Rock
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In February, MGK (formerly Machine Gun Kelly) debuted his massive blackout tattoo that covers up most of his torso and, on Monday (April 1), the rocker took fans into the arduous process of getting the ink done. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The star chose tattoo artist Roxx […]
A trio of live music and punk veterans are launching a new tour this summer to support developing acts and build off the success of rolling festivals like the Vans Warped Tour.
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Idobi Radio Summer School, launched by Eric Tobin (Hopeless Records), Michael Kaminsky (KMGMT) and Kevin Lyman (Warped Tour), aims to put new music discovery at the forefront, providing new and developing bands a platform to be introduced to bigger audiences across the country. The inaugural run features six of the most buzzed-about up-and-coming bands in punk, emo and hardcore: Stand Atlantic, Magnolia Park, The Home Team, Scene Queen, Honey Revenge and Letdown.
Kaminsky believes these six artists represent the next generation of headline acts thanks to their musical skill, diversity of culture, inclusivity and positivity.
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“We’re launching idobi Radio Summer School to address a serious need for development opportunities for artists and bands to connect with audiences,” Kaminsky explains, noting that he has partially modeled the amphitheater tour off of the Vans Warped Tour, which ran from 1995 to 2019 and helped break hundreds of bands.
The three founders came together last year to develop the model for the new summer festival brand with a ticket price that young and new fans could afford. idobi Radio Summer School is underwritten by sponsors with tickets priced at $30. Tickets go on sale Friday.
“The festival is specifically championing independent artists, labels and promoters, with 100% of the sponsorship money going to subsidize lower ticket prices,” the founders said in a statement. “All sponsors were chosen based on their ability to support the artists or fans on the tour. idobi is using their vast media reach to boost the profiles of every artist. OneRPM is subsidizing ticket prices, lowering costs for the fans. Hot Topic will be supporting not only with their massive marketing reach, but also by supporting artists in their entire network of retail stores. It’s important that our sponsors uphold the values of our scene, and we are excited to have them contributing to the community in a meaningful way with us.”
The tour will kick off on Wednesday, July 10 in Cleveland at the Agora Ballroom and will visit over 25 cities across the country including stops in Nashville, Houston, Orlando, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, Seattle and more before wrapping in Anaheim on Sunday, August 17th at City National Grove. Click here for a full list of dates.
Presale begins today, April 1, and goes through Thursday, April 4. Tickets will go on sale to the general public this Friday, April 5.
Linkin Park has reached a settlement to end a lawsuit that accused the band of refusing to pay royalties to an ex-bassist who briefly played with the band in the late 1990s.
In a statement issued on Friday, the band said it had reached an “amicable resolution” with Kyle Christner, who sued the band last year over claims that he had “never been paid a penny” for contributions he made during several months he was in Linkin Parkin 1999.
The dispute was sparked by an anniversary re-release of Linkin Park’s smash hit 2000 debut album Hybrid Theory, which holds the distinction as the best-selling rock album of the 21st century. Christner claimed he had contributed some of the material released on the anniversary box set – a claim confirmed by the band in Friday’s statement.
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“Kyle is a very talented musician who made valuable contributions to Linkin Park at a pivotal time in 1999,” Linkin Park wrote in Friday’s statement. “He performed with the band in several shows and many record label showcases. Kyle helped write and performed on many songs from that era, including some of the songs on the Hybrid Theory EP.”
The statement was accompanied by a joint filing in court seeking to formally end the lawsuit, signed by attorneys for both Christner and for Mike Shinoda and other Linkin Park members. Christner’s attorneys did not return a request for comment on Monday.
Christner sued in November, claiming he had been a member of the band for several months in 1999 until he was “abruptly informed” that he had been fired shortly before the band signed a record deal with Warner Records. He accused the band of continuing to profit from songs he helped create, while effectively erasing his involvement.
“Christner has never been paid a penny for his work with Linkin Park, nor has he been properly credited, even as defendants have benefitted from his creative efforts,” his lawyers wrote at the time.
In addition to Shinoda, the lawsuit also named Linkin Park’s other living members (Rob Bourdon, Brad Delson and Joseph Hahn), as well as its business entity, Machine Shop Entertainment, and the band’s label, Warner Records.
