Music

The year is 2022, and Jack White might actually, finally, get a cellphone.

The White Stripes/Raconteurs/Dead Weather rocker has famously been averse to the idea — in 2019, he told the U.K.’s Channel 4 News that he “never owned” a cellphone, adding, “To me, everyone [on their phones] sort of looks silly.”

Now, in a new interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, White admits that not having a cellphone raises some inconveniences 22 years into the 21st century.

“During the pandemic, [I was] trying to get a COVID test and [I] pull into a place and [they] say, ‘Scan the QR code,'” White recalls. “Well I don’t have a phone, and they were like, ‘Then you can’t get a test.’ And I’m, like, ‘Ah, man.'”

When Lowe asks White if he finally decided to take the cellphone plunge, he responds, “I don’t have one yet, but I think my days are numbered.”

Elsewhere in the interview, White touches on the fabled recording sessions he had with rapper Jay-Z — “Some of that stuff I think will see the light of day,” he says — as well as the one time he met late music legend Prince.

“The phrase [Prince] had said to me was, like, ‘No one is going to tell you how to play your guitar, Jack,'” White remembers. “And he talked about the James Bond song I had just done [2002’s “Another Way to Die”]. And he said, ‘I really like it.’ And I said, ‘Oh, that’s great. Because some people, it’s like making a song for Star Wars fans or something. You’re throwing yourself into the sea of…It’s a very divisive track.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, I thought it was real strong.'”

White will release a new solo album, Fear of the Dawn, this Friday.

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(NOTE LANGUAGE) An intense exchange between T.I. and comedian Lauren Knight overshadowed the open-mic event at club Our Bar in Atlanta on Monday. Providing what she called her “real” side of the story, Knight took to Instagram with claims that the rapper heckled her from the audience and called her out of her name. 

“T.I. came to the show, appreciate it. He did a 45-minute set,” Knight said on her Instagram story, as captured by The Neighborhood Talk. “He gets off stage, I’m making jokes about s***, about to bring up another comedian, he proceeds to start heckling from the crowd, calling me all kinds of b*****, heckling me.” 

“Never called you out your name, never called you a b****, the Hustle Gang rapper responded in a since-deleted video, which Knight posted on her IG. He added, “You give me a video where I called you a b****, I’ll give you a million dollars.”

A few hours after midnight on Wednesday, Knight shared a video, ostensibly from the club, where a male voice can be heard shouting “b****,” followed by a crowd response, but T.I. isn’t seen in the clip.

“See it went from something simple that should’ve got squashed and settled to this man using his platform to lie on me to justify some bull****,” Knight wrote. “Everybody is tripping. I just wanna do comedy. @troubleman31 run me my million.”

The viral footage that circulated the internet on Tuesday shows the 41-year-old rapper confronting Knight on stage, in an attempt to reprimand her for allegedly making jokes about his and wife Tiny‘s sexual assault allegations. 

“Shut the f*** up for a second! Hey, listen. No, no, no. As many times as you joke on that s***, n****, I’m gonna check yo’ mother f****** a** as long as it takes,” T.I. says in the video. “There was no f***ing crime. There is nothing to charge me for, or my wife.” 

He informed Knight and the crowd, “When you stop talking about it, when you stop playing with me and mine, I’ma stop saying something.”

But later Wednesday morning, T.I. shared a video of the two sitting on stage, with T.I. draping his arm around Knight and promoting her as an “up & coming comic on the scene.” The video was taken the night of the incident. 

“I wish you the best & hope you bring the world more joy & laughter with the light you receive. I’ve done my part here… moving on,” T.I. wrote in the post.

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After multiple teases, The Chainsmokers have finally announced the details of their upcoming album.

Called So Far So Good, the 13-track album drops on May 13, and is available for pre-order now. A trailer posted on YouTube shows Drew Taggart and Alex Pall making the album in Hawaii — in between surfing and running around shirtless, that is.

“It’s like, wake up, go surfing for three or four hours, come back and then we’d just spend the next 12 hours working on music,” Drew says in a voice over.

As for the album’s title, Drew explains it in the trailer: It’s a reference to the 1995 French film La Haine, which means Hate.  As Drew notes, “The movie starts out, and the guy’s saying, ‘Have you heard the one where the guy falls off the skyscraper, and on his way down, he says to himself, ‘So far so good?'”

Drew continues, “We love the optimism in that whole little bit, and that’s kind of the optimism that we wanted to carry through the entire…album and we wanted to do it quite literally with the cover.”  The cover art shows both men falling through space.

So Far So Good features the duo’s latest singles, “High” and “iPad.” Here’s the track listing:

“Riptide”
“High”
“iPad”
“Maradona”
“Solo Mission”
“Something Different”
“I Love U”
“If You’re Serious”
“Channel 1”
“Testing”
“In Too Deep”
“I Hope You Change Your Mind”
“Cyanide”

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Nine Inch Nails will headline the 2022 Boston Calling festival in place of Foo Fighters, who dropped off the lineup following the unexpected death of drummer Taylor Hawkins last month.

