music blog
ZZ TOP Sells Catalog For Reported $50 Million
Global music company BMG and global investment firm KKR today announced that they have acquired the entire music interests of American rock icons ZZ TOP. According to Variety, BMG paid a sum sources place at around $50 million. The transaction marks the latest significant music rights deal the two companies have struck together since announcing in March 2021 that they would join forces in the fast-growing market for music IP. The ZZ TOP agreement includes a buyout of the band’s publishing catalogue and their income from recorded royalties and performance royalties. Previously, BMG served as co-publisher and administrator of ZZ TOP‘s publishing catalog. In 1971, Billy Gibbons (guitar, vocals), Dusty Hill (bass, keys, vocals) and Frank Beard (drums) released their debut album ZZ ...
ANTHONY KIEDIS And DEXTER HOLLAND Were Surprise Guest Performers At Last Night’s ‘Above Ground’ Benefit Concert
Anthony Kiedis (RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS) and Dexter Holland (THE OFFSPRING) were the surprise guest musicians who performed last night (Monday, December 20) at the third “Above Ground” benefit concert founded by guitarists Dave Navarro (JANE’S ADDICTION) and Billy Morrison (BILLY IDOL) at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, California. They joined an all-star bill that included Perry Farrell (JANE’S ADDICTION), Etty Lau Farrell, Corey Taylor (SLIPKNOT), Mark McGrath and Franky Perez. The event was host Dr. Drew Pinsky and included an art installation by Risk Rock. Following previous successful events in 2018 and 2019, while sitting out in 2020 due to COVID-19, the evening celebrated the vinyl album as an art form, with the performance of two seminal albums in their entire...
METALLICA’s 40th-Anniversary Shows To Stream On Demand Exclusively On ‘The Coda Collection’
Fans who missed METALLICA‘s pair of 40th-anniversary concerts this past weekend can enjoy rebroadcasts of both shows on-demand exclusively on The Coda Collection this Christmas weekend in the U.S. and on Amazon Prime internationally. The shows will be available to stream from Friday, December 24 at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. GMT / 2 a.m. JST through Monday, December 27 at 8:59 p.m. PT / 11:59 p.m. ET / 4:59 a.m. GMT / 1:59 p.m. JST. For information on how to stream both shows, click here. Following the initial viewing period, both concerts will return to the The Coda Collection and Prime Video with enhanced bonus footage and additional exclusives as part of an extensive partnership between The Coda Collection and METALLICA, which will include a full slate of concert films, docum...
SAMMY HAGAR Says He Was Asked To Join PANTERA As Replacement For PHILIP ANSELMO
SiriusXM‘s Jose Mangin recently interviewed Sammy Hagar in the limo which was gifted to Jose from the estates of PANTERA founders “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott and Vinnie Paul Abbott. Jose has worked hard to restore the car and plans to take it all across the country and have epic hangs and chats with all of his buddies to reminisce about his dear friends, whom many of us still hold so dear. In an interview clip which was posted on December 8, which marked the 17th anniversary of Dimebag‘s death, Sammy recalled a time when he was supposedly approached by PANTERA‘s then-manager about joining the band, apparently as the replacement for Philip Anselmo. “How about if I tell you something crazy. I don’t believe it; I don’t believe it’s true,̶...
Roddy Ricch Discusses Key Lessons Learned From Kanye West
Roddy Ricch recently sat down with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe for a conversation surrounding his much anticipated sophomore album LIVE LIFE FAST. Though the focus was on the release of his mixtape, Roddy Ricch divulged details about his relationship with Kanye West. While wearing a Louis Vuitton outfit for the interview, Ricch also talked about Virgil Abloh‘s influence. When discussing his relationship with Kanye West, he shared what he has learned from the multi-Grammy-winning artist. Ricch details that he did not build a deeper relationship with Ye later. He admitted that their initial conversation was quite difficult to follow, “I ain’t know what he was talking about. But then six months later, four or five months later, I really just sat back and thought about the exchange. Then I’m lik...
OnlyFans Founder Tim Stokely Steps Down as CEO
OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely has stepped down as chief executive and will be immediately succeeded by Amrapali “Ami” Gan, the company said on Tuesday. Gan was most recently the chief marketing and communications officer for OnlyFans and will now “assume the day-to-day leadership” of the London-based company from Stokely, who is leaving to “pursue new endeavors,” OnlyFans said. Stokely will remain on as an adviser to assist with the leadership transition. A company spokesperson declined to comment further on Stokely’s reason for leaving the company. “Ami has a deep passion for OnlyFans’ business and I’m passing the baton to a friend and colleague who has the vision and drive to help the organisation reach its tremendous potential,” Stokely said in a statement. “OnlyFans is still a new compa...
