Author: LRussell

Gene Simmons has released a new music video for “Stormy Weather,” the 1933 jazz standard he covered for the recently released Reagan biopic.

The clip alternates between footage of Simmons — dressed down in a black button-up shirt, flat-brim hat and sunglasses — singing in the vocal booth and scenes from film featuring Dennis Quaid, who stars as the titular Ronald Reagan, and Mena Suvari as his first wife Jane Wyman. You can watch it below.

Simmons is one of many artists to put his stamp on “Stormy Weather” over the years. Ethel Waters first recorded the song, written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, in 1933; her version was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. Other famous artists to cover the song include Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Charles Mingus, Etta James and Judy Garland.

READ MORE: Kiss Band Member Power Rankings

“It seemed to me during the scenes where Ronald Reagan was sitting with Jane Wyman at the club, there would probably be music playing in the background,” Simmons told Newsweek. “I was actually thrilled that the producers thought my version of the song would work in the scene.”

Gene Simmons Calls Ronald Reagan ‘One of America’s Great Presidents’

The Kiss leader called Reagan a “great American” who will “certainly go down in future generations as one of America’s great presidents,” adding: “Interestingly, and I suspect the masses didn’t know this about President Reagan, he started off as an actor, joined the Democratic Party, then became disillusioned with the Democratic party and joined the Republican party.”

Simmons’ “Stormy Weather” video arrives almost exactly one year after Kiss played their final show at New York’s Madison Square Garden. He’s continued to tour with his solo band this year, and Kiss is now working on a five-part documentary about their End of the Road farewell tour.

Think You Know Kiss?

AC/DC will embark on a North American leg of their Power Up tour in 2025, marking their first full-scale trek of the region in nearly a decade.

The tour will visit 13 stadiums beginning April 10 in Minneapolis and concluding May 28 in Cleveland.

The Australian rockers most recently played North America in late 2023 as part of the Power Trip festival in Indio, California. It marked their first performance since the 2015-16 Rock or Bust world tour, which saw the departure of lead singer Brian Johnson due to hearing damage. Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose handled lead vocals for the final 23 shows of the tour.

Johnson returned to AC/DC a few years later — along with bassist Cliff Williams and drummer Phil Rudd —  and the band released the chart-topping Power Up in 2020. They launched the accompanying Power Up European tour in May 2024, performing two dozen shows across the continent through August.

Who Is Playing in AC/DC in 2025?

Johnson and cofounding guitarist Angus Young remain the longest-tenured members of AC/DC on the road next year. They’ll be joined by guitarist Stevie Young, who replaced his uncle Malcolm Young after he retired in 2014 due to dementia. (Malcolm died in 2017.) Drummer Matt Laug and former Jane’s Addiction bassist Chris Chaney will round out the lineup.

AC/DC ‘Power Up’ 2025 North American Tour Dates

4/10      Minneapolis, MN            US Bank Stadium
4/14      Arlington, TX                      AT&T Stadium
4/18      Pasadena, CA                  Rose Bowl
4/22      Vancouver, BC                 BC Place
4/26      Las Vegas, NV                  Allegiant Stadium
4/30      Detroit, MI                          Ford Field
5/4        Foxborough, MA              Gillette Stadium
5/8        Pittsburgh, PA                  Acrisure Stadium
5/12      Landover, MD                   Northwest Stadium
5/16      Tampa, FL                          Raymond James Stadium
5/20      Nashville, TN                    Nissan Stadium
5/24      Chicago, IL                       Soldier Field
5/28      Cleveland, OH                 Huntington Bank Field

The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart had plans to play together with Phil Lesh and were discussing the possibility of a 60th-anniversary reunion before the bassist’s death, according to a new CBS Mornings interview.

The three surviving members discussed their reunion hopes with CBS’ Anthony Mason five days after Lesh’s death on Oct. 25 at the age of 84. Lesh had also been set to participate in the interview, which was filmed in anticipation of the Dead receiving the Kennedy Center Honors later this month.

“We were kicking it around,” Weir said. “In fact, we were gonna get together and kick some songs around tomorrow.”

“I was hoping that we could play with him again one more time,” Kreutzmann added. “That was my sadness on that one. ‘Cause I know he wanted to play with us again, too.”

READ MORE: Top 10 Grateful Dead ‘Fare Thee Well’ Performances

Grateful Dead ‘Were Just Gonna Play the Four of Us’ for Possible Reunion

Lesh last performed with the Grateful Dead in 2015 for a series of “Fare Thee Well” shows, which marked the group’s 50th anniversary. Kreutzmann, Weir and Hart continued touring after those shows as Dead & Company, which also featured John Mayer, while Lesh continued touring with Phil Lesh and Friends.

Kreutzmann specified that the band was eyeing a 60th-anniversary reunion for 2025. “We were gonna see where it goes, but we were just gonna play the four of us,” Weir said. “Now there’s only three of us … and that’s different.”

The Dead might still stage some sort of 60th-anniversary celebration next year, but with additional personnel. “We’d have to have other musicians join us,” Kreutzmann said. “And we have some favorite musicians, you know?”

The surviving Dead members further praised Lesh’s musical talent and knowledge and credited him for expanding their horizons. “We developed this language that only we spoke, really,” Weir said.

Kreutzmann added: “He taught us, basically, how to be free.”

One of the most cogent pieces of pop music analysis in recent memory is not an essay, or a review, or a magazine cover story, but a 2023 tweet from writer Matthew Perpetua, who broke Billy Joel‘s songs down into four categories: “You Think You’re Better Than Me??,” “Look at This Asshole / These Assholes,” “Things Used to Be Better” and “Here’s Some Advice, Moron.”

All four of these themes are present in our list of The Best Song From Every Billy Joel Album. Together, these 12 songs and their respective LPs — excluding his 2001 classical album Fantasies & Delusions — show an artist who was equally ambitious and cynical, scathing in his teardowns of ex-lovers and ex-colleagues but still hopelessly romantic and eager to succeed. He wrote about people whose lives didn’t turn out the way they had planned, and he often seemed uneasy with his own stardom. He did all of it with a mastery of melody and genre-hopping fearlessness that made him a musical legend.

From the speedy Cold Spring Harbor to the soulful River of Dreams, here is The Best Song From Every Billy Joel Album.

Cold Spring Harbor (1971): “Everybody Loves You Now”

An unfortunate mastering error sped up Joel’s debut album and rendered most of it unlistenable (at least to him), but it still showed flashes of greatness. “Everybody Loves You Now” is one of the first in a long lineage of Joel songs about successful, desirable women who treat their admirers like dirt, if they even think about them at all. He offsets his acidic lyrics with a jaunty, percussive piano arrangement, an early example of the honey-and-vinegar duality that would make him one of rock’s most reliable (and reliably cynical) hitmakers.

 

Piano Man (1973): “Piano Man”

We tried to avoid the obvious choice here, but to award the best song on Piano Man to any song besides its title track would simply be disingenuous. Time and overexposure may have put “Piano Man” in “Stairway to Heaven” or “Free Bird” territory, but if you divorce the song from its cultural ubiquity, you’ll fall in love with Joel’s semi-autobiographical tale of his tenure as a Los Angeles lounge singer all over again. Joel was still working in singer-songwriter mode in 1973, and he unspools clever and heartrending details about his characters in each verse. The singalong chorus still works in isolation, but it’s an even bigger emotional payoff when you understand that these characters need this song, because its communal catharsis is the only temporary salve for their loneliness and unhappiness.

 

Streetlife Serenade (1974): “The Entertainer”

Joel never shied away from worst-case-scenario thinking, and he wasn’t afraid to bite the hand that fed him. He does both on Streetlife Serenade‘s lone single, “The Entertainer,” a cynical appraisal of the fickle music industry. The song’s titular protagonist knows he “won’t be here in another year if I don’t stay on the charts,” and the music industry vultures will callously pick the bones of his life’s work to make something palatable for radio. Yet Joel makes the most of these limitations, turning “The Entertainer” into a song that’s simultaneously conformist and biting satire. Fifty years later, it’s still a set list staple, proof that success is the best revenge.

 

Turnstiles (1976): “Prelude / Angry Young Man”

With its razor-sharp piano intro, pounding drums and taut guitar upstrokes, “Angry Young Man” is a feat of technical virtuosity, marking one of Joel’s hardest-rocking and most progressive songs. The lyrics paint a picture of a textbook “angry young man”: self-righteous, principled to a fault, more concerned with being right than being helpful, and boring as hell. At first, Joel seems to mock him, but when he shifts perspective in the bridge (“I believe I’ve passed the age / Of consciousness and righteous rage / I found that just surviving was a noble fight“), he empathizes with the man he once was. Considering Joel was only 27 when Turnstiles came out, he was either wise beyond his years or possessed remarkable foresight.

 

The Stranger (1977): “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant”

Turnstiles established Joel as a top-class songwriter, but The Stranger turned him into a blockbuster, generation-defining star. “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” a sweeping jazz-rock pocket symphony about doomed lovers Brenda and Eddie, is his masterpiece, and it belongs in the pantheon of all-time rock epics alongside “A Day in the Life,” “Good Vibrations” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.” From elegant piano balladry to Dixieland jazz and back again, “Scenes” does what Joel’s best songs do: It plots the transition from starry-eyed youth to disenchanted adulthood, and it reminds listeners that even in the face of unexpected disappointment, life goes on, and so must they.

 

52nd Street (1978): “Zanzibar”

52nd Street was cut from the same jazz-rock cloth as The Stranger, but it sounded seedier and more cynical than its predecessor. Take “Zanzibar,” a sleazy, shapeshifting composition about a dejected barfly who’s trying to score with the waitress. Joel’s snarky delivery and the track’s various movements sound directly influenced by Steely Dan. You could also view “Zanzibar” as a Twilight Zone take on “Piano Man,” where the musical entertainment is replaced by fuzzy sports broadcasts and none of the patrons are proud of their status as regulars.

 

Glass Houses (1980): “You May Be Right”

Joel entered a new decade with a slightly harder, stripped-down sound, best represented on Glass Houses‘ lead single. “You May Be Right” succeeds primarily because of its irresistible hooks and melodies, but also because of Joel’s cocky, devil-may-care attitude and self-righteous sneer. Despite his multiple Grammy wins and multi-platinum albums, on “You May Be Right,” he sounds like a guy who’s chronically misunderstood and still has something to prove.

 

The Nylon Curtain (1982): “Where’s the Orchestra”

Joel ends his arguably most ambitious (and Beatlesque) album with this quietly devastating, McCartney-esque piano ballad about a man who attends the theater and is surprised to discover he’s watching a play instead of a musical. “Where’s the Orchestra” functions, on one level, as a rumination on life — Joel’s or any other — and how the achievements and destinations we romanticize rarely take the form we anticipate. It’s especially poignant coming from Joel, who’d accomplished all any musician could’ve hoped for by this point and still felt alone.

 

An Innocent Man (1983): “Uptown Girl”

If “Uptown Girl” remains a divisive Joel song more than 40 years after its release, it’s only because of the mass exposure that plagues so many gargantuan pop songs. The fact is, Joel’s riff on Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is pure pop confection, featuring one of his most daunting lead vocals and positively ebullient backup harmonies. The lyrics paint a classic picture of a boy from the wrong side of the tracks pining after a girl way out of his league. It was the last time Joel could sell this type of song with any credibility, as he married supermodel Christie Brinkley after she starred in the video.

 

The Bridge (1986): “A Matter of Trust”

The Piano Man ditches his namesake instrument on The Bridge‘s second single (and its accompanying video) to powerful effect. With its heavy mid-tempo groove and simple, muscular riffs, “A Matter of Trust” could have come off as a barebones plodder. But its relative simplicity puts Joel’s sublime melodies front and center, and he delivers one of the album’s most impassioned vocal performances.

 

Storm Front (1989): “I Go to Extremes”

On Storm Front, Joel broke with longtime producer Phil Ramone and teamed up with Foreigner guitarist and producer Mick Jones. The Top 10 single “I Go to Extremes” rises to meet the album’s blustery arena-rock production. Joel’s thrumming piano complements the crunchy guitars and galloping drums, and the soaring chorus would have sounded right at home on Bon Jovi‘s New Jersey — and yes, that’s a compliment.

 

River of Dreams (1993): “All About Soul”

Joel’s final album of original pop-rock material carries a sense of sobering finality, even if he didn’t necessarily write it with his semi-retirement in mind. “All About Soul” is a powerful, gospel-tinged song about abiding love — what happens after the infatuation wears off and the honeymoon phase is over. Joel gives one of his strongest late-career vocal performances, and the extended fade-out reaches “Hey Jude” levels of emotional heft. Even as his recording career neared its end, Joel still performed with utmost conviction.

 

Jake E. Lee revealed the person who shot him was actually aiming at his dog, Coco.

The guitarist shared more details of the October incident, which took place late at night while he was walking Coco near his Las Vegas home, saying he was doing so in the spirit of Thanksgiving.

He’d previously reported that he’d confronted two people who appeared to be attempting to steal a motorcycle, and he’d wound up being shot three times, while the gunman had fired a total of 15 times.

READ MORE: Ozzy Osbourne Guitar Players: A Complete History

“Hope everyone’s enjoying their Thanksgiving,” Lee wrote on social media. “I’ve been debating on publicly talking about getting shot and have decided that it would probably be good for me. Somewhat therapeutic, and by documenting it I can more easily put it behind me. And you might find parts of it interesting!”

He admitted he found the idea “daunting” so he’d decided to tell his story in parts, of which the posting was the first.

Lee continued: “We were about 50ft apart when I heard the shots. I quickly realized he wasn’t aiming at me. He was aiming at my dog! I threw my end of the leash at Coco and yelled to go home. He did. He’s a good boy.

“The first shot to hit me was in my left forearm. Entered about an inch below the elbow on the underside. Exited topside. It felt like a burn. Not particularly painful, just like a quick burning sensation.

Gunshot Injury to Jake E. Lee’s Fretting Arm was ‘Minimal’

“I thought it must have been a graze. Fortunately it missed any bones, and my elbow joint, and has healed remarkably quickly.

“The scars aren’t much bigger or darker than some of my age spots… I’d probably have to point them out for you to notice. All the fingers still move well. Initially lost the feeling on the back of my hand but it has been slowly coming back.”

He concluded: “In the spirit of giving thanks, I am most thankful my dog wasn’t hurt, and also the damage to my fretting arm was minimal. Unlike the other wounds, which I’ll get to in Part 2.”

Snoop Dogg has recruited Sting for his newest single, “Another Part of Me.” The song’s musical track draws heavily from the distinctive bass line, guitar and melody of the Police‘s 1979 hit “Message in a Bottle.”

You can listen to the new song below.

In addition to occasionally punctuating Snoop’s verses, Sting gets a brief vocal spotlight near the end of the track: “In a moment jump up on it, see the ocean, stay in motion /You’re not broken, know I’m chosen, I just gotta have faith / Time is passin’, I stay active, mamis laughin’, movies, rappin’ Millions stackin’,  / Look what happened, life just isn’t the same..”

Read More: 10 Classic Rock Stars Acts That Embraced Hip-Hop

“Another Part of Me” is taken from Snoop Dogg’s upcoming Missionary album, which features the ubiquitous rapper / Olympic commentator teaming up with legendary rap producer Dr. Dre to (somewhat belatedly) celebrate the 30th anniversary of 1993’s Doggystyle.

The Missionary track list also includes a cover of “Last Dance with Mary Jane,” with vocals from the late Tom Petty and current country favorite Jelly Roll. The album is due to arrive Dec. 13.

Sting will resume his Sting 3.0 power trio tour in 2025 with shows in both North and South America. You can get his complete tour itinerary at Sting.com.

Hear Snoop Dogg and Sting Perform ‘Another Part of Me’

Geezer Butler said he’d enjoyed the two-week period of being fired from Black Sabbath in 1977.

The incident took place when the band members were at the height of distraction, mired in drug use and suspicious of their management.

Frontman Ozzy Osbourne had recently quit, only to return almost immediately. In a recent interview with LifeMinute (video below), Butler recalled what happened when his turn came.

“Everybody was totally out of their brains all the time,” he said. “We’d sold millions and millions of albums and sold out thousands of gigs around the world. We still hardly had any money to show for it, and we’d sort of realized that we were being ripped off by the management.”

He continued: “I think people just wanted a scapegoat for the whole thing – it just happened to be me at the time. Bill Ward came to the house and said, ‘Oh, by the way, you’re fired.’ ‘Oh, thanks very much. Why?’ ‘You don’t seem into it any more.’”

Black Sabbath Forgot They’d Fired Geezer Butler

Butler admitted: “I was actually relieved because we were under so much pressure at the time. [It was] probably the best two weeks that I’d had for years! I could just relax and not think about the business, or getting albums together, or anything like that.”

For better or worse, the moment wasn’t to last. “About two or three weeks later, Bill calls me up and says, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘We’re here, rehearsing!.’

“I said, ‘I thought I was fired… You told me I was fired from the band!’ He said, ‘Oh, yeah – forgot about that.’

So I went down to rehearsal, nobody said anything about it, [and we] just carried on as normal.”

Listen to Geezer Butler’s Interview

Dual legends initially grew up around John Lennon‘s Nov. 28, 1974, appearance onstage with Elton John at Madison Square Garden: That he only appeared there after losing a bet. And that a backstage moment marked Lennon’s reunion with Yoko Ono, after his co-called “Lost Weekend.”

