Rock
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The 1975 announced the dates for their biggest North American tour to date on Tuesday (June 13), a 32-stop outing they’ve dubbed “Still… at their very best.” The fall arena outing continues the tour that has taken the Matty Healy-led band across the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand in support of the group’s fifth studio album, last year’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language.
After playing late August/September festival gigs at Lollapalooza (August 4), Outside Lands (August 13), Music Midtown (Sept. 16) and Life Is Beautiful (Sept. 22), the North American dates will kick off on Sept. 26 at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. The tour will take them to San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, Minneapolis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Boston and New York (at Madison Square Garden) before winding down on Dec. 2 at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle.
Tickets will go be available in an exclusive fan presale beginning on June 21st at 10 a.m. local time before the general on-sale starts on June 23 at 10 a.m. local time. The band celebrated the announcement of the dates by releasing a new episode of their “A Theatrical Performance of an Intimate Moment” series. In the eight-minute clip, singer Healy wakes up, sucks down some oxygen and makes his bed over a jazz soundtrack before brewing some unnecessarily complicated tea and leaving for his job trimming bonsai trees.
See the 2023 North American tour dates and the “Intimate Moment” video below.
Sept. 26 – Sacramento, CA – Golden 1 Center
Sept. 28 – San Jose, CA – SAP Center
Sept. 30 – San Diego, CA – Pechanga Arena San Diego
Oct. 2 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl
Oct. 5 – Glendale, AZ – Desert Diamond Arena
Oct. 7 – Greenwood Village, CO – Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre
Oct. 12 – New Orleans, LA – Smoothie King Center
Oct. 17 – Miami, FL – Kaseya Center
Oct. 18 – Tampa, FL – Amalie Arena
Oct. 20 – Charlotte, NC – Spectrum Center
Oct. 22 – Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena
Oct. 23 – St. Louis, MO – Enterprise Arena
Oct. 25 – Kansas City, MO – T-Mobile Center
Oct. 26 – Minneapolis, MN – Target Center
Oct. 28 – Milwaukee, WI – Fiserv Forum
Oct. 31 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena
Nov. 2 – Indianapolis, IN – Gainbridge Fieldhouse
Nov. 3 – Columbus, OH – Nationwide Arena
Nov. 5 – Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paints Arena
Nov. 8 – Baltimore, MD – CFG Bank Arena
Nov. 10 – Philadelphia, PA – Well Fargo Arena
Nov. 12 – Boston, MA – TD Garden
Nov. 14 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
Nov. 17 – Montreal, QC – Bell Centre
Nov. 18 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena
Nov. 20 – London, ON – Budweiser Gardens
Nov. 22 – Grand Rapids, MI – Van Andel Arena
Nov. 26 – Salt Lake City, UT – Delta Center
Nov. 27 – Boise, ID – ExtraMile Arena
Nov. 29 – Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena
Dec. 1 – Portland, OR – Moda Center
Dec. 2 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena
More than six decades after their formation, Paul McCartney says the final-ever Beatles song is on its way thanks to the miracle of modern technology. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today, Sir Paul said that he has been using artificial intelligence to “extricate” John Lennon’s voice from an old demo to complete the untitled track.
“We just finished it up and it’ll be released this year,” he said, of the untitled song that the BBC speculated could be a 1978 Lennon composition called “Now and Then.” The single was reportedly in the running to serve as a “reunion song” for the 1995 Anthology series, which included two new songs based on demos recorded by Lennon after the group split, 1995’s “Free As a Bird” and 1996’s “Real Love,” produced by ELO’s Jeff Lynne. Those tracks were the first “new” Beatles” releases in more than 25 years.
McCartney reportedly received the demo for the new track from Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, in 1994; the song was one of several on a cassette labelled “For Paul” that Lennon made shortly before his murder in 1980. The BBC reported that the tracks were “lo-fi and embryonic” and mostly recorded on a boombox by Lennon on a piano in his New York apartment.
The BBC reported that the living members of the band tried to record the “apologetic” love song “Now and Then” around the time of the Anthology release, but abandoned the sessions in short order. “It was one day — one afternoon, really — messing with it,” Lynne said. “The song had a chorus but is almost totally lacking in verses. We did the backing track, a rough go that we really didn’t finish.”
