Music

Long ago, Luke Bryan proclaimed Dustin Lynch the mayor of Crash My Playa, and today, Luke and Dustin gather their kingdom together for the annual getaway vacation in Riviera Cancun, Mexico.

Of course, the “Party Mode” hitmaker will once again host the pool party that forever cemented his title.

“First kickoff, yeah, [of] New Year’s is Crash My Playa,” Dustin tells ABC Audio. “You know how that’s gonna go: a week of pirating in Mexico. We’ll need a month vacation after that thing.”

“The pool situation down there,” he continues, “we started having phone calls and meetings about that show, the pool party, in July. A lot goes into putting this production on, so we don’t take it lightly. It’s a couple hours and a half of craziness, but there’s a lot of intention as it goes.”

If you’re not lucky enough to be at Crash My Playa, Dustin plans to take his famous water party from the Caribbean to Sin City.

“We’re gonna announce another Pool Situation in Vegas,” he reveals. “We’re bringin’ that monster from Mexico and putting it in Vegas for a weekend. And that’s gonna be popping off in ’23 for sure.” 

Previously, Dustin’s Pool Situation in Vegas has been a sell-out.

This weekend, he’ll be hanging out with Chris Stapleton, Cole Swindell, Lionel Richie, Ashley McBryde, Carly Pearce, Chase Rice and Dylan Scott, just to name some of the Crash My Playa talent. 

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Over the years, Rihanna has collaborated with many other artists, from Jay-Z and Maroon 5 to Coldplay, Eminem and Drake. But a new survey reveals that the surprise guest most fans want to see Rihanna bring onstage during her halftime performance is someone who hasn’t graced the Super Bowl stage since 2001.

VegasInsider.com polled just over 1,100 people to find out who they’d most want to see Rihanna collaborate with at the big game. The winner, with 22.6% of the vote, was Britney Spears. The two teamed up back in 2011 for a remix of Ri-Ri’s single “S&M,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second-most-wanted guest was Eminem, followed by Rihanna’s baby daddy, A$AP Rocky.

Shockingly, Chris Brown tied for fifth place with 11.48% of the vote.

As for the song most people want to hear Rihanna perform, her 2012 number-one hit “Diamonds” topped the list, followed by “Don’t Stop the Music,” the Kanye West collab “All of the Lights” and, oddly, her 2015 patriotic single “American Oxygen.”

As previously reported, one of the musical directors of the show, Adam Blackstone, told Rolling Stone that the halftime show will “be unlike anything you’ve ever seen before,” adding that Rihanna “can do no wrong with the set list because she has massive, massive, massive hits … it’s just going to be [about] how we execute them.”

We’ll have to wait until February 12 to find out what Rihanna has up her designer sleeve for Super Bowl LVII. It airs live from Glendale, Arizona, on Fox.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Incubus is linking up with Coheed and Cambria for a trio of tour dates this spring.

The shows will take place May 23 in Wilmington, North Carolina, May 24 in Columbia, South Carolina, and May 26 in Rogers, Arkansas. Tickets go on sale this Friday, January 20, at 10 a.m. ET.

For all ticket info, visit IncubusHQ.com or CoheedandCambria.com.

Both Incubus and Coheed will also be performing at the 2023 Welcome to Rockville festival in Florida, while Brandon Boyd and company are lined up for Las Vegas’ Sick New World nu metal revival fest, as well.

Incubus’ most recent release is their 2020 EP Trust Fall (Side B), while Coheed dropped a new album, Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind, last June.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Sam Smith reveals the person we were first introduced to was not who they truly were. Instead, it marked a time when they tried to fit in.

Speaking to Rolling Stone UK, the singer says fans are now seeing a more authentic version of who they are.

Sam revealed they “wore all-female clothing and full makeup” through their teenage years and “was even more dressed up than I would be now.”

So, what changed?

“People would stare at me. I became exhausted with that,” the singer said, so they began “exploring a more masculine wardrobe and setting … It just so happened that as I started to explore that, my music started to get picked up.”

Sam acknowledges their debut album, The Lonely Hour, arrived at “a time when I wanted to take a break and fit in.” The singer is now reversing course with their next album, Gloria, because they “got fed up with fitting in and wanted to go back to how I was when I was younger.”