One turns out to be true, while the other most certainly is not.

Sadly, history replaced them both. The beauty of this night, the fun, and even the hagiography of a romance rekindled would be tragically obscured by Lennon’s awful murder a little more than six years later. A hail of assassin’s bullets ensured that this offhand stage performance – unannounced that night, until just before Lennon came on stage – would be the former Beatles star’s last.

It began with the bet. Elton John sang and played piano on both “Surprise Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)” and “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” for Lennon’s 1974 album Walls and Bridges. To that point, Lennon had been the only former Beatle who’d never achieved a solo No. 1 single – a streak John suggested would be snapped by “Whatever.” So confident was Elton, in fact, that he offered to make a little wager.

“He sang harmony on it and he really did a damn good job,” Lennon told David Sheff in 1980. “So, I sort of halfheartedly promised that if ‘Whatever Gets You Thru the Night’ became No. 1, which I had no reason to expect, I’d do Madison Square Garden with him. So one day Elton called and said, ‘Remember when you promised …'”

“Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” had just moved past Bachman-Turner Overdrive‘s “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” that November to top the Billboard singles charts.

Lennon most recent full-length performance was 1972’s One to One concert, also held at the Garden. To get over the pre-show jitters, he actually slipped into an earlier Elton John show at Boston. “I was thinking ‘Thank God it isn’t me,’ as he was getting dressed to go on,” Lennon told Scheff. “I went through my stage fright at Boston so, by the time I got to Madison Square, I had a good time – and when I walked on they were all screaming and shouting. It was like Beatlemania. I was thinking ‘What is this?’ ’cause I hadn’t heard it since the Beatles.”

Carrying a black Fender Telecaster, Lennon performed three songs, opening with the new hit then following with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” – which Elton John had recently covered with Lennon on vocals and guitar, releasing it just 10 days before this show – and a surprise nugget from even further back in the Beatles catalog.

Listen to John Lennon and Elton John Perform ‘I Saw Her Standing There’

“He suggested ‘I Saw Her Standing There,'” Lennon told Scheff, “and I thought ‘great,’ because I never sang the original of that. Paul [McCartney] sang it and I did the harmony.” On stage, Lennon introduced the old favorite with an impish quip: “We tried to think of a number to finish off with so I can get out of here and be sick, and we thought we’d do a number of an old, estranged fiance of mine, called Paul. This is one I never sang. It’s an old Beatle number, and we just about know it.”

Lennon later admitted his on-stage partner was in tears. “I just went up and did a few numbers, but the emotional thing was me and Elton together,” Lennon told Pete Hamill in 1975. “Elton had been working in [early Beatles music publisher] Dick James’ office when we used to send our demos in, and there’s a long sort of relationship musically with Elton that people don’t really know about. He has this sort of Beatle thing from way back. … Well, it meant a lot to me and it meant a hell of a lot to Elton.”

The set list was actually a point of contention, as Elton initially insisted that Lennon perform his 1971 anthem “Imagine.” Lennon demurred, telling Scheff that he “didn’t want to come on like Dean Martin doing my classic hits. I wanted to have some fun and play some rock and roll – and I didn’t want to do more than three, because it was Elton’s show after all.” Their live take on “I Saw Her Standing There” later appeared as the b-side to Elton John’s single “Philadelphia Freedom” in February 1975.

By then, Yoko Ono and John Lennon were back together – ending a separation that began in the summer of 1973. In truth, however, this concert provided only the first stirrings of reconciliation after a lengthy period away. That era, often referred to by Lennon as his “Lost Weekend,” was dotted with the headline-grabbing foibles of a single man on the prowl again. But Lennon had also been on a creative tear.

Beyond the success of “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night,” this same 16-month era of reckless second bachelorhood found him scoring a Top 10 hit with “#9 Dream” and a Top 20 hit in his remake of “Stand By Me”; making important assists on a pair of other No. 1 smashes (David Bowie’s “Fame,” as well as Elton John’s update of “Lucy”); giving away notable songs to Ringo Starr (the Top 10 hit “Goodnight Vienna“), Johnny Winter (“Rock and Roll People”) and Keith Moon (“Move Over Ms. L”); and producing Harry Nilsson’s 1974 album Pussy Cats.

Most of that was obscured, however, in a haze of booze-soaked debauchery. “Suddenly, I was out on me own,” Lennon told Hamill. “Next thing, I’d be waking up, drunk, in strange places or reading about meself in the paper, doin’ extraordinary things – half of which I’d done and half of which I hadn’t done, but you know the game, anyway.”

Listen to John Lennon and Elton John Perform ‘Lucy in the Sky’

Lennon subsequently insisted that he was unaware that his wife was in the audience on this historic occasion at Madison Square Garden. But Lennon actually arranged for tickets, and Ono in turn sent the orchids that Lennon and Elton John memorably sported on stage. Nevertheless, what happened following the show was undoubtedly real. “She was backstage afterward, and there was just that moment when we saw each other and like, it’s like in the movies, you know, when time stands still?” Lennon said. “And there was silence. Everything went silent, y’know, and we were just sort of lookin’ at each other.”

After the concert, however, Lennon and May Pang – the assistant with whom Lennon had been in a relationship while living and working in Los Angeles – left together for a party at a New York hotel. There was even a rumor that the couple was planning to buy a home in one of the city’s boroughs, before Lennon returned to Ono. In the interim, Lennon reportedly wooed Yoko as if they were unwed singles, taking her to a exhibition of work by Man Ray, and to the movies.

Years later, Ono admitted that it was actually McCartney who had played a critical role in saving this marriage. She says Paul and his wife Linda visited Ono in early 1974, and the subject of reconciling with John loomed large. McCartney then traveled to L.A., advising Lennon to return to New York and work on his relationship. McCartney might have figured that Ono was the only one who could save his old friend. Certainly, a drug-fueled attempt at collaborating – also, alas, Lennon and McCartney’s last together – had gone nowhere.

After the release of Lennon’s oldies package Rock ‘n’ Roll in February 1975, he filmed a three-song television appearance in honor of latter-day Beatles music publisher Sir Lew Grade, which aired that summer. In the fall, Ono gave birth to their son Sean – on the elder Lennon’s birthday, no less. A five-year retirement followed, as Lennon focused on being a father, then there was a short-lived comeback before he was tragically gunned down by a lunatic fan on the streets of his adopted hometown.

John Lennon would never perform on stage again – making his first words after the Elton John collaboration eerily prophetic. “When I came off stage,” Lennon told Scheff, “I said to the waiting journalists, ‘It was good fun, but I wouldn’t like to do it for a living.'”

See John Lennon in Rock’s Craziest Conspiracy Theories

The Rolling Stones have been around a long time.

Long enough, certainly, for their catalog to amass a collection of cover versions from artists spanning genres and generations.

The great thing about Stones songs is that they can be interpreted just about every which way from straight rock ‘n’ roll to slow blues. In the list below, using data from secondhandsongs.com, we’ve compiled the 20 Most-Covered Rolling Stones Songs, with each entry featuring one cover version.

20. “Get Off of My Cloud” and “No Expectations”
From: 1965 Single/Beggars Banquet (1968)
Number of Covers: 60

Tying for 20th place with 60 covers each is “Get Off of My Cloud,” a 1965 single, and “No Expectations” from 1968’s Beggars Banquet. Joan Baez‘s version of the latter is below, from 1970’s The First Ten Years, an album that also included covers of Bob Dylan, Donovan and more.

 

19. “Dead Flowers”
From: Sticky Fingers (`1971)
Number of Covers: 61

In 2011, Scott Weiland released an entire album of covers titled A Compilation of Scott Weiland Cover Songs, full of songs by artists Weiland admired over the years. “Dead Flowers” was included on it. “I think I’m more of a Keith [Richards] person, because, you know, Mick [Jagger] is more the business guy, he keeps the band together that way,” Weiland told Esquire in 2015. “I’m more of a music person, so I identify more with Keith, but Mick had a huge influence on the way I perform.”

 

18. “Brown Sugar”
From: Sticky Fingers (1971)
Number of Covers: 64

From the very beginning, the Rolling Stones looked up to Little Richard. What a full circle moment it must have been for them then when Little Richard recorded a groovy cover of the Stones’ “Brown Sugar” for his 1971 album The King of Rock and Roll. “He was the biggest inspiration of my early teens and his music still has the same raw electric energy when you play it now as it did when it first shot through the music scene in the mid ’50s,” Jagger wrote on social media when Richard passed in 2020. “When we were on tour with him I would watch his moves every night and learn from him how to entertain and involve the audience and he was always so generous with advice to me.”

 

17. “Miss You”
From: Some Girls (1978)
Number of Covers: 66

Ann Peebles has interpreted the work of many, but her version of the Rolling Stones’ “Miss You” sounds like it was practically written for her, even with the similar song arrangement. (In fact, she even name-checks another one of her covers in the song itself: 1973’s “I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down.”) A special shoutout should be given to Sugar Ray Norcia who played the blistering harmonica solo.

 

16. “Lady Jane”
From: Aftermath (1966)
Number of Covers: 72

Trini Lopez’s cover of “Lady Jane” stays mostly true to the song’s original intention, but there’s a hint of Spanish-sounding guitar and of course, Lopez’s voice is a lot smoother than Jagger’s. This cover appears on the 1967 album Trini Lopez in London.

 

15. “Under My Thumb”
From: Aftermath (1966)
Number of Covers: 79

It would be fair to say that the Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb” has not aged very well — it’s best to avoid singing about putting women down. But in 1975 Tina Turner took some power in singing it herself, changing the pronouns and including it on her Acid Queen album. The year after that, Turner was finally able to leave her abusive husband Ike Turner and be free from his controlling and violent behavior.

 

14. “Let’s Spend the Night Together”
From: Between the Buttons (1967)
Number of Covers: 80

You may not think the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead had much in common, but Jerry Garcia evidently had a soft spot for the British bad boys, consistently covering “Let’s Spend the Night Together” with the Jerry Garcia Band over the years. Below is an extra special version featuring Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen‘s E Street Band.

 

13. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”
From: Let It Bleed (1969)
Number of Covers: 87

There are many frontmen who worship at the altar of Mick Jagger. But Jagger himself looked up to Aretha Franklin, who offered her interpretation of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” on her 1981 album Love All the Hurt Away. “She was so inspiring,” Jagger wrote on social media after Franklin’s passing in 2018, “and wherever you were she always brought you to church.”

 

12. “Play With Fire”
From: 1965 Single
Number of Covers: 88

The Rolling Stones walked so bands like the Heartbreakers could run. “Everything comes from somebody,” Johnny Thunders once said in an interview. Thunders recorded a version of “Play With Fire” in the ’90s. “I mean, Keith Richards took it from Chuck Berry, I took it from Keith Richards, you know?”

 

11. “Gimme Shelter”
From: Let It Bleed (1969)
Number of Covers: 118

Merry Clayton set the bar incredibly high when she recorded her vocal for “Gimme Shelter” — a scorching part that squeaks and screeches in all the right rock ‘n’ roll ways. Patti Smith put a new, expressive spin on it for her 2007 album Twelve, which also featured covers of Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, the Doors and more.

 

10. “Angie”
From: Goats Head Soup (1973)
Number of Covers: 120

Tori Amos’ version of “Angie” is possibly the most hauntingly beautiful rendition of a Stones song on this list. Stripped of any other instrumentation save a piano and Amos’ delicate vocal, it was included in her set lists for over a decade.

 

9. “Ruby Tuesday”
From: Between the Buttons (1967)
Number of Covers: 126

The original “Ruby Tuesday” is light, airy and a bit whimsical. Nazareth‘s 1984 version is the complete opposite. But Nazareth frankly had a knack for transforming the songs of others into their own sound — you may also want to check out their covers of things like “The Weight” by the Band or “This Flight Tonight” by Joni Mitchell.

 

8. “Sympathy for the Devil”
From: Beggars Banquet (1968)
Number of Covers: 127

Let’s be real: Axl Rose has the sort of wailing rock ‘n’ roll voice made for a song like “Sympathy for the Devil.” Guns N’ Roses‘ version of the song appeared over the ending credits of the 1994 film Interview With the Vampire. “We have lots of influences, but the Stones are most definitely a big part of it,” Rose told the Los Angeles Times in 1989. “As a band, we haven’t seemed to wear out the Stones yet. We keep learning more and more from them…about the fact you are able to do anything you want in your music.”

 

7. “Wild Horses”
From: Sticky Fingers (1971)
Number of Covers: 132

There would not be the Rolling Stones without blues music — it was the foundation on which they laid their sound on even in their early years. It’s fitting then that someone like Otis Clay, a Blues Hall of Famer, would choose to record their music. In 2002, Clay contributed a soulful rendition of “Wild Horses” to the tribute album All Blues’d Up: Songs of the Rolling Stones.

 

6. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”
From: 1968 Single
Number of Covers: 132

Believe it or not, there was a brief window of time where the Rolling Stones considered having Peter Frampton join the band following the departure of Mick Taylor at the end of 1974. Two years before that, Frampton had included a cover of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” on his album Wind of Change. Frampton ultimately was not invited into the Stones, but things turned out fine in the long run — he went on to enjoy enormous success with 1976’s Frampton Comes Alive!

 

5. “As Tears Go By”
From: 1965 Single
Number of Covers: 161

Before the Rolling Stones themselves even recorded “As Tears Go By” Marianne Faithfull had a hit with it. Here is another woman’s interpretation of it, recorded by the singer-songwriter Melanie.

 

4. “The Last Time”
From: 1965 Single
Number of Covers: 166

In 1967, two years after the Stones released it, the Who put their own spin on “The Last Time.” “The Stones really affected me very, very deeply, their wildness on the stage, the fact that they didn’t wear uniforms,” Pete Townshend said in a 1979 radio broadcast. “This kind of thing was very, just, outrageous, you know. Jagger’s stage performance and Keith Richards’ stage performance, which is just very, very wild and unkempt. They were the first, I think, the closest to sort of a latter-day punk image.”

 

3. “Country Honk”
From: 1969 Single
Number of Covers: 169

Truthfully, this writer didn’t really expect “Country Honk” to have this many cover versions, but here we are at No. 3. Here is a rendition from one of country’s most prominent names, Waylon Jennings, who really let the song’s roots show.

 

2. “Paint It, Black”
From: Aftermath (1966)
Number of Covers: 285

What if “Paint It, Black” was a heavy metal song? Look no further than W.A.S.P.‘s cover of the song, which was released on a 1998 CD reissue of their debut album.

 

1. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
From: Out of Our Heads (1965)
Number of Covers: 380

The below cover looks and sounds like some kind of fever dream one might have: Devo in full Devo garb playing the Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” And Jagger definitely approved — Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale of Devo played it for him in 1978 before they released it. “He suddenly stood up and started dancing around on this Afghan rug in front of the fireplace,” Casale later recalled of Jagger, “the sort of rooster-man dance he used to do, and saying ‘I like it, I like it.’ Mark and I lit up, big smiles on our faces, like in Wayne’s World: ‘We’re not worthy!’ To see your icon that you grew up admiring, that you had seen in concert, dancing around, like Mick Jagger being Mick Jagger. It was unbelievable.”

A war of words seems to be brewing between two of England’s most beloved bands.

In a recent conversation with NME, Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock was asked about the excitement surrounding Oasis’ 2025 reunion tour. In response, the bassist said he didn’t understand the fervor, and even went so far as to call Oasis boring.

“If you’re a fan, [the excitement is] understandable. They’ve got lots of fans,” Matlock noted. “I’ve always seen Oasis as a bit Status Quo. [With Quo], to hear one song once was enough. It’s a bit like that with Oasis: to hear one song once is enough.”

The bassist insisted he had nothing personal against Oasis, even calling the Gallaghers “nice blokes.” “I think Liam is fantastic. He sings great – he’s like Johnny Rotten but can carry a tune. He’s got a magnetic stage personality: he can just stand there and it’s riveting. The rest of the guys? No. I think they’re boring live. I’d never go to see ‘em.”

READ MORE: Oasis Adds More Dates to North American Tour

Adding another wrinkle to the conversation, Matlock revealed he was actually invited to work with Oasis in the ‘90s.

“There was a bit of talk about me helping them out with bass a long time ago – in ’95, ’96 – and then they sorted out the problem they had with the bloke who was doing it,” he recalled. “I got invited to see ‘em at Earl’s Court. I left. It was boring. I went again to see ‘em in upstate New York with [Blondie’s] Clem Burke. Nah – I couldn’t wait to go.”

Liam Gallagher Responds to Glen Matlock

Naturally, word of Matlock’s criticism reached Liam Gallagher. When a Twitter follower asked what he thought of the comments, the outspoken singer was forthright.

“Fuck him. Sid was the Pistols,” Gallagher declared, referring to Sid Vicious, the bassist who replaced Matlock in 1977.

READ MORE: Paul Cook Admits Sex Pistols Firing Glen Matlock Was ‘Stupid’

Oasis’ reunion tour kicks off July 4 in Cardiff, Wales, with North American dates starting in August. Meanwhile, the Sex Pistols – with singer Frank Carter in place of Johnny Rotten – are rumored to be touring in 2025 as well.

Lou Gramm has opened up about what went wrong with Shadow King, the super group her fronted in the early ‘90s.

Shadow King’s lineup was impressive, with guitarist Vivian Campbell, drummer Kevin Valentine and bass player Bruce Turgon joining Gramm in the band.

