Kenny Chesney recently posted a cryptic Instagram Reel, leaving fans wondering what exciting news he’s teasing.
The caption-less clip features two wooden chairs on the beachside overlooking a sunset as the waves crash ashore.
It opens with Kenny and Uncle Kracker‘s “When the Sun Goes Down” before switching frames to Zac Brown Band‘s “Toes,” Megan Moroney’s “I’m Not Pretty” and concluding with Uncle Kracker’s “Smile.”
Could Kenny be teasing a tour, collaboration or something else?
Check out the tease on Kenny’s Instagram and decide.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their third album, Damn the Torpedoes.
The record became their first top 10 album, peaking at #2. It featured the band’s first top 20 singles, “Don’t Do Me Like That,” which peaked at #10 and “Refugee,” which peaked at #15. Two other songs, “Here Comes My Girl” and “Even the Losers,” went on to become Petty classics.
The album’s title is a reference to an apocryphal quote by Admiral David Farragut, who, during a Civil War battle in 1864, allegedly said, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”
After years of airing on broadcast TV, the Billboard Music Awards are moving online for 2023.
On November 19, the awards show will release performances and award winners across the BBMA and Billboard social channels as well as on BBMAs.watch, which isn’t live yet. According to Dick Clark Productions, which produces the event, the performances and award presentations will take place “in global locations, in the midst of sold-out tours, and in custom venues.”
In addition, the BBMAs has teamed up with Spotify’s Fans First program to identify the fans who’ve streamed the most hours of music in the past year. They’ll receive a golden ticket that will allow them to attend a performance curated by their favorite artist for the BBMAs.
The awards will honor music based on performance data from the Billboard charts from November 19, 2022, through October 21. Performers and nominees will be announced in the next few weeks.
Pearl Jam‘s sophomore album, Vs., is now 30 years old.
Released on October 19, 1993, Vs. was the follow-up to PJ’s hit 1991 debut, Ten. While Ten was initially released to little fanfare, Vs. arrived in a post-Nevermind world. With the grunge explosion in full force, which helped Ten reach #2 on the Billboard 200 in 1992, Pearl Jam had become a household name alongside Nirvana, leading to increased hype and expectation around Vs.
Upon its release, Vs. gave Pearl Jam their first #1 album on the Billboard 200 and set a new record for first-week album sales that stood for five years. It spawned the singles “Daughter,” “Go,” “Animal” and “Dissident,” as well as the fan favorite cut “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town.” Today, it’s certified seven-times Platinum by the RIAA.
While it was recorded and titled ahead of time, the era of Vs. was also defined by the battle of Pearl Jam vs. Ticketmaster. The ticketing giant’s implementation of service fees — which, as Taylor Swift fans can tell you, persists today — upset the group, who had made an effort to keep ticket prices low.
In 1994, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament testified before Congress in protest of Ticketmaster’s practices, and the band as a whole began a boycott of the company. The summer 1994 tour was canceled, and Pearl Jam endeavored to only play non-Ticketmaster venues. The boycott lasted until 1998.
Pearl Jam followed Vs. with 1994’s Vitalogy, their last with drummer Dave Abbruzzese. Their most recent album, their 11th studio effort, is 2020’s Gigaton.
Britney Spears‘ memoir The Woman in Me comes out October 24, butThe New York Times has obtained a copy and rounded up some of the more interesting revelations.
On Justin Timberlake: Britney confirms that she kissed choreographer Wade Robson while dating JT, but she suggests it was because Justin himself was cheating. She claims JT broke up with her via text, leaving her “devastated.” She felt the media portrayed her as “a harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy,” when in reality, she was “comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood.”
Britney also writes that she was pressured by her dad and her management to do the notorious interview with Diane Sawyer, in Sawyer asked her what she did that caused JT “so much pain.” Britney says of the interview, “I felt like I had been… set up in front of the whole world.”
On her partying days: Britney writes “It was never as wild as the press made it out to be,” insisting she didn’t do hard drugs or drink. Instead, she said, she took Adderall, which, she writes, “made me high, yes, but what I found far more appealing was that it gave me a few hours of feeling less depressed.”
On the conservatorship: Britney says she was forced to spend three months in rehab in 2018. It was there, she writes that a nurse showed her online clips of the #FreeBritney movement.
“That was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life,” she writes. “I don’t think people knew how much the #FreeBritney movement meant to me, especially in the beginning.”
In the aftermath, she writes, “Migraines are just one part of the physical and emotional damage I have now that I’m out of the conservatorship. I don’t think my family understands the real damage that they did.”
On October 17 in Sydney, Australia, the surviving members of INXS reunited for the first time since 2017 — and were surprised with a special award commemorating four billion global streams of their hit-packed catalog — a number that sax player Kirk Pengilly says is almost too big for him to comprehend.