Trent Reznor‘s band is set to take the stage on Friday, May 27. As previously reported, the festival’s other headliners are Metallica and The Strokes, while the rest of the bill includes Weezer, Avril Lavigne, Glass Animals, Black Pumas, Modest Mouse, HAIM, Cheap Trick, grandson, KennyHoopla and The Struts.

Boston Calling 2022 takes place May 27-29. For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit BostonCalling.com.

Hawkins died March 25 ahead of a Foo Fighters show in Bogotá, Colombia, planned for that night. He was 50 years old.

On March 29, the Foos announced the cancellation of rest of their scheduled tour dates.

“We’re sorry for and share in the disappointment that we won’t be seeing one another as planned,” the band wrote. “Instead, let’s take this time to grieve, to heal, to pull our loved ones close, and to appreciate all the music and memories we’ve made together.”

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Imagine Dragons has premiered the video for the band’s latest single, “Bones.”

The clip begins with frontman Dan Reynolds channeling his inner Gordon Gekko as he portrays a Wall Street bigwig. It then shifts into another ’80s homage when the trading floor is invaded by dancing zombies inspired by Michael Jackson‘s “Thriller” video.

“I’ve always loved that ‘Thriller’ was both scary and playful,” Reynolds says. “I didn’t know as a kid if I wanted to watch it again or not for fear of the ensuing nightmares, but I always came back for more with my eyes half-closed.”

He adds, “The idea of punishing Wall Street with a zombie infection felt like an enjoyable time. And it was.”

You can watch the “Bones” video streaming now on YouTube.

“Bones” follows ID’s 2021 album Mercury — Act 1. It’ll appear on an upcoming double album titled Mercury — Acts 1 & 2, which arrives July 1.

Imagine Dragons’ ongoing world Mercury tour picks up again this weekend with a run through Canada, followed by a trip to Europe in June. They’ll launch a summer U.S. leg in August.

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The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia will fill the Coachella headliner hole left by Kanye West‘s cancellation. They now join fellow headliners Harry Styles and Billie Eilish.

The music festival unveiled its adjusted lineup on Wednesday, with The Weeknd and SHM taking over Ye’s Sunday slots on April 17 and April 24. 

In addition, the “Blinding Lights” singer will be appearing on the same nights as his upcoming tour buddy, Doja Cat, which now gives fans a taste of what’s to come when they hit the road together later this year.  

The Weeknd previously collaborated with SHM on “Moth to a Flame” and also co-wrote two tracks with them on his newly released Dawn FM album.

Fans have taken to The Weeknd’s socials, asking him to play “Hurricane,” the Grammy-winning track he collaborated on with Kanye.

Ye exited Coachella on Monday, which is the latest in a string of cancelled performances. Previously, he was barred from performing at Sunday night’s Grammys after he dissed host Trevor Noah and others in a social media post.

Ye originally signed on to take over for Travis Scott, who bowed out of Coachella following the Astroworld tragedy in November, but that announcement was criticized from the start.  Fans launched a Change.org petition demanding Ye be pulled from Coachella because of his actions toward estranged wife Kim Kardashian and her new boyfriend, Pete Davidson.

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Little Big Town is gearing up for new music. This week, the group announced their new song, “Hell Yeah,” which marks their first new music since the Nightfall era.

The song was written by the two men of the group, along with Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard and songwriter/producer Corey Crowder. They got the title from the excitement they felt in the studio when they wrote it, LBT’s Jimi Westbrook says.

“I remember when Corey brought that hook in that day. He sang his idea, and when he turned that phrase at the end of the chorus, we were all like, ‘Hell yeah!” He recounts.

Band mate Philip Sweet adds, “This song is a classic breakup song, flipped upside down. It’s pure feel-good vibes.”

“Hell Yeah” arrives on April 11. It follows “Over Drinking,” “The Daughters” and “Wine, Beer, Whiskey,” all of which came off of the group’s 2020 Nightfall project.

Fans won’t have to wait long to see the band perform their new song live. Little Big Town will bring “Hell Yeah” to the stage at the 2022 CMT Music Awards, which airs the same day the song comes out.

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Olivia Rodrigo just kicked off her sold out Sour world tour and threw it back to 2002 on opening night by belting out Avril Lavigne‘s “Complicated.”

NME reports the Grammy winner performed at Portland, Oregon’s Theater of the Clouds on Tuesday night and slipped the throwback tune into her 12-song set.  

“Complicated” was the fourth song on Olivia’s set list, coming after “drivers license” and before an acoustic cover of “hope ur ok.”

Fans recorded the surprise covers, of course, and snippets of Tuesday night’s concert are already circulating online.  According to one fan, Olivia introduced the track by telling the crowd, “This next song is a song I really love by the pop punk princess herself — Avril Lavigne!”

As previously reported, Olivia’s sold-out 40-date North American tour will take her across major cities in the U.S. and Canada — such as New York City, Las Vegas and Toronto — before concluding in Los Angeles on May 25, 2022. Olivia will then head across the pond for a brief European leg, starting with a show on June 11 in Hamburg, Germany.

The Sour tour concludes July 7, 2022 in London, England.

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