Rock
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Machine Gun Kelly went to Hellfest with his teenage daughter last week and all he got was some fresh ink. The “Emo Girl” rap rocker posted a series of pictures from his slot at the festival in Clisson, France on Tuesday (June 20), beginning with one of 13-year-old Casie Colson Baker wielding a tattoo gun […]
Machine Gun Kelly swung back into rock mode last week when he hopped on stage with Mötley Crüe for a live rendition of “The Dirt (Est. 1981),” their 2019 collaboration for the soundtrack to the film adaptation of the band’s biography of the same name. The rapper joined the metal legends during their set at […]
Greta Van Fleet singer Josh Kiszka came out as a member of the LGBTQ community in a poignant Instagram post on Tuesday (June 20) in which the frontman described his decision in light of recent laws in his home state of Tennessee targeting the state’s LGBTQ citizens.
“Where I’ve settled a home in Tennessee, legislators are proposing bills that threaten the freedom of love. It’s imperative that I speak my truth for not only myself, but in hopes to change hearts, minds, and laws in Tennessee and beyond,” wrote Michigan-bred Kiszka in a post accompanied by a live photo of the singer on stage surrounded by rainbow-colored lights.
“These issues are especially close to my heart as I’ve been in a loving, same-sex relationship with my partner for the past 8 years. Those close to me are well aware, but it’s important to me to share publicly,” he continued. “Over the years, the outpouring of love for the LGBTQ+ community has been resounding, but there is still work to be done for LGBTQ+ rights in TN, the nation, and the world.”
Kiszka’s post comes in the wake of conservative Tennessee legislators passing a recent bill attempting to ban drag shows on public property where minors could be present, as well as another bill signed in March that bans gender-affirming healthcare for children. One June 2, a federal judge ruled that Tennessee’s first-in-the-nation law restricting drag shows violated the First Amendment and was an “unconstitutional restriction of freedom of speech,” which sent the closely-watched legal battle to a federal appeals court.
While Kiszka did not specifically mention those two pieces of legislation, he said he wanted to share links to organizations doing good work to combat such policies, including: Human Rights Campaign Nashville, Inclusion Tennessee, Oasis Center Nashville, ACLU Tennessee, Nashville Pride, HRC, the Trevor Project and the ACLU.
“The LGBTQ+ community is a cultural pillar, constantly championing positivity and acceptance through art, music, literature, film, and most importantly, legislation,” Kiszka said. “The greatest mortal gift of all is our capacity to love and as we travel through time, may our greater understanding of the matter around and within us teach us to love ever deeper.”
See Kiszka’s post below.
Two rock heroes teamed up for the ultimate onstage collaboration over the weekend. At the Sunday (June 18) finale of this year’s Bonnaroo Festival, Paramore‘s Hayley Williams joined Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters onstage for an epic performance of “My Hero,” caught on camera by fans in the audience. In videos from the night, […]
Teresa Taylor, a former drummer for Texas psychedelic noise merchants Butthole Surfers died of complications from lung disease on Monday at age 60. The group announced the news in a post in which they wrote, “Teresa Taylor passed away peacefully this weekend after a long battle with lung disease. She will live in our hearts forever. RIP, dear friend.”
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The news was also confirmed by Taylor’s partner, Cheryl Curtice, who wrote, “Teresa passed away clean and sober, peacefully in her sleep, this weekend. She was so brave, even in the face of her horrible disease. We were all fortunate to have her beautiful, strong spirit in our lives. She will be forever missed. We will have a memorial service sometime in the future. I love you, beloved Teresa.”
Taylor was also well known for appearing on the poster for director Richard Linklater’s breakthrough 1990 film Slacker, in which she was famously depicted standing with her hands in her front pockets, staring into the distance while wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses. She also appeared in the film, playing a character named “Pap Smear Pusher” who enthusiastically tries to sell a jar she claims contains Madonna’s pap smear.
The percussionist — who also went by the stage name Teresa Nervosa — was born in Arlington, TX in 1962 and met future bandmate and fellow Surfers drummer King Coffey when they both played in a high school marching band. She later joined the San Antonio-bred punk band fronted by Gibby Haynes with the name not safe for mainstream TV and radio whose sonic attack blasted fans with waves of chaotic noise, disturbing surgery videos and strobe lights.
Taylor played drums alongside Coffey from 1983-1985 and then again from 1986-1989, taking a leave after suffering from seizures she said were caused by a brain aneurysm; she underwent brain surgery in 1993 and came back for a brief period to play live with the Surfers in 2009. For a band known for confounding audiences with their pummeling, sometimes disorienting visual and audio assault, the sight of the two percussionists playing their respective stand-up kits next to each other became a vital part of their stagecraft, as did their long-running fib that they were actually siblings and not just bandmates.
