Rock
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When Kurt Cobain passed away on April 8, 1994, Nirvana‘s historic time together was cut painfully short. There’s no telling what the blond-haired, gritty-voiced frontman and bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic could’ve accomplished in the years after they released what ended up being their final album, the Billboard 200-topping In Utero. What is for […]
When Prince released Musicology in 2004, it was hailed as a comeback — and greeted with a few sighs of relief. The Purple One’s previous albums had either been too conceptual (The Rainbow Children, 2001) or uncommercial (N·E·W·S and Xpectation, both 2003, were fully instrumental) for most listeners, so when he delivered a party album of old-school funk, critics and fans were thrilled to press play.
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The album netted him two Grammys and a No. 3 spot on the Billboard 200 – his first album to reach that peak since 1991’s Diamonds and Pearls. Even better, the ensuing Musicology Live 2004ever tour found the icon delivering lengthy, hit-filled sets with a loose warmth you didn’t always get from Prince on stage. (The album was also sold as part of each ticket to the tour, with the LP’s cost baked into the ticket price.)
For the album’s 20th anniversary, NPG Records and Paisley Park Enterprises, in partnership with Sony Music Entertainment, are releasing his rare B-side “United States of Division” to streaming platforms for the first time. Previously available as an mp3 download to members of Prince’s NPG Music Club, “United States of Division” is a six-minute soul-funk jam that tackles the Iraq War, America’s dwindling global reputation and internal social divisions.
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Musically, Musicology received a warm welcome – and in hindsight, it’s one of Prince’s best latter-day albums, with the title track and the hilarious “Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance” being particular standouts. But its release strategy had people in the industry a bit confused.
“Instead of Musicology, Prince should have gone back into his catalog and named his new album Controversy. That is what he is once again stirring up as he distributes Musicology free to fans at his shows,” reported the May 8, 2004, issue of Billboard. “Nielsen SoundScan is counting those copies as sales. Of the 191,000 copies of Musicology Nielsen SoundScan tracked for the week ending April 18, 12,600 — 6% — were counted from his April 21 concert in Columbia, S.C.”
Despite some questioning the strategy’s efficacy or fairness, it proved influential – dozens of acts would follow suit in the ensuing years until Billboard stopped counting album sales that were part of ticket bundles in 2020.
Read our preliminary ranking of Vampire Weekend’s first album in five years.
Five Finger Death Punch released the digital deluxe version of their 2022 album AfterLife on Friday (April), which features four new bonus tracks. Among those freshies is an unexpected collab with late Ruff Ryders rapper DMX.
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The song, “This Is the Way,” comes complete with a video directed by X’s longtime collaborator Hype Williams, which mixes black and white performance footage of FFDP with photos, cartoon images and memorial murals of DMX. “Ya’ll heard it through the grapevine (what’s that?)/ Expect I’m gonna take mine/ Name of the game is get in where you fit in (what?)/ Dog, I fit in at the beginning,” DMX growls in the first verse in his signature rough-edged style.
“Music is meant to be universal and without boundaries, and it starts at the top with us, the artists,” said FFDP guitarist Zoltan Bathory in a statement. “We have always embraced the mixing of genres, whether it be the remake of LL Cool J’s ‘Mama Said Knock You Out’ featuring Tech N9ne as a guest, or our collaboration with blues warrior Kenny Wayne Shepherd, country star Brantley Gilbert, and Brian May, the legendary guitarist of Queen, on the song ‘Blue on Black.’”
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The release did not mention when the DMX vocals were recorded, but Bathory added that the idea of a collab with the “X Gon Give It To Ya” MC had been “in discussion for years, and it was a long and winding road to turn this particular item on our wish list into reality. He was a lyrical warrior, a true original who spoke his mind incorruptibly.” The guitarist said the group had always considered DMX the “metalhead of hip-hop” because of the rapper’s “aggressive, raw, and untamed” style.
“He growled and snarled, aiming to rattle some cages–an attitude we share, as Five Finger Death Punch has always been drawn to the fearless and the real,” he said. “It made all the sense in the world, but today this is more than just a song; it’s a salute to a legend, a way to honor DMX’s memory.” DMX died in April 2021 at age 50 after experiencing a heart attack triggerd by a drug overdose.