In particular, Christener pointed to the re-release of Hybrid Theory. He argued that the special 2020 box set included several songs to which he had contributed, including a never-before-released demo track that has amassed 949,000 views on YouTube.
Before Friday’s settlement, Linkin Park had been battling to dismiss the case. In a filing last month, the band argued that the case had been filed far too late and that the statute of limitations on such claims had “long since passed.”
“Defendants repudiated plaintiff’s purported ownership in any and all of the works mentioned in the [lawsuit] more than three years before plaintiff filed this lawsuit — and indeed for over two decades,” the band’s lawyers wrote at the time.
While accepting the Amplify Award at the 2024 Billboard Power 100 event in Los Angeles in February, the members of boygenius began their speech the same way they had started most shows on their 2023 tour. Lucy Dacus, standing alongside Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers, dedicated the moment to the elders and descendants of native peoples and also asked for action from the crowd — which happened to include the music industry’s most powerful executives.
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“We believe in land back,” Dacus said. “Which is also water back and air back. I encourage you to look into this if it’s a new concept for you. It’s not only a cause that centers Indigenous sovereignty, but the general well-being of the earth and all of its inhabitants.”
Welcome to Territory, also known as a land acknowledgment, is a formalized statement recognizing and respecting the relationship of Indigenous peoples and their traditional territories. Dacus noted that the band worked closely with the Pass the Mic (PTM) Foundation — which was founded by Portugal. The Man — on its tour to help organize such acknowledgments at each show. And while land acknowledgments have become standard practice for Portugal. The Man, with bands including NOFX also opting in, the foundation’s ultimate goal is to prevent invisibility and erasure of Indigenous peoples. Live music has offered an ideal setting to do so, and this past year, more artists — and fans — were eager to participate.
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“Concerts or festivals can be challenging to engage, but people attend them because they want to feel good,” says Múkaro Borrero, kasike (chief) of the Guainía Taíno tribe and president of the United Confederation of Taíno People. Borrero met Portugal. The Man in 2018 after participating in a group land acknowledgment at the band’s show, leading him to become a partner of the foundation. “Music can be a great equalizer, so attendees can be open to hearing some of these messages and learn more than they perhaps knew when they came to the venue.”
The PTM Foundation soft-launched in 2019 with help from executive director Logan Lynn, an artist and advocate who met Portugal. The Man through the Portland, Ore., music scene. After Lynn interviewed the band for his mental health-focused concert series, the group invited him on its 2018 summer tour, which served as a crash course in Portugal. The Man’s many philanthropic and community-focused efforts. “The only thing I can think of is a food court, where there were all these booths and it felt like a rock show,” Lynn recalls, “but it also felt like a place where all different kinds of community members were finding their people and finding a way to get involved.”
Land acknowledgments in particular are an easy, and affordable, foot in for artists and bands wanting to support community. And while Portugal. The Man was one of the first acts to make this its norm — where the group literally passes the microphone to local community members for a few minutes at the start of every set — Lynn noticed an increase in interest following the boygenius tour in particular. “It was so exciting because what [fans] were reposting was the video of the land acknowledgment and tagging the tribes and it felt like a wildfire,” he says. “Every day I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is exactly the thing we were trying to do.’”
Múkaro Borrero (center) with boygenius backstage at Outlaw Field in Boise, Idaho, in 2023.
Courtesy of Pass the Mic
“One of the things we heard far and wide when we were starting all this was this idea that Indigenous peoples are historic. Like it’s an ancient thing. That Indigenous peoples aren’t your friends and neighbors still,” Lynn says. “It’s this weird thing. Part of what we wanted to do was just make sure people knew that these communities exist where you live.”
But, as he and the band stress, awareness alone isn’t enough. Every partner that engages in the PTM process receives an unrestricted $500 grant from the PTM Fund. Lynn says Portugal. The Man frontman John Gourley has always been committed to moving with meaning — and following a moment with action. “Land acknowledgments have been a mechanism to get people’s attention,” says Laura John, tribal consultant for the Blackfeet and Seneca Nations and PTM partner. “Providing space for [this] should be understood as a gesture of commitment to doing more,” such as providing resources to tribal communities.
