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Elton John isn’t quite ready to take his final bow. The singer who retired from touring last year when he wrapped his epic Farewell Yellow Brick Road outing on July 8 announced on Wednesday (Jan. 24) that he will chronicle his half-century on the road in a book entitled Farewell Yellow Brick Road: Memories of My Life on Tour.
“I am incredibly excited to announce my new book, Farewell Yellow Brick Road: Memories of My Life On Tour, which goes behind the scenes on my final tour, from Allentown, PA, to Stockholm, Sweden and everywhere in between,” John wrote in an Instagram post revealing the technicolor cover, which finds him standing next to a psychedelic piano in a trippy forest.

“It’s been a beautiful journey creating this book and remembering the people and places that shaped an incredible chapter in my life,” he added. “As well as the stories and memories, not just from this tour but from throughout my career, I’ve included unreleased photography and memorabilia that I hope give you never-before-seen insights of my life on the road.” The 256-page book also includes behind-the-scenes pictures of the show’s stage design, John’s bespoke Gucci-designed wardrobe, snaps of celebrity guests and official tour photography.

A description promises that, “Readers will go on an epic visual journey through the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour while Elton reaches back in time to reflect on key moments in his astounding touring history and reminisces about the beginning of his career. Fans also get a rare glimpse at Elton’s personal archive of posters, sketches, and never-before-seen photographs and postcards.” The poignant forward was written by John’s husband and manager, David Furnish, CEO of the singer’s Rocket Entertainment and the creative director of the tour.

The book from Disney publishing imprint Hyperion Avenue is out on Sept. 24, with Rocket Club fan club members and anyone ordering the book through John’s official store slated to receive it two week early; click here to pre-order.

John’s farewell tour wrapped five years after launching — and being delayed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, illness and injury — with grosses of $939.1 million and 6 million tickets sold over 330 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore. The 76-year-old singer has said that he does not want to tour again, but noted he might play sporadic shows in the future.

The final North American show at L.A.’s Dodger Stadium was live streamed on Disney+ and featured guests Dua Lipa, Brandie Carlile and Kiki Dee and released as a concert film, Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium. The movie recently earned John an Emmy for outstanding variety special (live), which earned the singer the coveted EGOT.

Check out John’s announcement below.

Justin Timberlake is back, and this time he’s in a selfish mood.
The U.S. pop star today (Jan. 25) drops “Selfish,” his first solo release in more than five years.

The former *NSync star has teased the cut several ways in recent days, including a hometown live debut and a post with what appeared to be the official cover art, shot by photographer Charlotte Rutherford.

Then, a snippet which sees JT from behind the stage curtain, paying thanks to the audience, over the sound of an old school analogue drum machine and lo-fi organ.

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JT debuted the silky, R&B-leaning track live at his concert in Memphis, TN last Friday, Jan. 19. “So if I get jealous, I can’t help it/ I want every bit of you, I guess I’m selfish,” he sings. “It’s bad for my mental, but I can’t fight it.”

“Selfish” is the first track lifted from Timberlake’s forthcoming sixth album, titled Everything I Thought It Was, the followup to his solo LP Man of the Woods, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 back in 2018. The release date for EITIW has yet to be determined.

Though his solo music career has been in deep hibernation, Timberlake did return to his boyband roots last year when he reunited with *NSync for “Better Place,” which accompanied the animated family film Trolls Band Together. The track bowed at No. 25, for *NSync’s lucky 13th appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 and first appearance on the tally since “Girlfriend” featuring Nelly reached No. 5 — way back in 2002.

The 10-time Grammy winner will remind fans of what they’ve been missing when he serves as musical guest on Saturday Night Live this weekend, with Dakota Johnson hosting. There’s more small-screen action to come when JT stops by the The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon next Thursday.

Stream “Selfish” below.

