Have you ever wanted to become Whitney Houston, Adam Levine, Kesha, or Kelly Clarkson? Are you already famous? If so, the sky’s the limit on America’s latest singing competition, which debuts this week on ABC.
Sing Your Face Off, a new series based on a reality format that’s popular overseas, will allow stars to morph into their favorite popular musical acts in both style, look, and performance. During the show’s six-episode run, viewers will watch five celebrities (including Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach, actor Jon Lovitz, basketball star Landry Fields, singer China Ann McClain and actor/TV personality Lisa Rinna) undergo vocal training and physical transformation to take on the identity of a popular musician. They will be judged by a panel that includes actor John Barrowman (Arrow, Torchwood), pop singer Debbie Gibson, and comedian Darrell Hammond (Saturday Night Live).
So, how might this show work? Or rather, how well does someone like Sebastian Bach pull off the smooth stylings of Maroon 5′s Moves Like Jagger? We’ve got your first look, and, uh…we’ll let the clip speak for itself.
Sebastian’s new album solo album, Give ‘Em Hell was released on April 22nd through Frontiers Records.
Skid Row is surprising their fans with an unusual way to release their new music. Instead of one full album, the band is releasing three mini albums over the course of several months. Rachel Bolan states, “We wanted to do something different and the idea of releasing three mini albums, appealed to me. Especially with the constantly changing musical climate I liked the idea of a steady flow of new music we decided to release it this way to keep new music coming for our fans.”
Rise Of The Damnation Army – United World Rebellion: Chapter Two, will be released on August 4th in Europe as CD digipack, 180 Gram single vinyl gatefold and digital. Megaforce Records will release the CD on August 5th in the US and it will be released to the rest of the world via UDR/ADA/Warner on August 6th.
Most of the songs were written in Atlanta, Georgia, but a lot of the lyrics were written while the band was on the road. As with United World Rebellion: Chapter One, Skid Row worked very hard on Rise Of The Damnation Army as time is always an issue while the band is touring so much. The songs are some of their most aggressive ones to date and very heartfelt. Listening to them you hear the full explosion and intensity and you want to just throw your fists in the air and conjunct with them for a United World Rebellion.
The EP will also contain as bonus tracks covers of Queen and Aerosmith classics. Asking why they chose the cover songs the band stated, “These songs fit seamlessly into the subject matter of United World Rebellion: Chapter Two. They both have that ‘get up and fight’ attitude. These songs were from our youth that meant a lot and as far as we know, no one has covered them, and more important, the songs are still exciting and fit perfectly with the attitude of all other songs on the album.”
Skid Row were showered with gold and platinum awards, their debut album sold over 5 million copies in the US alone, but not resting on their laurels, Skid Row is one of the hardest working bands ever. They’ve been around for more than 25 years and are still going strong.
Rise Of The Damnation Army – United World Rebellion: Chapter Two track listing:
1. We Are The Damned
2. Give It The Gun
3. Catch Your Fall
4. Damnation Army
5. Zero Day
Bonus tracks:
6. Sheer Heart Attack (Queen)
7. Rats In The Cellar (Aerosmith)
As previously reported, Skid Row is currently out on the road with Black Star Riders. Remaining tour dates appear below.
7/9 Rochester, NY Montage Music Hall
7/10 Cleveland, OH Agora
7/11 Newport, KY Thompson House
7/12 Arlington Heights, IL Home Bar
7/13 Watseka, IL Watseka Theater
7/17 Peoria. IL Illinois State Fair
7/18 Turtle Lake, WI St. Croix Casino
7/19 Oshkosh, WI Rock USA
7/20 Battle Creek, MI Planet Rock
7/25 Duncannon, PA Tubby’s
Metallica’s self-titled 1991 album has hit a new sales threshold. The album, which continues to be the best-selling release of the Nielsen SoundScan era, has become the first album to sell 16 million copies since SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991, reports Keith Caulfield of Billboard.
Metallica — often referred to as The Black Album because of its stark cover art — sold another 3,000 copies in the week ending May 25th. That brings its cumulative total to 16,002,000.
SoundScan began tracking U.S. music sales in 1991. Its point-of-sale data was first used to compile the Billboard 200 albums chart on May 25th, 1991. Metallica marked the group’s first number one that year, when it debuted atop the list.