“We thought we were just getting together with the record company and some media … so it was a big surprise,” Kirk told ABC Audio after the ceremony. “But it’s just hard to even fathom that — y’know, that’s half the world’s population!”
Kirk called the reunion “really lovely,” adding, “Hopefully we can do it a little more often!” And there’s plenty going on in INXS land that might lead to that.
Kirk loves the book because it’s from “the people that mattered: our fans.” He notes, “Reading through it is quite emotional … [to see] just how much we meant to so many of the fans.”
“I sort of forgot how much we did connect with our fans on a face-to-face level,” notes Kirk. As for why they were so chummy with their fans — handing out VIP passes and tickets and hanging with them for hours — Kirk laughs, “We’re Australian!”
But also, he says, “I think we spent so much time together, we ran out of things to talk about — so meeting fans was fun! New blood! New conversations!”
The new animated short film Peter & The Wolf reimagines Sergei Prokofiev’s classic symphony as a contemporary tale following 12-year-old Peter, who’s grieving the loss of a parent.
The film features music and narration by composer Gavin Friday and illustrations by U2’s Bono, based on their 2003 project for the Irish Hospice Foundation.
Friday, who spearheaded the project’s transition to the screen, is a longtime friend of Bono’s and was quite familiar with his artistic talent, but says it wasn’t easy to turn the rocker’s drawings into what fans will see in the film.
“The biggest challenge was how do you animate these drawings because they’re quite freeform and expressive,” Friday tells ABC Audio.
Bono briefly appears in the film to help that transition, with the film’s co-director Elliot Dear explaining it was their goal to stick to the rocker’s mostly monochromatic look.
He shares, “We’ve kind of taken as much as we can from Bono’s lead on that stuff to try and maintain some fidelity to the original artwork.”
When it came to his narrator duties, Friday says he tried to imagine what the movie would’ve been like if TimBurton directed it.
“It went all black and white in my head and it went sort of semi gothic,” he says. “In a fun way, almost like kids like to be sort of scared, but not totally scared. So that was the sentiment.”
On screen, Gavin’s narrator is a not-so-scary fly given the nickname Gavin Flyday.
“He’s the fly on the wall,” co-director Stephen McNally explains, with Friday adding, “We all found it quite tongue in cheek that this tiny little creature with wings has a deep and dark voice.”
Peter & the Wolf premieres Thursday, October 19, on Max.
Green Day has announced an intimate Las Vegas show ahead of their headlining performances at the 2023 When We Were Young festival.
The concert takes place Thursday, October 19, at the 800-capacity Fremont Country Club. Tickets go on sale that same day at 10 a.m. PT and are limited to two per person. They will be will-call only, and you’ll have to show your ID and credit card at the door. The show is also 21 and over.
“Don’t forget to wear your best zombie look, makeup and attire!” Green Day says. That’s seemingly a reference to the latest teaser posted to their website, TheAmericanDreamIsKillingMe.com, which features a video of a zombie set to a clip of new Green Day music.
A previous teaser featured frontman Billie Joe Armstrong waking up in bed and looking at a calendar with the date October 24 circled.
When We Were Young takes place in Vegas on October 21 and 22. Blink-182 will also headline.
Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1975, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have an interest in his old band. In fact, the rocker attended the group’s final live performance at London’s O2 Arena in March 2022, and he is now explaining why he decided to attend.
“Me going was a rite of passage, really,” he told Mojo. “I’d been part of the creation of Genesis so I wanted to be there at the end.”
While Gabriel was on hand to see the show, he didn’t join his former bandmates onstage. As for what he thought of the performance, he noted, “Phil (Collins) wasn’t in as great a shape as he used to be, but they did a great job.”
A very special Night Ranger concert is coming to AXS TV.
The special, 40 Years And A Night with Contemporary Youth Orchestra, is set to air Saturday, October 21, at 8 p.m. ET, with an extended 90-minute version airing Saturday, November 18, at 9 p.m. ET.
The special captures the band’s November 9, 2022, performance at Key Bank State Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio, where they were backed by the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, made up of musicians ages 12 to 18 from over 40 schools in the state.
“It was a dream come true to have Night Ranger music accompanied by an entire symphonic band … including our own!” Jack Blades shares. “Although now, we’re spoiled, and we want to carry the orchestra with us everywhere we go!!”
Brad Gillis adds, “I can check this one off my bucket list. Having the CYO backing us for this show was just amazing and it really took Night Ranger to another level.”
An album of the concert, also called 40 Years and a Night with Contemporary Youth Orchestra, is set to drop Friday, October 20, on CD, vinyl, DVD, Blu-ray and digitally. It is available for preorder now.