“When I knew I wanted to do something else, Bruce Turgon and I spoke to Vivian and got together with him in California,” Gramm recalled during a recent conversation with Sirius XM’s Eddie Trunk. “We started jamming on some song ideas and we mutually decided to start a band.”

“It was touted as a very hot new band,” Gramm continued, noting excitement at the record label surrounding Shadow King. “We had hoped that when the album came out, that they would get behind it.”

READ MORE: Top 10 Foreigner Songs

Still, when the band released their self-titled debut in 1991, it was met with disappointing sales. Gramm believes the group’s record label dropped the ball.

“We recorded that album on Atlantic Records and we assumed that it would get a lot of promotion and that we would be promoted properly as a new band,” he explained. “And, the thing was, it never was promoted properly.”

“It never got the push from Atlantic Records that we hoped any new band would,” he continued. “And, the other thing was, I heard from a lot of people that they couldn’t find any of the copies in the record store.”

Did Mick Jones Sabotage Shadow King?

Gramm further noted that Shadow King was ready to do a world tour in support of their debut, but things came to a grinding halt due to low album sales. The singer then theorized why Atlantic Records – which was also home to his former band, Foreigner – may have withdrawn their support.

“I was told that, just before the album came out, Mick [Jones] had a talk with (label co-founder) Ahmet Ertegun, the chairman of WEA (Warner-Elektra-Atlantic) and whoever at the time was the president of Atlantic, and told them that if Shadow King achieved success, then Lou will never come back with Foreigner.”

Shadow King disbanded at the end of 1991 and never released another album. Gramm returned to Foreigner the following year.

Blue Oyster Cult‘s Buck Dharma reflected again on the immortal Saturday Night Live “More Cowbell” sketch that lampooned their hit song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” saying the results were ultimately positive — even if it forced the band to take preventative measures in concert.

The sketch, which aired on April 8, 2000, starred Will Ferrell as fictional band member Gene Frenkle and Christopher Walken as producer Bruce Dickinson. Ferrell, dressed in a ridiculously tight and low-cut shirt, plays the cowbell so aggressively while recording “Reaper” that he distracts and infuriates his bandmates. Walken, however, is obsessed with capturing more of the “dynamite sound,” famously declaring, “I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!”

“More Cowbell” has become one of the most popular sketches in SNL history, and it’s changed the lives of those involved, for better or worse. But as Dharma told Vulture, the good has outweighed the bad.

READ MORE: Top 25 ‘Saturday Night Live’ Cast Members of All Time

Why Blue Oyster Cult Had to Ban Cowbells at Their Shows

“It’s funny to think about,” Dharma said. “I feel bonded to Will and Christopher in a way, because we’re all at the mercy of the cowbell sketch in different ways. I feel a little bit of kinship and sympathy with them. Will’s character, Gene Frenkle, was made up. We dedicate the song to him sometimes. But I would tell Christopher: It’s all bearable, I suppose. Blue Oyster Cult got through it and we persevered. When we play ‘Reaper,’ people still mimic playing the cowbell, and we had to ban people from bringing actual cowbells to the concerts. But, again, it’s a tiny cross to bear.”

The “More Cowbell” sketch was so popular that it even forced Blue Oyster Cult to retroactively add cowbell to live performances of their hit song. “For 20-odd years, we didn’t use a live cowbell for our shows and never considered it,” Dharma explained. “We had to play the cowbell because there was just no getting away from it. I’m grateful that as significant as the sketch is — because after 25 years, it still is — it didn’t kill the song, its original intent, or its original mood. It’s still used as a cue in horror movies when you want that mysterious and metaphysically uneasy vibe. So I’m glad the sketch didn’t kill the song and didn’t make it one big joke.”

As for whether Walken’s prescription for more of the signature instrument was correct, Dharma said: “I think the cowbell was just as loud as it should be.”

Lots of people like listening to Billy Joel sing, but not the Piano Man himself.

In a new interview with John Mayer on the guitarist’s recently launched radio show How’s Life, Joel spoke about consistently feeling let down by his own vocal abilities.

“I always wanted to sing like somebody else — I never liked my own voice,” he said. “I would go in the studio and I’d do a recording and I’d come back in the control room and listen and go ‘Oh God, it’s that guy.’ And I’d always be disappointed — no matter how good I thought the writing was, I never liked my own voice. Always wanted to sound like somebody else.”

READ MORE: Top 20 Billy Joel Songs

One way he skirts around this, he says, is by trying to channel other singers he admires, including Ray Charles, Sting and Elvis Costello — “people with these wonderful voices,” he explained.

Billy Joel, Songwriter Not Singer

This is not the first time Joel has opened up about not liking his voice. He ran into the issue most recently when recording his newest single, “Turn the Lights Back On,” his first piece of original material in nearly two decades.

“Freddy [Wexler, the song’s co-writer and producer] asked me, ‘Are you thinking of somebody else when you’re singing?’ And I said, ‘Always,'” Joel said to WBLM-FM earlier this year. “I’m always trying to sound like not Billy Joel, because I don’t like my own voice. I like other singers. I’m a songwriter, because I can think about other people singing this stuff, not me.”

Joel has just one more concert on the books for 2024, scheduled for Dec. 31 in Belmont, New York.

Longtime fans will tell you Bruce Springsteen‘s studio records are only half the story; his legendary concert performances are the other, and maybe more essential, part.

From the start of his career with the release of his debut album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., at the beginning of 1973, Springsteen was blessed with record-company promotional muscle; they not only got behind his records, but they also supported his growing live reputation at every opportunity.

In 1974, rock critic Jon Landau (who soon became Springsteen’s manager and a coproducer of his records) proclaimed, ” I saw rock ‘n’ roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen”; a year later, shortly after the release of Born to Run, Springsteen appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek the same week, with both publications touting his growing stage reputation and epic-length live performances.

READ MORE: Bruce Springsteen Albums Ranked

The below list of Bruce Springsteen Live Albums Ranked includes stops at nearly every stage of his career: from post-Born in the U.S.A. superstardom to the late-’90s E Street Band reunion to a record-setting Broadway show where he looked back at his life with grace, humor and nostalgia. (The ranking does not include the dozens of albums issued in Springsteen’s official live archive series; The Roxy July 7, 1978 release from the series, one of the greatest live records ever, is highly recommended.)

Through it all Springsteen remains one of music’s most popular entertainers. His live albums can’t quite capture the essence of being at one of his concerts, but the best come close.

Heart helped to break important ground for the wave of female artists and bands who followed in the wake of their success. But at the core of the Seattle-bred group’s beginnings, it was all about the music.

“When we started out, [it] was not a gender-specific story,” Nancy Wilson shares in the latest episode of the UCR Podcast, which you can listen to below. “The interesting thing about how Heart started was that we were in democracies with guys in bands, you know. So we were never, you know, female-specific about anything. We just were just one of the guys, in many ways, just slogging away side by side with some great players.”

As the band began to build a name, tensions would develop between the Wilson sisters and the other members, but their perceived dominance happened organically, she says now. “We grew up in a super-musical family, with all levels of music and styles,” she explains. “We [had[ the advantage as two girls and sisters in the Heart context, to be the songwriters. Then, after that, we got the attention, being at the center focus of it all.”

READ MORE: Top 10 Heart Songs

All of this created an interesting dynamic, “being singled out as women,” she adds. “We weren’t feminists, we were just strong military brats with a really big work ethic that wanted to be like the Beatles….and by the time we came out in the mid-’70s, everything was possible in music. There was Janis Joplin and Grace Slick and then here comes Fleetwood Mac. Heart was just a natural progression in the family of music at the time.”

Listen to Nancy Wilson on the ‘UCR Podcast’

Flashing forward, Wilson will share the things that she’s learned at the third annual Women’s Rock Camp, happening Dec. 5 through Dec. 8 in Los Angeles. She sees that there’s been a lot of progress in the time since she first began making music. “It’s an interesting time right now in music,” the songwriter admits. “Because, you know, it’s not so wildly crazy to see women out there doing it — you’ve got boygenius now and [so many] cool [artists like] Courtney Barnett and also, the Last Dinner Party opening up for the [Rolling] Stones and stuff like that. It’s not so such a rarefied, unusual thing anymore for women to step forward and be counted as rockers and and a force in music.”

Heart will resume its Royal Flush tour starting in February with a rotating cast of special guests including Cheap Trick, Squeeze and Lucinda Williams.

How would you like to win an exclusive U2 How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb vinyl? Well, here’s your chance!

In celebration of 20th anniversary of U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2 have released How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb, which is a collection of 10 unearthed songs from the original recording sessions.

This special vinyl release is exclusive to Record Store Day’s Black Friday promotion, but we’ve got our own exclusive version of this black and red marble vinyl that can be yours.

The Edge said of How To Re-Assemble An Atomic Bomb, “The sessions for How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb were such a creative period for the band, we were exploring so many song ideas in the studio. We were inspired to revisit our early music influences, and it was a time of deep personal introspection for Bono who was attempting to process – dismantle – the death of his father.

“For this anniversary edition I went into my personal archive to see if there were any unreleased gems and I hit the jackpot. We chose ten that really spoke to us. Although at the time we left these songs to one side, with the benefit of hindsight we recognize that our initial instincts about them being contenders for the album were right, we were onto something.

“What you’re getting on this shadow album is that raw energy of discovery, the visceral impact of the music, a sonic narrative, a moment in time, the exploration and interaction of four musicians playing together in a room… this is the pure U2 drop.”

This shadow album includes new, never-before-heard or previously released songs – “Treason,” “Evidence of Life,” “Country Mile” and “Happiness”; plus a song called “Luckiest Man In The World” – familiar to fans under its working title “Mercy.” An early demo of the song was leaked online almost 20 years ago and now it’s getting its official release.

The set also comes with five newly remastered songs – “Picture of You (X+W),” “I Don’t Wanna See You Smile,” “Are We Gonna Wait Forever?,” “Theme From The Batman” and “All Because Of You 2” – all collected together for the first time.

The track listing for How To Re-Assemble An Atomic Bomb is:

1. Picture of You (X+W)
2. Evidence of Life
3. Luckiest Man in the World
4. Treason
5. I Don’t Wanna See You Smile
6. Country Mile
7. Happiness
8. Are We Gonna Wait Forever?
9. Theme From The Batman
10. All Because of You 2

You can also purchase the How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb 20th anniversary edition and its How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb shadow album at https://atomicbomb.u2.com.

READ MORE: The Most Played Songs Live by 35 Big Alt-Rock Bands

But wait, there’s more! In addition to the How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb exclusive vinyl, there’s a 4-LP Songs of Surrender box set that we’re including as well. That collection featured 40 new acoustic & re-imagined recordings from the U2 catalogue. It’s a limited edition, numbered box set.that includes four individual band member vinyl sleeves, new lyrics from Bono, liner notes from The Edge and exclusive photos from acclaimed photographer and video director Anton Corbijn.

That’s quite the U2 package and you can win it by entering your contact details in the entry box provided below. Should your name be chosen as a winner, we’ll reach out to make sure you’ve got this incredible U2 vinyl package featuring both the How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb exclusive vinyl and the Songs of Surrender vinyl box set.

Be sure to enter before the Dec. 4, 2024 deadline.

Alice Cooper will welcome a familiar face to the stage for a string of shows in early 2025: former guitarist Orianthi, who’s filling in for Cooper’s current guitarist (and Orianthi’s own replacement) Nita Strauss.

Orianthi — the Australian shredder who also rehearsed with Michael Jackson for the This Is It concert series prior to his death — will join Cooper for a slate of shows from Jan. 31 through Feb. 16, as Strauss has conflicting obligations of her own during that time. She previously toured with Cooper from 2011 to 2014 and will be joined on guitar by other Cooper mainstays Ryan Roxie and Tommy Henriksen.

You can see the full list of affected tour dates below.

READ MORE: Hear Black Keys’ Macabre Alice Cooper Collab ‘Stay in Your Grave’

See Alice Cooper’s Statement on Orianthi Filling in for Nita Strauss

“When Orianthi moved on to pursue her own career in 2014, we were lucky to find Nita,” Cooper said in a statement. “Over the past decade, Nita, Chuck and Tommy have also launched their own projects, and we always try to coordinate our schedule so we can keep the band together, but these shows came up after Nita had already committed to another tour. So I reached out to Orianthi, and thankfully she was available to jump back in, so we’re all really looking forward to doing these shows with her. I’m so fortunate to always have such great musicians to work with.”

This isn’t the first time Cooper has changed his touring lineup on short notice. In 2022, Strauss took a temporary leave of absence from Cooper’s band to tour with Demi Lovato, and the shock-rock titan brought back his ’80s collaborator Kane Roberts, known for his machine gun guitar and Rambo-like physique.

Cooper will soon share more 2025 tour dates with Strauss back in the fold. He’s already announced his appearance at the Sonic Temple festival in Columbus, Ohio, on May 9 and an opening slot for My Chemical Romance on Aug. 15 at the Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

Alice Cooper 2025 Tour Dates With Orianthi

Jan. 31 – Augusta, GA @ The Bell Auditorium
Feb. 1 – Cherokee, NC @ Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort
Feb. 2 – Greensboro, NC @ Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts
Feb. 4 – Mobile, AL @ Saenger Theatre Mobile
Feb. 6 – Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live Orlando
Feb. 7 – Ft Myers, FL @ Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall at FSW
Feb. 8 – Clearwater, FL @ The BayCare Sound at Coachman Park
Feb. 11 – St. Augustine, FL @ St. Augustine Amphitheatre
Feb. 13-17 – Miami, FL @ Rock Legends Cruise

Eagles have extended their schedule of 2025 concerts through mid-April. As with all of their dates for the new year, the just-announced shows will take place at Las Vegas’ Sphere as part of the band’s residency.

The four new shows added to the schedule will happen on Fridays and Saturdays during the first half of April. The previously scheduled concerts run through March 15.

With these updated dates, Eagles’ total number of performances at Sphere now comes to 32 shows over 16 weekends. The band launched the concert series at the Las Vegas venue in September. The set lists have included songs that span their five-decade career, such as “Take It Easy,” “Lyin’ Eyes,” “Hotel California” and “Heartache Tonight.”

READ MORE: How Eagles Galloped Into the Old West on ‘Desperado’

The shows have also featured solo cuts from Eagles cofounder Don Henley – “The Boys of Summer” – and guitarist Joe Walsh, who takes the spotlight for “Rocky Mountain Way.”

Presale tickets for the new dates begin on Dec. 3 at 1 p.m. EST; Live Nation and SiriusXM presales start Dec. 5 at 1 p.m. EST.

When Are Eagles Playing Concerts in 2025?

Eagles’ next scheduled performance in its Live in Concert at Sphere residency takes place on Dec. 6. They have four shows through the end of 2024 over the first two weekends before taking off a month. The 2025 concerts resume on Jan. 17, with the the four new dates scheduled for April 4, 5, 11 and 12.

Eagles’ concert dates at Las Vegas’ Sphere are below; more information can be found on the band’s website.

Eagles Live in Concert at Sphere
Friday, December 6
Saturday, December 7
Friday, December 13
Saturday, December 14
Friday, January 17
Saturday, January 18
Friday, January 24
Saturday, January 25
Friday, February 14, 2025
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Friday, February 21, 2025
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Friday, March 7, 2025
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Friday, March 14, 2025
Saturday, March 15, 2025
Friday, April 4, 2025
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Friday, April 11, 2025
Saturday, April 12, 2025

U2 guitarist the Edge said the band is working with Brian Eno on music with an Irish folk element, which could appear on their next album.

Following 2017’s Songs of Experience, U2 released Songs of Surrender last year, featuring new recordings of old material. They’ve just released How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb, containing unreleased sessions from 2004.

In 2023 the Edge hinted that he was interested in making more aggressive music, saying, “I’ve been working on new stuff … that’s much more vital and requires a U2 band sound to fulfill it. I’m not sure U2 are going to turn into AC/DC exactly. … But I’m absolutely convinced that the guitar is going to be front and center.”

READ MORE: How U2 Introduced Themselves With the Punky and Thoughtful ‘Boy’

In a new interview with BBC Radio 2, the Edge referred to “crazy new music” under production with Eno, adding that “Bono and I are working on some crazy kind of sci-fi Irish folk music, which could end up becoming a part of the new U2 album. We’re not sure yet; we’ll see.”

He added, “Part of our kind of process is to go so widely away from, off track, and … the process of bringing things back on track is kind of how you get sort of unique sounding music.”

The guitarist also mentioned that “a bunch of beautiful Irish musicians” were involved in the project.

Larry Mullen Has Returned to Work with U2

“We’re at that great phase where we don’t have to overthink it,” he continued. “We’re just making music and loving that process. And then we’ll figure out where things belong afterwards. So there’s a couple of different projects.”

Drummer Larry Mullen, who’d taken time out since September 2023 for surgery, has also returned to work with U2. Describing the reunion as “wonderful,” the Edge noted, “We’ve got him in the studio. He’s good. He’s taking it easy, but he’s back in the saddle on the drums [and] doing some recording with us. And so we’ll be doing a bit more of that before the end of the year.”

Elvis Costello understands great songwriting, and he sees a similar trait between the works of two other acclaimed artists: Bob Dylan and Taylor Swift.

