Duran Duran is set to headline the annual Cruel World Festival, happening May 11 in Pasadena, California.
The festival features a lineup heavy on acts from or influenced by the ’80s alternative and new wave scene. Other artists on the bill include Blondie, Simple Minds, Soft Cell, Adam Ant, Gary Numan performing his 1979 album The Pleasure Principle, The Alarm and The Motels, along with Interpol, Placebo, Ministry and Jesus and Mary Chain.
Registration is now open, with ticket passes going on sale Friday, December 8, at 12 p.m. PT. The full lineup and all ticket info can be found at CruelWorldFest.com.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer just announced dates for a new tour of Australia and New Zealand. It will be Taylor’s first return to the area since 2017.
The nine-date trek kicks off April 12 in Perth, hitting Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and more, before heading to New Zealand for two shows — April 30 in Auckland and May 1 in Wellington.
Tickets for all shows go on sale Wednesday, December 6. A complete list of dates can be found at jamestaylor.com.
After singing his way through the Great American Songbook, Rod Stewart is now turning his iconic voice to a slightly more upbeat genre.
In an interview with theU.K. paperThe Irish Sun, Rod says the album is called Swing Fever and is due out February 23. The first single, “Almost Like Being in Love,” is out this week. As the name suggests, the album is swing music, a type of jazz that came to prominence in the late 1920s and early 1930s, as pioneered by artists like Louis Prima.
As previously reported, Rod has teamed up on the project with Jools Holland, the former keyboard player for Squeeze. Holland is well known in England for hosting the influential music show Later…with Jools Holland, and being a bandleader of a large ensemble that plays swing, big band, jump blues and R&B. Rod recorded the album in London, with Holland’s band playing live on each track.
“The record is going to be a difficult sell because it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but once you listen, you get hooked,” Rod tells The Sun. “There isn’t one track on it where you won’t want to get up and dance.”
“The music is lively,” adds Holland. “It’s a celebration of joy.”
According to Holland, he and Rod initially met at a party and bonded over their mutual love of model trains. Rod notes, “When we text each other, we talk about the model railroads then the music. It should be the other way around.”
Music legend Brenda Lee will turn 79 on December 11, and she’ll have a lot to celebrate: Her classic holiday song “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” has just topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the very first time — 65 years after its release.
“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is now only the third holiday song in history to top the Billboard Hot 100, joining Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and “The Chipmunk Song” by The Chipmunks with David Seville. Written by Johnny Marks, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” was released in 1958, but it only hit the chart in 1960, peaking at #14 that year. Last year and in 2019, it’s climbed as high as #2.
Lee’s song sets another new record: the longest wait between a song’s release to hitting #1. Mariah previously held the record of 25 years, between her holiday hit’s release in 1994 and its ascent to #1 in 2019.
And finally, Lee is now the oldest woman ever to hit #1 on the chart, surpassing Cher, who was 52 when “Believe” topped the Hot 100. Lee was 13 when she recorded “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
This is Lee’s third Billboard Hot 100 #1 hit, following 1960’s “I’m Sorry” and “I Want to Be Wanted.” In the ’60s, she scored 46 Hot 100 hits, the most of any female artist.
And that isn’t the only holiday hit in this week’s top 10. Mariah’s song is #2, Bobby Helms‘ “Jingle Bell Rock” is #3, Wham!‘s “Last Christmas” is #5, Burl Ives‘ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” is #6 and Andy Williams’ “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” is #10.
Jim Spellman/WireImage for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rush’s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson have given fans a smidgeon of hope that they may one day come together to play the band’s music again.
During an appearance on CBS Sunday Morning, both were asked whether they could go on following the death of drummer Neal Peart —and they didn’t rule it out.
“It’s difficult to figure out what that chapter is without him,” Lifeson shared. Lee added that he and Lifeson have discussed hiring a drummer to go out on tour with them, noting, “It’s not impossible, but at this point, I can’t guarantee it.”
But it sounds like Lifeson is a bit more hopeful that it may happen one day, sharing, “It’s just not in our DNA to stop.”
Lee, meanwhile, is still out on his book tour promoting his recently released memoir, My Effin’ Life. It hits Detroit, Michigan, on December 4 and wraps December 7 in Toronto.
R.E.M. fans have been anxiously awaiting a solo album from the band’s frontman, Michael Stipe, and it sounds like it may be on its way…eventually.
