Music

A week after Kanye West set a new high-water mark for the biggest album debut of 2021 on the Rolling Stone Top 200 Albums chart with Donda, Drake obliterated that record with Certified Lover Boy. West launched with 313,000 album-equivalent units. Drake earned close to double that total, more than 595,000 album-equivalent units, even though Certified Lover Boy had fewer songs than Donda.  The bulk of Drake’s first-week total came from streaming services: The 21 tracks on Certified Lover Boy collectively picked up more than 680 million plays. In addition,...

The COVID-19 pandemic put Leah Marie Mason in quite a funk.An aspiring country artist who was, at the time, just beginning to find her way in an industry filled with copycats and wannabes, Mason knew the pandemic would have a detrimental effect on her road to stardom. Seemingly overnight, she found herself wading in self-doubt and uneasiness — much like the character at the core of her new song, “Hannah.”“She feels like she's stuck in this mundane lifestyle. She can't find a lover, and she can’t find any sort of purpose,”...

Machine Gun Kelly made his MTV Video Music Awards debut Sunday by performing his single “Papercuts” alongside Blink-182 drummer and frequent collaborator Travis Barker. The performance seemingly paid homage to Nirvana, boasting spooky grunge trees and the flowers from the iconic “Heart-Shaped Box” video. Kelly started the performance emerging from a dirt grave with his face covered in red branches and ended the song by smashing his guitar and falling to the ground, much like Kurt Cobain used to do. Before the show started, Machine Gun Kelly appeared to get...

Carrie Underwood's newest Sunday Night Football theme song was just revealed. For the ninth straight year, the country singer opens NBC's coverage with a video that finds her trading scenes with the NFL's biggest stars."Waiting All Day for Sunday Night" is the name of the official Sunday Night Football theme song, and it's the song Underwood has used to open football season each of the last three years, plus her first three. The song is built on Joan Jett's "I Hate Myself for Loving You," a Top 10 Billboard 100...

Lana Del Rey announced Saturday that she would deactivate her social media accounts to focus on her personal life as well as “different endeavors.”  “I just wanted to let you know that tomorrow we are going to be deactivating our social media accounts, my social media accounts,” Del Rey alerted her 20 million followers in a three-minute Instagram video. “That is simply because I have so many other interests and other jobs I’m doing that require privacy and transparency.” Del Rey added, “I’m still very present and love what I...

Eighteen years ago today, country music lost one of its most beloved stars: Johnny Cash. The legendary singer died on Sept. 12, 2003, of complications from diabetes; he was 71.Cash began his historic career in 1955 with his first single, "Hey Porter." He went on to record more than 100 albums and release over 150 singles, including "Ring of Fire" and "Folsom Prison Blues." It's been estimated that he penned in excess of 1,000 songs.The Arkansas native also had his own share of well-publicized personal problems, including a lengthy history with...

Stevie Nicks commemorated the 20th anniversary of 9/11 with a note to fans, posted in her signature journal format. Nicks began the remembrance on September 10th at 11:50 p.m., noting that she thinks of the clock striking midnight each year. She had just flown in with her solo band from Canada that morning — ready to perform three shows — and stayed at the Waldorf Astoria. “It was 2:30 a.m. when we landed,” she wrote. “By the time I went to bed it was almost 7:30 a.m. I sat in...

Miranda Lambert turned to social media on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to remember the tragic events of that day, honoring the victims' loved ones and first responders with a proudly patriotic picture.The country superstar posted a picture of the American flag waving at her farm on Saturday (Sept. 11), recalling that she was at choir practice during school hours when she heard the news of the attacks over the loudspeaker in 2001."I'll never be able to comprehend why," she writes. "It changed us all."Hijacked planes struck...

Stone Temple Pilots and Bush have canceled their upcoming U.S. co-headlining tour due to “unfortunate and unavoidable Covid-related circumstances.” The 11-date trek was scheduled to begin September 30th in Mesa, Arizona. However, Bush announced Friday that the tour — as well as the band’s planned festival appearances — have been called off. “We cannot stress enough how heartbreaking it is to not be able to go out and play after all of this time, and after all of our attempted starts and ensuing stops over the past year and a half,”...

Carrie Underwood will sing the opening theme of NBC's Sunday Night Football for a ninth straight year in 2021, but it hasn't been easy for her or the network. Easily forgotten are the three years she riffed on a Miranda Lambert song in place of "Waiting All Day for Sunday Night."Then, there was that year she wrote an original introduction anthem that ended up getting her and the network sued for copyright infringement.Here's a fun fact: Underwood is the third of four artists to perform a football-centric remake of Joan...

Colombian singer J Balvin has established himself as one of reggaeton’s most successful ambassadors — and one of the most absurdly popular superstars on the planet. But on his sixth album, Jose, he tries to separate himself from his global celebrity and attempts to open a window into the person he truly is. He scatters deeply intimate details throughout the project — voice memos from mom and dad, a snippet of praise from his friend Daddy Yankee, and even the sound of his first child’s heartbeat. While he doesn’t break...

Seventeen years ago today, on Sept. 11, 2004, Terri Clark was undoubtedly doing plenty of celebrating. It was on that date that her single "Girls Lie Too," from her Greatest Hits 1994-2004 album, soared to the top of the charts, becoming her second single to take the No. 1 slot in the United States.The cleverly crafted "Girls Lie Too," written by Connie Harrington, Kelley Lovelace and Tim Nichols, takes the perspective of a woman who tells lies as well as a man can. With lines such as "We don't care how...

When Elvis Costello decided to re-record his album This Year’s Model entirely in Spanish, he knew he wasn’t going to do it alone. He saw the entire thing as a lively, hands-on collaboration in which he’d give Spanish-speaking artists access to the original master recordings from the iconic 1978 LP and let them interpret the songs exactly how they wanted. He and the producer Sebastian Krys enlisted a varied set of musicians from around the world and watched as each of them added their own magic to the anticipated project,...

Lucie Silvas' "We Don't Know We're Living" is a reminder to savor each moment. Grammy-winning artist Brandi Carlile and acclaimed singer-songwriter Joy Oladokun join Silvas on the piano ballad, released on Friday (Sept. 10).Throughout the song, Silvas, Carlile and Oladokun sing about special, beautiful moments that we don't appreciate because we're so caught up in what else is happening and what comes next. "Birds don't know that they're singing / Fish don't know that they're swimming / No one knows the beginning / We don't know that we're living," goes the chorus.Silvas...