McCartney later said guitarist/singer George Harrison refused to work on “Now and Then,” saying the sound quality on Lennon’s vocals was “rubbish… George didn’t like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn’t do it.” The BBC reported that there were also reportedly technical issues with the original, due to some persistent “buzz” from the electrical circuits in Lennon’s apartment. The new version of the demo reportedly popped up on a bootleg CD in 2009, minus the background noise.
In a 2012 BBC documentary on Lynne, McCartney said, “that one’s still lingering around… so I’m going to nick in with Jeff and do it. Finish it, one of these days.” And while it is still unknown if that song is the one due out, the BBC reported that technical advances employed during the making of Peter Jackson’s Get Back Beatles documentary series — during which dialog editor Emile de la Rey trained computers to recognize the Beatles’ voices and separate them from background noise, including their own instruments — allowed the team to create “clean” audio. That same technology also allowed McCartney to sing a virtual duet with Lennon on his most recent tour.
“He [Jackson] was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette,” McCartney told Radio 4 in explaining how the tech used in the documentary helped him work on the “new” song. “We had John’s voice and a piano and he could separate them with AI. They tell the machine, ‘That’s the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar.’ So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles’ record, it was a demo that John had [and] we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI. Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway.”
At press time a release date for the Beatles track had not been announced.
After a very public divorce and custody fight, Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme has quietly gone through a cancer battle.
Speaking with Revolver, the American rocker confirmed he underwent surgery following a cancer diagnosis last year. He’s said to be recovering from the operation.
“I never say it can’t get any worse. I never say that, and I wouldn’t advise it. But I do say it can get better,” he comments, without sharing further details on his illness.
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“Cancer is just the cherry on top of an interesting time period, you know? I’m extremely thankful that I’ll get through this, and I’ll look back at this as something that’s fucked up — but will have made me better. I’m cool with that. There’s a lot of stuff I want to do. And there’s a lot of people I want to do that with.”
That “interesting time period” he refers to is a dry assessment of his breakup from the Distillers’ singer Brody Dalle in 2019, which has seen both sides file domestic violence restraining orders, and an ongoing custody battle which, due to their profiles, attracts global media attention. And prior to that, he caught flak when video emerged of him kicking a photographer at a KROQ Acoustic Christmas show, an incident he repeatedly apologized for.
Those dramas fed into the creative process for QOTSA’s forthcoming new album In Times New Roman. “I think this is the first time I didn’t want to make a record, but I was dealing with a lot of stuff in my personal life,” Homme adds. “We recorded a lot of stuff. I think I was doing it because when I’m in trouble, this is what I do. This is where I go to get right.”
The band’s eighth and latest full-length studio album is due out June 16 via Matador Records, and features the newly-released cut “Carnavoyeur” (stream below). In Times New Roman was recorded by the lineup of Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Dean Fertita, Michael Shuman and Jon Theodore, and will be supported by a major tour dubbed, The End is Nero, slated to kick off Aug. 3. It’s the followup to 2017’s Villains, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
After 20 years away, Blur is back on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart.
“The Narcissist,” the lead single from the Damon Albarn-led band’s upcoming album The Ballad of Darren, debuts at No. 37 on the list dated June 10.
The band last made the chart in 2003, when “Crazy Beat” peaked at No. 22 that April. The song was last on the chart dated May 24, 2003.
The 20-year, two-week break between Alternative Airplay chart appearances for Blur marks the longest for any band in the tally’s nearly 35-year history. It surpasses the 13 years, five months and three weeks between visits by Sublime (“Doin’ Time” in December 1997 and “Panic,” credited to Sublime With Rome, in May 2011).
The all-time longest respite between charted songs on Alternative Airplay belongs to Debbie Harry, whose “Kiss It Better” wrapped its run in January 1990, followed by the Blondie frontwoman’s featured credit on Just Loud’s “Soul Train” in December 2018 – nearly 29 years later.