The digital deluxe edition also features three acoustic versions of the album tracks “The End,” “Judgement Day” and “Thanks For Asking.” FFDP will tour Europe this summer on a headlining tour featuring Ice Nine Kills before joining Metallica as the opening act on a run of the rock icons’ European stadium shows.
Watch the “This Is the Way” video below.
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It has been more than four years since Nine Inch Nails released their last album, 2020’s Ghost VI: Locusts. But lest you thought that NIN mastermind Trent Reznor and longtime musical foil Atticus Ross have spent those years just chilling out, the pair revealed in a new interview with GQ that, in fact, they have an avalanche of new projects in the pipeline.
Many of the various and sundry things on tap will funnel through the new multimedia company the duo started, With Teeth, which the magazine said is built around storytelling in a number of disciplines, including fashion, an upcoming music festival and a deal with Epic Games for “something that is not exactly a video game, in the UEFN ecosystem Epic has built around Fortnite.”
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Most excitingly for NIN fans, though, is the news that all that scoring work has gotten the pair excited about a new studio album. Reznor said that scoring “managed to make Nine Inch Nails feel way more exciting than it had been in the past few years. I’d kind of let it atrophy a bit in my mind for a variety of reasons.”
Now, however, Ross said he feels, “excited about starting on the next record… I think we’re in a place now where we kind of have an idea.”
With Teeth, which Reznor and Ross pieced together over the past two years with their longtime art director John Crawford and producer Jonathan Pavesi, is meant to help the men find new ways to explore NIN IP. According to GQ, the idea was, “what could they do that they hadn’t already done around storytelling? Some of that might take the form of examining Nine Inch Nails from yet another angle — ‘we’ve been working on homegrown IP around Nine Inch Nails, stories we could tell, and we’re working on developing those in a way that are not what you think they’d be,’” which the mag noted would not be a biopic.
In addition, the two are developing a TV series with The Bear creator Christopher Storer, as well as a film with veteran horror director Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep).
The piece describes the surprisingly predictable hours the longtime best friends and business partners keep, with each showing up to 58-year-old father of five Reznor’s backyard L.A. studio Monday through Friday to work on their various ventures from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. without fail. “We show up. We’re not late. We’re not coming in to start to f–k around,” Reznor said of Oscar-winning duo’s discipline.
Among the other projects on tap are the completion of the score for Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming film Queer, as well as one for the director’s sports love triangle drama Challengers (out April 26), which stars Zendaya. Of the latter, Reznor said Guadagnino’s marching orders included a suggestion along the lines of “what if it was very loud techno music through the whole film?” The duo are also finishing the score for the upcoming Scott Derrickson sci-fi thriller The Gorge starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller.
But wait, there’s more!
Reznor also said they are working on a short film with the artist Susanne Deeken, a clothing line due to launch this summer called Memory Fade and the unnamed music festival, which the singer said NIN plan to “debut as performing as composers along with a roster of other interesting people”; a new record label is slated to launch around the same time as the festival.
Check out the GQ cover below.
On Thursday, April 4, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band delivered its first of two headlining shows at Los Angeles’ The Forum — and it was a rousing, and lengthy, experience. The trek, which kicked off mid-March in Phoenix (after being rescheduled from 2023 due to Springsteen’s peptic ulcer disease) has already produced headline-worthy […]
It might be time to refer to the Beatles as the Bey-tles from here on out! On Thursday (April 4), Sir Paul McCartney took to his Instagram page to share a lengthy message lauding Beyoncé‘s cover of The Fab Four’s “Blackbird,” which appears on her brand new Cowboy Carter album.
“I am so happy with @beyonce’s version of my song ‘Blackbird,” he wrote in a caption of a carousel comprised of a photo of the two artists and the standard Cowboy Carter artwork. “I think she does a magnificent version of it and it reinforces the civil rights message that inspired me to write the song in the first place. I think Beyoncé has done a fab version and would urge anyone who has not heard it yet to check it out. You are going to love it!”
“Blackbird,” stylized as “Blackbiird” on Beyoncé’s new LP, reimagines the acoustic original with additional bass, orchestral flourishes and lush harmonies (and lead vocals on the final verse) from a quartet of ascendant Black women in country music, including Tanner Adell, Reyna Roberts, Brittney Spencer and Tiera Kennedy.