Metallica became the biggest-selling album of the SoundScan era in the week ending December 20th, 2009, when it overtook Shania Twain’s Come On Over. Twain’s album is currently in second place on the list, with 15.57 million.
Metallica and Come On Over are the only two albums that have sold more than 15 million copies in the SoundScan era. There have been 22 releases that have shifted at least 10 million. The most recently-released title to reach the 10 million plateau was Adele’s 2011 album 21. (Its sales now stand at 10.94 million.)
On the most current Billboard 200 chart, Metallica climbs from No. 155 to No. 144, marking its 307th week on the chart. That continues to be the longest chart run of any title since the tally began using SoundScan data.
Since the Billboard 200 became a regularly-published weekly chart in 1956, Metallica‘s run is the sixth-longest. (Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon has the most weeks on the chart, with 861.)
Get ready to mosh in the privacy of your own home, because multiple Grammy-nominated, Platinum-selling thrash masters Anthrax have announced the release of Chile On Hell, a live-in-concert DVD that is set for a September 16th, 2014 release.
Chile On Hell was filmed at the Teatro Caupolican in Santiago, Chile on May 10th, 2013,and features Anthrax – Joey Belladonna/vocals, Scott Ian/guitar, Charlie Benante/drums, Frank Bello/bass and Jon Donais/lead guitar. The band performed an extended set that featured songs from Anthrax’s entire catalogue – all the fan-favorites including I Am The Law, Indians, Madhouse, Caught In A Mosh, The Devil You Know, and I’m Alive. Chile On Hell will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray, was recorded in 5.1 Surround Sound, and will retail for $16.98.
“Santiago was the perfect place to film the show for this,” said Anthrax’s Charlie Benante. “When we’d played there in the past, we’d finish our set, play our encore and go back to the dressing room. But every time, the fans would continue to scream and cheer and clap. I mean, they went on and on, they wouldn’t stop. One time Scott and I walked out to the side of the stage just to watch what was going on in the audience, it was intense. Why wouldn’t we want to film a DVD in front of an audience like that?”
“Plus,” Benante continued, the time was right to do this DVD.” The band was in the home stretch of a three-plus-year campaign to record and support Worship Music and the Anthems EP, a period of time that was loaded with high points: the return of “classic era” vocalist Joey Belladonna, Worship Music making the band’s highest chart debut in two decades, the series of Big Four shows – Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer and Metallica, the four bands that wrote the speed and thrash metal road map – that culminated in the September 2011 Big Four spectacular at Yankee Stadium in the band’s home town of New York, Anthrax Day declared in the Bronx, becoming the first metal band to have its music (Got The Time) played on Mars, two Grammy nominations, and sold out shows in every corner of the globe. “We wanted to finish on a high note,” Benante continued, “we didn’t want to look back and regret that we didn’t record the live show.”
Chile On Hell was produced by Jay Ruston and filmed by City Drive Entertainment Group and DC3 Global. The DVD’s cover art was designed by Stephen Thompson who partnered with Benante to “redesign” the artwork from last year’s Anthems EP.
Judas Priest–who are celebrating their 40th anniversary this year–will release their new album, Redeemer of Souls, on July 15th through Epic Records.
In anticipation, the group has teamed with Revolver to premiere a preview video for another song off the LP. In addition to featuring an extended sample of the song, titled Halls of Valhalla, the clip also showcases vocalist Rob Halford and guitarist Glenn Tipton discussing the tune. Watch it below.
Speaking with the BBC Radio Wales on May 23rd, Queen guitarist Brian May revealed the band would be releasing a new collection of music later this year that will include previously unreleased songs sung by Freddie Mercury.
“We found a few more tracks with Freddie singing and all of us playing and they are quite beautiful,” May said, speaking with radio host Wynne Evans. “It is a compilation but will have this material that nobody in the world has ever heard. I think people will really enjoy it.”
May said the album’s title will most likely be Queen Forever and should see release towards the end of the year.
“Most of it comes from the ’80s when we were in full flight,” May continued. “It is quite emotional. It is the big, big ballads and the big, big epic sound. It wouldn’t have been if we hadn’t have done this restoration job. We had to start from scratch because we only had scraps. But knowing how it would have happened if we had finished it, I can sit there and make it happen with modern technology.”
