Rock
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Damon Albarn is mourning his friend by doing what he does best: making music. To honor De La Soul‘s Trugoy The Dove, who passed away this week, the Gorillaz musician shared a piano tribute on Instagram.
Posted Monday morning (Feb. 13) — one day after it was announced that Trugoy, born David Jude Jolicoeur, had died at age 54 — Albarn’s video was filmed from the inside of his acoustic piano. As the Blur frontman taps out a sweet instrumental melody, you can see the wooden hammers for each key striking the notes internally.
“A loop for Dave,” Albarn captioned the video. “I love you 🕊 ⚓️ ❤️”
Jolicoeur’s cause of death was not revealed when his reps confirmed his passing to All Hip Hop on Sunday, but he was known to have struggled with health issues related to congestive heart failure. He formed De La Soul in 1988 with Kelvin Mercer (Posdnuos) and Vincent Mason (Maseo), and the hip-hop trio released several albums together over the course of three decades together, the most recent of which was 2016’s And the Anonymous Nobody…
In 2005, the Gorillaz and De La Soul collaborated on “Feel Good Inc.,” which peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned best pop collaboration at the 2006 Grammys.
The sad news about Jolicoeur comes just a couple months after Albarn lost another one of his friends, The Specials frontman Terry Hall. He posted a video of him playing Hall’s “Friday Night, Saturday Morning” on Twitter at the time in honor of the legendary second wave ska singer, writing, “Terry, you meant the world to me. I love you.”
Watch Damon Albarn’s sweet tribute to De La Soul’s Trugoy The Dove below:
The inaugural Evolution Festival in St. Louis, Missouri will bring rock, hip-hop, blues and country sounds to town on August 26-27 with headliners Brandi Carlile, the Black Keys, the Black Crowes, Brittany Howard and Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals. The festival from producers Contemporary Presentations and the Just Listen Company — along with co-executive producers Steven Schankman and Joe Litvag — will feature more than a dozen performers taking the stage in Forest Park under the banner: “This is our town. This is our time. This is our EVOLUTION!”
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Among the other acts on the bill are: Ice Cube, Morgan Wade, Cautious Clay, Michigander, Modern English, Nikki Lane, The Sugarhill Gang, The Nude Party, Smidley, Carriers, The Knuckles, Yard Eagle and Punk Lady Apple. The festival will take place in Forest Park at Langenberg Field and the Boathouse, located between the Muny (St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre) and the Dwight Davis Tennis Center.
“St. Louis is home. My partner Joe and I are both born and raised here, and we’ve both always worked hard to create unforgettable live entertainment experiences here for our hometown community,” said co-exec producer Schankman. “We both agreed that there is something missing here, an event that will welcome everyone from our great city to come together to celebrate our diversity, inclusion, and to offer a renewed focus on our musical culture and the arts. Evolution Festival does just that, and this event will not only create long-lasting memories, but it will be a strong economic driver for the city, the region, and the state for years to come, as well.”
The fest will also focus on bourbon and BBQ, with pit masters “Phil the Grill” Johnson and James “Boatright’s BBQ” on hand for the weekend that will also feature award-winning BBQ from a number of national, regional and local chefs. A portion of proceeds will benefit Forest Park Forever, a non-profit conservancy helping to maintain and sustain Forest Park; the festival will also work with St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital through Music Gives to raise money and awareness for the fight against childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.
Tickets for Evolution will go on sale on Friday (Feb. 17) at 10 a.m. CST here.
See the full concert poster below.
Courtesy Photo
Bruce Springsteen was forced to perform without three of his E Street bandmates over the weekend after they had to bow out of the group’s Dallas, Texas show on Friday.
According to The Boss, both guitarist Steven Van Zandt and violinist/singer Soozie Tyrel tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of their tour stop at the American Airlines Center, while Springsteen’s wife singer/guitarist Patti Scialfa was also absent from the stage for undisclosed reasons.
“We got a few members missing tonight – Stevie Van Zandt – COVID, Soozie Tyrell – COVID, Patti Scialfa… But goddammit, we’re gonna give Dallas the best show they’ve ever seen,” the rocker told the crowd at the top of the show before promptly jumping into 1980’s “Out in the Street.”
For his part, Van Zandt took to Twitter to assure fans he was already on the mend, tweeting, “Thank you all for your best wishes and positive vibes. I’ve got a very mild case and hope to be back for Houston or Austin at the latest.” He soon followed his tweet up with another informing his followers he had received both the COVID-19 vaccine and a booster. “That’s why it’s a mild case. No real danger or damage,” he wrote.
