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Mel Gibson Was Hospitalized with Coronavirus in April
Actor, director, and notorious bigot Mel Gibson contracted the novel coronavirus in April. The 64-year-old’s illness was severe enough to require a week in a Los Angeles hospital, although he has since recovered. Gibson is the latest celebrity to admit to suffering from COVID-19, joining the ranks of Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, Idris Elba, Pink, Universal Music head Lucian Grainge, and actress Olga Kurylenko. Australia’s The Daily Telegraph broke the news, and Gibson’s representatives confirmed the story with PEOPLE. In a statement, his camp said that he had been treated with the antiviral drug remdesivir, explaining, “He tested positive in April and spent a week in the hospital. He was treated with the drug remdesivir, while in the hospital, and has t...
Billie Eilish Announces New Single “my future”, Due Out Next Week
Billie Eilish is closing out the month with a special summer treat for her fans. Our 2018 Rookie of the Year has announced that she will release a new single called “my future” next week on July 31st. The track marks her first new music since “No Time to Die”, her James Bond theme song from February, which somehow feels like a lifetime ago. It also follows her 2019 offering “everything i wanted”. It’s unclear whether “my future” is a standalone release or taken from a larger project. We haven’t heard much in the way of a new record, the follow-up to debut album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, but it’s not as though the 18-year-old pop star has been idle. She and her father recently launched their own radio show on Apple Music, and Eilish performed a quarantine-style concert ...
Aftershock Festival 2021: Metallica and My Chemical Romance to Headline
The 2020 Aftershoc Festival in Sacramento, California has officially been rescheduled to fall 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers have announced that previously revealed 2020 headliners Metallica and My Chemical Romance will remain on the bill for the 2021 iteration, which takes place October 7th-10th. Metallica were scheduled to play two sets at Aftershock 2020 as part of five U.S. festival appearances this year, all of which have been canceled due to the pandemic. The thrash-metal legends will play two sets at the 2021 edition, headlining Friday, October 8th, and Sunday, October 10th. My Chemical Romance headline the Saturday in between. The festival released a statement announcing the postponement: “After all the harm caused by COVID-19, there is nothing that we wanted mo...
The White House Lied About Paw Patrol Getting Cancelled
On Friday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed that the animated children’s show Paw Patrol has been put down, an unfortunate victim of liberal cancel culture run amok. For some small children, this would indeed be ruff rough news, but luckily for them, it’s a lie. The Nickelodeon show is about an elite group of search-and-rescue canines, and like the Village People, each pup has a different job. One works in construction zones, one is a firefighter, one specializes in underwater rescues, and yes, a lone German Shepard works as a police K-9. After George Floyd was brutally murdered by cops, some (mostly joking) Twitter users called for Paw Patrol to turn in its badge. This led to a relatively nuanced piece in the New York Times called “The Protests...
First Spin: The Week’s Best New Dance Tracks From Lost Frequencies, Mat Zo & More
New Music Friday is intense. Hundreds of songs drop from artists around the world, and you’re supposed to somehow find the best ones. It’s fun work, but it’s time-consuming — so we at Billboard Dance want to give you a hand. Each week, we sift through the streams and dig in the digital crates to present the absolute must-hears from the wide breadth of jams. This week saw several high-profile releases, with Ms. Kylie Minogue gracing our ear-space with “Say Something,” the first single from her forthcoming Disco LP, Howling releasing their excellent sophomore LP Colure, DJ Shub dropping knowledge and beats with his latest single “The Social,” Porter Robinson remixing himself, dance super-group Bronson dropping its third single and the EDM ...
Congress Introduces Another Bill to Save Independent Music Venues
The ENCORES Act would provide relief in the form of tax credits on ticket refunds. A new bill in the House Representatives aims to keep struggling independent music venues afloat during the ongoing pandemic. Introduced Thursday by Reps. Ron Kind (D-WI) and Mike Kelly (R-PA), the Entertainments New Credit Opportunity for Relief & Economic Sustainability (ENCORES) Act would allow venues to recoup some of the losses they have experienced from issuing ticket refunds for canceled events by providing a tax credit for 50% of the value of those refunded tickets. To qualify under the proposed legislation, venues must be in the business of promoting, producing or managing live concerts, comedy shows, sporting events and live theatrical productions and have 500 or fewer employees. They must ...