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Jack Antonoff came out swinging after discovering that Kanye West has an album release planned for the same day as him.  In a Wednesday (Jan. 24) tweet, the Bleachers frontman did not mince his words. “kanye on bleachers release date is hilarious little,” he wrote, adding that West is a “cry baby b—h.”  For context, […]

A little more than three months since it kicked off at the O2 Arena in London, Madonna’s Celebration Tour arrived at Madison Square Garden this week. While the Celebration Tour previously hit New York City in December for three dates, those were all at the Barclays Center – a venue that opened in Brooklyn 12 […]

K-pop boy band Seventeen surprised fans during the second night of a two-night stand at Macao’s Olympic Sports Center Stadium on Sunday (Jan. 21) when they busted out a brand-new song, “The Meaning of Meeting.” The sentimental, swooning ballad was released a short time later on Chinese music streaming platforms as a standalone digital single, […]

We love when three of pop music‘s hottest young stars link up. On Monday, The Kid LAROI took to his Instagram Story to share a sweet snap of himself, Olivia Rodrigo and Tate McRae.
The adorable picture finds the trio of pop stars posing on a Los Angeles street with a RuPaul’s Drag Race billboard towering in the background. The Kid LAROI throws up a pair of peace signs as he dons a black beanie, long-sleeve white tee and a statement red scarf. Rodrigo — dressed in a black biker jacket and heather-gray turtleneck — similarly throws her arms up and sports a huge smile, while McRae cradles her smiling face and dons a large black coat.

Some dating rumors have swirled around LAROI and McRae, though neither has confirmed their relationship status, while McRae and Rodrigo have been longtime friends, with Tate co-starring in Olivia’s “bad idea, right?” music video.

The nighttime pic commemorates a massive six months for the trio — each of whom unleashed a new studio album in that time period. On Sept. 8, Rodrigo unearthed her sophomore studio album, Guts, which became her second consecutive Billboard 200 chart-topper, spawned the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single “Vampire,” and earned six Grammy nominations, including album of the year. In exactly one month, starting Feb. 23, the “Drivers License” singer will embark on the Guts World Tour in support of the record, taking The Breeders, Chappell Roan, PinkPantheress and Remi Wolf on the road with her.

Just two months after Guts on Nov. 10, The Kid LAROI released his long-awaited debut studio album, The First Time. Reaching No. 26 on the Billboard 200, the album featured star-studded collaborations with the likes of Future, Robert Glasper and YoungBoy Never Broke Again and housed the Hot 100 hit “Too Much” (with Jung Kook and Central Cee, No. 44).

Of course, Tate McRae kicked off 2024 as one of the buzziest names in pop music thanks to the continued success of her smash hit “Greedy.” The song has since climbed to No. 3 on the Hot 100, helping her latest album, Think Later (released Dec. 8), reach No. 4 on the Billboard 200, her very first top 10 placement on the ranking. Like Rodrigo, McRae will embark on a world tour in support of her new record. The 53-date Think Later World Tour is set to kick off on Apr. 17 in Dublin and conclude on Nov. 21 in Wellington, New Zealand.

Check out the cute pic below:

It’s only been two weeks since Lil Nas X officially returned with his first single in over a year “J Christ.” But now, he’s making it clear that the drought is officially over with yet another new track. On Tuesday (Jan. 23), the rapper took to Instagram to let fans know that his next single […]

Frank Farian, the Wizard of Oz-like Svengali behind the rise and fall of disgraced late 1980s musical duo Milli Vanilli has died at age 82. BBC News reported that Farian’s family released a statement on Tuesday (Jan. 23) that the elusive German producer/songwriter had passed away at his home in Miami of undisclosed causes; at press time Billboard had not independently confirmed Farian’s death.
The studio maestro born in Kirn, Germany on July 18, 1941 began his career in the mid-1960s as a vocalist for the rock band Frankie Boys Schatten. After struggling to break through, Farian hit upon the formula that would twice take him to the highest heights of global success via his first musical sleight of hand vehicle, pop group Boney M.

A talented vocalist and arranger with a golden ear for hooks, Farian assembled the 1970s disco funk group featuring three female vocalist — Marcia Barrett, Liz Mitchell and Maizie Williams — and fronted by Aruban go-go dancer Bobby Farrell after breaking through in a number of European markets in 1975 with the bouncy “Do You Wanna Bump.” The song was credited to “Boney M,” despite Farian singing all the high and low vocal parts. In a genius marketing move, Farian decided to put a face to his creation in time to release Boney M’s 1976 debut album, Take the Heat Off Me.

Unbeknownst to the group’s fans, Farian sang all the male lead vocals for the group that would go on to sell more than 100 million records thanks to such quirky, but undeniable dance floor jams as “Rasputin,” “Daddy Cool,” the Bobby Hebb cover “Sunny” and the swaying, reggae-lite “Rivers of Babylon.” The group released two more albums in quick succession and achieved global success, with seemingly little concern for the open secret that Farrell — who died in 2010 at 61 — was not its actual lead singer, but rather a gifted performer who fronted the band with the assist of more polished backing vocalists.

