Music

Tony Bennett’s family revealed the legendary singer has been battling Alzheimer’s disease for nearly five years in a lengthy feature in AARP the Magazine. Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016. In the years since, the disease has progressed to the extent that Bennett’s presence has reportedly grown more muted and he grapples with short-term memory loss; but he has not yet been stricken by some of Alzheimer’s most debilitating symptoms, like severe disorientation, long-term memory loss, and bouts of depression and anger. Gayatri Devi, the neurologist who diagnosed Bennett,...

Tanya Tucker's older brother, Don, has died. The country icon revealed her family loss in a post to social media on Friday (Jan. 29), writing that he "got his wings" on Jan. 12.According to his obituary, Jesse Donald Tucker was 76 years old when he died on Jan. 12 after battling dementia and COVID-19. Sharing a picture of them together during happier times, Tucker writes that she went to visit him in the hospital just before he died.The iconic singer hints at some difficult times between them, but does not...

Double K, a member of the Los Angeles underground rap duo People Under the Stairs, died Saturday at the age of 43. The rapper died at his home, per the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, though no cause of death was given. Born Michael Turner, Double K and his cohort Thes One (Christopher Portugal) formed the duo People Under the Stars as high schoolers in the mid-Nineties. Both had already been producing music in high school when they linked, first meeting with a mutual friend to decide whose music was...

Twenty-eight years ago today (Jan. 31, 1993), Garth Brooks took his turn at one of the most coveted performance slots of all time: singing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. But according to former NFL executive director Don Weiss' book, The Making of the Super Bowl: The Inside Story of the World’s Greatest Sporting Event, fans filling the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, Calif., as well as the 91 million people watching from home, were unaware of how close the Oklahoma native came to not taking the stage.Brooks had filmed...

It was after 1 a.m. by the time Sophie arrived onstage to close out PC Music’s SXSW showcase in March 2015, but you’d have been playing yourself if you left before her set. PC Music was one of the hottest topics of discussion in Austin that year — a mysterious, mischievous U.K. dance music collective that was either reinventing pop or destroying it, depending on whom you asked. Devoted ravers and curious passersby alike filed into the Empire Garage that Thursday night to see what SoundCloud jesters like A.G. Cook...

Eleven years ago today (Jan. 31, 2010), Taylor Swift made musical history: It was on that date the then-20-year-old became the youngest country artist, and, at the time, the youngest act of any genre, to ever win Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards.Swift received the honor for her sophomore album, Fearless, which was released in 2008. The record, which to date has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide, was co-produced by Swift along with Scott Borchetta and Nathan Chapman."I just hope you know how much this means to me," a...

System of a Down premiered their new video for “Genocidal Humanoidz” Saturday following a charity livestream to provide humanitarian aid to Armenians affected by the conflict over the disputed area known as Nagorno-Karabakh. A mix of live performance and animation, the visual features System of the Down playing their first new song in 15 years amid animated imagery of war-torn townspeople banding together to fight off the demons that have invaded. The video was directed by SOAD’s Shavo Odadjian and Deep Sky Animation’s Adam Mason. Prior to Saturday’s livestream, System...

The states of Florida and Georgia are known for their oranges and peaches, respectively, and that's almost how Florida Georgia Line got their name. As this installment of Taste of Country‘s You Think You Know Country? series reveals, the country hitmakers almost named themselves Orange Peach."We lived together for two years in Nashville and were hanging out in the hall and decided to take this music thing seriously and wanted to represent where we came from," Brian Kelley says. "Orange Peach was an early suggestion, then it got moved to Florida Georgia Line."Kelley...

Sophie, the avant-pop artist who produced singers like Madonna and Charli XCX and released the acclaimed 2018 album Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides, has died at the age of 34. The Scottish-born musician’s record label, Transgressive, confirmed Sophie’s death. “Tragically our beautiful Sophie passed away this morning after a terrible accident,” the label wrote. “True to her spirituality she had climbed up to watch the full moon and accidentally slipped and fell. She will always be here with us. The family thank everyone for their love and support and request...

Twenty-one years ago, on Jan. 30, 2000, Faith Hill had the distinct honor of opening Super Bowl XXXIV at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta by singing the National Anthem.Hill's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is widely considered to be one of the greatest Super Bowl anthem performances of all time. The vocalist took a leisurely approach to the song, stretching out each lyric for maximum impact as bagpipers and then an orchestra backed her up.She ended the song holding out the last lyric ("And the home of the brave") using...

A rare demo recording of Black Sabbath’s “Heaven and Hell,” the first song the band wrote after Ronnie James Dio replaced Ozzy Osbourne in 1979, has surfaced online. On the track are Dio, founding Sabbath members guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward, and bassist Geoff Nicholls, who joined the group in 1979 after founding bassist Geezer Butler quit the group for a short time. Nicholls, whose estate posted the recording Thursday to mark the fourth anniversary of his death, later moved over to keyboards and played with the band...

Eric Church fans literally hacked his website in search of information about his upcoming album, Heart & Soul. Thankfully, he doesn't mind.Per the Tennessean, days before Church revealed the news about his seventh studio album(s), fans flooded his website in an attempt to find a script for his Outsiders radio show on SiriusXM and a sneak peek at his new music. Instead, they found plans for his upcoming album Heart & Soul and began to spread the news across social media.Surprisingly enough, Church was actually pleased that his loyal fans were the first to know about the three-part project."We...

Paul Stanley’s Soul Station has released a new live performance video for their cover of the Five Stairsteps “O-o-h Child.” The clip finds the Kiss rocker and his 15-piece ensemble band in a cavernous warehouse space performing the timeless soul hit with plenty of aplomb and joy. “’O-o-h Child’ is a song of optimism and hope,” Stanley said in a statement. “I think we could all use some words about things getting ‘brighter’ and a time when ‘we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun.’ You can see the...

Thirty-three years ago, on Jan. 29, 1988, Randy Travis achieved a new career milestone: It was on that date that the singer-songwriter earned his first double-platinum album, signifying sales in excess of 2 million copies, with his disc Always & Forever.Always & Forever, Travis' sophomore release, came out in 1987 and spawned four No. 1 singles, including "Forever and Ever, Amen" and "I Told You So." It stayed at the top of the country charts for several weeks that year and the next, becoming the year-end No. 1 album in 1988.Warner Bros. RecordsAlways...