Classic Hits

If you’re one of Mariah Carey‘s top fans on Spotify, you received a special video message from her on your Spotify Wrapped this year. But she wants you to know that that video is all her — and not AI.

Mariah says in the clip, “Your support through the years is the greatest gift I could ask for. This year, we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of my album Merry Christmas. I hope you enjoy listening to it, and I can’t wait to share new music with you soon.”

After the video was posted on social platform X, some fans were of the opinion that — due to Mariah’s crimson lipstick, a shade she doesn’t normally wear, and the fact that she appeared somewhat stiff while delivering the message — the video was AI-generated. But Mimi was quick to dismiss that idea.

She reposted the video on X and wrote, “Bad lighting and a red lip have you all thinking this is AI?? There’s a reason I’m not a fan of either of those things!“

One thing that’s definitely real is Mariah’s warm feelings toward her listeners. To go along with the release of the new deluxe 30th anniversary edition of her Merry Christmas album — the one that includes THAT song — she wrote on Instagram, “You know I don’t know numbers but I’m really proud to celebrate 30 years of this album. I’m so grateful to all my fans who spent many of their Christmases with these songs.”

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Grateful Dead and Bonnie Raitt will be celebrated on Sunday as some of this year’s recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors. 

The celebration is happening at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., with highlights from the ceremony to air Dec. 22 on CBS. So far performers set to honor this year’s recipients have not been announced.

In a Washington Post profile released ahead of the ceremony, The Dead’s Mickey Hart discussed the band’s appeal, noting, “You couldn’t pigeonhole the Grateful Dead. You still can’t.”

“The Grateful Dead is a lot of things,” he added. “The Grateful Dead is a record. The Grateful Dead is mythology. The Grateful Dead is us. The Grateful Dead is a force.”

In her own Washington Post profile, Raitt discussed her love of playing live.

“It’s like a magical exhalation that happens, the exchange between the audience and us,” she says. “Playing live is what drives you. That’s what your purpose is. At the end of the night, I feel like I’ve had my blood changed.”

This year’s celebration will be hosted by Queen Latifah, who received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2023. The other honorees this year are director Francis Ford Coppola and jazz musician Arturo Sandoval, as well as the iconic Harlem venue The Apollo, which will receive a special Honors recognition as an American institution.

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Melissa Etheridge has announced a new co-headlining tour with Indigo Girls. 

The artists are teaming up for the Yes We Are tour, kicking off July 25 with a show at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado. It will hit 30 cities before wrapping Oct. 12 in Phoenix. 

Artists presales are set to begin Dec. 10 at 10 a.m., with tickets going on sale to the general public starting Dec. 12 at 10 a.m. A complete list of tour dates can be found at MelissaEtheridge.com and IndigoGirls.com.

The new dates will mark the second year in a row Etheridge and the Indigo Girls have toured together. They co-headlined a set of dates last summer, as well.

But before she hits the road with Indigo Girls, Etheridge has several solo dates on the schedule. Her next show is happening Jan. 19 at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

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Styx and REO Speedwagon frontman Kevin Cronin are headed out on the road together.

The artists just announced dates for the Brotherhood of Rock tour, which will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their first tour together. The tour was announced with a video in which Cronin and Styx’s Tommy Shaw magically switch bodies in their sleep.

The trek, which features former Eagles lead guitarist Don Felder as a special guest, will kick off May 28 in Greenville, South Carolina, and wrap Aug. 24 in Milwaukee.

A Citi presale for tickets begins Dec. 9 at 10 a.m., with tickets going on sale to the general public Dec. 13 at 10 a.m. A complete list of dates can be found at styxworld.com.

Styx and Cronin, as frontman of REO Speedwagon, first toured together in 2000 and 2001, and this will mark the sixth time they’ve hit the road together.

In June, Styx went out on tour with Foreigner on the Renegades and Jukebox Heroes tour. The band is now on a solo tour, playing Durant, Oklahoma, on Friday. Back in September, REO Speedwagon announced they would stop touring in 2025 due to “irreconcilable differences.”

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Eric Clapton has released a new video for the track “The Call,” which had its premiere on a billboard in Times Square in New York.

Clapton does not appear in the clip, which has a camera panning across a desk with an old rotary phone, answering machine, vintage turntable and more. It also features drawings on napkins that begin to move to the music. 

This is the second video released for a track from Clapton’s latest album, Meanwhile. He previously released an animated clip for the album’s first single, “One Woman.”

Meanwhile, Clapton’s first album with new material since 2016’s I Still Do, is made up of six new songs and eight previously released tunes. It features guest appearances by the late Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, Bradley Walker, Judith Hill, Daniel Santiago and Simon Climie.

The album was released digitally in October, with vinyl and CD editions being released Jan. 24. Both are available for preorder now.

Clapton recently announced he’ll be heading to Tokyo for a six-night residency at the Nippon Budokan, starting April 14. He’ll also return to London’s Royal Albert Hall for three shows that kick off May 21. A complete list of dates can be found at ericclapton.com.

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Paul McCartney is being honored by The Royal Mint with his very own coin.

McCartney’s coin, officially approved by The Beatles legend, will feature McCartney’s Magic Piano and will reference his career, with piano notes chosen by McCartney, the Wings logo and his Höfner Violin Bass guitar.