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McCartney spoke about the civil rights bent he alluded in Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, a 1997 Barry Miles-penned biography of the Beatles. In the book, McCartney explains that “I had in mind a [Black] woman, rather than a bird. Those were the days of the civil rights movement, which all of us cared passionately about, so this was really a song from me to a [Black] woman, experiencing these problems in the States: ‘Let me encourage you to keep trying, to keep your faith; there is hope.’”
McCartney — whose original master recording is used in Beyoncé’s version, according to Variety — also revealed that he had the chance to speak with the pop icon about her take on “Blackbird.”
“I spoke to her on FaceTime and she thanked me for writing it and letting her do it,” wrote McCartney, who attended Beyoncé’s record-breaking Renaissance World Tour last year. “I told her the pleasure was all mine and I thought she had done a killer version of the song. When I saw the footage on the television in the early 60s of the black girls being turned away from school, I found it shocking and I can’t believe that still in these days there are places where this kind of thing is happening right now. Anything my song and Beyoncé’s fabulous version can do to ease racial tension would be a great thing and makes me very proud.”
“Blackbiird,” the second track on Bey’s already-record-breaking Cowboy Carter, is one of two covers on the LP. Elsewhere on the sprawling 27-tack album, Beyoncé takes on Dolly Parton’s seminal “Jolene,” rewriting the song to be a more seamless fit for a “Creole banjee b–ch from Lousianne.”
In 2022, with Renaissance lead single “Break My Soul” entering the Billboard Hot 100‘s top 10 for the first time, Beyoncé became the first woman in Billboard history to ever tally at least 20 top 10 hits as soloist and 10 or more top 10s as a member of a group. The only other two artists to accomplish such a feat? None other than Michael Jackson and McCartney.
The Beatles’ original version of “Blackbird” appeared on their eponymous 1968 LP — commonly referred to as The White Album — which spent nine weeks atop the Billboard 200. Recently, Emmy-winning documentarian Ken Burns compared Cowboy Carter to The White Album, citing both records’ extensive exploration of different musical genres.
Check out Sir Paul’s sweet Instagram message about Beyoncé’s “Blackbiird” below.
When Kurt Cobain was found dead by suicide on April 8, 1994, it was a generation-shaking tragedy comparable to the 1980 murder of John Lennon or the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. An era-defining band that enjoyed — or perhaps endured — critical acclaim and commercial success, Nirvana remade rock in its own slouching image. The group’s 1991 breakthrough, Nevermind, has sold 10.3 million copies in the United States, according to Luminate, contributing to overall album sales of 30.3 million, as well as Nirvana’s legacy as the most important band of the ’90s.
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‘Never’-Land
The band’s 1989 indie debut, Bleach, didn’t chart on the Billboard 200 when it came out, but Nirvana made a significant impact when it jumped to major label DGC for Nevermind. “Nirvana pulls off an astonishing palace coup by dethroning King of Pop Michael Jackson from the top spot on the Billboard 200,” reported the Jan. 11, 1992, Billboard, which also pointed to the album’s success as “the most convincing argument that new artists can succeed” on the chart, which had switched to point-of-sale tracking less than a year earlier.
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Pregnancy Scare
With success came scrutiny. While Nirvana’s third album, In Utero, was still gestating, Newsweek ran a piece alleging that DGC was unhappy with it. In a full-page ad in the May 22, 1993, Billboard, the band blasted the Newsweek piece as “gossip” with “invalid” reporting. “This whole thing sucks,” bassist Krist Novoselic said in an article in the Sept. 25, 1993, Billboard. “The MTV Awards and all the schmoozing.” A piece in the same issue reported that DGC was planning a “low-key approach” to marketing.
Fest Stress
In 1994, Nirvana was booked to play Lollapalooza, but “due to the ill health of Kurt Cobain we cannot confirm them,” said a festival organizer in an article in the April 16, 1994, Billboard. (The issue went to press before Cobain died.) The cancellation was “prompted by singer/guitarist Cobain’s accidental drug-and-alcohol overdose in Rome in March,” according to the article. “It’s unfortunate that Nirvana is not on it,” concert promotion giant Louis Messina told Billboard at the time, “but it’s unfortunate The Beatles aren’t together.”
