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Dead & Company are headed back to Las Vegas’ Sphere for their second run of shows at the mind-bending wrap-around venue. The group announced their 2025 Dead & Company: Dead Forever – Live at Sphere Las Vegas on Wednesday morning (Dec. 4), an 18-show residency that will celebrate the Grateful Dead offshoot band’s 10th anniversary. […]
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats ascend to No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay chart dated Dec. 7 with “Call Me (Whatever You Like).”
Band leader Rateliff now boasts seven Adult Alternative Airplay leaders overall – six with the Night Sweats and one, “And It’s Still Alright,” in 2020 as a soloist. Rateliff, with the band and on his own, slots into a tie for the eighth-most No. 1s on Adult Alternative Airplay, which began in January 1996.
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Most Adult Alternative Airplay No. 1s:14, U213, Coldplay11, Jack Johnson11, Dave Matthews (solo and with Dave Matthews Band)8, The Black Keys8, Death Cab for Cutie8, John Mayer7, Cage the Elephant7, Sheryl Crow7, Counting Crows7, Hozier7, The Lumineers7, Nathaniel Rateliff (solo and with Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats)7, R.E.M.
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“Call Me (Whatever You Like)” is Rateliff and the Night Sweats’ second Adult Alternative Airplay No. 1 in a row, after “Heartless” led for three weeks beginning in July. The band first topped the tally with its initial entry, “S.O.B.,” for four weeks in 2015.
Concurrently, “Call Me (Whatever You Like)” holds at its No. 30 high on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 1.1 million audience impressions in the week ending Nov. 28, according to Luminate.
The song is the second single, following “Heartless,” from South of Here, the band’s fourth studio album. The set reached No. 37 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart in July and has earned 30,000 equivalent album units to date.
Dexter and the Moonrocks’ first entry on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart, “Sad in Carolina,” rises a spot to No. 1 on the Dec. 7-dated ranking. “Sad in Carolina” is the Texas rockers’ first song on any Billboard chart. They’re the second act to earn a first Alternative Airplay No. 1 in 2024, following Myles Smith, […]
Jelly Roll has now gone 4-for-4 atop Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, rising to No. 1 on the tally dated Dec. 7 with “Liar.”
With the coronation, all four of Jelly Roll’s Mainstream Rock Airplay entries have reached No. 1. He first led with “Dead Man Walking” in 2022, followed by “Need a Favor” in 2023 and “All My Life,” with Falling in Reverse, this July.
Jelly Roll’s feat of sending four initial Mainstream Rock Airplay chart entries to No. 1 equals the record first set by The Pretty Reckless, which reigned with “Heaven Knows,” “Messed Up World,” “Follow Me Down” and “Take Me Down” in 2014-16.
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Concurrently, “Liar” bullets at No. 7, after hitting No. 6, on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 3.7 million audience impressions (up 7%) in the week ending Nov. 28, according to Luminate.
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Like “Need a Favor,” “Liar” is a dual rock and country radio single, as the latter rises 30-26 on the latest Country Airplay survey. Last year, “Need a Favor” became the first song in Billboard history to top both the Mainstream Rock Airplay and Country Airplay charts.
In addition to its all-format radio reach (10.9 million impressions), “Liar” drew 6.7 million official U.S. streams and sold 3,000 downloads Nov. 22-28.
“Liar” is the newest single from Beautifully Broken, Jelly Roll’s 10th studio album. The set debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 dated Oct. 26 and has earned 603,000 equivalent album units to date. The set’s “I Am Not Okay” topped Country Airplay for three weeks in November. Also being promoted to pop and adult radio, “I Am Not Okay” holds at its No. 8 best on the Dec. 7-dated Adult Pop Airplay chart.
The Goo Goo Dolls apologized to fans on Tuesday (Dec. 3) after announcing that they’ve been forced to cancel a planned run of headlining shows in South Africa after singer John Rzeznik was hospitalized with pneumonia. “We’re heartbroken to postpone our South Africa shows. This country means so much to us, and we were so […]
Portsmouth’s Victoria Festival has shared their massive festival lineup for 2025, with headliners including Queens of The Stone Age, Vampire Weekend and Kings of Leon. The festival will take place on the Southsea seafront on Aug 22-24, 2025 and will be the 13th edition of the event which began in 2011. Previous headliners include Mumford […]
Some of the greatest names in new wave, punk, electronic and alternative rock will come together on June 22 in Milton Keynes, U.K. for the inaugural Forever Now festival.