As Harry’s record ties into a featured credit, the longest break for an act credited as the lead artist on both bookending songs is Kate Bush, who went over 28 years between January 1994 (“Rubberband Girl”) and “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” in June 2022, the latter due to its resurgence sparked by its synch in Netflix’s Stranger Things.
Back to Blur, “The Narcissist” is the band’s sixth appearance on the ranking. Three have reached the top 10, led by “Girls & Boys” at No. 4 in July 1994.
In between 2003’s Think Tank, on which “Crazy Beat” is included, and this year’s The Ballad of Darren, Blur released one album: 2015’s The Magic Whip, which hit No. 2 on the Top Alternative Albums chart.
Albarn has made Alternative Airplay eight times in the meantime as part of Gorillaz. In fact, Albarn appears on the latest list twice, as Gorillaz’s “New Gold,” featuring Tame Impala and Bootie Brown, ranks at No. 15.
Concurrently, “The Narcissist” bows at No. 29 on Adult Alternative Airplay, marking Blur’s first appearance on the tally, which began in 1996.
On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, “The Narcissist” premieres at No. 39 with 711,000 equivalent album units earned, according to Luminate.
Blur’s The Ballad of Darren is set for release July 21.
Matty Healy can do it all. In the span of one show in Dublin on Wednesday night (June 7) at St. Anne’s Park, the lead singer of The 1975 managed to play two sets in the same night, take a wild swing at a musical hero while also expressing his love for him and he capped it off with a subtle humble brag about nice gifts he got from two of the world’s biggest rock stars.
Let’s start with the diss, though. As you might recall, while promoting his band’s new album, Council Skies recently, High Flying Birds leader and former Oasis co-founder Noel Gallagher was asked about Healy’s comments earlier this year begging for a Gallagher brothers reunion. As with all talk of an Oasis rapprochement, this angered Noel, who referred to Matty as a “f–king slack-jawed f–kwit.”
So, after opening for his own band with a solo “Matty” set after Caroline Polachek unexpectedly pulled out of the Dublin show due to reported vocal issues with a set of stripped-down 1975 songs and a cover of former Men At Work singer Colin Hay’s “I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You,” Healy got to work.
Matty addressed the crowd by casually noting that he recently got some very nice gifts from U2 singer Bono and Coldplay’s Chris Martin. “Today — honestly, this is not a namedrop, this is a celebration of them as people — Chris Martin and Bono have sent us the most beautiful messages, packages, kind of good wishes,” he said, without explaining why his fellow frontmen had reached out. “In honestly such a genuine way and it made us feel so beautiful.”
The singer — who reportedly recently split with short-term girlfriend Taylor Swift after a brief dalliance — then turned his attention to the Gallaghers and gave the battling brothers a taste of their own acid-drenched medicine. “Noel Gallagher called me a ‘slack-jawed f–kwit’… I love Noel Gallagher,” Healy said, before he began turning the knife and dragging former Oasis singer Liam Gallagher into the muck as we;;. “We asked Liam to open up and he said he would have done it but he was busy.”
And then it got real.
“But I love Noel Gallagher… He’s just getting on,” Healy snarked. “The difference between me and Noel is that I do a series of interviews to promote an album, whereas he does an album to promote a series of interviews.”
And in the final twist of the knife, Healy tripled down on his call for a long-desired Oasis reunion, adding, “But we love you, Noel. Get Oasis back together!”
Check out a fan video of the Healy moment below.
Taylor Swift makes her first visit to Billboard’s Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, as The National’s “The Alcott,” on which she’s featured, debuts at No. 45 on the June 10-dated ranking.
The song reaches the list with 636,000 radio audience impressions on rock radio formats, up 12%, May 26-June 1, according to Luminate.
It’s not Swift’s first appearance on any rock radio chart, however. She has notched four entries on Adult Alternative Airplay, beginning with the No. 9-peaking “Exile,” featuring Bon Iver, in November 2020. She followed with “Coney Island,” featuring The National (No. 18, March 2021), and “Snow on the Beach,” featuring Lana Del Rey (No. 30, this January).
“The Alcott” concurrently lifts 18-15 on the latest Adult Alternative Airplay survey, driving its Rock & Alternative Airplay debut.
