Music

As Metallica gears up to celebrate its 40th anniversary, a new book will examine the impact the band and its music have had on our culture.

Metallica: The $24.95 Book, written by Ben Apatoff after years of exhaustive research, features chapters dedicated to each band member and each album. It’ll also cover touring, fashion, books, film, influences, fandom, history and more.

“I wanted it to be more than a fact book, and not just something people could look up on the Internet,” says Apatoff.

The book covers Metallica through 2021, and is the first one written with access to the band’s box set materials. Unpublished photos, new transcriptions of video interviews and magazine quotes that were previously unavailable online round out the tome.

The book’s foreword was written by Laina Dawes, the author of the 2013 memoir What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal.

Metallica: The $24.95 Book will be released in August, but you can pre-order it now.  We’re sure you can figure out how much it costs.

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After landing his first platinum-certified album, Pray 4 Love, rapper Rod Wave has now earned a spot on Billboard’s Money Makers list of the highest-paid music artists in the U.S in 2020, placing 25th.

Throughout the year, most artists hosted virtual performances due to COVID-19, which drastically diminished or elimnated touring revenue. However, the Florida native managed to close out last year with $7.37 million in earnings.

Rod Wave reportedly made $1.3 million from publishing and $66,400 in royalties, which came entirely from digital downloads. Yet he made his biggest earnings from streaming services, in the amount of $6 million. His music videos account for close to 20% of his 4.1 billion combined streaming plays.

Pray 4 Love debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and Billboard’s Top R&B Albums chart in April 2020, with singles such as “Girl of My Dreams” and “Rags2Riches” landing on the Hot 100.

Rod Wave is among the many hip-hop artists who dominated last year and earned a spot on Billboard’sranking of the highest-paid musicians of 2020, including Travis Scott, DaBaby, Kanye West, Roddy Ricch, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, and Lil Uzi Vert. Out of 40 artists, Taylor Swift returned to the number-one spot on the 2020 list, earning $23.8 million — which is $75.8 million less than what she made in 2018, the last time she appeared on the list.

“The Bigger Picture” rapper Lil Baby came in at number ten, earning $11.7 million behind heavyweights such as Drake, who earned $14.2 million, putting him in sixth place.

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Mariah Carey‘s daughter is starring in a new brand campaign inspired by her famous mom.

Monroe Cannon, the singer’s 10-year-old daughter with Nick Cannon, stands front and center in a new ad for kids’ clothing company OshKosh B’gosh, titled “Today Is Someday.” In the clip, Monroe plays a younger version of Mariah and models an OshKosh B’gosh that pays homage to the singer’s 1990 “Someday” video.

“Someday it’s going to be different,” Monroe says in the ad. “The melodies that live in my head, someday they’ll live at the top of the charts. The songs in my heart will touch millions of hearts. Artist of the year, artist of the decade, artist of the millennium. But the meaning is in inspiring generations of little girls to hit their high note. How’s that for a daydream?”

“As a little girl, I was determined to realize my dreams. Now as a mother, it brings me so much joy to see my children visualize and develop the dreams they hold in their own hearts,” Mariah, who’s also mom to Monroe’s twin brother, Moroccan, says in a statement. “We did the campaign because we love the message of empowering kids to dream boldly and blaze their own path.”

The “Today Is Someday” campaign also pays tribute to the childhood experiences of Muhammad Ali and Outkast.

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After releasing her new album, Sling, to rave reviews, Clairo is hitting the road.

The 22-year-old singer will kick off a tour February 16 in Charlotte, NC, and wrap it up April 16 in Atlanta, GA.  Arlo Parks will open for the majority of the tour; the final three shows will feature Widowspeak.

For the tour, Clairo is partnering with several organizations that will ensure a safe and harassment-free experience at each show by establishing a text helpline and proactively canvassing each concert to look for, as she put it in an interview with NME, “any misconduct that goes on within the crowd.”

In addition, Clairo’s band and crew, as well as venue staff, will undergo sexual harassment prevention and response training.

Clairo also told NME, ” “I’m lucky that [misconduct] never happened to me, but experiencing some of that in my adult life, I can’t believe how brave I was to go to shows by myself and be so carefree. If I can’t provide this [security] on tour, then I won’t tour — that’s my mentality at the moment.”

In a statement, she added, “Everyone deserves a resource and everyone deserves to enjoy the show in peace. I want the audience to know that there is someone who will listen and believe them at every show.”

Tickets for the tour go on sale to the general public on Friday at 10 a.m. local time. Visit Clairo.com for the full itinerary and pre-sale information.

