State Champ Radio

by DJ Frosty

Current track

Title

Artist

Current show
blank

State Champ Radio Mix

8:00 pm 12:00 am

Current show
blank

State Champ Radio Mix

8:00 pm 12:00 am


Rock

Page: 59

Machine Gun Kelly and Jelly Roll get some serious help from their significant others in the emotional video for their new team-up, “Lonely Road.” In the Sam Cahill-directed clip for the song that pays homage to John Denver’s iconic 1971 hit “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” KellyRoll — as they’ve dubbed themselves — are joined by MGK’s girlfriend, actress Megan Fox, and Jelly’s wife, Bunnie Xo, who both have prominent roles in the tear-in-your-beer storyline.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

KellyRoll play a pair of old pals struggling to provide for their families in the visual that opens with the duo clad in all black at a funeral before jumping to footage of the pair grinding away at an auto shop in matching tan jumpsuits. “I probably could’ve saved us/ But instead I let us crash/ Cuz I don’t trust no one to love me back,” MGK sings while strumming an acoustic guitar. “But she say I do/ And this is not the place for you.”

Trending on Billboard

As the past due notices continue to pile up, we see MGK kiss one-time fiancé Fox’s swelling belly and Jelly Roll standing in a field singing about using alcohol on the road to fill the hole of loneliness he feels when he’s thousands of miles from his love. “Will our home ever be the same/ I hear the devil wears Prada, but I couldn’t read the tags/ And your horns started showing when I see you mad,” he sings as he and Bunnie console each other after receiving a letter confirming an infertility diagnosis.

The storylines are particularly poignant and personal for both men, as Jelly revealed last month that Bunnie, 44, is undergoing IVF as they try to conceive their first child together and in November, mother of three Fox opened up about the “very difficult” miscarriage she suffered with MGK.

After the two couples share a quiet home meal together, MGK tries to rope Jelly into a scheme to make some quick money, a road the “Save Me” country star says he can’t go down anymore. Following one more shot of MGK kissing Fox’s stomach, the rapper-turned-rocker-turned-country crooner hops on his motorcycle and pulls off a bank heist that ends with his arrest as he’s kissing his love and their unborn child goodbye one last time.

Cut to eight month later and Jelly, Bunnie and Fox are all cooing over the baby, who MGK kisses through the glass in the prison visiting room.

The long and winding road to “Lonely Road” has taken more than two years, with MGK recently saying that the duo have been working on the track over “2 years, 8 different studios, 4 different countries, [and] changed the key 4 times.”

Watch the “Lonely Road” video below.

[embedded content]

Queens of the Stone Age were forced to cancel another string of summer tour dates on Friday (July 26) due to singer Josh Homme’s unspecified medical treatment. After scotching eight European dates in June when the band announced that Homme had to immediately return to the U.S. for “emergency surgery,” the rockers announced the latest […]

Billy Joel crashed his historic Madison Square Garden residency run to a close on Thursday (July 25) with a sold-out gig marking his record-setting 150th show at the storied New York arena. After serving up such classics as “New York State of Mind,” “The Entertainer,” “Allentown” and “The Downeaster Alexa,” Joel invited Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose out for a mini-set of covers and duets.
Wearing a Las Vegas-worthy sequin-covered sparkly sport coat, black jeans and shirt and dark shades, Rose came out mid-show to croon his iconic take on Wings’ James Bond theme “Live and Let Die,” with Joel tinkling the ivories as Rose stalked the stage, tossing off wailing high notes and stomping his foot to the song’s staccato stabs.

Trending on Billboard

Joel busted protocol and stepped up from his piano to strap on an electric guitar as the two also jammed on a cover of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell. Though it seems out of character, the cover was wholly appropriate since Rose filled-in for ailing AC/DC singer Brian Johnson on the hard rockers’ 2016 tour and Joel and Rose have collaborated on the song before, including at Billy’s 2017 Dodger Stadium show in Los Angeles.

After Joel, 75, rolled through a run of other classics — “Only the Good Die Young,” “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant,” “Piano Man,” “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” “Uptown Girl” and “Big Shot” — Rose was back for the big finale: a duet on Joel’s 1980s Glass Houses burner “You May Be Right.”

The epic MSG run, during which Joel has sold nearly two million tickets, began on Jan. 14, 2014 and was eased into the history books with some help from Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, who ran onstage to mark the moment when a blue banner reading “Billy Joel 150: Most Lifetime Performances by Any Artist” was unfurled in the rafters.

