John Lennon topped the Billboard album chart with his sophomore solo album, Imagine.
The album, co-produced by Lennon, Yoko Ono and Phil Spector, was Lennon’s first solo #1 record, and spent 47 weeks on the chart. It also went to #1 in the U.K.
Imagine is best known for its iconic title track. It also featured “How Do You Sleep?,” a song attacking his former writing partner Paul McCartney, “Gimme Some Truth” and more.
Lennon would go on to have two more solo number ones, Walls and Bridges, in 1974, and the posthumous release, Double Fantasy, which spent eight weeks on top of the chart in 1980.
Public Enemy‘s FlavorFlav achieved one of his bucket list items when he performed “The Star Spangled Banner” on Sunday. The hip-hop hype man took to X, formerly known as Twitter, expressing how fun it was to attend the Milwaukee Bucks x Atlanta Hawks basketball game as the night’s opening entertainment. “I can’t live my life worried about what people might say about me,” he said. “I won’t let that stop me from trying new things and doing things I wanna do.” Flav seemingly started off a bit nervous but after ending his set in his own unique way, was met with roaring cheers and applause from the audience.
Ciara‘s continuously growing baby bump didn’t stop her from trying her hand at Tyla‘s viral “Water” dance challenge over the weekend. In a video shared to Instagram, Ciara, wearing a plaid mini skirt with a bottle of water in hand, began the hip-and-booty choreography. She looked back at the camera smiling, seemingly amused at her efforts and captioned her post, “Up here tryin to move like Tyla with this bump… somebody come get my phone.”
Brandyannounced she’ll soon be dropping one of the song’s from her upcoming holiday album, Christmas with Brandy. The R&B singer took to Instagram with behind-the-scenes footage of her album shoot, where’s she decked out in multiple white outfits. “Christmas Party For Two will be yours next Friday, 11/3. Pre-order Christmas With Brandy in my bio,” Brandy wrote. “I love y’all.”
The group announced on ABC’s Good Morning America Monday that next year, they’ll be embarking on The Magic Summer 2024 Tour, a reimagining of their 1990 tour of the same name.
Donnie, Joey, Jordan, Jonathan and Danny will be joined by special guests Paula Abdul and DJ Jazzy Jeff for the trek, which kicks off June 14 and will stop at over 40 cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
“The true ‘magic’ of this tour is in the music, the moments and the memories that we get to create – and recreate – with our amazing fans each night,” Donnie Wahlberg says in a statement. “Feeling all the nostalgic feels of the original Magic Summer, with the bond that we’ve shared throughout the years, will make for a most magical time indeed.”
Fan club and CITI presale tickets will be available starting Wednesday, November 1, with tickets going on sale to the general public on November 3 at 10 a.m. local time on LiveNation.com.
Also on November 3, NKOTB will release a 15th anniversary version of their 2008 comeback album The Block, called The Block Revisited.
The current single off the new ‘Tallica album, 72 Seasons, has hit #1 on the ranking, giving the “Enter Sandman” outfit their lucky 13th Mainstream Rock Airplay leader.
Two of those 13 number ones also come from 72 Seasons: lead single “Lux Æterna” and the title track. That makes 72 Seasons the first-ever Metallica album to boast at least three #1 hits atop Mainstream Rock Airplay.
Metallica is also now tied with Foo Fighters and Van Halen for the fourth-most number ones on Mainstream Rock Airplay, which began in 1981. Shinedown has the most, with 18, followed by Three Days Grace with 17 and Five Finger Death Punch with 14.
Metallica’s been supporting 72 Seasons on the M72 world tour, which picks up again November 3 in St. Louis.
Justin Timberlake reportedly turned off the comments on his Instagram after fans came after him for what he allegedly did to Britney Spears. But Justin’s bandmate Lance Bass says everyone should just live and let live.
In Britney’s memoir, The Woman in Me, she writes that Justin cheated on her with a “very popular” female celebrity who she won’t name, and later broke up with Britney via text, which left her “devastated.” She also writes that she became pregnant with Justin’s baby, but got an abortion because he “didn’t want to be a dad.”
Asked by TMZ if he’d read Britney’s book, Lance said he was about to. Asked about the fans’ feelings towards Justin, Lance said, “Look, everyone has their own opinion. I feel like the world is so full of hate right now and we need to practice a little forgiveness. Britney did. Let’s take a note from her.”
“Everyone deserves to tell their story — she did, and I hope the fans can find some forgiveness,” he added.
When asked if he’d talked to JT about it, Lance scoffed, “I’m not gonna tell you about my conversations.” But when asked about the prospects of any further *NSYNC activities — like an album or tour — he was more forthcoming.
“We might be talking about it soon, but [there]’s nothing in the works right now,” he said. Asked if he was crossing his fingers for more *NSYNC, Lance said, “I mean, of course!”
The Beatles‘ music has brought a lot of families together, and that idea is the subject of a new one-man play from Ted Lasso writer and star Brendan Hunt.
The actor’s new show, The Movement You Need, reveals how the band’s music was one of the things that united him and his late mother, with whom he had a complicated relationship.
According to Variety, the idea for the show came after Hunt got to meet Paul McCartney thanks to his Ted Lasso boss Jason Sudeikis, who invited him along to watch the rehearsal for the Taylor Hawkins memorial show in London. He says his show represents the things he had wanted to say to McCartney.
Hunt says his sister’s social media post about how her love for The Beatles came from their mother got him thinking. “I started to realize there are so many moments in my life that are connected to The Beatles,” he says.
