Rock
Page: 74
Twenty One Pilots is continuing the rollout of their Clancy album era with a deluxe edition of the project released on Thursday (May 30), titled Clancy – Digital Remains.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The expanded edition of the album features four live bonus tracks recorded during the band’s recent run of intimate performances alongside an exclusive 121-page digital booklet offering fans an look at the artistry and vision of the band, featuring never-before-seen alternate artwork, handwritten lyrics, rare photographs and personal artifacts from the album’s creation.
However, the Digital Remains edition of the album is only available until midnight ET on May 31 via the band’s website here, so be sure to snag it while you can.
Trending on Billboard
The original version of Clancy dropped on May 17, marking the final chapter in the Blurryface saga, the long-running story that began on the group’s 2015 breakthrough Blurryface album, and then continued on 2018’s Trench and 2021’s Scaled and Icy – which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. Led by the singles “Overcompensate,” “Next Semester” and “Backslide,” Clancy also features the tracks “Midwest Indigo,” “Routines in the Night,” “Vignette,” “The Craving (Jenna’s Version),” “Lavish,” “Navigating, “Snap Back,” “Oldies Station,” “At the Risk of Feeling Dumb” and “Paladin Strait.”
The band is also hitting the road for its 59-date The Clancy World Tour in support of Clancy. The 59-date tour kicks off Aug. 15 at the Ball Arena in Denver, Colo., before making its way around North America, with stops in Seattle, Phoenix and New York City, as well as Los Angeles, Chicago and hometown Columbus, Ohio. Twenty One Pilots will then start the international leg of their tour in Auckland, New Zealand, on Nov. 17 before heading to Australia. The tour picks up again in April in Germany, then hits Italy, Spain, France and more before wrapping up with two shows at London’s 02 Arena on May 13 and 14.
When Lenny Kravitz makes a promise, he keeps it. And yes, that includes the celibacy pledge he made back in 2005, with the 60-year-old rock star confirming in a Guardian interview published Thursday (May 30) that he’s still holding firm on his vow to abstain from intercourse until he meets his soul mate.
During the interview, Kravitz first broached the subject of sex while discussing how his father — who he alleged in his 2020 memoir had several affairs — once told the singer that he, too, would become a cheater someday.
“He became right,” Kravitz confessed. “After [my] marriage, I became more like him. I was becoming a player … I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be that guy. So I had to tackle that and it took years.”
Trending on Billboard
The “Again” musician was married to actress Lisa Bonet from 1987 to 1993, during which they welcomed daughter Zoë. He told the publication that he curbed his negative behaviors “by taking responsibility” and “not letting my own desires take over,” a path that eventually led him to revealing he’d taken a personal vow of celibacy in 2005.
“[It’s] just a promise I made until I get married,” he told Maxim at the time. “Where I’m at in life, the women have got to come with something else, not just the body, but the mind and spirit.”
Nearly 20 years later, Kravitz revealed to The Guardian that it’s been nine years since he was last in a serious relationship. But has he stayed celibate? “Yes,” he said. “It’s a spiritual thing.”
The Hunger Games alum is now fresh off the release of his latest album Blue Electric Light, which arrived May 24. Aside from music, he’s been prioritizing his fitness regimen and spirituality lately — something he opened up about in his recent interview with Billboard.
“Exercising and retaining my faith in God and God’s plan for me,” he said earlier this month when asked about his values. “Exercising faith, patience, all the things that I learned growing up. If [something is] really yours and meant to be yours, you will have it — that takes faith, you know. All these virtues that I learned growing up – building on a strong foundation, no shortcuts – ring true to this day.”
Winter is coming. Well, Snow Patrol is anyway. The Northern Irish band announced their first new studio album in six years, The Forest Is the Path, on Thursday (May 30). The 12-track collection produced by Fraser T Smith (Adele, Stormzy) and the band was written by its three core members — guitarist/singer Gary Lightbody, guitarist Johnny McDaid and guitarist/vocalist Nathan Connolly.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The follow-up to 2018’s Wildness is set for release on Sept. 13 on Polydor Records, with the first taste, “The Beginning,” out now. The yearning track features the trio’s signature melodic, dramatic thrum, with Lightbody crooning, “There is only you and me in this life/ And I don’t want to f–k it up now/ There is nothing for me in these past lives/ There is only what I wasn’t yet” on the swelling chorus.
