Eric Clapton hit #1 with Unplugged, an album featuring performances from his MTV Unplugged episode, which was recorded live in front of a studio audience.
The album, which featured performances of such songs as “Tears in Heaven,” about the death of his four-year-old son, Conor, and an acoustic version of “Layla,” which spent three weeks in the top spot of the U.S. album chart.
Unplugged went on to win three Grammy Awards, including Record and Song of the Year for “Tears In Heaven.” It sold 26 million copies worldwide to become the bestselling live album of all time.
Two years after he pulled all his music from Spotify, Neil Young has announced he’s putting his music back on the streaming service, although he’s not necessarily happy about it.
“Spotify, the #1 streamer of low res music in the world — Spotify, where you get less quality than we made, will now be home of my music again,” Young shared on his Archives website. “My decision comes as music services Apple and Amazon have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at SPOTIFY.”
Young demanded his music be pulled from Spotify back in January 2022, accusing the service of “spreading fake information” about the COVID-19 vaccine on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. At the time, he said they “can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.”
Neil said he can’t leave Apple and Amazon “because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all.” He added, “I hope all you millions of Spotify users enjoy my songs! They will now all be there for you except for the full sound we created.”
He also expressed his hope Spotify would improve their sound quality so “people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it.”
Elton John, David Furnish; Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Elton John AIDS Foundation
While Elton John has written original music for successful Broadway shows — and has even won a Tony Award for his trouble — there’s never been a so-called “jukebox musical” that features all of his classic hits. Elton’s husband and manager, David Furnish, says doing one is a possibility, but it would have to stand out from the others.
“Jukebox musicals” either tell an original story and incorporate an artist’s hits into the narrative — such as Movin’ Out, Mamma Mia!, Once Upon a One More Time, Jagged Little Pill and We Will Rock You — or tell the life story of an artist, such as Jersey Boys, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical, The Cher Show, MJ the Musical and Tina.
Speaking to The Sun, Furnish said, “A catalog musical? We’re always looking at it … I think if we wanted to do it, we would want to do it in a way that was really innovative and really exciting and different. We’re open to any great ideas and it’s a wonderful catalog.”
Furnish pointed out, “But at the moment, with the two other musicals, we’re quite busy as it is.”
Elton’s musical The Devil Wears Prada, based on the Meryl Streep film of the same name, will debut in London’s West End in October, with Vanessa Williams as fearsome fashion editor Miranda Priestly. Later this year Elton’s other new musical, Tammy Faye, will open on Broadway.
Furnish also addressed the fact that Elton couldn’t walk the red carpet at his annual Oscar Viewing Party due to his recent knee replacement. “He’s doing amazing,” said Furnish. “He’s having another knee done in a couple of weeks and by the time the summer rolls around, he’ll have two brand-new spanking knees.”
It was 40 years ago March 13 that The Cars released their fifth studio album, Heartbeat City, which was a blockbuster hit for the group.
Considered by many to be the band’s comeback album, Heartbeat City, produced by Mutt Lange, resulted in huge mainstream success for The Cars, with the album peaking at #3 on the Billboard 200 Album chart and hitting #1 on the Billboard Rock Album chart. It went on to be certified four-times Platinum by the RIAA.
Much of the album’s popularity was due to singles like “You Might Think” and “Drive,” both of which reached the Billboard Hot 100 top 10.
They both benefited from videos that received huge airplay on MTV, especially “You Might Think,” which was known for being one of the first videos to use computer graphics. The video had frontman Ric Ocasek following a model around in various places, with the graphics turning him into, among other things, a fly.
“It was very striking for its time,” Craig Marks, co-author of I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, tells ABC Audio, although he notes Ocasek “famously didn’t like the video. He thought it made fun of the way he looked, cause he kind of did look like a fly.”
Considering not many artists were making videos at the time, MTV embraced “You Might Think” and the video went on to win the first-ever Video of the Year award at the MTV Video Music Awards.
“It was a great meeting of commerce and art for The Cars and for MTV,” Marks says of the clip, noting it “did wonders for The Cars’ career.”
Looks like Dolly Parton’s rock album was a rousing success.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s latest album, Rockstar, which featured guest appearances by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Steven Tyler, Stevie Nicks, Sting, Steve Perry, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts and more, has been certified Gold by the RIAA.
“When I set out to make my rock album, I always hoped it would be embraced by my fans as well as people who may not listen to my music,” Dolly shares. “I am thrilled to receive this Gold record! Thank you to everyone who was a part of this project. I guess I can now officially say I am a rockstar!”
Released in November, Rockstar debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 Album chart. It was Dolly’s highest-charting album and her third career top 10, following 2014’s Blue Smoke and 1987’s Trio with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris; both albums debuted at #6.
