Rock

17 Jul 2023

Machine Gun Kelly Goes Wild Over Megan Fox’s Jungle Bikini Photo Shoot: ‘Maul Me’

Welcome to the jungle. Machine Gun Kelly went absolutely feral over Megan Fox’s recent bikini photo shoot, for which she posed like a wild animal perched in the trees.

In the images shared to Fox’s Instagram Saturday (July 15), the Jennifer’s Body actress models on all fours atop a thick tree branch, showing off an itty bitty bikini made sparingly out of leaves. “the forest is my oldest friend,” she captioned the post.

And of course, Fox’s animal magnetism attracted the approval of the rocker. “if this is what a wild animal looks like, i’d let it maul me,” commented MGK, born Colson Baker.

Based on the rapper-turned-punk rocker’s comment, it seems that the couple, who got engaged in January 2022, are back on solid footing. The two threw fans for a loop earlier this year, however, when Fox sparked breakup rumors by posting cryptic lyrics from Beyoncé’s Lemonade hinting that she’d been betrayed before deleting her Instagram entirely. Speculation that Baker had cheated on the Expendables 4 star with his guitarist, Sophie Lloyd swirled shortly after, but Fox later insisted that there had been “no third party interference in this relationship of any kind.”

The 37-year-old New Girl alum is on a roll with the swimwear shoots, having graced the cover of Sports Illustrated‘s swimsuit issue in May. In an interview with the magazine, Fox got real about her struggles with body dysmorphia, revealing, “There’s never a point in my life where I loved my body, never, ever.”

As for Baker, the 33-year-old Good Mourning star has been making headlines for a string of memorable performances on tour. Perhaps most notably, he fulfilled a fan’s wish to be punched in the face by the “Emo Girl” singer at Rock Werchter festival in Belgium. Prior to that, Baker made an appearance at Hellfest in France, where he was captured receiving a tattoo from his teenage daughter, Casie.

17 Jul 2023

Dolly Parton Hopes She’ll ‘Drop Dead’ While Performing Her Own Song Instead of Retiring

Dolly Parton may not have a “9 to 5” schedule, but she plans on working until the end of her days. During an interview with Greatest Hits Radio‘s Ken Bruce that aired on July 13, the country icon shared her thoughts on retiring, and how she’d like to go out.

“I always believed that if you wanted your dreams to come true and you were lucky enough to have that happen, then you gotta be responsible … you gotta keep the dream alive,” she shared while promoting her upcoming rock album, Rockstar. “I’m not one to sit around doing nothing — I would never retire. I’ll hopefully drop dead in the middle of a song on stage some day, and hopefully one I’ve written.”

“But anyhow, that’s how I hope to go because we don’t have much of a choice in that,” continued the star, whose Mountain Magic Christmas special received an Emmy nomination for outstanding television movie on July 12. “As long as I’m able to work, as long as my health is good and my husband is good, the only way I would ever slow down or stop would be for that reason.”

While the the 10-time Grammy winner may not ever be hanging up her guitar, she has parked her tour bus for good. “I think those days are pretty much behind me because I have so many things I’m involved in,” she told Bruce, noting that she will do special performances here and there. “You have to stay gone so long on a tour to make it be productive and prosperous. That’s a lot of time at my age! I ain’t got no years to waste!”

Besides her upcoming rock album (which is due out Nov. 17), Parton has a book titled Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones coming Oct. 17. The pink tome will explore not only her celebrated music career, but also her passion for fashion and her iconic style.

Watch her interview with Greatest Hits Radio above.

14 Jul 2023

Demi Lovato Says a Collaboration With Kelly Clarkson Is a ‘High Possibility’: ‘We Just Have to Find the Right Song’

Demi Lovato has one major collaboration on her bucket list. In a Friday (July 14) interview with Andy Cohen for his SiriusXM show, the “29” singer revealed that Kelly Clarkson is on her dream list and noted that the pair have talked about working on a song together sometime in the future.

“I’ve never worked with Kelly Clarkson, and I love her so much and I grew up idolizing her,” the singer told Cohen. Lovato idolized the American Idol alumn so much that “my first email was littlekelly@yahoo.com with some numbers. I won’t tell you which ones.”

Lovato asserted that working with Clarkson is a “life goal” of theirs, but the song in question would have to be perfect. “We just have to find the right song. We’ve definitely talked about it in the past, so it’s like not in the works, but it’s a high possibility. It’s just like finding the right song that the both of us can belt on would be dope,” they said.