In addition the core trio, Smith, Will Reynolds, Roy Kerr and Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen contributed to the songwriting on the album, with Lightbody providing the luminous album and single artwork.
Trending on Billboard
“We had a few wee ideas kicking about that would eventually be recorded and find their way onto the album but when Johnny and I found ourselves in the Somerset countryside about to start writing for this album in earnest ‘The Beginning’ was written on the very first day,” the band wrote on Instagram. “That’s why it’s called the beginning in fact. I tend to name songs before I write the lyrics. So if Johnny, Nathan and I are working on the music for a track it will generally have a placeholder name that will get changed once I write the lyrics, one that better reflects the words of the song. BUT in this case, even though there are probably better words and phrases (that actually appear in the song) to be used as titles, ‘The Beginning’ stuck.”
They continued, “This album took us on many uncharted routes, with sometimes weird and sometimes wonderful turns, and so it’s hard not to think of the start of this album as a new beginning. We honour the past, deeply. This is our thirtieth year, so we have an awful lot of it, past I mean. Tons of it. We have a profound love and respect for all who have been on this journey with us those many years. But while we honour the past we also want to cherish the present and look to the future. So this is the beginning of something, and we are so excited to share it with you all.”
In another statement, Lightbody said the album is rooted in “reflection, introspection and interrogation, with a key building block being the idea of looking at love from the distance of time passed. “I haven’t been in a relationship for a very long time, 10 years or more, so love from a distance to me meant the way a relationship sits in your memory from a distance of, say, 10 years,” he said. “That’s not something I’d previously thought about as away to write about love. So it’s like, when you’re in love, you’re standing in the lobby of the Empire State Building. When you’ve broken up with that person, you’re out in the street. You can still see the building, but you’re not in there anymore. And when it’s 10 years later, now you’re standing in Brooklyn looking at the Manhattan skyline.”
Lightbody added that the single sums up the album, calling it a way to look at “various mistakes, any pain I may have caused, from a place where nothing is hurting anymore, except the memory when you pull it back into your mind. The memory itself is full of hurt but everything around it isn’t. You’re holding in your hand this ball of fire, but now you’ve got gloves on.”
After a run of summer 2024 festival gigs, the band also announced the dates for an eight-show 2025 UK/Ireland arena tour as well as European and U.S. dates slated for January and February 2025; see the dates here.
Listen to “The Beginning” and see the cover and track listing below.
The Forest Is the Path tracklist:
1. All
2. The Beginning
3. Everything’s Here And Nothing’s Lost
4. Your Heart Home
5. This Is The Sound Of Your Voice
6. Hold Me In The Fire
7. Years That Fall
8. Never Really Tire
9. These Lies
10. What If Nothing Breaks?
11. Talking About Hope
12. The Forest Is The Path
An iconic acoustic guitar used by John Lennon during the 1965 sessions for the Beatles’ Help! album set a new record on Wednesday (May 29) when it sold for $2.9 million at a Julien’s auction. The auction at the Times Square Hard Rock Café where the 1964 Framus Hootenanny acoustic guitar went under the gavel […]
Duane Betts says that he’s been “holding up” since the death of his father, Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickey Betts, on April 18 at the age of 80. And while he and Allman Betts Band partner Devon Allman — son of the late Allman Brothers leader Gregg Allman — don’t necessarily need more reason to pay tribute to their fathers’ musical legacy, Betts tells Billboard that there’s a different kind of charge in playing their songs now.
“Now that he’s gone it changes it a little more,” acknowledges Betts, who was named after the late Duane Allman and played at times in his father’s post-Allman Brothers band, Great Southern. “I think the spirit is always with me, whether I’m playing those particular songs or I’m playing my own songs. He had kinda been in poor health for awhile, so I was already playing for him and getting a lot of inspiration (from) thinking about him and what his legacy means to me, personally. I love playing that music and really treasure it ’cause it’s precious. so it’s nice to play a few of their tunes and mix ’em with our originals I do with the Allman Betts Band or a Duane Betts show.
