music
Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo is Selling Over 2,000 Unreleased Demos
We didn’t get a new Weezer album this year, but frontman Rivers Cuomo has arguably given diehard fans a better gift. The 50-year-old rocker recently created an online marketplace where he’s selling over 2,000 unreleased demos, spanning the pre-Weezer years all the way up to the band’s 2015 era. Located in the “Market” section of his Mister Rivers’ Neighborhood website, Cuomo has ten different compilations for sale that are organized based on different periods of his creative history. Each demo pack costs just $9, but the track counts range from 26 in the concise “Best of the Demos” comp to a whopping 1,113 (that’s over 38 hours of music!) for “The EWBAITE Years”, which encompasses the 2011-2014 era. Fans of Weezer’s early work will surely be tantalized by the 72 demos in the coveted “Blue-...
10-Year-Old Nandi Bushell Covers Muse’s “Hysteria”, Earns Praise From Band: Watch
10-year-old Nandi Bushell has already defeated Dave Grohl in a drum-off, received Kirk Hammett stamp of approval for her “Enter Sandman” cover, and was even gifted a Tom Morello signature guitar for her viral rendition of Rage Against The Machine’s “Guerilla Radio”. But that hasn’t stopped the musical prodigy from continuing her quest to conquer all corners of the rock world. On Sunday, Bushell posted a video of herself nailing the complex drum and bass parts for Muse’s proggy 2003 song “Hysteria”. “Ever since I jammed ‘Hysteria’ by Muse on drums I wanted to learn the bass line too as it’s so so #awesome!”, the whiz kid wrote on Twitter. “It is the HARDEST bass line I have ever learned. I had to concentrate A LOT!” Like all of her previous covers, Bushell played the parts flawlessly ...
Nick Cave Says He Will Record a New Album in Lieu of Touring
Because of the ongoing pandemic, Nick Cave has been forced to cancel both his 2020 and 2021 tour dates. However, the gothic rock veteran doesn’t plan on just sitting around and bingeing TV shows for the next few months. Intent on making the most of his newfound down time, Cave has announced that he will begin recording a new album. Cave revealed the exciting tidbit on his Red Hand Files Q&A website while replying to a fan who had expressed her sadness over the tour cancellation news. The Australian musician first addressed the scrapped concerts, writing, “When the pandemic first hit and we had to postpone the European tour I was given the opportunity to take stock, and to see what I actually wanted to do with my life.” “Well, I took stock. I took a year’s stock. I came to the conclusio...
Tom Petty’s Estate Releases “Something Could Happen” Video Starring Lauren Cohan: Watch
Tom Petty’s estate has released a new music video for “Something Could Happen”. It’s directed by Warren Fu (The Strokes, Daft Punk) and stars The Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan. “Something Could Happen” appears on Wildflowers & All the Rest, Petty’s new double album reissue of his 1994 record Wildflowers. When finding inspiration for the track’s music video, Fu fell hard for “Into the Great Wide Open”, off Petty’s 1991 album of the same name, and decided to create a modern spinoff on its imaginative, out-of-left-field video. “In looking back on Tom’s old music videos, it was obvious that he had a lot of fun with them and was not afraid to get a bit weird,” said Fu in a statement. “I wanted to create another modern fairytale in the spirit of Tom’s music video for ‘Into the Great Wide Open’...
Julia Jacklin Drops Cracked Christmas Song “baby jesus is nobody’s baby now”: Stream
Julia Jacklin is marking the holidays with the cracked new Christmas song “baby jesus is nobody’s baby now”. 2020 has been long and tumultuous, and for the residents of six continents it might be easy to forget that Australia began the year on fire. But down in Oz, where the holiday season overlaps with the dead of summer, it’s impossible to forget the bushfires that caused over $100 billion in damage alongside unfathomable ecological harm. Jacklin’s latest single imagines how a certain infant of legend might have fared in the Land Down Under. “She lost the baby,” Jacklin begins, “The house nearly burned down/ Baby Jesus is nobody’s baby now.” But her ambitions are larger — and more humorous — than just reliving a nationwide trauma. After all, ’tis the season for awkward family dinners and...
R.I.P. Harold Budd, Legendary Ambient Composer Dead at 84
Harold Budd, the legendary avant-garde ambient composer, has died at 84. His frequent collaborator Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins confirmed the news on Facebook, writing, “It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Harold Budd. Rest in peace, poet of the piano.” Born in Los Angeles in 1936, Budd quickly took to music at a young age. He played the drums growing up and, once enrolled at Los Angeles City College, signed up for a music theory course in harmony. Budd briefly stepped away to enlist in the army, where he met Albert Ayler, the avant-garde saxophonist and his eventual bandmate for a short spell. Once back, Budd studied under composer Gerald Strang at San Fernando Valley State College and was deeply moved by a lecture John Cage delivered while attending the school, g...
