Christopher Sabec is the co-founder and CEO of the copyright monetization company Rightscorp Inc. He has over 20 years in the music industry as an entertainment lawyer and manager. Some of his more notable clients were the Dave Matthews Band, Hanson, and Jerry Garcia. You can visit his music website here
The first clue came during the end of "Beautiful Day" when Bono sang a few lines of "Hungry Heart." It lasted no more than six seconds, but it seemed to confirm rumors that had been flying for weeks that Bruce Springsteen was going to come out for the final night of U2's eight-show stand at Madison Square Garden. But nobody knew for sure Friday night until the end of "Where The Streets Have No Name" when an extra mic stand appeared and Bono began speaking about Springsteen's profound influence on the band.
Needless to say, the capacity crowd erupted when Springsteen walked out with an acoustic guitar. "Earlier, when I busted myself up here in the city, we had a gig in Times Square for Red and this man showed up and delivered," Bono said. "The chairman, the Boss. Mr. Bruce Springsteen." They let the audience sing the first few verses of "I Still Haven't Found What I’m Looking For," but Bono and Springsteen were soon trading lines on the tune just like they did at U2's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2005 and the HOF's 25th anniversary concert in 2009. Last year, Springsteen sang it in Times Square with the band when he subbed in for an injured Bono.
When the song concluded, they went into "Stand By Me," the same tune they did at at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium on the 1987 Joshua Tree tour (which doubled as the first time they played together). "The kid’s a star!" Bono said as Springsteen walked off. "The kid's a star! He can keep the guitar."
Bono was just the latest of many surprise guests on U2's tour. Previous shows have seen appearances by Lady Gaga, Jimmy Fallon and the Roots, Paul Simon, a Canadian U2 cover band, an Elvis impersonator and numerous random fans from the audience. Earlier this week, they flipped the script when the Edge and Adam Clayton came out during a club set by another U2 cover band in New York.
The cheers at Madison Square Garden on the final night began before U2 even took the stage when Bill and Hillary Clinton took their seats in the front row of the arena’s upper deck. Bill remained motionless throughout the night, but Hillary rocked her head back and forth during "Pride (In The Name of Love)" and, at an ever faster pace, during "Where the Streets Have No Name." When Springsteen appeared, the couple got on their feet and enthusiastically clapped along.
The other big moment of the night came during the E stage portion of the show, where the band performed 1982's "Trash, Trampoline and the Party Girl" for the first time in six years. The song was the B-side to "A Celebration" and never appeared on a studio album, but it was a regular part of their setlist in the 1980s and remains a longtime fan favorite. They wrapped up the night with "40," which they dedicated to their tour manager Dennis Sheehan, who suddenly passed away earlier in the tour.
Though the first U.S. leg of U2's Innocence and Experience Tour is now over, the band has booked 34 European shows in the fall beginning September 4th in Torino, Italy.
Lynn Anderson, one of the biggest success stories of Seventies country music, died Thursday of a heart attack in a hospital in her adopted hometown of Nashville. She was 67.
The 1971 CMA Female Vocalist of the Year, Anderson charted a dozen Number One country hits, including "You're My Man," "Top of the World," "How Can I Unlove You" and "Rose Garden." Also commonly referred to as "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden," the Joe South-penned song was Anderson's first tune to cross over to the pop charts. It was a multi-week Number One in the U.S., along with several European countries, and its namesake album held the title of the best-selling country LP by a solo female artist from 1971 until Shania Twain broke its record in 1997.
"She did so much for the females in country music," Reba McEntire says of her late friend, "always continuing to pave the road for those to follow."
The North Dakota-born, California-raised singer came from a musical family. Her parents, Casey and Liz Anderson, were songwriters who helped found the Nashville Songwriters Association and were artists in their own right. Anderson started singing as a young child and competing in singing contests as a teen. She was discovered during one of her trips to Nashville with her mother and was signed to Chart Records in 1966. The following year, she scored her first Top 40 with "Ride Ride Ride," which began a string of chart successes that continued throughout the Seventies. She became Tennessee's favorite daughter with her version of the Osborne Brothers' "Rocky Top," which, starting in the early Seventies, became the signature song played at the University of Tennessee's football games — and still is to this day.
With more than 30 million albums sold worldwide, Anderson charted 15 Top 20 LPs and more than 50 Top 40 singles. Her many accolades included a Grammy win for "Rose Garden" and Billboard's title of "Artist of the Decade" for 1970—1980. She remained one of the most accessible artists to fans until her death, attending every Fan Fair (now called CMA Music Fest) but one, due to illness, from 1972 through this year.
Anderson is survived by her father Casey, partner Mentor Williams, three children, Lisa Sutton, Melissa Hempel and Gray Stream, and four grandchildren.
Earlier this morning, Jason Aldean treated NBC's Today audience at New York City's Rockefeller Plaza to a four-song set, including his latest single "Tonight Looks Good on You." The song, which recently reached Number 1 on Billboard's Country Airplay Chart, is Aldean's third single from his 2014 platinum-selling album Old Boots, New Dirt.
Co-written by Music Row vets Rhett Akins, Ashley Gorley and Dallas Davidson, "Tonight Looks Good on You" marks the first time Aldean has recorded a song by "That's My Kind of Night" co-writer Davidson, who first played the song for Aldean before the singer went into the studio to cut his sixth album.
"It's one of the coolest songs that we've had on the last two albums," Aldean told Rolling Stone Country in April, going on to recall hearing it for the first time on the radio. "I was leaving my house in Nashville and going to the gas station. It came on as I was pulling out of the driveway. You can listen to it on a CD or phone, but when it's coming through 100,000 watts on the radio, it just has a different sound. I sent Dallas a screen shot of the radio and [texted], 'Looking good!'"
Earlier this week, Aldean also celebrated his 10-year anniversary as a recording artist. "We've still got a lot left to do, a lot left that I want to accomplish," he said on Today. "I feel like we're just scratching the surface."
The "Burnin' It Down" singer's current summer stadium tour with Kenny Chesney continues until the end of August. The pair will play MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on August 15th.
With the Foo Fighters winding their summer-long tour to a close, lead guitarist Chris Shiflett is shifting some of his focus back to his Walking the Floorpodcast. Now at its 28th episode, the series finds Shiflett talking shop with songwriters, sidemen and storytellers. It's a conversation between artists, essentially, with Shiflett — who joined the Foo Fighters in 1999, adding another bullet point to a resume that also includes a country-influenced solo project, Chris Shiflett and the Dead Peasants, as well as a 20-year run with the punk-rock cover band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes — asking questions that go beyond the standard Q&A fare.
In the newest installment of Walking the Floor, he sits down with Sturgill Simpson, the reluctant poster boy for country music's left-of-center contingent. Simpson, who conducts the interview while changing his guitar strings before a show, talks frankly (and, sometimes, fiercely) about his time in the Navy, his career shift during his late twenties and, during some of the interview's best moments, his real thoughts about all those Waylon Jennings comparisons.
Here are a few things we took away from the pair's 40-minute conversation, which is well worth a listen in its entirety.
1. Simpson was discovered on YouTube. . .sort of. When Shooter Jennings — who would later give Simpson his first big break by introducing his music to producer Dave Cobb — first stumbled across the Metamodern Sounds in Country Music singer, it was on the Internet, where he found a clip of Simpson performing live. Later, while attending a Nashville concert with Cobb, Jennings spotted Simpson in the audience and pointed him out. Cobb took things from there. "I'm thankful for the rest of my life," Simpson says. "I didn't even know [Shooter]. My manager got an email from Dave that night, at three in the morning, saying, 'I wanna make a record with Sturgill.'"
2. Long before he hit the highway with his country band, Simpson lived the outlaw lifestyle as part of the U.S. Navy. He signed up during high school, left town several days after graduation and spent a handful of years in various ports across the world. It was a stressful job, and Simpson — who struggled with his own drug problems as a teenager — says many seamen found illegal ways to cope. "There's a lot of drugs taking place on warships," he tells Shiflett. "You wouldn't believe how many guys are watching radars and tripping on acid."
3. The guy is a family man. With a newborn son at home and a wife who can rarely join the band on the road, Simpson — who's toured consistently since Metamodern's release, playing more than two dozen festivals and late-night TV programs along the way — has been longing for some serious downtime in Nashville. "I feel like all this is happening, [and] the only place I wanna be is at home," he admits.
