Music

An unflattering portrait of Sir Paul McCartney has brought in a nice chunk of change for charity.

London artist Wilfrid Wood created a sculpture of The Beatle‘s face to be used as the cover art for “Pipes of Peace,” McCartney’s contribution to War Child U.K.’s annual Secret 7” auction, in which seven tracks from seven artists get auctioned off to raise money for the organization. 

But Wood says his contribution, a rendering of McCartney’s face on polymer clay, was rejected, explaining on Instagram that it was “BANNED by Macca and the gang because it was TOO UNFLATTERING.”

As a way to still raise money for the charity, Wood decided to auction the sculpture off on eBay, and it sold for over $1,700. He plans to donate all proceeds from the sale to War Child U.K. in their mission to help children affected by conflict in various war zones, including Gaza and the Ukraine.

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Vampire Weekend has shared a new song called “Mary Boone,” a track off the band’s upcoming album, Only God Was Above Us.

“Mary Boone” is named after the famed New York City art dealer and samples the song “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)” by the British group Soul II Soul.

You can listen to “”Mary Boone” now via digital outlets. It’s also accompanied by a video, capturing a drive through the Lincoln Tunnel from New Jersey to Manhattan, which is streaming now on YouTube.

Only God Was Above Us will be released April 5. It also includes the previously released songs “Classical,” “Capricorn” and “Gen-X Cops.”

Vampire Weekend will celebrate the album’s arrival with a show in Austin, Texas, on April 8 during the total solar eclipse, which will also stream live online. They’ll launch a full U.S. tour in June.

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Anthrax is reuniting with original bassist Dan Lilker for a run of upcoming shows.

Lilker was in Anthrax from their formation in 1981 until 1984. He will be filling in for the person who replaced him, Frank Bello, who is sitting out the dates due to personal reasons.

“I’m really looking forward to jamming with Anthrax again,” Lilker says. “When we parted ways back in 1984, they told me to stick around because they might need me in 40 years.”

Anthrax adds, “We’re all very excited about with playing with Danny again, and we really appreciate his filling in for Frank.”

Lilker’s dates with Anthrax include a South American tour in April and sets at the Welcome to Rockville and Sonic Temple festivals in May.

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Not only was Taylor Swift the bestselling artist in the world in 2023, she also sold the most vinyl.

That’s according to the IFPI, the organization that represents the recorded music industry worldwide. In February, it declared Taylor the Global Recording Artist of the Year for 2023. Now, it’s revealed three Global Album Charts, detailing top sales overall for 2023, top streaming albums of 2023 and top-selling vinyl of 2023.

Taylor holds the top three places on the vinyl chart, with 1989 (Taylor’s Version) at #1, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) at #2 and Midnights at #3. Overall, she has seven albums in the top 20, the others being folklore, Lover, evermore and Red (Taylor’s Version).

Taylor didn’t top the Global Sales album chart, but she’s the only non-K-pop artist to make the top 10. As for streaming, Morgan Wallen‘s One Thing at a Time was #1, followed by SZA‘s SOS and Taylor’s Midnights.

Next year at this time, we may be talking about how Taylor’s The Tortured Poets Department did globally in 2024. It’s coming out April 19.

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More of your favorite stars will appear on HARDY‘s upcoming Joe Diffie tribute album, HIXTAPE: Vol. 3: DIFFTAPE.

Arriving Friday, the star-studded project will feature Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson, Luke Bryan, Jon Pardi, Old Dominion, Darius Rucker, Reba McEntire, Hailey Whitters, Tracy Lawrence, Jake Worthington, Toby Keith and Joe’s son Parker Diffie.

They join the previously announced list of artists, including HARDY, Blake Shelton, Chris Young, Nate Smith, Brooks & Dunn, ERNEST, Clint Black, Mark Wills, Kameron Marlowe and Sammy Kershaw.

“I’m super excited about DIFFTAPE. I think it’s a one-of-a-kind project and we’re the first people to do something like this,” says HARDY. “Especially having the original recordings and the fact that we have his family’s blessing to do it, it’s all really special.”

While you wait for HIXTAPE: Vol. 3: DIFFTAPE to drop, you can take a listen to the “Pickup Man” featuring Post Malone and the HARDY and Morgan Wallen-assisted “John Deere Green”; out now.

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System of a Down‘s Daron Malakian is providing his voice to the latest episode of the Adult Swim show Royal Crackers.

The guitarist will be playing a trio of characters named King Omar, Prince Omar and King Omar Senior. You can check out a preview now via System’s Facebook.

Royal Crackers follows the exploits of a dysfunctional family trying to run a saltine crackers company. Basically, it sounds like an animated, food-themed version of Succession.

You can watch Malakian’s episode on Max starting Friday, March 29.

System of a Down is set to headline the Sick New World festival in April. Malakian, meanwhile, is playing a few shows with his Scars on Broadway project, including Korn‘s 30th anniversary concert in October.

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Lorde has premiered her take on “Take Me to the River” for the upcoming tribute to Talking Heads‘ classic 1984 concert film and live album, Stop Making Sense.

“Take Me to the River” was originally recorded by soul legend Al Green in 1974 and then covered by Talking Heads in 1978. The Talking Heads version became the band’s highest charting single at the time, and a live recording is included on Stop Making Sense.

In a statement, Lorde shares that she wanted her “Take Me to the River” cover to reflect when her mom first showed her a Talking Heads video on YouTube when she was 12 years old.

“It’s my interpretation of that pixelated spiritual experience,” Lorde says. “We did it fast, I didn’t let myself tidy it up too much, it had to feel young and imperfect, the peeling posters, the jaw of acne.”

You can listen to Lorde’s “Take Me to the River” now via digital outlets.

The Stop Making Sense tribute also includes Paramore‘s cover of “Burning Down the House” as well as contributions from The National, Miley Cyrus, girl in red and The Linda Lindas.

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Kenan Thompson, who starred in the Nickelodeon shows All That and Kenan and Kel as a teen, is speaking out about allegations made about his former producer Dan Schneider in the documentary series Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.

“I think it’s a good thing that the doc is out and is putting things on display that need to be told for accountability sake, but it’s definitely tough to watch because I have fond memories of that place,” Thompson said of Nickelodeon during an appearance on Tamron Hall‘s chat show on Wednesday, March 27.

Addressing the accusations that Schneider created a toxic work environment, the Saturday Night Live star recalled that many of them happened after his tenure on the network.

“Dan wasn’t really on Kenan and Kel like that,” he explains. “He got a ‘created by’ credit, but it was a different showrunner, so our worlds weren’t overly overlapping like that outside of All That necessarily.”

“My heart goes out to anybody that’s been victimized, or their families,” he said.

After noting that the production company said it was investigating all the allegations, Thompson said, “Well, investigate more.”

“It’s supposed to be a safe place, you know?” he added. “It’s supposed to be a safe place for kids and to hear all about that it’s just like, ‘How dare you,’ you know?'”

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