The Kinks released their third single, “You Really Got Me,” in the U.K., where it became their first number one hit and stayed on top for two weeks.
The tune was released in America that September and became a breakthrough hit for the band, peaking at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100.
Guitarist Dave Davies created the distorted guitar sound in the tune by slicing up the speaker on his amp with a razor blade. The highly influential track has been described as proto-punk and early heavy metal.
The track hit the charts once again in 1978 after Van Halen covered it for their self-titled debut album and released it as their debut single. The Van Halen version peaked at number 36 on the Hot 100.
In-store album signings are increasingly rare these days, but Alice Cooper couldn’t pass up the chance to do one in his hometown. He’ll be signing copies of his new album, Road, at Detroit’s Rock City Music Company on September 4.
“Of course, that’s my hometown and the home of hard rock, so, with the Road album just released the week before, I can’t think of a better place to do an in-store album signing than the Motor City!” Alice says in a statement. “So all you Detroiters come out and see me and we’ll rock a little bit together!”
You do need a ticket to attend the in-store signing, but the price includes a copy of Road on either LP or CD/Blu-Ray. Both include Alice Cooper — Live at Hellfest 2022, a 90-minute concert recorded in 2022.
The only bad news is that selfies with Cooper won’t be allowed due to time constraints, and he’s only signing copies of Road, so leave your beat-up copy of Billion Dollar Babies at home.
Road arrives August 25. It includes the single “White Line Frankenstein,” which boasts a guitar solo by Tom Morello. On August 5, Alice will be the special guest at the Syracuse, New York, date of the Mötley Crüe/Def Leppard Stadium Tour.
With Freddie Mercury, Queen’s live shows were just as much about entertainment and spectacle as they were about rock ‘n roll, which you can see in the latest episode ofQueen The Greatest Live — “Big Spender.”
The episode showcases footage from two different Queen shows: 1975’s Christmas Eve show at London’s Hammersmith Odeon and a 1986 show at Wembley Stadium. Both feature Freddie Mercury performing a rocking, yet campy version of “Big Spender,” a song from the 1966 musical Sweet Charity.
In 1975, Freddie removes his kimono to reveal a white top and teeny white shorts. In 1986, he takes off his already-shredded shirt to finish the song bare-chested. He also changes the song’s pronouns, singing “everyone” or “every gal” rather than “every guy.”
In 1977, Freddie explained to Hit Parader that such a moment was only possible because Queen was already an established act.
“Sneaking my cabaret influences into our act was done slowly. Could you imagine me doing ‘Big Spender’ when we were first starting? As a rock band? They’d freak,” he said. “Now we do more a combination of rock ‘n roll and theater.”
Back in June, The Police’s classic album Synchronicity celebrated its 40th anniversary, and guitarist AndySummers recently reflected on the album’s popularity with ABC Audio.
Summers says when they made the album, The Police were so popular it was “complete pandemonium.” He shares, “We were like TheBeatles of the ’80s. I mean, it was insane.”
Because of that, Summers says they felt they “could put anything out and it would be a hit.” But he insists, “We were trying to make the best possible record.”
But Andy says when they went into the studio there was “quite a lot of tension in the band,” mainly because Sting wanted to “do his own stuff.” While they had a few songs that felt right for the album, he notes, “The key moment came when we had ‘Every Breath You Take.'”
But even with a great song, Summers says it still wasn’t quite coming together until Sting told him to “go on, go in there and make it your own,” and in one take he put down the song’s “immortal guitar line.”
Their manager instantly insisted it be the first single, although the band was hesitant because it was a ballad. Of course, they were wrong. “Went out and it stayed at number one for eight weeks, the album was number one for four months,” Summers says of the song’s impact. “Now ‘Every Breath You Take’ is the most played song of all time in American radio.”
Released June 17, 1983, Synchronicity spent 17 weeks on top of the Billboard 200. In 2009 it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and in 2023 it was chosen by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry.
Peter Gabriel‘s recent song “Road to Joy” has led him back to the Billboard airplay charts for the first time in years.
Gabriel hasn’t appeared on a Billboard airplay chart as a lead artist since 2002. He did chart in 2008, but it was as a featured artist on a song called “Burn You Up, Burn You Down,” credited to Big Blue Ball.
In 2002 he reached #20 on Billboard‘s Adult Alternative Airplay chart with the song “More Than This,” from his album Up.
But now he’s back with “Road to Joy,” which has debuted at #37 on the Adult Alternative Airplay. The funky track, produced by Gabriel and Brian Eno, is somewhat reminiscent of his 1993 single “Kiss That Frog.”
“Road to Joy” is the sixth song that Gabriel has released from his upcoming album, i/o, which still doesn’t have an announced release date. He’s been releasing one song from it during the full moon each month; the one he put out on August 1 is called “Olive Tree.”
In the ’80s and ’90s, Gabriel was all over the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart with hits like “Shock The Monkey,” “Sledgehammer” and “In Your Eyes.”
Sting is not on the Barbie soundtrack, but he did — albeit inadvertently — inspire Christopher Nolan to make the movie Oppenheimer. Now, he’s reaping the benefits of “Barbenheimer” mania.