During an appearance on the Rockonteurs podcast, Costello discussed his 1986 LP King of America. The album was a notable departure for the English rocker, as he delved into folk, country, roots and Americana. Many of the songs were steeped in personal experiences, but as Costello recalled, he had to find a way to make them accessible to listeners.

“All I was doing was reciting things that were happening to me,” the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer explained. “And I know that can be interesting to hear. But it doesn’t necessarily engage the listener because they don’t know what you’re talking about.”

READ MORE: How Elvis Costello Reinvented Himself on ‘King of America’

Costello went on to explain how he learned “from the best people who do this,” studying the “element of craft that comes after the desire to express these rawer emotions.”

One such example was Dylan, who Costello said used a sense of “revelation and invention” to make his songs feel more universal. “[It] is something that marks out a lot of the Blood on the Tracks songs by Bob Dylan, where one minute they seem to be very raw emotion,” Costello explained. “The next minute they’re clearly invention. And that keeps you guessing.”

“I’m not just trying to say this to be down with the kids, but it’s also what makes Taylor Swift speak to people,” Costello continued. “She understands the necessity of taking personal experience, but expressing it in a way that’s [relatable]. There’s lots of other examples of that, she’s just the most successful one that you could cite. But that’s why she’s able to sustain communication with her audience in quite that way.”

This isn’t the first time Costello has spoken highly of Swift. “I think we’ll all be working for her eventually,” the bespectacled rocker told Best Fit in 2022. “She’s smart and she knows what she’s doing. She can write and sing, and people love it.”

Taylor Swift With Rock Stars

The albums covered in UCR’s review section include new releases by legacy bands, reissues of classic albums by some of the genre’s biggest names and, occasionally, records by more recent artists we think are worth hearing.

Below are highlights from more than two dozen albums reviewed by UCR during 2024, listed chronologically – from January’s Green Day release through the latest by U2 from late November.

All of the albums are recommended by UCR’s writers, whose brief thoughts on the records are excerpted below. To get more insight into what makes these albums among the year’s biggest and best, links to the full reviews are provided. Check them out; they’re well worth exploring.

Green Day, Saviors

Green Day’s 14th album was produced by Rob Cavallo, who worked on Dookie and American Idiot. “Despite the occasional looking-back-at-life subject matter, Saviors is an old-school pop-punk record that’s not quite grown up but not exactly springing with fresh life either.”

Read the full review

 

Mick Mars, The Other Side of Mars

The debut solo album from former Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars was years in the making. “The 10 songs mostly exist within the same scorched world as Motley Crue’s riff-heavy music.”

Read the full review

 

Ace Frehley, 10,000 Volts

The latest solo album by former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley checks in between his various Origins projects. “Despite its missteps, 10,000 Volts is a victory for Frehley, if not an absolute knockout.”

Read the full review

 

Bruce Dickinson, The Mandrake Project

The seventh solo album by Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson marks his first in almost 20 years. “[Dickinson] proves that after nearly a half-century, he’s still hell-bent on pushing himself to new heights, regardless of who’s backing him.”

Read the full review

 

Judas Priest, Invincible Shield

The 19th album by metal heavyweights Judas Priest is their first since being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. “This is Judas Priest operating at near hall-of-fame levels.”

Read the full review

 

The Black Crowes, Happiness Bastards

The reunited Robinson brothers put aside their differences for the first Black Crowes album of original material since 2009. “There’s reassurance in their passion, which hasn’t softened much over three and a half decades. It’s good to have them back.”

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The Black Keys, Ohio Players

The Akron duo gets help from Beck and Noel Gallagher on their 12th album. “Ohio Players has a great start but loses some of its enthusiasm along the way.”

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Blue Oyster Cult, Ghost Stories

Blue Oyster Cult headed to their vault for a new album of songs that began life between 1978 and 1983. “By dusting off these lost tracks, Ghost Stories serves as a reminder that there are still pieces of history to be mined from rock’s forgotten past.”

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Mark Knopfler, One Deep River

Former Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler’s 10th solo album is his first since 2018’s Down the Road Wherever. “Knopfler makes clear that he still finds solace in song. One Deep River simply confirms that those songs will arrive on their own more slow-moving currents.”

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Pearl Jam, Dark Matter

Pearl Jam‘s 12th album was produced by Andrew Watt, who also worked on Eddie Vedder‘s 2022 solo record. “Like Gigaton four years earlier, [Dark Matter] finds Pearl Jam wrestling shared doubts about the future. More often than not, they claim a tentative victory.”

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Melvins, Tarantula Heart

Melvins‘ 27th album was recorded over two sessions in 2022 and 2023. “This many years on, Melvins are still finding new ways to display their venerable sludge.”

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Sebastian Bach, Child Within the Man

Onetime Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach returned with his first album in a decade. “This is music with roots in the late-’80s Sunset Strip scene, caterwauling guitars linked hand-in-hand with larynx-shredding vocals and an air of forced doom hanging over almost every note.”

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Kings of Leon, Can We Please Have Fun

The ninth album by Kings of Leon was produced by Kid Harpoon, who worked on Harry Styles’ Grammy-winning Harry’s House. “This is the most unrestricted they’ve sounded since 2010’s Come Around Sundown.”

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Little Feat, Sam’s Place

Sam’s Place was billed as Little Feat‘s first blues album. “The result is an inviting opportunity to more deeply explore one of the small, good things that always girded Little Feat. They’re very much at home in Sam’s Place.”

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John Oates, Reunion

The latest solo album by John Oates arrived amid turmoil in Hall & Oates‘ partnership. “Reunion feels authentically Oates’ own, a statement of Americana purpose and individual vision that consolidates everything from the last decade and a half of solo explorations.”

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Bon Jovi, Forever

The 16th album by New Jersey rockers Bon Jovi features two new official members, including longtime producer John Shanks. “Despite your best efforts, these songs will lodge themselves in your brain, because that’s what this band does best.”

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John Lennon, Mind Games: The Ultimate Collection

A new box set dedicated to John Lennon‘s 1973 album Mind Games includes multiple discs featuring alternate mixes of the LP. “We hear Lennon, so often a closed-off fighter, falling back on his heels. Mind Games is the sound of someone reaching out.”

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Deep Purple, =1

Deep Purple‘s 23rd album is their first with guitarist Simon McBride, who replaced Steve Morse in 2022. “Though =1 sags a bit in the back half and could be trimmed by a few songs, the album furthers a career renaissance for Deep Purple that shows few signs of waning.”

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Jack White, No Name

Jack White‘s latest album was a surprise release initially given to visitors at his Third Man Records’ retail shops. “This is White firing full-throttle and giving us the kind of album that’s made him arguably rock’s greatest 21st-century hero.”

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David Gilmour, Luck and Strange

Pink Floyd‘s David Gilmour made his fifth solo album with contributions from his wife, his children and the late Richard Wright. “If Luck and Strange suggests Gilmour’s future, it will be a bright one, even in the darkness.”

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Neil Young, Archives Vol. III (1976-1987)

The third box set in Neil Young‘s “Archives Series” contains 198 tracks on 17 CDs, documenting a period of change for the restless singer-songwriter. “They’re a welcome addition to one of music’s most fascinating and often complicated discographies.”

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Nick Lowe, Indoor Safari

Nick Lowe‘s first album since a 2013 holiday set was made with Nashville surf/garage rockers Los Straitjackets. “Like Lowe’s best work over the decades, Indoor Safari pulls from various stops, including new wave, pop, power pop, pub rock, Americana and traditional singer-songwriter music.”

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The Smile, Cutouts

The second album in 2024 from Radiohead offshoot band The Smile was recorded at the same sessions as the earlier Wall of Eyes. “They still suggest a sharply tuned jazz combo working its way around formative melodies and provisional foundations until they arrive at a point of shared musical nirvana.”

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MC5, Heavy Lifting

The first MC5 album in 53 years arrived between the deaths of the last two surviving members and the band’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction. “That five-decade gap is an enormous amount of time between albums to overcome. Heavy Lifting does an honorable job of bridging it even if it’s not quite the MC5 of yesteryear.”

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Andrew Bird, Madison Cunningham, Cunningham Bird

Singer-songwriters Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham remake, song by song, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks‘ pre-Fleetwood Mac LP from 1973. “There’s a delicate loveliness to Bird and Cunningham’s tribute lacking on the original LP, even when their reverence for the music often means the connect-the-dots approach doesn’t leave much room for spontaneity or personality.”

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Tears for Fears, Songs for a Nervous Planet

The first live album by Tears for Fears includes four new tracks and concert versions of their ’80s favorites and songs from their 2022 comeback record The Tipping Point. “It’s confirmation that Tears for Fears’ art-minded synth-pop hasn’t aged much in that time. These are great songs played by guys relishing their latest chapter.”

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The Cure, Songs of a Lost World

Recorded over the past several years, the 14th album by the Cure is their first since 2008’s 4:13 Dream. “It may be a stretch to call this a new beginning, but the Cure hasn’t been this compelling on record in more than three decades.”

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U2, How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2 went into their archives for 10 previously unreleased tracks from the sessions. “Often more disordered than the tracks on the released album, the newly recovered songs – all previously unreleased – prove the band wasn’t quite ready to abandon their ’90s risk-taking.”

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Elton John has offered an update on the eye infection that he previously said had caused damage to his vision.

Back in September, he stated that the infection he developed over the summer left him with “limited vision” in one eye. Speaking recently with Good Morning America John elaborated: “I unfortunately lost my eyesight in my right eye in July because I had an infection in the South of France, and it’s been four months now since I haven’t been able to see. My left eye is not the greatest.”

John clarified that he is “taking an initiative” to treat the issue, but at the moment the lack of vision has limited what he can and can’t do.

READ MORE: Underrated Elton John: The Most Overlooked Song From Every Album

“I can do something like this,” he said, referring to the interview itself, “but going into the studio and recording, I don’t know. Because I can’t see a lyric for start. … It kind of floored me, and I can’t see anything. I can’t read anything, I can’t watch anything.”

His Thoughts on ‘Elton John: Never Too Late’

In the meantime, John is appreciating the work that is currently coming to light. Earlier this month, he and Brandi Carlile released their collaborative song “Never Too Late,” a piece that was sparked by John’s upcoming documentary Elton John: Never Too Late. The song will feature in the film, which will be released Dec. 13 on Disney+.

“I’m so proud of the documentary,” John said to Good Morning America. “I’m proud of my sons. I’m proud of my attitude towards myself and what’s going on. I’m just very lucky and I’m very grateful.”

Many of Hollywood’s biggest stars are also fans of classic rock.

As you’d expect, there’s a wide variety when it comes to celebrities’ favorite bands. Sure, some of the usual suspects get named – like the Rolling Stones, Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses – but others are far more unexpected.

Below, we’ve highlighted 15 Hollywood stars along with their favorite classic rock acts. Each of them offers a quote or backstory regarding the celebrities’ history with the band.

Like many music fans, many of the celebrities below discovered their favorite classic rock acts during their formative years. Whether they were turned onto to famous material via a family member, or simply gravitated towards a band because their style or message resonated, the fandom has remained ingrained for a lifetime.

READ MORE: The Best Rock Movie From Every Year

Of course, one of the many perks of being famous is that you get to hop-nob with other celebrities. As such, several of the stories below include times when the actor or actress has collaborated with one of their favorite rockers. One example? Johnny Depp, who modeled Captain Jack Sparrow off of Keith Richards, then later helped recruit the guitarist to appear in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

Still, other anecdotes are far more relatable (celebrities, they’re just like us!). What Hollywood A-lister wrote a personal letter to Radiohead’s Thom Yorke? Which Academy Award winner turns to Cat Stevens during tough times? Who’s the young starlet that once cut and dyed her hair so she could look like Kurt Cobain? Read on to find out.

Celebrities’ Favorite Classic Rock Acts

Jethro Tull singer and flutist Ian Anderson makes a guest appearance on Opeth’s new song “§4.”

The track – featured on Opeth’s new album, The Last Will and Testament – runs more than seven minutes in length and includes a flute part and spoken word vocals from Anderson.

In a press release, Opteh frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt revealed how the Jethro Tull legend wound up contributing to the song.

“We ended up with a flute solo by Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, which was kind of an accident in a way, because I asked him to do a narration, not flute,” the Swedish rocker explained. “As he was doing the spoken word bits, he asked me ‘do you need a flute solo?’ I was like, ‘yes, please!‘, while I didn’t really have a part for a flute solo! I had to shuffle through the songs quickly in my head before he would change his mind. I had him on the hook, of course I was gonna find a piece! So, he played almost like a common response type flute solo in ‘§4.’”

READ MORE: Top 50 Progressive Rock Albums

Åkerfeldt further described “§4” as “an oddball song” that was “written by instinct.” “I’m not a clever guy when it comes to writing music,” he continued. “People call us ‘thinking man’s metal,’ I think that’s laughable. I listen to music from so many different genres, it’s impossible to me to stick to one genre.”

Listen to “§4” below.

‘I’ve Cried to Jethro Tull’

Elsewhere on The Last Will and Testament, Europe singer Joey Tempest makes an appearance. In a conversation with Prog Magazine, Åkerfeldt explained his criteria for collaborations.

“I wouldn’t have guests on the records unless I felt that they could contribute something that I couldn’t,” the singer noted. “In this case, I don’t have that gravelly old-man voice like Ian. It just made everything so much better.”

“I’ve cried to Jethro Tull. Ian’s given me so much joy over the years, it’s incredible,” Åkerfeldt admitted. “Just to mention his name in the same sentence as this band is incredible. Joey Tempest is the same.”

Next year, Sammy Hagar will bring his ‘Best of All Worlds’ tour to Las Vegas for a residency. At his side will be Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and, the newest addition to the lineup, Kenny Aronoff.

Aronoff came into the picture earlier this year when drummer Jason Bonham exited the group due to a family emergency. But what initially looked like a temporary situation has now become permanent for the foreseeable future.

“There’s two reasons,” Hagar recently explained to Rolling Stone. “Number one, he’s one of the greatest drummers on the planet. I think he’s been on more million-selling records than any musician in the world. And he did so well on this tour, and he plays with Joe on a full-time basis…

“And he blew my mind. I played with Kenny in Chickenfoot, and he blew my mind then too, because when we auditioned him, he learns every song. ‘Tell me what songs we’re playing.’ ‘Okay, here they are.’ He charts them out and he sits there, and he fuckin’ can read it, and play it with soul and power perfectly, just one time, the first time he plays it. If that don’t blow a musician’s mind, I don’t know what would, especially these kinds of songs. These songs are crazy. They’re fuckin’ Van Halen arrangements.”

The Las Vegas Residency Will Be Different From the ‘Best of All Worlds’ Tour

Contrary to the identical title, Hagar is promising that the ‘Best of All Worlds’ residency will be different from the tour version of the show. Staying in one place, the band is better equipped to slot other songs into the set.

“It’s really hard, because you don’t have time,” Hagar said. “You’re either traveling, then when you get to your bed, you’re like, ‘Fuck it, I don’t want to go rehearse.’ With the residency, we’re playing Wednesday, Friday, Saturday every week. We have Thursday off. The building’s [dark], so we can go in and change songs.”

READ MORE: All 48 Sammy Hagar-Era Van Halen Songs Ranked Worst to Best

Like the tour, there will be a mix of Hagar’s solo material, Montrose, Chickenfoot and, of course, Van Halen songs.

“The whole Van Halen catalog, mainly my catalog…I feel like I own it now, because nobody else can do it,” Hagar said. “It’s like there’s no one that can do that catalog except a cover band. Mikey and I, we feel like we own it, and we feel this obligation to the music and to the fans to carry it on.”

Former Foreigner singer Lou Gramm is planning to retire in 2025.

During a conversation with Sirius XM’s Eddie Trunk, the acclaimed frontman mapped out his timeline for wrapping up next year.

“I’m releasing a solo album in January, which I can’t wait for it to hit the airways,” Gramm noted. “I think I’m going to go [tour] until May or June of next year and then I’m going to go off the road. And that’s gonna be it for me.”

This isn’t the first time Gramm has hinted at retirement. In 2018, he said he played his final show, and earlier this year he claimed he would conclude his touring career before the end of 2024. Still, the rocker seemed earnest when discussing his post-performing plans with Trunk.

READ MORE: Lou Gramm Says Current Foreigner Singer’s Ego Is Blocking Reunion

“I’ve got things that I’ve had to put aside because of touring,” Gramm explained, noting he wants to spend “a lot of time” with his seven-year-old daughter. He also has a hobby that’s been calling to him.

“I’m a classic and muscle car collector. I’ve got a small but awesome collection of cars. And I live in a place in Rochester, New York where you can’t drive them year round,” the singer explained. “It’s April through the end of October and then you’ve got to put them away some place. And April through October is when I’m usually on the road, so I don’t get to drive them before we go on the road, and by the time we come off, the snow’s flying.”

What Can Fans Expect From Lou Gramm’s New Album?

Elsewhere in the conversation with Trunk, Gramm gave details on his upcoming solo album.

“Half of my new album is brand new songs and the other half is songs that were great ideas but not finished enough to be on my earlier albums,” Gramm revealed.

READ MORE: Lou Gramm Reveals Why He Quit Foreigner

“For the last two years I’ve been working on songs and listening back to my early solo albums,” he further explained. “I’ve got the master tapes and although there’s 10 songs on the album, we usually write 13 songs and we pick the best 10 or the 10 that are finished and put them on the album. Well, I’ve gone back and looked at the other 3 songs that weren’t finished. And a lot of them are great ideas, there just wasn’t time to finish them. So I hear some of these ideas that I think could be great songs, and I finished them.”

