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The Used are marking their 25th anniversary with a global tour that will see the band performing their first three albums—The Used (2002), In Love and Death (2004), and Lies for the Liars (2007)—in full across three consecutive nights in each city.
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The tour will span North America, the U.K., and Australia, giving fans a chance to relive the early 2000s post-hardcore anthems that shaped a generation.
Frontman Bert McCracken, who recently debuted his first solo album under robbietheused, said of the milestone moment for the band and their fans: “Overwhelmed! These first three records are what put The Used on the map.”
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“I can’t wait to experience the joy in playing all three records from front to back. I know it will be an amazing time. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Sending love to you all and I hope to see you there!”.
Bassist Jepha echoed the sentiment, expressing gratitude for fans who have supported the band over the years. “We feel extremely lucky and humbled to have been a part of something way bigger than ourselves for the past 25 years. To everyone that has been there from the beginning or is just starting out your adventure with us thank you. Here’s to the next 25!”.
Drummer Dan Whitesides shared: “We can’t wait to play all of these songs from the first three albums, they mean so much to us as we know they do to so many people.”
The Used’s career has been defined by both commercial and critical success. Their debut album The Used reached No. 63 on the Billboard 200 in 2002, while its follow-up, In Love and Death, climbed to No. 6 in 2004, featuring hits like “Take It Away” (which reached No. 13 on the US Alternative chart) and “All That I’ve Got” (peaking at No. 19 on the US Alternative chart and No. 35 in Australia).
In 2007, Lies for the Liars debuted at No. 5, propelled by tracks such as “Pretty Handsome Awkward” (which reached No. 37 on the US Alternative chart). The debut album has since achieved platinum certification.
The rockers band will hit nine cities across North America—Detroit, Boston, Sayreville, New York, Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and San Diego—starting in April, performing three consecutive nights in each location.
The Australian leg of the tour will then kick off on Aug. 13, 2025, in Brisbane, before moving to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. The band will perform 15 shows across these five Australian cities, with each city hosting three consecutive nights. Tickets will go on pre-sale on Dec. 11 at 8:30 a.m. local time, with general sales beginning on Dec. 13, at 8:30 a.m. local time. Tickets for the Australian leg will be available at destroyalllines.com.
During each three-night run, The Used will perform one of their first three albums in full each night, allowing fans to experience these iconic records in their entirety.
The Used’s 2025 Tour Dates:
AprilApril 3 – Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore*April 5 – Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore^April 6 – Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore+April 9 – Boston, MA @ House Of Blues*April 11 – Boston, MA @ House Of Blues^April 12 – Boston, MA @ House Of Blues+April 15 – Sayreville, NJ @ The Starland Ballroom*April 16 – Sayreville, NJ @ The Starland Ballroom^April 18 – Sayreville, NJ @ The Starland Ballroom+April 19 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza*April 21 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza^April 22 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza+April 25 – Chicago, IL @ House Of Blues*April 26 – Chicago, IL @ House Of Blues^April 27 – Chicago, IL @ House Of Blues+April 29 – Denver, CO @ Odgen Theatre*April 30 – Denver, CO @ Odgen Theatre^
MayMay 2 – Denver, CO @ Odgen Theatre+May 3 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union*May 5 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union^May 6 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union+May 8 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern*May 10 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern^May 11 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern+May 13 – San Diego, CA @ House Of Blues*May 15 – San Diego, CA @ House Of Blues^May 16 – San Diego, CA @ House Of Blues+May 22 – London, UK @ The Dome+May 24 – Hatfield, UK @ Slam Dunk Festival^May 25 – Leeds, UK @ Slam Dunk Festival*
AugustAugust 13 – Brisbane, QLD @ The Tivoli*August 14 – Brisbane, QLD @ The Tivoli^August 16 – Brisbane, QLD @ The Tivoli+August 17 – Sydney, NSW @ Liberty Hall*August 19 – Sydney, NSW @ Liberty Hall^August 20 – Sydney, NSW @ Liberty Hall+August 22 – Melbourne, VIC @ Northcote Theatre*August 23 – Melbourne, VIC @ Northcote Theatre^August 25 – Melbourne, VIC @ Northcote Theatre+August 26 – Adelaide, SA @ The Gov*August 28 – Adelaide, SA @ The Gov^August 29 – Adelaide, SA @ The Gov+August 31 – Perth, WA @ Magnet House*
SeptemberSeptember 1 – Perth, WA @ Magnet House^September 3 – Perth, WA @ Magnet House+
Key:
Playing The Used^ Playing In Love and Death
Playing Lies for the Liars
SZA is giving fans something to look forward to with a teaser for her new SOS deluxe release.
