Music – Page 2840 – 105.7 WDNY

The Year in Rock 2022: Don’t call it a comeback, they’ve been delayed by a pandemic for years

December 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

While touring picked up again in 2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic completely shut down the concert industry in 2020, it returned in full force in 2022. The much-anticipated reunion tours of My Chemical Romance, Rage Against the Machine and Mötley Crüe, which were originally scheduled for 2020, finally took place this year.

The launch of the MCR tour was accompanied by a new song from the “Helena” rockers, marking their first fresh material in eight years. Meanwhile, the Crüe outing, which was co-headlined by Def Leppard, and also featured Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, was the highest-grossing tour of the band’s career.

2022 also saw Red Hot Chili Peppers finally hit the road with guitarist John Frusciante, who’d rejoined the band at the end of 2019. The “Californication” outfit played stadiums across the globe in support of not one but two new albums, Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen, which marked their first records with Frusciante since 2006’s Stadium Arcadium.

Another band that released new music in 2022 with a beloved returning member was Blink-182, who reunited with Tom DeLonge for the single “Edging,” their first new material together since 2011. A Blink-182 world tour is planned for 2023.

Though not quite a reunion, Pantera got back together at the end of 2022 for their first tour since 2001. Longtime members Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown reformed the “Walk” metallers with Black Label Society‘s Zakk Wylde and Anthrax‘s Charlie Benante in place of the late Abbott brothers, “Dimebag” Darrell and Vinnie Paul, respectively.

Pantera will be opening for another metal giant next year: Metallica, who returned in 2022 with their first new song in six years. The track “Lux Æterna” is the lead single off the new ‘Tallica album, 72 Seasons, due out in April 2023.

Paramore also ended a long wait for new music with “This Is Why,” the lead single and title track from the much-anticipated follow-up to 2017’s After Laughter. The upcoming record arrives in February 2023.

Five years later, Ariana Grande hasn’t forgotten the children of Manchester

December 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

It’s been five years since the terrorist bombing of England’s Manchester Arena during an Ariana Grande concert killed 22 people, but Ariana will never forget the city whose history is so intertwined with her own.

The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Charity posted a tweet thanking Ari for sending holiday gifts to the children who are patients at the the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and three other local hospitals.

“We were so excited to receive Christmas gifts for young patients across our hospitals from Ariana Grande,” the charity tweeted, adding that the presents were distributed to babies, children and teenage patients. The charity also posted photos of the presents, all of which carried tags reading, “Merry Christmas, happy holidays, love Ariana Grande.”

The Manchester Evening News reported that last year, Ariana doled out a thousand presents to kids who were hospitalized over Christmas, and in 2020, she gave an Amazon gift card worth 100 pounds to every kid at Royal Manchester’s Children’s Hospital and Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Ariana has had a relationship with the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital ever since the bombing. She memorably organized the star-studded One Love Manchester benefit concert in June of 2017, which raised more than 17 million dollars for the families of the attack’s victims.

Ava Max explains how ’Diamonds & Dancefloors’ helped her to heal from a “crazy breakup”

December 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Ava Max is counting down the days until she releases her new album, Diamonds & Dancefloors, which she says helped her process a traumatic breakup from a controlling ex.

“I’m definitely more vulnerable with my personal life now, especially after going through a crazy breakup. I just felt my whole world come crashing down,” she told Rollacoaster magazine for its forthcoming 2022/2023 winter edition.

Ava didn’t identify her ex in the interview, but she did explain how their romance and subsequent breakup affected her. “I had to figure out who I was again because I let someone else define me for the past year,” she explained. “It’s been a journey for sure. I’m stronger than ever now, I look back and realize it was all a good thing.”

Ava says that while her new album is full of “sadness and relief” from her journey, it allowed her stop feeling “scared of the bad anymore.”

“Writing Diamonds & Dancefloors allowed me to realize all of my fears and turn them around,” she declared.

The album arrives January 27.

Taylor Swift sets another chart record, and Wham! classic rises to highest position yet

December 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Here’s a belated Christmas gift for Taylor Swift: She’s just set another Billboard record.

Her hit “Anti-Hero” has just hit number one on Billboard’s Radio Airplay chart, meaning that it’s currently the most-heard song on U.S. radio. It’s the seventh time Taylor’s topped that chart, but this latest number one means that she’s the first artist to have done so in the 2000s, ’10s and ’20s.

What’s more, Taylor is now also the first artist to have topped that chart on her own in any three decades. Christina Aguilera did it in the 1990s, 2000s and ’10s, but she shared billing on two of those number ones: “Lady Marmalade” and “Moves Like Jagger.”

Elsewhere on the chart, Wham!‘s classic “Last Christmas” has reached the Hot 100 top five for the very first time since it was first released in 1984. It first reached the top 10 in 2020 and last year, it climbed to number seven; it’s currently at number five.

This marks the sixth U.S. top-five hit for the U.K. duo of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, following “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” “Careless Whisper,” “Everything She Wants,” “Freedom,” “I’m Your Man” and “The Edge of Heaven.” It’s the first time a Wham! song has been in the top five since 1986, while George Michael’s last trip to the top five was in 1992.

Coincidentally, Michael died on Christmas Day 2016.

David Lee Roth releases new live recording of Van Halen’s ‘Everybody Wants Some’

December 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

David Lee Roth is covering Van Halen again. The rocker just shared a new live version of the band’s hit “Everybody Wants Some,” taken from his 2022 Hollywood recording session with his solo band.

The session took place back in May, where Roth and his band recorded 14 songs. He’s already released several of them over the past year, including “You Really Got Me,” “Dance the Night Away,” Panama” and “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love.”