Mike Pinera, the singer and guitarist who wrote the 1970 hit “Ride Captain Ride” for his band Blues Image, died on Nov. 20 at the age of 76.

Local news outlet the St. Pete Catalyst confirmed his passing at home in Tampa, Florida, after a long illness.

Blues Image added Latin rhythms to their heavy rock sound, gaining attention for the unusual blend. They opened Tampa’s first-ever psychedelic club, Dino’s, before moving to Miami and becoming a regular feature at Thee Image club.

READ MORE: Top 25 Psychedelic Rock Albums

They opened for a range of bands including Cream, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin, and Pinera developed a lasting friendship with Jimmy Page.

After Blues Image split Pinera joined Iron Butterfly, appearing on their 1970 album Metemorphosis. He was among the first to make use of the Talk Box device, as heard on his song “Butterfly Bleu.” After leaving in 1972 he reunited with the band on four occasions up to 1993. He Later joined Alice Cooper’s band for a two-year stint in 1980.

Listen to Blues Image’s ‘Ride Captain Ride’

In a 2014 interview, Pinera recalled the Blues Image period as one of discovery. “People felt that there was a higher reality which we were all part of but couldn’t quite get there on our own,” he said. “So they looked to psychedelic rock, meditation, Eastern music and alternative lifestyles to expand their consciousness [and] accommodate the vast realms they began to discover.

Mike Pinera Recalled Jamming with Hendrix and Page

“In Blues Image, Manny Bertematti and I began learning meditation techniques, vegetarian diets, fasting and treating everyone we met like they were our family. … We discovered dimensions of well-being that had us glowing from head to toe. Our music expressed levels of spontaneity that had us playing the very same thing together at the same – without knowing how or why!”

Asked about the high points of his career, he replied: “Meeting, becoming friends and jamming with Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page, among others. They were very social and open if you got to know them.

“To people on the outside they came off as very private almost out of reach. But in quiet, laid back surroundings, you could feel a deep sadness and hunger for true friendship and sincerity.”

Watch Iron Butterfly Perform ‘Butterfly Bleu’

Sammy Hagar shed light on the schism between him and Alex Van Halen, telling Rolling Stone that he “want[s] to be friends” with his former bandmate even if they don’t play music together again.

“It’s on my bucket list that I will not take this to my grave, and I don’t want Al taking it to his grave,” the Red Rocker said. “I’ve put the olive branch out there many times, and I just put it out again to Irving Azoff.”

Hagar acknowledged that reuniting with Van Halen on a musical level is most likely out of the question, but he still wants to mend their personal relationship. “I want to be friends, though,” he said. “I don’t want to play in a band with Al. I’m not asking for that. I can see that he’s not capable of doing that. If he was, I’d be happy to play with him, but it’s not what I’m looking for. I just want to be friends again.”

READ MORE: All 48 Sammy Hagar-Era Van Halen Songs Ranked Worst to Best

Sammy Hagar Says He ‘Owns’ the ‘Van Hagar’ Catalog Now

Hagar previously told UCR that his attempts to reconnect with Alex ahead of the Van Halen-focused Best of All Worlds Tour were unsuccessful, as he got “no response” from the drummer. Van Halen himself told Billboard last month, around the release of his memoir Brothers, that he was “not interested” in the trek, and he thought Hagar and bandmate Michael Anthony were “not doing the band justice.”

Brothers also omits Hagar’s tenure with Van Halen, focusing almost exclusively on the band’s first David Lee Roth era. When asked about this decision, Hagar sounded more sorrowful and empathetic than bitter.

“It’s sad,” he said. “I haven’t read the whole book, but I’ve seen all the excerpts, and I heard some of the interviews. It breaks my heart, because if I think what Alex is going through, losing his brother, never played with anybody else in his life, and then his health … When I saw how rickety he is, I realized, ‘No wonder he’s not answering my call when I say, “Do you want to go out and play with us?”‘ He can’t.

“That breaks my heart, because I can only put myself in those shoes and say, ‘What if I couldn’t sing and perform anymore?'” Hagar continued. “The thing that I did my whole life, the thing I devoted my life to, the thing that made me rich and famous and gave me the most beautiful life on the planet, and all of a sudden I can’t do that anymore? I would feel like I was robbing the fans, to start with. When you put yourself in his shoes, I’m saying, ‘Okay, I feel sorry for him.'”

On the other hand, Hagar said his omission from Brothers only solidified his feeling that he’s the rightful steward of the “Van Hagar” catalog. “Why he left me out, I would like to hear him explain that someday, because I don’t get it completely,” he said. “I know that he’s bitter about some things, whatever that is … It’s like, ‘If you don’t want that era, that even gives me more justification to say I own it then,’ because no one else can do it, and he can’t do it even without me. It makes it easier for Mike and I. We’re sitting there going, ‘Okay, I guess we own this,’ and we have the obligation to bring this to the fans to keep this music alive, keep it live and alive.”

Despite being left out of Brothers, Hagar said he respected Van Halen’s work, and wondered if there is more to come. “I want to give him some more credit about that book. The way he wrote it is soulful and touching,” he said. “I mean, about their childhood. It’s like a love letter to his brother, and that’s touching to me. I want to give him some love for that. I understand he probably couldn’t have done the whole era in one book. It would’ve been the Bible, the dictionary, so maybe he’s got plans for a Volume 2. Who knows?”

It’s been a fruitful year for music books.

For fans of memoirs, a few highly anticipated releases arrived via Cher and Alex Van Halen, not to mention Chris Stein, Kathleen Hanna and Michael McDonald. Not that it was an easy process for those people.

“It was a bitch,” Cher freely admitted on The Tonight Show in November. “It’s not going through your life that’s hard so much. But I did it a couple of times because the first time it didn’t work out. The second time I just didn’t want to tell anything. And then I thought, ‘You know what? Give back the money.’ It’s hard because when you’re telling your life there’s parts you’d like to guard.”

READ MORE: 60 Rock Songs Inspired by Books and Literature

There have been other poignant releases as well. Sinead O’Connor: The Last Interview and Other Conversations collected various interviews with the Irish singer, who died in 2023, while Songbird: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie arrived in November, just shy of the two-year anniversary of the Fleetwood Mac member’s passing.

Perhaps you’re interested in learning more about some of music’s most beloved places. For that, try I Don’t Want to Go Home: The Oral History of the Stone Pony, or Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital.

These titles and many more can be found in the below gallery, just in time for gift-giving season.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played their final show of 2024 on Friday at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, bringing the latest leg of their sprawling world tour to a close.

In typical Springsteen fashion, the Boss went long on Friday, delivering a 31-song, three-hour-and-20-minute marathon performance that spanned nearly five decades. He drew heavily from Born to Run, playing six of the eight songs off the landmark album, with an additional four songs off 2020’s Letter to You. The show also contained three 2024 tour debuts: “Ramrod,” “Human Touch” and “Brilliant Disguise.”

You can see the set list and watch videos from the performance below.

READ MORE: Bruce Springsteen Dusts Off Rarities at Asbury Park Concert

The End of Bruce Springsteen’s Current Tour Is Nowhere in Sight

Springsteen and the E Street Band have logged more than 120 shows on their ongoing tour, which launched in early 2023. Along the way, they’ve overcome various health-related obstacles, including several COVID diagnoses within the band and the Boss’ own battle with peptic ulcer disease, which forced the postponement of his late 2023 shows.

Despite his fear that he’d never be able to sing again, Springsteen returned to the stage with a vengeance in March, and he’s not planning to stop anytime soon. He’s already got more than a dozen 2025 European shows booked between May and July.

Springsteen made his ambitions crystal clear during his August show in Philadelphia. “We’ve been around for 50 fuckin’ years, and we ain’t quitting!” he told the audience. “We ain’t doing no farewell tour bullshit! Jesus Christ! No farewell tour for the E Street Band! Farewell to what? A thousand people screaming your name? Get the hell out. I ain’t going anywhere!”

Watch Bruce Springsteen Play ‘Human Touch’ in Vancouver on 11/22/24

Watch Bruce Springsteen Play ‘Meeting Across the River’ and ‘Jungleland’ in Vancouver on 11/22/24

Watch Bruce Springsteen Play ‘Badlands’ in Vancouver on 11/22/24

Watch Bruce Springsteen Play ‘Brilliant Disguise’ in Vancouver on 11/22/24

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, 11/22/24, Rogers Arena, Vancouver Set List
1. “Spirit in the Night”
2. “Lonesome Day”
3. “Ghosts”
4. “Letter to You”
5. “The Promised Land”
6. “Hungry Heart”
7. “Ramrod” (tour debut)
8. “Human Touch” (tour debut)
9. “Atlantic City”
10. “Youngstown”
11. “Long Walk Home”
12. “The E Street Shuffle”
13. “Nightshift” (Commodores cover)
14. “I’m on Fire”
15. “Racing in the Street”
16. “Last Man Standing” (acoustic)
17. “Backstreets”
18. “Because the Night” (Patti Smith Group cover)
19. “Brilliant Disguise” (tour debut)
20. “Wrecking Ball”
21. “The Rising”
22. “Badlands”
23. “Thunder Road”
24. “Meeting Across the River”
25. “Jungleland”
26. “Born to Run”
27. “Bobby Jean”
28. “Dancing in the Dark”
29. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”
30. “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town”
31. “I’ll See You in My Dreams”

Alice Brock, the woman who gave Arlo Guthrie’s classic Thanksgiving tune “Alice’s Restaurant Massacre” its name, has died at the age of 83.

It was Thanksgiving 1965 when Guthrie, then just 18-years-old, visited Brock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. She and her husband were converting an old church into a home, and Guthrie and his friend Rick Robbins offered to help clear out an abundance of garbage and building supplies that had been left behind.

Finding that the local dump was closed due to the holiday, the men deposited the material in a nearby lot. They were arrested for littering the next day and the conviction later made Guthrie ineligible for the draft.

The story would be woven into the folk singer’s 1967 tune, commonly referred to as “Alice’s Restaurant.” At over 18 minutes in length, the long and winding track offered a satirical protest of the Vietnam War. Guthrie went on to fame like his father, Woody, while “Alice’s Restaurant” became one of his signature songs. A movie inspired by the tune and starring Guthrie as himself was released in 1969.

Arlo Guthrie Honors ‘Lifelong Friend’ Alice Brock

In a message posted to Facebook, Guthrie paid tribute to his departed friend.

“I first met Alice in 1962 when she was the school librarian at The Stockbridge School, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. I was there beginning my second of four years. I also met, Rick Robbins, another student, and we’ve been friends ever since,” Guthrie recalled. “Rick and I went to visit Ray and Alice for Thanksgiving in 1965. The rest is history. Alice went into the restaurant business and I began my years as an entertainer. We were, both in our own ways, successful. As well as being a restauranteur, Alice also became an author, and an artist. We worked together on various projects. During the next few decades we remained friends while our lives kept us busy. She was a no-nonsense gal, with a great sense of humor.”

“This coming Thanksgiving will be the first without her,” Guthrie continued, describing Brock as a “lifelong friend.” “Alice and I spoke by phone a couple of weeks ago, and she sounded like her old self. We joked around and had a couple of good laughs even though we knew we’d never have another chance to talk together.”

Listen to ‘Alice’s Restaurant Massacre’

Lou Gramm has thrown cold water and the possibility of a reunion with Foreigner during the band’s 2025 tour.

When Foreigner announced they were extending their farewell trek into next year, they hinted that Gramm may be involved. During a recent conversation with Sirius XM’s Eddie Trunk, the singer gave insight into the conversations he’s had with his former band, as well as the biggest issue hindering a reunion.

“Foreigner’s management asked me if I would be interested in doing some shows with the band,” Gramm confirmed. “They want to do a substantial tour of the world, which doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t want to be out 8 or 10 months again without seeing my kids.”

Though Gramm rejected the idea of a world tour, he said he “would consider” a U.S. run. Even then, the singer had his hesitations.

READ MORE: Top 10 Underrated Foreigner Songs

“I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it,” Gramm confessed. “It would be much more interesting to me if it was members of the original Foreigner with augmented instrumentation, like another guitar player or something. Rather than going out with another band that calls themself Foreigner.”

Lou Gramm Was Told He Couldn’t Sing His ‘Trademark Songs’

In conversations with management, Gramm was told he’d do “about five songs” each night on a hypothetical trek with Foreigner. The band’s current frontman, Kelly Hansen, would handle the rest of the set. When Gramm started suggesting which songs he’d want to sing, he was given a sobering reality check.

“I said, well I’d like to do ‘Jukebox Hero’. [Foreigner’s manager] goes, ‘I’m not sure about that,’” Gramm recalled. “I said, ‘Well, I definitely want to do ‘I Want to Know What Love Is.’ He says, ‘I don’t think so, Lou.’ … So it sounds as if he talked to Kelly about it and Kelly made his claims on certain songs.”

READ MORE: Lou Gramm Reveals Why He Quit Foreigner

“Every song I suggested that I would like to do, he told me he didn’t think so,” Gramm continued, noting he was told “only what I couldn’t sing, and then I would just have to pick from what’s left.”

Asked if management was possibly concerned about Gramm’s vocal ability, the frontman was blunt. “No,” he replied. “Their concerns [are] about Kelly’s ego.”

“There are particular songs that are my trademark songs and if I can’t sing them, I don’t want to be out on the road,” Gramm surmised. “It’s frustrating, but I don’t want it to be frustrating. I’ve been thinking about it for about a month, that’s when I found out that I couldn’t sing my own favorite songs on the tour. So I think I’m just going to tell them I’m not interested.”

Some of the biggest bands of the classic rock era didn’t exactly produce solo juggernauts.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins from Genesis, Journey‘s Steve Perry, and David Gilmour and Roger Waters from Pink Floyd would go a decade or more without releasing anything on their own. Same with the principal Eagles songwriters and singers.

Glenn Frey and Don Henley helped complete six Eagles albums in just eight years between 1972 and 1979, but only released 10 total without their former bandmates. An unlikely Eagles reunion eventually produced 2007’s Long Road Out of Eden double album, but that seemed to empty out their creative coffers.

READ MORE: Ranking Every Don Henley Eagles Song From the ’70s

Frey’s discography ended soon after with 2012’s standards-focused After Hours, his first LP since 1992’s Strange Weather. He passed away four years later. Henley hasn’t released an album since his long-time collaborator died in 2016. Like After Hours, Henley’s most recent release – 2015’s Cass County – was a genre record that fell well outside his established solo sound.

To get the most complete perspective, the following ranked list of Glenn Frey and Don Henley solo albums takes it all in – even the times when they strayed so far away from rock.

Generally, however, Frey dug deeper into his R&B roots, only occasionally sounding anything like his old country-rocking self. Henley went even further afield, delving deeply into the electronic instrumentation and sleek production style of the decade after his old band split.

Some of it worked, and quite well. But the years of expectation that surrounded these releases tended to bring even more pressure to bear. Maybe, in the end, that’s why they stayed silent for so long.

See the Eagles in Rock’s Craziest Conspiracy Theories

The first Christmas movie ever, Santa Clause, was made in 1898. Hundreds if not thousands of holiday-themed films have been made since. In 2024 alone, Hallmark is releasing 41 new holiday movies, and Lifetime is chipping in another 12.

Most follow one of a few kind-hearted, family-friendly templates, focused on celebrating togetherness, discovering or re-kindling romance and / or the giving spirit of the holidays.

Others are downright weird. You’ll see just how twisted things can get below, as we pick the Weirdest Christmas Movie from Every Year from 1984 to 2024.

‘Gremlins’ (1984)

Although we must give some acknowledgement to the homicidal Santa romp Silent Night, Deadly Night – a movie that disgusted critic Gene Siskel to read the production crew’s names on the air while declaring, “Shame on you!” – top honors for the 1984’s weirdest Christmas movie goes to Gremlins. A small town teenage boy is given a rare and impossibly cute animal as a holiday gift. It’s a mogwai named Gizmo, and it comes with very important care instructions, which the kid accidentally starts breaking in no time at all. This leads to the arrival of the evil titular gremlins, who bring chaos, mass destruction and several well-placed shots at the commercialization of the Christmas spirit.

 

‘Rocky IV’ (1985)

The ludicrously overblown fourth entry in the Rocky series casts Dolph Lundgren as a steroid and technology-boosted Russian Terminator, who Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky must defeat to avenge the (easily prevented) in-ring death of his friend Apollo Creed. The big showdown takes place on Christmas, and finds Balboa not only defeating his cyborg-like opponent but also single-handedly ending the Cold War. And if that’s still not weird enough can we remind you about Paulie’s life-size robot assistant?

 

‘Babes in Toyland’ (1986)

Drew Barrymore (four years after E.T., 14 before Charlie’s Angels) and Keanu Reeves (three years before Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) star in this 1986 made for TV movie that features plot points such as one-eyed monsters named Trollogs and “a flask containing distilled evil.”

Read More: 29 Great Classic Rock Christmas Memories

 

‘Jaws: The Revenge’ (1987)

1987 brought a wealth of holiday-themed or set movies, including the original Lethal Weapon, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, A Muppet Family Christmas and Less Than Zero. But the fourth and mercifully so far final Jaws sequel takes the out-weirds them all by granting Ellen Brody (wife of now-dead police chief Martin, star of the first two movies) psychic powers that let her sense when the latest murderous great white shark is about to attack one of her family members. As you might guess from a movie named Jaws: The Revenge, that’s exactly what the big-toothed monster is up to, hence the movie’s laughable “This time, it’s personal” tagline. Alas, her powers arrive too late to save her son Sean, whose tortured screams for help are drowned out by Christmas carolers in the movie’s first attack scene.

