Classic Hits

Pat Benatar is among the artists who will be welcomed into the Roll & Roll Hall of Fame at the institution’s 2022 Induction Ceremony, which takes place November 5 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

The powerhouse singer, who will be inducted with her husband and longtime musical collaborator, Neil Giraldo, issued the following statement with her husband: “We are thrilled and humbled to become part of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame family. Thank you to everyone who voted especially the fans and congratulations to all the other inductees.”

Benatar and Giraldo also shared their feelings about their impending induction in a Zoom interview with Rock Hall President and CEO Greg Harris that’s been posted on YouTube.

In the clip, Pat explains, “You know, I’ve been lobbying for probably 25 years to get the real story about how everything began. It wasn’t about [just] me…it was about us together. And so I’m really I’m very excited and pleased that we get to go in together because that is the real story.”

She adds, “It feels good and it doesn’t change everything…not in the way that you would think. It’s just really nice for your children, for the legacy, for the fans…But for you, you’re grateful and you’re like, ‘That’s great.'”

Giraldo, meanwhile, acknowledges that the Rock Hall induction is a great honor, while noting that he and Benatar have never been preoccupied with awards and accolades.

“[T]he greatest thing always…[is] when you see and talk to the fans or the people that loved the music [and hear] how it changed their lives,” Neil maintains. “And that’s the most powerful thing you can ask for. And if this helps to exploit that even more, we’ll keep going and we’re not stopping.”

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In her storied career, Madonna is the only artist ever to have 50 number-one hits on any Billboard chart — in this case, the Dance Club Songs chart.  Now, she’s celebrating that accomplishment with a massive new compilation.

Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones features the Queen of Pop’s favorite remixes of her number-one dance hits, including fan favorites and rarities that are either making their digital debut or being released for the first time.  The collection drops digitally on August 19, and there’s also a three-CD version. A six-LP version will be available exclusively at Madonna’s official store via Rhino.com.

Finally Enough Love is arranged in mostly chronological order, from the seven-inch version of “Holiday” all the way through her most recent Dance Club number one, the Honey Dijon Radio mix of the 2020 single, “I Don’t Search I Find.” 

In between, you’ll find remixes of pretty much every Madonna song you could want, from “Material Girl,” Like a Virgin” and “Into the Groove,” to “Vogue,” “Express Yourself” and “Like a Prayer,” to “Ray of Light,” “Beautiful Stranger” and “Music,” to her collaborations with Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Nicki Minaj and more. 

To whet your appetite for the collection, the “You Can Dance Remix Edit of “Into the Groove” is available now for the first time digitally.

If 50 tracks is just too much Madonna for you, an abridged 16-track version called Finally Enough Love hits streaming services on June 24, with the CD and LP versions coming August 19.

Here’s the track listing for the 16-song version:

“Everybody” (You Can Dance Remix Edit)
“Into the Groove” (You Can Dance Remix Edit)
“Like a Prayer” (Remix/Edit)
“Express Yourself” (Remix/Edit)
“Vogue” (Single Version)
“Deeper And Deeper” (David’s Radio Edit)
“Secret” (Junior’s Luscious Single Mix)
“Frozen” (Extended Club Mix Edit)
“Music” (Deep Dish Dot Com Radio Edit)
“Hollywood” (Calderone & Quayle Edit)
“Hung Up” (SDP Extended Vocal Edit)
“Give It 2 Me” (Eddie Amador Club 5 Edit)
“Girl Gone Wild” (Avicii’s UMF Mix)
“Living for Love” (Offer Nissim Promo Mix)
“Medellín” (Offer Nissim Madame X In The Sphinx Mix) – Madonna and Maluma
“I Don’t Search I Find” (Honey Dijon Radio Mix)

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If you can’t make it to Southern California’s 2022 BeachLife Festival later this month, you can still enjoy the beach vibes, and some of the musical performances, from the comfort of your own home.

Select sets from the three-day event, which will be held May 13-15 on Redondo Beach, will stream live online for free. Among the many artists you’ll be able to watch are Steve Miller Band, Sheryl Crow and UB40 Featuring Ali Campbell and Sugar Ray.

The stream begins May 13 at 1 p.m. PT via BeachLifeFestival.com and at Volume.com/BeachLifeFestival. Miller and his band, Crow and the UB40 spin-off group all will perform on Sunday, May 15, with the livestreams of their sets scheduled, respectively, at 7:30 p.m., 6:05 p.m. and 3 p.m. PT. Sugar Ray will be performing on Saturday, May 14, at 12:20 p.m. PT.

Other artists on the BeachLife Festival’s livestream schedule include Stone Temple Pilots, Weezer, The Smashing Pumpkins, 311 and Matisyahu.

BeachLife tickets are also still available for those who wish to attend in person.

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This year, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is more like the MTV Hall of Fame: The newly minted inductees in the Performer category include ’80s pop icons Pat Benatar, Duran Duran, Eurythmics and Lionel Richie, plus Carly Simon and country legend Dolly Parton, who also had ’80s pop hits. The one outlier: rap superstar Eminem. But according to the Hall of Fame’s head honcho, “it’s all rock ‘n’ roll.”

