This week, Coldplay is doing a residency on The Late Late Show with James Corden, and they kicked it off Monday night with the first-ever performance of “Let Somebody Go,” their duet with Selena Gomez from their new album, Music of the Spheres.
Chris Martin and company began playing the tune on a darkened stage, before Selena stepped into the light to join them for the ballad, which is about either the end of a relationship or, perhaps, a life. “It hurts like so/to let somebody go,” they sang.
In addition to Selena, Coldplay also teamed up with BTS, Jacob Collier and the duo We Are King for Music of the Spheres. In 2022, they’ll kick off a stadium tour, which they promise will be powered by 100% renewable energy.
When Darius Rucker sings “I can’t play piano like Ray Charles” in his latest hit, “My Masterpiece,” he’s telling the absolute truth.
But it’s not for lack of trying.
“The one thing that I’m starting to do… is I’m learning to play piano,” he told reporters in August of 2020. “I got this big keyboard in my house…And so finally, I’m going online and taking probably, you know, an hour a day, four or five days a week, and trying to learn how to play that thing.”
By February of this year, however, Darius confessed he hadn’t exactly been keeping up with his piano lessons.
“Oh, of course, I didn’t stick with it, come on!” he laughs. “This is me. Come on! Of course, I didn’t. I took two lessons and haven’t been back on the piano since.”
The experience did inspire a line in his latest single, however.
“The funny thing is, one of the guys I write with saw an interview with me and he was talking about me playing the piano,” Darius explains, “And… one of the lines I used was, ‘I can’t play piano like Ray Charles.’ And now that’s like the big payoff in the song… because it was just so funny.”
Darius adds, joking, “I can’t play piano like, you know, David Charles right now. I’m awful! I didn’t even stick with it. I should have.”
Adele may be living in L.A. now, but she still knows her British foods.
The Tottenham native sat down at “Adele’s Cafe” with British Vogue for a blind taste test of some traditional British dishes. She was asked to guess classic meals like a full English breakfast and fish and chips, desserts including Banoffee Pie and Eton Mess, and some lesser known fare like Spotted Dick — which, in spite of its cheeky name, is a steamed pudding with dried fruit.
As the “Easy on Me” singer tested her food knowledge, she shared memories connected with certain dishes. She reminisced about working in a cafe when she was younger and how she learned to cook with Jamie Oliver recipes. Her specialties include spicy pasta and Sunday roast, which she makes for her son, Angelo.
Adele also revealed her obsession with Heinz ketchup. “I carry little sachets of Heinz ketchup everywhere with me,” she says. “Beyonce has hot sauce in her bag, I have Heinz ketchup.”
In the end, she successfully guessed eight out of the 12 dishes.
“I mean, it’s food! Just because I lost weight, I know everything there is to know about food,” Adele joked. “I eat so much food still.”
Ed Sheeran‘s new album = (Equals) isn’t even out yet, but the “Bad Habits” star is already planning the release of his next one. In fact, his manager says he keeps having to tell Ed to back off and wait a bit longer before he releases it.
Speaking to Music Week, Ed’s manager Stuart Camp explains, “He doesn’t like sitting on songs. They’ve either got to be given to someone else or they’ve got to be released, otherwise it just gets on his nerves that they’re there.” According to Camp, there are at least 60 to 70 songs left over from = (Equals) that are good enough to be on a future album.
“He keeps me telling me tentative dates [that he wants to release the next album] that are far too soon!” Camp complains. “So I’m like, ‘Let’s let this one live for a bit, shall we?'”
However, Camp is certain that if Ed’s upcoming world tour “goes on as long as people expect it to,” then the next record — which is expected to be called – (Minus) — will come out “well before the end of it.” In fact, Camp declares that the album will out “before the end of 2024…for sure.”
Camp promises “a few more surprises coming from Ed later this year, on top of the album” — one of which might be the Christmas single that Ed has said he and Elton John are putting out.
As for whether or not he and Ed expect = (Equals) to be as successful as ÷ (Divide) was, Camp says, “We know the market’s a different place, there are a lot more demands on people’s time and music is consumed in a different way…I think as long as he’s number one, he’ll be happy.”
Matt Sorum played an integral role in the making of ZZ Top frontman and guitarist Billy Gibbons recently released solo album, Hardware, as the ex-Guns N’ Roses member co-wrote, co-produced and played drums on the entire record.
Sorum tells ABC Audio that he’s honored to have had the opportunity to work on the project with Gibbons, and is proud of the album, which they recorded with second guitarist Austin Hanks last year at a studio in California’s High Desert region.
“Billy’s the coolest there is,” Matt declares. “He looks cool, but he is cool.”
Sorum says the project came together after he and Gibbons teamed up early on during the COVID-19 pandemic to work on some new material, and after recording a couple of tracks at Matt’s studio, Billy said suggested they make a full album.
“The pandemic was happening, we were all off the road, so we went up to Pioneertown, California, and we lived at this old ranch, about 140 acres,” Sorum notes. “And it was the coolest thing.”
Matt says the desert setting had a major influence on the songs they wrote and the sound of the album, noting, “I really felt that the record came out great because of that energy around the environment we were in.”
As an example, Sorum shares how one of the tracks, the atmospheric, spoken-word tune “Desert High” came about after he explained to Gibbons that country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons — who was pals with The Rolling Stones‘ Keith Richards — had died at a motel room down the road from the studio.