She joined the band in the studio for a run of their beloved early albums, including 1984 full-length debut, Psychic… Powerless… Another Man’s Sac, as well as 1986’s Rembrandt Pussyhorse, 1987’s Locust Abortion Technician and 1988’s Hairway to Steven, among others.
In Nov. 2021, Taylor revealed that she had been diagnosed with end-stage lung disease in a Facebook post.
See the Surfers’ and Curtice’s posts, and Taylor’s Slacker scene, below.
Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger and his dancer girlfriend Melanie Hamrick have put their Florida home up for sale. A listing on realtor.com says the lakefront home with four bedrooms and 5.5 baths is listed at $3.499 million — and it looks like the Jagger connection is a key selling point. “You can’t always get what […]
Jelly Roll achieves a first on Billboard’s charts as “Need a Favor” rises from No. 12 to No. 9 on the Country Airplay tally dated June 24, with 17.5 million audience impressions June 9-15 on the ranking’s panel of reporting stations, according to Luminate.
Now that it’s within Country Airplay’s top 10, the song becomes the first ever to have hit the top 10 of both Country Airplay and Mainstream Rock Airplay.
“Need a Favor” concurrently spends a fourth week in a row at its No. 3 high on Mainstream Rock Airplay.
The format-specific radio charts have existed simultaneously since the chart week of Jan. 20, 1990, when Country Airplay began. Mainstream Rock Airplay’s history stretches back to March 21, 1981.
Late last year, Jelly Roll became the eighth act to have scored a top 10 on both charts, albeit with separate songs. He first hit the top 10 of Mainstream Rock Airplay with “Dead Man Walking,” which led for a week in May 2022, while “Son of a Sinner” reached No. 1 on Country Airplay this January.
At the time, the list of other acts who have appeared in the top 10 of both charts included Bon Jovi, Zac Brown Band, Brantley Gilbert, Kid Rock, Dave Matthews (solo on Country Airplay and fronting Dave Matthews Band on Mainstream Rock Airplay), Sting and Travis Tritt.
Since then, a ninth has added his name to the list: HARDY, whose “Jack” reached No. 3 on Mainstream Rock Airplay in March; he has notched three top 10s on Country Airplay.
Of those nine acts, Bon Jovi, Brantley Gilbert, Jelly Roll and Zac Brown Band are the only ones with No. 1 placements on both surveys.
Unlike with the clear crossover appeal of “Need a Favor,” the artists above with top 10 ranks on both charts have largely not had individual songs make both lists. One hit previously reached the top 20 of both tallies: Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” rose to No. 4 on Country Airplay and No. 17 on Mainstream Rock Airplay in 2008.
In addition to its Mainstream Rock Airplay and Country Airplay success, “Need a Favor” concurrently bullets at its No. 6 best on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 3.3 million audience impressions. In addition to its mainstream rock radio airplay, the song is bubbling under Alternative Airplay.
On the most-recently published, June 17-dated multi-metric Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Country Songs charts, “Need a Favor” placed at Nos. 2 and 4, respectively. Along with its airplay, the song earned 11.2 million official streams and sold 7,000 downloads in the United States June 2-8.
“Need a Favor” is the lead single from Whitsitt Chapel, Jelly Roll’s latest studio album, and his first country set. It debuted at Nos. 1 and 2 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums and Top Country Albums charts dated June 17, respectively, with 90,000 equivalent album units earned.
All charts dated June 24 will update on Billboard.com Wednesday, June 21 (a day later than usual due to the Juneteenth holiday in the U.S. Monday, June 19).
Dolly Parton‘s rock experiment rolled on Friday (June 16) with the release of two more songs from the country icon’s upcoming full-length rock debut, Rockstar. Digging into a song she’s always loved, Parton teams up with Heart’s Ann Wilson on a straightforward cover of the latter’s signature 1975 jam “Magic Man (Carl’s Version).”
“I’ve always wanted a reason to sing ‘Magic Man’ by Heart and it was one of my first choices for the album,” Parton said in a statement. “I was so happy that Ann Wilson agreed to sing it with me. Nobody can out sing Ann, but I gave it my darndest, and we added a few lines that were not in the original. We wanted to have a few things that made it seem like ours. Thank you, Nancy, for letting me fill in for you on this. Hope I’ve made you both proud. I think it’s magic!”
Indeed, three minutes in, Parton and Wilson trade lines in a new verse that conjures yet more mystery. “A magic man with luring eyes, changed the course of my young life/ He was a magic man/ I was oh so quick to learn, I was caught up in the burn/ Of the magic man,” they sing. “No one else could understand, unless you’ve loved a magic man.”
Parton’s first rock collection is due out on Nov. 17 and will feature 30 songs, including 21 covers and nine originals. One of those fresh tracks also dropped Friday, “Bygones,” featuring Judas Priest singer Rob Halford, as well as Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx and touring guitarist John 5.
