James Taylor and Pentatonix are two of the artists who’ve been tapped to pay tribute to legendary singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell, who’s been named the MusiCares Person of the Year for 2022.
Mitchell will be celebrated at a gala event in Los Angeles on January 29, just two days before the Grammy Awards. James Taylor’s participation is no surprise; the two have a long history together, and were romantically involved back in the day. Another one of Joni’s ex-boyfriends, Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills & Nash, will also take part in the tribute.
Other artists who’ll be saluting Mitchell by performing her songs include country star Mickey Guyton, jazz legend Herbie Hancock, singer/songwriters Brandi Carlile and Maggie Rogers, R&B singer Leon Bridges, the band Black Pumas and this year’s leading Grammy nominee, Jon Batiste. Batiste and Carlile will also serve as Artistic Directors for the evening.
In addition to the concert, the Person of the Year gala will also feature a silent auction. All the proceeds will go to MusiCares, the charitable arm of the Recording Academy, which provides health and human services to musicians in need.
The LA Party segment of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2022 will bring the hip hop flava with French Montana, Polo G, and Big Boi & Sleepy Brown.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the year-ending celebration, which will air Friday, December 31 at 8 p.m. EST/PST on ABC.
Montana, who dropped his fourth studio album, They Got Amnesia, on November 19, will perform his latest single from the project, “FWMGAB,” as well as his nine-times platinum smash from 2017, “Unforgettable.”
Big Boiwill be joined by Brown for the Outkast classic “The Way You Move” from the 2004 Grammy winning album, Speakerboxx/TheLove Below. They’ll also perform their new release, “Animalz.”
In addition, Polo G will take the stage for his triple-platinum hit, “Rapstar” and his latest, “Smooth Criminal,” from his third studio album, Hall of Fame. He’ll also team with Mae Muller for the current “Better Days.”
As previously announced, Ciara will host the LA Party with D-Nice on the turntables. Plus, Ryan Seacrest and co-host Liz Koshy will be broadcasting live from New York’s Times Square, and Billy Porter will count down to 2022 from New Orleans
Avril Lavigne says her upcoming album will be a blast from the past, taking back to 2002 and the pop-punk sound of her debut album, Let Go. Teasing her upcoming music with Entertainment Weekly, Avril said she’s “really stoked” about her new body of work.
“To the core, I’m a kid from a small town who listened to bands like Blink-182 and Green Day and NOFX in high school, and I tapped into that,” the Canadian singer noted. “But I also was writing power ballads like ‘I’m With You’ and stuff like that [when I first started out], so this time I just wanted to have fun and rock out. It just felt like it was time to make this type of an album.”
The Grammy nominee said she began working on her new music last November and put it together with “a bunch of my friends” — like Goldfinger frontman John Feldman and Blink drummer Travis Barker — because she “didn’t have a label or managers at the time.”
Because the “Bite Me” singer was left to her own devices, Avril said she was able to “do exactly what I wanted and what I feel like I’ve probably wanted to do for a long time.”
“We used live guitars and live drums and didn’t hold back,” she teased. “It’s fun. It’s just pure rock & roll from front to back. There’s a lot of reflecting upon different relationships that I have gone through and where I’m at.”
The twice-divorced star summarized her new album as being “fun and feisty and light” because she’s “kind of poking fun at myself that I’ve gone through a lot in love.”
The album follows her 2019 offering, Head Above Water. A release date has not been announced.
Avril Lavigne, AJR, Måneskin, OneRepublic and Walker Hayes are just a few of the many artists who’ll be ringing in the new year on ABC December 31.
They’ll all be performing as part of the Los Angeles party segment of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2022, which kicks off at 8 p.m. EST/PST on ABC.
The celebration will be introduced by Ciara, joined by Club Quarantine’s D-Nice on the turntables. Avril will perform her new song “Bite Me” and classic “Sk8ter Boi,” backed by her pal, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. AJR will sing “BANG!,” and perform their recent single “Record Player” with duo Daisy The Great.
Måneskin will, of course, perform “Beggin’,” as well as their recent single “MAMMAMIA,” while OneRepublic will perform “Counting Stars” and “Run.” Walker Hayes will do his viral crossover hit “Fancy Like,” as well as his new single “AA.”
In addition to those performers, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis will perform “Can’t Hold Us,” as well as the new single “Next Year,” while Australian rapper Masked Wolf will do his global smash “Astronaut In the Ocean,” as well as “Pandemonium.”