Joel — who released his first new pop song in 17 years, “Turn the Lights Back On” in February — is not nearly done, with stadiums shows in the UK, Cleveland, St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Antonio and Las Vegas keeping him on the road through November.

Watch fan video of the Rose and Joel performances below.

[embedded content]

[embedded content]

[embedded content]

After a record 10-week rule on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart by Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby,” the tally has its first new No. 1 since May: Blood Orange’s “Champagne Coast” jumps to the top of the list dated July 27.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

The TikTok Billboard Top 50 is a weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the United States based on creations, video views and user engagement. The latest chart reflects activity July 15-21. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.

“Champagne Coast,” originally released in 2011 as part of Blood Orange’s (real name Dev Hynes) album of the same year, Coastal Grooves, started at No. 46 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 dated July 6 and has experienced a meteoric rise since, vaulting to No. 21 and then to No. 5 prior to its coronation.

Trending on Billboard

Multiple trends have highlighted the upsurge of “Champagne Coast.” One features creators uploading videos to the prompt “did we get rich?” or “did we hit the lottery?” in response to their younger self, and another argues that the uploader will stay single until the sound when they look into a prospective lover’s eyes sounds like “Champagne Coast.”

Concurrent with its TikTok Billboard Top 50 rule, “Champagne Coast” makes its first non-TikTok-based Billboard charts, paced by its No. 15 debut on the Hot Alternative Songs survey. In the week ending July 18, the tune earned 3.6 million official U.S. streams, up 17%, according to Luminate.

“Million Dollar Baby” falls to No. 2 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, ensuring that its now-12-week history on the chart has found it go no lower than the top two, while LeoStayTrill and Mr Reload It’s “Pink Lemonade (Str8 Reload)” lifts 4-3, a new peak.

“Pink Lemonade” is mostly driven by lip-synch videos to the song, which was released in May. It boasts 1.5 million streams in the week ending July 18, up 4%.

BlackMayo’s “Jus’ Know” and Ian’s “Magic Johnson” round out the top five, followed by the week’s top debut in 2KE and 808iuli’s “X-Slide,” which bows at No. 6.

“X-Slide,” the uploads of which on TikTok are led by its ultra-slowed version (though its standard version has gotten significant play as well), is highlighted on TikTok by workout and fitness videos, as well as clips from video games and anime.

Three other songs hit the chart’s top 10 for the first time: Sevdaliza, Pabllo Vittar and Yseult’s “Alibi,” Clairo’s “Juna” and Charli XCX’s “Apple” round out the top 10 at Nos. 8-10, respectively.

“Alibi” has been paced by a dance trend on TikTok, one that began in the spring but has taken off in recent weeks. “Juna,” meanwhile, bows at No. 9 not long after the song’s July 12 premiere as part of Clairo’s new album, Charm; along with lip-synch clips and other general content, an underlying trend featuring the tune plays off its “you know me” verse with a photo explaining all of the user’s favorites and interests.

As for “Apple,” the song from Charli XCX’s much-talked-about 2024 album Brat has also benefited from a dance trend. It’s risen each week on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart since its debut on June 22 at No. 25, hitting a new peak of No. 7 on the latest tally thanks to 4.2 million streams in the week ending July 18, a boost of 55%.

See the full TikTok Billboard Top 50 here. You can also tune in each Friday to SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio (channel 4) to hear the premiere of the chart’s top 10 countdown at 3 p.m. ET, with reruns heard throughout the week.

Canadians have each others’ backs!
Nickelback shared a video on Tuesday (July 23) defending the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine film from any hate. In the clip, all four members of the band rock Deadpool and Wolverine masks, though they soon decide that the costumes are too itchy and unmask themselves.

“We’re Nickelback, experts in navigating irrational hate in the face of tremendous success,” the band’s frontman Chad Kroeger tells the camera. “We have an important preemptive message for anyone thinking of criticizing the film Deadpool & Wolverine or Ryan Reynolds.”

Explore

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

Kroeger then begins listing off the film franchise’s list of accomplishments, including that the first two Deadpool films grossed more than $1.5 billion at the box office, and accolades including two Critics Choice Awards, four MTV Movie & TV Awards, one GLAAD Award, a People’s Choice Award, two Teen Choice Awards and many more.

“As for Mr. Ryan Reynolds, just look at this photograph,” Kroeger adds, before the screen flashes to a photo of the Deadpool star as Nickelback’s 2005 hit “Photograph” begins to play. “That is a beautiful Canadian man right there.”

