Music

Led Zeppelin has joined the ranks of rock bands with their own official account on TikTok.

The account, @ledzeppelin, will feature official Led Zeppelin artwork and graphics, live performance clips and other video content on the social media platform.

The hard-rock legends also have made their entire catalog available to TikTok users to soundtrack their own videos creations. Led Zeppelin’s catalog spans over 100 songs, including such classics as “Whole Lotta Love,” “Stairway to Heaven,” “Immigrant Song,” “Rock and Roll,” “Black Dog,” “Ramble On” and “Kashmir.”

The launch of Led Zeppelin’s TikTok account comes in advance of the 50th anniversary of the band’s hugely successful untitled fourth album, known as Led Zeppelin IV, which was released on November 8, 1971. The album, which peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200, has sold over 23 million copies in the U.S.

It’s track list includes the aforementioned “Stairway to Heaven,” “Rock and Roll” and “Black Dog,” as well as “Misty Mountain Hop,” “Going to California” and “When the Levee Breaks.”

To commemorate the album’s anniversary, the band has launched a video series on its YouTube channel titled The History of Led Zeppelin IV. The first episode focuses on “Black Dog,” which was released as the album’s first single.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A limited-edition Skid Row box set collecting all three studio albums released by the heavy-metal band’s original Sebastian Bach-fronted lineup, as well as two 1990s EPs, will hit stores on December 3.

Skid Row: The Atlantic Years 1989-1996 will be available either as a five-CD collection or a seven-LP 180-gram-vinyl set. The package features the band’s 1989 self-titled debut, 1991’s chart-topping Slave to the Grind and 1995’s Subhuman Race, as well as 1992 covers EP B-Side Ourselves and the 1995 concert EP Subhuman Beings on Tour!!

The Skid Row album features the band’s two biggest hits, “18 to Life” and “I Remember You,” which peaked at #4 and #6, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100. The album itself reached #6 on the Billboard 200.

Slave to the Grind topped the Billboard 200 in June of ’91 and included the Mainstream Rock chart hits “Monkey Business” and “Wasted Time.”

Subhuman Race reached #35 on the Billboard 200 and features the top-30 Mainstream Rock hit “Into Another.”

B-Side Ourselves features renditions of songs by The Ramones, KISS, Judas Priest, Rush and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. The Judas Priest tune is a live cover of “Delivering the Goods” that features a guest appearance by Priest frontman Rob Halford.

Subhuman Beings on Tour!! previously was available only in Japan. The box set’s vinyl version will mark the first time that the EP has ever been issued on vinyl. Slave to the Grind and Subhuman Race will appear as two-LP sets on the vinyl collection.

You can pre-order the Skid Row: The Atlantic Years 1989-1996 box set now.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Bruce Springsteen paid a visit to CBS’ The Late Show on Wednesday, where he discussed, among other things, Renegades: Born in the USA, the book Bruce co-authored with former president Barack Obama coming out on Tuesday; and The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts, a film and album documenting Springsteen’s performances with the E Street Band at the historic MUSE benefit concerts at New York’s Madison Square Garden, being released in various formats in November.

When asked how how he came to write the book with Obama, Springsteen told host Stephen Colbert, “It was the president’s idea. He called me. I thought he had the wrong number, because he’s a Columbia graduate, teacher of constitutional law, University of Chicago Law School, first African-American president of the United States,”

On the other hand, joked Springsteen, “I am a guitar player, I am a Freehold High school graduate.”

After playing a throwback clip of Bruce’s high energy performance from 1979, the Boss recalled it took place on his 30th birthday. When asked to compare that 30-year-old guy with the now 72-year-old version, he offered, “Well, it’s funny, on stage I don’t know if there’s a lot of difference… we still come out, and we take it all the way every night that we’re on stage. So, I mean, that’s a completely different person.”

Added Springsteen, “At 30, I was still a kid, and that was my entire life, what you’re viewing right there, you know…So that was different. But basically, I still feel about it the way that kid would have. That hasn’t changed at all.”

Springsteen closed out the show with a live acoustic performance of the title track from his 1979 album, The River.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

With The Go-Go’s being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this Saturday, drummer Gina Schock has just released a new autobiographical photo book focusing on her long career with the famous all-female group.

Made in Hollywood: All Access with the Go-Go’s is highlighted by a bevy of personal photos that Schock took during the group’s 1980s heyday, as well as a variety archival images.

“I am very, very excited about my book, because it’s my life, and it’s from a band member’s perspective,” Schock tells ABC Audio. “[I]t’s taken me years to put it together. [O]ver 40 years of photographs and tales to tell are in this book.”

Gina notes that during the band’s early years, “I was carrying a camera around with me all the time and snapping shots…everywhere, on the tour bus, in hotel rooms, backstage.”

Schock also wrote commentary to accompany many of the pics in the book.

“I think I recapped things pretty evenly and pretty honestly,” she says. “And people will get an inside look at the band in a way they never have, because it’s being shown to them visually, and I’m writing text to it.”

Made in Hollywood also features essays from the other Go-Go’s, as well as from some of the group’s famous fans and friends, including as The B-52s‘ Kate Pierson, Jodie Foster, Eurythmics‘ Dave Stewart and Paul “Pee Wee Herman” Reubens.

“Everybody was pretty honest and was telling…when they first met the band, what happened, how we first came together,” Schock explains. “It’s great to relive all that.”

Gina says she thinks fans will love the book.

“[T]hey’re gonna look at this and they’re going to remember what they were doing [then],” she maintains. “It’s gonna make people smile.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Journey has been preparing a new studio album, and now comes word that the forthcoming release will be supersized.

Narada Michael Walden, who replaced longtime Journey member Steve Smith as the band’s new drummer last year, and also is producing the new record, posted a message Friday on his Facebook page revealing that he was in the studio with Neal Schon “wrapping up the exciting new Journey double album.” He added, “Stay tuned.”

On the same day, Schon posted a video on his Facebook page showing him laying down a guitar track, along with the message, “We had some fun today as I replayed all Guitar’s [sic] on this 1st track we cut over a year ago when we began the new Journey album. It’s a [wrap]!”

Journey gave fans the first taste from the upcoming album in June with the release of their latest single, “The Way We Used to Be.”

In addition to Walden, the new album marks the return of bassist Randy Jackson, who previously played with Journey in the mid-1980s, and of drummer Deen Castronovo, who was a member of the group from 1998 to 2015.

While no release date has been announced for the album, Schon told ABC Audio in July that he expected it to come out either at the end of this year or in early 2022.

Meanwhile, Journey is preparing to kick off a six-show Las Vegas residency at The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas in December. The dates are scheduled for December 1, 2, 7, 8, 10 and 11. The band also will be playing a special symphonic concert on December 18 in Vegas at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.