The one-day even will feature sets from dance minimalists Kraftwerk, as well as “Rebel Yell” singer Billy Idol, punk veterans the Damned, Public Image Ltd and the Jesus & Mary Chain. The bill will also include former Smith guitarist and solo star Johnny Marr, the Psychedelic Furs, The The, the Happy Mondays, Bauhaus singer and solo performer Peter Murphy, Berlin and Theatre of Hate at what a release described as a “cultural phenomenon of the darker underbelly of creativity, from new wave to post-punk, psychedelia and alt-rock.”
The event is a sister act to the U.S.-based Cruel World festival, which will fill the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA on May 17 for a day-long concert featuring New Order, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, the Go-Go’s, Devo, OMD, Death Cult, Garbage, Madness, She Wants Revenge, Alison Moyet and more.
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Additional acts slated for the U.K. show include: Chameleons, UKDecay, the Motels and She Wants Revenge. Fans can sign up for a Dec. 5 pre-sale now here; the general onsite will open at 10 a.m. on Dec. 6. In a statement, promoter AEG Presents said, “From the fashionably dark to the fiercely unconventional, all are welcome to revel in a day of unforgettable music and community. This is a festival where nostalgia meets discovery, where new and devoted fans unite, and where forever truly begins now.”
In addition o music on two stages, the U.K. show will feature a third stage, the Echo Chamber, which will be curated by music journalist John Robb and feature interviews, panel discussions and artist conversations.
Check out the announcement below.
Bob Bryar, the former drummer of My Chemical Romance, has died. He was 44.
The musician, who was the rock band’s longest-serving drummer, was found dead in his Tennessee home on Tuesday (Nov. 26) after being last seen earlier in the month, according to TMZ. Authorities have stated there is no suspicion of foul play. Bryar’s possessions — including musical equipment and weapons — were not taken.
Animal control was reportedly called to the home to remove a pair of dogs after Bryar’s decomposed body was discovered. The cause of his death had not been confirmed at press time.
Billboard has reached out to My Chemical Romance’s representatives for comment.
Bryar, who had previously worked as a sound technician for The Used, joined My Chemical Romance in 2004 while the two bands were on tour. He replaced the band’s original drummer, Matt Pelissier, shortly after the release of their second album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge.
Bryar was a key member of My Chemical Romance during their rise to fame, contributing to the New Jersey band’s second album, The Black Parade, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in 2006. He was also involved in the writing of the group’s 2010 release, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, but left the band before its release.
“This was a painful decision for all of us to make and was not taken lightly,” My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero wrote at the time. “We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors, and expect you all to do the same.’”
After departing from My Chemical Romance, Bryar retired from music and became a real estate agent, according to TMZ. He also devoted much of his time to dog rescue charities and sanctuaries.
Earlier this month, My Chemical Romance announced a series of 2025 stadium shows where they will perform The Black Parade in full. Bryar was not scheduled to appear at any of the performances. The 10-city tour will launch on July 11, 2025, in Seattle.
On February 7, 1964, the United States — and subsequently, the whole world — was irrevocably changed. The Beatles touching down at John F. Kennedy airport, meeting thousands of adoring, screaming fans on the runway altered the brain chemistry of a country in need of something good, and lit the fuse for a cultural revolution.
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That is the premise which the Beatles ‘64, a new documentary released by the band’s Apple Corps Ltd., presents to its viewers. In November 1963, President Kennedy was shot and killed during a motorcade in Dallas, and the shocking moment instigated a period of mourning across the nation. Some would never recover from the trauma of seeing such a violent death, beamed into their homes on television. Months later, a new generation couldn’t tear themselves away from the television as The Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched an estimated 73 million people. As interviewee Joe Queenan says, teary-eyed, it was like “the light went on,” and the world was bright and full of colour for the first time.