Trending on Billboard

Upon seeing the clip, Reynolds was overjoyed. “My god. I love those guys,” he said in response.

Nickelback’s video was a hilarious parody of a 2018 Once Upon a Deadpool teaser, in which Reynolds’ Deadpool vehemently defends the rock band after someone likened the Marvel franchise to “if the Beatles were produced by Nickelback. It’s music, but it sucks.”

“I’ve had it with all this Nickelback hating. You think that makes you cool with the cool kids in school?” Deadpool angrily says in response, before listing off Nickelback’s array of accomplishments, including selling 50 million albums worldwide, and an array of nominations and awards.

Watch the original video below. Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters on Friday (July 26).

[embedded content]

07/24/2024

His choices of onstage friends and cover versions made his decade-long MSG run a celebration of pop music history.

07/24/2024

Phish’s Trey Anastasio has 17 years of sobriety under his belt and in late 2023 he paid it forward by opening a residential recovery program, Divided Sky, in his native Vermont with the caseworker who helped him after a 2006 arrest for heroin possession and DWI.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

According to People, the 46-bed facility in Ludlow, VT is a “nonclinical, abstinence-based center that follows the 12-step program” and costs $7,500 for a 30 day stay; financial aid is available for those in need. “I’ve seen people in dire situations come back from this. It’s never too late to have hope,” Anastasio, 59, told the magazine. “Families can be saved.”

The facility’s model is based on The Minnesota recovery center The Retreat, which does not put patients through detox, which Anastasio said helps to keep the cost down. “So basically, you know you’re a drug addict, you’re an alcoholic when you walk in the door. If you need to do detox, we are connected in the local Vermont sober community with places where we would send you to a medical facility to detox,” he said. “Some people need longer than others. There’s a staff that assesses the condition that your loved one is in, and some people would come 20, 30 days, other people might need 90. It’s based on your individual situation. Some people might need longer and that’s perfectly fine.”

Anastasio developed an addiction to OxyContin in 2000 after first taking the prescription painkiller following dental surgery. Within four year, though, the married father of two adult daughters said, “I lost my band, then I almost lost my family,” in reference the substance issues that forced Phish into a two-year hiatus (2000-2002) that led to a reunion and then to another break in 2004 that lasted until 2008. “Drinking and drugging, for me it was a slow death of isolation.”

Anastasio got professional help after a Dec. 15, 2006 arrest in upstate New York on drug and DWI charges. “The minute I got arrested, I was relieved,” he said, adding that when he was handcuffed he “knew it was over.” At the time, prosecutors said Anastasio was arrested for weaving down a rural road near the Vermont border and was facing felony drug possession charges after police found hydrocodone, as well as misdemeanor drug possession charges for heroin, oxycodone and the anti-anxiety drug alprazolam (also known as Xanax).

The jam band leader and solo star pleaded guilty in April 2007 to a felony drug charge and avoided jail time in a plea agreement in which the more serious charges were dropped and he agreed to enter a 14-month drug court program in which he attended meetings and did court-ordered community service. According to People he hasn’t touched drugs or drink since.

Divided Sky’s program director is Melanie Gulde, who served as Anastasio’s caseworker at the time. “She saved my life,” Anastasio said of Gulde. “She’s a badass, but she’s also very loving.” Anastasio began raising the funds to open Divided Sky in 2020 via his “Beacon Jams” residency shows at the Beacon Theatre in New York.

“I hope people take away the fact that humans are resilient. Recovery is the greatest gift we can give ourselves,” said Gulde. “Divided Sky came about as Trey’s desire to give back on a bigger scale. I have had countless people tell me that Trey has been an inspiration for their own recovery. We must do the work, and that is exactly what he does.”

In addition to his ongoing touring and recording with Phish — who recently released their 16th studio album, Evolve — Anastasio has released a dozen albums, including 2022’s Mercy.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.

If you’re on the couch with your popcorn just aching for some more drama between pop singers, do not invite Paramore singer Hayley Williams to your party, because she’s not interested. In an Instagram Story recorded after a show in Hamburg on Tuesday (July 23), Williams hopped on camera to give her no-holds-barred take on the attempts by some to pit female pop stars against each other.
Sliding off screen to change, Williams gave a two-minute treatise on why she hates the internet, but also on the irrational focus on competition between artists. “Something I’ve been thinking about a lot, and why I don’t really love it [the internet]… Especially in the music world, like when it comes, to like, music, whether it’s the pop girls or any scene, really. People only give a f–k about numbers now, and stats. And that is so lame. It’s very fun, don’t get me wrong. It’s sick. We’ve had a #1 album and top this and that albums, yes. That s–t is great…,” she said.