Suspect208 (Sons of Weiland, Slash, Trujillo) Unveil Video for Second Single “All Black”: Watch
Suspect208, the new band featuring the sons of Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, and late Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, have just unveiled their second single. The track, “All Black”, is accompanied by a music video that offers the first look at the young musicians performing onstage. The band — consisting of 20-year-old singer Noah Weiland, 16-year-old bassist Tye Trujillo, 18-year-old drummer London Hudson (Slash’s son), and 18-year-old guitarist Niko Tsangaris — went viral with their debut single, “Long Awaited”, which arrived last month. That track is already approaching a million hits on YouTube. While “Long Awaited” drew comparisons to Velvet Revolver, a band that featured both Slash and Scott Weiland, “All Black” has more of a rock-pop vib...
Top 30 Metal + Hard Rock Albums of 2020
Our Annual Report looks back upon the strange year that was 2020 and the music, film, and television that came with it. Here, we present our Top 30 Metal + Hard Rock Albums of 2020. In a year we’d mostly like to forget, the world of heavy music brought us many memorable releases. While we wait for concerts to return, we have a treasure trove of new metal and hard rock albums that amplify the anticipation of seeing our favorite bands return to stages. 2020 has been dominated by a worldwide pandemic, and if anything can provide us with a daily distraction from the suffering and uncertainty, it’s good music. Thankfully, dozens of bands decided to release new albums this year, despite not being able to tour in support of their latest studio efforts. As a reminder that life is filled with comeb...
Tim Heidecker Announces Office Hours Live Album, Shares Fred Armisen Collaboration “Brick by Brick”: Stream
Less than three months after dropping Fear of Death, comedian-musician extraordinaire Tim Heidecker has announced his next release. Titled Office Hours Live presents Slaps, Bops & Bangers, it features songs from his podcast of the same name. Launched back in 2016, the Office Hours Live podcast sees Heidecker conducting phone and video calls with fans and special commentators. He hosts the program with Vic Berger and Doug “DJ Douggpound” Lussenhop, but other celebrities such as Heidecker’s Moonbase co-stars Fred Armisen and John C. Reilly have been known to periodically drop in. (Mac DeMarco and Bon Iver even made cameos during an eight-hour fundraiser recording of the podcast back in March.) A natural extension of the podcast, the forthcoming compilation album finds Heidecker...
Shawn Mendes And Camila Cabello’s Puppy Stars In New Video For ‘The Christmas Song’
At the end of last week, Shawn Mendes unveiled his fourth studio album, Wonder, a wide-open collection of sleek, moody, often sky-scraping pop tunes — at least one of which began in his dressing room at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center before a gig. Now, dropping an album in December is already a tacit embracing of the holiday spirit. But on December 7, Mendes went a step further, releasing the album’s deluxe edition mere days after its standard release. In addition to live and acoustic cuts, the new Wonder version boasts two brand-new songs: Mendes’s piano-led BBC cover of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” as well as “The Christmas Song,” the standard yuletide tune that comes complete with chestnuts roasting on an open fire, featuring none other than C...
Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr Pay Tribute to John Lennon on 40th Anniversary of His Death
Today, December 8th, marks the 40th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. The Beatles’ two surviving members, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, have both posted tributes to their former bandmate, as have Lennon’s two sons, Sean and Julian. “A sad sad day but remembering my friend John with the great joy he brought to the world,” wrote McCartney in a social media post. “I will always be proud and happy to have known and worked with this incredible Scouse X love Paul.” McCartney’s tribute was accompanied by a photo of the two musicians together as taken by his late wife, Linda McCartney. A sad sad day but remembering my friend John with the great joy he brought to the world. I will always be proud and happy to have known and worked with this incredible Scouser! X love Paul#JohnLennon 📷 b...
Kim Gordon, J. Mascis, and Fred Armisen Perform New Song “Abstract Blues”: Watch
Kim Gordon and J. Mascis during SMooCH 2020 The SMooCH livestream benefit for Seattle Children’s Hospital boasted an absolutely stacked lineup. In addition to Ben Gibbard, Duff McKagan, Isaac Brock, and Mark Lanegan teaming up to cover the Jimmy Webb classic “The Highwayman”, the hour-long event featured Kim Gordon, J. Mascis, and Fred Armisen debuting a new original song called “Abstract Blues”. Technically, these three played together before during Fred Armisen’s 2013 SNL farewell segment, but here the Sonic Youth frontperson, Dinosaur Jr. mastermind, and actor-musician operated as a fully-fledged band. The song features gnarled vocals from Gordon, flaming hot licks from Mascis, and a tight bassline from Armisen. It’s unclear whether this track was just a one-off creation for this event,...