The News Hits
The April 23, 1994, Billboard, carried the news of Cobain’s death with such headlines as “Cobain Mourned By Fans, Industryites In Memorials, Music Stores” and “Cobain Death Spurs Rush At Retail: Biz Talk Turns To Band’s Unreleased Work.” In the next issue, Billboard blasted the “witless, mean-spirited comments” of 60 Minutes contributor Andy Rooney, who dismissed Cobain’s death by asking on-air, “What would all these young people be doing if they had real problems?” Billboard’s take: “Doesn’t CBS have a mandatory retirement policy?”
‘Plug’ Life
The Nov. 19, 1994, issue hailed Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York as “another window into a tragic genius” that “promises as much satisfaction for the curiosity seeker as for the most avid Nirvana fanatic.” Two years later, the posthumous live set From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah became Nirvana’s fourth Billboard 200 chart-topper. “Few defunct bands,” declared the Oct. 12, 1996, Billboard, “could get away with releasing two live albums of old material after only three full-length studio releases.”
This story originally appeared in the March 30, 2024, issue of Billboard.
JoJo Siwa took a wild swing earlier this week when she hit the red carpet at the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards on Monday in a wild rock and roll outfit that paid homage to KISS‘ Gene Simmons. The Demon-channeling look included a skin-baring black and silver bodysuit that was more cut-outs than fabric, a towering […]
Alek Olsen’s “Someday I’ll Get It” lands its second week atop the TikTok Billboard Top 50, while G-Eazy’s “Lady Killers II” vaults into the top three on the April 6-dated survey.
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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 March 25-31. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50. As previously noted, titles that are part of Universal Music Group’s catalog are currently unavailable on TikTok.
“Someday I’ll Get It” soared to No. 1 on the March 30 chart a week after debuting at No. 19. The track continues to be used in a trend remembering deceased pets, although other recent clips find creators reminiscing about relatives who have passed away, broken relationships and more.
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In the March 22-28 Billboard multimetric chart tracking week, the song jumped 62% to 4.2 million official U.S. streams, according to Luminate. It lifts 24-20 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs list dated April 6 as the chart’s top Streaming Gainer and bows at No. 12 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100’s Bubbling Under chart.
Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) and Ty Dolla $ign’s “Carnival,” featuring Rich the Kid and Playboi Carti, a former two-week No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, rebounds 7-2, while G-Eazy’s “Lady Killers II (Christoph Andersson Remix)” makes its first appearance in the top three, jumping 8-3.
The trend for “Lady Killers II,” the original version of which was released in 2012 on G-Eazy’s album Must Be Nice, while the Andersson remix arrived on streaming services March 17, remains one in which users turn the light illuminating them on and off in sync with the song’s “make her disappear just like poof/ Then she’s gone” verse, often while on a beach.
“Lady Killers II” bows at No. 47 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with 4.3 million streams in the first full week for the remix (March 22-28).
Djo’s “End of Beginning,” also a former two-week No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, falls 2-4, while Sexyy Red’s “Get It Sexyy” is one of three songs in the top 10 for the first time, blasting 12-5 in its third week on the list. The song is largely carried by a dance and lip sync trend and is Sexyy Red’s third top 10 and highest charting since “SkeeYee” was the ranking’s inaugural No. 1 last September.
Adrianne Lenker’s “Anything” jumps to a new No. 8 high and FloyyMenor and Cris Mj’s “Gata Only” rounds out the group of new top 10s, leaping 16-9. The latter’s rise is also spurred by a dance trend, while the former benefits from a theme usually captioned “that’s so pretty I’m gonna take a picture,” with the user usually then showing a significant other, pet or a pretty scene.
The week’s top debut belongs to Above & Beyond, whose rendition of New Order’s “Blue Monday” starts at No. 14. The rise of the track, originally released in 2020, comprises two similar trends: one dance-focused with creators rocking side to side, while another, with similar motions, features users squaring off as if they’re fighters in an arcade game.
Next among debuts, Artemas’ “I Like the Way You Kiss Me” arrives at No. 19. The song was teased on TikTok for weeks prior to its March 19 release, helping spark its debut on multiple charts, including the Hot 100, where it’s Artemas’ first entry (No. 70).
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.