As Borrero says, “The next step for someone who experiences a land acknowledgment is to be sure there is a next step … it is the fans that need to help sustain and expand the momentum [the PTM Foundation] has initiated.”
Laura John
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It comes down on venues and promoters, too. Last year, PTM partnered with AEG on its Re:SET traveling concert series, for which boygenius was a headliner. “I was prepared for it to be clunky and hard and like, ‘Who do I talk to?’ And it wasn’t,” Lynn says. “Everybody from the band to management is like, ‘This is important.’ ”
Borrero agrees, saying that despite some Indigenous peoples who “are not so impressed by land acknowledgments because they view them as performative,” he sees them as a positive beginning. “To go from [the] mainstream not seeing us at all to now normalizing acknowledgment of the original caretakers is, to me, significant,” he says. He also notes that the Taíno community in particular has been cited as extinct by some sources. “Being a partner helps us not only change that narrative but take our power back to tell our own story.”
“The goal has always been to make it commonplace, and it feels like we are moving in the right direction,” Gourley adds. “People show up and it’s expected at our shows now — we want it to become expected everywhere.”
This story originally appeared in the March 30, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Green Day’s “Dilemma” becomes the band’s eighth leader on Billboard’s Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, shooting from No. 4 to No. 1 on the tally dated April 6.
The song reigns with 6.7 million audience impressions, a boost of 15%, March 22-28, according to Luminate.
Green Day pads its position for the second-most toppers in the Rock & Alternative Airplay chart’s nearly 15-year history. Foo Fighters lead all acts with 11 No. 1s.
Most No. 1s, Rock & Alternative Airplay:11, Foo Fighters8, Green Day6, Cage the Elephant6, twenty one pilots5, The Black Keys5, Imagine Dragons5, Linkin Park4, Red Hot Chili Peppers3, Weezer
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Green Day claimed the first No. 1 on Rock & Alternative Airplay, as “Know Your Enemy” led the inaugural list dated June 20, 2009. Prior to “Dilemma,” the trio last led, for seven weeks, with “The American Dream Is Killing Me” beginning in November 2023.
Concurrently, “Dilemma” bullets at its No. 2 best on Mainstream Rock Airplay and lifts 6-5 on Alternative Airplay.
On the most recently published, multimetric Hot Rock & Alternative Songs ranking (dated March 30, reflecting activity March 15-21), “Dilemma” debuted at No. 50. In addition to its radio airplay, the song earned 376,000 official U.S. streams.
“Dilemma” is the second single, following “The American Dream Is Killing Me,” from Saviors, Green Day’s 14th studio album. The set debuted at No. 1 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart dated Feb. 3 and has earned 100,000 equivalent album units to date.
All Billboard charts dated April 6 will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, April 2.
Cage the Elephant notches its 11th No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart as “Neon Pill” jumps to the top of the April 6-dated survey.
The song becomes the band’s first leader since “Skin and Bones” reigned for four weeks beginning in February 2021.
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Cage the Elephant first topped the Alternative Airplay chart in 2010 with “Back Against the Wall” — and their nine No. 1s during the 2010s marked the most among all acts in that span.
The group takes sole possession of the fifth-most leaders in the Alternative Airplay chart’s 35-and-a-half-year history, breaking out of a tie with twenty one pilots.
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Most No. 1s, Alternative Airplay:15, Red Hot Chili Peppers12, Foo Fighters12, Green Day12, Linkin Park11, Cage the Elephant10, twenty one pilots8, U28, Weezer7, The Black Keys7, Imagine Dragons
“Neon Pill” concurrently tops Adult Alternative Airplay for a third week, having become Cage the Elephant’s sixth No. 1 at the format. It also lifts 29-27 on Mainstream Rock Airplay.
On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, the song bullets at No. 4, after reaching No. 3, with 6.3 million audience impressions, up 4%, March 22-28, according to Luminate.
On the most recently published, multimetric Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart (dated March 30, reflecting consumption March 15-21), “Neon Pill” placed at No. 39. In addition to its radio airplay, the song earned 572,000 official U.S. streams.
