Music

Rising star Brittney Spencer is set to hit the road for her first-ever headlining run at the end of 2021. Her In a Perfect World Tour -- which is named after a line from "Sober and Skinny," a song she put out over the summer -- kicks off Dec. 2 at Rockwood Music Hall in New York City, Billboard reports. From there, Spencer will continue to hit clubs and small venues in Nashville, Michigan, Florida and many more markets. The In a Perfect World Tour will wrap in February 2022...

From the streets, to the 20,000-plus seats filled at Madison Square Garden, to the millions online, El Alfa’s La Leyenda del Dembow World Tour stop on Oct. 22 was nothing short of a triumph. The artist, born Emanuel Herrera, is the first star from the Dominican Republic’s dembow genre to headline the arena, and his performance there was a landmark statement about the authority that Dominican acts hold in el movimiento — the musical movement — across Latin America and the world. Dembow is a source of constant reinvention that,...

Brandi Carlile made her Saturday Night Live debut on Saturday night (Oct. 23), appearing as the musical guest for an early Season 47 episode of the late-night sketch comedy television show. The singer-songwriter offered up two songs from her newest album, In These Silent Days.Carlile and collaborators Phil and Tim Hanseroth, backed by Shooter Jennings on piano and two percussionists, first played "Broken Horses," which shares its title with Carlile's recently released memoir. She, in a shining gold suit and playing an orange electric guitar, stood center stage and was flanked by the...

Jay Black, frontman for the Sixties pop-rock hitmakers Jay and the Americans, has died at the age of 82. Black’s family confirmed that the singer died Friday night from complications from pneumonia. In recent years, Black also suffered from dementia. The Brooklyn-born Black (born David Blatt) joined Jay and the Americans in 1962, taking over for the band’s first singer, Jay Traynor. Following the 1963 single “Only in America,” Black’s soaring vocals featured on the band’s Top 10 hits “Come A Little Bit Closer,” “Cara Mia” and “This Magic Moment.” ...

Olivia Newton-John has been battling Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer for years, and in a new interview on the Today show, she says she's "feeling pretty good" due to medical cannabis.The pop superstar and actor appeared on the show on Oct. 20 to talk to Hoda Kotb about the 40th anniversary of her iconic hit "Physical," and when she found out that Kotb had also gone through a bout with breast cancer 14 years ago, they formed an instant bond."We’re sisters," the singer and Grease star tells Kotb. "Anyone that...

The last thing Lana Del Rey wanted us to know before retiring her Instagram account several weeks ago, was that Blue Banisters, her seventh major-label studio album, tells her story “and does pretty much nothing more.” The note provides an unusual amount of clarity for Del Rey, whose typical album rollouts practically require a degree in cryptography. But upon listening to the album — a diffuse collection of prose poems set to, largely, piano accompaniment — it’s clear she only handed us binoculars after smudging the lenses with vaseline. Earlier this...

The COVID-19 pandemic hasn't been easy on almost anyone, but it's been particularly difficult on musicians, who had their entire way of life upended when the live music industry, along with much of the world, shut down for months. Duos, trios and groups, especially, were suddenly without the people with whom they lived so much of their lives.Dave Haywood, Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott of Lady A were physically separated from each other for the first three months of the pandemic — the longest they remember ever being apart since forming the...

Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian did exactly the thing you’d expect them to do ahead of Halloween, dress up as famously dysfunctional couple Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen.  Kardashian shared a photo series of the couple’s costume on Instagram with the caption, “Till death do us part.” Super cute, considering Spungen was killed mysteriously with a knife at the Chelsea Hotel on October 12th, 1978. Vicious was eventually arrested and charged with murder, and while he reportedly first confessed to the crime, he later denied it. Before he could be...

Jessie James Decker has announced a full scale tour for next spring. Her 2022 The Woman I've Become Tour includes 24 stops across the country.Decker and opening act Adam Doleac will begin on April 14 in Detroit and stay on the road through early June, finishing at the Mission Ballroom in Denver, the city in which Decker's husband — NFL wide receiver Eric Decker — played half of his career.An April 28 show at the Ryman Auditorium and two others at the House of Blues in Boston and Houston stand out as...

Right in time for peak spooky season, hip-hop’s horrorcore masters Insane Clown Posse are back with a new song, “Wretched.” The track will appear on the group’s next album, Yum Yum Bedlam, set to arrive on Halloween, October 31st, via the group’s own Psychopathic Records. “Wretched” finds ICP’s Violent J plumbing the grisly depths of the world’s most nefarious people: “Angels are just a serpent’s trick,” he spits, “No holiness, no hope exists/I’m wretched/The sickest, infected/The vicious, the deadest/Sadistic, the dreaded/Malicious.”  In an interview with Rolling Stone, Violent J says...

Toby Keith has good stories to tell and no reason not to tell them. The singer recently reflected on his long list of No. 1 hits, including a couple that he was told would never work."I Wanna Talk About Me" is an example. Talking to Taste of Country Nights, Keith shares that in those days (the early '00s), radio airplay came so naturally to him that he'd record an album and dictate which four songs would become singles. All three singles from Pull My Chain reached the top of the charts, but...

Beyoncé’s new song “Be Alive” is featured in the new trailer for King Richard, the Venus and Serena Williams-executive produced biopic about the tennis champions’ lives featuring Will Smith as their father Richard. “Can’t nobody knock it if they try,” Beyoncé belts on the percussive piano ballad about taking pride in the hard-won battles and work it takes to get to the top amidst adversity. “Do you know how much we have pride?/How hard we have to try?” In the new trailer, Richard coaches a young Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and...

“No thanks will come your way when you’re living in the center of a circle made to break,” Yola sings early on in “Be My Friend,” a compelling track from her newest album, Stand for Myself. In addition to warning powerfully against complacency, the lyric asks for meaningful connection across social, political and cultural division, a sentiment that echoes throughout both “Be My Friend” and the rest of the album.“I’m often looking at it from the other side, which is yearning to be together,” explains Yola of these divisions and the...

This piece is part of Rolling Stone’s second annual Grammy Preview special issue, released ahead of the start of first-round voting. We spoke to some of the year’s biggest artists about the albums and singles that could earn them a nomination — or even a statue come January — and delved into the challenges facing the Recording Academy, providing a 360-degree view of what to watch for in the lead-up to the 2022 awards. Artist: Giveon Eligible for: When It’s All Said and Done … Take Time, “Peaches” Giveon’s “Like I Want...