Arriving on Monday, Dec. 9, two years to the day since the original release of SOS, SZA shared a video to social media accompanied by an as-yet-unnamed song which samples the Isley Brothers’ “Voyage to Atlantis”.
The clip itself shows SZA in the woods as she squats by a stream to pee. It closes with overlaid text which sees “Lana” appearing above the words “SOS Deluxe”. The video is captioned with the words, “Clock starts now. Happy anniversary.”
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The mysterious nature of the clip has already sent fans of SZA into overdrive as they attempt to decipher a number of unanswered questions. Firstly, despite telling her followers that the “clock starts now”, it’s unclear when the countdown ends and the project ostensibly arrives.
Some fans have pointed out on Reddit that SZA’s shirt features the number five, while a dark section of dirt also appears to highlight the same number. Speculation has therefore seen a potential release date of Dec. 13 entering the conversation, though no official announcement has been made.
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Secondly, confusion is also reigning in regards to whether SZA’s long-awaited Lana project is now arriving as the previously-announced deluxe edition of her SOS album. Previously, Lana had been confirmed as such before being detailed as an entirely separate project, including in a recent interview with British Vogue.
In the same interview, SZA explained that the music she had recorded for Lana was something of a “welcome shift”.
“I think I am making music from a more beautiful place. From a more possible place versus a more angsty place,” she explained. “I’m not identifying with my brokenness. It’s not my identity. It’s shit that happened to me. Yeah, I experienced cruelty. I have to put it down at some point. Piece by piece, my music is shifting because of that, the lighter I get.”
In late November, SZA appeared on Kai Cenat’s livestream where she claimed a “whole new project” was up her sleeve, admitting it “will be out before the year is over”.
More recently, SZA and Kendrick Lamar announced the co-headlining Grand National tour, which will see the pair performing 21 dates over two months.
The Grand National Tour is slated to kick off in Minnesota on April 19, and then rumbles through Houston, Atlanta, Charlotte, Philly, the New York area, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Detroit, Chicago and Toronto before wrapping up in Washington, D.C., on June 18.
It’s been a very long time since The Cure were considered prolific, but frontman Robert Smith appears to be making up for lost time.
Fresh from the release of their first album in 16 years, Songs of a Lost World, The Cure followed up with the announcement of a new live album just last week. Fittingly titled Songs of a Live World, the record captures the release-day concert of their latest album, which saw the band performing the record in full alongside a career-spanning set.
Now in a teaser clip of Smith’s upcoming interview with Absolute Radio’s Danielle Perry, the veteran musician can be heard detailing upcoming records from The Cure.
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“There is another album which is pretty much ready to go. It’s sort of its companion piece,” Smith began. “And then there’s a third one which is completely different. It’s really kind of random stuff, it’s like late-night studio stuff. But some of it is really, really good actually, it’s just very, very different.”
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“This Songs of a Lost World album is a really emotional piece of work and the companion piece, it’s not quite as dark but it explores other subjects a little bit more. The third one is very odd, actually. I haven’t finished the words to that one because my headspace has been much more focused on performing these songs.
“I don’t really want it to end because it’s been so good,” he concluded. “The reaction to the new music has been so, so great. It’s been really lovely to feel people giving us all the love.”
The release of The Cure‘s Songs of a Lost World has been a massively successful undertaking for the band. In addition to giving the band their first U.K. No. 1 since 1992’s Wish, the record also made a return to the top of U.S. charts as well.
It became the band’s first No. 1 on the 33-year-old Top Album Sales chart and the act’s highest-charting effort on the Billboard 200 (No. 4) since 1992. It also managed to hit No. 1 on Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums, Top Alternative Albums, Vinyl Albums and Indie Store Album Sales.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z made a very rare red carpet appearance on Monday night at the Los Angeles premiere of Mufasa: The Lion King, posing for photos with daughter Blue Ivy Carter and Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles.
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The 12-year-old plays a major part in the film, voicing lion Kiara, the daughter of Simba (voiced by Donald Glover) and Nala (Beyoncé) — who reprise the roles they played in 2019’s live-action The Lion King.