Gloria also marks an emotional turning point in Sam’s career, because they’re able “to express certain things” in their music, such as their sexuality and happiness. “Those themes were sometimes incredibly private and I felt more comfortable showing other sides of me,” Sam said of their initial decision to sing about yearning and heartache.

Sam noted the change of the direction is because “I was just sick of being heartbroken.”

Sam came out as non-binary and genderqueer in 2019, and is happy to be experimenting with fashion and makeup once again. The singer added, “Self-love is not a destination — it’s a daily commitment to accept yourself.”

Gloria is due out January 27.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A$AP Rocky released a new single, “Same Problems,” Wednesday. The song is a dedication to hip-hop’s fallen soldiers, one he wrote when he was feeling remorseful about the role his music may play in the deaths of the genre’s artists. 

“I think I was feeling plight. I think I was also feeling a sense of guilt, because every time we lose somebody in our community, we all, especially me, have a habit of just saying things like, ‘It’s messed up. It’s wrong. Why do these kind of things happen?’ … I never took time out to really understand that I was part of the problem because I was contributing those kind of lyrics and whatnot to songs.”

“I just kind of wanted to express myself and tell how I felt without preaching,” he continued. “And I think we can all relate. We all got the same problems.”

“Same Problems” will appear on Rocky’s new album, Don’t Be Dumb, which he confirms is complete. “We just putting the finishing touches on it. It’s coming for sure,” he said. “The new stuff is me being vulnerable, and it’s just no filter, and just where I’m at, at my stage. My age and how I see things, my peers, the younger kids, the older cats, it’s just my perspective.”

Rocky’s girlfriend, Rihanna, has also been keeping busy. She’s performing at the Super Bowl next month and Rocky says he’s “more excited than everybody else.” 

“This is incredible. I’m so glad that my lady’s back making music again and whatnot, and getting back out there,” he said. “It’s just incredible. Especially for both of us, it is a good year for both of us to be more active and be out there … she [is] going to bring it.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Bush has announced a livestream of the band’s upcoming show in Los Angeles, taking place January 29.

You can tune in to watch beginning at 9:15 p.m. PT via the streaming platform Veeps. For more info, visit Bush.Veeps.com.

The LA concert is the second date on Bush’s headlining U.S. tour, which kicks off January 28 in Reno, Nevada. Gavin Rossdale and company will be supporting their new album, The Art of Survival, which features the single “More Than Machines.”

“We wanted to do some shows where we could get close to the die-hard Bush fans again,” Rossdale said of the tour.

The bill for the tour will also feature Alice in Chains‘ Jerry Cantrell, Silversun Pickups, Candlebox and Starcrawler on select dates.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

No doubt Flo Rida has a “Good Feeling” right now: Billboard reports that a jury has awarded him a whopping $82 million in damages in his lawsuit against the energy drink company Celsius.

A Broward County, Florida, jury found that Celsius had breached two endorsement contracts it signed with Flo Rida in the mid-2010s. When he first filed the suit in 2021, Flo, born Tramar Dillard, claimed that he was owed millions of dollars’ worth of stock and royalties based on those contracts.

The rapper’s attorneys argued that thanks to Flo’s promotion of Celsius, the company is now so successful that it has met key sales thresholds that entitle the rapper to the equivalent of a 1 percent stake in the business. Lawyers for Celsius says the sales thresholds hadn’t been reached and that Flo had already been paid “far in excess” of what they owed him.

The rapper’s attorneys told Billboard that their client won due to Celsius’ attempts to frame Flo’s suit as a greedy cash grab.

The lawyers told Billboard, “It was a matter of respect. He was due these shares, he worked for them, and he wasn’t going to just let it go.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A documentary about Canadian rock band Triumph is set to debut on AXS TV later this month.

Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine, debuting January 25 at 9 p.m. ET, tells the true story of the heavy metal group, known for such guitar anthems as “Fight The Good Fight,” “Hold On,” “Magic Power” and “Lay it On The Line.” 

The doc features commentary from band members Rik Emmett, Mike Levine and Gil Moore, as well as former member Phil X. There are also interviews with actor/musician Kiefer Sutherland, Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach, Styx singer Lawrence Gowan and more.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.