Music
Page: 464
Despite the ebullient induction, the Foreigner camp was roundly sad not to have founder Mick Jones, who’s battling with Parkinson’s disease, in attendance. “We wish he was here, but we understand why he isn’t,” longtime bassist Rick Wills said. “He’s a very sick person right now, and he would be here if he could but he doesn’t want to be seen the way he is now. That’s not Mick. It’s just not his way. But he knows that we’re thinking of him, and we send all our love to him.” Original frontman Lou Gramm added, “And we’re representing him.”
Members of the group’s current lineup felt the same way. “To me it’s very tragic,” says Jeff Pilson, Foreigner’s bassist since 2007. “It really breaks my heart that he’s not here because this is his baby; we want to make sure that what we do is really right. I want to do that for him ’cause I love him dearly and I love his legacy and I love what he’s all about, so I want to make sure that he’s happy. So that’s what we’re doing and, yes, (Jones’ absence) does motivate us.”
Two of Jones’ children — actress daughter Annabelle and son Christopher — were in attendance on Saturday while the others were with their father at home, watching the stream on Disney+. “He was sad he couldn’t be here but was excited to watch on TV with our brother Alexander and our two sisters Charlotte and Samantha,” Christopher says. “They have balloons and everything. They’re doing a whole party.”
The two called the all-star performances “mind-blowing,” while Annabelle added, “I think it means the world to him. It’s a very kind of singular honor and recognition, and it means a lot to us. We’re extremely proud of him and really sad he can’t be here.”
Gramm, meanwhile, was less supportive of original drummer Dennis Elliott’s last-minute decision to skip the ceremony due to what he called “totally unacceptable” conditions — including, according to sources, the fact that band members’ wives were not permitted to join them on the small red carpet in the bowels of the arena. “He emailed us very angry, saying he and his wife wouldn’t be there and something, something, something and that’s it,” Gramm noted. “He’s real angry about something and we can’t figure out what it is, but he’s not coming. You’d think there’d be solidarity within the band, but not Dennis.”
More than 18 months in, everyone can agree that Taylor Swift‘s Eras tour is more than just your average concert. It’s an event. Swift herself even used that word to describe what her record-slashing trek has become during the second of three sold-out nights at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday (Oct. 19). Fans by […]
For nearly 40 years, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has made it a tradition to gather together a batch of the biggest stars in the world and invite them to join the ranks of some of the greatest performers who have ever lived. On Saturday night (Oct. 19), that tradition continued with the […]
Sarcastically noting that answering questions is “my favorite thing to do,” Cher answered a few from the press backstage at the 2024 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Saturday (Oct. 19).
After taking the Rock Hall to task during her speech for waiting 35 years to induct her after she became eligible, Cher acknowledges that, “I have a kind love hate relationship [with the Rock Hall], because I thought, ‘What do I have to f–king do , y’know, to be inducted into this place? What do you have to do to be a part of it?’”
Though tempted to tell David Geffen, who she said wrote a letter to the Hall of Fame Foundation on her behalf, to “please take it back,” Cher said that in the end she was happy with the way things turned out. “I felt good. I can say that I’m happy that I’m in,” she says. “If I didn’t [think] it, I wouldn’t be here.”
Trending on Billboard
Reflecting on a 60-year career dating back to work with her late ex-husband Sonny Bono and sessions with Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew, the singer said that she struggles with thoughts of legacy. “I [didn’t] have perspective, exactly — I just was busy living my life, so I wasn’t like thinking about it at all,” she says. “I was thinking about it from minute to minute, thing to thing. I thought of myself as a bumper car and when I hit a road I would just back up and turn in a different direction, because I wasn’t going to stop doing what I loved.”
And what about Sonny & Cher making it to the Rock Hall one day? “I think that we deserve it, ” Cher tells Billboard. “Even if we weren’t exactly rock ‘n roll, we represented music. I know it’s not like … we were corny, but we were very avant garde for what was happening at the time, so, I don’t know. I didn’t expect to get in. I just thought, ‘They’re never gonna let you in, b–ch.’”
During her speech, Cher made sure to send a message to all of the women watching around the world: “The one thing I have never done, is I never give up,” she explained. “And I am talking to the women, okay … we have been down and out, but we keep striving, and we keep going and we are somebody. We are special.”