After a quick change into sweatshirt, Williams continued, “But I just remember a time when that was not so important, and that also wasn’t like a gotcha for a stan-war type of situation. Anyway, I just think it’s really f–king annoying… My side of the internet, which is basically not really the internet. Where I just get to support all the pop girls. Maybe that’s privilege. because I’m not a pop girl, but I just think everyone should cool it and let people make really great music and s–t… I’m over it.”

Trending on Billboard

With just the top of her head visible as she hung upside down in the frame to give a view up her nostrils, Williams concluded that she is, “over it.” (Watch the whole video here.) As noted by Stereogum, the Story has since disappeared, but a residual tile remains on which Williams added, “witnessing stan wars makes me so happy pmore is not really in the pop world. i just get to enjoy the good s–t thats come out this year and im sorry some of yall cant thats gotta be tough damn.”

Paramore’s great summer adventure opening for Taylor Swift rolls on tonight (July 24) with the final show in Hamburg, Germany, before the outing moves on to Munich’s Olympiastadion for gigs on Saturday(July 27) and Sunday (July 28). The group will stay touring with Swift through a fifth and final gig at Wembley Stadium in London on August 20.

John Mayall, the British blues musician whose influential band the Bluesbreakers was a training ground for Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood and many other superstars, has died. He was 90.
A statement on Mayall’s Instagram page announced his death Tuesday (July 23), saying the musician died Monday at his home in California. “Health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world’s greatest road warriors,” the post said.

He is credited with helping develop the English take on urban, Chicago-style rhythm and blues that played an important role in the blues revival of the late 1960s. At various times, the Bluesbreakers included Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, later of Cream; Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac; Mick Taylor, who played five years with the Rolling Stones; Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor of Canned Heat; and Jon Mark and John Almond, who went on to form the Mark-Almond Band.

Trending on Billboard

Mayall protested in interviews that he was not a talent scout, but played for the love of the music he had first heard on his father’s 78-rpm records.

“I’m a band leader and I know what I want to play in my band — who can be good friends of mine,” Mayall said in an interview with the Southern Vermont Review. “It’s definitely a family. It’s a small kind of thing really.”

A small but enduring thing. Though Mayall never approached the fame of some of his illustrious alumni, he was still performing in his late 80s, pounding out his version of Chicago blues. The lack of recognition rankled a bit, and he wasn’t shy about saying so.

“I’ve never had a hit record, I never won a Grammy Award, and Rolling Stone has never done a piece about me,” he said in an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent in 2013. “I’m still an underground performer.”

Known for his blues harmonica and keyboard playing, Mayall had a Grammy nomination, for “Wake Up Call” which featured guest artists Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Mick Taylor and Albert Collins. He received a second nomination in 2022 for his album The Sun Is Shining Down. He also won official recognition in Britain with the award of an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 2005.

He was selected for the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class and his 1966 album Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton is considered one of the best British blues albums.

Mayall once was asked if he kept playing to meet a demand, or simply to show he could still do it.

“Well, the demand is there, fortunately. But it’s really for neither of those two things, it’s just for the love of the music,” he said in an interview with Hawaii Public Radio. “I just get together with these guys and we have a workout.”

Mayall was born on Nov. 29, 1933 in Macclesfield, near Manchester in central England.

Sounding a note of the hard-luck bluesman, Mayall once said, “The only reason I was born in Macclesfield was because my father was a drinker, and that’s where his favorite pub was.”

His father also played guitar and banjo, and his records of boogie-woogie piano captivated his teenage son.

Mayall said he learned to play the piano one hand at a time — a year on the left hand, a year on the right, “so I wouldn’t get all tangled up.”

The piano was his main instrument, though he also performed on guitar and harmonica, as well as singing in a distinctive, strained-sounding voice. Aided only by drummer Keef Hartley, Mayall played all the other instruments for his 1967 album Blues Alone.

Mayall was often called the “father of British blues,” but when he moved to London in 1962 his aim was to soak up the nascent blues scene led by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Eric Burdon were among others drawn to the sound.