“So Billy goes, ‘He died in Room 8 and left it all to Keith?'” Sorum recalls. “And I went, ‘That’s the line!’ And we put it in [the song].”
On Friday, Santanareleased their latest studio album, the star-studded Blessings and Miracles, and coinciding with the record’s arrival, a video feature offering a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the album has debuted at the band’s official YouTube channel.
The video features band leader Carlos Santana discussing how some of the project’s various songs came about, footage of him working on some of the tracks, and clips of many of the guest artists talking about the experience of collaborating with the guitar legend.
As previously reported, Blessings and Miracles features Santana teaming up with Steve Winwood, Matchbox Twenty‘s Rob Thomas, Metallica‘s Kirk Hammett, country star Chris Stapleton, late jazz keyboardist Chick Corea and others.
At the beginning of the video, Carlos — in his trademark cosmically spiritual way — reflects on getting the opportunity to work on new songs with his various talented collaborators.
“This divine intelligence is orchestrating, behind the scenes while I’m sleeping or doing whatever, a [variety of collaborations],” he declares. “And they present themselves to me. So all I have to do is say, ‘Yes, thank you for bringing your song to me. I would love to bathe in your song and compliment whatever is in front of me.'”
Among the album’s tracks is a cover of the Procol Harum classic “A Whiter Shade of Pale” featuring Winwood on vocals and Hamond organ.
In the video, Winwood says, “Carlos’ genius comes in a large part from a wonderful combination of rock music with Latin, Cuban rhythms. I’ve played with Carlos on numerous occasions over the past 50 years, and I’m very excited to be working with him again, still.”
The video also features commentary from Thomas, Hammett and Stapleton discussing their respective collaborations with Santana — “Move,” “America for Sale” and “Joy.”
John Shearer/MTV VMAs 2021/Getty Images for MTV/ViacomCBS
Lil Nas X has scored his third number-one hit with a song that’s all about how he isn’t a “one-hit wonder.”
After 12 weeks on the chart, “Industry Baby,” featuring Jack Harlow, has finally reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100. According to Billboard, what did the trick was the fact that there were two new versions of the song went on sale earlier this month, and all three versions were discounted to 69 cents.
“Industry Baby” follows “Old Town Road” and “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” on the list of LNX’s chart-toppers. Both “Industry Baby” and “Montero” are from the rapper’s debut album, Montero.
As Billboard notes, “Industry Baby” is Jack Harlow’s first number one, after he got as high as number two last year with “Whats Poppin.” In addition, the song is the fifth number one for Kanye West, who co-wrote and co-produced it. Kanye’s last number-one single on the Hot 100 was “Stronger” back in 2007.
Lil Kim is having a busy year hosting a TV series, appearing in a movie and publishing her autobiography. The Queen Bee reveals that the man behind her career now is also a versatile entertainer: Nick Cannon.
The “Magic Stick” rapper made the revelation during the latest episode of Complex’s interview series Hiking with Rappers.
“Nick Cannon, people don’t even know, like he’s one of my best friends. We’ve been best friends for years,” Kim says. “We just shot a movie called Miracle Across 125th Street. I really did that movie for Nick, but I love doing movies.”
“It’s part of my next level,” she added. “Nick is convincing me.”
The Christmas film was shot during the summer and features gospel artists Fred Hammond, Karen Clark Sheard and Kierra Sheard, plus comedians Marsha Warfield, Lunell and Bruce Bruce. Cannon stars in Miracle Across 125th Street as well as serving as executive producer.
Kim has appeared in several films during her 25-year career, including She’s All That, You Got Served, and Zoolander. Currently, she’s hosting the BET+ series American Gangster: Trap Queens, and she’s featured on the Legendz of the Streez tour headlined by Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, Jeezy and Gucci Mane.
The Grammy winner has also written her autobiography, The Queen Bee, which will be published November 2.
It took just five hours for Adele‘s new single, “Easy on Me,” to make an impact on the Billboard charts.
Since the cutoff for this week’s Billboard charts was at midnight on October 14, and “Easy on Me” debuted at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday night, the airplay, downloads and sales it received only counted for the five hours prior to midnight.
Still, that was enough for “Easy on Me” to debut at #68 on the Billboard Hot 100, based on five hours’ worth of streaming, radio airplay and sales. Following its first full week of data tracking, the song is expected to soar to number one, which would make it her fifth career chart-topper.
Meanwhile, Billboard‘s charts that only measure airplay kept on tallying data through the 17th. As a result,”Easy on Me” debuted at number 14 on the Adult Pop Airplay chart and number 21 on Pop Airplay.
Most impressively, the song debuted at number six on Billboard‘s Adult Contemporary chart. It’s the first time that a non-Christmas song debuted in the top 10 on that chart since 1993.
“Easy on Me” is the lead single from Adele’s new album 30, due out November 29.
Kanye West gave a rare performance Saturday in Italy, and his audience included Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
Kanye’s mini-concert in Venice was at the wedding of D’Estree founder Geraldine Guiotte and Tiffany & Co EVP Alexander Arnault, according to TMZ. West performed “Runaway,” “Flashing Lights,” “Come to Life,” and “Believe What I Say.” He was wearing a mask as he did previously during his Donda listening events in the United States, and his voice was muffled during his songs.
One of Kanye’s nicknames is Yeezy, of course, and he’s now legally shortened his name, Deadline reports. After filing on August 24 to change his name, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michelle Williams Court approved his petition to switch his name to, simply, Ye, with no middle or last name.
His eighth studio album, released in 2018, was titled, Ye.