The new documentary, out now on Disney+, follows the band’s two-week trip to America, their first time outside of Europe. Using archival and newly-restored footage, the Martin Scorsese-produced film follows their journey from the moment they step off the flight to the moment they head home. It features a plethora of interviews with those in the eye of the storm like Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and photographer Harry Benson, alongside the fans who were on the street or obsessing through the tube.
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Though the story may be familiar to Beatles fans already, the documentary is unflinching in its depiction of the band’s visit and the context that surrounds it. Archive interviews and clippings see a hostile press compare the group to “German measles,” while at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., the disparity between the working class band and their bureaucratic, stuffy surroundings is laid bare. The divisions in race, class and gender are explored with interviews with Motown’s Smokey Robinson, and Ronald Isley of the Isley Brothers, both of whom The Beatles covered early in their career.
On the eve of its release, director David Tedeschi and producer Margaret Bodde discuss with Billboard about the challenges of making the story fresh again, the surprises in the editing suite and the role Scorsese had in shaping the narrative of the film.
This film comes out 60 years on from their arrival to the US. Why does this story still feel relevant?
Bodde: The interest in them feels unending. When The Beatles’ last single “Now and Then” came out, you had young people and teenagers on TikTok sobbing and talking about them so fondly, and these people weren’t even the grandchildren of the people who first discovered The Beatles in 1964 in America. They have a timeless appeal.
The fact that they came to America so soon after the assassination of a beloved president and there was a country grieving and in a place of hopelessness, they came in with their personalities and their music. Maybe there’s always times like that — America right now is in a similar place of division where no one can agree on one thing. But when The Beatles came, they were the one thing people could coalesce around this ray of light and their humor and their hopefulness that they brought through their music and their humour and personality.
Compared to Peter Jackson’s Get Back, which shows the group as four separate personalities with shared histories and relationships, Beatles ’64 catches them at quite an innocent time. They’re sort of like one person…
Bodde: They do seem like they’re a single entity. People don’t yet know which one is which. Albert and David Maysles filmed them in New York for that period, and Albert asks John to hit the slate for the mics, and he calls him George instead of John! And you know in six months time no one would ever make that mistake, but it was so new and everyone in the band seemed like they were living a dream that they couldn’t have ever imagined and yet it was happening.
Tedeschi: And it was so unexpected. It was the greatest weapon against the cynicism of the New York press corps. There had been days of stories running about how ridiculous their hair was and the music, they were like the wolves ready for their prey. And then it very quickly became a different kind of story.
Do you think part of the appeal is that they were so removed from US culture?
Tedeschi: They were exotic and familiar at the same time. That’s literally what Joe Queenan says, they were from Liverpool but they might as well have been from Mars.
Bodde: As a rock‘n’roll group they were the first, they came over before any of the other bands like their contemporaries. Their separateness from the U.S. did allow them to have more of an open embrace of the Black music that came out of America like soul, rhythm’n’blues and rock’n’roll; they loved it and that’s why they were so excited to come to America in the first place. They really wanted to meet their heroes and hear this music live, as they’d already seen Motown come through to the U.K. They were opening America’s eyes to the treasure that they already had that wasn’t getting the appreciation that it deserved.
Apple Corps Ltd.
How can you bring something new to subjects that we know so well already?
Tedeschi: Immediately there’s the challenge that we know it’s a very famous story that we know has been told many times, and what is there that’s new? I will say that in large part because of the restoration by [Peter Jackson’s] Park Road Post Production and Giles Martin [son of the Fab Four’s producer George] doing some remixing on the performances, there was material that had never been accessible before. The footage that was shot by the Maysels brothers looks like it was shot yesterday. Even more importantly, the concert at the Washington Coliseum is such an amazing document of who the Beatles were as a live band.
Whilst there are interviews with the band throughout, it’s the fans and their experiences that really stuck with me. There’s an amazing clip of the Gonzalez family and a young girl watching the clip in real time. Why did you want to focus the film on these people?