Lorde Searches for Serenity in ‘Leader of a New Regime’ Video: Watch
Lorde released a new music video for “Leader of a New Regime” on Tuesday morning (Dec. 21). In the clip, the New Zealand native appears alone on a tropical island, her hair plaited in a complicated dual braid as two young women ride a pair of horses out of the sea. “Wearing SPF 3000 for the ultraviolet rays/ Made it to the island on the last of the outbound planes/ Got a trunk full of Simone and Céline, and of course, my magazines/ I’m gonna live out my days,” she declares in harmony with herself on the track as she wanders the isle’s rocky shores and wades in tide pools. Coming in at just 1:33, “Leader of a New Regime” is a near-interlude from the pop singer’s 2021 album, Solar Power. The surprise visual, which arrived with little to no fanfare ahead of its unveiling, follows videos for s...
Record Industry Makes Strides Toward Greener Future With Music Climate Pact
LONDON – When Will Hutton was appointed Beggars Group’s inaugural head of sustainability in September of last year, his first task was tackling “low hanging fruit” at the indie powerhouse, which includes labels 4AD, Matador, Rough Trade, XL Recordings and Young labels. That included calculating the businesses’ carbon footprint and identifying areas where action could be taken quickly, such as reducing business travel, installing solar panels at Beggars Group’s London offices and improving the sustainability of products. “Now the conversation moves onto what we need to do as an industry,” says Hutton. This month, the global music business took a significant step towards a greener, more sustainable future when all three major record companies — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment...
Films About Billie Eilish, The Velvet Underground & More Shortlisted for Documentary Feature Oscar
Films about Billie Eilish and The Velvet Underground and the acclaimed Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) are on the shortlist of 15 films vying for the Oscar for documentary feature. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences released shortlists in 10 categories on Tuesday (Dec. 21). Members of the documentary branch voted to determine the shortlist for documentary feature, which was drawn from 138 eligible films. They will vote again to determine the five nominees in the category, which will be announced on Feb. 8. All Academy voters will vote to determine the winner, which will be announced at the 94th annual Academy Awards on March 27. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news R.J. Cutler wrote and directed B...
The Matrix Resurrections Review: A Wild, Meta, Sometimes Muddled, Occasionally Transcendent Love Story
The Pitch: Here’s the problem with reviewing The Matrix Resurrections: At this point, we basically have to accept that the franchise peaked with the first installment. This isn’t meant as an insult, but an honest statement of fact– this is what happens when a film is a masterpiece. If 1999’s The Matrix is a nearly perfect movie, almost transcendent at some points with how it blended genre and technology in service of its storytelling, then yeah, it may be impossible to top it. What makes Resurrections such a fascinating viewing experience, though, is the fact that the movie knows this. And, rather than try to shift the narrative to some different angle on the original, director Lana Wachowski, who co-wrote the script with David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, decides to take on that problem...
Dave Navarro and Anthony Kiedis Reunite to Cover Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”: Watch
Remember when Dave Navarro pissed off every Red Hot Chili Peppers fan by replacing John Frusciante? Well, over two decades after Navarro’s infamously tumultuous departure from the band, the guitarist made an unexpected onstage reunion last night (December 20th) with none other than the lead Chili Pepper himself, Anthony Kiedis, for a rendition of Lou Reed’s classic “Walk on the Wild Side.” This reunion was fairly spur of the moment; Navarro recently put together a charity concert called Above Ground benefiting MusiCares at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles, with performances paying tribute to the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks and Lou Reed’s Transformer. The roster of high-profile guests included Billy Idol and Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins, but they both had to back out of l...
New Found Glory’s Chad Gilbert Undergoes Emergency Cancer Surgery
New Found Glory guitarist Chad Gilbert spent the last two weeks in the hospital after undergoing emergency cancer surgery. In a lengthy post uploaded to Instagram on December 19th, the musician said that after his wife found him unconscious in bed, doctors discovered he had pheochromocytoma, a rare form of cancer. “On December 5th, my wife found me unresponsive in bed,” Gilbert wrote. “I’d been waking up drenched in sweat the last few days and we thought I was sick. Not being able to wake me, she called 911 and performed CPR and mouth to mouth. Apparently I was doing something called “agonal breathing” and was minutes from death.” Gilbert went on to explain that his blood sugar dropped to dangerous levels while his blood pressure skyrocketed. Upon further inspection, doctors discovered tha...