 

‘Scrooged’ (1988)

Yes, the legendary Die Hard was released in 1988 – but that movie is awesome, not weird. Chevy Chase delivered a minor holiday-themed hit with Funny Farm, but was easily outclassed in terms of both quality and weirdness by the guy who replaced him on Saturday Night Live, Bill Murray. Ending a post-Ghostbusters hiatus, Murray delivered an updated and unhinged take on Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol that sharply skewered the television industry.

 

‘3615 Code Pere Noel’ (aka ‘Deadly Games’) (1989)

Make no mistake, the best Christmas movie released in 1989 was Chase’s Christmas Vacation – and from cat food-enhanced jello to exploding sewer gas there’s plenty of weirdness to be found there. But the story of 3615 Code Pere Noel takes top prize for the year. Imagine Home Alone but make the danger, injuries and even deaths real and you’ll be on the right track. In fact, writer and director Rene Manzor once threatened legal action against the makers of Home Alone, alleging that they had copied his movie too closely.

 

‘Edward Scissorhands’ (1990)

1990 was a big year for holiday themed movies, with Home Alone, Die Hard 2 and Rocky V all featuring Christmas settings. But Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands creates an otherworldly and enchanting winter wonderland for the climax of Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder’s tale of two young lovers facing the ultimately insurmountable obstacles caused by his unique and dangerous appendages.

 

‘The Last Boy Scout’ (1991)

OK admittedly, this is a bit of a reach – it would have helped if some of 1990’s holiday movies had been released a year later. But any movie that starts with a football player firing a gun IN THE MIDDLE OF A PLAY is categorically weird, and Bruce Willis’ daughter keeps drawing pictures of a rather evil-looking St. Nick, so there’s your winner by default.

 

‘Home Alone 2’ (1992)

Another Tim Burton movie, Batman Returns, could easily take 1992’s top spot. After all it features grown adults battling at Christmas time while dressed up as bats, cats and penguins. But let’s talk about how Kevin’s parents lost him AGAIN, this time in New York City. At this point somebody has to call child services, right?

 

‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ (1993)

Tim Burton becomes our first two-time champion with 1993’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, a stunning stop-motion animated movie about what happens with the king of Halloween decides he wants to expand his empire to include Christmas.

 

‘The Ref’ (1994)

You’d think a Christmas movie centered around Steve Martin as a suicide-prevention counselor would be weird enough to earn this spot, but Mixed Nuts was a limp miss. So 1994’s gold medal goes to The Ref, which stars Denis Leary as a criminal on the run who makes the mistake of taking pretty much the world’s worst couple – hello, Kevin Spacey! – hostage at Christmastime and winds up as a very unwilling (and profane) marriage counselor.

 

‘While You Were Sleeping’ (1995)

You won’t find a whole lot of weird romantic comedies on this list. But the concept of Sandra Bullock as a lonely Chicago Transit Authority token taker is a pretty good start. From there, While You Were Sleeping takes more bizarre twists and turns than the Second City’s train lines.

 

‘Santa With Muscles’ (1996)

1996’s biggest holiday movie found Arnold Schwarzenegger fighting to get his son the year’s most in-demand toy in Jingle All the Way, but another muscle-bound star easily out shined him in terms of weirdness. Pro wrestling legend Hulk Hogan stars in Santa With Muscles as a slimy millionaire who dresses up as Santa to hide from the police, and winds up battling an evil scientist who is seeking the magic crystals hidden below an orphanage.

 

‘Jack Frost’ (1997)

“One cold night… science and evil collide,” explains the trailer to 1997’s Jack Frost. The movie features a psychotic, wise-cracking mass murderer on the way to his own execution who gets exposed to chemicals that turn him into… a psychotic, wise-cracking, mass-murdering snowman.

 

‘Jack Frost’ (1998)

You’re not seeing double. The year after the horror movie version of Jack Frost was released came another movie with the exact same title and a very similar concept. Just replace “mass murderer” with “Michael Keaton as a rock star” and switch out the killing spree for some family-friendly but still undeniably strange father and son bonding.

 

‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (1999)

Married at the time, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman spent more than a year filming director Stanley Kubrick’s final film. Eyes Wide Shut, which begins at a Christmas party, is an unsettling erotic drama centered around dreams of infidelity and a masked high society orgy. It isn’t nearly as good as the Kubrick apologists will have you believe, but it sure as hell is weird.

 

‘Jack Frost 2’ (2000)

Jim Carrey’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas was the sixth-highest grossing movie of 2000, but the grossest holiday movie of the year was undoubtedly Jack Frost 2, which sees our favorite murderous snowman spreading winter weather, blood and wise cracks all over the Bahamas. Writer and director Michael Cooney’s plans to complete the trilogy with a Godzilla-sized Jack on the loose in a big city have sadly yet to come to fruition.

 

Sorry, here’s a lump of coal (2001)

Sorry, Santa doesn’t have a weird movie for you from 2001. About the best we can do is a very conventional made-for-TV pile of Whoopi Goldberg-starring glop named Call Me Clause, and that just ain’t good enough. Stick with us, we’ve got a triple feature coming up in a little bit.

 

‘Friday After Next’ (2002)

A quick serious note – if you haven’t seen 2002’s Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hault and Toni Collette-starring About a Boy, please rectify that because it’s fantastic. OK, back to weirdness: The third and so far final movie in the Friday series finds Ice Cube battling to get his rent money and Christmas presents back from a robber dressed as Santa. And yes, far too much of the movie takes place in Willie Jones’ bathroom.

 

‘Bad Santa’ (2003)

2003 brought two big holiday-themed hits: Will Ferrell’s Elf and the romantic comedy Love Actually. There was also a direct-to-TV Christmas Vacation sequel focused on Randy Quaid’s lowbrow Cousin Eddie. But the year is best remembered for one of the darkest, funniest and yes, weirdest holiday classics of all time. Bad Santa featured Billy Bob Thorton as an alcoholic, foul-mouthed, womanizing safe cracker whose life of crime and gluttony gets upended by a hapless kid with the unbelievable name of Thurman Merman.

 

‘Surviving Christmas’ (2004)

If 2004’s holiday movies were attempting to replicate the darkness of Bad Santa, they failed. Instead we got two rather conventional redemption tales – Tim Allen’s lame Christmas with the Kranks and the unquestionably worse but also slightly weirder Surviving Christmas. The movie finds Ben Affleck’s Drew Latham paying James Gandolfini and his family a quarter-million dollars to pretend they are his loving family in order to impress (and fool) his girlfriend. To be clear, we’re barely above the Call Me Claus line here.

 

‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ (2005)

After Robert Downey Jr.’s hapless thief Harry Lockhart gets busted while trying to steal a Christmas present for his kid, a strange turn of events whisks him off to Hollywood, which is celebrating the holiday season in its own superficial way. Lockhart is immediately immersed into a hilarious and inventively oddball detective caper that both subverts and celebrates the genre’s conventions.

 

‘Deck the Halls’ (2006)

Yes, we’re going to continue to ignore Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause series, which released its third and worst movie in 2006. Instead we’ll take a sharp turn into weird and bad with Deck the Halls. The movie wastes both Danny DeVito and an interesting premise – two neighbors losing touch with the holiday spirit while trying to out-do each other’s Christmas lights display – with a convoluted plot and terrible jokes. “You won’t believe how excruciatingly awful this movie is,” critic Richard Roeper wrote. “It is bad in a way that will cause unfortunate viewers to huddle in the lobby afterwards, hugging in small groups, consoling one another with the knowledge that it’s over, it’s over – thank God, it’s over.”

 

You decide (2007)

There’s two candidates here: Vince Vaughn as Santa Claus’ troublemaking brother in the conventionally unconventional Fred Claus, or the intentionally and horrifically offensive A Kitten for Hitler, a short film in which a young boy tries to get the Nazi leader to change his evil ways with a Christmas gift. Do yourself a favor and don’t read how terribly his plan ends. You’ll do just fine without Fred Claus, too.

 

‘Step Brothers’ (2008)

The Christmas season comes up twice in the delightfully immature Step Brothers, which turns Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly loose as directionless, unemployed man-children who just might do more damage as best friends than they do as bitter enemies.

 

’12 Men of Christmas’ (2009)

…in which a jaded big city publicist convinces the men of a small town rescue squad to pose half-naked for a fundraising calendar. Will the media’s objectification of men ever cease?

 

‘Rare Exports’ (2010)

The Finnish Rare Exports is a highly twisted take on the legend of Santa Claus, as two young boys must save the kidnapped children of their village from an evil St. Nick and his hordes of equally unjolly elves. You’re better off going into this one spoiler-free, but trust Roger Ebert when he calls it “a wonderful lump of coal for your stocking.”

 

 

‘A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas’ (2011)

Imagine if either Cheech or Chong gave up smoking pot? That’s the central issue that has separated former stoner buddies Harold and Kumar feuding here. While they struggle to replace a prized Christmas tree that’s gone up in flames, an apparently immortal Neil Patrick Harris and a bong-toking Santa Claus work some holiday magic to truly reunite the two friends.

 

‘Silent Night’ (2012)

After sending pieces of coal to his own personal naughty list, a homicidal “Santa Claus” mows down the victims with Christmas lights, a cattle prod, a woodchipper and a flame thrower. Malcolm McDowell elevates this remake of 1984’s Silent Night, Deadly Night with a humorously scene-chewing turn as the town’s sheriff.

 

‘Alone for Christmas’ (2013)

That’s right, it’s Home Alone… but with a pack of dogs left alone to protect the house from thieves while the family is away for the holidays. Apologies to Paul Rudd and Paul Giamatti’s All is Bright, Iron Man 3 and the Norwegian slasher film Christmas Cruelty!

 

‘Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever’ (2014)

They took the real-life feline from all those “Grumpy Cat” memes and gave her a starring role in a movie. Audrey Plaza provided her voice. No further questions, right?

 

‘Krampus’ (2015)

With apologies to William Shatner’s inspired turn as the alcoholic radio DJ helping to weave the four stories in A Christmas Horror Story together, 2015’s weirdest movie honors go to Krampus. The modern day cult classic finds an ancient demon punishing a suburban town with the help of an army of evil toys, after one of its young residents loses his Christmas spirit.

 

‘Bad Santa 2’ (2016)

Let’s be clear: Bad Santa 2 is nowhere near as good as its predecessor. In fact it’s depressingly awful, with all of the nastiness but none of the wit of the first movie. But it’s certainly weirder than the year’s more traditional attempts at big-screen holiday naughtiness, Why Him? and Office Christmas Party.

 

‘A Bad Mom’s Christmas’ (2017)

2016’s Bad Moms was a raunchy, often hilarious and sometimes even insightful look at the pressures felt by modern mothers. The gang all returned for a holiday sequel that delivered on its promise to “Put the ass back in Christmas” with a particularly outrageous performance by Kathryn Hahn.

 

Triple Feature: ‘Await Further Instuctions’ / ‘Anna and the Apocalypse’ / ‘Santa Jaws’ (2018)

You’d think a movie named Santa Jaws (which by the way, is exactly as self-explanatory as you’d expect) would have this all sewn up, right? But 2018 offered a trio of warped holiday features. We also got Await Further Instructions, in which a feuding family wakes up on Christmas day with their house covered in a mysterious black substance, and the inventive zombie musical Anna and the Apocalypse.

 

‘The Lodge’ (2019)

(Spoiler alert) Quick warning to all the kids out there crafting exotic schemes to drive their soon-to-be stepmothers crazy during the holiday season: Make sure you don’t send her TOO far over the edge.

 

‘Fatman’ (2020)

Mel Gibson stars as a gun-toting, highly jaded Chris Cringle, who is the subject of an assassination attempt cooked up by one particularly naughty child. None of this is played for laughs.

 

‘Red Snow’ (2021)

A struggling vampire romance novelist encounters a real-deal bloodsucker during her Christmas retreat at a remote cabin. Like may other young relationships, they get along just fine until his friends get involved…

 

‘Violent Night’ (2022)

It had to happen: a John Wick-styled Santa Clause movie. David Harbour is perfectly cast as grumpy and booze-loving St. Nick, whose long-dormant combat training is put to good use when a young child is threatened by would-be Christmas robbers.

 

‘It’s a Wonderful Knife’ (2023)

Although the action and kills are a bit stock, this fantastically-titled Christmas horror movie puts a very creative multiverse-style spin on the James Stewart classic It’s a Wonderful Life.

 

‘Terrifier 3’ (2024)

Confession: I haven’t watched this, I’m never watching this, I tapped out on this level of horror right in the middle of the second Saw movie. But I’ve seen, heard and read more than enough to know that Terrifier 3 is sure as %$#%$ weirder than Red One.

Classic Christmas TV Episodes

Steve Howe has issued a strong denial against the claim of copyright infringement recently brought against him.

The Yes guitarist was named in court papers regarding the song “Dare to Know” from the band’s 2021 album The Quest. The lawsuit was brought by former band collaborator Riz Story, who said “Dare to Know” was a rip-off of his 2012 work “Reunion.”

Yes singer Jon Davison, a lifelong friend of Story, previously issued his own denial after being named in the lawsuit, saying: “It’s hard to put in words how it feels to … hear that a person who I thought was a friend has brought not only an utterly fictitious but also a defamatory case against me.”

READ MORE: Yes’ Steve Howe on ‘The Quest’ and Recording Without Chris Squire

In a new social media post Howe wrote: “Jon Davison did not write ‘Dare to Know.’ I did, and it was based on a theme I’ve been developing since 1973. Early versions can easily be found in our demo and studio recordings from the time and on the internet – some were released on an expanded version of Tales Of Topographic Oceans in 2002.”

The statement was accompanied by a 12-second audio track, available below, which contains a clip from “Dare to Know” panned to one stereo channel and “The Ancient” panned to the other.

Steve Howe’s Audio Evidence Against Song Theft Claim

“This comparison… demonstrates how Steve Howe has a version of this exact same melody in a 1974 recording (“The Ancient”). Here is proof of Steve exploring that very same idea in 1974 and it should be obvious that it’s much more likely the source of this melody.”

The note explained: “‘The Ancient’ was pitched up by three semitones to make it match, and the relationship between any of the notes was not edited or adjusted.”

Story’s lawsuit included the claim that Davison had been aware of “Reunion,” that he and Howe reworked the song together, and that the singer’s name had been removed from the credits to disguise its origin.

The case is set to proceed through the Central District of California.

Pearl Jam released Vitalogy, their third album together, in late 1994. Some fans got an early listen to the record, which was released on vinyl on Nov. 22 of that year, two weeks before its mainstream release on all other formats on Dec. 6.

To celebrate, UCR has your chance to win a special Vitalogy prize pack featuring the album in high resolution audio on Blu-ray, plus a vinyl copy of the record and a Vitalogy t-shirt. As a bonus, we’ll toss in a stack of official bootleg concerts from the band’s current Dark Matter tour.

For your chance to win, simply enter your name, email and phone number into the entry form at the top of this page. You will be added to UCR’s daily newsletter mailing list. The contest ends Nov. 29, 2024 at 11:59pm EST.

Ultimate Classic Rock Nights will also mark the milestone on Friday, Nov. 22 at 10pm EST with a special broadcast looking back at the album. Longtime band associate Brett Eliason joins us to share his memories from the time period. Eliason first joined forces with Pearl Jam on July 4, 1991, nearly two months before their debut album Ten was released, so he found himself witnessing their entire rise to worldwide fame.

Pearl Jam played a number of memorable shows in 1994, while they were touring in support of their then-current album Vs., which had arrived the previous year. A Boston date at the Orpheum in April featured a set list that Eliason and other members of the band’s staff had selected. That same month, they played a now-legendary concert in Atlanta, Ga. at the Fox Theatre that was broadcast nationally on radio stations in the United States. Even as they were continuing to promote the Vs. album on tour, they were also writing and recording and starting to play songs live that eventually would help to form the core of Vitalogy. Future fan favorites like “Better Man,” “Not for You” and “Immortality” are among the tracks that began to filter into the set lists during the Vs. run.

Listen to Pearl Jam’s ‘Better Man’

READ MORE: Underrated Pearl Jam Songs

“One of things that Kelly Curtis, their manager, used to do with them and with others, was before you even went in to make a record, he’d ask them to go do a tour,” Eliason recalls. “Even if it was just a handful of shows. It made a lot of sense. When you play those things live, you vet them. You work out some bugs. You find that natural live energy behind it as well. So Vitalogy was steeped in that. They were doing a lot of playing in the room together, with just monitors around them. They were really live performances in the studio and that kind of thing. That adds a different dimension and an exciting dimension to it as well.”

Early Iron Maiden frontman Paul Di’Anno was buried today in London, as his long-time manager offered a heartfelt farewell.

“Let’s raise a glass for the last time for Paul Di’Anno,” said Stjepan Juras, who shared the below image approved by Di’Anno’s family of his cross-laden casket. Di’Anno died on Oct. 21.