Trending on Billboard
“And now that he’s moved on to the next level it’s kind of put the exclamation mark on that idea of showing love and appreciation for the music.”
Allman Betts has been mixing a variety of Allman Brothers Band tunes into its current spring tour, including selections such as “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” “Blue Sky,” “Jessica,” “Melissa,” “Midnight Rider,” “Dreams,” “Seven Turns” and “Sailin ‘Cross the Devil’s Sea,” as well as Allmans-popularized covers like Sonny Boy Williamson’s “One Way Out” and Blind Willie McTell’s “Statesboro Blues.”
“That’s been rotating; it depends on what night it is, what you’ll hear,” Betts explains. “Y’know, I play the way I play; when I’d ask my dad, ‘Do I sound too much like you?’ he would say, ‘Well, you like the same food as me. You walk like me. You cough like me. You look like me. So why are you trying to not be you? Just be you and don’t worry about it.’”
Allman Betts’ tour runs through June 9 and is the band’s first since the 2023 death of drummer R. Scott Bryan, which brought Roy Orbison’s youngest son Alex “Orbi” Orbison — who played in two previous bands with Betts — into the lineup. (The group also includes another Allman Brothers progeny, bassist Berry Duane Oakley.) Betts says the septet has made a conscious effort to dig deep into its two album catalog for this trek.
“We’re really enjoying switching up the set list quite a bit and throwing different things in there we haven’t played in awhile, so it’s been really fun,” he notes. “We’ve done songs off our records we haven’t played in years, ’cause we haven’t really been on tour.”
Another Allman Betts Band album — a follow-up to 2020’s Bless Your Heart — is another matter, however.
“We haven’t really gotten that far,” says Betts, who released a solo album, Wild & Precious Life, last July. “I think right now we’re just keeping it as this, a live thing. We’re really grateful to be out there on the road, and being all together again is really fun. We have a few more shows later in the summer, and we’re just having a great time on tour and not thinking about anything else yet.”
The band’s next date is a show Thursday night (May 30) at The Fillmore in Detroit; click here to see their summer tour schedule.
It’s refrain has become universal shorthand for keeping your eye on the prize. And now Survivor‘s legendary Rocky III pump-up anthem, “Eye of the Tiger,” has crossed the one billion views mark on YouTube.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The video for the song that begins with a repetitive picked guitar part over cymbal crashes is quintessential early ’80s, mostly consisting of the band’s five members power walking down city streets looking focused and fierce. Their double-time stroll takes them through an industrial warehouse filled with plumbing and construction parts and up into a loft packed with what looks like mothballed movie props as beret- and leather-jacket-wearing vocalist Dave Bickler sings the iconic refrain: “It’s the eye of the tiger/ It’s the thrill of the fight/ Rising up to the challenge of our rival/ And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night/ And he’s watching us all with the eye… of the tiger.”
The billion club entry represents the first one of the band’s videos to cross that high-water mark.
Trending on Billboard
In addition to serving as the theme song for the threequel, the propulsive track was also a single from the band’s third studio album of the same name. Founding guitarist Frankie Sullivan — who co-wrote the song with founding rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Jim Peterik — confirmed to Guitar Player magazine in an interview in March of this year that Survivor was not Stallone’s first choice.
As Sullivan recounted, Stallone used Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” in an early cut of the film, but was unable to keep it in the final version. “I actually saw it on the film at the studio when I was there with Sly,” Sullivan said, who added that the deal to use “Tiger” was set in motion during a meeting at Roa’s Hollywood Italian restaurant by the owners of Survivor’s label, Tony and Ben Scotti of Scotti Brothers Records.
“They were all good friends,” said Sullivan of the siblings and Stallone. “Tony was real smart, and he said to Sly, ‘I’ve got this band, maybe we could help each other.’ Tony asked Sly to call me, which he did. That dinner was probably the best thing that ever happened to my career.” After watching the film, Sullivan said it became a scramble to finish the track, with the music taking “about 10 minutes,” while the lyrics bubbled for three days. “We had 90 percent of them, but we couldn’t come up with a title,” the guitarist recalled.
