music
Santana’s Abraxas Still Casts a Mystical Spell Half a Century Later: Review
Consequence Podcast Network and Sony’s The Opus is back for Season 11 with a new host and a new classic album to explore. Click here to listen as host Jill Hopkins (The Moth Chicago, Making Beyoncé podcast) conjures the enduring legacy of Santana’s landmark Abraxas. Also, after you read this article, scroll below to enter our exclusive Santana giveaway or score some original Opus swag. — The story of Carlos Santana and the band that bears his name has been one of near-constant evolution. Critics and fans have attempted to tame Santana’s catalog over the years by sorting the group’s 25 studio albums by era, style, or lineup. That’s not a totally fruitless exercise. Nobody, for instance, will mistake the frenetic jam session that is Santana’s seminal 1969 debut for, say, the earthy jazz-fusi...
Sammy Hagar: Van Halen “Kitchen Sink” Tour Would’ve Rocked Despite a “Not User Friendly” David Lee Roth
Sammy Hagar would have gladly participated in Eddie Van Halen’s planned “kitchen sink” farewell tour featuring all three Van Halen singers. However, he admits it would’ve been tough to share the stage with David Lee Roth. In a new interview with SiriuxXM’s Eddie Trunk, Hagar said that the proposed tour would have been a “dream come true”, but expressed some misgivings about sharing the spotlight with founding Van Halen frontman Roth, whom Hagar replaced in 1985. The band’s third singer was Gary Cherone, who replaced Hagar and sang on 1998’s Van Halen III. The Hagar versus Roth eras of the band have always created contention among fans, but Hagar himself finds Roth “not user friendly.” Despite some choice words, Hagar was otherwise positive about the idea of featuring all three singers. “It...
Brittany Howard Covers Nina Simone’s “Revolution” on Colbert: Watch
Brittany Howard received five Grammy Award nominations across four genre categories (Rock, Alternative Music, R&B, and American Roots) on Tuesday. Hours later, she appeared on Colbert, but instead of performing any of her recognized work, she chose to dig into yet another genre and perform someone else’s song. Howard delivered an impassioned blues rock rendition of Nina Simone’s “Revolution”. Matching her band’s red attire, Howard strutted about the stage like she was playing for a real live audience. It’s got to be hard to muster that sort of energy these days, but the Alabama Shakes singer barely looked like she had to dig very deep at all as she busted out the powerful performance. Of course, she’s been covering the song (itself a response to The Beatles’ “Revolution”) live for awhi...
Taylor Swift Releases folklore Live Album and Film: Stream
As promised, Taylor Swift has released her new folklore-focused film, the long pond studio sessions. The pop singer has also revealed a corresponding live album version of those sessions. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the original folklore LP was recorded remotely while in quarantine. Today’s two projects see Swift finally meeting up with her collaborators (IRL!) to perform the album live from start to finish for the first time. She, Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner convened at The National’s Long Pond Studio in Hudson, New York. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who duets with Swift on “exile”, beamed in remotely. “It’s an album that allows you to feel your feelings, and it’s a product of isolation,” Swift said in the film’s trailer. At another point, she remarked to Dessner, “This could’...
Sources Close to The Weeknd Believe Grammys Snubbing Was Retaliation for Playing Super Bowl
Sources close to The Weeknd believe his shocking Grammys snubbing was not an oversight by the Recording Academy, but rather an act of retaliation. The Canadian crooner’s fourth album, After Hours, is one of the year’s biggest releases — both commercially and critically. Going into yesterday, a nomination for Album of the Year felt like a lock. The smash After Hours single “Blinding Lights” was also expected to receive consideration for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. But ultimately, The Weeknd was completely shut out of the general music categories. He also failed to receive a single nomination in the genre-specific categories. How was this possible? Sources close to The Weeknd believe the Recording Academy sought revenge after the singer agreed to headline the 2020 Super Bowl hal...
Tori Amos Gifts New Holiday Song “Better Angels”: Stream
Everyone could use an extra bit of hope this strange holiday season, and that includes Tori Amos. The chamber pop artist is gearing up to release a new EP, Christmastide, that’s meant to be a joyful “safe space” from these turbulent times. As a first preview, Amos is sharing closing track “Better Angels” today. According to the eight-time Grammy-nominated songwriter, this offering envisions a brighter future while simultaneously recognizing the harshness of our present circumstances. “With ‘Better Angels’ I wanted to acknowledge the year we have all been through and know that there is hope,” remarked Amos. “We can find that hope within ourselves if we continue to focus our collective minds and souls. We are slowly starting to find a clearer path to transform together for the better of all,...