Farian also later revealed that in addition to Farrell, Williams had not sung on the group’s albums either. By 1981 fractures had formed in Boney M and Farrell split following a fall-out with Farian, cueing up another soon-to-be-familiar trope in the producer’s modus operandi: replacing the non-singing lead singer with a fresh face, in this case singer Reggie Tsiboe. Boney M released eight studio albums in total to diminishing returns, reuniting and splitting up a number of times throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Credited with helping to popularize the Eurodisco sound and establishing one of Germany’s most technologically advanced 1980s recording studios with his Frankfurt-based FAR Studios, Farian had another, even bigger, trick up his sleeve. FAR was where Farian cooked up his second, and even more globally successful second act: Milli Vanilli. After hearing the hip-hop/R&B track “Girl You Know It’s True” by Baltimore-based hip-hop group Numarx in a German nightclub, Farian hatched his another studio creation, again recording the basic tracks on his own and hiring a group of mostly ex-pat American session singers, rappers and musicians to lay down the vocals for the group that would score three No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

Needing a face for the band whose version of “Girl You Know It’s True” was blowing up all over Europe, Farian spotted aspiring singers dancers Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan in a club and hired them to perform as the frontmen of his latest phantom act. The photogenic, high-energy pair perfectly fit the part, with their signature flowing braids, skintight bicycle shorts and peppy dance moves. The songs on the European debut album, All or Nothing, were so catchy, in fact, that legendary American record label boss Clive Davis of Arista Records licensed the collection and released a revamped version in March 1989 called Girl You Know It’s True.

With the addition of the soon-to-be No. 1 Diane Warren-penned balled “Blame It on the Rain” — alongside No. 1 hits “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” and “Baby Don’t Forget My Number” — Milli mania took over the world. The American version spent 78 weeks on the Billboard 200 albums chart — peaking at No. 1 for 8 weeks, making Milli Vanilli one of the year’s most dominant pop acts.

But if anyone had been listening to the press interviews the duo were doing in Europe they would have quickly surmised that something was rotten in Frankfurt, given the thick accents and thin command of the English language by Munich-bred Pilatus and Paris-born Morvan. Once the group joined the Club MTV tour in 1989, where repeated equipment failures with the pre-recorded vocals made it crystal clear that Rob and Fab were lip synching, the charade began to fall apart.

With both men pushing hard to sing on the follow-up album — a request that Farian vehemently shut down — their growing intransigence created a tension that would result in one of the biggest scandals in Grammy Awards history. After winning the Grammy for best new artist at the 1990 awards, where they also bucked history by lip synching during their performance, Farian admitted to the ruse in a Nov. 15, 1990 press conference. That admission resulted in Milli Vanilli getting dumped from Arista and having the ignoble asterisk as the only act in Grammy history to have their award taken back.

Farian shrugged off the pearl clutching by some in the American media — as well as a handful of fans who sued Arista and parent Company BMG in a class action that resulted in refunds for concert tickets and albums purchased — by blithely telling the Washington Post at the time that the group was, “one part was visual, one part recorded. Such projects are an art form in themselves, and the fans were happy with the music.”

In addition to his work with MV and Boney M, Farian produced and mixed Meat Loaf’s 1986 album Blind Before I Stop and his high-tech FAR studio was where Stevie Wonder recorded his best-selling single ever, 1984’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” Farian kept a low profile throughout much of the 2000s and revealed in 2022 that he’d undergone heart surgery that reportedly included the implanting of a pig heart valve. His former assistant/girlfriend Ingrid “Milli” Segieth, who provided the inspiration for MV’s name, told German paper Bild that she’d seen Farian over the new year in Miami and that he was “physically very weak, but was still full of energy” and working the studio all day on new music.

The producer was markedly absent in this year’s Milli Vanilli biopic — which featured commentary from this writer — after the film’s director was unable to get the reclusive music maker to agree to an interview.

After a promotional frenzy filled with plenty of controversy, Lil Nas X is officially back like “J Christ” on the Hot 100. Lil Nas X’s latest single “J Christ” debuted at No. 69 on the chart dated Jan. 27, and the rapper is taking that particular ranking as a milestone achievement in his career. “we […]

Amy Winehouse takes a casual stroll through a chic hotel in the new official lyric video for the late singer’s 2004 song “In My Bed.” The visual is comprised of previously unseen footage from the original video that was released on April 5, 2004. The jazzy R&B track was featured on Winehouse’s debut full-length album, […]