“Rock ‘n’ roll has never been one thing,” says Rock Hall president and CEO Greg Harris. “It’s always been changing. It’s heavily influenced by the youth culture of the era and drives people to think differently, to act differently, to dress differently, to really believe in things.”

He adds, “We are seeing that in a big way with this class for the 1980s, but we’ll see it for subsequent decades as time marches on and and we continue to evolve. We’re not stuck in any one sound, but it’s all rock ‘n’ roll in our book.”

According to the Rock Hall, those honored with induction have created music with “originality, impact and influence [that] has changed the course of rock ‘n’ roll.” So how do these ’80s pop stars fit in?

Harris says Benatar “really set a path” for lots of female artists who came after her, because she was “in control [and] uncompromising” and has an “unbelievable vocal range.”

As for Duran Duran, Harris cites their “infectious melodies” and “complex musical arrangements,” as well as their mixture of guitar and synths, as influential.

And speaking of guitars and synths, Harris says Eurythmics took those and made them “really funky,” adding that Annie Lennox‘s “unbelievable voice” really brought “’60s soul into the ’80s.”

And talking about soul, Harris says, “Richie [was] hitting just as hard as Marvin Gaye, in a different era.”

As for Simon, Harris names Taylor Swift and Alanis Morissette as examples of women who’ve been impacted by “the honesty of her music and her delivery.”

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be held November 5 at Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater, and will air later on HBO and stream on HBO Max.

This year’s other inductees include Musical Excellence Award honorees Judas Priest and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis; Early Influence Award recipients Harry Belafonte and Elizabeth Cotton; and music-industry figures Allen Grubman, Jimmy Iovine and Sylvia Robinson, who’ll be recognized with the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

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The Rolling Stones have partnered with the LEGO Group on the creation of a new LEGO set that celebrates the band’s classic tongue-and-lips logo in honor of the British rock legends’ 60th anniversary.

The set, which is part of the LEGO Art series, features 1,998 pieces that when put together creates a 3-D depiction of the Stones logo. It will be released on June 1, and will be available at LEGO.com and all LEGO retailers. The set is priced at $149.99.

LEGO designers have incorporated special surprise content into the set that can be accessed by fans — a soundtrack that includes music and an exclusive interview with graphic designer John Pasche, who created the original Rolling Stones tongue logo back in 1970.

“Who would have believed, 50 odd years ago…that design would be made into a LEGO piece. Wow!” Pasche said after he first saw the LEGO Art set.

The LEGO logo set measures over 22 inches long by 18.5 inches wide, and includes two hanger elements so that it can be affixed to a wall for display.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd will headline the final day of the second annual Born & Raised Festival, taking place September 16-18 in Pryor, Oklahoma, at Pryor Creek Music Festival Grounds, the same site as the popular Rocklahoma Festival.

The three-day event offers a country music and camping experience that showcases artists from the outlaw country genre, with a lineup featuring a total of over 35 acts.

Pre-sale passes for the festival will be available to purchase starting Friday, May 6, at 8 a.m. CT, while the general public will be able to purchase passes beginning on Monday, May 9, at 10 a.m. CT. You can register for the pre-sale, and find out full information about the event, now at BornandRaisedFestival.com.

Skynyrd’s Born & Raised Festival appearance is among a series of new performances that the famed Southern rockers have added to their 2022 tour schedule in recent weeks.

The band now has 25 shows listed on its itinerary, spanning from a May 13 appearance at the Pomona County Fair in Pomona, California, through a September 26 concert in Airway Heights, Washington.

Visit LynyrdSkynyrd.com to check out the band’s full schedule.

Meanwhile, founding Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington, who’s sat out most of the band’s concerts since 2021 because ongoing heart issues, recently posted a video on the group’s Facebook page giving an update on his health.

“I hope to make all [the upcoming shows] I can with my heart problems,” Rossington says in the clip, and reveals that he’ll soon undergo an operation “to put some heart-valve clips back on my valves that have kind of gone bad.”

He adds, “I’m gonna really keep working on my health and working out and trying to get better to be out there and play every night.”

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Stevie Wonder will be honored with the Legal Defense Fund’s inaugural Icon Award at the racial-justice organization’s 2022 National Equal Justice Awards Dinner, which will be held May 10 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.

Billboard reports that, according to a statement from the Legal Defense Fund, Wonder will be recognized for “his steadfast work throughout his illustrious career, spanning over half a century, which embodies LDF’s values and demonstrates his commitment to confronting the barriers that face Black Americans and other marginalized communities.”

The event, which boasts the theme “Truth Is Power,” will feature video messages from former first lady Michelle Obama and from former NFL quarterback and civil rights activist Colin Kaepernick, as well as performances from the Dance Theater of Harlem.