Juras had already revealed Di’Anno’s cause of death, as confirmed by his sisters. “Basically, he had a tear in the sac around the heart and blood has filled inside it from the main aorta artery,” Juras said, “and that has caused the heart to stop.”

READ MORE: Top 10 Underrated Iron Maiden Songs

Born Paul Andrews, he adopted the Di’Anno stage name as the replacement for short-lived former Iron Maiden singer Dennis Wilcock in 1977. Their self-titled debut album followed in 1980, and songs like the title track, “Phantom of the Opera” and “Running Free” became set-list staples. Di’Anno’s second album with the group, 1981’s Killers, pointed to the epic style of songwriting that would define their legacy.

By September, however, Di’Anno had played his final show with Iron Maiden. A career retrospective titled The Book of the Beast, released earlier this year, traced the solo career that followed. A documentary about Di’Anno was also reportedly in the works with producer Wes Orshoski, who helmed 2010’s Lemmy about Motorhead‘s late frontman.

Watch Iron Maiden Perform ‘Wrathchild’ With Paul Di’Anno

Iron Maiden’s Rarest Songs

In 1974, an all-new lineup of Fleetwood Mac hit the road because the old band had split up – except they hadn’t. Co-founding drummer Mick Fleetwood was going to join the band at an early stage of the road trip – except he didn’t. And the manager who pulled the strings was just trying to preserve the main group’s rising profile – except he wasn’t.

Scandal seemed to hound Fleetwood Mac from their earliest days as a British blues-rock outfit. In 1970 they’d lost guitarist Peter Green to an LSD-fueled change in attitude. In 1971 they’d lost guitarist-pianist Jeremy Spencer to a religious movement. In 1973 the marriage between bassist John McVie and vocalist-keyboardist Christine McVie had broken down, while recently-added guitarist Bob Weston was involved in an affair with Fleetwood’s wife.

Unsurprisingly, Fleetwood took the decision to cancel the band’s planned U.S. tour. But that didn’t suit manager Clifford Davis, who decided to reshape plans to include an alternative lineup.

READ MORE: Fleetwood Mac to Receive First Authorized Documentary

Elmer Gantry was already an established British musician when Clifford approached him. In 2017 he told Classic Rock that Fleetwood had been involved too. “Clifford suggested to Mick that [bandmate] Kirby Gregory and I would be ideal figures to be part of a new formation of Fleetwood Mac,” the frontman asserted.

A number of meetings took place, with the drummer seemingly providing approval to the new blood. “Mick later asked to be excused rehearsals as he was going through heavy personal issues,” Gantry said, “but he knew the songs inside out and would join at the start of the tour.”

In a separate interview Gantry told the BBC in 2017: “Mick Fleetwood came to our house and we talked through the new band, and it all seemed fine. Mick said, ‘Well, I can’t actually come and rehearse with you.’ It was fairly imminent going to America to tour, but if you get a [temporary] drummer, I’ll join you for the tour.”

Fleetwood Mac – ‘Believe Me’ (1973)

The first show took place on Jan. 16, 1974, in Pittsburgh, with the new lineup told to expect Fleetwood’s arrival imminently; but he didn’t appear, leaving stand-in Craig Collinge to complete the group. “I’d done other Fleetwood Mac shows… and I knew Mick fairly well,” promoter Rich Engler told TribLive in 2022. “Then the stage door opens, and a group walks in that I figured was the roadies. And then they went into the dressing room.” Davis introduced himself as their manager, to which Engler asked when the band would arrive. “He said, ‘They’re here.’ Well, no, they weren’t.”

The situation quickly turned nasty, with Engler refusing to let the band go on stage, and Davis insisting that’s exactly what was going to happen. “He started to take a swing at me,” Engler said. “I was ready to do the same, and then security got between us. The next thing I know, all of those guys ran out onstage and the show started.”

It actually went rather well. “[T]here’s no MTV, no social media, no internet,” Engler said. “Unless you were a big fan of Fleetwood Mac, and if you only knew them from the radio, you might not know that this wasn’t them… [T]he audience was going wild and loving it. They weren’t Fleetwood Mac, but they were actually really good.”

Manager Insisted Fleetwood Mac Was His Band

But Bob Welch – who’d joined Mac in 1971 in Spencer’s place – stated clearly to Rolling Stone at the time: “It is a rip-off. The manager put together a group real fast using the name Fleetwood Mac before we had a chance to do anything about it.”

The tour continued on to its seventh stop in New York on Jan. 26, where the new band were supported by Kiss and Silverhead. Those opening sets had taken place by the time Gantry claimed he’d lost his voice and couldn’t perform. The upshot was that the rest of the lineup had to fulfill their contract by playing a set of instrumental jams – which didn’t go down well.

Fleetwood Mac – ‘Miles Away‘ (1973)

Amid the accusations of having put a fake band on the road, Davis told Rolling Stone: “I want to get this out of the public’s mind as far as the band being Mick Fleetwood’s band. This band is my band. This band has always been my band.”

As word spread of the “fake Mac tour,” the court of public – and band member – opinion won out and the road trip was called off. “For a while we believed that Mick would show,” Gantry said. “However, when he never appeared and we were… branded in the press as imposters, I felt a rage towards him that has taken decades to subside – even slightly. We desperately wanted out, but we were convinced that we had to do the gigs or end up in court in the States, so we carried on.

READ MORE: Top 15 Fleetwood Mac Solo Songs

“We were receiving encores and ovations, but it felt bad. I thought: ‘What’s the point? This has no future.’ Kirby and I were getting really depressed and stoned all the time. We even sacked the pianist on stage one night as he was too drunk to play. Two gigs later, mercifully, Cliff pulled the plug.”

Gantry refuted Fleetwood’s position as stated in the drummer’s memoir, where he said: “To this day, I don’t know the names of the musicians involved and I don’t wanna know.” The guitarist said: “[H]e wrote that he didn’t even know our names, but that I contacted him years later to apologize. Total bollocks! … If Mick had at any point said to us that he had changed his mind, or simply didn’t want to do it, we would never have gone to the States.”

Bassist Paul Martinez reflected: “The U.S. live dates were great because we were a tight band; and against all the odds we still managed to play some really good shows. Joe Walsh told me at one gig in Florida that despite Mick Fleetwood not being there, he thought we were rockin’ with the best of ’em. I don’t recall any major hostility towards us either.”

Fleetwood Mac Lawsuits Led to Late ‘70s Superstardom

They went on to form the band Stretch, and recorded a track titled “Why Did You Do It.” “The line that says: ‘The only ones who know the truth / Man that’s him, me and you,’ was about the fact that me, Elmer and Mick sat in our Tooting flat and discussed the new Fleetwood Mac,” Martinez said.

It took two years for the complex legal fallout to subside. During the distractions Welch persuaded the band to form a company to look after their own affairs, and to move the organization to the States, the better to focus on the court cases there. Those steps were to set Fleetwood, the McVies, and then Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham on course for late ‘70s superstardom.

“I can say, despite all the lurid claims, we never were required to go to court,” Gantry said. “Davis split with the original band, of course, and I believe an ‘accommodation’ was reached. Cliff certainly didn’t seem to be any poorer for the experience.”

Davis has never spoken at length in public about the drama.

Stretch – ‘Why Did You Do It’

An emotional high point from Steve Perry‘s new expanded edition of The Season finds the former Journey frontman singing a duet with his late dad. He’s now released an inventive video for “Call Me Irresponsible,” seen below.

The song was constructed based on a touching gift from long ago that Perry stumbled upon again.

“My father, Ray Perry, was a singer and when I was a child he would sing to me at bedtime,” Perry reveals in an official statement. “I recently found a karaoke cassette of my dad singing that he sent me back in 1993 for Christmas. The one song that touched me the most was, ‘Call Me Irresponsible.’ His voice was lovely.”

READ MORE: Top 35 Journey Videos – Together and Apart

Now dubbed The Season 3, Perry’s latest album includes five other newly recorded songs including “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Let It Snow.” The sessions were co-produced with his Traces collaborator Thom Flowers, and mainly recorded at Perry’s home studio. The sessions also featured drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and multi-instrumentalist Dallas Kruse.

Together, they helped Perry to a reunion with his father that was decades in the making.

“Using technology, we pulled his voice off the cassette and recorded beautiful music around him. Once that was done, an unfulfilled dream of singing with my father was now possible,” Perry said. “You see, mom and dad divorced when I was 7, and dad and I never saw much of each other after that.”

The completed update of “Call Me Irresponsible” became “a very emotional experience for me. His voice was just as I remembered it as a child,” Perry added. “At the end of his cassette, dad says, ‘Merry Christmas, God love ya.’ To hear him speak again brought tears to my eyes.”

Perry first began exploring Yuletide favorites with the Silver Bells EP in 2019. His original full-length version of The Season was issued in 2021, followed by a deluxe edition with 10 more tracks in 2022 – including Perry’s first original holiday song, “Maybe This Year.”

Perry initially returned to these songs in hopes of reigniting the holiday spirit after a season was lost to the pandemic. “The ones I recorded were the ones that touched me most when I was a child, that emotionally meant the most to me and conjured up the spirit of Christmas — that was my decision-making process,” Perry told UCR.

Nick DeRiso is author of the Amazon best-selling rock band bio ‘Journey: Worlds Apart,’ available now at all major bookseller websites.

Ranking Every Steve Perry Album

You Think You Know Journey?

Watch out – they’re arming the movie nerds.

AMC may have already taken the still very young custom popcorn bucket trend too far. Their “bucket” for upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim animated movie is a replica of a war hammer used in the film, which measures 27″ in length.

That’s more than two feet long, which means if you’re actually trying to eat the popcorn out of the top of this contraption while watching the movie, the extremely pointy end of the hammer’s staff will have to go either across the chest of the person on either side of you, through the skull of the person in front of you, or through your own stomach.

Even if you get the angle right, at best it will be sticking between the seats in front of you, annoying the living hell out of your fellow movie-goers. If by some miracle the handle can be detached, get ready for it to clatter down the sloped floor of the theater like the discarded beer bottles at a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening. And the price of this unwieldy piece of plastic? A staggering $32.99.

Why Movie Theaters Are Pouncing on the Popcorn Bucket Trend

The custom popcorn bucket trend exploded early this year with the unnervingly sex-toy shaped Dune 2 collectible, which inspired a hilarious wave of “I’m just here to f— the popcorn bucket” t-shirts. In their quest to find new revenue streams to make up for declining attendance, movie studios and theater chains have unleashed an ever-widening range of exclusive merchandise tied to each new blockbuster.

As one example, the three major chains – Regal, AMC and Cinemark – are combining to offer approximately two dozen different popcorn buckets, drink cups, witch hats, t-shirt and stuffed animals connected to the upcoming musical extravaganza Wicked. Acquiring them all would cost hundreds of dollars.

This trend seems unlikely to fade away quickly, so get ready to eat your popcorn out of a Red Hulk’s head or a dinosaur’s butt next year while watching movies like Captain America: Brave New World or Jurassic World: Rebirth.

Read More: There’s Nothing Suggestive About the ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Popcorn Bucket

Rick Wakeman said the record industry could be saved with remarkably little effort, and explained how he thought it could be done.

In a recent interview with Rick Beato (video below), the keyboard icon argued that business operators with no understanding of music had missed a key part of selling products to people – the sense of a community experience.

He argued it had been a mistake to focus on trying to sell music via online physical and digital services, which execs liked because it maximized profits while minimizing effort. He suggested that, if the industry was still staffed by people with an interest in music – as he believed it had been in the past – they’d understand how easy it would be to sell more records.

READ MORE: Ranking Every Yes Album

“That’s taken away the great record shops,” Wakeman said. “Even up until 20 or 30 years ago, you’d go into a record store [to see] thousands of records. You’d be going through them, trying to find something, and somebody next to you would go, ‘Oh, have you seen the news? Seen the new Jethro Tull album?’ People would talk. And then you’d go back to your friends and talk about the great music you’d found. It was passed on from person to person.”

He continued: “They’ve taken that away. There’s no interaction now between people buying records… What do you do when you go online? You get what you were looking for. [But if] you go into a record store, I guarantee you’ll come out with maybe what you’re looking for, but something else as well – and they’ve taken that away.”

How Rick Wakeman Would Save the Record Industry

Wakeman went on to offer his solution, citing the era of Tower Records but arguing for an updated version. “So, yes, you’ve got vinyl; you’ve got new CDs. You’ve also got old CDs and old vinyl, so you can do an exchange. And if you want to do a download, then you’ve got your computer sections. And also – please God – bring back listening booths; and then have a whole coffee shop area, where people sit down with people they don’t know.”

The crux of his argument, he summarized, was interaction. “It’s what music is all about. And I don’t think it would be that difficult to do that. You just need a couple of record companies that would go, ‘I can see that.’

“It would help to bring back the different ways you can have music, because, at the moment, the record industry just thinks, ‘Streaming.’ And I think the industry, at this present moment in time, isn’t a music industry – but it’s not too late to bring it back.”

Watch Rick Wakeman’s Interview

Revisiting Yes’ First LP Without Chris Squire

Bob Dylan deliberately added an inaccurate scene to his upcoming biopic, and rejected the concerns of director and co-writer James Mangold over the moment.

Dylan was highly proactive throughout production of A Complete Unknown, which arrives on Dec. 25 with Timothee Chalamet in the leading role.

Rolling Stone reported that Edward Norton, who plays Pete Seeger, revealed Dylan’s act of mischief while the film was being made.

READ MORE: The Best Song From Every Bob Dylan Album

“Norton… says Mangold told him Dylan insisted on [adding] at least one totally inaccurate scene,” the report reads. “When Mangold told Dylan he was worried about viewers’ reactions, as Norton tells it, Bob stared at him. ‘What do you care what other people think?,’ he asked.”

The article continued: “There are several possibilities for the scene in question, including the moment when an infamous shout of betrayal from the crowd — which actually happened a year later — is placed at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.”

Bob Dylan is ‘Such a Troublemaker,’ Says Actor

Norton went on to say Dylan took “obvious pleasure in obfuscation and distortion,” adding, “He’s such a troublemaker.”

In the same report, Chalamet recalled telling Mangold he was impressed with a particular piece of dialogue, to be told: “Bob put that in.” The actor noted: “Bob would [insert] these one-off lines that were so fantastic. [Mangold] has an annotated Bob script lying around somewhere. I’ll beg him to get my hands on it. He’ll never give it to me.”

Mangold said he’d met Dylan a number of times before shooting began, explaining: “I felt like Bob just wanted to know what I was up to. ‘Who is this guy? Is he a shithead? Does he get it?’ … the normal questions anyone asks when they’re throwing themselves in league with someone.”

Creators of the Gene Roddenberry Archive released a short Star Trek movie that sees William Shatner return as Captain Kirk, 30 years after his last scene in the Generations movie.

Shatner and the wife of late costar Leonard Nimoy were executive producers of 765874 – Unification. It makes multiple references across Trek history from The Cage – the first pilot from 1965 – to the final episode of Picard, released in 2023.

Cutting-edge technology was used to unveil a story in which Kirk is reunited with his old friend Spock, with the only speech taken from Kirk’s reflective lines from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: “‘There are always possibilities,’ Spock said. And if Genesis is indeed life from death, I must return to this place again.”

The short, which also stars Robin Curtis as Saavik from Star Trek III, can be seen below.

The production was largely welcomed by Trek fans, with many comments under the clip hailing its emotional effect, despite some reporting an “uncanny valley” effect from watching digital versions of Kirk and Spock.

READ MORE: William Shatner Says No New ‘Star Trek’ Series Match Original

765874 – Unification continues a story from previous releases by the Roddenberry Archive and production house OTOY, Inc. It’s mainly based around the events of 1994’s Generations, in which Kirk died trying to prevent a massacre along with Captain Picard, the captain of another USS Enterprise 80 years in his future.

OTOY, Inc. said in a statement: “Iconic characters from classic Star Trek history were brought to life through the live-action performances of a talented cast, led by veteran TV and film star Sam Witwer as young James T. Kirk, with Lawrence Selleck as Spock.

“Witwer and Selleck were filmed in costume, performing as Kirk and Spock on set, aided by both physical and digital prosthetics resulting in period-accurate portrayals matching the appearance of the characters as they originally appeared in TV and film at the time.”

William Shatner Would Love to Return as Kirk

In an interview released alongside the short, Shatner discussed various topics concerning Star Trek and how it affected his worldview.

“You know, I would love to be part of a film that brought the character [of Kirk] back to do something,” he said. “But I’m 65 years older … how do you account for that?”

He added: “Science fiction is filled with magic. You could do it. Because we live in science fiction; [it] offers an imaginative look at what could happen. I think it’s beautiful.”

You can watch the new Shatner interview below.

Vic Flick, the English guitarist best known for playing on the “James Bond Theme,” died on Nov. 14 at the age of 87.

The news was shared on social media by his son, Kevin.

“With great sadness my mother – Vic’s wife Judith, his grandchild Tyler and I must announce that my father Vic Flick passed away peacefully last Thursday and so ending his battle with Alzheimers,” the post said.

Flick was born in Surrey, England in 1937. It was in 1962 that composer John Barry enlisted him to play on Monty Norman’s “James Bond Theme,” which appeared in the very first James Bond film, Dr. No. He was paid a one-off fee of £6 for his work.