Billboard has reached out to Springsteen and the E Street Band’s rep for comment on whether the next planned tour stop, on Tuesday (Feb. 14) in Houston, Texas, will feature the full band. Meanwhile, the band is continuing their international tour with a planned stop in Austin on Thursday (Feb. 16), before heading to Kansas City, Tulsa, Portland, Seattle, Denver and more. The U.S. leg of the trek will conclude on April 14 with a hometown show in Newark, New Jersey before the band jets off to Europe.
Check out fan-captured video of Springsteen explaining his bandmates’ absence as well as Van Zandt’s string of tweets below.
Thank you all for your best wishes and positive vibes. I’ve got a very mild case and hope to be back for Houston or Austin at the latest.— 🕉🇺🇦Stevie Van Zandt☮️💙 (@StevieVanZandt) February 11, 2023
Daughtry frontman Chris Daughtry wanted to release an amped-up cover of an ’80s rock song before writing the follow-up to his band’s 2021 album, Dearly Beloved. He just wasn’t sure which track would best fit. Keyboardist Elvio Fernandes had long suggested Journey’s “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart),” but the vocalist was leaning more toward Europe’s “The Final Countdown.”
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Then, when Daughtry watched the final episode of the fourth season of Stranger Things, everything changed. During a tension-filled scene, he heard the haunting Bryce Miller/Alloy Tracks remix of Journey’s 1983 single, and he was sold. “The way they used it in the show reminded me of how incredible that song is,” Daughtry says from his home office in Nashville. “And it has this darkness to it that really lends itself to being a heavier, more aggressive rock song.” (The Journey classic, a Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit in ’83, also charted anew on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Rock Songs lists after being featured in the blockbuster Netflix series.)
In July 2022, Daughtry asked his producers, Scott Stevens and Marti Frederiksen, if they thought it would be a good song for the band to cover. They agreed, but suggested Daughtry perform it as a duet with a female vocalist to give it a different vibe. “I didn’t hesitate,” he says. “I was like, ‘Yes, with Lzzy Hale, and I will text her right now.’”
Hale, frontwoman of hard rock hitmakers Halestorm, wasted no time replying: “That’s my go-to karaoke song!” she texted. “I’m in.”
Daughtry and Hale’s cover of “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart”) debuted on Jan. 5 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Journey hit single. So far, the song has garnered nearly 900,000 YouTube views and holds at No. 24 on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart (dated Feb. 11) after four weeks.
“We never could have imagined it would take off the way it has,” Daughtry says. “Any time you touch a classic such as [this one by] Journey, there’s always a chance you’re going to get raked over the coals. I’m very grateful that hasn’t happened.”
Still, there was some minor drama. When Hale committed to collaborating, the band hadn’t yet learned the song. By the time the vocalists coordinated their schedules and planned to enter Nashville’s Sienna Studios together in October 2022, Daughtry had to fast-track the process and work on a version of “Separate Ways” that was faithful to, but more aggressive, than the original. Then they had to record the music and guide vocals. They structured the song so Hale would trade off lead vocals and harmonize on the pre-chorus and chorus.
“I was really excited to finally do it, because I’ve been singing that song in one way or another since I was 12,” Hale says before a show in Brisbane, Australia. “My mother is a huge Steve Perry fan. She had a huge crush on him when I was growing up, so there was always a Journey album playing in the house.”
For their version of “Separate Ways,” Daughtry created a greater contrast between the ethereal keyboards and the main rhythm, and planned for the vocals to match the bite of the guitars. He was going to explain his idea to Hale, then realized there was no point: “Once she opened her mouth, I’m like, ‘OK, I’m just going to shut up and let her do what she does, because she’s clearly got this. Lzzy has no shortage of bite.”
Ironically, when the collaboration began, no one involved knew that Jan. 5 marked four decades of the original song’s release. By the time Daughtry’s team realized the marketing advantage that gave them, they had just two weeks to mix, master, and submit the track to streaming services. “We didn’t plan for that at all, but it couldn’t have worked out better,” Daughtry says, before adding, “Thank God no one in Journey told us we couldn’t release it.”