Also at the event, author and professor Nikole Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her book The 1619 Project, will be honored with the Spirit of Justice Award; and Sherrilyn Ifill, the Legal Defense Fund’s outgoing president, will receive the Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award.

“Our honorees have unapologetically used truth as power,” says current LDF president Janai S. Nelson in a statement. “They have refused to back down when others tried to silence them. And they have held their convictions fiercely and been unyielding to false narratives. Most importantly, they have used truth to shape outlooks, inform mindsets, and touch souls.”

For more information about the Legal Defense Fund and its National Equal Justice Awards Dinner, visit NAACPLDF.org.

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Pride Month begins June 1, and Mariah Carey is giving her lambs plenty of new clothes to celebrate.

The “Fantasy” singer dropped her 2022 Pride Collection on Tuesday, which fans can purchase now on her official online store.   Among the new, colorful goodies up for grabs are matching sweat sets, crop hoodies, muscle tanks, hats, water bottles, folding fans, rainbow neon lights and so much more.

Mariah also re-released a special vinyl edition of her 1999 Rainbow album, which features the songs “Thank God I Found You” and “Heartbreaker.”  It’s retailing for $31.98 on Mariah’s store.  

The singer commemorates some of those hit singles on special wardrobe pieces, such as an “Obsessed” crop hoodie and “Heartbreaker” tees and tank tops. 

Mariah also celebrated the outfit she wore on the Rainbow album with an all-new body tee, which allows fans to wear a stylized version of Mariah’s body on both the front and the back, for $60.

Prices range between $15 and $115 on Mariah’s new merchandise set, which is available to purchase now.

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Cyndi Lauper‘s life story is about to get the documentary treatment in the forthcoming film Let the Canary Sing. The movie will explore the “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” singer’s rise to fame — and it has her seal of approval.

The movie will be helmed by Emmy-nominated director Alison Ellwood, who will take the audience on a deep dive into Cyndi’s history and accomplishments. 

According to a press release, the documentary will explore “how Lauper found her voice growing up in working class Queens, New York, a meteoric rise to stardom following the smashing success of her debut album She’s So Unusual, and the generations she has influenced with her songs, her inimitable ever-evolving punk style, unapologetic feminism and devotion to advocating for others.”

Cyndi has already given her “full participation and support” for the film.

“Like many people, I assumed when Cyndi Lauper burst onto the music scene in the early ’80s, that she was another young star experiencing a meteoric rise to fame and success thanks to MTV,” Ellwood said in a statement. “Her music videos were wild and colorful, her songs like ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun‘ were infectious. But as it turns out, her story is one of hard knocks, hard work and dogged determination. Cyndi wanted her voice not just to be listened to, but a voice to be heard.”

The director continued, “The documentary will be a full portrait of Cyndi Lauper — her ‘True Colors’ shining through.”

The pop legend has sold over 50 million records during her explosive career. Her standout hit “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” has been viewed over a billion times on YouTube.

Sony Music Entertainment is financing the film, for which a release date has yet to be announced.

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Graham Nash‘s long-awaited live album showcasing a series of special concerts he played in September 2019 during which he performed his first two solo album — 1971’s Songs for Beginners and 1974’s Wild Tales — in their entirety, finally will be released this Friday, May 6.

Graham Nash: Live — Songs for Beginners/Wild Tales features renditions of every tune from Nash’s two studio efforts, including the 1971 hit “Chicago/We Can Change the World,” and gems like “Military Madness,” “Simple Man,” “Prison Song” and “Oh! Camil.”

The full-albums concerts, which took place at four venues in the northeastern U.S., featured Nash performing with his two regular backing musicians — guitarist Shane Fontayne and keyboardist Todd Caldwell — plus a drummer, a bassist, a pedal-steel guitarist and two female backup singers.

In advance of the album, Graham released his live version of “Military Madness” digitally.

Reflecting on why the Songs for Beginners and Wild Tales albums were so popular with fans, Nash says, “I think it’s that intimacy and that immediacy of my emotions.”

He also laments that some of the topical songs he wrote during the ’70s remain relevant today.

“We’re supposed to learn from history and it doesn’t appear as if we’re learning much,” he maintains. “Songs like ‘Military Madness’…is that not relevant today? The hope that we can change the world, isn’t that still relevant today? I’m very flattered that my music seems to have lasted this long, but I’m also a little upset that we have to keep singing a song like ‘Military Madness’ right up to the present. Enough already!”

Graham Nash: Live, which can be pre-ordered now, is available on CD, as a two-LP set and via digital formats.

Here’s the live album’s full track list:

“Military Madness”
“Better Days”
“Wounded Bird”
“I Used to Be a King”
“Be Yourself”
“Simple Man”
“Man in the Mirror”
“There’s Only One”
“Sleep Song”
“Chicago”/”We Can Change the World”
“Wild Tales”
“Hey You (Looking at the Moon)”
“Prison Song”
“You’ll Never Be the Same”
“And So It Goes”
“Grave Concern”
“Oh! Camil”
“I Miss You”
“On the Line”
“Another Sleep Song”

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