The Rockabye Baby! collection Lullaby Renditions of Taylor Swift Volume 2, which was released digitally last month, is now available on vinyl to lull little Swifties to sleep.
Lullaby Renditions of Taylor Swift Volume 2 was released on Friday (Oct. 18), giving record player lovers an excuse to buy one for the nursery.
Sweet, instrumental reimaginings of “Fortnight,” “Wildest Dreams,” “August,” “Cardigan” and “Lover” are included on the release, as well as gentle lullaby versions of dynamic pop hits like “Cruel Summer” and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”
The new release, found on Rockabye Baby!’s website for $30, features clear and purple color-in-color vinyl, a full-color sleeve, a fold-out, poster-sized coloring page and a digital download card. The sleeve design is a play on Swift’s tour poster, swapping teddy bears in for the many eras of Swift.
Trending on Billboard
It follows 2015’s Lullaby Renditions of Taylor Swift, Rockabye Baby!’s first set of Swift-themed lullabies.
Swift, who will officially release her The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology album on vinyl on Black Friday, resumed hers Eras Tour this weekend with three concerts in Miami following a two-month break. She’ll bring the show to New Orleans next, which will be followed by performances in Indianapolis, Toronto and Vancouver (where on Dec. 8 she’ll officially wrap the tour).
Get a preview of “Cruel Summer” as a lullaby and see the full track list below.
Lullaby Renditions of Taylor Swift Volume 2 Track List
1. “Anti-Hero”2. “You Need To Calm Down” 3. “Fortnight”4. “Look What You Made Me Do”5. “Cruel Summer”6. “Karma”7. “Don’t Blame Me”8. “Wildest Dreams”9. “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”10. “August”11. “Willow”12. “Cardigan”13. “Lover”14. “Enchanted”
With her induction into the annals of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday night (Oct. 19), Cher made sure to set expectations early on: “This speech is gonna be such a crapshoot — I wrote it the other day, and then I rewrote it tonight, and I’m dyslexic,” she declared.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
A crapshoot it was not — across her presentation at the annual ceremony, Cher stunned the crowd at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse with renditions of “If I Could Turn Back Time” and “Believe” — the latter featuring special guest Dua Lipa — before cedeing the stage to Zendaya, who introduced her idol with aplomb. “Where do I even begin?” the actress said, dressed in an outfit inspired by one of Cher’s many Bob Mackie looks. “There is not one person in this room, in this country, and pretty much in this world who doesn’t know the name of the artist I am here to honor tonight. She’s so iconic, she only needs one name.”
In a video tribute, stars appeared to pay tribute to Cher, including Cyndi Lauper, Shania Twain and P!nk, with the latter making it abundantly clear that the mononymous singer was a “f–king rockstar.”
Trending on Billboard
But once into her speech, Cher made it clear that her induction was never guaranteed: “It was easier getting divorced from two men than it was getting into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” she cracked. “I want to thank my guardian David Geffen, because he wrote a letter and sent it to the directors, and now, ha ha, here I am!”
While the singer made sure to occasionally make fun of herself (“I’m a good singer, not a great singer,” she cracked), she didn’t shy away from acknowledging her impact throughout her decades-spanning career. In one particular highlight, the star looked back on how her biggest songs nearly didn’t happen.
“[With] ‘Believe,’ I changed the sound of music forever, and it was an accident. My producer and I were having a fight, with my producer saying, ‘Cher, do it better,’” she recalled. “I said, ‘Dude, if you want it better, get a different singer.’ He called me later and said, ‘Cher, I’ve been playing around with the pitch machine, and I think I’ve got something.’ I went back and listened to it, and when it was over, we both jumped up and high-fived each other. And then the head of my record company said ‘we can’t do that because no one will know it was you.’ And I said, ‘Yes, that’s the deal! That’s the great part!’”
Cher also recalled the advice that she had been given by her mother from a young age that guided her career to where it is today. “She said to me, ‘You might not be the prettiest, you might not be the smartest, you might not be the most talented, but you’re special,’” she said. “She kept instilling it into me: ‘If you’re down and you’re out, you get up again.’”
Smiling at the crowd, Cher made sure that the women in the audience had heard her. “The one thing I have never done, is I never give up. And I am talking to the women, okay — you guys are on your own,” she offered with a smirk. “We have been down and out, but we keep striving, and we keep going and we are somebody. We are special, as my mother would say.”