Hale, who once included “Separate Ways” in an onstage piano medley with Halestorm, hopes the cover helps more young music fans develop the kind of a passion for Journey that she still cherishes. “They’re such a great band, and it’s such a cool song that lends itself to so many feelings,” she says, adding that the reverence she and Daughtry hold for the song might have contributed to the success of their cover. “Maybe people who hear it can tell how much we loved doing it and how much fun we had working together.”
Daughtry and Halestorm met in 2008 in Los Angeles at a barbecue their mutual producer, Howard Benson, threw for his birthday. They kept in touch, but became much closer when they toured together in 2013. “We still don’t see each other all that often,” admits Daughtry. “But when we do meet up, we take over right where we left off.”
Five days after “Separate Ways” hit streaming services, Daughtry and Hale connected at Nashville club The Basement East on Grunge Night. There, they joined the house band to sing an impromptu version of Alice in Chains’ “Man in the Box.”
“It’s funny, because we were both confirmed to do Grunge Night separately, and then we just decided to do the song and it looked like we had planned the whole thing,” Hale says. “It was a total coincidence, and I can’t tell you how many people came up to me afterward and said, ‘Why didn’t you do “Separate Ways?”’ I was like, ‘It’s Grunge Night!’ But I very much look forward to the day we get to perform this together live, whenever that is.”
When she hasn’t been touring with Halestorm, Hale has been busy writing songs for other artists she won’t name and contributing guest vocals for two acts she can’t yet reveal. “All I can say is one is a legendary rock group that has asked me to do amazing things on top of a track,” she says. “I’m very grateful to be a wanted lady, but people are probably going to sick of me before the year’s out. ‘Lzzy again? Seriously?’”
Daughtry will play shows in Orlando, Fla., on March 5-6 before heading to the United Kingdom for the rest of the month. When the band returns to Nashville, it will start writing the follow-up to Dearly Beloved. Not only will “Separate Ways” be on the tracklist, Daughtry says it likely will set the tone for the album.
“I feel like this cover was a catalyst for the next phase of this band,” he says. “It gives me an idea of where we want to go sonically with this next record, and I’m really excited about that.”
Pop-punk isn’t often associated with romance. Bitterness, heartbreak, teenage silliness, railing against conformity – these are the touchstones of a genre that was born in the late ‘70s and never really grew up. Another long-running pop-punk tradition is attracting some of the most awkward kids around; if they’re going to tell their crush how they feel, best to leave it up to a song.
Pop-punk love songs do exist, however, and some of them are even — dare we say — romantic? Pop-punk forerunners like Ramones and the Undertones were really just overgrown teenagers with a secret love of bubblegum pop, so it’s no surprise the genre developed a knack for sticky hooks and lovey-dovey lyrics to match.
By the time the ‘90s rolled around, live wire bands like Green Day and Blink-182 were ready to take pop-punk to the masses. Along with their just-dangerous-enough good looks, their superpowers included the ability to distill mushy teenage hormones into spiky, two-and-a-half-minute guitar pop songs. We still haven’t quite recovered. In the decades that followed, artists like Avril Lavigne, Paramore and 5 Seconds of Summer made sure that pop-punk’s multi-generational pull lives on.
Below, we’ve gathered our picks for the 20 best pop-punk love songs, ranging from genre classics to deep cuts. To keep the list as varied as possible, we capped it at one song per artist; while you might be missing “The Only Exception” or “First Date,” we’re feeling pretty starry-eyed about the anthems we’ve collected here. We can’t bring back the summer or the Warped Tour, but these sure jog the memories.
Neil Young will make his long-awaited return to the stage on April 22 when he joins former CSN&& bandmate Stephen Stills at this year’s Light Up the Blues charity show benefitting Autism Speaks. The show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles will find Young sharing the stage with his longtime friend Stephen Stills, as well as Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real and Still’s children, Chris and Oliver Stills.
Rolling Stone first reported that the news, with Young telling the magazine in a statement that, “We’ll be there to ‘Light up the Blues’ with Stephen, [his wife] Kristen and the family… doing or first show in four years with old friends for our autistic people around the world.” Stills confirmed the news on Instagram, writing, “Save the date: April 22, 2023. Stills and Young ride again.”
Among the other musicians scheduled to be stage is James Raymond, who will be part of a tribute to his late dad, David Crosby, who died in January at age 81.
“We are so thrilled to be able to come back and support Autism Speaks,” event organizer Kristen Stills told the magazine about the sixth iteration of the show since 2013; in the past the fundraiser has featured sets from Crosby, Stills & Nash, Patti Smith, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Sheryl Crow and others. “The one thing that did not change during the pandemic was the rising rates of autism prevalence in the U.S. They require more funding than ever for the research they do. Stephen and I join them in their mission to create a more inclusive world for people with autism,” added Kristen Stills.