The song is the lead single and title track from Cage the Elephant’s sixth studio album, due May 17 on RCA Records. It follows 2019’s Social Cues, which debuted at No. 3 on the Top Alternative Albums chart that May and has earned 471,000 equivalent album units to date.
All Billboard charts dated April 6 will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, April 2.
After becoming a band nearly 30 years ago, iconic pop-punk act Sum 41 has approached a milestone: its final album. Out Friday (March 29), Heaven :x: Hell arrives as the band’s eighth and last project together.
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“The title doesn’t just represent the light and dark sonically of the record — to us that’s been our whole career,” frontman Deryck Whibley tells Billboard News. “It’s been extreme highs and extreme lows and the only way you stick with it is if you love what you’re doing.”
Across its career, the Grammy-nominated Sum 41 has scored two top albums on the Billboard 200 (2004’s Chuck and 2007’s Underclass Hero), while its biggest hit “Fat Lip” became its only Billboard Hot 100 entry, peaking at No. 66.
Heaven :x: Hell arrives as the band’s first double album, chronicling the fine line it has walked between more uptempo pop-punk with harder-hitting rock and metal music. As the band confirms, having these two sides was never a conscious choice, with Whibley saying they never even set out to make any sort of album at all.
“A lot it was by accident,” he says. “Right as we went into lockdown, I started getting calls from labels and managers and artists asking if I would write some songs for them, and everyone was asking for something leaning pop-punk. And we haven’t really done pop-punk in a long time … it’s been like, 16 years. I wrote about seven or eight songs, and once I listened to them, I realized I actually liked them and I didn’t want to give them away.”
Once he started sending the songs to the band, Dave Baksh jokes about how amazing it felt. “Like, ‘Ah, something to do.’” Adds Frank Zummo, “It was a light at a dark time.”
And now, this album — and the band’s forthcoming farewell tour, which extends through 2025 — will, funny enough, get them through the undeniable fact that the end is near. “Right now, it feels like 2001 for us when we were first coming out, getting pushed and pulled everywhere,” says Jason McCaslin. Adds Whibley: “As it gets closer to the end, it will start to hit us. I think it’s gonna get stranger and stranger as we get closer to the last shows,” which he teases will mix their greatest hits with fan favorites and, of course, some of the new songs.
“The entire band, I feel like we’re at the top of our game,” says Tom Thacker. “It’s almost a shame. I’ve never been in a band that was this tight and this mentally in tune with each other.”
When asked if this is indeed the last record and tour, each member’s eyes widen, though Whibley assures it is. “People are like, ‘You sure you want to call it the last record?’ I’ve seen Elton John six times in my life, only on the farewell tour,” he laughs, adding that will not be the case for Sum 41.
“We all knew no one was going to write our story except for us,” he continues. “I remember in the early days when people would say, ‘This band will be gone next year,’ or ‘One hit wonder’ when we had our first hit single. I always thought, ‘You don’t get to write our story. We’ll tell you when we’re leaving.’”
Watch the full Billboard News interview above.
Beyoncé may be Queen B, but when a higher power speaks, she listens — and that’s exactly what she did when it came to her Renaissance. The superstar revealed that though the first act in her trilogy made its debut in 2022, it was Cowboy Carter — which dropped Friday (March 29) — that she had originally planned to arrive first.
“This album took over five years,” she said of Act II in a Parkwood Entertainment press release Friday. “It’s been really great to have the time and the grace to be able to take my time with it. I was initially going to put Cowboy Carter out first, but with the pandemic, there was too much heaviness in the world. We wanted to dance. We deserved to dance. But I had to trust God’s timing.”
The 32-time Grammy winner announced the follow-up to Renaissance during the 2024 Super Bowl in a Verizon ad that featured Tony Hale, and immediately dropped two songs: “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” offering the Beyhive a taste of her country-tinged album that features icons Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton.
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But as Bey previously teased, “This ain’t a country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album.” Indeed, the set features collaborators from various musical genres — including Post Malone and Miley Cyrus — as well as instruments such as the accordion, washboards, harmonicas and even her own nails.