While looking through the script he spotted a line where rival Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) reminds Rocky that he used to have the eye of the tiger. “And that was our title,” Sullivan said.
Watch the “Eye of the Tiger” video below.
[embedded content]
Update: Outside Lands revealed its single-day lineup on Wednesday (May 29). The Killers, Daniel Caesar, JUNGLE, Gryffin, and Young The Giant will kick off Friday’s primetime performances. Saturday will feature Tyler, The Creator, The Postal Service, Grace Jones, Chris Lake, ScHoolboy Q and FLETCHER to Golden Gate Park and Sunday will close the weekend with Sturgill Simpson, KAYTRANADA, Teddy Swims, Victoria Monét, Chappell Roan, Slowdive, Killer Mike and more. Post Malone’s country set will also take place on Sunday. Check out the single-day lineup below.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
This summer’s Outside Lands Festival (Aug. 9-11) in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park will feature headlining sets from Tyler, the Creator, The Killers and Sturgill Simpson, as well as a special country performance from Post Malone.
Trending on Billboard
Tickets for the 16th edition of the Another Planet Entertainment/Superfly production will go on sale on Wednesday (April 24). Other acts on this year’s lineup include: The Postal Service, Grace Jones, Kaytranada, Jungle, Snoh Aalegra, Gryffin, Young the Giant, Schoolboy Q, Chappell Roan, Reneé Rapp, Victoria Monét, The Last Dinner Party and others.
This year will mark the return of the Dolores Stage, an inclusive dance floor that celebrates the kinds of queer and trans communities that are part of the city’s fabric, with the full Dolores lineup slated to be announced soon. In addition, the SOMA stage will mark a return to the Marx Meadow, ditching the tent format for an extended, open air dance space spotlighting house and techno stars, including actor/DJ Idris Elba, Uncle Waffles, The Blessed Madonna and Shiba San b2b CID, among others.
The general public on sale will kick off on Wednesday at 10 a.m. PT on Outside Lands’ website, with options including three-day GA tickets ($465 plus fees), three-day GA+ ($715 plus fees) and three-day VIP ($1,075 plus fees), as well as three-day Golden Gate Club passes ($5,095 plus fees), as well as payment plan options for those who prefer installments.
As always, the festival will spotlight music as well as the best of the Bay Area’s culinary experiences in the Taste of the Bay Area, and Grass Lands, the first curated cannabis experience at a major American music festival.
Other acts on this year’s lineup include Teddy Swims, Slowdive, Killer Mike, TV Girl, Charley Crockett, Men I Trust, Ben Howard, Amyl and the Sniffers, Kevin Abstract, Romy, Badbadnotgood, Strfkr, Corinne Bailey Rae, Snakehips, Allen Stone and more.
Check out the full lineup poster below.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C6HJdeDLrFG/
Zayn returns to Billboard’s charts with his first album in more than three years, and with a shift in sonics, as his fourth LP, Room Under the Stairs, debuts at No. 3 on the Top Album Sales survey (dated June 1). It also opens at No. 4 on Top Rock Albums and No. 5 on both Top Rock & Alternative Albums and Americana/Folk Albums, marking his first foray onto those rankings.
On the all-genre Billboard 200, the album debuts at No. 15. Released May 17, it earned 29,000 equivalent album units, with 24,000 in album sales, in the U.S. in the week ending May 23, according to Luminate.
The set was largely produced by Dave Cobb, who previously produced albums by artists including Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell and Chris Stapleton.
Trending on Billboard
“I was pretty much on my farm having a glass of whiskey and listening to a bit of Stapleton by the fire with my dog, playing guitar,” Zayn recently told Nylon of the album’s inspiration. “People are in search of a little bit more depth from the lyrics,” he mused. About Stapleton, he said, “He’s got class, right? He’s telling you a real grown man’s story. I was like, ‘This is cool. It’s something I can do.’ ”
The new collection is Zayn’s first on Mercury/Republic, after his first three pop-focused albums were issued by RCA. Nobody Is Listening hit No. 44 on the Billboard 200 in January 2021, Icarus Falls reached No. 61 in December 2018 and Mind of Mine, his first LP after leaving One Direction, soared in at No. 1 in April 2016.