In the meantime, the former Disney Channel star will be releasing REVAMPED, collection of her previous hits reimagined as rock music. “Breathing new life into the songs that played such a huge role in my career has allowed me to feel so much closer to my music than ever before. I can’t wait for you to hear REVAMPED,” Lovato announced on Friday.

She continued, “With REVAMPED, I wanted to pay homage to the songs that resonated the most with fans and played a big role in my career by breathing an exciting new life into them. Creating this project has been incredibly fun and allowed me to express my passion for rock music in a new way, and I feel so much closer to my older music because of it. I can’t wait for everyone to hear more!”

REVAMPED — which will include “Sorry Not Sorry (Rock Version),” “Heart Attack (Rock Version)” and “Cool for the Summer (Rock Version)” — will arrive on Sept. 15. 

Watch Lovato talk about working with Clarkson in the video above.

14 Jul 2023

Demi Lovato Reveals She Still Has Hearing Loss & Vision Impairment Following 2018 Overdose

Demi Lovato was lucky to survive her 2018 drug overdose, immediately after which the musician suffered three strokes and a heart attack. But in a raw new interview with Andy Cohen for SiriusXM, Lovato shared that almost exactly five years out from the near-fatal incident, they still experience hearing loss and vision impairment as a result.

“I wouldn’t change my path because I don’t have any regrets,” the 30-year-old “Cool for the Summer” singer began. “When I think about things, the closest thing that I get to a regret is when I overdosed … that overdose caused me a lot of … it actually caused a disability. I have vision impairment and hearing impairment to this day.”

“I don’t drive because I have blind spots in my vision,” she continued. “It’s a daily constant reminder. You know, anytime I look at something, like, I have blind spots in my vision when I look at your face, and so it’s a constant reminder to stay on the right path because I never want that to happen again.”

Lovato was rushed to the hospital July 24, 2018, after overdosing on heroin, having relapsed earlier that year after six years of sobriety. The former Disney star is now sober, revealing last year they completed another round of treatment in 2021 before starting work on 2022 album Holy Fvck.

“Luckily in the mind state that I’m in now — you know, being sober, having a clear head — I just think in a more positive mind space and I’m not focusing on the shame at all,” she reflected. “I know I have a lot of sympathy for where I was at that time and the choices that I made and I understand why it happened and what happened, but there’s no shame that comes with it because it was just a life lesson that I had to learn.”

In recent years, Lovato has pivoted from pop to rock music — even holding a “funeral” for their former genre — and recently announced that an album of rockified versions of older pop hits such as “Heart Attack” and “Sorry Not Sorry” called REVAMPED is dropping in September. But Lovato also told Cohen that she’s not necessarily done with pop music forever and even dreams of collaborating with Kelly Clarkson someday.

“I never say never because you never know what’ll happen, but I’ve just been really influenced by rock music and it’s what I have fun performing live,” Lovato shared. “It was just the path that I took at that time and then when I started, I got sober and I was reevaluating everything in my life including my music and I was like, ‘What makes me happy?’ Like, that’s the most important question and I was like, ‘What makes me happy is listening to rock music and performing rock music.’”

Watch Lovato on SiriusXM above.

14 Jul 2023

Demi Lovato Prepping ‘Revamped’ Album With Rock Versions of Her Hits

Demi Lovato is ready to rock. On the heels of releasing a rocking version of her 2017 hit “Sorry Not Sorry” featuring Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash on Friday (July 14), the singer also announced that she’s prepping an entire album featuring amped-up versions of some of her biggest hits.

REVAMPED is slated for release on Sept. 15 and it will feature the reimagined guitar-heavy versions of “Sorry,” as well as the previously released “Heart Attack (Rock Version)” and “Cool For the Summer (Rock Version).” The news was accompanied by a grungy 40-second video cued to the new “Sorry,” as well as the near-metal “Summer” revamp and the relentless version of “Heart Attack.”

In a message accompanying the teaser, Lovato wrote, “Breathing new life into the songs that played such a huge role in my career has allowed me to feel so much closer to my music than ever before. I can’t wait for you to hear REVAMPED.” At press time Lovato had not revealed the full track listing for the 10-song album, which a release promised would feature all new vocals and production on tracks that find Demi reimagining her “career-defining songs with a fresh perspective that reflects her current artistic vision.”

She also weighed in on teaming up with legendary GNR guitarists Slash on “Sorry,” which was originally released six years ago as the lead single from Demi’s sixth studio album, Tell Me You Love Me. “Slash is an iconic artist who I’ve been a fan of for years, it’s an absolute honor to have such a legend like him on the rock version of ‘Sorry not Sorry,’” she said in a statement.