4. He appreciates the fact that people compare him to Waylon Jennings. . . but Jennings isn't a very big influence on his sound. "Maybe it's an attitude thing more than a music thing," he says. "Waylon really is a guy I probably discovered later on and listened to the least. Willie Nelson, Marty Robbins, Merle Haggard and Keith Whitley — guys like that were huge influences. I love Waylon; I like the funky disco kind of feel, and I incorporate a little bit of that in my music. But when I'm in singing. . . Man, if I'm imitating anybody, I'm trying to sound like three or four other people."
5. Actually, he wouldn't mind if people stopped likening him to Waylon. "You know what I honestly believe?" he asks during the interview's final stretch. "I think it's psychosomatic. I think people really want somebody right now to sound like Waylon Jennings. They want somebody to walk out on stage with a big, giant flag that says, 'Fuck You.' Believe me, it is frustrating, because it makes me feel like I haven't done a very good job of really getting my [own] voice down. It's like, 'Am I not very original in my approach?' But. . .there's a hell of a lot worse things you can be told than, 'Hey man, you sound like Waylon Jennings.' I'll take it a compliment, even when I'm burnt the fuck out hearing it."
Since Mill accused Drake of employing a ghostwriter, the Canadian rapper has spent the past week straight ethering him with a duo of diss tracks that set the Internet on fire. Likely tired of being the butt of all jokes, Mill finally got off Twitter and into the booth, firing back with "Wanna Know" on Thursday night.
And despite prominently featuring the Undertaker's awesome entrance theme, the response to Mill's track hasn't been great. And that's putting it mildly. Drake posted an image of himself LOLing on Instagram, Whataburger chimed in with some sass and a number of athletes took to Twitter to make their feelings known – fitting, considering Drizzy worked Toronto great Joe Carter into the mix with "Back to Back."
Kevin Durant kept his response simple with a number of charged up emojis, while others, like Harrison Barnes and Isaiah Thomas, had a little more to say.
@YEEZUSNCLA no where close. Drake spoke facts too but I was expecting more from meek
— Harrison Barnes (@hbarnes) July 31, 2015
Dang that was disappointing smh
— Isaiah Thomas (@Isaiah_Thomas) July 31, 2015
Brandon Jennings, fresh off of butting heads with Mill's manager, went a step further by taking one of Meek's lines to heart – "Now y'all gonna have to give me a check to stop" – and offering $150 to save him from further embarrassment. For whatever reason, Jennings was quick to remove his all-too-gracious offer from the table.
But no one's take was quite as scorching as Le'Veon Bell's. Not only did the Steelers' back think Mill's track was "trash," he suggested that Nicki Minaj do his writing from now on.
Meek diss is TRASH!!! If Drake make another diss track, Meek won't ever be relevant in this "beef" again...
— Le'Veon Bell (@L_Bell26) July 31, 2015
Nicki Minaj should've just wrote Meeks diss! lol for real tho
— Le'Veon Bell (@L_Bell26) July 31, 2015
At this rate, going back-to-back may be the only way for Mill to redeem himself.
Gary Clark, Jr. will release his much-anticipated second major label LP The Story of Sonny Boy Slim this September, the Austin guitar virtuoso revealed. Fans who pre-order the album, due out September 11th, will receive a free download of Sonny Boy Slim's first two tracks, "The Healing" and "Grinder," which Clark also posted on his YouTube page.
"Sonny Boy Slim is me," Clark, who Rolling Stone once dubbed as "the Chosen One," says in the album trailer above. "My mom called me 'Sonny Boy,' and all the cats on the scene when I was coming up called me 'Slim.' The underlying tone of this album is faith and hope. 'Cause that's what we need." The teaser also shows footage documenting Clark's meteoric rise, from building a reputation on the Austin scene to performing main stage slots at music festivals following the release of 2012's Blak and Blu.
"My inspirations range from classical to hip-hop to EDM to whatever, I just love sound so much. Whatever makes noise, I listen to it, and I soak it up like a sponge. And it comes back," Clark says, adding that Sonny Boy Slim boasts the "bangin'" beats of hip-hop drumming.
The Story of Sonny Boy Slim was written, produced and arranged by Clark, who also plays the majority of instruments on the 13-track LP. Clark's long-time live soundman Bharath "Cheex" Ramanat and Jason Sciba also assisted on the album, while Clark's sisters Shawn and Savannah provide background vocals.
Clark unveiled the album's first two songs as a teaser for the LP. "Grinder" begins with dissonant guitar feedback before settling into a dirty, bluesy groove, while "The Healing" segways from a man singing a gospel song into the singer-guitarist's declaration that "this music is my healing" and "When this world upsets me, this music sets me free."
In addition to a summer festival tour – including a gig at this weekend's Lollapalooza – and a stint opening for Foo Fighters this autumn, Clark will embark on his own solo tour in February 2016. Fans who purchase tickets to any of Clark's headlining shows will also receive a download of The Story of Sonny Boy Slim.
August 2 – Montreal, QC @ Osheaga Music and Arts Festival
August 22 – Pownal, VT @ The Full Tilt Boogie Festival
August 23 – New York, NY @ Afropunk Festival
October 9 – Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits
October 31 – Boston, MA @ House of Blues
November 1 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore February 18 – St. Petersburg, FL @ Jannus Live
February 19 – Miami, FL @ The Fillmore
February 20 – Lake Buena Vista, FL @ House of Blues
February 21 – Ponte Vedra Beach, FL @ Ponte Vedra Concert Hall
February 23 – Birmingham, AL @ Iron City
February 24 – Chattanooga, TN @ Tivoli Theater
February 26 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
February 28 – St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
March 1 – Tulsa, OK @ Cain’s Ballroom
March 4 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live Ballroom
March 6 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
March 8 – El Paso, TX @ Tricky Falls
March 12 – Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl
March 31 – Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theater
April 1 – Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theater
April 2 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
April 3 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown
April 5 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theater
April 8 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
April 9 – Boise, ID @ Knitting Factory
April 10 – Seattle, WA @ Moore Theater
April 12 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
April 14 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
Following a pair of diss tracks aimed in Meek Mill's direction, the Philadelphia rapper finally fired back at Drake Thursday night with his hard-hitting "Wanna Know," where he continues to hammer Drake for allegedly relying on ghostwriters. On the Jhalil Beats and Swizz Beats production, which features a sample from WWE wrestler the Undertaker's intro gong, Meek Mill dishes more ghostwriting jokes, a reference track for a rhyme Drake supposedly used as his own and even unearths a five-year-old rumor about Drake getting urinated on at a movie premiere.
The song was posted on SoundCloud accompanied by a photo of Drake Photoshopped onto a Milli Vanilli member's body; that's more ghost-singing than ghostwriting but the intention is clear: Meek Mill is saying Drake is getting famous off someone else's talent, and "Wanna Know" reiterates that point.
"You really sweet, I call you buttercup / You fucking dork, you changed the style because you studied us / Coming with the same flow / Switching up your lingo / We just want a refund, this ain't what we paid for," Meek Mill says on the track. "I just wanna know, I just wanna know / Was it Quentin Miller? Was it Hush or was it Detail where you really got your flow," listing three of Drake's potential ghostwriters.
Throughout the beef, Meek Mill has maintained that Drake has been employing Miller as a ghostwriter, including for Drake's guest verse on Mill's "R.I.C.O." While Miller has denied that he's writing for Drake, Mill's "Wanna Know" sneaks in a snippet of a "Know Yourself" reference track featuring Miller delivering the song's notable chorus "Running through the Six with my woes." "I just wanna know, if you ain’t write that running through the Six shit / Tell us who the fuck was Quentin running through the Six with," Mill asks.
While most of Meek Mill's accusations are pretty straightforward, one lyric especially caught the ear of listeners: "You let Tip homie piss on you in a movie theater, nigga, we ain't forget." After baffling the Internet for a few hours, Ozone Magazine chief Julia Beverly revealed the rumored incident that inspired the line.
"Drake got peed on by TI's drunk friend Cap at the Takers premiere in Hollywood. (or so I heard from reliable sources)," Beverly tweeted. "Story I heard: Cap was fresh out of the Feds & drunk during the premiere, peed in the aisle & on Drake. He got clowned for not reacting." However, a search of the major photo agencies could not corroborate that Drake even attended the Takers premiere in 2010. As is some corporations' wont, Cineplex Movies got in on the track, asking Drake on Twitter, "Not in our theatre tho, right?"
Mill's "Wanna Know" created a firestorm on the Internet Thursday night, but it appears the diss track— with its partially indecipherable flow and lack of memorable punch lines — largely backfired on the rapper, as everyone from politicians to athletes to corporations to upset wrestling fans began firing back at the rapper. "Meek Mill take it from us - if you gonna serve beef serve it high quality," Whataburger's Twitter posted, knocking the track.
