Royel Otis has announced a new album called hickey.
The sophomore effort from the “Sofa King” outfit drops Aug. 22. It includes the previously released single “moody.”
“Because love bites harder than any other emotion in the world,” Royel Otis says of the album’s title.
Hickey follows Royel Otis’ 2024 full-length debut, PRATTS &PAIN. They also scored hits with covers of Sophie Ellis-Bextor‘s “Murder on the Dancefloor” and The Cranberries‘ “Linger.”
Maroon 5‘s long-awaited new album will be out in August.
Called Love is Like, the band’s eighth studio album drops Aug. 15. As the follow-up to the first single, “Priceless,” a new single has just been released called “All Night.” A video will follow on June 27. Fun fact: The saxophone that you hear in “All Night” was played by singer Adam Levine‘s father.
In support of the new album, the band will kick off a U.S. arena tour Oct. 6 in Phoenix, Arizona, wrapping up Nov. 25 in Detroit. Claire Rosinkranz will open all dates. For a preview, you can catch the group on NBC’s Today show on Aug. 1.
A fan club presale starts Wednesday at 10 a.m. local time. Presales will continue through the week; the general sale begins Friday at 10 a.m. local time via maroon5.com.
In a statement, Levine says of the new album, “I feel like we’ve gone back to what we used to do, which is to not pay attention to where we fit and producing the music organically. This is kind of how we stuck out in the beginning when we first started our career.”
Love is Like is the follow-up to Maroon 5’s 2021 release, JORDI.
The Aussie Rock & Roll Hall of Famers have announced a five-date Australian leg of the tour, kicking off Nov. 12 in Melbourne. The tour will hit Sydney, Adelaide and Perth before wrapping Dec. 14 in Brisbane.
Amyl and the Sniffers, who are also from Australia, are set to open on all dates.
Tickets for all shows go on sale Thursday. A complete list of dates and more info on tickets can be found at acdc.com.
AC/DC launched their Power Up tour in May 2024. The tour was their first trek since 2016, and the first since releasing their 2020 album, PowerUp. They brought the tour to the U.S. in April, with the North American trek wrapping May 28 in Cleveland. The tour returns to Europe on Thursday in Prague.
Beyhive fans in the crowd at Beyoncé‘s final Cowboy Carter show in Paris were treated to quite the surprise. While wrapping the weekend in the City of Love, the family affair included one more person from the Carter clan: Bey’s husband, Jay-Z. He joined Bey for their songs “Crazy in Love” and “Drunk in Love,” and took advantage of the moment to perform the fitting track “N***** in Paris.”
Fans noticed he changed a word in his song with Kanye West, rapping, “Just might let you meet Bey” instead of “Just might let you meet Ye.”
Tina Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Cardi B were among those in the crowd to experience the moment live.
Jay’s appearance at Stade de France for the Cowboy Carter show Sunday night marked the first time in over six years that he and Bey took the stage together. They last performed in South Africa for the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 on Dec. 2, 2018.
Hov is now the second guest Bey has brought onstage during her Cowboy Carter tour. Miley Cyrus was first, coming out on the first night of Beyoncé’s three-night run in Paris.
For a musician, selling out the biggest, most iconic venue in your hometown is always a sign that you’ve really made it — and Dua Lipa did just that on Friday and Saturday nights.
Dua sold out two shows at London’s famed Wembley Stadium to start the U.K. leg of her Radical Optimism tour, during which she welcomed special guests, performed deep cuts and rocked 150,000 fans.
During each stop of her tour, Dua’s welcomed local performers or performed cover versions of local hits. She did both at Wembley: On Friday night, Jamiroquai joined Dua onstage for a duet of his 1996 hit “Virtual Insanity,” and on Saturday, Dua welcomed Charli XCX for a performance of Charli’s song “360.”
Dua also performed her early single “Hotter Than Hell” for the first time since 2019, and another early song, “IDGAF,” for the first time since 2020.
Ahead of her first show, Dua posted a pic on her Instagram Story of a note she received backstage. It read, “Dear Dua, we just wanted to wish you lots of luck with your sold out shows at Wembley Stadium — that’s Girl Power! We love you! [Signed] the Spice Girls.”
On Instagram Sunday night, Dua wrote, “2 SOLD OUT NIGHTS AT WEMBLEY STADIUM!! I can hardly believe it. These were the most special, unforgettable shows I’ve ever done!!!”
“I’m overwhelmed with gratitude. For this journey. For every single person who’s stood by me, believed in me, sung with me, danced with me, and shared in this dream,” she continued.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart to the incredible team on stage and behind the scenes who pour so much love and work into making this possible. I truly couldn’t have done this without you. Wembley, you have my heart. Forever.”
Dave Grohl made a surprise appearance during The Breeders frontwoman and ex-Pixies bassist Kim Deal‘s solo show in London Friday.