“The joy of creating music is that there are no rules,” Beyoncé noted in the press release. “The more I see the world evolving the more I felt a deeper connection to purity. With artificial intelligence and digital filters and programming, I wanted to go back to real instruments, and I used very old ones. I didn’t want some layers of instruments like strings, especially guitars, and organs perfectly in tune. I kept some songs raw and leaned into folk. All the sounds were so organic and human, everyday things like the wind, snaps and even the sound of birds and chickens, the sounds of nature.”
Bey also opened up about her process, and revealed that she recorded many, many songs for the album.
“My process is that I typically have to experiment,” she shared. “I enjoy being open to have the freedom to get all aspects of things I love out and so I worked on many songs. I recorded probably 100 songs. Once that is done, I am able to put the puzzle together and realize the consistencies and the common themes, and then create a solid body of work.”
She concluded in the release: “I think people are going to be surprised because I don’t think this music is what everyone expects, but it’s the best music I’ve ever made.”
Djo’s “End of Beginning” reaches top of Billboard’s Hot Alternative Songs chart dated March 30, rising from No. 2 to No. 1 in its sixth week on the list. “End of Beginning” drew 18.5 million official U.S. streams (up 11%) and 3.1 million radio audience impressions (up 69%) and sold 2,000 downloads (up 46%) March […]
Alek Olsen’s “Someday I’ll Get It” becomes the latest song to top the TikTok Billboard Top 50, vaulting 19-1 on the March 30-dated survey.
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 18-24. 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.
The ascent of “Someday I’ll Get It” comes in just its second week on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, as it debuted at No. 19 on the March 23 list. The lo-fi acoustic track has exploded on TikTok due to a trend using the song with creators either reminiscing about deceased pets or showing some of said pets’ final days.
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As a result, much of the sound’s usage also shows people reacting to having seen the pet trend all over their For You Page, often taking photos or videos of themselves in tears.
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Concurrently, “Someday I’ll Get It” bows at No. 24 on Billboard’s multimetric Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, Olsen’s first appearance on a tally that isn’t populated by TikTok data. It starts via 2.6 million official U.S. streams March 15-21, up 126% from 1.2 million the previous frame, according to Luminate.
“Someday I’ll Get It” takes No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 from Djo’s “End of Beginning,” which falls to No. 2 – though it continues to rise on other Billboard charts, nearing the Billboard Hot 100 top 10 by jumping 21-11. Beyonce’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” and Dasha’s “Austin,” a pair of country songs previously discussed due to their trends featuring line dances as the main driver for their activity, follow at Nos. 3 and 4, respectively, and Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” rounds out the top five.
The week’s top debut is G-Eazy’s “Lady Killers II (Christoph Andersson Remix),” which bows at No. 7.“Lady Killers” was initially released in 2012 as part of G-Eazy’s album Must Be Nice, while the new version premiered March 17.
The remix’s move onto streaming services was no coincidence; it was released after the Andersson remix went viral on TikTok in the past month. G-Eazy himself got in on the fun with a lip-synching clip announcing the song’s wide release while also adhering to the “Lady Killers II” general trend, which aligns with the “Make her disappear just like poof/ Then she’s gone” line, with the creator turning off the light illuminating them previously after the verse is said.
“Lady Killers II” snagged 758,000 official U.S. streams in its first week of release and will continue to rise during the April 6-dated Billboard tracking week (March 22-28). The original “Lady Killers” also sported a sizable bump: 1.5 million streams March 15-21, up 125%.
Madison Beer’s “Make You Mine” also reaches the TikTok Billboard Top 50 for the first time, launching 18-10 in its second week on the survey. The sound, which largely highlights the song’s opening “I wanna feel, feel, feel/ Wanna taste, taste, taste/ Wanna get you goin’” refrain, has been used a variety of ways, from lip synchs to hair tutorials to fancam edits.
“Make You Mine” is currently bubbling under the Hot 100. It earned 3.4 million official U.S. streams March 15-21, up 1%. It’s also Beer’s first Pop Airplay appearance since 2021 (“Reckless”), having reached No. 34 so far.
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.