Blue Ivy and Beyoncé both appeared in gold dresses at the Hollywood Boulevard event, with the young star first taking solo shots before she was joined by her parents. Beyoncé famously avoids most red carpets, often doing her own photoshoots at events like the Grammys or the premiere of her concert film Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé.
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None of the three family members were previously announced to the press as attending the event, despite their involvement.
The appearance comes just a day after Jay-Z was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000 in a lawsuit that also alleges Sean “Diddy” Combs took part in the act, according to NBC News. The rapper responded with a forceful statement that the claims are “idiotic” and part of a “blackmail attempt.”
In the lawsuit, the accuser, identified only as “Jane Doe,” alleges Carter and Combs raped her at a house party after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, which took place in New York. The lawsuit, which was first filed in October in the Southern District of New York, originally listed Combs as a defendant and was refiled Sunday to include Carter. Attorney Tony Buzbee, who filed the suit, has also filed numerous suits against Combs in the past several months.
Jay-Z responded via his company Roc Nation’s X (formerly Twitter) account on Sunday, saying that what the lawyer “had calculated was the nature of these allegations and the public scrutiny would make me want to settle. No sir, it had the opposite effect! It made me want to expose you for the fraud you are in a VERY public fashion. So no, I will not give you ONE RED PENNY!!”
He also added, “My only heartbreak is for my family. My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims, and explain the cruelty and greed of people. I mourn yet another loss of innocence. Children should not have to endure such at their young age. It is unfair to have to try to understand inexplicable degrees of malice meant to destroy families and human spirit.”
The legendary Bing Crosby is back in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for the first time in nearly 64 years, as his new holiday compilation Ultimate Christmas climbs 18-9 on the chart dated Dec. 14.
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The entertainer, who died in 1977, was last in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 with his classic Merry Christmas album, which ranked at No. 9 on the Dec. 31, 1960-dated chart. It had previously spent a week at No. 1 on Jan. 6, 1958-dated chart.
Merry Christmas became the second holiday album to top the Billboard 200, following its launch as a regularly published weekly chart in March 1956. Elvis Presley’s Elvis’ Christmas Album was the first chart-topping holiday set, as it topped the chart for three weeks in December 1957, moved aside for Crosby for a week and then returned to No. 1 for one more week in January 1958.
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Ultimate Christmas is available as 14-song standard album, an expanded 28-song edition, and a deluxe 58-song version. All versions of the album contain such classic Holiday 100-charting tunes from Crosby as “White Christmas” (featuring The Ken Darby Singers and John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra), “It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas,” “Do You Hear What I Hear?,” “Mele Kalikimaka” (with The Andrews Sisters) and “Silent Night” (featuring John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra and Max Terr’s Mixed Chorus).
In the tracking week ending Dec. 5, as reflected on the Dec. 14-dated Billboard 200 chart, Ultimate Christmas earned 50,000 equivalent album units in the week ending (up 59%). Of that sum, SEA units comprise 46,000 (up 62%; equaling 61.37 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks; it jumps 16-6 on Top Streaming Albums).
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Dec. 14, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard’s website on Tuesday, Dec. 10. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
If ever there was someone whose marriage advice was considered invaluable, it’s Dolly Parton.
The country veteran and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee has been recording and releasing as a solo artist since 1967 – just one year after her marriage to the rarely-seen Carl Dean.
Together, the pair have been married for close to 60 years, though Dean has been known for his aversion to the spotlight. Having met in a laundromat on the day she moved to Nashville, only rarely do photographs of the pair emerge, and Parton has long said that Dean – a retired paver four years her senior – has only ever seen her perform live once.
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In a new interview with Bunnie Xo‘s Dumb Blonde podcast (itself a song title from Parton’s 1967 album Hello, I’m Dolly), the musical icon has offered up some of the secrets to their long-lasting relationship.
“He’s quiet and I’m loud, and we’re funny,” Parton explained. “Oh, he’s hilarious. And I think one of the things that’s made it last so long through the years is that we love each other [and] we respect each other, but we have a lot of fun.”
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“Anytime [there’s] too much tension going on, either one of us can like, find a joke about it to really break the tension, where we don’t let it go so far,” Parton continued, touching on their shared sense of humor. “We never fought back and forth. And I’m glad now that we never did, because once you start that, that becomes a lifetime thing.
