Famous

Elton John detailed Rocketman‘s long journey to the big screen in his own words in a lengthy article John penned for the Guardian.

“The whole experience of watching someone else pretend to be you on screen, of seeing things you remember happening again in front of your eyes, is a very weird, disconcerting one, like having an incredibly vivid dream,” John wrote of the biopic.
“And the story of how I ended up in a cinema, crying my eyes out at the sight of my family 60 years ago, is a long and convoluted one. And it begins, naturally enough, with a naked transgender woman with sparks flying out of her vagina.”

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If you’re one of the well-heeled bidders who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at a guitar auction today, it’s time to have a cigar.

David Gilmour’s guitar collection set several auction records when nearly 130 instruments went up for bid at Christie’s in New York today. The former Pink Floyd frontman’s most iconic instrument, the so-called Black Strat, fetched $3,975,000, well above the estimated range of $100,000 to $150,000. Other big-ticket items included a 1954 Fender Stratocaster with the serial number 0001, which was used on the recording of “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” went for over $1.8 million, a 1958 Gretsch White Penguin went for $447,000, and a 1955 Gibson Goldtop Les Paul, also used on “Another Brick” sold for $447,000. Christie’s declared all to be “world auction records.”

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Ringo Starr has shared highlights and behind-the-scenes footage from his 11th annual “Peace and Love” birthday celebration event at the Capitol Records Tower in Los Angeles this weekend.
As Starr explains during an interview in the clip, the “Peace and Love” celebration started in 2008 and came about after a journalist asked Starr what he wanted for his birthday. He replied,, “I’d like everyone on the planet to go, ‘Peace and love’ on my birthday.” The event has since become an annual July 7th tradition, and now fans in over 26 countries have organized their own celebrations.
The Los Angeles event this past Sunday found Starr celebrating with David Lynch, Peter Jackson, Nils Lofgren, Sheila E., Benmont Tench, Ed Begley, Jr. and more. The clip also included snippets of performances by Ben Kyle and Sara Watkins, the Jacks and the students of the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus in partnership with the Fernando Pullum Community Arts Center, who sang an original song about peace and love that will premiere online at a later date.

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Black Sabbath wrote the book on heavy, and their first decade’s worth of albums represent the Old Testament in the book of metal. From the clanging opening chords of “Black Sabbath” and lumbering siren’s call of “War Pigs” to the demon’s cry of “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and proto-thrash riffs of “Symptom of the Universe,” the Iron Man laid the blueprint for the genre on their first eight albums.

Those LPs will now make up a new vinyl-only box set, The Vinyl Collection 1970 – 1978, which is due out September 6th. And because die-hard Sabbaholics likely already own the band’s canon, the group is including a reproduction of “Evil Woman” seven-inch (backed with “Wicked World”) and a new 12-inch compilation of their mono singles, dubbed Monomania (a pun off their Sabotage deep cut “Megalomania”), which includes two previously unreleased mixes. The set will be available only as a numbered collector’s edition, limited to 3,000 copies.

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According to Mary Ramos, Quentin Tarantino’s longtime music supervisor, the process for selecting songs for one of his films starts in a record store—which happens to be in his Hollywood home. What Ramos describes as Tarantino’s “record room” looks like a vinyl boutique, with LPs separated into bins labeled by genres like soul and soundtracks. “In the past, when we’ve started preparation,” she says, “he invites me over and I madly scribble as he’s talking a mile a minute and pausing to put the needle down on records. Everything starts in his record room.”

The major difference with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was the time frame. For his poetic-license retelling of the intersection of Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, the Charles Manson posse, and fictional actors played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, Tarantino didn’t want any of the music heard in the film to go beyond one year (1969, when the film is set). Although they were approached by several name acts to record covers or – in the case of Lana Del Rey – offer up their own material, Tarantino stuck with his time-capsule idea. “Nothing later than 1969, some things from before,” Ramos says. “He was a bit more anachronistic with this. He wanted to stay very specific to the period.”

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Dreamville Records released the emotional video for “Sacrifices” on Monday, featuring label artists J. Cole and Olu (EarthGang) alongside Smino and Saba. The clip is dedicated to Olu’s late father and features an appearance from the rapper’s mother.

The Scott Lazer, David Peters and Chad Tennies-directed video shows the four artists laying out the various individual and collective sacrifices they have made, both personal and political. The six-minute clip spans everything from police shooting unarmed black men to romantic dedication, with all sacrifices great and small in between.

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A new Kanye West project was teased on Kim Kardashian’s Twitter on Thursday. On a yellow notepad, written in black ink, the title “Jesus Is King” can be seen above 12 possible song titles. The proposed date on the pad is September 27th.

The release of a religion-themed West album is something Kardashian has teased before. Last year, she announced that Yandhi was set for a release on Black Friday 2018. That album never arrived. Rolling Stone has not confirmed Jesus Is King‘s release date or track list.

One of the titles included on the pad is “Water,” which West premiered at his Sunday Service performance at Coachella earlier this year. At the weekly sessions, the most recent of which was held in Ohio to support a Dave Chappelle event, West often performs gospel-tinged takes on his own songs. Returning to the church has been something the star has played as a thematic concern over the past year or so. The photo also shows a Bible, opened to Psalms, another pad with written-out verses from the Bible, and a second, presumably scrapped track list featuring a song called “Breast Plate of Right,” which would likely be a reference to the breastplate of righteousness, one of God’s seven pieces of armor as detailed in Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. Also on the table: a jar of sliced lemons.

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Prince’s breakthrough into the mainstream will get a new reassessment this year when 1999, the blockbuster 1982 album that contained the hits “1999” and “Little Red Corvette,” comes out as a souped-up, remastered reissue on November 29th. The massive super-deluxe edition of the reissue contains five CDs and a DVD (or 10 LPs and a DVD) with 35 previously unreleased audio tracks and a full concert film that was previously unofficially circulated. The singer’s estate is also issuing pared-down versions of the reissue, including a two-CD (or four-LP) “Deluxe Edition” and a single-CD (or two-LP) basic edition.

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Mariah Carey has penned the new theme song, “In the Mix,” for ABC’s upcoming series, Mixed-ish, which debuts on September 24th. The ABC series is a spinoff prequel to Black-ish, which follows Tracee Ellis Ross’ character, Rainbow Johnson, while she details growing up in the Eighties in a mixed-race family, as The Wrap reports.

The song’s accompanying video opens with the pop star in the studio and features scenes from the forthcoming show. Carey’s kids, Moroccan and Monroe, also make an appearance in the clip. “Oh, they keep trying, but they can’t stop us,” Carey sings over the bouncy melody and R&B grooves. “‘Cause we got a love that keeps rising up.”

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The Beatles have dropped a heart-rendering new video for the George Harrison-penned “Here Comes the Sun.” The release is timed with the anniversary of Abbey Road, which turned 50 on Thursday.
Directed by Trunk Animation’s Alasdair Brotherston and Jock Mooney, the clip features vintage photos of the group floating throughout Abbey Road Studios’ Studio Two, where they cut the iconic album. Photographed by Linda McCartney, the images fly past instruments, rising up above Ringo Starr’s drum kit to form a gigantic, golden sun.

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