On Wikipedia, an intrepid editor briefly changed Meek Mill's page to note that the rapper died on July 30th after hanging himself in a Toronto hotel room following the negative reaction to "Wanna Know." Mill's middle name was also changed to "BodiedByASingingNigga," a line from Drake's "Back to Back" diss track.
Detroit Pistons guard Brandon Jennings, who pissed off Meek Mill's manager earlier this week after a series of tweets, responded to Meek's line, "Y'all gonna have to give me a check to stop," by doing just that. The athlete took a photo of himself writing a check for $150 with the caption, "Cool. Deposit $150 please now stop."
Perhaps the harshest criticism, though, came from Toronto councilor Norm Kelly, who defended the city's favorite rapper by poking fun at the low quality of Mill's response. "This is the reason people hire ghostwriters. #WeDidntWannaKnow," Kelly tweeted of the diss track. Even Ja Rule – mentioned in the "Wanna Know" outro for his own beef, "This that Ja Rule shit and 50 Cent" – chimed in on Instagram, "Which one supposed to be Ja Rule??? #Over30millionrecordsSOLD #IwriteallmyShit."
However, Drake had the coolest response to yet another attack in his direction by simply posting a photo of him laughing at something on his cellphone, insinuating what he thinks about "Wanna Know." Perhaps intentionally, the photo of Drake comes from the 2014 NBA All-Star Game in New Orleans when the rapper was sitting just two seats away from Meek Mill and one seat away from Diddy, who was also sampled in "Wanna Know."
A photo posted by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on Jul 30, 2015 at 8:02pm PDT
Tim Robbins will launch a new music series at his longtime studio, the Actors' Gang, in Los Angeles, starting August 1st with a performance by traditional New Orleans jazz outfit, Tuba Skinny.
The group will make their L.A. debut at the Actors' Gang's longtime home, the Ivy Substation. The show begins at 8 p.m. PT and tickets are currently available for $25. Box office information is available on the Actors' Gang website.
The group's most recent record, Owl Call Blues, was released in 2014, and the band has performed all over the world. Fittingly, however, Robbins first encountered Tuba Skinny while they were busking in the French Quarter in New Orleans, where he was on location directing Treme.
"He introduced himself and we ended up spending time together while he was in town," Tuba Skinny's Erika Lewis said in a statement. "It was fun! This is our first ever tour down the west coast and we wanted to end in L.A. because we end up meeting a lot of folks in New Orleans who are visiting from the L.A. area and love live music."
Robbins will continue to curate the Actors' Gang's new music series, which is set to take place the first Saturday of the month. The September installment of the series will feature Los Angeles roots rockers, The Americans.
David Gilmour has released an ambitious animated music video for the title track to his new album, Rattle That Lock, out September 18th. It was created by Alasdair & Jock from Trunk Animation, under the creative directorship of Aubrey Powell of Hipgnosis, the design group that created iconic images for Dark Side of the Moon, Meddle, Atom Heart Mother, Obscured by Clouds, Wish You Were Here, Animals and other classic Pink Floyd records.
"I love animation when it does something that can’t be achieved any other way,” said Gilmour in a statement. "The film Alasdair & Jock have made for 'Rattle That Lock' highlights a darkness in the song that couldn’t have been shown any other way."
The song's lyrics were written by Gilmour's wife, Polly Samson, who drew inspiration from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. "I think the animators have done a fine job: paying homage to Gustave Dore," Samson said in a statement, "bringing his illustrations for Paradise Lost alive, making a powerful visual for the song."
Rattle that Lock is David Gilmour’s first solo album since 2006’s On an Island. He’s supporting the release with a solo tour that kicks off in Brighton, England, on September 5th and comes to America for a short run of dates next March and April. The run will be the first time Gilmour has toured since the 2008 death of Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright, who was a key collaborator on Gilmour's solo work.
Last year, Gilmour reunited with Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason to create the largely instrumental Floyd album The Endless River, which featured some of Wright's final recordings. Fans hoped it would lead to more Floyd activity — and possibly even their first tour since 1994 — but Gilmour made it very clear that this wasn’t going to happen. "I just try to imagine what it would be like, and the thought of it makes me break out in a cold sweat," he toldRolling Stone. "I’m an older person. I'm really enjoying my life. I'm really enjoying the music that I am making, and there's no room for Pink Floyd."
Nirvana fans will be able to hear a previously unreleased song that Kurt Cobain wrote when the documentary, Montage of Heck, gets a widespread theatrical re-release on August 7th. Filmmaker Brett Morgen mixed in the tune – without re-editing what people saw in the film's HBO broadcast – though he would not say where in the movie it would play in an interview with Billboard. "I don't want to get people out there bootlegging it on their cell phones," he said.
The untitled song comes off a demo cassette, one of over a hundred that Morgen sifted through while making the film, and finds Cobain singing in falsetto. Billboard reports that the feel of the song will be familiar to Nirvana fans with "dense slow-shred-slow guitar" and difficult-to-hear lyrics that may or may not be "wonder how I breathe" and "I'm a bad man." The trade magazine likens Cobain's singing to Brian Wilson.
Morgen estimated that the song was recorded in 1991. The cassette he found the tune on also contained a rough version of "Old Age," a song Cobain wrote during the sessions for Nevermind and later released as B side on Hole's "Beautiful Son" and "Violet" singles. A Nirvana recording of that tune would eventually appear on the box set With the Lights Out and deluxe edition of Nevermind.
The filmmaker highlighted that Cobain had a cinematic knack for mixing his recordings that lent themselves well to a movie theater release. "Kurt played around with sound collage, particularly with [stereo] effects," he said. "And it's a sensory experience that really envelops you."
In May, Morgen said he had big plans for a Montage of Heck soundtrack album, which would feature a "treasure chest" of previously unreleased Cobain originals. "It's great material that should be out there in the world," he told KCRW. "I finished the film and there was all this other music. No one asked me to do anything, I just started cutting the thing together and telling the estate that they should put this out." He has yet to announce a release date for the record.
Cobain's legacy, and specifically the way Morgen depicted it in Montage of Heck, has drawn scrutiny on two separate occasions from Cobain's friend and Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne.
This weekend, Lollapalooza will once again return to Chicago, as it has for the last 10 years. But if you can't make it to the Windy City to catch the festival's eclectic mix of music and mayhem in person, you can still watch real-time sets from many of the event's most anticipated artists, including headliners Paul McCartney and Metallica – from the comfort of your own home. All you have to do in tune in to Red Bull TV's Lollapalooza livestream, a three-day multi-channel broadcast that features not only artist performances but exclusive interviews, live chats, behind-the-scenes footage and highlight reels. And you can do so right here.
For a full rundown of the broadcast, visit http://ift.tt/1Ua6MOJ. You definitely won't want to miss these standout performers: Tove Lo (Friday at 3:00 p.m.), Dillon Francis (Friday at 7:00 p.m.), Alabama Shakes (Friday at 7:30 p.m.), the Weeknd (Friday at 8:30 p.m.), Kaskade (Friday at 8:45 p.m.), Django Django (Saturday at 3:00 p.m.), Charli XCX (Saturday at 3:45 p.m.), Metallica (Saturday at 8:15 p.m.), Paul McCartney (Sunday at 7:30 p.m.), and Bassnectar (Sunday at 9:30 p.m.).
The live shows will be streaming on three channels starting at 2 p.m. each day (July 31st through August 2nd). Sal Masekela and Ted Stryker will host the shows, which will feature artist interviews, behind-the-scenes access, unique POV angles and festival highlights. Channels Two and Three will showcase live performances from the main festival stages offering an "all live, all the time" experience.
Click here for all of Rolling Stone's Lollapalooza coverage.
Vaunted riot grrrl band Bikini Kill are preparing the reissue of their 1991 demo tape Revolution Girl Style Now. On September 22nd, the band's inaugural collection of work will be available on vinyl, CD and digital formats for the first time.
A trailer for the reissue features footage filmed by Brian Ruff from Bikini Kill's first Olympia, WA show. Band members Kathleen Hanna and Kathi Wilcox edited the clip, which features a selection of Bikini Kill-related graffiti, including one wall that reads "Women, Revolt!" Pre-orders for the album are available on the band's website.
The feminist punk band recorded the demo the day after one of their first shows and self-released the track in May 1991. Fugazi's Guy Picciotto mixed the reissue while John Golden mastered it.