Metallica & My Chemical Romance to Headline Rescheduled Aftershock Festival in 2021
Aftershock Festival 2020, originally scheduled for Oct. 9-11 in Sacramento’s Discovery Park, has been pushed back to Oct. 7-10, 2021, with Metallica and My Chemical Romance headlining. Danny Wimmer Presents, the music festival production and promotion company in charge of Aftershock, added a fourth night in partnership with Jack Daniels to the 2021 edition of the massive West Coast rock festival. “After all the harm caused by COVID-19, there is nothing that we wanted more than to be celebrating Aftershock with you this October at Discovery Park for what was going to be a monumental weekend,” the DWP statement read. “We, the artists, and Sacramento County all thought we had a shot at being the first post-COVID festival to happen. That really would have been incr...
Snoop Dogg & DMX’s ‘Verzuz’ Battle Reached the Highest Level Yet, Just Look at the Numbers
Snoop Dogg and DMX duked it out in the studio Wednesday night (July 22) for their latest Verzuz “battle of the dogs” while maintaining the highest amount of respect for one another. But the East Coast and West Coast hip-hop titans reached a whole new level on their Verzuz stats. The night received 1.75 billion impressions across the internet while breaking Apple Music’s all-time livestream record with more than 600,000 concurrent viewers and a total of more than 1.4 million fans tuning in. Just this week, Apple Music announced its exclusive partnership with Verzuz in simulcasting the battles on both Apple Music and Beats 1 while offering on-demand streaming. “THANK YOU to everyone who tuned in to watch @DMX and @SnoopDogg celebrate each other. We...
The National’s Aaron Dessner on Finding ‘Magic’ Chemistry With Taylor Swift
The National’s Aaron Dessner, who co-wrote and/or produced 11 of 16 tracks on Taylor Swift’s folklore, detailed the “magic” collaborative chemistry that helped spark her newly issued eighth LP. “It was a very surreal moment when she first contacted me, because we’d met before, twice in the past, mutual kind of admiration,” Dessner told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “I knew she was a fan and we’ve always been fans of hers. But it was sort of like she reached out and said, ‘Would you ever be able to… or be interested in working on songs together?’ And I was like, ‘Sure. Like, wow.’ And then we just started to bounce around ideas.’ The musician, who had already been writing a lot of music during the COVID-19 lockdown, quickly sent Swift a folder full of ideas. “It just kind of was crazy instant ch...
Flosstradamus and Nonsens Drop Ultra Records Trap Bomb “So Far”
Trap kingpin Flosstradamus has linked up with blossoming bass trio Nonsens for “So Far,” a rip-roaring new single released via Ultra Records. Flosstradamus had been relatively quiet on the release front in 2020 prior to the release of “So Far.” However, fans can now revel in the booming bass flavors of the new single, which features signature elements of both the iconic trap producer and the rising Nonsens. “So Far” features the thunderous 808s reminiscent of old school Flosstradamus, which glide underneath the frenetic vocal chop stylings of the Danish trio. You can listen to “So Far” in full on your go-to streaming platform here. FOLLOW FLOSSTRADAMUS: Facebook: facebook.com/flosstradamusInstagram: instagram.com/flosstradamusT...
Leading VR Company Redpill Announces Three New Livestream Music Performances
As part of their continued efforts to alchemize the worlds of live music and virtual reality, leading VR company Redpill has announced three new music livestreaming events in partnership with Renaissance Records. The livestream series, called “Renaissance Engage,” will feature performances by Patrice Bäumel, Franky Wah, and Yotto. They will be funneling bespoke, trailblazing DJ sets from their homes straight to viewers’ devices. Viewers will also be able to experience a special preview of the latest in event virtualization and social VR technology, courtesy of Redpill VR. The new shows follow a successful summer for the “Renaissance Engage” series, which featured scintillating performances from legendary producers Hernan Cattaneo, Danny Tenaglia, and Sasha....
Bear Grillz and Atarii Join Forces for Attitude-Infused EP “Ground Zero”
Dubstep and melodic bass producer Bear Grillz has already had quite a year, due in part to his six-track Reanimated EP, which featured breakout hit “Nightmare (feat. rx Soul)” and the heartfelt instrumental one-off “Turning Point.” He has now unveiled his Ground Zero EP, a four-track project released via Dim Mak Records, Steve Aoki‘s imprint. Kicking off with the attitude-infused “Vision” featuring Atarii, Ground Zero is dark and dramatic, full of carefully crafted soundscapes and meticulously interwoven dubstep synths. Atarii is the vocal star of the project, also featured on the soaring melodic bass EP’s conclusion “It Ain’t True.” Together, the two are an edgy, powerful duo with a uniqu...
