Billie Eilish’s new album Hit Me Hard And Soft is nearing its release. She’s not sharing any of the 10 tracks ahead of time, but she has announced a massive tour in support of the album today. Eilish will traverse North America throughout the last quarter of 2024, spend the late winter touring Australia, then hit Europe and the UK next spring and summer. I’m getting tired just reading all those dates.
In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, breaking streaming and vinyl sale records. As Billboard reports, the album — which was quickly expanded into a 31-song deluxe edition just hours after its initial release — notched 2.61 million equivalent album units in the US, with traditional album sales making up 1.914 million. Those sales were a mix of digital downloads, CDs, vinyl, and cassettes — the album had more than 20 different versions available.
Knocked Loose performed at Sick New World in Las Vegas yesterday. They gave their recent single “Suffocate” its live debut, and they brought featured guest Poppy along for the ride. “Suffocate” will appear on the band’s new album You Won’t Go To Sleep Before You’re Supposed To, which is out in a couple weeks. Watch video below.
System Of A Down headlined Sick New World, the nu-metal festival that took place yesterday on the Las Vegas Festival Grounds. They trotted out some songs they hadn’t performed in a while, doing “Bubbles” and “CUBErt” for the first time since 2015, “Kill Rock ‘n Roll” for the first time since 2017, and “Innervision” for the first time since 2019. Check out video of most of that below.
Vampire Weekend performed at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Saturday, and they broke out two covers they’ve never done before. First they did a bit of Bruce Springsteen’s The River song “Hungry Heart” after an audience member requested a Springsteen song for their birthday. Later on in the set, they covered Bob Dylan’s “When He Returns,” the closing track from Slow Train Coming.
Post Malone performed a special set of covers for the second night of Stagecoach 2024, the country music fest that takes place the weekend after Coachella on the same Empire Polo Club grounds. Prior to the show, Post Malone gave out a phone number where one could text their requests as to what he covered.
Last year, Blink-182 released their latest album One More Time… and celebrated by playing a Denny’s. The performance was a callback to when Houston metalcore crew Live Without performed at the same breakfast establishment in 2013 and clips went mega-viral, quickly becoming a meme. Now, the pop-punk veterans are taking Live Without on tour, along with Santa Cruz hardcore group Drain.
Last night, Eric Church headlined Stagecoach with a polarizing performance. Seated in front of red stained glass windows, the country musician played an acoustic, covers-heavy set that included songs by 2Pac (aCalifornia Lovea) and Snoop Dogg (aGin And Juicea) with a gospel choir. The night was light on his own material and some audience members booed while others left to see Nickelback perform on another stage. This morning, Church addressed the performance with a statement.
Last year, NewJeans released their sophomore EP Get Up. Since then, they’ve been relatively quiet while wrapped up in legal issues, including a report against the CEO of their label and a lawsuit against an anonymous YouTuber for defamation. Now, the K-pop juggernaut is back with “Bubble Gum.”
Yesterday, Ringo Starr gave an official release to his new EP, Crooked Boy, which came out as an exclusive vinyl on Record Store Day. Its four tracks were written and produced by Linda Perry and feature the Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi.
Last year, Ogbert The Nerd shared the song “Bike Cops.” The New Jersey emo group has been relatively quiet, but bandleader Madison James is up to big things, such as securing taylorswift.bandcamp.com.
Yesterday, Jimmy Eat World’s Jim Adkins and Zach Lind appeared as guests on Danny Brown’s podcast The Danny Brown Show. The rapper began the episode with the confession that when he went through a bad breakup, he listened to their 1999 album Clarity every day. They also talked influences, AI art, self-love, favorite artists, and more.
Yesterday was 30 years since the release of Outkast’s debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. While the hip-hop duo were celebrating the anniversary, they were also mourning the loss of producer Rico Wade, who passed away earlier this month and was laid to rest yesterday. Big Boi and AndrA(c) 3000 shared statements on social media.
Earlier this week, Drew Carey of The Drew Carey Show and The Price Is Right fame wrote that he would stick his dick in a blender (among other sacrifices) to be able to see Phish at the Sphere again. He had never seen Phish before and apparently didn’t even know any of their songs. Yesterday, the game show host and comedian shared that the band sent him a blender.
Last night Lana Del Rey made a surprise appearance at the country fest Stagecoach during Paul Cauthen’s set. The duo duetted on “Unchained Melody,” the Righteous Brothers’ 1965 classic Lana covered on NBC’s Christmas At Graceland special in December and Cauthen covered with Orville Peck in 2020.