“With REVAMPED, I wanted to pay homage to the songs that resonated the most with fans and played a big role in my career by breathing an exciting new life into them. Creating this project has been incredibly fun and allowed me to express my passion for rock music in a new way, and I feel so much closer to my older music because of it. I can’t wait for everyone to hear more!”

The singer began performing the rocked-up versions of her songs featured on REVAMPED on her 2022 tour in support of the HOLY FVCK album. That collection marked a return to Demi’s rock and pop-punk beginnings thanks to assists from Yungblud, Royal & the Serpent and Dead Sara; the tour also featured an all-female band led by acclaimed rock guitarist Nita Strauss (Alice Cooper).

Watch the REVAMPED video teaser below.

13 Jul 2023

Lil Uzi Vert Leads Hot Hard Rock Songs Chart With ‘Werewolf’

Songs from Lil Uzi Vert’s new album Pink Tape take the top three spots on Billboard’s Hot Hard Rock Songs chart dated July 15, led by “Werewolf” featuring Bring Me the Horizon, which debuts at No. 1.

“Werewolf” earned 6.7 million official U.S. streams and sold 1,000 downloads June 30-July 6, according to Luminate.

Lil Uzi Vert leads Hot Hard Rock Songs for the first time in their second appearance on the list. They previously made the survey as featured on Bring Me the Horizon’s “AmEN!,” which debuted at No. 12 on the June 17 tally and ranks at No. 21 on the latest chart.

As for Bring Me the Horizon, the band now boasts four Hot Hard Rock Songs No. 1s, tying Falling in Reverse for the most dating to the chart’s 2020 inception. The Oli Sykes-fronted group first reigned with “Parasitve Eve,” followed by “Obey” (with Yungblud) and “Teardrops,” all in 2020.

In between the commands of “Teardrops” and “Werewolf,” Bring Me the Horizon rose as high as No. 3 with “LosT” in May 2023.

“Werewolf” is followed on Hot Hard Rock Songs by “CS,” a cover of System of a Down’s “Chop Suey!,” at No. 2, and “The End,” featuring BABYMETAL, at No. 3 (around 5 million streams each).

Lil Uzi Vert is the second act to occupy the top three of Hot Hard Rock Songs in a single week, following Van Halen, which took up Nos. 1-3 on the Oct. 17, 2020, tally following the death of guitarist Eddie Van Halen.

Concurrently, the three songs rank at Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on Hard Rock Streaming Songs in the same order. “Werewolf” also tops Alternative Streaming Songs, while “CS” and “The End” appear at Nos. 6 and 7, respectively.

The all-rock-genre Hot Rock & Alternative Songs ranking sees “Werewolf” start at No. 5, followed by “CS” at No. 8 and “The End” at No. 10.

Of the trio, “Werewolf” makes the all-format Billboard Hot 100, debuting at No. 81. It’s Bring Me the Horizon’s second time on the chart, following the No. 68-peaking “Maybe,” released with Machine Gun Kelly, in April 2022.

“Werewolf,” “CS” and “The End” are three rock-flavored songs from rapper Lil Uzi Vert’s wide-ranging Pink Tape, which concurrently debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 167,000 equivalent album units earned, as previously reported.

13 Jul 2023

Fall Out Boy’s Update of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ Hits the Hot 100

Fall Out Boy reaches the Billboard Hot 100 as a lead act for the first time since 2016, as its update of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” debuts at No. 94 on the July 15-dated tally.

The reimagination bows with 4.7 million official U.S. streams, 767,000 radio audience impressions and 9,000 downloads in the June 30-July 6 tracking period, according to Luminate.

It’s Fall Out Boy’s first entry on the Hot 100 as a lead act since “Irresistible,” which spent its final week on the survey dated March 5, 2016, after peaking at No. 48 that January. Since then, the band made the list with one track: featured on Lil Peep and ILoveMakonnen’s “I’ve Been Waiting,” which reached No. 62 in April 2019.

Fall Out Boy now boasts 21 charted Hot 100 hits, dating to its first in 2005, paced by the No. 2-peaking “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” in February 2007.

Concurrently, Fall Out Boy’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” vaults 44-6 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs in its second week on the chart after debuting via a partial week of streams, sales and airplay on the July 8 ranking (as the song was released June 28). It also debuts at Nos. 3 and 5 on the Hot Alternative Songs and Hot Rock Songs lists, respectively.

Its first full week of sales prompts the song to land its first week at No. 1 on Rock Digital Song Sales and Alternative Digital Song Sales as well. It’s the band’s first ruler on both since “Uma Thurman” in 2015.