Cher was just one of the icons honored at Saturday night’s event — fellow inductees included Mary J. Blige, Ozzy Osbourne, Kool & the Gang, A Tribe Called Quest, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner and Peter Frampton.
P!nk has called off four upcoming concert dates on her Summer Carnival Tour. “Due to reasons beyond my control, we need to postpone our next four shows in Lincoln, Sioux Falls, Milwaukee, and Des Moines,” the pop star wrote in an Instagram post on Saturday (Oct. 19). She did not elaborate on what the reasons […]
Vice President Kamala Harris appeared with Lizzo on Saturday (Oct. 19) in the singer’s hometown of Detroit, marking the beginning of in-person voting and lavishing the city with praise after Republican nominee Donald Trump recently disparaged it.
“All the best things were made in Detroit. Coney Dogs, Faygo and Lizzo,” the singer joked to a rally crowd, pointing to herself after listing off the meat-on-a-stick and soda that the city is famous for.
She said it was time to “put some respect on Detroit’s name” noting that the city had revolutionized the auto and music industries and adding that she’d already cast her ballot for Harris since voting early was “a power move.”
Heaps of praise for the Motor City came after Trump, the former president, insulted it during a recent campaign stop. And Harris continued the theme, saying of her campaign, “Like the people of Detroit, we have grit, we have excellence, we have history.”
Arms wide open as she took the stage, Harris let the crowd see she was wearing under her blazer a “Detroit vs. Everybody” T-shirt that the owner of the business that produces them gave her during a previous stop in the city earlier in the week. She also moved around the stage during her speech with a hand-held mic, not using a teleprompter.
More than 1 million Michigan residents have already voted by mail in the Nov. 5 election, and Harris predicted that Detroit turnout for early voting would be strong.
“Who is the capital of producing records?” Harris asked when imploring the crowd to set new highs for early voting tallies. “We are going to break some records here in Detroit today.”
She slammed Trump as unstable: “Somebody just needs to watch his rallies, if you’re not really sure how to vote.”
“We’re not going to get these 17 days back. On Election Day, we don’t want to have any regrets,” the vice president said.
Lizzo also told the crowd, “Mrs. Commander-in-Chief has a nice ring to it.”
“This is the swing state of all swing states, so every last vote here counts,” the singer said. Then, referencing her song of the same title, Lizzo added, “If you ask me if America is ready for its first woman president, I only have one thing to say: It’s about damn time!”
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement that Harris needed Lizzo “to hide the fact that Michiganders were feeling good under President Trump – real wages were higher, prices were lower, and everyone was better off.”
Talona Johnson, a product manager from Rochester, Michigan, attended Harris’ rally and said that Harris “and her team are doing the things that are required to make sure that people are informed.”
“I believe she’s telling the truth. She’s trying to help the people,” said Johnson, who said she planned to vote for Harris and saw women’s rights as her top concern.
“I don’t necessarily agree with everything that she’s put out, but she’s better than the alternative.”
In comments to reporters prior to the rally, Harris said she was in Detroit “to thank all the folks for the work they are doing to help organize and register people to vote, and get them out to vote today. She also called Detroit “a great American city” with “a lot of hard-working folks that have grit and ambition and deserve to be respected.”
The vice president was asked about whether the Biden administration’s full-throated support for Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza might hurt her support in Michigan. Dearborn, near Detroit, is the largest city with an Arab majority in the nation.
“It has never been easy,” Harris said of Middle East policy. “But that doesn’t mean we give up.”
She will get more star power later Saturday when she holds a rally in Atlanta featuring another wildly popular singer, Usher.
Early voting is also underway in Georgia. More than 1.2 million ballots have been cast, either in person or by mail. Democrats hope an expansive organizing effort will boost Harris against Trump in the campaign’s final weeks.
Roderick Williams, 56, brought his three daughters to Harris’ Atlanta rally. His youngest daughter was born around the time former president Barack Obama entered office, and he hopes they can witness history again by seeing Harris become the first Black woman to be president.
“It’s important for them to see that anything’s possible,” Williams said.
Victoria Monét is excited to publish her first-ever children’s book.
The three-time Grammy winner announced on Monday (Oct. 14) that her debut children’s picture book, Everywhere You Are, will arrive on June 25, 2025. The publication will be released in English and Spanish-language editions through Putnam Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers.
