Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Guns N’ Roses, the Beastie Boys, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the late singer/songwriter Laura Nyro, Donovan, and influential British rock group The Small Faces/The Faces — which included Rod Stewart and Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood — were named as the 2012 class of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: AP Images
Adele, Miley Cyrus, Darren Criss, Dave Matthews Band, Maroon 5, Elvis Costello, Pete Seeger, Tom Morello, and Ke$ha are among the acts who have contributed new or previously unreleased tracks to the album Chimes of Freedom which pays tribute to both Bob Dylan and Amnesty International.
Adele has gifted Chimes of Freedom a live version of “Make You Feel My Love” and Cyrus sings “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” while folk legend Seeger performs “Forever Young.”
But they’re hardly the only ones on this massive four-disc outing. Find the just-released full tracklisting after the jump:
Image Credit: David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images
For decades, the question of who exactly is the greatest guitarist of all-time has occupied countless music fans — if not drummers, like myself, who are usually too exhausted from doing all the real work to debate such an inconsequential matter.
Regardless, Rolling Stone has just released a new list which ranks history’s top 100 fretmeisters and which was voted on by a veritable army of guitarists including Billy Corgan, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Lifeson, Ritchie Blackmore, Mick Mars, Robbie Robertson, Melissa Etheridge, and Kirk Hammett.
The list is packed with what can only be described as the usual, legendary, suspects. Jimi Hendrix tops the 100 and he is very much not the only featured musician currently jamming at the great gig in the sky.
Indeed, while such young-ish turks as Slash, Jack White, Derek Trucks, and Radiohead‘s Jonny Greeenwood are included, the entire top ten is made up of either the deceased or guitarists who, with the arguable exception of Jeff Beck, haven’t recorded anything of real note in a long time.
Take a look at the list yourself by clicking here and tell us what you think. Does the 100 merely reflect the electorate’s own often very “venerable” nature or is the golden age of the great, innovative, guitar hero now just a distant memory? And who is your pick for the best guitarist of all-time?
Read more:
The best bassline of all time? One (silly) poll gives Muse’s ‘Hysteria’ the top spot
Our take on this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees: Should the Beastie Boys, Guns ‘N Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and others get in?
Slash talks about his tour with Ozzy, the search for Velvet Revolver’s singer, and Axl’s latest accolade
Keith Richards: Music’s most influential character?
Image Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
This year’s crop of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees have just been announced, and it’s the usual weird assortment of mega-band veterans and less-known innovators. So who will actually get inducted come April? I have no idea. But here’s my personal take on who I think deserves to get in. Disagree? Weigh in below!
BEASTIE BOYS
Should they get in? Definitely. When Licensed To Ill came out in 1986, nobody could have predicted all that brat-rap bravado marked the launch of one of the next two decades’ major artists. But the album was a blockbuster (the first rap album to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200), and the followup, Paul’s Boutique, remains one of hip-hop’s greatest achievements. They’ve been pumping out consistently innovative and entertaining albums ever since.
THE CURE
Should they get in? Yes. Dock points for the hair-spray-attack fashion crimes (is there a bad-hair Hall of Fame?), but this is one of the best bands of the past 30 years, from perky hits like “Close To Me” to moody masterpiece Disintegration.
DONOVAN
Should he get in? Probably not. I like “Catch the Wind” and some other tunes just fine, but there’s a reason he’s never made the cut before: Donovan’s dippy sunshine folk just hasn’t aged well. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Dave Benett/Getty Images
Yes, folks, it’s that time of the year again. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has released its nominations for the class of 2012 and the list is as follows: Guns N’ Roses, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, the Cure, Heart, Eric B. and Rakim, the Small Faces/Faces, Rufus with Chaka Khan, War, Laura Nyro, Donovan, Freddy King, and the Spinners. Those who receive enough votes will be inducted on April 14, 2012, at the Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
As always with the list of nominees, several questions immediately spring to mind. Will this be the year for the Beasties and the Chili Peppers, both of whom have been nominated before (as have Nyro, War, and Donovan)? Has the Hall of Fame done enough — or too much — to highlight the creative contributions of hip-hop to “rock and roll”? And will the classic, ’80s-era lineup of Guns N’ Roses reunite to play, call each other names, or compare rehab facilities?
Send us your thoughts!
Read more:
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts Alice Cooper, Tom Waits
Vh1′s Top 100 Songs of the ’00s: Find the first 11 songs here! — An EW Exclusive
Radiohead drop woozy ‘Lotus Flower’ and ‘Staircase’ on ‘SNL’: What did you think?