Along with the original track list, which included songs like "Suck My Left One" and "Double Dare Ya," the band has included three previously unreleased tracks: "Ocean Song," "Just Once" and "Playground." On the latter, listeners can hear the tape run out as the band records the track.
Bikini Kill began to reissue their back catalog in 2012. The band launched their own label as well a Bandcamp page where their releases could be streamed and purchased. The documentation of their history began as a celebration of the band's 25th anniversary and launched with their self-titled 1992 EP.
In April, the city of Boston honored lead singer Kathleen Hanna with the declaration of "Riot Grrrl Day." She was presented with the proclamation at discussion and performance she hosted in the city. "A $10 Bikini Kill record isn't worth $7.70," wrote Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh. "A woman today shouldn't make 23% less than a man."
Paul McCartney's early Eighties efforts, Tug of War and Pipes of Peace, will be reissued on October 2nd, with both arriving as multi-disc sets boasting numerous previously unreleased demos and outtakes.
Both Tug of War and Pipes of Peace feature a number of classic McCartney cuts, including his duets with Stevie Wonder ("Ebony and Ivory") and Michael Jackson ("Say Say Say"), as well as solo hits like "Take It Away" and the John Lennon tribute, "Here Today."
Tug of War, released in 1982, was McCartney's third solo LP and first after Wings broke up. The two-CD reissue of the critically acclaimed, Number One record will feature a new remix of the entire album, as well as eight previously unreleased tracks, including a solo rendition of "Ebony and Ivory" and outtakes, "Stop, You Don’t Know Where She Came From" and "Something That Didn't Happen."
A three-CD, one-DVD edition will also include original music videos for the album's singles, as well as an 18-minute documentary, Fly TIA—Behind The Scenes on Take It Away. A 112-page essay book and 64-page scrapbook will also arrive with the deluxe edition, while the super deluxe set — limited to 1,000 copies — will come in an acrylic slipcase with five prints of images from Linda McCartney's archive.
Meanwhile, the two-CD set of Pipes of Peace — which originally arrived in 1983 — will come with a nine-track bonus disc featuring a new remix of "Say Say Say" by Spike Stent, as well as outtakes "It's Not On," "Simple As That," and the previously unreleased "Christian Bop."
The two-CD, one-DVD version will boast original promotional clips for the LP's three singles, as well as rare, unreleased footage from McCartney's film archive. Another essay book will also be included, as will a 64-page book detailing the "Pipes of Peace" video shoot.
Along with the various multi-disc versions, both albums will be reissued as two-LP sets on 180-gram vinyl. The reissues of Tug of War and Pipes of Peace are available to pre-order now. They mark the latest installments in the ongoing Paul McCartney Archive Collection, which began with the re-release of McCartney and Wings' 1973 LP, Band on the Run.
McCartney has been on the road for much of the past two years in support of his 2013 LP, New. Having wrapped up another European leg of his Out There world tour earlier this month, he's scheduled to headline Lollapalooza in Chicago this weekend.
Tug of War Bonus Audio
1. Stop, You Don't Know Where She Came From [Demo] (previously unreleased)
2. Wanderlust [Demo] (previously unreleased)
3. Ballroom Dancing [Demo] (previously unreleased)
4. Take It Away [Demo] (previously unreleased)
5. The Pound Is Sinking [Demo] (2015 Remaster)
6. Something That Didn't Happen [Demo] (previously unreleased)
7. Ebony and Ivory [Demo] (previously unreleased)
8. Dress Me Up As a Robber/Robber Riff [Demo] (previously unreleased)
9. Ebony and Ivory [Solo Version] (B-side of Ebony and Ivory 12” single)
10. Rainclouds (B-side of Ebony and Ivory 7” single)
11. I'll Give You a Ring (B-side of Take It Away single)
Tug of War Bonus Film
1. Tug of War Music Video (Version 1)
2. Tug of War Music Video (Version 2)
3. Take It Away Music Video
4. Ebony and Ivory Music Video
5. Fly TIA - Behind The Scenes on Take It Away
Pipes of Peace Bonus Audio
1. Average Person [Demo] (previously unreleased)
2. Keep Under Cover [Demo] (previously unreleased)
3. Sweetest Little Show [Demo] (previously unreleased)
4. It’s Not On [Demo] (previously unreleased)
5. Simple As That [Demo] (previously unreleased)
6. Say Say Say [2015 Remix] (previously unreleased)
7. Ode to a Koala Bear (B-side of "Say Say Say" single)
8. Twice in a Lifetime (bonus track from 1993)
9. Christian Bop (previously unreleased)
Pipes of Peace DVD
1. Pipes of Peace Music Video
2. So Bad Music Video
3. Say Say Say Music Video
4. Hey Hey in Montserrat (previously unreleased home movie footage)
5. Behind the Scenes at AIR Studios (previously unreleased 6 min edit)
6. The Man (previously unreleased home movie footage)
Growing up is never easy, even when you score your first Number One single at 19 years old. On Maddie & Tae's debut album, Start Here, the country newcomers look back over a half-decade's worth of boyfriends, dreams, schoolyard bullies and fishing dates gone awry. The 11-track album, whose songs were all co-written by Madison Marlow and Tae Dye during their teenage years, comes to a close with "Downside of Growing Up," a track that tempers the sass and swagger of "Girl in a Country Song" with something bittersweet and beautiful.
With Start Here making its long-awaited arrival next month, "Downside of Growing Up" has begun finding its way into the duo's nightly setlists. Earlier this week, Maddie & Tae played the song during an acoustic show in Fort Myers, Florida, sharing the bill with Drake White, Locash and the Cadillac Three.
"Tae and I both moved up to Nashville at 17," Marlow told the crowd. "It was about 14 hours away from home, so we had to grow up really fast. I'm sure all of us, on our journey, went through something like that at some point." Then, with their stripped-down backing band strumming along on acoustic guitars, the two singers harmonized their way through a mid-tempo ballad about loving, leaving and learning hard lessons. (Watch the performance above.)
After wrapping up their summer tour with Dierks Bentley, Maddie & Tae will promote Start Here with their own headlining run, beginning with an appearance at the Highline Ballroom in New York City.
Prince lets loose in his new tune "Stare," a funky string of party-friendly, double-entendre come-ons and callbacks to his past. He sings about going onstage in his underwear and calls back his 1986 smash "Kiss" and its scratchy guitar line, interspersed with silly turns of phrase like "Second things first," all supporting his thesis, "we know you've got thirst." "Ain't nobody stoppin' 'cause we've got this party poppin'," he declares early, as he lets an elastic bass line connect the lyrics to bright horn fanfares and huffy, breathy vocals and a fake-out fadeout.
In typical Prince fashion, he surprise-released the song via Spotify. Earlier in the month, he had announced he was removing all of his music from the streaming service. "Prince's publisher has asked all streaming services to remove his catalog," a statement on the service read, according to Complex. "We have cooperated with the request, and hope to bring his music back as soon as possible." At the time, he left his catalog on Jay Z's high-def streaming service Tidal.
Spotify attributed the track to Prince, and not Prince with occasional backing group 3rdEyeGirl, which suggests he played most of the core instruments himself.
Although the singer put out two albums last year, he has been releasing non-album singles in 2015. In addition to "Stare," he recently put out the psychedelic 3rdEyeGirl collaboration "Hardrocklover" and his plea for peace "Baltimore."
He premiered the latter tune at a special "Rally 4 Peace" in Baltimore, held in the wake of riots protesting the death of Freddie Gray, a man who died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. "The system is broken," Prince wrote in a statement that appears at the end of the video for the tune. "It's going to take the young people to fix it this time. We need new ideas, new life...."
Two new U2 films, a behind-the-scenes documentary and a live concert, will air on HBO this fall. The doc, premiering November 7th, will focus on how the group's current Innocence + Experience tour came together, while the concert film will be shot at the band's Paris gig on November 14th and air the same day. Titles for both films have ye to be revealed.
The documentary will feature interviews with all four members of the group, as well as the people who work backstage and helped conceive the band's current tour. The trek has found the band using an surround-sound system, expansive lighting rig and other innovative design ideas. Crew members interviewed include Willie Williams, who has provided tour concepts for the group for more than 30 years, designer Es Devlin, production director Jack Berry, audio director Joe O'Herlihy, executive director Gavin Friday and set designer Ric Lipson, among others.
The doc will also chronicle the challenges and travails that beset the tour early on, such as Bono's debilitating bicycle accident, and how they overcame them. Davis Guggenheim, who directed An Inconvenient Truth, led the production and will direct the film.