Stephen Stills said the show was originally scheduled for April 2020 — and then called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic — before organizers considered a virtual event in 2021 before that idea was mothballed. “I always hated the idea of a virtual show,” Stephen Stills said. “The only one that pulled it off was the Stephen Colbert band with Jon Batiste. Everyone else tried, but it was a joke.”
More acts will be added in the upcoming weeks, with Kristen Stills promising some “fantastic guests” and “surprise additions,” as well as some big-name hosts. Among the other acts slated to participate are opera singer Amanda Anderson, rapper Soul Shocka and former The Voice contestant Bill Breman, all of who are on the spectrum.
See Stills’ post below.
A new Super Bowl ad from Workday – the enterprise cloud for finance, HR and planning – is taking aim at those in corporate America who throw around the term “rock star” a little too loosely. And they’re getting a clutch assist from a coterie of real-life rock stars who are sick of the term “rock star” becoming as overused (and incorrectly used) as the word “literally.”
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“Hey corporate types, will you stop calling each other rock stars?” pleads KISS legend Paul Stanley at the commercial’s start. “Do you know what it takes to be a rock star?” Joan Jett demands. “I was on the road since I was 16,” she adds, tipping to her time in The Runaways.
“I’ve trashed hotel rooms in 43 countries!” brags Billy Idol. “I’ve done my fair share of bad things,” Ozzy Osbourne muses in the commercial. “Also, your fair share of bad things.”
While effortlessly ripping out an electric guitar solo, Gary Clark Jr. taunts, “Hey Liz in HR! Can you do this?”
The ad ends with the Ozzman himself getting a closer look at corporate life (“Hi, I’m Ozwald”) and Stanley busting into a corporate meeting room to stop someone from dropping the unearned moniker yet again.
Watch here.
Real-life rock stars were far from the only musicians appearing in the Super Bowl 2023 broadcast. There was also Diddy’s Uber One ad (which co-stars Kelis, Montell Jordan, Donna Lewis and Haddaway); Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s Dunkin’ Donuts ad; Jack Harlow with Missy Elliott and Elton John in a Doritos ad; John Travolta in a T-Mobile ad; Sarah McLachlan in a Busch Light ad; and Metro Boomin in a Budweiser ad.
Following a four-show blitz of North America in December, U.K.-based indie rock outfit Lovejoy is returning to the U.S. with a 20-date North American tour. Tickets for the trek went on sale Friday (Feb. 10).
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Lovejoy touch down in North America on May 4 at Nashville’s Basement East and will is also slated to play the Shaky Knees festival in Atlanta on May 5, the Novo in Los Angeles on May 16 and Minneapolis’ First Avenue on May 26. The group will end their tour with a show at the Governor’s Ball Festival on June 10.
Formed during the final days of the pandemic by lead singer Wilbur Soot — a well-known Twitch streamer and former Youtube comedian — with friends from Brighton Beach, England, Lovejoy has amassed nearly 1.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify and built a steady following here in the U.S.
In December, the group’s first U.S. shows — two in Los Angeles and two in New York — quickly sold out, packing venues like L.A.’s Moroccan Lounge with a steady flow of 20-something, mostly female, fans marching to the beat of the band’s double kick drum percussion. Lovejoy’s visit would reveal the band’s status as unlikely heartthrobs and showcase their clever banter and mischievous wit.
Along with the tour announcement, Lovejoy has released a video for the band’s hard-charging new single “Call Me What You Like.” Soot has a penchant for casting himself as a hopeless romantic — a “Jim Halpert” from The Office type, replete with entangled numbness and inescapable inadequacy — and yet he refuses to melt into a floor puddle with a kitschy breakup song. As it turns out, “Call Me What You Like” is a surprising and satisfying middle finger to the notion of having it all as it mucks around in the middle phases of an early relationship close to collapse.
Along with Lovejoy singles “Knee Deep” and “It’s All Futile! It’s All Pointless!”, “Call Me What You Like” demonstrates how much progress the group has made in finding its voice, creating and then dissipating density with surprise hooks, lyrical bridges and stop-on-a-dime change-ups. Many of the songs have Soot walking through vignettes of half-memory and snapshots, pushing listeners farther and farther down the trail with only breadcrumbs to find their way back.
