Music

Alessia Cara was Jimmy Fallon‘s guest on Monday’s The Tonight Show, and also joined Fallon for the latest edition of his “Musical Genre Challenge.”

The game featured Fallon and Alessia singing popular tunes in different musical styles. For example, Alessia delivered Doja Cat‘s “Kiss Me More” in the style of a 1960s folk song, and Justin Bieber and The Kid LAROI‘s song “Stay” as a jazz/swing tune.

Jimmy gave BTS‘ “Butter” an ’80s new wave twist and the Spider-Man theme a ’60s British invasion spin.

While chatting with Fallon, Alessia discussed her new Christmas single, “Jingle Bell Rock,” available on Amazon Music. As to why she chose that song over the many other holiday standards, she explained that while she normally gravitates to the more melancholy tunes, a “jolly and happy” song is what we all need right now. However, there was another reason she picked it.

“I wanted to sing the line, ‘Giddy-up jingle horse.” says Alessia, noting, “It makes you laugh, like, what is a jingle horse?”

The 25-year-old “Shapeshifter” singer also discussed her first band, formed with her cousins, called The Lilacs — “We performed very small venues like my living room, my family’s living room,” she recalled — and her acting turn in season two of Amazon’s Yearly Departed, alongside Jane Fonda, Chelsea Peretti, Meg Stalter, Dulcé Sloan, Aparna Nancherla, X Mayo and host Yvonne Orji.

Alessia will perform “Jingle Bell Rock, as well as her own song, “Make It to Christmas,” on NBC’s annual Christmas in Rockefeller Center, airing on Wednesday.

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Rihanna has been declared a National Hero by her home country of Barbados.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the singer received the island nation’s high honor Monday night at the Pride of Nationhood ceremony in Bridgetown.

“May you continue to shine like a diamond and bring honor to your nation by your works, by your actions,” Prime Minister Mia Mottley told the singer, referencing her 2012 hit “Diamonds.”

Rihanna becomes just the second woman to receive the National Hero honor, and the 11th person overall. She can now use the title of Right Honorable in front of her name.

At the same ceremony Monday, Barbados formally cut ties with the U.K. and removed Queen Elizabeth II as head of state. In doing so, Barbados becomes the world’s newest republic.

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After telling Rolling Stone that she wasn’t going to do a Las Vegas residency because there were no venues available for her, Adele has gone ahead and — yep — announced a Las Vegas residency.

The superstar’s new show, titled Weekends with Adele, will take place at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, formerly the residency home of her idol, Celine Dion.  The shows kick off January 21, 2022, with Adele performing two shows each weekend through Saturday, April 16.

You can access the pre-sale tickets for the shows by registering with Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan® program. Registration is open now through midnight on Thursday, December 2. The presale itself will start Tuesday, December 7 at 1 p.m. ET.  If demand for tickets exceeds the supply, there won’t be a public on-sale at all, so this is your best bet.

Adele also told Rolling Stone that she didn’t want to do a regular tour, due to uncertainties about COVID-19. A Vegas residency would allow her to control the situation more easily, and since she lives in Los Angeles, flying in and out would make it easy on her — pun intended — since she wouldn’t have to leave her son, Angelo, for long periods of time.

Here are the dates for Weekends with Adele:

January 21/22
January 28/29
February 4/5
February 11/12
February 25/26
March 4/5
March 11/12
March 18/19
March 25/26
April 1/2
April 8/9
April 15/16

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An alleged sexual assault incident involving Trey Songz is currently being investigated by Las Vegas Metro Police Department. 

In a statement to ABC News, LVMPD says that on Sunday they “received a report of a sexual assault incident alleged to have occurred at a hotel in the 3700 block of South Las Vegas Boulevard” involving the 37-year-old singer, who was born Tremaine Neverson.

The incident is currently being investigated by detectives and Songz is “cooperating with the investigation,” the statement adds. “At this time, no arrests have been made.”