Image Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Sin City veteran Elton John has signed on for another three-year run of shows at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas which he is calling The Million Dollar Piano.
The “Pinball Wizard” star will return to Nevada in September and tickets for the first 16 shows go on sale April 25. “The show will be a gargantuan feast of music and imagery,” John was quoted as saying in a statement on his website. “I’m going to have a fabulous piano that Yamaha has been working on for four years, and that’s the reason why the show is called ‘The Million Dollar Piano.’”
John’s previous stint at Caesars Palace lasted five years and concluded in April, 2009.
More from EW.com:
Matthew Morrison unveils Elton John duet
‘Saturday Night Live’ recap: Elton John hosts
Image Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson/Landov
Alice Cooper and Tom Waits were among the five performers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Monday night at the official ceremony held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Cooper, whose horror-inspired shock rock first went mainstream in 1971 with his hit “I’m Eighteen,” was inducted by fellow horror-rocker Rob Zombie. He showed up for the event wearing a (presumably fake) blood-splattered shirt and had a giant albino snake wrapped around his neck. “We’ve always been a hard-rock band,” the AP reports Cooper said. “We just wanted to decorate it a little differently.” READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty ImagesDavid Lee Roth is apparently back in the studio with Van Halen. There have been rumors for some months that the singer was set to reunite with his old band and those rumors have seemingly been confirmed by producer John Shanks, who has previously overseen albums by Bon Jovi and Miley Cyrus, amongst others. First Shanks tweeted the message “here we go kids…..vh” and then he posted a photograph of Eddie Van Halen’s amplifier accompanied by the message, “Wtf!”
Last August, Billboard reported that a release by music publishers Warner Chappell—who represent Eddie and Alex Van Halen—had stated that a Van Halen CD featuring Roth would be released in 2011.
Roth fronted Van Halen during their successful 2007-8 tour but hasn’t actually recorded an album with the band since 1984′s 1984, which was certified platinum eight times.
Needless to day, that was a looooong time ago. Are you excited to hear what Dave and Eddie sound like in 2011?
More from EW.com:
Eddie Van Halen marries
Site of the day: ‘Runnin’ with the Devil’ soundboard
Image Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesThe Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced its 2011 inductees today—Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper, Dr. John, and Darlene Love are set to be immortalized in the the March 14 ceremony, which will air on Fuse. But those inductees are out of 15 possible nominees that were made public in September. First of all: Big ups to all of those lucky musicians! Congrats. But as you may or may not know, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame releases a list of nominees a few months before announcing who’ll actually be inducted that year. It was after looking over that list of possible inductees that I found myself stunned: Bon Jovi didn’t make the cut. Granted, there are several other deserving folks who were nominated and didn’t make it, and this was only the first year that Bon Jovi was nominated (they’ll probably get in before too much longer), but it does seem more than egregious that they didn’t make it. Right? Right. Anyway, without further ado, I present my three reasons why Bon Jovi should have made the cut this year.
• Um, have you heard “Livin’ on a Prayer”? How can you not revel in that awesome song? Relive it here:
Image Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesMusic icon Cher addressed quite a few buzzy topics in her recent cover profile in Vanity Fair—subjects ranged from the demise of her relationship with former (and now deceased) husband Sonny Bono and her son Chaz’s sex change to working with pop star Christina Aguilera in the upcoming, to-be-released-on-Thanksgiving movie Burlesque. But one particular point Cher made in the piece stopped me in my tracks—the star thinks she and Sonny have been overlooked for inclusion in one of music’s most coveted groups: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“Sonny and I still aren’t in the [Rock and Roll] Hall of Fame, and it just seems kind of rude,” Cher said. “Sonny was a good writer, and we started something that no one else was doing. We were weird hippies before there was a name for it, when the Beatles were wearing sweet little haircuts and round-collared suits…. We influenced a generation, and it’s like: What more do you want?”
It’s an interesting point, right? And honestly, one that I’ve never thought about too much when it comes to discussions around who is being snubbed from being nominated into the group. What do you think, Music Mixers? Does Cher have a point? Or have all those sequins over the years made her delusional on this subject? Were Sonny and Cher influential—and rock and roll—enough to warrant being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? I’d love to hear your thoughts, so sound off in the comments below.
Tanner on Twitter: @EWTanStransky
The Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix
More on Cher from EW’s The Music Mix:
Cher exclusive: The superstar discusses her upcoming album