The concert film will be shot at the band's stop at Paris' Bercy Arena. Fans can expect the group to play a career-spanning set list, with songs dating back to its 1980 debut Boy, as it has since the beginning of the Innocence + Experience run. It will also show how the group employs three stages on the tour and offer a close-up look at the unique design employed on the trek in action. Longtime collaborator Hamish Hamilton, who has worked on several U2 concert films in the past, will helm the film.
Since it launched in Vancouver in May, the tour has found U2 revisiting old songs they hadn't played in years, welcoming unexepcted guests and other surprises. Recently, the group pulled out "Two Hearts Beat as One" and "October," both of which it had not played live in over 25 years. The band has also brought Lady Gaga and Jimmy Fallon and the Roots onstage and offered a tribute band and young audience member to play with their idols. The North American leg of the tour ends this week before the group resumes the trek in Europe in September.
Morrissey claims he was sexually assaulted by a security officer who grabbed his genitals after a routine security check at the San Francisco Airport on July 27th, according to a post from the musician on True to You.
The incident reportedly took place around 2:30 p.m. after Morrissey had finished regular security procedure, without problem, and was gathering his belongings. "I was approached by an 'airport security officer' who stopped me, crouched before me and groped my penis and testicles," Morrissey wrote. "He quickly moved away as an older 'airport security officer' approached."
While Morrissey said he was initially reluctant to lodge a complaint — "as with any complaint against a figure in 'authority,' the complaints are simply collected in order to protect the guilty officer," he wrote — he was convinced to do so by two accompanying members of British Airways Special Services.
But first, Morrissey confronted the officer, identified only as the General Manager on Duty, who responded to his accusations with, "That's just your opinion."
"Apart from 'that's just your opinion,' he would not comment, even though, since the penis and testicles were mine and no one else's, then my opinion must surely have some meaning," Morrissey wrote. "But, of course, what the airport security officer was saying was: your opinion will never count in the eyes of the law."
A spokesperson for San Francisco International Airport did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Though the incident, as Morrissey noted, was probably captured by a CCTV camera, and despite corroborating accounts from the two Special Service members who witnessed the incident, Morrissey ended his post on a skeptical note.
"In the interests of imperishable bureaucracy my submitted complaint against this 'officer' will obviously be either unread or ignored because, as we all know, on matters of officialism it is not possible to be pleasantly surprised by anything at all," he wrote. "However, what is clear is that, should you find yourself traveling through San Francisco International Airport, you should expect sexual abuse from the so-called 'security officers' who, we are unconvincingly warned, are acting only for our security."
Feels Like, the debut album from the Nashville four-piece Bully, opens with a blast of painful catharsis. "I remember getting too fucked up," singer-guitarist Alicia Bognanno, 25, yells at the top of her lungs over churning chords. "I remember showing up at your house/And I remember hurting you so bad/And I remember the way your sheets smelled." For Bognanno, who also wrote, produced and engineered the album, capturing the song's raw intensity on record was no challenge. "'I Remember' is a minute and 25 seconds of screaming," she says. "I used ambient mics on the drums and the vocals to make it feel a little bit like I felt inside."
Most of Feels Likewas recorded live in the studio in just a few takes, and Bognanno says she lets instinct take over when it's time to sing. "Part of it being raw and immediate is that I don't really have to prepare much," she says. "Usually I'm singing about real stuff that happened, so it's not hard for me to pull that energy. The minute the song starts, it just kind of finds itself. And after I get done with a song, there's a sigh of relief."
Growing up in Rosemount, Minnesota, a half hour outside Minneapolis, Bognanno took her first audio-engineering class around age 17. "I don't come from a musical family, and I didn't really play any instruments," she says. "That was the first time that I thought, 'Hey, maybe I can actually do something with music.'" After high school, she enrolled at a university in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree in the same field. While she started off learning piano for a music-theory course, she found she was much more comfortable playing a friend's borrowed guitar. "I felt like I couldn't express myself correctly through piano," she says. "There were so many more options on guitar."
Bognanno has mixed feelings about her undergrad experience; on "Trying," the catchiest song on Feels Like, she sings, "There's no flawless education, just a stupid degree." "A lot of people don't finish in an audio-engineering program, and the people that don't finish are really bitter," she says. "All you hear is, 'Oh, there's no money in it.' And I definitely felt isolated through a lot of the program, because there was maybe another girl or two in my classes, if I was lucky. In the end, I'm just glad I found something that I like to do."
The 120 Minutes–worthy sound that she went on to create with Bully has its roots in her college internship at Electrical Audio, the Chicago studio founded by Nirvana and Pixies producer Steve Albini. Working there, she got to meet some of her alt-rock heroes — "Kim Deal came through one day, which was really cool, because I'm obviously a Breeders fan," she says — but Bognanno was most excited about using the studio's analog equipment to develop her own recording technique during off-hours. "My head doesn't work the same that Pro Tools does," she says. "Once I started using a tape machine, it really clicked."
While at Electrical Audio, she managed to make a very good impression on her famously cantankerous boss: "Alicia is maybe the top student intern we've ever had," Albini told NME this year. "She was a fucking joy to have in the studio. If everybody in the studio worked as hard as Alicia then everybody's records would be Number One hits."
Late last year, Bognanno returned to Electrical Audio to record Feels Like with her three bandmates. (Bully's drummer, amusingly, shares his name with another famous rhythm-section member. "Just today on Twitter, I woke up to someone saying, 'Is your drummer really named Stewart Copeland? And he's not the drummer from the Police?'" she says with a laugh. "It happens all the time.") The album came out on Startime, an imprint of Columbia Records — and while signing with a major might not bring the sales boost it did in the Nineties, Bognanno says that was never the point. "That's not why we made the record," she claims. Instead, she says, they went with Startime because label head Isaac Green promised the creative freedom she craves: "He was 100 percent supportive of me engineering the record and letting me do what I wanted with it. Finding that was a really big deal for us."
Bully will play Lollapalooza on August 2nd, followed by a full tour of the States this fall, during which Bognanno will most likely be screaming out "I Remember" every single night. "We're never trying to overthink things," she says. "I do not ever want that. Everybody should just play how they feel all the time, and not think about what they look like." In between, she hopes to spend most of August working on new material. "I want to get a bunch of stuff written for the second record," she says, "and make plans to make a better record than the first one."
The beef between Meek Mill and Drake might be the biggest (or second biggest) story in hip-hop now, but as Hannibal Buress proved on Wednesday night's Why, a pair of diss tracks, Twitter jabs and ghostwriting accusations haven't pushed the feud into the general consciousness. To get the true magnitude of the rap beef's reverberations, Buress traveled to the one Los Angeles neighborhood "that you go to talk about hip-hop": Beverly Hills.
During the man-on-the-street segment, Buress asked numerous Beverly Hills denizens, "Who is Meek Mill?" Only one person could identify the rapper, however, mainly because of who Meek Mill is dating. "I think he's sleeping with Nicki Minaj," the responder said, adding that he didn't know any Meek Mill songs.
Drake didn't fare any better as Beverly Hills dwellers were just as clueless about the Toronto rapper, although one woman wondered whether Drake was from Nickelodeon's Drake & Josh fame. As for the ghostwriting allegations, "Everybody steals everything. This is Beverly Hills," one resident said.
Why? also featured a performance by Brooklyn rapper Jean Grae, who teamed with the series' in-house DJ Flying Lotus and producer Terrace Martin to deliver a live rendition of her track "Before the Summer Broke."
"Hannibal asked me to do 'Before The Summer Broke' on Why? I sighed. REALLY hard song for me to perform, so I don't usually. But I did. Tonite," Grae tweeted before the episode aired. "It's hard song to perform. I've only broken on 2 songs. That one and doing 'U&Me' live. Sooo, you know. Watch Why? and see me being weird."
Dr. Dre will finally end fans' 16-year wait for a new album when the rapper releases his Straight Outta Compton soundtrack, which will consist of new music entirely produced by The Chronic mastermind, a source tells Rolling Stone. Dre is expected to confirm the album, the companion piece to the N.W.A biopic, on his Beats 1 radio show The Pharmacy this Saturday.
Ice Cube appeared on Philadelphia's Power 99 Wednesday morning and let slip the news about Dre's Straight Outta Compton soundtrack. Despite Cube giving an August 1st release date for the album, multiple sources have told Rolling Stone that the album will not be released on Saturday.
"It's mega. It's Dr. Dre, it's what everybody’s been waiting for," Ice Cube told the Rise & Grind Morning Show. "It's definitely a dope record, and he's dropping it all on the same day."
It's unclear whether any of the music destined for Dre's Straight Outta Compton soundtrack was originally slotted for Detox, Dre's long-in-the-works-and-indefinitely-postponed follow-up to 1999's 2001. For the new album, Dre has enlisted protégés like Kendrick Lamar and Eminem and what's being labeled as an N.W.A reunion, although the exact members involved from that iconic group remains unknown.
Dre reportedly began working on Detox in 2001, and by 2008, Snoop Dogg confirmed that Detox was "finished," whetting fans' appetites for new music from the G-Funk icon.
Dre later hinted at Detox during a Dr. Pepper ad campaign in 2009, the same year numerous unmixed tracks reportedly ripped from the LP – tracks from sessions with T.I., 50 Cent and R. Kelly – were leaked. The following year, Dre released "Kush." a track featuring Dre alongside Snoop Dogg and Akon. He followed that up with the Grammy-nominated "I Need a Doctor" co-starring Eminem and Skyler Gray in 2011; the trio performed the song at the 2011 Grammy Awards, which marked a rare live appearance by Dre. "Chillin'," another rumored Detox track, leaked as well in 2011. 50 Cent then said in 2012 that Detox could arrive as an EP.
Finally, in 2014, Detox collaborators like Floetry's Marsha Ambrosius and Aftermath producer Dawaun Parker both said that Dre was indeed working on a new album, and that Dre had amassed a musical vault with hundreds of beats. However, both revealed that Detox itself was dead since Dre wanted to distance himself from the project following the 2009 song leaks. "To me, the music is there," Parker told Shots Fired in September 2014 of Dre's new album. "I feel like one day, he's gonna wake up and say 'Here. Today's the day. I'll put it out.'"
During a March 2015 radio interview, Dre first revealed that he was working on a soundtrack for Straight Outta Compton. "I'm working on something right now. I don't want to put it out there just yet and say that I'm definitely gonna put it out. But I'm really feeling what I'm working on right now," Dre said. "This would be a record that's inspired by the movie."
Yoko Ono will follow up her all-star 2007 covers and remixes LP Yes, I'm a Witch this January with a sequel titled Yes, I'm a Witch Too. This time around, the avant-rocker will collaborate with Death Cab for Cutie, Tune-Yards, Sparks, Miike Snow, Cibo Matto and her son Sean Lennon among many more artists who contributed either remixes or covers of tracks culled from Ono's catalog. Yes, I'm a Witch Too arrives January 22nd, 2016 via Manimal.
Ono and Rob Stevens served as executive producers on the project. Some of the reinterpreted tracks include Peter, Bjorn and John's take on "Mrs. Lennon" off 1971's Fly and Danny Tenaglia's rendition of "Walking on Thin Ice." The collection will also feature Tune-Yards' previously released rendition of "Warrior Woman," a track off Ono's Onobox.
Yes, I'm a Witch Too will be available as a double vinyl set a deluxe CD and digitally.
Yes, I'm a Witch Too tracklist
1. Yoko Ono with Death Cab for Cutie - "Forgive Me My Love"
2. Yoko Ono with Peter, Bjorn and John - "Mrs. Lennon"
3. Yoko Ono with Jack Douglas - "Move on Fast"
4. Yoko Ono with Sparks - "Give Me Something"
5. Yoko Ono with Penguin Prison - "She Gets Down on Her Knees"
6. Yoko Ono with Portugal the Man - "Soul Got Out of the Box"
7. Yoko Ono with Sean Lennon - "Dogtown"
8. Yoko Ono with Tune-Yards - "Warrior Woman"
9. Yoko Ono with Miike Snow - "Catman"
10. Yoko Ono with Cibo Matto - "Yes, I'm Your Angel"
11. Yoko Ono with Dave Audé - "Wouldnit"
12. Yoko Ono with John Palumbo - "I Have a Woman Inside My Soul"
13. Yoko Ono with Ebony Bones - "No Bed for Beatle John"
14. Yoko Ono with Automatique - "Coffin Car"
15. Yoko Ono with Danny Tenaglia - "Walking on Thin Ice"
16. Yoko Ono with Blow Up - "Approximately Infinite Universe"
Country icons Alabama have announced their first album of original material in 14 years, Southern Drawl. Set for a September 18th release, the record finds the band's core three members — singer Randy Owen, guitarist Jeff Cook and bassist Teddy Gentry — coming out of semi-retirement and chasing down a recharged, revised sound.
Known for their dozens of hits at country radio, including "Mountain Music," "Song of the South" and "Dixieland Delight" the band is credited with helping usher in a new era of mainstream country music that began in the Eighties and led to the blending of country, rock and pop — a blend that still forms the bedrock of contemporary country today. Even so, musical tastes have changed since the three cousins stepped away from touring in 2004, and Alabama's members plan to adapt their sound to appeal to a new generation of listeners, many of whom may not be familiar with Alabama at all.
"Country music, when we took our 'vacation,' is not the same country it is today," says Cook. "For people who knew the original Alabama, [Southern Drawl] is going to be a little different to their ears."
Maybe so, but the project's lead single — a pulsating, romantic ballad called "Wasn’t Through Loving You" — could fit on any classic Alabama album. Other new songs include the good-timing "Hillbilly Wins the Lotto Money," the blue-collar anthem "American Farmer, the heart-warming "I Wanna Be There" and "Come Find Me," which features guest vocals from bluegrass songbird Alison Krauss.
"I gave more of my heart and soul to this one than anything I’ve been a part of in my life," says Owen. "I approached this album as if it could be my best, my first or my last. We were so glad to be back in the studio, we didn’t take a moment of it for granted."
"We loved being in the studio again," Gentry adds. "You have to know when you walk away that you did the best you could. We look forward to sharing the new music with our fans. . . when the people can feel it, you know you've done your job."
The band plans to continue touring lightly through the fall, with concert dates scheduled at fairs and casinos across the country. They'll also take part in this year's Charlie Daniels Volunteer Jam on August 12th in Nashville, play a two-night stand at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas in December and perform for three nights at Nashville's Schermerhorn Symphony Center next May.
Drake has fired another salvo in his feud with Meek Mill after that rapper called Drake's "Charged Up" diss track "baby lotion soft." Three days later, Drake has responded again with "Back to Back Freestyle," and there's nothing soft or vague about this diss track as the Toronto rapper lays into Meek Mill.
The cruelest barbs in "Back to Back Freestyle" come when Drake attempts to emasculate Meek Mill for serving as opening act for his girlfriend Nicki Minaj's Pinkprint Tour. "You love her then you gotta get a world tour / Is that a world tour or your girl's tour?/ I know that you gotta be a thug for her / This ain’t what she meant when she told you to open up more," Drake says. (Incidentally, Meek Mill showed up 90 minutes late and was promptly booed when the Pinkprint Tour hit Drake's native Toronto Tuesday night.)
Drake then takes aim at Meek Mill's decision to beef through social media. "Trigger fingers turn to Twitter fingers," Drake raps. "You're getting bodied by a singing nigga." Drake then warns all his "boss bitches" – but likely Minaj especially – "make sure you hit him with a pre-nup."
The feud between Drake and Meek Mill stems from Mill's accusations that Drake employed a ghostwriter for his guest verse on "R.I.C.O.," a track off Meek Mill's new album Dreams Worth More Than Money. An Atlanta rapper named Quentin Miller was then identified as Drake's ghostwriter, though Miller and Drake's producer Noah "40" Shebib denied the ghostwriting allegations.
"When I look back, I might be mad that I gave this attention / But it's weighing heavy on my conscience / And fuck, you left me with no options," Drake says on the new track. "I'm not sure what it was that made y'all mad / But I guess this is what I gotta do to make y'all rap."
Meek Mill previously shared his own Drake "diss track" titled "Beautiful Nightmare" which just featured 15 seconds of moaning.
It took two weeks but Neil Young finally expunged the vast majority of his catalog from streaming services. On July 15th, the rocker issued a pair of Facebook posts deriding the audio quality of streaming services and alerting fans that he'd pull all of his albums from Apple Music, Spotify and the like. "It's about sound quality. I don't need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution," Young wrote. At some point over the weekend, Young made good on his promise as his albums began vanishing from streaming services, Variety reports.
As of this writing, only Young's five Geffen LP from the Eighties – 1982's Trans, 1983's Everybody's Rockin', 1985's Old Ways, 1986's Landing on Water and 1987's Life, as well as the Geffen era rarities compilation Lucky Thirteen – are all still available on multiple streaming services. Young's Dead Man soundtrack, released via Vapor Records, also remains on services, but everything else, including his latest LP The Monsanto Years, has been stripped from streaming libraries.
While Young may be anti-streaming, Geffen's parent company Universal – which no longer has ties to the rocker since he rejoined Warner Music's Reprise in 1989 – likely didn't feel obligated to grant Young's wishes regarding his streamed catalog. (Young and Geffen infamously sparred in the Eighties, with the label accusing him of handing them "musically uncharacteristic" and "not commercial" albums that were unlike his Seventies catalog. Geffen later sued Young for $3.3 million; Young countersued for $21 million. They eventually settled out of court.)
In Young's anti-streaming posts, the musician stated that while his catalog removal wasn't about the money, he acknowledged – like Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke before him – that his share of royalties were "dramatically reduced by bad deals made without my consent." However, Young hinted that he'd be willing to return his albums to services if the audio quality was improved.
"AM radio kicked streaming's ass. Analog cassettes and 8 tracks also kicked streaming's ass, and absolutely rocked compared to streaming," Young wrote. "Streaming sucks. Streaming is the worst audio in history. If you want it, you got it. It's here to stay. Your choice."
Although the final album that Frank Zappa worked on before his death came out earlier this year, the rock legend's family has many more releases planned. A new partnership between the Zappa Family Trust and Universal Music Enterprises will allow for new product releases, film and theatrical productions and trademark licensing.
Some of the items in the works include Joe's Garage, The Musical, the long-fabled Roxy Movie and an orchestra performance of 200 Motels featuring the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The first release will be a remastered edition of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention's 1974 album, One Size Fits All, which will come out on August 14th on 180-gram vinyl.
The new partnership spans Zappa's creative canon and includes a long-term, global licensing agreement for the artist's entire recorded catalog, as well as a rights-management agreement that covers everything else. Zappa's son, Ahmet – who will be taking over daily operations of the Zappa Family Trust from Frank's widow Gail – has been working closely with Universal Music Enterprise's President and CEO, Bruce Resnikoff, on the partnership.
"This is literally an opportunity of a lifetime for me," Gail said in a statement. "I am universally thrilled with this partnership because the fans will have unparalleled access to Frank Zappa's works. The doors to the vault are now officially wide open."
"The fans of Frank Zappa will have more music and more access – when they want it and how they want it," Ahmet said. "With Universal as our partner, I look forward to bringing to life Joe's Garage, The Musical, the release of The Roxy Movie, the release of the Disney Hall performance of 200 Motels under the baton of [conductor] Esa-Pekka Salonen and so many more projects of this caliber. I couldn't be more excited about the future."
In addition to the One Size Fits All 40th anniversary reissue, the new union hopes to put out more releases before year's end. The Zappa Family Trust began remastering the artists' works from analog masters for vinyl reissues when the rights to his masters reverted back to the family in 2012. That same year, the family also put his discography on iTunes for the first time.
The Zappa family put out Dance Me This, the final album Zappa worked on in his lifetime and the artist's 100th release, last month. A Frank Zappa documentary, helmed by actor-director Alex Winter, is also in the works for a planned 2017 release.
When he returns to the road in Dallas September 17th, the country icon will reveal a revamped stage set-up for his shows with wife Trisha Yearwood. "We have taken a lot of looks at what's working, got rid of the things that weren't, and we're coming out with a brand new look," Brooks tells Dallas country station 102.3 Blake FM. "We're going to redesign that whole video world. The wings of the stage are a little different and the set list is starting to fall into the sweet spot. Being out there that long, doing over a 100 shows on this tour so far, it's starting to [reach] the sweet spot, but this redesign we're excited about, so we're bringing a whole new look."
Even if fans have seen Brooks in concert since he resumed touring last September, he says they can expect some new surprises. "If anyone came to Tulsa or down to Houston, or over to New Orleans, this is going to be a different look than what they saw," he says.
Brooks has sold more than 100,000 tickets to his seven shows at Dallas' American Airlines Center, breaking his previous Dallas arena record of 50,213 tickets when he played Reunion Arena in 1998. Brooks and Dallas have a love affair that goes back several decades. His first NBC special, This Is Garth Brooks, was taped at the city's Reunion Arena in 1991 and the follow-up, This is Garth Brooks, Too!, was filmed at Texas Stadium in 1992.
Brooks' show has been averaging more than two hours, but the time flies by for him, he tells Rolling Stone Country. "Truthfully, it feels like about 10 minutes and that's what you want because then you know you're not worrying about anything, you're not thinking about anything, you're just following your heart," he says. "And that's when live shows, to me, get fantastic."
So far, Brooks has sold more than 2.5 million tickets, playing up to 11 shows in some cities to meet demand. The U.S. portion of the tour will last through 2017, he says, but may be continued after he plays in Europe. After such a long hiatus, Brooks is in no rush to take a break again. "I can't have enough places to play," he says. "If we get through with this American leg and there are some cities out there that we're going, 'You know what? How do you do a tour without these cities?'. . . then I think we extend the American leg or come back and finish it, for sure."
Visitors to Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will soon be able to walk through the life and career of Eric Church. The "Like a Wrecking Ball" singer has been tapped as the subject of the venue's next cameo exhibition, opening September 18th.
Dubbed "Eric Church: Inside the Outsider," the exhibit will span the musician's childhood in North Carolina to his platinum-selling, boundary-pushing present. Artifacts hand-picked by Church will include guitars, handwritten lyrics, stage attire and personal photos, among other memorabilia.
Also sure to be on hand are at least a few awards from the singer-songwriter's burgeoning trophy case, which started accumulating hardware in 2011 on the strength of his game-changing album, Chief. Church was already a radio success before the LP, with six of his seven singles from previous projects Sinners Like Me and Carolina reaching the Top 20. But it was Chief that made him a household name beyond country music, with the album reaching platinum sales certification, topping several critics' lists and winning both the CMA and ACM awards for Album of the Year.
"All of a sudden we went from the act that was a couple from the headliner, to headliner, and it's just weird," Church told Rolling Stone last year of the status boost that accompanied Chief. "I try not to overthink it."
A fourth studio album, The Outsiders followed in 2014, marking Church's most sonically adventurous project to date. The rock and metal-tinged project took home Favorite Country Album at the American Country Countdown Awards and has spawned two Number One singles (so far).
Church's Hall of Fame spotlight follows recent exhibits celebrating Glen Campbell, Trisha Yearwood, Kenny Rogers, Miranda Lambert and most recently, Luke Bryan. "Eric Church: Inside the Outsider" runs through February 2016.
Seattle rapper Macklemore, real name Ben Haggerty, admitted in a new cover story for Complex that he relapsed into taking pills and smoking weed following the monumental success of his 2013 LP with Ryan Lewis, The Heist. His recovery, however, was crucial in inspiring the duo's new album, slated to arrive later this year.
"I was burnt out," Haggerty said. "I was super-stressed. We weren't sleeping — doing a show every day, zigzagging all over the country. In terms of the media, I was getting put into a box that I never saw for myself. The pressure and the fame — everything. All the clichés, man — like not being able to walk around, having no privacy, and from this TV appearance to this TV appearance, and the criticism, and the lack of connection, and the lack of [12-step] meetings — all of that put into one pie was just… I just wanted to escape."
Haggerty copped to sneaking around to get high and promising to get clean but never following through. Lewis said he noticed a change in his partner's behavior, too, especially when progress on their new album stalled. But it wasn't until his fiancé Tricia Davis learned she was pregnant that the rapper again embraced sobriety.
"And, as it always works, the minute that I start actively seeking recovery — not just sobriety, but recovery — music is there," Haggerty said. "It always has been. Songs write themselves. My work ethic turns off-to-on in a second and I get happy again. I get grateful again."
The duo said they're three-quarters done with the follow-up to The Heist, with Lewis drawing inspiration from the methodically textured records of Led Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd and the Beatles, while a larger budget allowed him to indulge his production whims.
Haggerty, for his part, didn't reveal much about the album's lyrical content, though he did hint at a quasi-sequel to "White Privilege" off his 2005 solo record, The Language of My World. While the original, Haggerty said, was more of a cultural observation, he acknowledged his vantage point is significantly different now that his detractors have accused him of being an example of cultural appropriation and white privilege in hip-hop.
"How do I participate in this conversation in a way that I'm not preaching, where I'm not appearing like I know it all?," the rapper said. "'Cause I don't know it all... How do I affect change? How do I not preach to the choir? How do I authentically initiate discourse without co-opting the movement that's already happening? You are constantly having to check your intention as a white person doing any sort of antiracist work."