In a new interview with The New York Times, conducted over the course of a year, Stipe gives an update on the project, which appears to still be a work-in-progress.
The article mentions several songs that Stipe had been working on, with names like “I’m the Charge” and “Time Keeps Changing,” as well as a duet with Courtney Love for an upcoming project.
It also describes a recording session at Electric Lady Studios in New York, where he met Taylor Swift and chatted with her producer Jack Antonoff and The 1975‘s Matty Healy.
As for what’s taking the record so long, the article notes that Stipe’s life simply got in the way. He also dealt with what he describes as “terrible writer’s block” but said he “completely flourished as a writer after that.”
And while Stipe hasn’t narrowed down when fans may hear the music, he did at least offer some sort of update on the project.
“We can say for the piece that I finished the songs, and by God, I will finish them before the piece comes out,” he says, referring to the article. “How about that? Let’s leave the piece closing with: I finished the songs.”
Roy Orbison performed what would be his final concert at the Front Row Theater in Highland Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
The concert featured performances of such Orbison classics as “Crying,” “In Dreams,” “Only the Lonely,” “Oh, Pretty Woman” and more.
After the show, Orbison returned home to Hendersonville, Tennessee, where he died from a heart attack on December 6. He was 52.
Orbison’s many accolades include being a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Songwriters Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and Musicians Hall of Fame. He won five Grammy Awards and was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Kinks are in the midst of a two-year celebration of their 60th anniversary, which includes two box sets: The Journey — Part 1, which came out in March, and the recently releasedThe Journey — Part 2.
The sets feature Kinks hits, as well as deep cuts and more, and The Kinks’ Dave Davies tells ABC Audio he’s “quite pleased with the way it turned out.”
“I think there’s a lot of really important music on it,” he says. “It gives a chance for people who aren’t that familiar with the non-hits” to discover the tunes. He notes, “They all work nicely on a compilation like this.”
Dave says he was happy to see the song “Lincoln County” make it on Part 2, along with “God’s Children,” written by his brother Ray Davies. “I’ve always loved it, the lyric, and the melody, the whole concept,” he shares.
The sets also feature live tracks and B-sides; Dave suggests there’s even more unreleased music to be heard, even if the songs aren’t perfect.
“I don’t know if they’ll ever see the light of day but over the years I’ve become less critical,” he says. “Songs have foibles and weird s*** and I think it’s all important aspects of recording. We’ve been doing it for so long it’s kinda nice to hear the nuances.”
As for whether fans will be hearing new music from The Kinks anytime soon, Dave seems hopeful it’ll happen.
“I don’t know but me and Ray played on tracks that’ve been sitting around, that we didn’t quite finish and are too good to just shelve,” he says, “so it’s very possible.”
KISS said goodbye to the road Saturday, December 2, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, but they’re not going away for good and have already revealed what’s next for the group.
After playing the final song, “Rock and Roll All Nite,” the band introduced the crowd, and the public watching at home via pay-per-view, to their KISS avatars, with holograms of Demon, the Starchild, Catman, and Spaceman performing “God Gave Rock ‘N’ Roll to You II.”
“The end of the road is the beginning of another road,” Paul Stanley told the crowd, according to Rolling Stone. “We’re not going anywhere. You’ll see us in all different things all the time. We’ll see you in your dreams.”
According to Fast Company, the KISS avatars come courtesy of San Francisco-based Industrial Light & Magic, with the band sharing some behind-the-scenes video of the making their holograms, captioning the clip, “A NEW ERA BEGINS.”
“The future is so exciting,” Gene Simmons says in the clip, with Stanley adding, “We can live on eternally.”
Bruce Springsteen has paid tribute to the late Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan, who passed away November 30 at the age of 65.
“Over here on E Street, we are heartbroken over the death of Shane MacGowan,” reads Springsteen’s Instagram post. “Shane was one of my all-time favorite writers. The passion and deep intensity of his music and lyrics is unmatched by all but the very best in the rock and roll canon.”
Springsteen then recalled visiting Shane and his wife, Victoria, when he was playing shows in Dublin last May.
“He was very ill, but still beautifully present in his heart and spirit,” Springsteen writes. “His music is timeless and eternal. I don’t know about the rest of us, but they’ll be singing Shane’s songs 100 years from now.”