“The Alcott” is The National’s sixth song to reach Rock & Alternative Airplay. Its highest charter is “Tropic Morning News,” which reached No. 25 in March.
With her maiden Rock & Alternative Airplay showing, Swift has now reached the following radio tallies: Adult Alternative Airplay, Adult Contemporary, Adult Pop Airplay, Country Airplay, Dance/Mix Show Airplay, Holiday Airplay, Latin Airplay, Latin Pop Airplay, Pop Airplay, all-format Radio Songs, Rock & Alternative Airplay and Rhythmic Airplay.
Swift concurrently appears on three pop/adult charts. On Adult Pop Airplay, “Anti-Hero” is at No. 3 (after a personal-best nine weeks at No. 1) and “Karma,” featuring Ice Spice, rises to No. 11. “Karma” also ascends to No. 8 on Pop Airplay. On Adult Contemporary, “Anti-Hero” places at No. 2, following a three-week reign.
Swift has charted three titles on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums ranking: the No. 1s Folklore and Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions and the No. 3-peaking Evermore.
“The Alcott” is The National’s second single from First Two Pages of Frankenstein, the band’s ninth studio album, following “Tropic Morning News.” The set debuted at No. 1 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums survey dated May 13 and has earned 59,000 equivalent album units to date.
On the eve of the kick-off of their summer tour, Slipknot drummer Shawn “Clown” Crahan announced that he will not be joining the band for the time being in order to spend time with his wife as she deals with an undisclosed health issue. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts […]
SoCal punk veterans Social Distortion have postponed their planned 2023 North American summer tour in the midst of singer Mike Ness’ treatment for stage-one tonsil cancer. The “I Was Wrong” band announced the news on Wednesday (June 7), revealing that the previously announced tour slated to kick off on June 30 is being pushed back […]
It’s been an emotional few weeks for the Foo Fighters as the band has played its first run of shows without longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins. After a year of privately mourning their late timekeeper and emotional heartbeat — who died at age 50 last March while the band was on tour in South America — […]
The Biden administration is weighing in on the controversy over Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, saying his recent performances in Germany were antisemitic, an assessment shared by many in Israel and the pro-Israel community.
The State Department said Tuesday (June 6) that Waters has “a long track record of using antisemitic tropes” and a concert he gave late last month in Germany “contained imagery that is deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust.”
The comments came in a written response to a question posed at Monday’s State Department press briefing about whether the administration agreed with criticism of Rogers from the U.S. special envoy to combat antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt.
“Special Envoy Lipstadt’s quote-tweet speaks for itself,” the department said.
“The concert in question, which took place in Berlin, contained imagery that is deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust,” the department said. “The artist in question has a long track record of using antisemitic tropes to denigrate Jewish people.”
In a May 24 tweet after the concert in Berlin, during which Waters appeared on stage in a costume reminiscent of Nazi-era Germany, Lipstadt denounced the musician by echoing comments from EU antisemitism envoy Katharina von Schnurbein, who is German.
“I wholeheartedly concur with @EUAntisemitism ’s condemnation of Roger Waters and his despicable Holocaust distortion,” Lipstadt wrote in reply to a tweet from von Schnurbein.
Von Schnurbein had taken issue with Waters’ performance in Berlin as well as his previous comments related to Israel and the Holocaust.
“I am sick & disgusted by Roger Waters’ obsession to belittle and trivialize the Shoah & the sarcastic way in which he delights in trampling on the victims, systematically murdered by the Nazis,” von Schnurbein wrote. “In Germany. Enough is enough.”
Shortly after the concert, police in Berlin said they had opened an investigation of Waters on suspicion of incitement over the costume he wore. Images on social media showed Waters firing an imitation machine gun while dressed in a long black coat with a red armband. Police confirmed that the costume could constitute a glorification, justification or approval of Nazi rule and therefore a disturbance of the public peace.
Waters rejected those accusations in a statement on Facebook and Instagram, saying “the elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms.”
He claimed that ”attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated.” Waters has also drawn the ire of the pro-Israel community for his outspoken support of the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel.