Classic Rock News

Some rock and pop tunes can make you dance, scream, shout and bang your head, but a new U.K. survey has ranked the songs that can best help you fall sleep.

Mornings.co.uk, a website that serves as a guide to mattresses, pillows and beds, devised a study to determine the most sleep-inducing pop songs by analyzing the characteristics of 100 lullabies and comparing them to a curated list of 1,700 popular tunes in various genres.

Topping the list of the most sleep-inducing rock songs is Elton John with “Your Song,” and the British pop-rock legend also landed at #3 on the tally with “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters.”

The other rock songs ranked in the top 10 of the list are Led Zeppelin‘s “Going to California” at #2, The Beatles‘ “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight” medley at #4, Pink Floyd‘s “Wish You Were Here” at #5, Jackson Browne‘s “The Load-Out” at #6, Lou Reed‘s “Walk on the Wild Side” at #7, The Police‘s “Every Breath You Take” at #8, the Eagles‘ “Desperado” at #9 and John Lennon‘s “Imagine” at #10.

Mornings.co.uk came up with a zero-to-100 ranking system, dubbed the “Sleep Song Scale,” by utilizing Spotify’s audio features, analyzing such qualities as loudness, danceability, tempo, energy and time signature.

The survey also looked at songs in such genres as pop, hip-hop, country and classical.

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Even Elton John cannot wait to unleash his collab with Britney Spears, so he performed it for patrons at a familiar French restaurant.

Sir Elton hit up La Guérite in Cannes, France, the very same spot where he previewed his “Cold Heart” collab with Dua Lipa back in August 2021, to perform the entirety of his upcoming song.

“Sneak peak of ‘Hold Me Closer’ — out this Friday,” he teased in the caption of the cheeky Instagram video, posted Tuesday, which sees him crashing the DJ booth to perform his new song. “Hey! Britney Spears. Elton John. Here we go,” he screams at the electrified crowd, who sing along to the dance track.

Much like how “Cold Heart” mashes up the lyrics of several Elton songs, “Hold Me Closer” features lyrics and melodies from his 1971 hit “Tiny Dancer” and his 1992 tune “The One.”

“Hold Me Closer” arrives this Friday. The song will be the first new single from Elton since 2021.

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Ozzy Osbourne is no stranger to controversy and the metal legend doesn’t think that will change with his upcoming album, Patient Number 9.

Speaking with Classic Rock magazine, the Black Sabbath rocker says that he thinks a particular lyric on the record will “cause s***.”

The lyric, which appears on the song “One of Those Days,” goes, “One of those days that I don’t believe in Jesus.” Though, as Ozzy explains, the song may not be what you expect, especially coming from someone nicknamed the Prince of Darkness.

“It’s not an ‘I am an anti-Christ’ song,” Ozzy says. “It’s about those days where everything goes f***ing wrong, and you’re going nuts trying to fix everything up.”

Still, the lyric was enough to make Eric Clapton, who guests on “One of Those Days,” raise an eyebrow.

“[Clapton] said, ‘Oh, I’m not sure about that lyric,'” Ozzy shares. “So we tried to replace it with some alternatives.”

One of said alternatives was, “One of those days where I don’t believe in Christmas,” but Ozzy felt that it “didn’t sound right.”

“Losing faith in Jesus makes much more sense when the world is turning to s***,” he says.

Patient Number 9 is due out September 9. Along with Clapton, it includes guest spots from Jeff Beck, Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi, Pearl Jam‘s Mike McCready, Black Label Society‘s Zakk Wylde, Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses, Metallica‘s Robert Trujillo and late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.

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Former Blue Öyster Cult drummer Albert Bouchard has premiered a new video for his own version of his old band’s 1983 tune “Shadow of California,” which appears on his 2021 solo album, Imaginos 2 — Bombs over Germany (minus zero and counting).

The clip, which you can watch on YouTube, features footage of Bouchard singing and playing guitar, interspersed with scenes of him driving a car through city streets at night.

Imaginos 2 — Bombs over Germany is the sequel to Bouchard’s 2020 solo effort Re Imaginos, a reworked version of Blue Öyster Cult’s 1988 concept album Imaginos.

Imaginos 2 is the second installment of a planned trilogy of albums from Bouchard featuring songs based on the writings and poems of late Blue Öyster Cult manager, producer and songwriter Sandy Pearlman about an alien conspiracy that comes to fruition during the late 1800s and early 1900s through the actions of an evil character named Imaginos.

The album features guest contributions from longtime Blue Öyster Cult members Eric Bloom and Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser, and the group’s former bassist Joe Bouchard — Albert’s brother — as well as current BÖC multi-instrumentalist Richie Castellano and Dictators guitarist Ross the Boss.

Imaginos 2 can be ordered now on CD and vinyl at DekoEntertainment.com, and limited-edition bundles are also available.

In other news, Bouchard will be rejoining Blue Öyster Cult for a trio of special 50th anniversary shows taking place September 21-23 at Sony Hall in New York City. Each night will feature a full performance of a different album.

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Journey‘s first studio album in 11 years, Freedom, was released last month.

The 15-track collection includes songs that sound like they could have come from various periods in Journey’s history, and features a mix of power ballads, hard-rocking tunes, sensitive love songs and even a funk-influenced track.

Guitarist Neal Schon oversaw Freedom‘s recording with drummer Narada Michael Walden, who co-produced the album with Schon and collaborated with Neal in the studio on most of the basic tracks.

Schon tells ABC Audio that some of his favorite songs on Freedom are the ones that rock the hardest, including “Come Away with Me,” “All Day and All Night,” “Holdin On” and the heavy funk-rock tune “Let It Rain.”

“[T]hose four tracks there, I felt they were some of the louder ones that I wrote,” Neal says. “And once I got into that vibe with Narada, when we were recording guitar and drum tracks, I felt like I wanted to come with more of it, because it’s actually what we could use in our live show.”

Journey has incorporated two of those songs into their concert sets this summer, with “Let It Rain” being played at the band’s last eight concerts, while “Come Away with Me” got its live debut at the group’s most recent performance, on August 8 in Canandaigua, New York.

Speaking about “Let It Rain,” Schon says, “[T]hat’s my Cajun soup deluxe of probably [Jimi] Hendrix and Prince and Chaka Khan and a little bit of Sly [Stone influences]…those R&B and funk roots that I don’t get to explore a lot in the Journey realm.”

Journey has four more confirmed shows on its 2022 tour schedule, all taking place in September. Visit JourneyMusic.com to check out the band’s full schedule.

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Metallica has unveiled a new signature skateboard deck.

Created in collaboration with English company Lovenskate, the deck features artwork inspired by the cover of the 1992 documentary A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica, which details the making of the metal legends’ iconic 1991 Black Album and its accompanying tour.

You can order yours now via Metallica.com.

If you’re a skateboarder who’s also a Stranger Things fan, you may want to pick up a Metallica Hellfire Club shirt, which was created in collaboration with the Netflix sci-fi series after it featured “Master of Puppets” in its season 4 finale.

Metallica played a pair of U.S. stadium dates earlier this month and will return to the stage in September to play the Global Citizen Festival in New York City.

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Netflix announced that the sequel to the Oscar-nominated 2019 hit whodunnit Knives Out will premiere on December 23.

The streaming service made the announcement Monday about the upcoming film, titled Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and debuted a new teaser interview with writer-director Rian Johnson, who reveals that the movie’s title was inspired by a 1968 Beatles song.

Johnson explains that he came up with the title “Glass Onion” while searching for a phrase that the film’s main character, the flamboyant detective Benoit Blanc, might use to describe the murder he’s investigating.

“I’m always fishing for something fun that Blanc can grab onto as an overwrought metaphor that he can beat to death,” Rian maintians. “This is all in plain sight from the very start. So, the idea of glass came to me, something that’s clear.”

He continues, “I’ll be very honest. I literally got out my iPhone and searched my music library with the word glass. ‘There’s got to be some good glass songs.’ I was like, ‘Oh, is it a glass fortress? Is it a glass castle? Is it a glass man?’ The first thing that came up, because I’m a huge Beatles fan, is ‘Glass Onion.'”

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will feature Daniel Craig reprising his role as Blanc, who travels to Greece to solve a case with a whole new set of colorful suspects.

While the original Knives Out also starred Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ana de Armas, Don Johnson and Christopher Plummer, the follow-up features another impressive cast, including Edward Norton, Kathryn Hahn, Janelle Monáe, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista.

Norton plays a tech billionaire who invites a group of friends to his island getaway — where one of them ends up murdered.

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Jerry Allison, the longtime drummer and last surviving original member of the late Buddy Holly‘s backing group The Crickets, died Monday at the age of 82.

Allison’s death was announced in a post on Holly’s official Facebook page.

“Our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Jerry ‘JI’ Allison, drummer in The Crickets, one of Buddy’s very closest friends, and the inspiration to drummers for decades since, who passed away today,” the note read.

The message continues, “JI was a musician ahead of his time, and undoubtedly his energy, ideas and exceptional skill contributed to both The Crickets, and rock n’ roll itself, becoming such a success. Buddy is often heralded as the original singer-songwriter, but JI, too, wrote and inspired so many of the songs that would go on to be eternal classics.”

Holly formed The Crickets in early 1957 with Allison, Niki Sullivan on rhythm guitar and Joe B. Mauldin on bass. Allison is credited with co-writing two of Holly’s most enduring tunes, “That’ll Be the Day” and “Peggy Sue,” which peaked at #1 and #3, respectively, on the Billboard pop singles chart.

After Holly’s February 1959 death in the tragic plane crash that also took the lives of The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, Allison played with various lineups of The Crickets for decades.

Allison also co-wrote the song “More than I Can Say,” which The Crickets recorded after Holly’s death in 1959, and later became a hit for Bobby Vee in 1961 and Leo Sayer in 1980.

Allison also became an in-demand session musician who lent his talents to recordings by The Everly Brothers, Vee, Johnny Burnette, Eddie Cochran, Johnny Rivers, Paul McCartney, Waylon Jennings, Nanci Griffith and many others.

Allison was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Crickets in 2012. Holly had been inducted separately in 1986.

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“Hold Me Closer,” Elton John‘s new collaboration with pop superstar Britney Spears, won’t be released until this Friday, but we now have our first taste of the track.

On TikTok, Elton posted a 14-second snippet of the song, which features Britney’s voice singing the chorus of Elton’s 1972 hit “Tiny Dancer” — “Hold me closer tiny dancer/ Count the headlines on the highway” — paired with Elton’s original vocal over a dance beat, with some “woo-hoos” in the middle.

The song has a vibe similar to Elton’s 2021 hit “Cold Heart,” which featured his original vocals from his 1989 song “Sacrifice,” paired with Dua Lipa singing the chorus of his 1972 hit “Rocket Man” and part of his 1983 single “Kiss the Bride.”

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Eddie Vedder has announced a new pair of solo concerts, taking place October 5 in Paso Robles, California, and October 7 in Las Vegas.

As with his solo tour earlier this year, the Pearl Jam frontman will be joined by his backing band The Earthlings, which features Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, ex-RHCP guitarist and current PJ touring member Josh Klinghoffer, longtime Jane’s Addiction bassist Chris Chaney, guitarist and producer Andrew Watt and folk singer-songwriter Glenn Hansard.

Notably, the shows take place on the same nights as dates on Jane’s Addiction’s upcoming tour with The Smashing Pumpkins. That seemingly confirms that original bassist Eric Avery is back in Jane’s in place of Chaney after the band teased his return last week.

Tickets to the Vedder concerts go on sale this Friday, August 26, at 10 a.m. local time via the Ticketmaster Verified Fan platform. You can register for a chance at tickets now through Tuesday, August 23, at 5 p.m. PT.

Members of Pearl Jam’s Ten Club will also have access to a presale. For all ticket info, visit PearlJam.com.

The new shows will follow Vedder’s headlining solo performance at his Ohana Festival, taking place September 30 to October 2 in Dana Point, California. The Ohana lineup also includes Jack White, Stevie Nicks, Pink, St. Vincent and Brittany Howard.

Vedder will be supporting his new solo album, Earthling, which was released in February.

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