The Foo Fighters frontman joined Deal for a rendition of the Pixies track “Gigantic.” In fan-shot video, Grohl declares “I’ll sing whatever you ask me to sing” before launching into the song.
The Deal show is one of several live appearances Grohl has made since his 2024 infidelity scandal, along with a pair of Nirvana performances at January’s FireAid and February’s SNL50: The Homecoming Concert. He also showed up at Coachella in April.
Foo Fighters are set to return to the live stage for a run of Asia dates in October.
Deal, meanwhile, has been touring in support of her debut solo album, 2024’s Nobody Loves You More.
Nicole Scherzinger is now a Tony Award-winning Broadway star, but at a benefit Sunday night in New York City, she threw it back to her Pussycat Dolls days.
Nicole performed at the annual Broadway Bares benefit, which raises money for the charity Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The June 22 event featured Nicole and dancers from her hit musical Sunset Blvd., and while onstage, Nicole performed “Buttons,” the Dolls’ 2005 #3 hit. You can watch a clip of the performance on the Broadway Cares Instagram page.
While Nicole was with The Pussycat Dolls, the group scored four top-10 hits, including “Buttons, “Don’t Cha,” “Stickwitu” and “When I Grow Up.” They sold 15 million albums worldwide.
Nicole began starring in Sunset Blvd. in London’s West End in 2023, and won the Laurence Olivier Award for best actress in a musical for her role as Norma Desmond. The show moved to Broadway in 2024; she won the best actress in a musical Tony Award on June 8.
Miley Cyrus and her fans have grown up together, which she describes as her definition of success.
Speaking to Vogue France, Miley is asked what success means to her. “What makes me successful is when I walk into a room and I feel respected and honored, not because of numbers, or what success means on paper, but when someone appreciates me as a vocalist or a songwriter, or what I even [meant] to them as a kid,” Miley says.
“I’ve grown up with my fans, and so when I think about being this person that’s, like, been a friend to them throughout the last 20 years — that to me is success.”
Miley also reveals that, like her pal Beyoncé, when she appears onstage she has an alter ego who takes over and allows her to become an incredible performer.
“Who I am onstage is somehow … it’s me but this kind of super-person comes up and really does the shows for me, because me myself would be terrified to do the things that I do,” she explains. “I’m in the shower and I just go, ‘You are that super-person. You’re the girl who’s gonna be onstage, doing the thing you’re afraid of.'”
“Throughout my career, I’ve represented fearlessness. And I like people to know that I am absolutely not fearless,” she continues. “I’m fearful. And doing it anyway is what makes me feel strong … I don’t feel that titling me ‘fearless’ is actually representative of who I am at all.”
Newcomer Hudson Westbrook currently has his first top-30 hit on the Billboard chart with “House Again.”
For the native Texan, the music bug snuck up on him after high school.
“You’re in college and you have those four years there, you know,” he tells ABC Audio. “I was just trying to make an extra dollar working at the feed store and breaking bulls. And every time that I would get off work, I’d be like, ‘Hey man, like, I love listening to music.’ Or like, ‘I love going on deliveries, I’d get to listen to music.'”
Hudson eventually got ready to step onstage himself — and then the internet took over.
“I was like, ‘Why don’t I just try it?'” he recalls. “And I was just wanting to play bars around Texas Tech, and my fiddle player took a video and it went crazy online.”
“So then I was like, ‘We gotta get together in the garage,’ and we put together a good set list and got everything rolling. So, social media got it started, but I think live show and good music keeps it going.”
Hudson’s debut album, Texas Forever, comes out July 25.
Some lucky Bruce Springsteen fans in New Jersey are going to get a chance to hear The Boss’ upcoming Tracks II: The Lost Albums box set before it’s officially released.
The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music at Monmouth University in Monmouth, New Jersey, is holding a Tracks II advance listening party on Thursday, one day before the box set comes out.
The event will give attendees a chance to hear selections from Tracks II, which is made up of seven previously unheard Springsteen records: LA GarageSessions ’83, Streets of PhiladelphiaSessions, Faithless, Somewhere North of Nashville, Inyo, Twilight Hours and Perfect World. Itfeatures 83 songs, all of which were originally recorded between 1983 and 2018.
The listening party is free, although those interested do need to register in advance. One attendee will win two tickets to a Sept. 5 Archives Center event with longtime Springsteen collaborator and director Thom Zimny, taking place at Monmouth’s Pollak Theatre.
Tracks II: The Lost Albums will be released digitally, and as limited-edition nine-LP and seven-CD sets. The physical copies come with packaging for each previously unreleased record, along with a 100-page hardcover book with rare archival photos, liner notes, a personal introduction from Springsteen and more.
In addition, Springsteen will release Lost and Found: Selections from the Lost Albums, featuring 20 songs from the collection, as a single CD and two-LP set.