The show will have its New York premiere at the SoHo Playhouse, running November 1-7. Hunt says you don’t have to be a Beatles fan to enjoy it.
“You don’t have to know the Beatles, you don’t have to like the Beatles. I have to be able to reach people who don’t like the Beatles or who are just sick and tired of having the Beatles shoved down their throats,” he tells the mag. “The story is about a mom and a son, and it happens to have the Beatles as the framework. Any amount of Beatles knowledge you might need is provided during the show.”
Tickets for The Movement You Need are on sale now.
These days, the only person who can break Taylor Swift‘s records is, well, Taylor Swift. She’s done it again with her latest release, 1989 (Taylor’s Version).
Spotify says that on October 27, the day the album was released, Taylor became the most-streamed artist in a single day in Spotify history — a record she first captured in 2022. Plus, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a single day of 2023 so far.
In addition, Spotify says that one of the album’s five “From the Vault” tracks, “Slut!,” debuted at #1 on the Spotify U.S. chart with over five million streams, while “Style” topped the streaming service’s global chart. On Spotify’s U.S. Top 50 chart, the first 21 spots are taken up by the 21 songs on the standard edition of 1989 (TV).
A deluxe edition of the album includes a remix of “Bad Blood” with Kendrick Lamar. That’s in position #23 on the chart.
Meanwhile, another “From the Vault” track, “Say Don’t Go,” was co-written by legendary songwriter Diane Warren. She tells Rolling Stone of Taylor, “She was very particular about how she said certain things. It was a really interesting experience. She gets her audience. She’s deeply aware of how her fans want to hear something.”
“I hope they release this as a single,” she adds. “Because I think it’s a f****** hit.”
The Rebirth of the Fearless Hero — that’s the original title for Kirk Franklin‘s 14th studio album.
But life-altering information Franklin received while recording the album prompted the change to Father’s Day: he received unexpected details about his biological father’s whereabouts.
He told ABC Audio that dealing with the newness in the middle of crafting the album was beyond difficult.
“It was pretty traumatic,” he said. “It was so out of body that it really felt like I was watching someone else have to experience something.”
Franklin, who grew up knowing he’d been adopted, revealed that a “really disturbing” phone call from a woman he sings with led to meeting his birth father after more than 50 years.
“And so, art imitates life,” Franklin said, adding the surprise revelation “naturally impacted the lyrics.”
Despite the heaviness that persisted in his personal life at the time, Franklin tried not to create depressing records. “That would have been counterintuitive to the message that I’ve always tried to speak,” he said.
Instead he created the usual upbeat, hip-hop-heavy, feel-good, contemporary gospel the 19-time Grammy winner is known for producing.
If fans listen closely, they’ll notice Franklin’s creative ability to interpolate one of the most tumultuous times in his life with the fun tracks. Like “Try Love,” the “boppy” song that offers a sneak peek: “I didn’t know much, much about love/ the way it was supposed to be … The many dark days, The times I felt betrayed, by the ones that were supposed to love me/ It’s the only kind of love I’ve known.”
That was the ebb and flow of recording, Franklin said: “Put on face but every now and then, the cracks would come through.”
Duran Duran‘s new album, Danse Macabre, features a cover of the Billie Eilish song “bury a friend.” In taking on one of modern music’s biggest artists, the ’80s hitmakers saw an opportunity to catch people off guard.
“[Keyboardist] Nick [Rhodes] said to me … ‘I rather like this Billie Eilish song,'” bassist John Taylor tells ABC Audio. “And I thought, ‘Oh, yeah, that could be really very surprising.'”
“Doing a Billie song … it’s kind of a little different,” he continues. “It’s quite confrontational in a way. You’re sort of taking on the culture in a different way.”
Duran Duran’s rendition of “bury a friend” — which notably provides the title to Eilish’s 2019’s debut album, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? — is more than a little different than the original, swapping out its spooky, minimalist production for a more elaborate sound.
“Her version is so lean,” Taylor says. “I wanted [our cover] to … have more of a sort of operatic sweep to it, just have more of a sort of an epic quality to it.”
“Billie’s is like a little speedboat,” he adds. “We’re like a f****** ocean liner.”
The Halloween-themed Danse Macabre is out now. It also includes a cover of Talking Heads‘ “Psycho Killer” featuring Måneskin bassist Victoria De Angelis.
With Halloween right around the corner, Brothers Osborne‘s John Osborne is taking a trip down memory lane to recount some of his favorite childhood memories.
John and TJ grew up in a lower-middle-class household without much money, but their parents didn’t let that curtail them from giving their kids the best Halloween experience.
“Our parents were creative people and they would make our costumes. A copper pipe house has a black sheet and it goes around it for insulation. And our dad, a plumber, just had a bunch of random stuff [lying] around and then turned those into spider legs and made TJ into a spider. It was awesome,” John recalls.
That’s something he learned from his parents — being creative and making something out of nothing.
“I want to do that with our kids. Anyone can go out and buy it, which is so fine, still really fun. But being creative like that, especially, well, necessity is in fact the mother of invention,” says John. “We just had a blast doing that as kids and I want to do that with our kids, as well.”
With this year being the first year he’s celebrating Halloween as a dad, John’s already got some costume ideas up his sleeves.
“[It’s] going to be even more fun because you get to experience all these things through your kids’ eyes,” he shares. “We have a boy and a girl, so we’re thinking about dressing them up as me and my wife, Lucie [Silvas]. Put on a beard on Arthur and [give] Maybelle really long hair.”