Lil Wayne Announces No Ceilings 3 Mixtape, Out This Friday
Dust off your Obey streetwear and load up Temple Run on your iPod Touch because we’re going back to the early 2010s, folks: Lil Wayne is about to drop a mixtape on DatPiff. Weezy just announced that the long-awaited third installment of his No Ceilings mixtape series will be hitting the once-essential online rap distributor this Friday, November 27th. The project will be “hosted” by DJ Khaled, who posted two preview clips on his Instagram earlier today: one features a verse from Drake, and the other sees Wayne freestyling over the beat of Lil Baby and 42 Dugg’s “We Paid”. “The mixtape game seemed to be a dying art and since I’m one of the pioneers of the craft, and it played such a big part in my career, I felt it was only right to resurrect it,” Lil Wayne told Complex. “Als...
Grammy Chief Responds To Backlash From The Weeknd, Justin Bieber
In spite of every curveball 2020 has thrown — one particularly tumultuous presidential election season, a disastrous pandemic of near-biblical proportions — the year has yielded some truly spectacular music. From Taylor Swift’s new indie-folk sound on her surprise album, Folklore, to the first English-language drop from the global sensation BTS, musicians continued to do what they do best: filter the universal joy and pain, and the need for connection through it all, into sublime works of sound. Perhaps that’s why, when the Recording Academy announced the nominations for the 2021 Grammys on Tuesday (November 24), the list sent fans and artists reeling. Many were quick to point out surprising, if not altogether glaring, holes in the nominations; one headline even ...
Rina Sawayama Announces SAWAYAMA Deluxe Edition, Shares New Song “LUCID”: Stream
Rina Sawayama has announced a deluxe edition of SAWAYAMA, one of our favorite albums of 2020. Due out next month, the expanded release comes with an entire second disc of bonus material, including a new single called “LUCID”. The deluxe collection consists of the 13 original SAWAYAMA songs and 11 additional tracks. Three of these have never before seen the light of day: “LUCID”, “We Out Here”, and “Bees & Honey”. There is also a cover of The 1975 song “Love It If We Made It”, in addition to acoustic renditions of “Bad Friend”, “STFU!”, and “Chosen Family” and fresh remixes from Dream Wife and Pabllo Vittar. Sawayama herself executive produced the project with help from Clarence Clarity (who also contributed production). Meanwhile, Nicole Morier (Britney Spears) and Kyle Shearer (Carly ...
Rammstein’s Till Lindemann Releases National Geographic Picture Book, Dissolves Side Project
Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann has co-authored a second National Geographic picture book with fellow musician and outdoorsman Joey Kelly. The German-language tome is called Amazonas: Reise zum Rio Javari (translation: Amazon: Trip on the Río Yavarí) and is on sale now. The book features exclusive photographs by Thomas Statchelhaus and Matthias Matthies documenting Lindemann and Kelly’s river journey down the Río Yavarí, an “untouched” tributary of the Amazon. There are a few preview shots on Rammstein’s webstore, and the images are striking indeed, depicting Lindemann handling dangerous-looking snakes and traversing the forest and villages with Kelly. In the book, the photos are accompanied by poems written by Lindemann and interviews with both artists. For Rammstein fans, it would make...
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band to Play Saturday Night Live
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will return to Saturday Night Live on December 12th to serve as the evening’s musical guest. Dune actor Timothée Chalamet will host the episode. The Boss and his band will take their third turn on SNL, having previously played the show in 2002 and 2015. (Springsteen appeared in a solo capacity in 1992). This time around, they’ll be supporting their new album, Letter to You. SNL has also announced that country star Morgan Wallen will serve as musical guest on its December 5th episode, appearing alongside host Jason Bateman. If you recall, Wallen was scheduled to play SNL earlier in the season, but his appearance was canceled after he broke COVID-19 safety protocols. In his place, SNL tapped Jack White and he delivered one of the more memorable pe...
Christine and the Queens Partners with Indochine on New Song “3SEX”: Stream
Christine and the Queens has teamed up with Indochine band leader Nicola Sirkis for a collaborative song called “3SEX”. The track reworks Indochine’s iconic French new wave cut “3e sexe”, originally released in 1986, into a synthpop dance tune about queer liberation. When sharing the song online, Chris posted a statement in French explaining what it means to her. “Thank you @nicolasirkis @indochinetwitt for the honor and for giving me the confidence to sing ‘3SEX’ with you, at a time when the very word freedom takes on all its meaning and urgency,” she tweeted. “Real revolutions never die. Love you!” In the “3SEX” music video, Chris and Sirkis strut across a blank white space while dressed in black garments. When the chorus hits, the lights start to flash and reveal that they’re both stand...