“And so I find’s myself in your mum’s bedroom,” Soot sings on the new single. “Fighting with the pink roller blinds. It’s on pay-per-view. Just place your bests on who’s lost their mind.” When asked what the line meant during a brief interview with bandmates Joe Goldsmith, Ash Kabosu and Mark Boardman, Soot laughed and offered up, “I’m not necessarily sure, in that song I just find myself thinking a lot about her mom’s bathroom and going through the drawers.”
Dates for the 2023 Lovejoy tour are listed below. For more information, visit www.lvjyonline.com.
May 4th – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East
May 5th – Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees Music Festival
May 8th – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater
May 9th – Austin, TX @ Scoot Inn
May 12th – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
May 13th – San Diego, CA @ Music Box
May 16th – Los Angeles, CA @ The Novo
May 17th – San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo’s 365 Club
May 19th – Portland, OR @ Hawthorne
May 20th – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
May 23rd – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Complex
May 24th – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre (Venue Upgrade)
May 26th – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue (Venue Upgrade)
May 27th – Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater (Venue Upgrade)
May 28th – Detroit, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre (Venue Upgrade)
May 30th – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall
June 2nd – Boston, MA @ Royale
June 3rd – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts
June 6th – Washington, D.C. @ Howard
June 10th – New York, NY @ Governors Ball Music Festival
Everyone from Taylor Swift to Paramore dropped new music just in time for Valentine’s Day, and Billboard wants to know which release you plan on having on repeat going into the holiday.
Swift continues riding the wave of her newest single “Lavender Haze” with a dance-heavy remix for the Midnights opener by Felix Jaehn. (Prior to being tapped by the superstar, the German producer was likely most familiar to U.S. audiences for helming Omi’s 2015 No. 1 hit “Cheerleader.”)
Hayley Williams and her bandmates, meanwhile, deliver their long-awaited comeback album This Is Why. The pop-punk trio’s first follow-up to 2017’s After Laughter contains singles “This Is Why,” “The News” and “C’est Comme Ça.”
Elsewhere, Lizzo teams up with her bestie SZA for a new remix of “Special,” which finds Billboard‘s newly revealed Woman of the Year preaching, “Woke up this mornin’ to somebody judgin’ me/ No surprise they judgin’ me, don’t know who I’m ‘posed to be I’m just actin’ up, I’m crass as f–k, and never sayin’ sorry/ Found out in the end that I can only do it for me.”
Dove Cameron also joins forces with Khalid on the sultry new collaboration “We Go Down Together,” Luke Combs follows up his debut on the Grammys stage with”Love You Anyway” off his upcoming album Gettin’ Old, D4vd unveils the heartsick, pleading “Placebo Effect” and Mariah Carey cashes in on the viral resurgence of “It’s a Wrap” by dedicating an entire EP to the Memoirs of An Imperfect Angel fan favorite.
Vote for your favorite new release of the week in Billboard‘s poll below.
Perhaps no album from a band in recent months has been as anticipated as Paramore‘s sixth studio set, This Is Why. The group, which currently consists of lead vocalist Hayley Williams, guitarist Taylor York and drummer Zac Farro, released their poppier, ’80s-tinged LP After Laughter in 2017 and later, took a break that resulted in the trio trading the sadness behind their rose-colored glasses for anger — and for what feels like the first time, political discontent.
“Everything is political, and it’s either politicized to a degree that maybe isn’t fair or it just inherently is political,” Williams said in the group’s recently Billboard cover story. “Even if I tried to not say one word about anything political [on the album], I think it was just in the DNA. It was in every conversation.”
And the group tackles the issues seamlessly, albeit with a new groove that sounds equal parts fresh and familiar to new and old fans alike. This Is Why‘s title track (also the first on the record) establishes the band’s mission statement, critiquing society’s lack of empathy and the human tendency to be unyielding with our beliefs. Follow up singles “The News” and “C’est Comme Ça” expands, with the former heaving an exasperated sigh at current events and the latter taking the aftermath with a resigned shrug of the shoulders. The preliminary songs the band offered — and the album as a whole — cut the weight of their themes with a danceable, punk leaning edge.
While there are no definite skips on the album, certain tracks of the group’s newest offering in years do stand out a bit more than others. Here is a preliminary opinion on every song that appears on Paramore’s This Is Why.
Want more on Paramore’s new album? Click here to read Billboard’s cover story with the band, in which they talk at length about This Is Why.