To bolster his understanding of racism and how he can help inspire honest, earnest change, Haggerty attended a daylong seminar about the causes and effects of institutionalized racism. Beyond music, he said, he hopes that his next tour with Lewis can incorporate a series of town hall meetings in various cities with the help of local artists.
"A concert's not going to do it," Haggerty said. "Regardless of the song that I write, or that ends up coming out, it's not going to do it. It's going to be a tiny piece. This needs to be part of my life's work if I'm going to be authentic in the discourse."
U.K. electronic band Years and Years jumbles together an unlikely mix of sounds, including some that don't seem particularly fashionable — think Hot Chip and the Wanted covering Savage Garden, with a dash of Jamie Woon. They have several major hits overseas, the biggest being anthemic summer jam "King," but their next stop is the United States: The single recently charted in the lower reaches of the Mainstream Top 40 and earlier this month, the group released their strong full-length debut Foundation.
Rolling Stone met with the band's Olly Alexander, Emre Turkmen and Mikey Goldsworthy at their room in the Standard Hotel on Manhattan's West Side. Black leather covered every piece of furniture, and myriad disco balls hung from the ceiling. The most prominent feature, though, was a large hot tub, which the hotel staff began to fill halfway through an interview in which the group discussed songwriting, making their first big record on a toilet and the pros and cons of orgies.
If you're telling somebody what you do, how do you explain Years and Years' sound? Olly Alexander: I'd say, "Have you ever heard of the Pet Shop Boys or Rihanna?" And then, "Maybe somewhere in the middle."
Mikey Goldsworthy: I just had that experience in the café. She was like, "What's your music like?" I was like, "Uhhh — like electronic dance?" I just told her to watch The Tonight Show tomorrow. She was like, "Alright, I will!" So I thought that went pretty well [laughs].
How did you guys meet? What did you sound like at first? Emre Turkmen: [In] 2010, me and Mikey met online on a band-website forum and started making music. Mikey went to a house party at Olly's house through a mutual friend, got drunk, passed out on the couch, woke up, and Olly was singing in the shower. And Olly wanted to join the band. A few days later, the three of us were in his living room, working on this song idea he had.
Alexander: Our first song had a little distorted guitar.
Turkmen: We were very indie.
Goldsworthy: Yeah, indie: Beirut, Fleet Foxes.
Alexander: We only had one synth at that point.
What pushed you guys toward a more dance sort of sound? Goldsworthy: You [to Turkmen] got into making beats, and I got into buying synths.
Alexander: And I got more into dance music. Because I'd started listening to it when I was a teenager. And U.K. dance music just exploded at that time — SBTRKT.
Goldsworthy: Little Dragon, as well, really pushed us towards that.
Alexander: And Emre was recording our stuff, and brought a laptop and software, and you were like, "Oh, I can make music this way."
Turkmen: With the laptop, it was like a sandbox. Whereas I'd been writing guitar music since I was, like, 14, and every time I would pick up the guitar I would feel really — I couldn't even put two chords together without thinking, "This is just so boring; I've done this before."
How did you arrive at the current Years and Years sound? Turkmen: We just started making music in a certain way, got bored with some of the ways we were doing things before, guitars and things. And then started getting lost — because if you've ever played a synthesizer, you'd know that it never ends; you can buy a new one every week and you'd still want another one, another one. Olly started getting into clubbing music, I started getting into making beats, because we didn't have a drummer at the time, and it just sort of came that way. I think the way it works now is, like, genre is less and less relevant. And it's less relevant to us. We were quite keen to have our own sound, but we didn't know what that sound was until we did a song called "Real." And it's kind of been quite natural, unforced.
How did you put "Real" together? Alexander: I had the song on the piano, and I had this kind of four-chord verse, and it became a slightly altered four-chord chorus, and a hook, and I just thought it was good, and you [to Turkmen] had a beat —
Goldsworthy: Which you made in a toilet—
Turkmen: [Laughs] Yeah...
Alexander: And a synth sound, and we put the two things together and it seemed to work: This is how the music should sound. It had come together. Your production idea and my songwriting.
You made the beat on the toilet? Turkmen: Oh, shit, yeah [laughs]. Well, I was at work. I wasn't actually [just] on the toilet — I made it at work. I went to the toilet and made it because I was bored, on my phone, then under my desk while my boss was trying to tell me stuff. And then I went home and added the synths on the iPad and put a sidechain on it. It just happened really quickly, a cute little thing, and Olly played me this song. We were in this rehearsal studio. Put it together, and he liked it. It happened pretty quickly, and then Mikey came and did his weird jazz bass solo [laughs].
Goldsworthy: I'd just bought a jazz bass. So I decided to put a jazz bass solo in it [laughs].
How did you put "King" together? Alexander: When we recorded it, no one felt good about it. It sounds lame! And we could never fix it. We shelved it for awhile. When we came back to it, we just took a different approach: "Let's try to make it an Eighties dance-pop track." And we just started out with that, cut it all up, arranged it. Used that balearic flute vibe, like a bird in the forest.
Goldsworthy: That's actually Olly's voice sampled and fucked up.
The "King" video is very unique. Were you heavily involved in making that? Alexander: We always try to make the videos ourselves.
Goldsworthy: We wanted dancing.
Alexander: We always wanted dancing. Ryan Heffington, the choreographer, just got in touch with me on Instagram. He taught "Real" in one of his dance classes; they danced to it.
Olly, who are your songwriting influences? Alexander: I love so many different genres of music, and I love pop music, but I went through a really big singer-songwriter phase. I really fell in love with Joni Mitchell, Jeff Buckley, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles. That's how I learned to play piano, as well; I was playing their songs. Some of them are really complicated — Stevie Wonder loved key changes. But all the best songs are simple. I just love all those late Nineties, early 2000s R&B songs: Aaliyah, TLC, Destiny's Child. Even though Years and Years isn't really like that, for me they were pretty perfect pop songs. Or even a Rihanna or Beyoncé song. I think there's a tendency to think if something's hooky, it's not cool. But I think the opposite.
Turkmen: I grew up listening to the Beatles and stuff like that, and kind of taught myself music by listening to the Beatles and copying it. We have very varied tastes. I love rock music and Nineties grunge. Mikey loves the jazz and shit. But it also filters through in the way you work, not necessarily the way you sound. We don't sound like grunge, but when we started, we were like a band, an indie-band ethos, even though we make pop music. That sort of way of thinking sticks with us.
Goldsworthy: My dad was a music teacher. He taught Latin music, a lot of Cuban stuff. He used to take care of me when I was young, I used to go to his lessons. He forced me to learn piano when I was four, so I got into it at a very young age. I absorbed every music genre you could until I was 16. A jazz phase, classical, blues. I kind of missed out on R&B. The whole Nineties is like a black hole in my mind. The only bands I can remember are the Offspring, Korn, Papa Roach.
Alexander: Do you remember Staind?
Goldsworthy: Staind, Slipknot, Crazy Town.
One of the most beautiful songs on your album is "Memo." How did you put that together?
Alexander: I was sharing a dressing room with this guy who I thought was really fit. I used to sit in front of the mirror on my side, he would sit in front of the mirror on his side, and he would always look at himself, and I would look at him looking at himself in the mirror from my mirror. And that's just what that song was about, fancying that guy. I totally built up this fantasy — nothing ever happened.
Alexander: I was going off those four chords that were in the chorus. They're the same chords to, like, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and "Changes."
Goldsworthy: Bowie?
Alexander: Tupac! [Bruce Hornsby's] "The Way It Is." I love that chord progression; that chord progression's great. I was just using that and singing over it. And I sent it to you [to Turkmen] on a voice memo, because on the old iPhones you used to record and save as memo.
Turkmen: That's why it's called "Memo." A lot of our songs are like that. "Real" is called "Real" because of a synth patch I used.
Goldsworthy: "Foundation" is called "Foundation" because of a synth patch.
Turkmen: "Border" is also an app I used on the iPad called Borderlands.
This hotel room feels a little like the kind of place where someone would have an orgy. . . Turkmen: But maybe not the kind that you'd feel good about.
Alexander: Do you ever feel good about an orgy?
Turkmen: I've never had an orgy. But I would suggest that they are better in here [points to head] than they are in the real world.
Alexander: Because you have a fancy orgy expectation.
Turkmen: I think I'd feel terrible about myself. . .
Alexander: I'd worry about hygiene.
Turkmen: I would worry about splashback.
Alexander: I think I'd throw away my clothes. But at least once in your lifetime. . .
Turkmen: You should have an orgy.
Alexander: As long as it's safe. Safe and consensual. Very important. I think we've gone off-topic.