The “Bottoms Up” singer apparently was in Sin City to ring in his 37th birthday at Drai’s Nightclub on Saturday night. The party then continued at the Cosmopolitan hotel where a TMZ source said that Songz and his entourage brought back a group of women.  

Songz has yet to respond to requests for comment.

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The pandemic forced H.E.R. to cancel concerts, including her two-day Lights on Festival in New York City in October. However, now she’s thrilled to be back to performing for live audiences.

“It has been the most amazing thing ever,” the Grammy and Oscar winner, born Gabriella Wilson, tells Ebony. “There’s nothing like that connection that you have with an audience. I love performing, I love the stage, and it’s not the same without the people. I’m so thankful to be back.”

H.E.R. performed earlier this month at the iconic Apollo Theater in New York, and she returned to be a presenter at the Soul Train Music Awards which aired Sunday from the Apollo.

“It feels crazy to have been there at nine years old then now to headline the Apollo,” she says. “I kept thinking about all the people that were on that stage before me. I just carry that with me everywhere I go now.”

Growing up in Vallejo, California near San Francisco, she was inspired by the many artists from the Bay Area, including Sly and the Family Stone, and Sheila E.

“This love for music—that I think you could only find in the Bay area—culture, constant festivals, and live bands that would perform since I was young, it’s influenced me to want to be a better musician and also just want to make music that feels great,” H.E.R. continues.

Last week. the 24-year-old singer was nominated for eight Grammys, including Album of the Year for Back of My Mind, and Song of the Year, for “Fight for You.”

She hopes to record Christmas music, and she will perform at the National Christmas Tree Lighting in Washington, D.C. airing Sunday, December 5 at 8:30 p.m. ET/8:00 p.m PT on CBS.

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Pearl Jam, Green Day and Imagine Dragons are taking part in a charity initiative celebrating Giving Tuesday.

The campaign, launched in partnership by Bandsintown and the charitable fundraising platform Fandiem, will offer special items and experiences from the participating artists to raise money for nonprofit organizations of their choosing. The more you donate, the more entries you’ll receive for the raffle.

Both Pearl Jam and Green Day will be donating signed guitars, the latter of which will also feature autographs from fellow Hella Mega tour mates Fall Out Boy and Weezer, while Imagine Dragons is offering an all-expense-paid trip to a show on the group’s upcoming U.S. tour in 2022.

Other artists taking part include Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, Evanescence‘s Amy Lee, Gene Simmons of KISS, My Morning Jacket, Jon Bon Jovi and Jack Johnson.

For more info, visit Fandiem.com/GivingTuesday.

Giving Tuesday takes place today, November 30. It was conceived as a contrast to the commercialism of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

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After a challenging year, Zac Brown Band is moving into a more positive headspace.

Frontman Zac Brown reveals that he ended up borrowing money last year to help support his touring family after they had to cancel The Owl Tour in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Everybody had my back for a lot of years before this, so I had to step up and figure out how to borrow enough to help everybody survive, but we did it and we’re working our way out of the hole right now,” Zac explains. 

As his financial situation is improving, so is his mental state. Part of that positive mentality stems from returning to the road, with the Grammy Award winning band crossing the country on The Comeback Tour throughout the year. 

Zac says he is moving forward and focusing on creativity, noting that while time off the road at home with his family was beneficial, he is excited to turn his attention back to his passion for music. The group is currently celebrating their new #1 single, “Same Boat,” featured on their latest album, The Comeback, which debuted inside the top five on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart in October. 

“I haven’t been in this great of a headspace where I have all my creativity and good things. Home is peaceful and great and just ready to work. It’s not really work when you love what you do,” he describes. “But we got a good break and we got a lot of perspective and we’re back and excited.” 

ZBB will perform on New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash, airing on CBS on December 31 at 8 p.m. ET.

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Halsey recently celebrated their new album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power being nominated for a Grammy Award and, in a new interview, reveled in a new honor — being next year’s recipient of the BandLab NME Innovation Award.