The Bluesbreakers drew on a fluid community of musicians who drifted in and out of various bands. Mayall’s biggest catch was Clapton, who had quit the Yardbirds and joined he Bluesbreakers in 1965 because he was unhappy with the Yardbirds’ commercial direction.

Mayall and Clapton shared a passion for Chicago blues, and the guitarist later remembered that Mayall had “the most incredible collection of records I had ever seen.”

Mayall tolerated Clapton’s waywardness: He disappeared a few months after joining the band, then reappeared later the same year, sidelining the newly arrived Peter Green, then left for good in 1966 with Bruce to form Cream, which rocketed to commercial success, leaving Mayall far behind.

Clapton, interviewed for a BBC documentary on Mayall in 2003, confessed that “to a certain extent I have used his hospitality, used his band and his reputation to launch my own career,”

“I think he is a great musician. I just admire and respect his steadfastness,” Clapton added.

Mayall encouraged Clapton to sing and urged Green to develop his song-writing abilities.

Mick Taylor, who succeeded Green as a Bluesbreaker in the late 1960s, valued the wide latitude which Mayall allowed his soloists.

“You’d have complete freedom to do whatever you wanted,” Taylor said in a 1979 interview with writer Jas Obrecht. “You could make as many mistakes as you wanted, too.”

Mayall’s 1968 album Blues From Laurel Canyon signaled a permanent move to the United States and a change in direction. He disbanded the Bluesbreakers and worked with two guitars and drums.

The following year he released The Turning Point, arguably his most successful release, with an atypical four-man acoustic lineup including Mark and Almond. “Room to Move,” a song from that album, was a frequent audience favorite in Mayall’s later career.

The 1970s found Mayall at low ebb personally, but still touring and doing more than 100 shows a year.

“Throughout the ’70s, I performed most of my shows drunk,” Mayall said in an interview with Dan Ouellette for Down Beat magazine in 1990. One consequence was an attempt to jump from a balcony into a swimming pool that missed — shattering one of Mayall’s heels and leaving him with a limp.

“That was one incident that got me to stop drinking,” Mayall said.

In 1982, he reformed the Bluesbreakers, recruiting Taylor and McVie, but after two years the personnel changed again. In 2008, Mayall announced that he was permanently retiring the Bluesbreaker name, and in 2013 he was leading the John Mayall Band.

Mayall and his second wife, Maggie, divorced in 2011 after 30 years of marriage. They had two sons.

The Rolling Stones have been known as the world’s greatest rock and roll band for six decades, but Grammy voters were shamefully late in getting on board. The Stones weren’t nominated in any category until the 1979 ceremony, when Some Girls was nominated for album of the year.

How could that be? How could such classic albums as Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. have been completely ignored – not to mention such landmark singles as “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Honky Tonk Women” and “Brown Sugar”?

One reason is that Grammy voters in ’60s and ’70s were resistant to rock, favoring pop and what we now call traditional pop. (Nowadays, Grammy voters love rock and have been slow to embrace hip-hop. Resistance to the new and different is often a byproduct of institutional voting.)

The Beatles landed five consecutive album of the year nominations in the ’60s, but The Beatles were more in line with Grammy tastes. They were more often on the pop side of pop/rock, and Lennon/McCartney’s songwriting was more rooted in traditional songcraft.

Another reason The Stones were left out for so long was the Grammys didn’t have performance categories dedicated to rock until 1990 – and didn’t have a best rock album category until 1995. (Fittingly, The Stones were the first winner of the latter award.)

Since Grammy voters belatedly discovered The Stones, the band has fared pretty well in the nominations. They won a Grammy (best traditional blues album) for their previous studio album, High & Lonesome. Their three studio albums before that were each nominated for best rock album.

The band’s 2023 album Hackney Diamonds, which was mostly produced by Andrew Watt, has an excellent chance of landing a best rock album nod and an outside chance of landing an album of the year nod. “Angry,” the album’s opening track and lead single, was nominated for best rock song at the ceremony in February. The 2025 nominations will be announced on Nov. 8. The awards will be presented on Feb. 2, 2025.

Watt (profiled here) has his own following in Grammyland – he won producer of the year, non-classical in 2021, which makes him the most recent producer not named Jack Antonoff to win that award. Watt, who is just 33, wasn’t even born when The Stones’ Steel Wheels album was released in 1989.

Look and see how The Stones have fared in the Grammy nominations since 1979, the year Grammy voters first invited them to the party. The year show is the year of the Grammy ceremony.

1979: Some Girls