As previously reported, Nolan has said in several press interviews that he first became interested in J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb and the subject of Oppenheimer, while growing up in the ’80s. Amid mounting fears of a nuclear war, Nolan said, he heard Sting’s 1986 hit “Russians,” which contains the lyric, “How can I save my little boy/ from Oppenheimer’s deadly toy?”
Now Billboardreports that streams of “Russians,” which appears on Sting’s debut solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, are trending up. For the week ending July 27, the song posted a 48% gain, according to Luminate, the company that tracks streaming and sales numbers for Billboard.
This is the second time in recent years that “Russians” seems to reflect the zeitgeist. In March 2022, Sting released a new charity version of the song in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Proceeds go to HelpUkraine.center, a volunteer storage center set up by Ukrainian business owners to receive humanitarian and medical aid from all over the world.
“I’ve only rarely sung this song in the many years since it was written, because I never thought it would be relevant again,” Sting said in a statement at the time. “But, in the light of one man’s bloody and woefully misguided decision to invade a peaceful, unthreatening neighbor, the song is, once again, a plea for our common humanity.”
In the song’s chorus, Sting sings, “What might save us me and you/ is if the Russians love their children too.”
In March, Kip Winger revealed on the Appetite for Distortionpodcast that Metallica‘s James Hetfield apologized to him for that scene in their “Nothing Else Matters” video where Lars Ulrich throws a dart at his photo. Now, Winger’s come to an understanding with the creator of the Winger-bashing content on Beavis & Butt-Head.
During the original MTV run of Beavis & Butthead, the boys’ nemesis Stewart Stevenson always wore a “Winger” T-shirt, which Winger says was harder to laugh off than the Metallica thing. “Apparently they tried a few different names on the Stewart T-shirt, and mine was the one that stuck,” Winger tells Yahoo!. He adds that he became “the guy that was singled out from the whole industry, really, because my name was on Beavis & Butt-Head.”
When MTV revived Beavis & Butt-Head in 2011, Winger says, “They wanted permission [to use the Winger name/logo on Stewart’s shirt] this time, which was very ironic, because they didn’t ask my permission the first time — which was somewhat of an admission of guilt, really!”
Winger says he’s not a “vindictive person,” but he private-messaged Judge on Facebook and asked him to chat.
“He was nice enough to email me and we just discussed it,” Winger tells Yahoo!. “It wasn’t anything other than me trying to take the high ground, like, ‘Hey, I’m not gonna hate on you for life for this.’ And I did give them permission — and they paid me! I thought, ‘Well, f*** it. It would be weird not to be on there now, after all this time.’”
While Winger, 62, still plays with his band, he’s now a Grammy-nominated classical composer as well.
Pop superstar Pink recently played two shows at Boston’s Fenway Park, breaking the venue’s attendance record on both nights. Opening those two record-breaking shows? Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo, who are on the bill for the remainder of Pink’s shows in August and her October date at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
How did the unexpected pairing come about? It all started at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in LA in November of 2022, Benatar and Giraldo tell the Boston Herald. When the two took the stage to perform their hits after Sheryl Crow inducted them, they noticed Pink — who was there to induct Dolly Parton — rocking out in the front row.
“I just remember looking down and she was giddy,” Benatar tells the Herald. “I didn’t know her, we’d never met, so it was just so fun to look down and see her having such a great time.”
“She was in the front row and dancing,” Giraldo adds. “Then when we were leaving she came up and said, ‘I want you two on the road with me. I want you to play dates with me this summer.’”
While the couple doesn’t know if they’ll release a new album, they’ve got more than enough to do these days, even without the Pink concerts.
“I’m 70, [Neil] is going to be 68, and we look at each other every day and go, ‘What the hell?’” Benatar laughs. “I don’t think I’ve ever been busier. It’s crazy … But we’re grateful for that. We love to work. I wish I had a little more time to see my grandchildren but I see them enough.”
The Barbie soundtrack song “I’m Just Ken,” which features guitar by Slash and Wolfgang Van Halen, is now charting on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Ryan Gosling-sung track enters the all-genre chart at #87.
Slash, of course, has shredded on a number of Hot 100 hits with Guns N’ Roses, such as the chart-topping “Sweet Child o’ Mine.”
The Barbie soundtrack, which also features contributions from alternative artists including Billie Eilish, Tame Impala, HAIM and GAYLE, is out now, as is the movie. The album debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200.
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band will kick off a second North American leg of their tour next week in Chicago, and right now, they have dates scheduled through a December 12 show in San Francisco. It appears, however, that the tour may continue, in some way, shape or form, into 2024.
The Irish Independentreports that Bruce’s management team is negotiating for several shows in Ireland next May, specifically in Cork and Kilkenny. In fact, soccer matches are now being rescheduled in anticipation of the dates.
If true, Springsteen and the band are likely going to return to Europe in 2024 following a successful stadium run earlier this summer, which saw them sell more than 1.6 million tickets. The Independent says these Irish concerts will be announced “within the next few weeks.”
Does this mean more concerts in North America as well? Stay tuned.
