Foo Fighters dressed in tuxedos for the final Late Show with David Letterman! They performed “Everlong” (Dave Letterman’s favorite Foos song) as the soundtrack to a montage of images from over the 33 years of the Letterman shows. Only thing I thought was missing was Jay Thomas‘ annual football toss at the meatballs on the Christmas tree.
Meanwhile, a local boy, Sawyer Fredericks, a local farm boy, won The Voice. I only mention this because it’s a couple of towns over in Montgomery County, NY near where I am from ! I love it!
Pulse of Radio reports In This Moment singer Maria Brink joined Papa Roach on stage Tuesday night (May 19th) in Moline, IL to perform the Papa Roach song “Gravity.” Brink also dueted with Papa Roach singer Jacoby Shaddix on the studio version of the tune and told us she enjoyed the experience: “I mean, we love the song. I think it’s such a great track, I really do. I think it’s strong and it’s really cool and the meaning was cool, you know, his whole take he has on the song. And I kind of did this rebuttal type thing and it was wonderful. I loved doing it. We had fun and we’ve made some really good friends and we’ve toured with them a lot too, and are great friends.” “Gravity” is taken from Papa Roach’s latest album, F.E.A.R., which came out at the end of January. Shaddix recently said about the track, “I really put it all out there: my failures as a husband, as a lover, and as the head of my household . . . it’s a bit of a testimony for me and my wife, like, ‘Hey man, if you’re another couple that’s going through this struggle, you can make it through if you really want to, if you really love each other.‘” Bassist Tobin Esperance said having Brink appear on the track took it to “a whole other level.” Papa Roach and In This Moment shared the same studio and producer, Kevin Churko, on their respective new albums. Both bands next play the Rocklahoma festival on Friday (May 22nd) in Pryor, OK. Let’s pray for NO rain there this weekend!
I love this story! A new study undertaken by a firm called SeatSmart has determined that the lyrics of Canadian act Nickelback are “more intelligent” than those of other popular rock acts such as Foo Fighters and Linkin Park. SeatSmart’s Andrew Powell-Morse analyzed the lyrics of 225 songs that had spent at least three weeks at Number One on Billboard‘s pop, rock, country and hip-hop charts. Powell-Morse used writing-analysis tools such as the Flesch-Kincaid index, a readability test to measure reading difficulty, to determine the average reading level of a section of text. He added, “I plugged in song lyrics — punctuation added by me, since most songs lack it altogether — and out of the machine popped out average grade level, word count and other very interesting metrics.” It turned out that country music had the “smartest” lyrics, with a reading level slightly above third grade, while pop, rock and hip-hop all hovered around the third grade level or just slightly below.
Among the seven top rock acts, Nickelback beat out Linkin Park, Seether, Foo Fighters and last-place entry Avenged Sevenfold. Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger has been notorious for his raunchy lyrics in the past, but told us a while back he was never worried about what anyone thought of them: “A lot of people ask me, like, ‘What does your mom think when you write songs like that?’ And I think it went out the window when I started writing songs that started off with ‘I like your pants around your feet.’ You know, when that one hit the radio waves, a lot of people were going, ‘Whoa, what does your mom think of that?’ I’m like, ‘She’s cool with it.‘” Meanwhile, Three Days Grace earned the dubious honor of penning the dumbest song of the decade with 2010’s “The Good Life”, which has a reading grade level of 0.8. Ozzy Osbourne‘s “Let Me Hear You Scream” was second-to-last with a grade level of 1.2. But Three Days Grace also had the second highest scoring song with “Animal I Have Become,” which reached a fifth grade reading level. Only the Red Hot Chili Peppers ranked higher with “Dani California.” Pretty funny, right?
Get your game on! Bring Me The Horizon and Royal Blood are among the artists who had songs added to the lineup of the Guitar Hero Live video game, which arrives this fall after a five-year break. 10 new songs have been revealed in addition to the 24 already announced, with Deftones, Of Mice And Men, Mastodon, Marilyn Manson and Killswitch Engage also among the latest entries. The initial batch of two dozen tracks revealed last week included songs from The Pretty Reckless,The Black Keys, System Of A Down, Pantera, Green Day, Alter Bridge, Black Veil Brides, Rage Against The Machine and many more.
- Additional artists that are represented include the Rolling Stones, the Lumineers, Ed Sheeran, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, My Chemical Romance and others.
- More new songs will be unveiled each week leading up to the game’s release. Guitar Hero Live has plenty of new features as well, including a more realistic controller and a first-person perspective.
- Guitar Hero Live will be available from Activision for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U and, for the first time, mobile devices.
The 10 newest additions to Guitar Hero Live are:
Royal Blood – “Little Monster”
Marilyn Manson – “Disposable Teens”
Killswitch Engage – “In Due Time”
Marmozets – “Move Shake Hide”
Of Mice And Men – “Bones Exposed”
Deftones – “Diamond Eyes”
Vista Chino – “Sweet Remain”
Bring Me the Horizon – “Shadow Moses”
Mastodon – “High Road”
Trivium – “Strife”
And finally today, check this out. Coldplay’s Chris Martin is the musical director for a Game Of Thrones musical “extravaganza” that be part of Red Nose Day on today (May 21st). Stars from the HBO series participating in the musical include Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Emilia Clarke, Mark Addy and more. Scores of other musicians, actors and celebrities will appear on the three-hour “Red Nose Day” special airing live on NBC from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. ET. The benefit event will help 12 charity organizations lift children and young people out of poverty, in the U.S. and throughout the world. This is fantastic! Watch!
Celebrating a birthday today: Mr T is 63 and my beloved Dwight is one year older, too!