Classic Hits

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.”

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Lionel Richie is lucky enough to have one main career and two or three side hustles: Not only is he a legendary pop star, he’s also an American Idol judge who’s got his own line of perfumes and home decor, as well as his own flavor of ice cream. But you may be surprised by what he thinks he’d be doing right now if the whole music thing hadn’t worked out.

“I’d have a gardening service that you would not believe,” Lionel tells Marie Claire magazine. Describing himself as “scissor hands,” the singer says, “I build lots of hedges around my property because I know I can cut, make noise, and just make a mess. I go into my yard in the afternoon and come out completely filthy.”

“I would either be a horticulturalist or an architect,” he continues. “I love buildings and structures. When I’m in Europe and outside of America, I kind of relate to how the architecture fits into the modern day world that we’re living in now.”

As for why he didn’t pursue architecture from the start, Lionel admits, “I knew I wasn’t going to be a great architect because there was one part of the class that you take, it’s called stress. You do the math to figure out how far you can make the stress happen on your structure.”

“Well, my math, at that particular time, did not go along with my design. So everything I had fell to the ground. So I said, ‘Well, maybe architecture won’t be my career.'”

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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 Billboard reports 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.”

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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.”

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On Thursday, August 3 — which would have been the late Tony Bennett‘s 97th birthday — his wife Susan Benedetto and son Danny Bennett revealed details of the legendary crooner’s final days on NBC’s Today show. Bennett died on July 21 at the age of 96 following a yearslong battle with Alzheimer’s.

Danny told Hoda Kotb that his father’s last words to him were, “Thank you,” while Susan said the last thing Tony said to her was that he loved her.

“He would wake up every day and still say that,” she continued. “He woke up happy every day, even if he had had a bad day or night, he didn’t remember it, that was the only blessing. And yeah, he woke up happy and he’s just like, ‘Susan, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.’ And he would say that all the time.”

Susan also shared that Bennett would often ask, “Am I working tonight?” or “Am I in a good theater tonight?” When he noticed her showing one of his aides YouTube videos of him, Susan says he asked, “Was I always popular?” “Yes sweetheart,” she replied. “You’ve been popular for over 70 years.”

“That’s because I stayed with quality,” he declared.

“He just really wanted to be remembered as a nice person,” Susan said. “And I think all the outpouring of love…has proven that. People feel like they lost a family friend, even if they never met him.”

“I’ve lost my North Star,” she added. “No reason to feel bad for me, though, because my life has been wonderful and I’ll find a way to make sure it stays that way. It’ll just be different, forever.”

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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 Independent reports 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.

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On This Day, August 3, 1987…

Def Leppard released their fourth studio album, Hysteria, which became their first #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. The record, the follow-up to 1983’s Pyromania, went on to sell over 20 million copies and is the band’s best selling album to date.

Produced by Mutt Lange, Hysteria took over three years for Def Leppard to complete. During production, their drummer Rick Allen lost his arm in a car accident. It was also the band’s last record with guitarist Steve Clark, who passed away in 1991. 

Hysteria featured some of Def Leppard’s most well-known hits, including the title track, their signature tune “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” “Armageddon It,” “Animal” and “Love Bites,” which was the band’s only #1 single.

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Foreigner is currently on their Farewell tour, which gives frontman Kelly Hansen lots of opportunity to sing the band’s range of big hits. And with so many great songs to choose from, it’s no surprise he has a hard time picking a favorite.

“I’ve never looked at things as a best or better than, I appreciate these songs for what they are,” Hansen tells ABC Audio, noting that which song he prefers could change based on his mood, the venue, etc.

“And when we play those songs onstage, even though we might do a similar set of songs every night, all the variables will change how that song is going to feel, which will also color how you perform that song,” he says.

“I like to say that I’m lucky enough to have this beautiful cornucopia of ripe songs to pick from every night,” he adds. “It’s like every song is a song that everybody knows.”

And Hansen certainly knows how fortunate he is to get to perform these tunes each night. He shares, “As a singer, you couldn’t possibly buy that opportunity. To be able to have a whole set of songs that everybody knows, what a gift for me that is.” 

Next up, Foreigner’s Farewell tour hits Gilford, New Hampshire, on August 4, with dates confirmed through November 18 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. A complete list of dates can be found at foreigneronline.com.

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In 1972, The Rolling Stones were the biggest band in the world; their U.S. tour that year became the stuff of legend. Now, it’s become the stuff of a podcast.

The podcast, Stones Touring Party, is based on the book S.T.P.: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones by Rolling Stone magazine’s Robert Greenfield, who did more than 60 hours of interviews with the band on that tour. He and another entourage member, Gary Stromberg, are sharing those tapes on the podcast.

Stones Touring Party is described as “an all-access pass to the sights, sounds, riots, bombings, drug busts, death threats and other assorted mayhem” of the 1972 tour. But the first episode details what happened before that tour: the Stones’ ill-fated 1969 Altamont concert, during which 18-year-old fan Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by members of Hell’s Angels, who had been hired as “security.”

“I think it affected all of us very profoundly. The only thing we were very upset about was being accused and held responsible for what happened,” then-Stones guitarist Mick Taylor says on the tapes. “And you can’t really blame anybody in that kind of mass hysteria.”

The episode sets the stage for the Stones’ return to America in 1972 and their concern that every time they stepped onstage, they might be a target for more violence.

“Either I stopped touring or I didn’t. It was as simple as that. A few people said don’t go — friends of mine … I said, ‘Well, it’s more or less what I do, so I gotta do it,’” Mick Jagger says on the tapes. “There was a few places that it did get scary and there was a lot of guns confiscated and stuff like that … I was scared s***less.”

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If you want to get a head start on convincing your young kids — or grandkids — that Bruce Springsteen is cool, then Random House books has your back.

September 5 will see the release of Bruce Springsteen: A Little Golden Book Biography. Written for kids ages 4 to 8, it’s described as “an inspiring read-aloud for young children, as well as their parents and grandparents who are fans of The Boss.” A similar book on The Beatles is coming November 7.

American Songwriter has an excerpt of the book, written by author Laurel Snyder: “When he wasn’t performing, Bruce wrote songs about the people and places he knew. He wrote about his family and his town, about the hard work people did, and also about the things they dreamed of doing. Bruce wrote about faraway places he’d never been to, and the highways he hoped would take him there.”

The book is just one in a series of Little Golden Book Biographies about music stars like Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift, politicians like Joe Biden and Barack Obama, actors like Dwyane Johnson and Betty White, and even historical figures like Harriet Tubman and Abraham Lincoln.

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