“Everybody Wants Some” was the second single off Van Halen’s 1980 album Women and Children First. The new version features Al Estrada on guitar, Ryan Wheeler on bass and Francis Valentino on drums.

Clive Davis says Whitney Houston was “making a valiant attempt” to give up drugs before she died

December 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Whitney Houston‘s mentor Clive Davis says before the singer’s shocking death in 2012, she was trying very hard to get clean.

The superstar singer was found unconscious in a bathtub in a Beverly Hills hotel on February 11 and didn’t respond to CPR. She was 48. The coroner’s report ruled her death accidental, and attributed it to drowning as well as “effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use.” Benadryl, Xanax and cannabis were also found in her system.

But Davis tells the New York Post, “I was with her 48 hours before her death…she was showing me what she had done in rehab. How she had given up smoking, how she had cleared her throat of nicotine. And she was wanting to start going into the studio.”

“I never would have thought, 48 hours before her death, that she would pass, that there would be that horrendous, premature end to her life,” Davis continues, adding, “She was making a valiant attempt during that period to give up drugs and rehabilitate herself.”

Davis is a producer on the new biopic Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody, and is portrayed in the film by Stanley Tucci. He tells the Post that the film “answers all the questions that the public wants to know about Whitney, whether it’s her sexuality, whether it’s how she reacted to any innuendo that she was not singing Black enough, or whether it was the impact of drugs, or whether it was recording with me.”

Clive adds that fans should see the movie in a theater “with a good sound system because it really, meaningfully showcases all the great songs and, of course, that voice.”

Pink Floyd charity single raises over $600,000 for Ukraine relief

December 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Pink Floyd charity single raises over 0,000 for Ukraine relief

Back in April, Pink Floyd released the brand-new song “Hey Hey Rise Up” to help the people of Ukraine, and apparently it was a huge success.

The band just announced that their tune has now raised more than £450,000 that’s $540,000 U.S. — “to help alleviate the suffering of the Ukrainian people.” David Gilmour and Nick Mason added money to bring the amount to £500,000, or around $601,000 U.S.

“Hey Hey Rise Up” was recorded on March 30th, and featured Andriy Khlyvnyuk [AHN-dree KLIV-nik] of the Ukrainian band Boombox. The money raised will be split amongst five different charities: Hospitallers, The Kharkiv And Przemyśl Project, Vostok SOS, Kyiv Volunteer and Livyj Bereh.

In their announcement, Pink Floyd also encouraged their fans to do more, noting, “Let’s see what else we can do this winter… It would be great if you feel able to contribute to any of these charities directly.”

Source shoots down Cher engagement speculation

December 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Are Cher and boyfriend Alexander “AE” Edwards taking the next step in their relationship? Well, it certainly looked that way, with the 76-year-old singer sparking speculation of an engagement after she posted a picture on Twitter of what looked like a huge diamond engagement ring.

Cher posted the photo with the caption “THERE R NO WORDS, ALEXANDER, A.E,” and later clarified that she shared it because she thought the 36-year-old A.E.’s “nails are so cool.”

Adding to the speculation, on Monday she tweeted about how she wishes her late mother, Georgia Holt, who died earlier this month, could be there to see the ring. “Woke up Min ago, & 1st thing …B4 I Opened my eyes, I Thought…I Need 2 Run To Moms & Show Her my ring…” she shared. ”Before I realized it..I Had Little Tear,” before adding it was actually, “a few tears.”

But it looks as though Cher won’t be walking down the aisle any time soon. “They are not engaged,” a source tells E! News, adding the ring is “just a beautiful gift.”

Cher and A.E. first went public with their relationship back in November, when they were spotted out together in West Hollywood. The singer was previously married to Sonny Bono from 1964 to 1975, and Gregg Allman from 1975 to 1979.

Modest Mouse’s Jeremiah Green diagnosed with cancer

December 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Jeremiah Green, drummer and founding member of Modest Mouse, has been diagnosed with cancer.

Green’s mother, Carol Namatame, revealed the news in a Facebook post over the holiday weekend.

“Please send healing vibes for my son, Jeremiah Green, who is battling stage 4 cancer,” the post reads. “He’s is so strong and so brave and hanging in there!”

Modest Mouse hasn’t commented publicly on Green’s condition, though he did miss a number of shows on the band’s recent 25th anniversary The Lonesome Crowded West tour.

Ciara is “excited” to co-host ‘Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’ from her “favorite place,” Disneyland

December 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

December 31 is fast approaching, which means many are preparing for New Year’s Eve festivities. Among those with special plans to ring in 2023 is Ciara, who will once again co-host Dick Clark‘s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest. This time around, she’ll be overseeing festivities from Disneyland, which makes her even more excited for the gig.

“I think this is, like, the perfect way to mix up some things from my perspective, as this is my sixth year being one of the co-hosts of the show and Disneyland is my favorite place, it is one of my favorite places in the world,” she tells ABC Audio.

Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve starts at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, with festivities going down in Times Square, LA and New Orleans. Ciara is one of many musical artists who are slated to take the stage.

“I’m going to give my fans a taste of ‘Better Thangs,’ which is my song featuring Summer Walker,” she reveals. “I’m also going to rock some of my song ‘Jump.’ … The cool thing is I’ve never performed these songs before, so it’ll be my first time rocking them on the stage.”

Ciara also plans to deliver “something exclusive,” which she says will exude “winning energy.” “It’s all about winning in 2023, so I can’t wait to give my fans something special and new,” she teases.

Her outfit for the night, she adds, will include an accessory fitting for Disneyland.

“We’re celebrating the 100th year of Disney and they have these really amazing platinum-dripping Mickey ears that I’m so excited to rock,” she says. “They’re very special and they’re also little heavy, so I’m looking forward to that.”

+ More