We released a code update so you should no longer have to click to log in to read Shut Up, Dude if you’re already logged in. Lemme know if it worked!
Back in December 2022, right when S.O.S. was about to drop, SZA was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. The host that night was Keke Palmer, who got along famously with SZA in the episode promos. Now SZA and Palmer’s paths through the entertainment industry are crossing again: As Deadline reports, the pair will star in a new buddy comedy produced by Issa Rae.
Since their 2017 inception, it feels like the Bay Area’s AG Club have been through eons of trials and errors. The sprawling collective is spearheaded by the de facto leaders Jody Fontaine and Baby Boy and their videographers Manny Madrigal and Ivan Collaco. Everyone else caught in the colorful crossfire could become a member of the Club as well, as evident in the sprawling network of designers, collaborators, and friends that make up their growing universe.
Every week the Stereogum staff chooses the five best new songs of the week. The eligibility period begins and ends Thursdays right before midnight. You can hear this weekas picks below and on Stereogumas Favorite New Music Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly. (An expanded playlist of our new music picks is available to members on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)
The ultra-heavy Northeast hardcore band Missing Link got started during the pandemic, and they’ve got a lineup that includes members of bands like Pain Of Truth, Out For Justice, and Internal Bleeding. After a few early releases, they’ve announced plans to release their full-length debut Watch Me Bleed this summer. Expect it to go extremely hard.
For nearly two decades, Ross Farrar has been the lead singer for Ceremony, a truly great California punk band that won’t stop changing its approach. Earlier this year, a giant crowd packed into the Hollywood Palladium to see Ceremony play their 2010 classic Rohnert Park in full for what’s apparently going to be the only time ever. Farrar also made a couple of excellent recent records with the side project Spice, and his poetry gets published in places like The Paris Review. And then there’s the solo thing.
In the past few weeks, 91-year-old legend Willie Nelson appeared on new records from BeyoncA(c) and Orville Peck. This summer, he’ll embark on another edition of his touring Outlaw Music Festival, where mythic figures like Bob Dylan and Robert Plant will open for him. Next month, Nelson will release The Border, which is being billed as his 75th album of new material. We’ve already posted the grave, powerful title track, and now Nelson has shared a very different single.
Today, Richmond underground metal lifers Inter Arma release New Heaven, their first album of new material in five years. All the advance singles — the title track, “Concrete Cliffs,” “Desolation’s Harp” — were titanic, and I kept meaning to listen to the advance stream of the full album, but I guess I never got around to it. Maybe that’s why I was so surprised when I played the record today and the last track came in.
Pearl Jam visited their fellow ’90s icon Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show this week to promote new album Dark Matter. We posted a bunch of interview clips from the show on Wednesday, and now several performance videos have gone live.
Last year, the Massachusetts straight-edge hardcore band Anklebiter released To Live And Withstand, an absolutely galvanizing EP. Anklebiter play old-school hardcore with bounce and focus and charisma, and they make old sounds feel fresh and exciting. Today, Anklebiter have joined forces with fellow straight-edge warriors Prevention for a new split.
(Yes, it’s a Taylor Swift column. The reason is simple: This is a pop column, and every artist in the industry knows better than to release a pop album the same week as Taylor Swift. What else is there to write about? Pearl Jam? UB40? Raffi?)
For the 2021 movie Electric Jesus, about a fictional ’80s religious metal band called 316, Daniel Smith of the quirky Christian underground rock band Danielson wrote a bunch of fake Christian hair metal songs. The film’s soundtrack also included “Come And Save Me,” an epic eight-minute Danielson song in the band’s usual theatrical indie-pop style (i.e. more like Danielson pal Sufjan Stevens’ early work, not like the hair metal pastiche of 316). “Come And Save Me” uses lyrics penned by Larry Norman, the cult-favorite Jesus People singer-songwriter whose rapture ballad “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” has been covered by artists like DC Talk and Jordin Sparks.
Tom Petty has long been a beloved figure in country music circles, and a new tribute album will feature a bunch of country luminaries covering his songs. We’ve already posted Dolly Parton’s version of “Southern Accents,” the lead single from the forthcoming compilation Petty Country: A Country Music Celebration Of Tom Petty, and the record also has Petty covers from people like Willie Nelson, Luke Combs, Steve Earle, George Strait, Margo Price, Rhiannon Giddens, Jamey Johnson, and the Brothers Osborne. A bunch of Petty’s old Heartbreakers bandmates appear on the album, and it’s got Wynonna Judd and Lainey Wilson doing “Refugee” together. Today, we get to hear Chris Stapleton’s contribution.
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