 

 

 

 

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Walker Hayes has a hit on his hands with “Fancy Like,” and he’s opening up about the inspiration behind the infectious track. 

In June, Walker and his daughter, Lela, went viral on TikTok after posting a video of themselves doing an original dance to the hip-hop-meets-country track that’s amassed nearly 20 million views so far. 

The hitmaker hints that he’s been in contact with Applebees, and says the restaurant chain is considering returning to their menu the Oreo milkshake he references in the lyrics, due to the song’s popularity. 

“I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, but one thing that truly excites me is that the Oreo shake actually came off the menu several years back and it’s coming back because of the song,” he teases. “I can’t wait [until] I have grandkids and we’re at Applebee’s and they’re drinking a shake and I could say, ‘you know why’s it on the menu? It’s because I saved it.'”

As for how the TikTok video came about, Walker tells Billboard he and Lela “came home from church and put [the song’s] chorus on repeat and made it simple and we popped it off on the porch. We did two takes and then we slapped it on TikTok. [By] that night it surpassed a million [views].” He calls the response “bonkers,” saying, “I just left a Planet Fitness and people were walking up to me and [saying] ‘My daughter loves the dance. Can I get a picture?'” 

Walker co-wrote “Fancy Like” for his latest EP, Country Stuff, which has become his highest-charting single to date, reaching the top 20 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. It’s currently climbing the Billboard Country Airplay chart. 

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Via handwritten note on their socials, Coldplay has announced that their ninth album will arrive October 15.

Called Music of the Spheres, the album, produced by Max Martin, comes with a trailer that depicts an animated cosmic journey through the album’s space-themed artwork, with snippets of each new song. In their note, the band says that a new track from the album, “Colaratura,” will be out on Friday, followed by a single in September.  The first release, “Higher Power,” came out in May.

“Thank you for listening or coming to shows or any way we have met through music,” the band ends their note, adding, “Everyone is an alien somewhere.”

There are 12 tracks on Music of the Spheres, the titles of five of which are represented by emojis.  The songs that aren’t so titled are “Higher Power,” “Humankind,” “Let Somebody Go,” “People of the Price,” “Biutyful,” “My Universe,” and “Coloratura.”  The emojis range from a heart, to a picture of Earth, to what looks like an infinity symbol.

You can pre-order Music of the Spheres at store.coldplay.com.

Music of the Spheres is the followup to 2019’s Everyday Life.

 

 

 

 

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Lala Kent‘s definition of sober is very different from Demi Lovato‘s.

The Vanderpump Rules star, who has been sober since October 2018, appeared on the Behind the Velvet Rope podcast and — when asked her opinion on Demi’s song “California Sober” — shared that she’s not a fan.

“You know, I don’t like to judge, but I actually think that that’s super offensive,” Lala said of the track, which depicts a lifestyle where hard drugs and alcohol are off the table but marijuana and wine are acceptable. 

“There are people out there who have worked their a** off to never take themselves out of reality and to never place themselves in an altered state,” Lala continued. “When they have a cold, they don’t even take DayQuil or NyQuil. So to say that you’re ‘California sober’ or this type of sober is extremely offensive, I think.”

The 30-year-old reality star added that she doesn’t believe that “California sober” is a real thing. “You’re not sober,” she stated. “If you’re drinking and smoking weed, you’re not sober.”

Demi has been public about their sobriety journey following their near-fatal overdose in 2018. Most recently in their YouTube documentary, Dancing with the Devil, Demi shared that recovery isn’t a “one-size-fits-all solution” and said they work with a recovery manager to determine the best plan for them. 

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After spending nearly a decade away, Big Time Rush is back.

On Monday, the pop band announced that they’ll reunite this winter for two live shows. Alongside a short video trailer of the band’s members reuniting, they shared, “BIG TIME RUSH LIVE! WE ARE BACK!” 

“It’s been a minute, but we couldn’t be more excited to see you!” the caption reads. “Lets make up for lost time.”

The LA-based group will reunite for a show on December 15 at the Chicago Theater and on December 18 at Hammerstein ballroom in New York. Tickets go on sale Wednesday at 10:00 am CT on Ticketmaster.com. You can sign up for pre-sale access by visiting BigTimeRushOfficial.com.

Big Time Rush’s four members — Kendall Schmidt, James Maslow, Carlos Pena Jr. and Logan Henderson — will all return to the stage later this year. The group originated in 2009 from the Nickelodeon series Big Time Rush, which ran for a total of four seasons, ending in 2013. During that time, the band released three studio albums and traveled on five tours.

Prior to this announcement, the foursome reunited virtually in June 2020 to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of their song “Worldwide.”

 

 

 

 

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