“WOW!! I’m super excited to announce my first picture book, Everywhere You Are, illustrated by Alea Marley,” Monét wrote on Instagram alongside a photo gallery that included the book’s cover. “I wrote this book in honor of hard working parents wanting to offer a consoling reminder to their children that even when a loved one isn’t right next to us, the love you have for each other still carries so much presence!”
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Everywhere You Are “is a lyrical and heartwarming picture book to comfort children experiencing separation anxiety while offering solace to hardworking parents,” according to a news releasing announcing the forthcoming book. The book, which is inspired by Monét’s experiences as a working parent, follows “a gentle moon as it comforts a young star when they part ways at dawn.”
Monét said in a statement, “This book means so much to me! I love many types of writing from poetry to music, and eventually script and it has always been a special dream of mine to write children’s books. It brings so much joy to know that families will share moments of reflection, understanding and quality time while reading this book for generations to come! I’m passionate about the subject of the book and explaining it in a way that is digestible for a child. I can’t wait to share it.”
Trending on Billboard
Everywhere You Are can be pre-ordered here.
Earlier this year, Monét won her long overdue first Grammy for the coveted best new artist trophy at the 66th annual Grammy Awards. The singer-songwriter also took home best R&B album for Jaguar II and best engineered album, non-classical. The Atlanta native boasts nine top 40 Billboard Hot 100 chart hits as a songwriter, with seven recorded by Ariana Grande, including the No. 1s “Thank U, Next” and “7 Rings” in 2018-19. Plus, her co-write “Ice Cream,” by BLACKPINK and Selena Gomez, reached No. 13 in 2020.
See Monét announcement for her first children’s book on Instagram below.
Zayn Malik is pushing back his first-ever headlining tour following the death of his former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne.
On Saturday (Oct. 19), the “Pillowtalk” singer announced on social media that he is delaying the U.S. leg of his Stairway to the Sky Tour, which was scheduled to launch Oct. 23 at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and wrap Nov. 3 at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom.
“Given the heartbreaking loss experienced this week, I’ve made the decision to postpone the US leg of the STAIRWAY TO THE SKY Tour,” Malik wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “The dates are being rescheduled for January and I’ll post them as soon as it’s all set in the next few days. Your tickets will remain valid for the new dates. Love you all and thank you for your understanding.”
The former One Direction singer announced his Stairway to the Sky Tour during The Tonight Show in mid-September. The trek — which will also visit similar-sized venues in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — marks his first-ever solo outing. According to his website, Malik was still scheduled at press time to play U.K. shows in Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, London, Wolverhampton and Newcastle, beginning in late November through early December.
Trending on Billboard
Zayn will have four solo albums of material to choose from during the tour: his 2016 debut, Mind of Mine, 2018’s Icarus Falls, 2021’s Nobody Is Listening and this year’s Room Under the Stairs.
Malik’s tour postponement arrives three days following the death of his former 1D bandmate and “brother” Payne. Zayn honored Liam in a heartfelt post on Instagram shortly after the tragic news.
“I can’t help but think selfishly that there was so many more conversations for us to have in our lives,” Malik wrote alongside a photo of himself laying in Payne’s lap as the two then-teenagers take a nap. “I never got to thank you for supporting me through some of the most difficult times in my life. When I was missing home as a 17 yr old kid you would always be there with a positive outlook and reassuring smile and let me know you were my friend and I was loved.”
Malik’s statement came in addition to one from Louis Tomlinson and a joint message by the surviving members of One Direction, in which they noted that they are “completely devastated by the news of Liam’s passing.” The group statement continued, “In time, and when everyone is able to, there will be more to say. But for now, we will take some time to grieve and process the loss of our brother, who we loved dearly. The memories we shared with him will be treasured forever.”
Payne died on Wednesday (Oct. 16) after sustaining multiple traumas and hemorrhages after falling from the third floor of his hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a recent preliminary autopsy confirmed. Local authorities believe he was not sober at the time and found substances that appeared to be narcotics and alcoholic drinks in his room after they arrived at the scene.
See Zayn’s tour postponement announcement on X below.
Given the heartbreaking loss experienced this week, I’ve made the decision to postpone the US leg of the STAIRWAY TO THE SKY Tour. The dates are being rescheduled for January and I’ll post them as soon as it’s all set in the next few days. Your tickets will remain valid for the…— zayn (@zaynmalik) October 19, 2024