“I’ve seen it with so many people, and I thought, ‘I ain’t ever starting that.’ I couldn’t bear to think that he’d say something I couldn’t take… because I’m a very sensitive person toward other people and myself.”
Parton’s comments are consistent with her previous offerings on the key to her long-lasting marriage, telling ET Canada in 2022 why she feels the pair have worked so long for close to 60 years.
“I like it when people say, ‘How did it last so long?’ I say, ‘I stay going,’” she explained. “You know, there’s a lot to be said about that. So we’re not in each other’s face all the time. He’s not in the business, so we have different interests, but yet we have the things we love to do together. So it was meant to be, I think. He was the one I was supposed to have and vice versa.”
Lana Del Rey may have a lot to thank Jack Antonoff for when it comes to music, but in a speech at the Variety Hitmakers ceremony over the weekend, the 39-year-old pop star revealed that she’s actually most grateful for the way the producer inspired her to get married to husband Jeremy Dufrene. While presenting […]
Composer/producer Charlie Calello knew he was in the presence of something special when he began working on the landmark Eli and the Thirteenth Confession album with Laura Nyro early in 1968.
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“I first heard it in the studio; she played me the entire record…and I was dumbfounded,” Calello, who co-produced the album with Nyro, tells Billboard. “I’d never heard anything like it and still haven’t heard anything as good. There was never a record that was actually written by a composer who displayed her emotions and her feelings the way she did.”
Nyro’s musical legacy, complex and underappreciated, is being celebrated with the recent release of Hear My Song: The Collection 1966-1995, a limited-edition box set from Britain’s Madfish Records. It includes Nyro’s 10 studio albums, along with six live albums (two previously unreleased), the 1966 demo tape that landed her first recording contract at the age of 18 and a Live & Rarities disc including more demos, alternative versions, outtakes and live tracks. The collection also comes with a coffee-table sized book of liner notes by Vivien Goldman, a foreword by Elton John and remembrances from Calello, Jackson Browne, Clive Davis, Lou Adler, John Sebastian and others.
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The Bronx-born Nyro possessed a three-octave voice and was best known for songs such as “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “And When I Die” and “Stoney End” — which were turned into hits when covered by the Fifth Dimension, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Barbra Streisand. In addition to music Nyro was an avid feminist and animal rights activist. She passed away April 8, 1997 from ovarian cancer at the age of 49 (her mother died of the same disease, at the same age 22 years earlier) and was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2010) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2012).
In his foreword, John calls Nyro “one of my all time idols. She wrote songs that had no kind of fixed compass point, they had different sections, codas and various tempo changes. They remain as unique and absolutely spellbinding to this day as when I first heard them in the ‘60s…. She was a giant of a songwriter who sadly didn’t have the legacy and recognition she deserved during the years she was with us.”
Calello, who also co-produced Nyro’s 1976 album Smile, echoes John’s praise about Nyro’s fusion of pop, jazz, R&B and gospel. “The whole thing did not glue together from a pop standpoint,” he explains, “but yet when you collectively put it together, it was its own thing. It had all of those elements — it had the R&B, it had that jazz, all of it — and it also had the honesty she looked for. And also she would rein it in when things seemed to be getting out of control. It was really an amazing experience seeing her arrive at those conclusions.”
For Nyro’s son Gil Bianchini, Hear My Song is a welcome chronicle of his mother’s artistry. “I think it’s a great reminder of a real talent,” says Bianchini, a rapper who records under the moniker Gil-T. He’s also an associate producer of an upcoming documentary that’s in production with director Lisa D’Apolito (Love, Gilda), with no release date yet. “For people who sit down and really listen to the music…it’s not just a melody or a hook or whatever. I just think it’s a great collection of something that’s real and positive, but also something that’s reality-based and can really inspire. It’s a beautiful thing.”
The Hear My Song box set was produced by James Batsford, pulling together catalogs primarily from Sony Music and Concord/Craft, as well as from the Nyro Estate. It’s an outgrowth from a 2020 vinyl box set of Nyro’s Columbia Records recordings, and Batsford says that the CD package “gave us more room to be expansive and tell her story. It wasn’t a completest mentality; it’s more, ‘What are the touchstones of her career, and how can we bring it in an interesting way and include the best possible material out there?’ It’s not just, ‘What can we get our hands on?’ but ‘What’s the best we can get our hands on?’ and bring them together in one place.”
And when it comes to Nyro, Batsford adds, there’s quite a bit that can be considered best-possible.