The new song’s streaming count is also enough to score debuts at Nos. 11 and 20 on Alternative Streaming Songs and Rock Streaming Songs, respectively.

On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” debuts at No. 43. The band’s current radio single, “Hold Me Like a Grudge,” concurrently appears at No. 46, while that song’s predecessor, “Love From the Other Side,” ranks at No. 3 in its 25th week on the survey.

Interest in the new version of “We DIdn’t Start the Fire” also spurs streams and sales gains for Joel’s 1989 original. The song, which topped the Hot 100 for two weeks in December 1989, enters Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, where older songs are eligible to appear if ranking in the top half and with a meaningful reason for their resurgences, at No. 21, thanks to 2.6 million streams, up 44%, and 1,000 downloads sold, a 104% vault.

Thanks to Fall Out Boy’s update, Joel earns his first Hot 100 writing credit since the Glee cast‘s cover of his 1983 hit “Uptown Girl” reached No. 68 in 2011. (Notably, Olivia Rodrigo, new atop the Hot 100 this week with “Vampire,” shouts out Joel and “Uptown Girl” in her No. 3 hit from 2021, “Deja Vu.”)

Fall Out Boy’s edition of the song alters Joel’s original lyrics to include names and events in the news since Joel’s 1989 original, referencing the likes of Y2K, Harry Potter, SpongeBob SquarePants, Stranger Things and Taylor Swift.

In an interview with BBC Radio2, Joel said that he has heard the new verses. “Everybody’s been wanting to know when there’s going to be an updated version of it, because my song started in ’49 and ended in ’89 — it was a 40-year span. Everybody said, ‘Well, aren’t you going to do a part two?’ I said, ‘Nah, I’ve already done part one.’ So, Fall Out Boy, go ahead. Great, take it away.”

13 Jul 2023

Here Are the Lyrics to Fall Out Boys’ Cover of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’

Fall Out Boy dropped a surprise cover of Billy Joel‘s 1989 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “We Didn’t Start the Fire” on June 28 featuring the group’s modern update of the Piano Man’s breathless blitz through 20th century history. Out were Joel’s Boomer-skewing stream-of-consciousness lines about such h-bombs, Studebakers, Liberace, Marilyn Monroe, Harry Truman, Doris Day, Einstein, Peyton Place and children of thalidomide.

In were the Chicago emo rockers’ updated references (from 1989 to the present) to Rodney King, deep fakes, Kurt Cobain, Harry Potter, MySpace, QAnon, Ballon Boy, Fyre Fest and Stranger Things, among many others. In a recent BBC Radio2 interview Joel said that he’d heard the new verses and weighed in on the effort. “Everybody’s been wanting to know when there’s going to be an updated version of it, because my song started in ’49 and ended in ’89 — it was a 40 year span,” he said. “Everybody said, ‘Well, aren’t you going to do a part two?’ I said, ‘Nah, I’ve already done part one.’ So, Fall Out Boy, go ahead. Great, take it away.”

If you need a guide to follow along to the lightning-speed tumble of references in FOB’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” find the lyrics below:

Captain Planet, Arab Spring
L.A. riots, Rodney King
Deepfakes, earthquakes
Iceland volcano
Oklahoma City bomb
Kurt Cobain, Pokemon
Tiger Woods, MySpace
Monsanto, GMOs

Harry Potter, Twilight
Michael Jackson dies
Nuclear accident
Fukushima, Japan
Crimean peninsula
Cambridge Analytica
Kim Jong Un
Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it but we’re tryin’ to fight it

More war in Afghanistan
Cubs go all the way again
Obama, Spielberg
Explosion, Lebanon
Unabomber, Bobbitt, John
Bombing, Boston Marathon
Balloon Boy, War On Terror
QAnon
Trump gets impeached twice
Polar bears got no ice
Fyre Fest, Black Parade
Michael Phelps, Y2K
Boris Johnson, Brexit
Kanye West and Taylor Swift
Stranger Things, Tiger King
Ever Given, Suez

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it but we’re tryin’ to fight it

Sandy Hook, Columbine
Sandra Bland and Tamir Rice
ISIS, LeBron James
Shinzo Abe blown away
Meghan Markle, George Floyd
Burj Khalifa, Metroid
Fermi paradox
Venus and Serena

Michael Jordan, 23
YouTube killed MTV
SpongeBob
Golden State Killer got caught
Michael Jordan, 45
Woodstock ’99
Keaton Batman, Bush v. Gore
I can’t take it anymore

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it but we’re tryin’ to fight it

Elon Musk, Kaepernick
Texas failed electric grid
Jeff Bezos, climate change
White rhino goes extinct
Great Pacific garbage patch
Tom DeLonge and aliens
Mars rover, Avatar
Self-driving electric cars
SSRIs
Prince and The Queen die
World Trade, second plane
What else do I have to say?