Speaking with NME, the singer explained why they were validated by the nod, because they are being rewarded for never being complacent with their craft.

Halsey explained, “I’ve always been driven to reinvent myself and reinvent my genre,” which fed their willingness to take risks with their work.  

The 27-year-old recalled the “super liberating” epiphany they had when creating 2020’s Manic, saying it showed them they don’t have to be confined to pop music.  That realization set the bar for their pandemic-era album IICHLIWP, which further “challenge[d] me as a creative.”

“It was an opportunity to take advantage of the state of the world, the state that I was in and the state of music, and try something that was going to challenge me and try something that, commercially speaking, a lot of people would have perceived as a bit of a risk,” they recalled.

Adds Halsey, “Nothing has changed about my music except for the people who are producing it” — nodding to Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross — “I still wrote every word on this album – every song, every lyric, every melody came from me and the same can be said about all my previous records.”

So, where is Halsey going next?  They say fans will have to wait for another album because IICHLIWP “fulfilled me so much creatively that, truth be told, it’s probably going to be a while until I put out an album again.”

Halsey promised to “keep my creative muscles sharp” by releasing singles and collaborations.

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Graham Nash‘s new book, A Life in Focus: The Photography of Graham Nash, gets its official release today.

The 79-year-old folk-rock legend helped curate the book, which celebrates his lifelong passion for photography and offers a collection of captivating images that he shot spanning from his childhood to the present.

A Life in Focus includes candid photos of family members, friends and musical associates, self-portraits and artistically shot images captured in various natural settings. Nash also wrote commentary to accompany the pics.

Explaining his approach to photography, Graham tells ABC Audio, “I never want to take pictures of, you know, kittens with balls of wool. I don’t want to take images that match my couch…I want to capture something that will disappear in the blink of an eye unless you have the courage to press that trigger.”

Among the photos of Nash’s famous collaborators and musical contemporaries appearing in the book are images of his ex-girlfriend Joni Mitchell; his former band mates David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Neil Young; and other legends like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, George Harrison and Cass Elliot.

Graham says some of his favorite pics in the book feature Mitchell, including “one of Joan looking through [a] magnifying glass…[and another taken] through [a] chair hole…when [she was] listening to music.”

Other standout photos for Graham include one of Crosby shot in Sag Harbor, New York, while Crosby, Stills & Nash were rehearsing for their debut album, and several of Young, among them “one of [Neil] driving away from us…in his car.”

Reflecting on the new book, Nash says, “I want it to be a fun read…I want people to go, ‘Wow, all right!’ I want people to smile. I want to bring some joy into life.”

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In the last couple of years, biopics of Elton John and Queen‘s Freddie Mercury — Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody, respectively — were hugely successful at the box office, and Rod Stewart isn’t about to let a similar opportunity pass him by: He claims he’s actively working on a movie of his life.

During an interview with the music newsletter The New Cue, Rod is asked if a biopic is happening, to which he replies. “Yeah, yeah! I want that to happen!!”  When asked for details, Rod says, “We’re working on it, that’s all I can tell you.”

So who would play Rod in this alleged film?  He tells The New Cue, “Oh God, I’ve haven’t thought of that. I know my 18-year-old son wants to play me at 18. Maybe I could get my other son playing me when I was 10.”

In addition to planning a biopic, Rod is also promoting his new album The Tears of Hercules, which is his fourth album of original songs in eight years.  Sir Rod says this late-career creative roll he’s been on is a result of a few different things.

“I didn’t enjoy writing songs back in the day because it was taking up such a huge part of my life, with all the drinking and a-drugging and a-shagging and a-drinking,” he explains. “But now that’s all gone out the window, I’m concentrated on writing songs and enjoying it a great deal.”

“Also, I’ve realized the capability for writing personal songs and telling the truth,” he adds, pointing out that he’s got plenty of material. As the father of eight puts it, “I’ve lived a life. Over and over and over again.”

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