Parton said in the statement that “Bygones” is one of her favorite tracks from the album. “The song fits with so many couples and coupling my voice with Rob, one of my all-time favorites, made it even more special,” she said of the quickstep midtempo rocker on which she and the leatherbound metal yowler meld their sugar and spikes vocals in growly harmony.
“I’m sorry, so sorry/ How long must you punish me/ Why can’t we just move on/ Let bygones be bygones/ But you never will,” they sing on the chorus. The two tracks were preceded by the Parton-penned first single, “World on Fire,” which charted at No 1 on the Billboard rock digital songs chart last month.
Listen to “Magic Man” and “Bygones” below.
Trent Reznor has spent 35 years making the most outrageously dissonant, elegant and dark rock possible. But, as it turns out, the Nine Inch Nails leader is not totally immune to the charms of a great pop song. On the latest edition of producer Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton podcast, Reznor fessed up that not only has he learned to appreciate a well-crafted pop ditty, but, thanks to his kids, he’s actually been brought to tears by one of today’s biggest mainstream stars.
“For while, I kept them in a kind of hermetically sealed way from pop music. Because I think it sucks generally — I had thought that,” Reznor said of his kids with wife singer Mariqueen Maandig. Then, Reznor said, he heard his six-year-old daughter singing along to Dua Lipa recently and it gave him pause.
“She is so into it and it is so cool. Like this is her music, you know, this is her thing,” he said. “It really reminded me the art of writing a well-crafted song — I teared up listening to a Dua Lipa track. Because it was just a really well-done piece of music, you know? It was clever. It felt good.”
The Grammy, Oscar and Golden Globe-winning songwriter then made a startling admission. “It’s a difficult thing to do. I don’t know how to do that,” Reznor said. “When I’m trying to think of what to say, I’m saying it from the unvarnished me. And that requires me thinking about who I am and where my position is now and all of that together becomes something that feels the stakes are higher.”
That’s why he said he prefers film scoring, which has become his second full-time job thanks to acclaimed work on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, Mank, The Social Network, Soul and Empire of Light, among others. “Sitting there and arranging stuff — I know what’s right… I don’t have to assess my thoughts on how I feel about a thing,” he told Rubin. “What it comes down to is I really enjoy weirdly working in service to something. It’s like cracking a code. It feels good to crack the code, whatever it is.”
As for the future of NIN, Reznor said because he has young kids at home he’s not really interested in “endlessly” touring any more and, frankly, given where he thinks the culture is now and the importance of music in it, “[it’s] a little defeating,” he said during the pair’s two-hour chat that ranged from the very beginnings of Reznor’s life and career in Cleveland through his thoughts on working with director David Fincher and his songwriting process.
“It feels to me in general, and I’m saying this as a 57-year-old man, music used to be the thing that, that was what I was doing when I, when I had time, I was listening to music,” Reznor said. “I wasn’t doing it in the background while I was doing five other things, and I wasn’t treating it kind of as a disposable commodity.”
Reznor also fessed up that he missed the attention music used to get, even from critics, who’s opinions he still doesn’t really care about. “But somebody heard it, it got validated in its own way culturally. Culturally, that feels askew,” he added. “Like I can’t think of any review I care about today that I even trust. I could write it before it comes out because it’s already written. In fact, ChatGPT could probably do a better job, you know? Or is currently doing the job. That makes for what I feel is a less fertile environment to put music out into –in the world of Nine Inch Nails.”
Listen to the full chat with Reznor below (Dua Lipa segment begins at 1:49:00).
Grief, struggles, darkness. We all touch those emotions at some point. All of them are swirling in the background of In Times New Roman, the eighth and latest album from Queens of the Stone Age. Speaking with Zane Lowe, host of Apple Music 1’s flagship show, Josh Homme broke it all down for a deep, long contemplation on hardship and the loss of nearest and dearest, a bunch that includes the late Anthony Bourdain, Mark Lanegan and Taylor Hawkins. On the music side, he says of the new album, which dropped at midnight, “you’re chasing a good feeling. And then the question is, what are you gonna do over that. What are you going to sing, are you going to sing? But it does start with chasing a feeling. Just trying to catch up with a good feeling.”The singer and guitarist, who recently confirmed he was recovering from surgery to remove cancer, the latest obstacle in a particularly difficult stretch that has included a very public divorce and ongoing custody battle.“I’ve taken a step further,” he tells Lowe, “it’s like when you’re in moments when you think, I’m not going to make it.” He talks of facing a metaphorical brick wall “in a multitude of situations in a tight timeframe.” But, he continues, “I’m also thankful for that too because making it through told me that I can make it through. I also would say that to somebody else. Just try to make it through, and when you do, you’ll know it’s true. You’ve just gotta keep living.”
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In Times New Roman, out through Matador Records, spans 10 tracks and includes the previously-released cuts “Paper Machete,” “Carnavoyeur,” “’Emotion Sickness” and more. It’s the followup to 2017’s Villains, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.“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 recently told Revolver. “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.”Stream In Times New Roman below.