Bodde: Seventy-three million people watched that performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and it was a shared moment in American history that was happening right in the Gonzalez family’s small apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. Then you hear Jamie Bernstein [daughter of conductor Leonard Bernstein] speaking about the black and white TV being rolled from the library to the dining room at 8 o’clock to watch while having dinner. Whether you were working class or whether you were privileged, no matter who you were, this was a moment of shared interest and joy that everyone can relate to.
What role did Martin Scorsese have in the production of the film?
Tedeschi: Both of us have worked with him for a long long time, over 20 years. At the very beginning we talk specifically about these challenges about there being a lot of Beatles films and a lot of material out there, he was very helpful in shaping the throughline and then he would watch cuts. And tell us what was working and what wasn’t.
Bodde: Martin loves music and he talks about how if he had one talent he wished he could have, it would be to play an instrument and be a musician. He finds everything about music fuels his own creativity. He hears a musical movement or a song and it inspires the visual for him and he has the song in his head before he has the pictures. And he’s a preservationist and a historian, so music documentaries — whether he’s directed them or produced them — encompasses a lot of his preoccupations and interests.
One of the things he and David both do so brilliantly is to put historical context around these musical moments and I think that’s what makes the film so fascinating. When you talk about what could you possibly bring to The Beatles, well you can bring the story of America at that time, the story of an impending social revolution and ideas about who women and men are, a race consciousness in general, the idea of everyone who started protesting the Vietnam War, The Beatles were kind of a part of that and integrated into that as individuals and as a group.
Was there anything that surprised you when you went back to this footage?
Tedeschi: The most surprising thing for me was learning that there was an establishment against the Beatles and working actively to make them fail. There’s quite an amazing scene at the British Embassy in D.C. where they’ve thrown a party and they’re horribly mistreated. The staff looks down on them and treats them like they’re low-class. John says that some ‘animal’ came up to Ringo and cut his hair. It’s powerful. I hadn’t expected that kind of reaction.
The film concludes with a look at the generational shift at that time, and Lennon even calls his post-war generation the ones “who were allowed to live”…
Bodde: That footage of John speaking to [Canadian media theorist] Marshall McLuhan in 1969, that was a real revelation. The level of insight and intellectual heft that Lennon had to put that idea together is a surprising notion, that because you weren’t going into the military, you could pick up a guitar or a paintbrush… you could do other things. That’s freedom right?
Malia Obama’s screen credits continue to grow with the release of a music video she directed for Michael Kiwanuka’s new single, “One and Only.”
The filmmaker – who is also the eldest daughter of former U.S. President Barack Obama, and works under the alias Malia Ann – received the Young Spirit award at this year’s Deauville Film Festival for her debut The Heart, which was made in collaboration with Donald Glover‘s production company Gilga. Her fledgling career has also seen her work being played at prestigious film festivals including Telluride, Toronto and Sundance, among others.
In the trippy video, a woman chases her doppelganger through an isolated wooded area, eventually catching and coming face-to-face with the alternative version of herself.
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“One and Only” marks the fourth single to be released from London-raised vocalist Kiwanuka’s fourth LP, Small Changes, which landed on Nov. 22. In the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart midweek update released on Monday (Nov. 25), the record is currently on track to reach the summit, albeit he faces stiff competition from Kendrick Lamar’s surprise GNX album.
Speaking to Billboard about Small Changes, Kiwanuka explained how working with super-producer Danger Mouse, one half of pop group Gnarls Barkley, and London-based producer Inflo, gave him a newfound confidence in his creative process. “There’s strength in your voice. People always try to tell you but you don’t hear it,” he said.
“You’re always accepting advice from other people so you always think the validation is going to come from outside, and then one day you realize it’s not,” he said. “I was always trying to sound like my favorite singers, or [thinking] that [my vocals] weren’t good enough. But now I think I just want to sound like me.”
In November 2019, the 37-year-old put out his third record, Kiwanuka, which charted at No. 2 in the U.K. and went on to win the prestigious Mercury Prize the following year. He has since gone on to tour the U.S. with Brittany Howard, alongside headline a wealth of British festivals including Bannau Brychieniog’s Green Man and Wilderness in Oxfordshire.
Watch the video for “One and Only” below: