ceased granting the music giant licenses to the company’s compositions, but that Sony nonetheless continued uploading tracks featuring Ultra Publishing-owned compositions to streaming services and selling them as digital downloads and physical releases, among other exploitations. The lawsuit concerned more than 50,000 compositions by artists including Ed Sheeran, Madonna, Rihanna and others.
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In its response, filed on Monday (Feb. 17) by attorney Tal Dickstein, Sony Music called the lawsuit “an ill-conceived effort by Plaintiffs — two music publishing companies owned by Patrick Moxey — to retaliate against” Sony Music for an earlier lawsuit it filed against Ultra Publishing for the continued use of the Ultra name. In that complaint, filed in November 2022, Sony attested that Moxey had signed away his rights to the Ultra trademark after selling the company his remaining stake in Ultra Records, which he founded in 1995.
Sony claims Ultra Publishing attempted to justify the “nefarious timing” of its own lawsuit — which allegedly dropped the day before the trial for the trademark lawsuit began — “by claiming this lawsuit stems from an audit of the music publishing royalties that Sony Music Entertainment paid to Plaintiffs.” However, Sony alleges that the audit in question, “which involved payments made by Sony Music Entertainment to Plaintiffs through 2016,” was in fact “settled in principle years ago for a small fraction of the amount claimed, and Plaintiffs never pursued those audit claims any further.”
Sony’s filing goes on to say that it and Ultra Publishing “continued working together after the audit was settled, with Sony Music Entertainment paying publishing royalties on the musical compositions that were the subject of the audit without objection from Plaintiffs, and working to license and pay the corresponding publishing royalties for well over a thousand other compositions owned in whole or in part by Plaintiffs.”
“Sony Music Entertainment’s licensing practices are both appropriate and entirely consistent with the licensing practices of every other leading record label that releases new sound recordings, including record labels that Moxey himself controlled in the past and currently owns,” the filing continues. “Moreover, Plaintiffs’ own songwriters and producers continue to write songs and collaborate with SME artists with the intention and expectation that the resulting sound recordings incorporating the underlying musical compositions will be commercially released — underscoring the obvious question of whether Plaintiffs’ attempted boycott of SME is in their songwriters’ best interest.”
An attorney for Ultra International Music Publishing did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.
Ye — formerly Kanye West — is walking back earlier statements labeling himself a Nazi. West came to the realization on Wednesday (Feb. 19), retracting his previous statements in a new post to X.
“After further reflection I’ve come to the realization that I’m not a Nazi,” he wrote.
The backtracking on his heavily criticized comments — which saw him praising Adolf Hitler — comes just over a week since his series of antisemitic, homophobic and hate-filled X tirades earlier in February.
“I love Hitler, how what bi—es,” Ye wrote, which he followed up with, “I’m a Nazi.” He later added, “Hitler was sooooo fresh” and “call me Yaydolf Yitler.”
West had been selling T-shirts emblazoned with a black swastika logo for $20 on his Yeezy website, which was shut down by its marketplace partner Shopify.
West faced backlash for his remarks, as the Anti-Defamation League, Charlie Puth and Lyor Cohen all condemned Ye and pleaded with him to stop pushing antisemitic rhetoric.
“With antisemitism on the rise, your voice and influence carry a significant responsibility,” the former Def Jam president wrote in a letter to Ye. “I urge you to be more sensitive to the pain your words inflict on Jewish communities and all those who stand against hate.”
Back in October 2022, Ye fired off a series of antisemitic rants, including the “Death Con 3” tweet, which led to companies such as Adidas, Def Jam, Balenciaga, Gap and more cutting ties with the rapper.
“West is not just any person — he is a pop culture icon with millions of fans around the world,” Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel wrote at the time. “And among them are young people whose views are still being formed. This is why it is necessary for all of us to speak out. Hatred and anti-Semitism should have no place in our society, no matter how much money is at stake.”
In another post on X, Ye responded to Adam Sandler seemingly referencing the musician during his performance on the SNL50: The Anniversary Special over the weekend, singing, “50 years of finding out your favorite musician’s antisemitic.” Ye chose to focus on the “favorite musician” part of the lyric, responding to the comic actor on X: “Adam Sandler Thank you for the love.”