Paul McCartney is looking back at his year and sharing the photographic highlights with fans.
“From an unprecedented exhibition of his Beatles-era photographs to a jet-setting tour that saw Paul play in Australia, Mexico and Brazil; a part-masterclass, part-memoir podcast; and, of course, a new Beatles song. 2023 has been a year to remember!” reads a post on his website, along with 22 photos from the past year.
The two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s photo diary includes a picture of him sharing a meal with Ringo Starr to celebrate his daughter Mary‘s vegetarian cookbook, posing with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl at the opening of McCartney’s photo exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery and sitting down with Stanley Tucci for a livestream event.
There’s also a photo of McCartney onstage during his Got Back Tour in Australia, a holiday photo with wife Nancy Shevell, a classic Wings pic celebrating the 50th anniversary of their album Red Rose Speedway and more.
Elton John started his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in September 2018 — a lifetime ago, it feels like — but it didn’t come to an end until July 2023 in Stockholm, Sweden.
The final show of the final leg of Elton’s tour, which also included his first headlining set at England’s Glastonbury Festival, featured a special appearance via video from Coldplay, who were playing in another Swedish city that night. Singer Chris Martin thanked Elton for all he’s done for the fight against AIDS and LGBTQ rights, and for “fashion and eyewear … sexiness and love.”
After the show, Elton released a statement saying, “I’m trying to process it, and I don’t think it will sink in for a while yet that I’m finally finished touring.”
While he may be finished touring, Elton isn’t done with music, or with creating. At the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in November, Elton told the crowd that he and his musical partner Bernie Taupin had just completed a new album. So far, there’s no word on a release date.
In 2023, Elton also guest-starred on The Rolling Stones‘ album Hackney Diamonds and Dolly Parton‘s album Rockstar, and co-wrote a new book called Watford Forever about his experiences as the owner of England’s Watford FC soccer team.
What’s more, it was announced that Elton’s latest stage musical, Tammy Faye, will come to Broadway for the 2024 season.
And in January, Sir Elton may finally become an EGOT winner. In July, he scored an Emmy nomination in the category of Outstanding Variety Special, Live, for his Disney+ concertfilm, Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium. If he wins, he’ll join that rare group of entertainers who’ve won an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Oscar. He’s won five Grammys, two Oscars and one Tony over the course of his career.
Also ahead for Elton: London’s Victoria & Albert Museum will stage an exhibit called Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection, opening May 18. In addition, he’ll film a cameo for the upcoming sequel to the legendary 1984 mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, along with Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks.
The next time you think that Rod Stewart is old, just remember: He’s got a sibling who’s 15 years older than he is.
Rod turns 79 on January 10, but on Instagram, he celebrated his sister Mary‘s 95th birthday by posting a photo of the two of them dressed to the nines. Rod’s wife Penny also posted a photo of herself and Rod posing with their two sons, Alastair and Aiden, Alastair’s girlfriend and Mary in front of a huge Christmas tree. She captioned it, “Happy 95th birthday Mary, we love you.”
Earlier this year, Rod brought Mary out onstage during his show in Edinburgh, Scotland to help him sing his song “Sailing,” and later told The Mirror, “At 94, she’s on a rock ’n roll stage and loving it. She has and continues to teach me about life.”
Last year, Rod and Mary’s brothers, Bob and Don, died within two months of each other; they were 88 and 94, respectively. They also had a sister, Peggy, who died at age 40 in 1975.
Queen’s fourth studio album, A Night at the Opera, became their first #1 on the U.K. album charts. In the U.S., the album peaked at #4 and went on to be certified triple-Platinum.
The album featured the eventual Queen classic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which became their first U.K. #1 single, along with “You’re My Best Friend,” and future live staples “Love of My Life” and “I’m in Love with My Car.”
In addition to the U.K., A Night at the Opera went to #1 in several other countries, including Australia and New Zealand.
The album is often included on lists of the greatest albums of all time and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018.
It’s always sad when our favorite musicians pass away and 2023 was a doozie, with several beloved artists leaving us.
The year started off with the loss of two two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famers: guitar great Jeff Beck on January 10 at the age of 78 from bacterial meningitis, and David Crosby on January 18 at the age of 81. Although no official cause of death was ever announced for Crosby, the singer’s bandmate Graham Nash revealed in an interview that Crosby died while battling COVID-19.
Another death felt deeply in the music world happened on May 24, when legendary Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll Tina Turner died at the age of 83. Turner, another two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, battled multiple life-threatening illness over the years.
And on August 9, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Robbie Robertson, guitarist and main songwriter for The Band, died at the age of 80 after a long illness. His death came not long after he finished working with his longtime friend and collaborator Martin Scorsese on the score for Scorsese’s film Killers of the Flower Moon.
Here’s a list of the many other music figures who died in 2023, in chronological order:
January 12: Robbie Bachman, drummer for the Canadian rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, 69
March 5: Gary Rossington, guitarist and last surviving original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, 71
March 13: Jim Gordon, drummer for Derek and the Dominoes, 77
March 22: Tom Leadon, co-founder of Tom Petty’s early ’70s band Mudcrutch, 70
April 2: Sire Records founder Seymour Stein, who signed artists like Talking Heads, Madonna and Pretenders, from cancer, 80
April 28: Tim Bachman, guitarist and one of the co-founders of the Canadian band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, 71
May 22: Chas Newby, who played bass for The Beatles in their early days, 81
June 1: Grammy-winning songwriter Cynthia Weil (“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”), 82
July 26: Randy Meisner, founding member of the Eagles, due to complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 77
August 4: John Gosling, keyboardist for The Kinks,75
August 16: Music executive Jerry Moss, who co-founded A&M Records with Herb Alpert, the label responsible for albums like The Police’s Synchronicity and Carole King’s Tapestry, 88
August 24: Whitesnake’s original guitarist, Bernie Marsden,72
September 1: Beloved “Margaritaville” singer Jimmy Buffett, after a four-year battle with Merkel cell skin cancer, a rare and aggressive form of skin cancer, 76
November 30: The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan, 65
December 5: Denny Laine, co-founder of Moody Blues and co-founder and guitarist for Paul McCartney & Wings, from interstitial lung disease, 79
Billie Joe Armstrong is throwing it all the way back to his middle school days.
In an Instagram Story, the Green Day frontman shared a photo of the day he and bassist Mike Dirnt graduated from the eighth grade together. The pic showcases the future Rock & Roll Hall of Famers’ impressive teenage hairstyles, though they were more ’70s rock than punk at the time.
Armstrong and Dirnt, of course, were friends in school before they would go on to form Green Day. Among the band’s many career accomplishments is writing that staple song of school graduations everywhere: “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).”
Along with remembering saying goodbye to eighth grade, Armstrong will help say goodbye to 2023 when Green Day performs on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2024, airing December 31 on ABC at 8 p.m. ET.
Green Day is also set to have a big 2024 with the release of their new album, Saviors, on January 19, followed by the launch of a world tour. Additionally, they’ll be celebrating the 30th and 20th anniversaries of their landmark albums Dookie and American Idiot, respectively.
It seems safe to say that Ozzy Osbourne‘s New Year’s resolution for 2024 is to play live again.
As we close the book on the year that saw the Prince of Darkness announce his retirement from touring, Ozzy is once again reiterating his goal to play one-off shows in the future.
“I’m gonna do some more gigs before I’m finished,” Ozzy said on the latest episode of The Osbournes podcast, which was posted on Tuesday, December 26.
Ozzy made his comments while calling out hoax YouTube videos that claim he died.
“I’m not dead, I’m not going any-f******-where,” he said.
Ozzy hasn’t played a full live show since New Year’s Eve 2018. Since then, he’s been hampered by a variety of health issues, and has undergone multiple surgeries after suffering a fall in his home in 2019.