“This feels like a huge honor,” McCartney shared. “It’s not anything I would have ever expected to happen when I was a kid.”

This will be the first time McCartney has ever appeared on an official U.K. coin. To mark the occasion, The Royal Mint has gifted McCartney a special pick-shaped version using sustainable gold, inspired by his early use of pennies as guitar picks.

“Our coins recognize the greatest icons and events in British history, so it’s fitting that Paul McCartney’s remarkable music career is now celebrated on an official U.K. coin,” Rebecca Morgan, director of commemorative coin at The Royal Mint, said. “What makes this coin extra special is that Paul has been involved throughout the design process. The coin celebrates elements from throughout his solo career, and we hope fans will enjoy the layered references to songs, instruments, and bands.” 

The Paul McCartney coin comes in a variety of finishes, including gold, silver and silver with color. They’re available to order now, starting at about $20, with the most expensive being a limited-edition 1-ounce gold coin, which sells for about $3,800.

The news coincides with the launch of the European leg of McCartney’s Got Back tour, which kicked off Wednesday in Paris. He’s set to wrap the tour in London with two nights at the 02, Dec. 18 and Dec. 19.

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Sammy Hagar has joined the lineup for Metallica‘s 2024 Helping Hands benefit concert, taking place Dec. 13 in Los Angeles.

The Red Rocker will be joined by his Best of All Worlds lineup, which includes his former Van Halen bandmate Mike Anthony, guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani and drummer Kenny Aronoff.

Metallica has also announced that musical duo SistaStrings will be playing Helping Hands, as well.

The biannual Helping Hands benefits Metallica’s All Within My Hands charity foundation and features a rare acoustic performance from the metal legends. 

Previous openers and special guests include Greta Van Fleet, Cage the Elephant and St. Vincent.

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Timothée Chalamet and the cast of the Bob Dylan film A Complete Unknown do their own singing in the film, and now fans will be able to enjoy their performance long after they’ve left the movie theater.

A Complete Unknown (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) will be released Dec. 25 to coincide with the film’s opening, and the first two singles have just been released: “Girl From The North Country,” sung by Chalamet as Dylan and Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, and Dylan’s signature tune, “Like A Rolling Stone,” sung by Chalamet.

Both songs are available now via digital outlets.

“To me, there was only one way to make this film — to cast actors that are profoundly talented, ambitious (and brave enough!) to inhabit the whole of the artists they would portray,” the film’s director, James Mangold, shares. “And in order to inhabit that world those artists had to be able to sing the songs. We were never out to replace the power, beauty and majesty of what exists, but rather, to celebrate it.” 

In addition to the Dec. 25 digital release, a limited-edition vinyl version of the soundtrack will drop in late January. It is available for preorder how.

A Complete Unknown follows a 19-year-old Dylan as he arrives in New York from Minnesota and tracks his rise as a folk singer during the ’60s to the top of the charts, ending with his electric rock ‘n’ roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.

The film also stars Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as a character named Sylvie Russo, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash and Nick Offerman as Alan Lomax.

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Grateful Dead, who’ll receive the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday, have a long history of philanthropy, and in a new interview with Billboard they talk about their motivation for giving back to the public. 

“We’re part of a community, and so the better the community is doing, the better we’re doing,” Bobby Weir says of their mission to help, noting that the late Jerry Garcia “always used to say, ‘You get some, you give some back.’ It just makes sense.”

“We help people and give them stuff. It’s just a good way to live life,” Bill Kreutzmann adds. “I wish that more people in the world lived life that way, instead of wars and bombings.” 

The members of The Dead will also be celebrated for their philanthropy by the Recording Academy in February as the MusiCares Person of the Year.

“It all follows in that tradition of teaching the industry what it should know about,” Mickey Hart says. “That’s that Grateful Dead kind of style, where we just did it because we knew it was the right thing to do.”

He adds, “If we wanted to do this the rest of our lives was the idea, we have to do these things, because people support us — and we reciprocate.”

The band members also reiterated to Billboard their previous revelation that prior to Phil Lesh‘s October death they were making plans to reunite for their 60th anniversary in 2025, noting Lesh was excited about the possibility.

“(Phil) had a dream that he was going to get to play with us three one more time,” Kreutzmann notes. “And that didn’t happen — but that’s how it goes.”

The Kennedy Center Honors will air on CBS Dec. 22.

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Billy Joel has announced his first 2025 show with Rod Stewart. The two Rock & Roll Hall of Famers will headline Pittsburgh’s Acrisure Stadium on July 5. 

A Citi presale for tickets begins Dec. 9 at 10 a.m., with tickets going on sale to the general public on Dec. 13 at 10 a.m.

Billy and Rod played their last show together in September in Cleveland. So far this is the only date they have booked for 2025, although Rod will head out on his own next year, with the U.S. leg of his One Last Time tour kicking off March 7 in Austin, Texas. 

Billy has several 2025 dates on the books, including a just-announced show with Stevie Nicks in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Aug. 8, as well as another in Detroit in March.

He’s also set to play five shows with Sting and has some solo dates on the books.

Billy’s next concert is a New Year’s Eve show at UBS Arena in Long Island, New York.

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