We didn’t start the fire (we didn’t start it up)
It was always burning since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire (we didn’t start it up)
But when we are gone, it will still go on
and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on
We didn’t start the fire (fire)
It was always burning since the world’s been turning

Lyrics licensed & provided by LyricFind

Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

Written by: Billy Joel

12 Jul 2023

Jelly Roll Scores First Hot Rock & Alternative Songs No. 1 With ‘Need a Favor’

Jelly Roll’s “Need a Favor” spends its first week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Rock Songs charts, rising 2-1 on both July 15-dated tallies.

The track earned 32.4 million airplay audience impressions and 11.5 million official U.S. streams and sold 5,000 downloads June 30-July 6, according to Luminate.

The singer-songwriter earns his first No. 1 on each chart. He first appeared with “Son of a Sinner,” which hit No. 3 on Hot Rock Songs and No. 4 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs in September 2022.

“Need a Favor” also rises to No. 3 on Hot Country Songs. It’s his highest-charting song on the survey, having surpassed the No. 8 peak of “Son of a Sinner.”

Concurrently, as previously reported, “Need a Favor” crowns Mainstream Rock Airplay, becoming Jelly Roll’s second ruler on the ranking, after “Dead Man Walking” in May 2022. He is the first soloist to send two initial entries to No. 1 in the chart’s four-decade history.

In June, “Need a Favor” made crossover history, becoming the first song to have reached the top 10 of both Mainstream Rock Airplay and Country Airplay; it rises 7-6 on the latter list. (“Son of a Sinner” hit No. 1 on Country Airplay for a week in January 2023.)

“Need a Favor” is the lead single from Whitsitt Chapel, Jelly Roll’s seventh studio album. Released June 2, the set debuted at No. 1 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart dated June 17 and has earned 288,000 equivalent album units to date.

12 Jul 2023

Kid Rock Still Serving Bud Light at Nashville Bar Despite Blasting Brewer After Dylan Mulvaney Controversy

Kid Rock got pretty worked up earlier this year after transgender TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney shared a video on April 1 of herself participating in Bud Light’s Easy Carry Contest for the end of the NCAA’s March Madness. So worked up, in fact, that the rapper-turned-MAGA-country-rocker uploaded a video in which he attempted to obliterate 12-packs of Bud Light with a semi-automatic rifle as he yelled “f–k Bud Light, and f–k Anheuser-Busch.”

And though Rock didn’t specifically mention Mulvaney (or the word trans) in the video, or call for a ban of products from Bud Light parent company AB Inbev — the world’s leading beer company — a CNN report this week noted that the bar at Rock’s Nashville restaurant is still well-stocked with a number of the company’s products.

CNN reporter Ryan Young said it was unclear during a recent visit to Rock’s Honky Tonk Rock & Roll Steakhouse if the ban had been lifted, or if one had ever been put in place. While country singer John Rich pledged at the time to pull Bud Light from his Nashville bar Redneck Riviera and Travis Tritt said he would remove the formerly best-selling brew in the nation from his tour rider in the midst of the transphobic backlash against the Mulvaney promotional stunt, Rock never specifically said he’d stop selling it at his spot on the city’s bustling Broadway bar and venue district.

Billboard was unable to reach anyone at Rock’s restaurant by phone or email for comment at press time, but a quick check of its online menu revealed that Budweiser, Bud Light and Bud Light Lime were listed under the domestic beer section; a tweet last month with an image of the menu appeared to corroborate that the brews are still available at the bar, calling into question whether the beverage had ever been taken off the roster.

In the original Mulvaney clip, she revealed that the company helped her celebrate her “365th day of womanhood” with “possibly the best gift ever” — a commemorative can of Bud Light with Mulvaney’s face on the side that was not commercially available, but instead meant as a personalized one-off souvenir.

At the time of the controversy — which was endlessly amplified on conservative outlets such as Fox News — a beer industry expert noted to Billboard that AB Inbev had long participated in outreach to the LGBTQ community, including sponsoring pride celebrations. And while that expert said these types of calls for boycotts against major corporations typically draw huge headlines and lots of bluster for a short time, they hardly ever have any “significant” impact on the bottom line.

On Monday, however, Newsweek reported that recent sales data shows that over a four-week period ending July 1 Bud Light suffered a 28% decrease in revenue sales and a 31.2% decrease in the brand’s volume — the number of units of beer sold — compared to the same period last year.