Admat for The Mountain Festival (Courtesy of The Mountain Music Festival)
Bret Michaels, Rick Springfield and Ratt’s Stephen Pearcy and Warren DeMartini are among the acts booked for The Mountain Music Festival, happening Aug. 21-23 at the Gatlinburg Convention Center in the Great Smokey Mountains of Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
The three-day classic rock festival features over 25 artists on three stages, with the lineup that also includes 38 Special, Night Ranger, Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach, Warrant, John Waite, Lita Ford, Jackyl and more.
Three-day and two-day passes for the festival are on sale now, with single day general admission passes going on sale this spring/summer. A complete lineup can be found at TheMountainUSA.com.
The Mountain Music Festival debuted in October 2021 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Donna Summer performs onstage at the Poplar Creek Music Theater, Hoffman Estates, Illinois, July 12, 1983. (Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images)
Donna Summer’s classic track “MacArthur Park” has returned to the Billboard charts thanks to the winter Olympics.
The song was used by American figure skater Alysa Liu for her long program when she won the gold medal. Thanks to the exposure, the song has landed at #1 on the Dance Digital Song Sales chart, up 575% in sales, with 2,000 downloads sold between Feb. 20-26.
The original 1978 track, which appeared on Summer’s album Live and More, spent three weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified double Platinum by the RIAA.
In 2013, following Summer’s 2012 death, a remix of the song retuned to the chart, hitting #1 on the former Dance Club Songs chart.
Another song getting a boost from the Olympics is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s classic “Free Bird.”
After the song became the unofficial anthem for the U.S. men’s and women’s hockey teams, it has hit #15 on the Rock & Alternative Songs chart, #1 on the Rock Digital Song Sales chart and #6 on the Digital Song Sales chart.
Rapper Baby Keem performs onstage during day three of Rolling Loud Miami 2022 at Hard Rock Stadium on July 24, 2022, in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Photo by Jason Koerner/Getty Images)
The 2026 lineup for Outside Lands festival has been announced, and Baby Keem, Mariah the Scientist and Clipse are a few of the stars representing the genres of hip-hop and R&B.
GloRilla, Durand Bernarr and Destin Conrad have also been tapped to perform. Charli XCX, Rüfüs Du Sol and The Strokes are this year’s headliners.
The festival is slated to take place Aug. 7 to 9 at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, where it returns for an eighth year. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Thursday at 12 p.m. PT, following a few presales.
The Song Suffragettes will give Carly Pearce their Yellow Rose of Inspiration Award March 30 at their 12th Anniversary Show.
Carly will deliver an intimate performance and participate in a question and answer session as well.
There’ll also be two writers’ rounds that night at The Listening Room, with Elizabeth Nichols, Belle Frantz, Abby Anderson, Chanel Yates, Abbie Callahan, Nanseera, Ashley Anne, Abbey Rowe and Alison Nichols all set to play.
Since its beginning in 2014, more than 500 female singer/songwriters have participated in Nashville’s only weekly all-female singer/songwriter showcase.
Paul McCartney performs at The O2 Arena on December 18, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Jo Hale/Redferns)
Paul McCartney was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 1999, but it turns out he was expecting it to happen a lot earlier.
Vanity Fairjust published a 2015 interview with McCartney that was conducted for a biography about Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner and in it McCartney reveals Wenner, who co-founded the Rock Hall, went back on a promise regarding his solo induction.
McCartney explained that when John Lennon was inducted into the Rock Hall as a solo artist in 1994, Wenner asked him to handle the induction, and while he agreed, it got him thinking about himself.
“Then I put the phone down. I thought, Well, what about me? I’m not inducted. Now John’s going to go in,” McCartney said. “The thing about John Lennon and McCartney was we were always equal. But, of course, once John got murdered, he became the martyr—the Buddy Holly, the James Dean character—because of the atrocity.”
McCartney said he eventually called Wenner and said, “Well, wait a minute. What about me? Maybe I’ll do John, and then maybe I should go in.”
McCartney said Wenner told him they couldn’t do that, with McCartney noting, “In all my dealings with him, it’s never up to Jann. It’s up to these other people down the corridor somewhere. He happens to have ‘owner-editor’ on his door, but they’re responsible for things?”
McCartney says Wenner eventually told him his solo induction would happen the next year.
“I said, ‘Okay.’ And I bought the deal,” McCartney said. “Next year came around … Crickets.”
McCartney noted, “Eventually I did creep in there, and my daughter Stella wore a T-shirt [that said] ‘About f***** time.”
According to the article, Wenner claimed to not remember making the deal with McCartney.
Both McCartney and Lennon were inducted as members of The Beatles in 1988.
Traffic moves along midtown Manhattan on Feb. 19, 2025, in New York. (Alex Kent/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge ruled that Manhattan’s congestion pricing program can continue and the Trump administration does not have the authority to kill the program, which is the first of its kind in the nation.
In a 149-page ruling, Judge Lewis Liman said the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke approval for the program was unlawful, handing a victory to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority following a monthslong legal battle.