Mae Muller and Polo G will perform “Better Days,” and Polo will do “Rapstar” and “Smooth Criminal” solo. Also on the hip hop tip, Big Boi and Sleepy Brown will perform the Outkast hit “The Way You Move.”
Ryan Seacrest, joined by co-host Liza Koshy, will hold things down live in New York’s Times Square, while Billy Porter counts down to 2022 from New Orleans and Roselyn Sanchez does the same in Puerto Rico.
A restored and re-edited version of Pink Floyd‘s 1995 concert video Pulsewill be released on February 18, 2022, as a two-Blu-ray set and a two-DVD package.
The marks the first time that the Pulse movie will be available on Blu-ray as a standalone release: It first appeared in Pink Floyd’s massive 2019 box set The Later Years.
Pulse captures Pink Floyd on tour in support of the band’s 1994 album The Division Bell at an October 20, 1994, concert at Earls Court in London. The show featured a full performance of The Dark Side of the Moon, a selection of other popular Pink Floyd tunes and four songs from The Division Bell.
The two-disc sets also feature bonus content that was included on The Later Years, including music videos for songs from The Division Bell, Pulse tour rehearsal footage, on-stage visuals, a Pulse TV ad, documentaries, behind-the-scenes interviews with the road crew, footage from Pink Floyd’s 1996 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and more.
In addition, the new release boasts updated artwork and a 60-page booklet, and reintroduces the pulsing red light featured on the original 1995 Pulse CD package, operated by two replaceable AA batteries.
At the time of Pulse‘s original release, drummer Nick Mason said of the concept behind the blinking light, “Essentially, it’s a device which we thought was entertaining. It’s an idea of [Hipgnosis artist] Storm Thorgerson‘s, which related to The Dark Side Of The Moon and the pulse, and it’s a live album, so the box is ‘alive.'”
(NOTE CONTENT) …And Just Like That star Chris Noth has responded to an interview the Hollywood Reporter did with two women who claimed the actor sexually assaulted them years ago.
The two women — one now 40, and another, now 31 — “approached The Hollywood Reporter separately” and claimed that the actor allegedly forced himself on them. The incidents allegedly took place, respectively, in Los Angeles in 2004 and in New York in 2015.
The alleged assaults reportedly happened after Noth got to know each woman personally, they said.
Noth is flatly denying the assault claims, insisting, “The encounters were consensual. The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago, are categorically false.”
His statement continued, “These stories could’ve been from 30 years ago or 30 days ago — no always means no — that is a line I did not cross.”
The former Law & Order star continued, “It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out. I don’t know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women.”
The alleged victims claimed Noth’s re-appearance in the Sex and the City follow-up …And Just Like That triggered repressed memories of their assaults.
(WASHINGTON) — One hundred three Marines have been discharged for refusing to take the COVID vaccine, the Marine Corps said Thursday, as the military services have begun to discharge a pool of possibly as many as 30,000 active duty service members who still refuse to be vaccinated — even after multiple opportunities to do so past vaccination deadlines.
In late August, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered mandatory COVID vaccines for all U.S. military personnel.
Shortly after Austin made the COVID vaccine mandatory, the military services quickly set up its own deadline dates and warned service members that they could face discharge unless they were vaccinated, which is in line with the Pentagon’s stance that choosing to remain unvaccinated is a violation of a lawful order from Austin.
While the percentage of vaccinated active duty personnel in each service is at 95% or higher, the number of unvaccinated personnel is close to 30,000.
Earlier this week, the Air Force became the first to make public that it had followed through on the warning, announcing that 27 airmen had received administrative discharges.
According to the latest numbers provided by the Air Force and the Navy, 7,365 airmen and 5,472 sailors are unvaccinated, either refusing the vaccine outright or awaiting the processing of requests for administrative, medical, or religious exemptions.
The Marine Corps said Thursday that 95% of its active-duty force of 182,500 Marines had received at least one COVID vaccine shot, the lowest percentage among the military services. The Marine Corps has approved 1,007 medical and administrative exemptions and is still processing 2,863 of the 3,144 requests made for a religious exemption.
Military personnel serving in the United States had already been required to receive 12 vaccines, including those for measles, polio, anthrax, chickenpox and flu, in order to serve. Service members assigned overseas were required to receive up to five others, like those for yellow fever or encephalitis, depending on which global region they are assigned to.
While the Army announced Thursday that nearly 98% of its 478,000 active-duty soldiers had been vaccinated, that means close to 10,000 soldiers are not.
The Army said 3,864 soldiers have refused the vaccine outright while an additional 6,263 are awaiting the processing of their requests for an exemption.
The majority of service members who remain unvaccinated have sought religious exemptions, but none of the services has yet to approve an exemption on religious grounds.
The defense authorization bill passed by Congress this week guarantees that service members who are kicked out of the military for refusing the vaccine will receive either an honorable discharge or a “general discharge under honorable conditions.”
Unlike the other services, the Army has decided that it will not discharge soldiers who refuse to be vaccinated. Instead, they will be “flagged,” cannot be promoted and will have to leave the Army when their enlistment contracts expire.
Flagged soldiers who have refused to get the vaccine will have to submit to regular COVID testing, Lt. Col. Terence Kelley, an Army spokesman told ABC News.
A soldier reporting daily to the same job location will be tested weekly, while those who are teleworking and have to visit their job location will be tested within 72 hours of the meeting or job activity, Kelley said.
Before Ridley Scott directed Lady Gaga to critical acclaim and award nominations in House of Gucci, Bradley Cooper directed her to an Oscar nomination in A Star Is Born. Now, during a conversation for Variety, the two directors are discussing the moments when the superstar singer most impressed them during filming.
Cooper tells Scott, “For me, with working with her, I remember the thing that blew my mind. It seemed simple but I thought it was a tall order, when my character brings [her character, Ally] onstage for the first time. I truly believed that that person had never been on a stage before.”
He continues, ” And I remember thinking, “How is she pulling this off?” That I actually believe on every level — as the director, as the character — that this person has never been in front of 20,000 people before. That was really kind of mind-blowing.”
As for Scott, he said the moment in House of Gucci where Gaga impressed him was the scene when her character, Patrizia, is told that her husband, Maurizio, played by Adam Driver, wants a divorce.
“She lost it so well and so real that I felt it had to be reflective of something that had happened to her, because it definitely hurt her,” Scott recalled. “And from that moment I was watching her, I felt, ‘My God, she just owns it.’… I think that was one take…I was saying, ‘I think you just did it, don’t you?’ And she said, ‘Yes, I did it.’ That was it.”
Gaga has already won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for House of Gucci. She’s also nominated for a Golden Globe, a Critics’ Choice award and many other accolades.
Britney Spears‘ attorney, Mathew Rosengart, recently issued a blistering statement against Jamie Spears, saying he is “bullying and attacking his daughter.” In response, Jamie’s attorney, Alex Weingarten, told ABC Audio that Rosengart is using the pop star “to promote himself and keep his name in the papers.”
The statements follow Britney’s previous claims that her father “and three men” forced her to be interviewed by Diane Sawyer in 2004, following her breakup with then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake.
Attorney Weingarten responded to Britney’s claims, saying, “Mr. Spears has no idea what Ms. Spears is talking about. Jamie never set up any interview with Diane Sawyer” because “He had nothing to do with Britney’s career at this point and was completely uninvolved.”
He added, “Jamie loves Britney very much” and “hopes that she continues to seek the help that she needs to stay safe and healthy.”
Rosengart said in a statement toVariety, “Rather than bullying and attacking his daughter, even as he claims to ‘love’ her, it would be far more appropriate for Mr. Spears and his lawyer to focus on answering the following fundamental questions” about alleged conservatorship misconduct, such as mismanagement of funds and unauthorized surveillance.
Attorney Weingarten tells ABC Audio Rosengart’s statement is “ridiculous.”
“We made a statement that ‘Jamie loves Britney very much, wishes Britney nothing but the best and hopes that she continues to seek the help that she needs to stay safe and healthy.’ How is that bullying or attacking anyone?” he said. “It is unfortunate that Mr. Rosengart is attempting to use Britney to promote himself and keep his name in the papers.”
Britney’s 13-year conservatorship was terminated last month. However, she’s locked in a new legal battle after claims surfaced about Jamie and Tri Star Sports and Entertainment allegedly bugging her home without her knowledge.
M83 has announced a 10th anniversary vinyl reissue of the band’s 2011 album, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.
Due out April 15, the reissue features a new cover showing the same kids from the original album artwork, now 10 years older. You can pre-order it now via ILoveM83.com.
Hurry Up would become M83’s breakout album, thanks in large part to the hit single “Midnight City,” which featured the hottest saxophone solo this side of “Baker Street.”
Along with the reissue announcement, M83 has premiered a new video for the Hurry Up song “My Tears Are Becoming a Sea,” which is described as a prequel to the original video trilogy of “Midnight City,” “Reunion” and “Wait.” You can watch it now streaming on YouTube.
M83 has released two more albums since Hurry Up: 2016’s Junk, and 2019’s DSVII.