Before Zayn went solo, One Direction released four LPs, all of which hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2012-14.
Billie Eilish crowns Billboard’s Top Rock & Alternative Albums and Top Rock & Alternative Songs charts dated June 1 with her new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, and its lead single “Lunch.”
Hit Me Hard and Soft becomes Eilish’s first No. 1 on Top Rock & Alternative Albums, reigning as her first LP since the chart shifted in 2022 to include alternative-leaning titles outside the rock genre.
The set is also Eilish’s fourth leader on Top Alternative Albums, following Happier Than Ever (2021), When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019) and Dont Smile at Me (2019, after it first appeared on the list in 2017).
Trending on Billboard
In the week ending May 23, Hit Me Hard and Soft, released May 17, earned 339,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. – Eilish’s best career week by that metric – according to Luminate. The sum includes 191,000 album sales and 146,000 streaming-equivalent units.
The 10-song collection is the first release to reach six digits in units on Top Rock & Alternative Albums since Dolly Parton’s Rockstar (128,000; Dec. 2, 2023) and the first on Top Alternative Albums since blink-182’s One More Time… (125,000; Nov. 4, 2023).
The 339,000-unit total is the highest for a title on Top Rock & Alternative Albums in a decade, since the 383,000 units amassed by Coldplay’s Ghost Stories (June 7, 2014; it’s the top count since Top Rock & Alternative Albums shifted to a consumption-based methodology in 2016).
On Top Alternative Albums, Hit Me Hard and Soft has the biggest week since the all-time leader: Taylor Swift’s Folklore (846,000; Aug. 8, 2020), with Eilish’s new LP the second-biggest in a single week since the 2016 shift to a consumption-based formula.
Concurrently, Hit Me Hard and Soft debuts at No. 2 on the all-genre Billboard 200 and crowns the Vinyl Albums chart, with 90,000 vinyl copies sold, as previously reported.
“Lunch,” the album’s lead single, bows at No. 1 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Alternative Songs surveys. “Lunch” is Eilish’s fourth No. 1 on the former, which became inclusive of alternative-leaning songs not categorized within the rock genre in 2020, following commands for “What Was I Made For?” in 2023, “Happier Than Ever” in 2021 and “My Future” in 2020. Of those, “Happier Than Ever” also debuted at No. 1.
On Hot Alternative Songs, which began in 2020, “Lunch” is also Eilish’s fourth leader, likewise following “What Was I Made For?,” “Happier Than Ever” and “My Future.”
“Lunch” starts with 32.8 million official U.S. streams, 20.2 million radio audience impressions and 3,000 downloads sold May 17-23.
The entirety of Hit Me Hard and Soft’s 10-song tracklist reaches Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, with eight titles debuting in the top 10 and all 10 in the top 12. Only Zach Bryan, with nine of the top 10 on the Sept. 9, 2023, tally, has claimed more in the top 10 in a single frame.
The LP’s top-charting song after “Lunch” is “Chihiro,” which bows at No. 3 with 27.2 million streams and 1,000 sold.
“Lunch” concurrently debuts at No. 17 on Pop Airplay, No. 21 on Alternative Airplay and No. 24 on Adult Pop Airplay, as well as No. 26 on the all-format Radio Songs list.
The track also arrives at No. 1 on Alternative Streaming Songs, marking Eilish’s eighth leader since the ranking began in 2020. On the all-genre Streaming Songs chart, it starts at No. 5.
All Billboard charts dated June 1 will update on Billboard.com on Wednesday, May 29, a day later than usual due to the May 26 Memorial Day holiday in the U.S.
Ed Sheeran has basically been waiting his whole life for a moment like this. During the Offspring‘s set at this weekend’s BottleRock Festival in Napa Valley, Calif. on Sunday night Sheeran came out on stage to join the veteran Cali punks for blitz through “Million Miles Away” from their 2000 Conspiracy of One album. In […]