“It is difficult to imagine more arbitrary and capricious decision-making than that at issue here,” Liman wrote.
The congestion pricing program went into effect last year in an effort to reduce traffic congestion during peak hours and to raise funds for the city’s public transit system. Passenger vehicles are charged $9 to access Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours.
The extra per-ride surcharge is 75 cents for taxis and black car services, and $1.50 for Ubers and Lyfts. During peak hours, small trucks and charter buses will be charged $14.40, while large trucks and tour buses must pay $21.60.
The Trump administration moved to reverse approval of the program last year. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at the time that the “scope of this pilot project as approved exceeds the authority authorized by Congress” under the Federal Highway Administration’s Value Pricing Pilot Program, calling it “backwards and unfair.”
New York lawmakers pushed back against the decision and challenged the federal government in court.
The federal judge reaffirmed an order from last May upholding the program, but stopped short of completely barring the Trump administration from challenging the program again.
“[Trump] is obviously free to continue to make public statements as well as to ask the Secretary of Transportation to look into whether there are lawful means to end the [Central Business District Tolling Program]. And, as to the Secretary’s statements, he has a right to continue to fight his case and to take an appeal of this Court’s orders,” Liman said.
Overall, the program was the “product of a democratic process” and cannot be arbitrarily revoked, Liman said.
“The [Value Pricing Pilot Program] was passed by Congress. The [Traffic Mobility Act] was passed by democratically elected legislators and signed by a Governor elected by the people of New York. The [Value Pricing Pilot Program] Agreement was authorized by a Secretary nominated by a duly elected President and confirmed by the Senate. The democratic process worked,” the judge wrote.
The program applies for Manhattan south of 60th Street, except for the FDR Drive, the West Side Highway and the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel.
Metallica Life Burns Faster at Sphere artwork. (Courtesy of Live Nation)
Metallica has announced the exact dates for the six newly added shows to the band’s upcoming Life Burns Faster residency at the high-tech Sphere venue in Las Vegas.
The updated schedule now includes performances on Oct. 8 and 10, Nov. 5 and 7, and Jan. 28 and 30, 2027. Presales for members of Metallica’s Fifth Member fan club begin Wednesday at 10 a.m. PT.
Those shows join the previously announced dates taking place Oct. 1 and 3, 15 and 17, 22 and 24, and 29 and 31. Each pair of performances takes place on a Thursday and a Saturday, with no repeated songs between the Thursday set and its corresponding Saturday concert.
Presales for the initially announced shows are ongoing, and tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday at 10 a.m. PT.
Cast of ‘Tyler Perry’s Where There’s Smoke’ begins production in Atlanta (Courtesy of Netflix)
Step aside Chicago Fire and 9-1-1, there’s a new firefighter drama series on the way. Netflix has announced Tyler Perry’s Where There’s Smoke, his latest project as part of his going partnership with the streamer.
Where There’s Smoke will follow the personal and professional lives of a group of firefighters in 16 hourlong episodes, all of which Perry wrote, directed and produced. Helping to bring the story to life are stars Tyler Lepley, Da’Vinci, Mike Merrill, Eltony Williams, Brittany S. Hall, Brock O’Hurn and Karen Obilom, who have all worked on previous Tyler Perry projects, as well as real-life fire captain Joe Hunter, Mariah Goodie, Jordan Rodriguez and Judi Moon.
Angi Bones and Tony Strickland of Tyler Perry Studios also lend their hand, serving as producers for Where There’s Smoke, which has officially kicked off production in Atlanta.
In the meantime, part 2 of the second season of Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black is set to make its premiere on March 19.
Julian Casablancas of The Strokes performs during the Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park on October 04, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Amy E. Price/FilmMagic)
The Strokes are headlining the 2026 Outside Lands festival, taking place Aug. 7-9 at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
The bill also includes Turnstile, The xx, Djo, Empire of the Sun, Geese, Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse, Wet Leg, Lucy Dacus, The Temper Trap and Not for Radio, among may others.
Presales begin Tuesday at noon PT. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Thursday at noon PT.
Megan Moroney and Ella Langley are currently making history as the first women ever to top the all-genre Billboard 200 and Hot 100 at the same time.
It has happened before, however — just never with two female artists.
The first time was April 30, 1977, when the Eagles’ Hotel California reigned atop the album tally and Glen Campbell’s “Southern Nights” topped the song chart.
To find the next three instances, you have to fast forward all the way to the next century.
In July 2023, Taylor Swift’s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) was #1, just as Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” reached the pinnacle of the song tally. A little more than a year later in August 2024, Post Malone and Shaboozey picked up the baton with F-1 Trillion and “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
The fourth instance would come a couple months later, with Shaboozey’s song still hanging on at #1, and Jelly Roll’s Beautifully Broken topping the album ranking.
Next up, we’ll all be watching to see if Megan’s Cloud 9 and Ella’s “Choosin’ Texas” can hang on to their titles for another week.