Lenny Kravitz officially has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
On Tuesday, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee, known for hit songs “Fly Away” and “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over” was honored during a ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard in front of the iconic Capitol Records Tower.
To help commemorate the milestone, his daughter, actress and filmmaker Zoë Kravitz, honored him with a sweet message.
“Lenny Kravitz, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing you for a long time,” she began. “And I must say, being your daughter has been one of the great adventures of my life.”
She also roasted her dad by paying tribute to his shirts.
“I’ve seen the way you show up, take care of the people you love — I’ve seen your incredible dedication to your art, but mostly, I’ve seen through your shirts,” she said. “According to my dad, if it doesn’t expose your nipples, it’s not a shirt.”
“Congratulations, you’re a star,” she said at the end of her speech.
Academy Award winner Denzel Washington also took the stage to honor the iconic musician.
“God has blessed him with an unbelievable talent, but even more so, an unbelievable heart,” he said, calling Kravitz “a giver” and “a lover.”
When it was his turn to speak, Kravitz called his star an “incredible honor.”
“As a teenager, I spent a lot of time walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard seeing the names of all my idols,” he said. “I never dreamt about having a star. I was usually just looking for a place to crash. But I did dream about making the music I wanted and doing my own thing. To see my name, Lenny Kravitz, permanently engraved on the same streets I used to walk is a surreal, indescribable feeling.”
The success of the Bob Marley biopic, Bob Marley: One Love, has motivated a lot of music fans to rediscover the reggae legend’s music.
The film was released on Valentine’s Day, bringing in $160.5 million worldwide, with a U.S. opening weekend of $28.7 million, and lots of those moviegoers followed up their viewing by streaming Marley’s tunes.
According to Luminate, in the week after the film’s release, Marley’s catalog saw a 150% increase in global on-demand streams, compared to numbers during the week of January 4, with an increase of 187% in the U.S. alone. In total there was 108 million streams of Marley’s music following the film hitting theaters.
And it seems all the press around the movie also helped draw new interest in Netflix’s 2018 Bob Marley documentary ReMastered: Who Shot the Sheriff? Prior to the movie’s release, Luminate’s Streaming Viewership Model shows increased viewing minutes that peaked just ahead of the film hitting theaters.
They’ve been around since the late ’80s and have toured the world, but for some reason, Green Day has never gone to South Africa — until now.
“Rocking all the way to the other side of the world,” the band wrote on Instagram. “South Africa, we’ll see you for the first time EVER to headline @calabashsouthafrica in Johannesburg + Cape Town next January!! Tickets on sale Friday @ 9am.”
The Calabash South Africa festival takes place January 19 in Johannesburg and January 23, 2025, in Cape Town. The Offspring is also on the bill.
Green Day will be performing from the end of May through the end of June in Europe and the U.K. Starting July 19, they’ll bring their Saviors tour to North America. Those shows wrap up in September; the South African dates are the band’s first announced for 2025.
During the first week of March, Bon Jovi launched a countdown website, BonJoviForever.com, with announcements in various cities promising that 2024 would be “legendary.” Now we know what the band is counting down to.
It’s a song called, you guessed it, “Legendary,” which will arrive March 14 at 9 a.m. ET. There’s a teaser of Jon singing the track, an upbeat number that features the lyrics, “Friday night comes along like a song/ ‘Sweet Caroline’ and we all sing along/ got my brown-eyed girl, and she believes in me/ legendary.”
This is the band’s first new music since the album 2020, which featured the hit “Do What You Can.” Since then, Jon had major reconstructive surgery on his vocal cords and has been doing rehab to get his voice back into shape.
The new single arrives on the same day the band’s new documentary, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, premieres at South by Southwest. It’ll start streaming on Hulu April 26.
Queen is set to release a new video of a performance from their recent IMAX release, Queen Rock Montreal.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers will drop the video for “Let Me Entertain You” on their YouTube channel on Thursday, March 14, at 12 p.m. ET.
“Experience the electrifying energy of Queen live at the Montreal Forum in 1981, remastered for an unforgettable performance of ‘Let Me Entertain You,'” reads a description of the video. “This exhilarating live concert from 1981 is a window into Queen in their most unalloyed form, giving audiences a larger-than-life, front-row immersive experience.”
Queen Rock Montreal opened in IMAX theaters across the globe in January, bringing in $4.1 million in its first weekend, making it the biggest IMAX exclusive event opening ever.
The film was recorded in November 1981 at the Montreal Forum, the band’s fourth time playing the venue. The tour was in support of their album The Game and had them performing songs from the album along with classic Queen tunes like “We Will Rock You,” Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” “We Are the Champions” and more.