In February 2023, Ozzy announced he was retiring from touring, sharing, “Never would I have imagined that my touring days would have ended this way.” And while it appeared as though he was set to return to the stage for the inaugural Power Trip festival in October, he pulled out of the lineup months before the event due to his health.
After Foo Fighters went through “the most difficult and tragic year that our band has even known” in 2022, Dave Grohl and company made a big return in 2023.
The seemingly unstoppable Foo Fighters machine came to a screeching halt in March 2022 with the unexpected death of drummer Taylor Hawkins. The Foos honored their fallen bandmate with two massive tribute concerts in September 2022, though the future of the band remained uncertain until New Year’s Eve, when they announced they intended to continue.
Soon into 2023, show announcements began. In April, Foo Fighters announced a new album, But Here We Are, alongside the premiere of lead single “Rescued,” which certainly seemed to be inspired by Hawkins.
Meanwhile, rumors flew about who’d been recruited to play drums in place of Hawkins. During a May streaming concert, the Foos finally revealed the identity of their newest member: Josh Freese, a prolific session drummer who’d played with bands including Nine Inch Nails, Guns N’ Roses and The Offspring. He was also among the many guest drummers who joined Foo Fighters during the Hawkins tribute concerts.
Foo Fighters played their first official show back just a few days later, during which an emotional Grohl took a moment to remember Hawkins before performing the song “Cold Day in the Sun.”
But Here We Are dropped in June, and also included the songs “Under You” and “The Glass,” which Grohl wrote about his late mother. The Foos continued to tour, headlining festivals including Bonnaroo and Boston Calling, and playing a surprise set at Glastonbury.
Foo Fighters’ 2023 also included a performance on Saturday Night Live, during which they were joined by H.E.R. for a rendition of “The Glass.”
As for 2024, Foo Fighters will launch a U.S. stadium tour in July. They’ll also compete in multiple categories at the 2024 Grammys, including Best Rock Album for But Here We Are.
George Harrison landed at #1 with the “My Sweet Lord,” which went on to spend four weeks in the top spot.
The chart-topper, produced by Harrison and Phil Spector, made Harrison the first former member of TheBeatles to score a solo #1 in the U.S. The track, which was released as a double A-side single with “Isn’t It a Pity,” also went to #1 in several other countries, including the U.K. and Australia.
“My Sweet Lord” was featured on Harrison’s album All Things Must Pass, which was his first solo album post Beatles breakup. He later released an updated version of the tune, “My Sweet Lord (2000),” for the 30th anniversary reissue of the album.
The Metallica drummer and metal icon was born December 26, 1963, in Denmark. He’d originally set out to be a professional tennis player like his father, but decided to pursue music instead after moving to California.
As the story goes, once in California, Ulrich placed an ad in a newspaper looking to start a band, which then caught the attention of a young James Hetfield. The pair officially met in 1981, and formed Metallica.
With Metallica, Ulrich would help pioneer the burgeoning thrash subgenre of metal with albums such as Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets. The group would then bring metal to the mainstream with their giant 1991 self-titled effort, aka The Black Album, which is certified Diamond by the RIAA and spawned singles including “Enter Sandman” and “Nothing Else Matters.”
A decade later, Ulrich would be in the headlines more for his vocal opposition to Napster than for Metallica’s music. The software platform allowed fans to share files of songs with each other for free — then a novel concept — which, during a 2000 Senate hearing, Ulrich testified amounted to copyright infringement.
Dysfunction in the Metallica camp followed into the new millennium, which was famously documented in the 2004 film Some Kind of Monster. Eventually, the group restabilized, and has released three more albums: 2008’s Death Magnetic, 2016’s Hardwired … to Self Destruct and 2023’s 72 Seasons. In between, Ulrich and Metallica were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2009.
Today, Metallica remains the biggest band in metal, with Ulrich in particular becoming an ambassador for the genre. The group spent the last year headlining stadiums on their M72 world tour, which will resume in 2024.
