Robert Plant and Alison Krauss‘ second collaborative album Raise the Roof has debuted in the top 10 on the Billboard 200.

The record lands at number seven on the all-genre chart with a total of 40,000 equivalent album units, 38,000 of which were traditional album sales.

Plant and Krauss’ first joint effort, 2007’s Grammy-winning Raising Sand, debuted at number two on the Billboard 200. With Raise the Roof, Plant now has nine top-10 records as a solo artist, along with the 13 he’s notched with Led Zeppelin. Krauss, meanwhile, has a total of five top-10s.

Raise the Roof is primarily a covers collection paying tribute to “legends and unsung heroes of folk, blues, country and soul music,” although it does include one original called “High and Lonesome” that Plant co-wrote with producer T Bone Burnett. Plant and Krauss will hit the road in support of the album starting June 2022.

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It was canceled for 2020, but Alice Cooper‘s annual charity fundraiser, Alice Cooper’s Christmas Pudding, is returning for 2021.

Scheduled for this Saturday, December 4, the lineup includes Tom Morello, Ace Frehley, Ed Roland of Collective Soul, Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray and Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals. Of course, Alice himself will perform with his touring band. It takes place at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix, Arizona, where Alice lives.

According to the Arizona Republic, Alice’s wife Sheryl Cooper, a choreographer and dance instructor, will perform at the event for the first time.

As always, the event will raise money to pay for staff and resources at Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Teen Centers, which provide free music, dance, arts and vocational training programs for young people aged 12-20. There are two such centers: one in Phoenix and one in Mesa, Arizona.

“The uniqueness of this concert is that you’ll never see this caliber and variety of artists on the same stage again,” said Alice in a statement. “Come join our ultimate Christmas party and help support the teens at The Rock Teen Center!”

Meanwhile, the shock rocker will kick off a tour January 28 in Cincinnati; he’ll play eight shows through a February 8 concert in Orlando, Florida. The next day, he sets sail on the Monsters of Rock Cruise.

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After Ed Sheeran teased it a while back, we now have a release date for his holiday collaboration with Elton John: a song called “Merry Christmas.”  The date is revealed in an adorable video inspired by everyone’s favorite British Christmas movie, Love, Actually.

In the video, we see Elton answering his door to find Ed on his doorstep with a series of cue cards, which detail the story of how the collab came about.

“Hello. Last Christmas, I received a call from my mate, Elton John, and he told me, ‘We should do a Christmas song,'” the cue cards read as Ed goes through them one by one. “And I replied, ‘Yeah, maybe in 2022.’ But I actually wrote the chorus that day, and here we are.”

Ed continues to shuffle through the cue cards: “Our Christmas song, ‘Merry Christmas,’ is out this Friday. Go pre-order or pre-save it now.  It has sleigh bells. A lot of them.”

All the U.K. profits from “Merry Christmas” will be donated to Ed and Elton’s respective favorite charities: the Ed Sheeran Suffolk Music Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

 

 

 

 

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Last week, Queen‘s Brian May gave an interview to the British paper The Mirror in which he reacted to the BRIT Awards — the British equivalent of the Grammys — doing away with the male and female solo artist categories in favor of just one single solo artist award.  Now, he’s clarifying his comments, which some have interpreted as being unsupportive of the transgender community.

On Instagram, May wrote, “Yes – I was ambushed and completely stitched up by a journalist…and it’s led to a whole mess of press stories making it look like I’m unfriendly to trans people. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“My words were subtly twisted. I should have known better than to talk to those predatory Press hacks,” the guitarist continues. “Sincere apologies to anyone who has been hurt by the stories. My heart is open as always to humans of all colors, all creeds, all sexes and sexualities, all shapes and sizes – and all creatures. We all deserve respect and an equal place in this world.”

May went on to thank fans who “stepped up to defend me,” adding, “It means so much that you have faith in me.”

The guitarist was quoted as saying of the category change, “It’s a decision that has been made without enough thought..I get so sick of people trying to change things without thinking of the long-term consequences.”

He then mentioned the current “atmosphere of fear,” in which people are “are afraid to say how they really think,” and was quoted as saying that if Queen’s original lineup were around today, they wouldn’t have been considered diverse enough. 

“We would be forced to have people of different colors and different sexes and we would have to have a trans [person],” the paper quoted him as saying.

 

 

 

 

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