Find out what’s happening in the world of Rock & Roll, Alternative Rock, Hip Hop, EDM, and Top 40 music every Manic Monday on MLE Blog! Have you heard any music news?
ROCK “N” ROLL NEWS: BILLY JOEL NOW ON HIS OWN SIRIUS/XM CHANNEL. Billy Joel teased his new upcoming SiriusXM Channel recently on The Tonight Show, with Jimmy Fallon, and has since announced the launch of The Billy Joel Channel featuring music and interviews from the singer’s 50-year career. The channel is set to go live at 6 p.m. ET on March 26th. It will run through June 25th via satellite online, on channel 4, and through the SiriusXM Internet Radio App.
The new Channel will play music throughout Joel’s career, starting with his mid-1960s work with The Echoes to the classics he recorded as a solo artist. The Billy Joel Channel will also feature cuts from his upcoming live album, A Matter of Trust: The Bridge to Russia, documenting Joel’s 1987 Russian tour (you’ll be able to hear the entire album, with bonus material, on SiriusXM when it drops, May 20th).
When Joel mentioned the SiriusXM station on The Tonight Show, he told Jimmy Fallon, “I guess they want me to program some music that I like to listen to and talk about what we like to listen to on the road or what we do. I don’t know. I guess I’m going to wing it.”
Billy also spoke about trying to change things up during his monthly Madison Square Garden gigs, saying, “I don’t ever want to do the same show twice. We’re bringing in some of the more obscure songs, but we do enough of the hits and songs that people know and stuff that we like to do. We’re making it up all the time.” The Piano Man recently brought out Brian Johnson for a special cover of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.”
TOP 40/POP NEWS: ELTON JOHN’S VEGAS SHOW TO APPEAR IN MOVIE THEATERS.
Elton John’s entertaining Las Vegas show “Million Dollar Piano” hit theaters March 26th, in 40 different countries, for a special one-night only encore screening.
John offers up a taste of the extravagant stage setup and light show of “Million Dollar Piano.” The one-of-a-kind piano is laced with 68 LED screens displaying images complementing the musician’s set.
“John opened up his residency (his second in Las Vegas) at The Colosseum in Caesars Palace in 2011 and the show finds him navigating a hit-filled setlist, including “Tiny Dancer,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” “Philadelphia Freedom” and more.”
The one-night broadcast of “Million Dollar Piano” in movie theaters was set to celebrate both John’s birthday – the musician turned 67 – and the 40th anniversary reissue of his 1973 album, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. The super deluxe edition has never-before-heard demos, a live concert from 1973 and a disc of covers by Fall Out Boy, Zac Brown Band and Ed Sheeran.
John and longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin recently walked Rolling Stone Magazine through Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’s recording process to their miserable recording experience in Jamaica and the eventual creation of some of their biggest hits.
To this day, John believes one such smash, “Bennie and the Jets,” should never have been a single: “I had an argument with MCA and the only reason I caved was because the song was the number one black record in Detroit,” he said. “And I went, ‘Oh my God'” I mean, I’m a white boy from England. And I said, ‘Okay, you’ve got it.’ It just shows you that you can’t see the wood through the trees. To this day, I cannot see that song as a single.”
ALTERNATIVE NEWS: WEEZER PREPPING FOR NEW ALBUM RELEASE.
Weezer have recently posted a teaser clip of the band apparently in the studio recording their tenth LP. The footage is of the group playing a couple new cuts, as it fades the words “in the studio now” appear on the screen.
Weezer previously announced the band would reunite with producer Ric Ocasek, the genius behind the group’s Green and Blue albums. This upcoming May marks the 20th anniversary of the classic “Blue” album.
Last February the band headed out on a five day Weezer cruise which featured appearances from Cat Power, Toro y Moi, DIIV, the Cribs and Ash.
Weezer is also set to be at the 2014 Firefly Festival, in Dover, Delaware June 19th to the 22nd.
EDM NEWS: PHARRELL WILLIAMS MAKES BOLD POLITICAL PREDICTION.
EDM superstar, Pharrell Williams has been interviewed in GQ Magazine, and in it he endorsed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run, stating in why he believes the former First Lady, New York senator and Secretary of State would make the best president, though Clinton has yet to officially join the race.
After giving his thoughts on President Obama, Pharrell said, “Let me tell you why Hillary’s going to win, everywhere you go in this country, you have red and blue. You got the Democrats; you got the Republicans. You got the Bloods; you got the Crips. Everything is red and blue in this country. You know what else is red and blue? Blood. Blood is blue in your body until air hits it, and then it turns red. That means there’s unity. There’s gonna be unity. So when you think about a night where there’s late-night talk-show hosts and it’s mostly women, that’s a different world. Right? A world where seventy-five percent of the prime ministers and the presidents were women: That’s a different world. That’s gonna happen, and it’s gonna happen when Hillary wins.”
Pharrell added to his endorsement, mentioning Clinton’s pro-choice stance and contrasting the abortion rights movement with outer space exploration.”No matter how staunch of a supporter you are of no-abortion, whatever you are: You’re a woman, and there’s no way in the world you’re going to vote for somebody that’s going to try to tell you what to do with your body,” said Pharrell. “When we are a country and we are a species that has had a martian Rover traveling up and down the crevices of this planet looking for water and ice, okay, and we’ve had a space station that’s been orbiting our planet for 16 years—but we still got legislation trying to tell women what to do with their bodies? Hillary’s gonna win. Listen, I’m reaching out to her right now. She’s gonna win.”
Pharrell added, “everybody laughed at me when I said Obama was going to win, but I knew what he represented” and he was equally impressed with Clinton’s performance as Secretary of State.
The producer has been ubiquitous this past month, releasing his second album, G I R L, performing at the Academy Awards, and last week celebrating International Day of Happiness by encouraging fans to make donations to the United Nation Foundation’s Central Emergency Response Fund.
Pharrell is set to perform on Saturday Night Live on April 5th.
HIP HOP NEWS: PUFF DADDY IS BACK!
The saga continues. Sean Combs – who has released records under his former names, Puff Daddy, P. Diddy and Diddy, has decided to resume using the Puff Daddy name. The name change will be on his new album, reportedly named MMM, according to Radio.com. This new album will be his first since 2010’s Last Train to Paris. It does not currently have a release date.
Combs included the new old name, Puff Daddy, in a one-minute trailer (posted to Vimeo by the “Diddy” account) for his newest single, “Big Homie,” with guest appearances by Rick Ross and French Montana. The video will be released on Monday, March 31st.
Our last item for this week’s Manic Monday Music News…Noted March/April Birthdays this week in Music!!
March 30: Tracy Chapman (US singer, guitar, songwriter), Norah Jones [US singer], Celine Dion [Canadian singer], M.C. Hammer (US rap artist), Eric Clapton (UK singer, guitarist, songwriter).
March 31: Angus Young [Scottish guitar; AC/DC].
Every Monday look forward to the “Manic Monday Music News”, run by yours truly, Scott Rossi! Music is the Universal language which brings the world together, something we can all agree on, so I will always try to find some cool weekly news for you to hear about, here on MLE Blog.
Thanks! Scott Rossi & DeeJay Shelly!!!