Listen to Vic Flick on the ‘James Bond Theme’

“I placed the DeArmond pickup near the bridge,” he explained to Guitar Player in 2021, describing the song’s recording process. “I put a crushed cigarette packet underneath it to get it nearer the strings. That helped to get that round sound. Most important, sound-wise, was the Vox AC15 amplifier. I used it on tour. It wouldn’t let me down – until it fell eight feet into a music pit and disintegrated. … [The guitar] was picked up by the mics for the orchestra, and it gave the guitar a mysterious, powerful sound. It was a sound we created, to a certain extent, and it had a bite that they loved. It was all go, go, go from then on.”

Beyond James Bond

Flick contributed to several other Bond soundtracks, including From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, and also worked with the likes of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, the Beatles and more.

READ MORE: 60 Years Ago: The Beatles and James Bond Debut on the Same Day

“I knew Sir George [Martin] when he was working at Abbey Road EMI,” Flick said to Guitar Player. “He had a bit of an attitude, a bit of, ‘I say, old chap, come on.’ He’d ask the fixers, or contractors, to line up session musicians. … Mostly, the Beatles kept apart, sitting at the table in the corner, unlike the session guys who would come in and spread themselves all over the place. I did some special pieces, like [the instrumental] ‘This Boy’ theme in A Hard Day’s Night, where I play my Fender Strat when Ringo is walking along the river.”

Listen to Vic Flick on ‘Ringo’s Theme (This Boy)’

Christmas decorations can sparkle, jingle, glitter (so much glitter), and they can transform our homes into magical, festive wonderlands.

Unpacking Special Memories

They can also trigger a special kind of nostalgia. For many of us, unpacking a box of treasures from the basement or attic was like unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning. Each piece had its own story, whether it was a slightly squished ornament or a garland that had seen better days.

RELATED: 15 Unforgettable Things You’d Always Find at Grandma’s House

From bubble lights that seemed like a fire hazard even to a daring 9-year-old (water and electricity on a tree—what could go wrong?) to endless strands of tinsel inevitably ingested by the family cat (and, well, exiting the cat), these decorations became cherished characters in our own Christmas stories.

Treasured Hand-Me-Downs

Christmas decor has a unique way of bridging generations. Some pieces were lovingly passed down from grandparents, aunts, or uncles—treasures from a time when “safety” wasn’t exactly a top priority.

…tinsel is better known for getting absolutely everywhere—and inevitably ending up ingested by, you guessed it, the cat.

These items became fixtures of the season, always there to signal Christmas had arrived… until, one year, they weren’t. And that’s the heart of nostalgia—those little moments and memories that linger long after the decorations are gone.

So, let’s take a look back at some of the most popular Christmas decorations from decades past. Who knows? You might just find a festive favorite that brings back memories of holiday seasons gone by.

Andy Paley, who produced 1988’s Brian Wilson and oversaw the Beach Boys mastermind’s last sessions with sibling Carl Wilson, has died. Brian Wilson reportedly once described Paley as the “most frighteningly talented person” that he’d ever met.

Ironically enough, one of Paley’s earliest concert experiences was seeing the Beach Boys in the early ’60s at the RPI Fieldhouse in Troy, New York. “It was a big act; it was a big deal,” Paley admitted to the Daily Gazette. “It was amazing.”

A former vice president of Paley’s label, Sire Records, confirmed his death. “I am so sad that Andy is leaving us, but I have no doubt that when he is received in the perceived ‘rock ‘n’ roll heaven,’ he will be orchestrating, producing, writing and singing like the angel he has been to so many!” Marc Nathan said. No cause of death was immediately reported. Paley was 72.

READ MORE: Beach Boys’ Best Post-‘Pet Sounds’ Songs

He co-founded the Paley Brothers with Jonathan Paley after an initial move from New York to California, and was signed to Sire Records by Seymour Stein. When the Paley siblings went their separate ways, Andy played keyboards in Patti Smith‘s band before going into production work.

Over the years, Paley worked with Elton John (2001’s Good Rockin’ Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records), Madonna (“I’m Going Bananas” from 1990’s Dick Tracy), NRBQ (1989’s Wild Weekend), Jerry Lee Lewis (Dick Tracy and 1995’s Young Blood) and Little Richard (“Elevator Operator” from 1991’s [Music From the Film] A Rage In Harlem), before serving as a songwriter and producer for Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants.

Listen to Brian Wilson’s ‘Meet Me In My Dreams’

How Did Andy Paley Meet Brian Wilson?

Stein later connected Wilson with Paley, who was then overseeing other sessions at a studio in England. “I talked to Brian on the phone, which was an incredible thrill for me,” Paley told the Daily Gazette. “It was 3AM in London. I don’t know what time it was in New York when I got that phone call – but I was wide awake.”

Wilson had signed a new two-album comeback solo contract with Stein, leading to the critically hailed, though curiously low-selling Brian Wilson. Paley was credited with co-writing and co-producing “Night Time,” “Meet Me in My Dreams Tonight” and “Rio Grande,” while contributing on guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, harmonica and backing vocals.

Though Wilson had been away from music for an extended period of time, Paley said he hadn’t lost a step. “The best things about writing, producing and collaborating with Brian Wilson in general are his energy, creativity and his brilliant sense of humor,” Paley said in Back to the Beach. “He is always underrated as a lyricist, but I saw him come up with great lines all the time.”

Sessions for an aborted 1990 follow-up, to be called Sweet Insanity, attempted to catch lightning in a bottle again by keeping most of personnel from Brian Wilson – but the album was eventually scrapped. Paley’s “Where Has Love Been?” later showed up on Wilson’s 1998 album Imagination.

Listen to the Beach Boys’ ‘Soul Searchin”

‘We May’ve Written a Hundred Songs’

The 2007 Wilson compilation Playback also included Paley’s “Some Sweet Day,” as one of two previously unreleased tracks. “Soul Searchin'” and “You’re Still a Mystery” were included on Made in California, the 2012 Beach Boys box set.

“We were having lots of fun writing and recording back then,” Paley remembered in 2015. “We may’ve written a hundred songs. It was a real creative explosion.”

They got back together in the mid-’90s for the so-called Andy Paley Sessions, which focused on original material recorded with the other members of the Beach Boys. None of it had been released when Carl Wilson died in 1998. Instead, the Paley co-written songs “Soul Searchin'” (featuring Carl), “Gettin’ In Over My Head” and “Saturday Morning in the City” were reworked with others for Wilson’s 2004 studio album, also titled Gettin’ In Over My Head.

Later the same year, Paley’s song “The Best Day Ever” was memorably featured in The SpongeBob Movie after another chance introduction to Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants. A second career was born: “We thought of it like the cartoons for the Monkees or Jackson 5 or the Beatles,” Paley told the Daily Gazette. “We just thought, ‘Why not just do good pop songs and have SpongeBob and Patrick and Plankton and everybody sing?'”

Judas Priest finally has a version of their debut album, 1974’s Rocka Rolla, that they’re happy with. 50 years after its original release, they’ve gone back to the original master tapes with longtime producer Tom Allom, known for his production work on many classic albums for the band.

Allom set up shop at British Grove Studios, working with engineer Luie Stylianou to carefully transfer the tapes to digital so that they could work on doing a full remix of all of the songs on Rocka Rolla. The pair were careful to honor what had been captured with the original recordings, but also, they weren’t afraid to work to bring the sounds closer to the band’s original vision.

“This album sounded so different and was such a different product from anything they made subsequently, because they weren’t the band they then became at that time, Allom explains in a new interview on the UCR Podcast, which you can listen to below. “They weren’t particularly heavy. About the only similarity to them musically with the subsequent albums was Rob Halford’s voice, to be honest. The guitar tones were nowhere near developed like they became with later albums. So we were kind of working with an open manuscript and using our own collective judgment.”

Listen to Judas Priest’s One for the Road (2024 Remix)

For former guitarist K.K. Downing, he’s relieved that they were finally able to reclaim both Rocka Rolla and the subsequent Sad Wings of Destiny album that arrived in 1976. “We kind of had to leave the baby on the doorstep and walk away at the time,” he tells UCR now during a separate conversation. “Now they’re back in the fold and, and it’s great to feel a part of them, and the albums feel a part of me again.”

“The good thing is certainly the integrity of the album and, and obviously the the antiquity of what is Rocka Rolla is being preserved, you know, albeit remixed and remastered,” Downing adds. “It’s a much better experience than me, because I can actually be in the room again, more so than on the original recordings. There’s coughs and squeaks and rattles and stuff like that, but it’s good. It actually enables, for the first time, I think, for the listener to actually be in that studio room with us while we were doing those recordings in such an antique kind of style, where we all stood there playing the song from beginning to end. And if somebody got it wrong, you’d have to start all over again. So I think all of that’s been captured, which is a good feeling, really.”

READ MORE: Judas Priest’s ‘Rocka Rolla’ Gets New Remix and Remaster

Part of the charm of the original recording of Rocka Rolla was that it accurately depicted the scrappy conditions the band were dealing with, both personally and professionally at the time they made the album. “When we first heard the [completed] recording of it, we were all disappointed,” bassist Ian Hill shares with UCR. “But it was all done on a very low shoestring budget, during nighttime hours, because studio time was cheaper during the night. We slept in the van outside the studios, got cleaned up in the facilities there and worked overnight. So really, it was always going to have its faults.”

“But the thing is, I remember going to my local record store in West Bromwich on Paradise Street, Turner’s Records. You see it on the shelf and there are the [Rolling] Stones and the Beatles and your favorite albums, you know, Jimi Hendrix and Cream. [Rocka Rolla] is in there and it’s amongst them. It was an incredibly proud moment. You think, ‘Whatever happens now, you can’t take that away from us.’ We’d made a mark, however small it was. It was a tremendously powerful moment.”

Hill calls the new mixes of Rocka Rolla “brilliant,” echoing praise that both Allom and Stylianou were happy to hear from the other band members as well. “We tried to start from as neutral a canvas as possible and not have any preconceptions of what should be done to the material,” Stylianou tells UCR. “We had to make some decisions about the sonic direction we would take it in. From my perspective, it was all about just having the material dicated what was required in terms of mixing.”

“We were also very conscious not to take it sonically away from the ’70s,” Allom explains. “Back in those days, we didn’t use a lot of reverb on stuff, [so we kept it] true to the era in which it was made. I still listen to some of the things I did in the ’80s. I wish I could go back and remix them more like they were from the ’70s. To be honest, the ’80s was the birth of quite revolutionary and also, sometimes quite objectionable reverbs, in my view. But Luie was very good at doing [things like] putting a bit of room on the drums, because there are some very good digital reverbs that create very realistic room sound.”

Listen to Tom Allom on the latest episode of the ‘UCR Podcast’

As the pair shared with UCR, they’re now working on the tapes for Sad Wings of Destiny, for future release. “I think that one’s going to be a real step forward in terms of the band’s development,” Stylianou says. “Obviously, we know the transition they made. We were a little bit unsure as to whether there would be as significant of a change, but digging in, it’s quite [different] and it’s taken us by surprise, what was lurking on the multi-tracks. It’s sounding pretty energetic and we’re very excited.”

Paul Simon has abandoned one of his biggest hits, a decision that was entirely out of his control.

The acclaimed singer-songwriter, now 83 years old, has been open about his ongoing battle with hearing loss. While the condition has forced him to retire from touring, Simon has continued performing occasional concerts.

During a recent conversation with CBS Mornings, the musician explained how he manages his condition – and why it made him retire one of his most popular songs.

READ MORE: Paul Simon Hopes to Play a Full Concert

“There’s only about 6% [hearing] in my left ear,” Simon explained, noting how he has to use multiple monitors during performances. “When the balance is right, I can hear well.”

The condition has also affected his setlist decisions.

“I’m going through my repertoire and reducing a lot of the choices I make to acoustic versions,” he noted. “It’s all much quieter. It’s not ‘You Can Call Me Al.’ That’s gone. I can’t do that one.”

Paul Simon Working With Leading Scientists on Hearing Loss

Though Simon called his condition “incredibly frustrating,” he has a renewed sense of hope thanks to research being conducted at Stanford University. There, a team of scientists are working to reverse the affects of hearing loss, and their progress has been substantial.

READ MORE: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Paul Simon

The CBS Mornings segment highlighted two notable success stories. In one, scientists were able to restore hearing for zebrafish that had previously been deaf. In another, Stanford’s team were able to regenerate hair cells in mice (both animals have similar inner ear structures to humans). Simon admitted their progress “gives me hope that there is some significant improvement on the horizon.”

In the meantime, the musician – whose most recent album, Seven Psalms, was released in 2023 – will continue doing what he can.

“I don’t think creativity stops with disability,” Simon explained. “So far, I haven’t experienced that. And I hope not to.”

Ratt‘s Stephen Pearcy said his band would have deserved a slot on Motley Crue‘s Stadium Tour if they had reunited — but he speculated that the headliners wouldn’t have wanted to follow their opening act.

When asked in a new interview by AllMusic‘s Greg Prato whether a reunited Ratt should have taken part in the 2022 trek — which also featured Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett — Pearcy said: “Of course. But I’m not the one … if it was a vote, of course not – I don’t think Motley would want to play after us. And that’s how it would have settled up.

“We still have some kind of competition out there, y’know?” Pearcy continued. “We would consider it like, ‘What? We’re going to open up for you?’ So yeah, we should have. It would have made sense. I mean, I don’t care if you put us third, fourth, whatever — our motto was, ‘Go out there and beat your ass, anyway.’ And if they know you’re playing first, they’ll come and see you first, second, third, or whatever.”

READ MORE: Hear Ratt’s Previously Unreleased ’80s Song ‘Reach for the Sky’

Stephen Pearcy Has Attempted to Reunite Ratt’s Classic Lineup

Pearcy said he’s tried to reunite with surviving classic-era Ratt members Warren DeMartini, Juan Croucier and Bobby Blotzer in recent years, but his overtures were unsuccessful. (Pearcy and Croucier toured under the Ratt moniker in 2021, but Pearcy later said the lineup “just doesn’t cut it.”) The absence of guitarist Robbin Crosby, who died in 2002, has also impeded any potential reunion progress.

“I had made those attempts. And some of my guys, they’re complacent and some of them … it’s not even a matter of not needing to financially,” he said. “It’s a matter of … some of them don’t have the drive that I do. And without Robbin Crosby — who was really important in keeping the band together and keeping us directed — he was the guy who pretty much directed us. I created it, he directed it. I made attempts.”

In the meantime, Pearcy has been playing the Ratt catalog on solo tours, but he hasn’t abandoned all hope of a reunion. A 40th-anniversary reissue of Ratt’s debut album Out of the Cellar arrived last month, and he hopes that would motivate the band to take part in a future iteration of the Stadium Tour.

“It will go down again, and we’ll see,” Pearcy mused. “Like I said, I tried to get the original guys. We attempted it once, and it was just like, ‘Whoa.’ … At the end of the day, I’m the guy left standing, going, ‘OK, that’s cool. That’s the way it should be: 40-year anniversary.’ And what I’m doing [on my solo tours] is playing the [whole] record live. The original band never even did that!”

Yes member Jon Davison has issued a statement about the recent lawsuit involving the singer and guitarist Steve Howe.

Papers filed in the Central District of California by Riz Story claim that the pair stole his 2012 song “Reunion” and retitled it “Dare to Know” on Yes’ 2021 album The Quest.

Davison wrote on Tuesday, “It’s hard to put in words how it feels to wake up one day to hear that a person who I thought was a friend has brought not only an utterly fictitious but also a defamatory case against me.

“While my initial reaction is to say nothing in the face of these blatant lies and this frivolous lawsuit, I feel I must address the personal slander that has been included within it as I have been so deeply hurt.”

READ MORE: Yes’ Steve Howe on ‘The Quest’ and Recording Without Chris Squire

Noting that his statement is “lengthy … in the best traditions of Yes,” Davison explains that he “did not write ‘Dare to Know.’ … I have never heard ‘Reunion’ before this lawsuit. And, most importantly, I did not steal ‘Reunion,’ a sequence of notes that is so generic it can be found in hundreds of compositions going back over 200 years.”

Davison says he attempted to contact Story, whose real name is Rudolph Zahler, and his lawyer when he heard about the lawsuit. “They refused to respond, and even when our manager asked them to address it, we were met with threatening emails,” he notes.

“And in contradiction to the false, and we believe defamatory, narrative put forward by this lawsuit, it is our belief that Mr. Story is possibly attempting to ‘steal’ a credit on our album, and gain publicity for himself, following 12 years of frustration with his own career.”

What Is Going on With the New Yes Lawsuit?

In his lawsuit, Story said he was in a band with Davison and the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins during the ’90s and that he and Davison have since worked together over the years. When the singer joined Yes in 2012, Story noted he collaborated with the band, including a production role that didn’t pan out.

“Mr. Davison decided to just ‘steal’ Mr. Zahler’s song ‘Reunion’ for the album, rather than getting Mr. Zahler’s permission,” the lawsuit claimed, adding that Davison and Howe “decided to add lyrics to the music, affix the name ‘Dare to Know’ to the song and attribute sole songwriting credit to Mr. Howe.”

“Reunion” has appeared only on the 2012 soundtrack to the movie A Winter Rose.

“We have evidence to confirm that over this period, and since I joined Yes,” Davison counters, “[Story] has approached my manager, my record label and Yes his “favorite band ever” on numerous occasions to ask them to represent him as a client, to release his album or to work with Yes as producer, mixer, remaster – the list goes on.”

You can read Davison’s full statement on Yes’ Facebook page.