“I’ve gotten deeper and deeper into her over the years from working on these records, and it astounds me how my favorite record changes from month to month,” he says. “She’s just such a great (artist). Your taste evolves with listening to her records. She’s just timeless.”
Producer Calello says he’s particularly happy Hear My Music includes a wealth of live material, including a pair of previously unreleased concerts from San Francisco in 1994, while Nyro was touring to promote her final album, 1993’s Walk The Dog & Light The Light. “You see the growth of her as a performer,” he says. “When I made Eli she didn’t want to tour; she was really afraid of the audience. But by the ‘80s she had gotten to the point where she loved performing and there was an energy. You could hear the growth and joy, and the performances are simply amazing.”
The 2013 release Live at Carnegie Hall: The Classic 1976 Radio Broadcast was not included, however, due to rights issues.
Batsford, meanwhile, says there’s more coming from the Nyro vaults. He’s planning a vinyl reissue of 2001’s posthumous Angel in the Dark during April on his own New Land Records. Looking ahead, Batsford promises that “there are some bits and pieces I can’t talk about yet. I’m aware of some rarities that exist that I’d love to help to bring to the public at some point. There is still stuff out there that wasn’t possible this time around but are things that will excite people down the line.”
Roc Marciano and The Alchemist have decided to do it again. The duo have announced their latest endeavor The Skeleton Key as they look to follow up their critically acclaimed collab album The Elephant Man’s Bones from 2022. And with that announcement, they dropped the project’s lead single in “Chopstick” along with its video. Directed […]
On Sunday night (Dec. 8), Taylor Swift played the last of 149 shows on The Eras Tour. As reported earlier Monday, the record-setting trek grossed more than $2 billion and sold over 10 million tickets: $2,077,618,725 and 10,168,008, respectively, to be exact.
The news was first reported by The New York Times.
Without qualification, The Eras Tour is the highest-grossing tour of all time, by artists of any genre, and from any era in music history. If compared to data officially reported to Billboard Boxscore, it is the biggest tour ever by an unthinkable distance of more than $900 million, blasting past Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour (2022-ongoing) – the only other tour to gross more than $1 billion – by a margin of almost two-to-one.
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Even before The Eras Tour was announced, Swift was one of the most successful touring acts of her generation. Dating back to her first reported solo headline show at Sovereign Performing Arts Center in Reading, Pa. (April 6, 2007), she has grossed $3 billion across her career, when adding The Eras Tour’s sum to officially reported data for her prior tours to Billboard Boxscore.
Previously, her biggest tour – according to Billboard Boxscore – came when Swift brought in $345.7 million and sold 2.9 million tickets on 2018’s Reputation Stadium Tour, marking a 38% leap from the earnings on 2015’s The 1989 World Tour. The Eras Tour multiplies her prior best more than six times over.
The Eras Tour kicked off in Glendale, Ariz. on March 17, 2023. If the tour hadn’t already made a seismic impact just via its announcement, the actual performances sent Swift from superstardom to the stratosphere. The friendship bracelets, the surprise songs and all of Swift’s eras took over, sparking major economic booms in every city she visited and hysteria among Swifties around the world.
By August 9, 2023, Swift had released her re-recording of Speak Now (July 7), announced the re-recording for 1989 and wrapped the tour’s first U.S. leg. Quickly after, she played her first shows ever in Mexico with four nights at the capital’s Estadio GNP Seguros (then known as Foro Sol), followed by nine shows in South America.
In February 2024, Swift took her talents to Asia and Australia, but not before she won her record-setting fourth Grammy for album of the year for Midnights and announced her next new studio album during an acceptance speech. That one – The Tortured Poets Department, released April 19 – arrived while on break from tour, and once again, set a new career-peak with a debut week of 2.61 million equivalent album units earned in the U.S., according to Luminate, and the entire top 14 on the Hot 100. On the current, Dec. 14-dated edition of the Billboard 200, the set returns for a 16th week at No. 1 on the back of a physical release of the album’s deluxe Anthology version, sold exclusively at Target.
In May, Swift took on Europe, with 48 shows across the continent. While Tortured Poets spent most of the summer atop the Billboard 200, The Eras Tour continued its blistering pace, including eight nights at London’s Wembley Stadium.
Finally, Swift returned to North America for three shows each in Miami, New Orleans, and Indianapolis, plus six in Toronto and one last weekend in Vancouver.
