Red Hot Chili Peppers

Credit: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

It will be a colorful Lollapalooza this August as headliners include Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Sabbath, the Black Keys and Jack White.

The line-up for the Aug. 3-5 festival, held at Chicago’s Grant Park, broke on the Lollapalooza website at midnight Central time.

The Black Keys are also headlining this year's Coachella, which will be held April 13-15 and April 20-22. Similarly,  RHCP are headlining both Lollapalooza and June's Bonnaroo. They last headlined Lollapalooza in 2006. The Black Keys played Lollapalooza in 2010, but this is their first go-round as a headliner.

[More after the jump...]

 Lady Gaga

Credit: AP Photo

Is Lady Gaga bringing her show back to the U.S. It’s too soon to tell, but she unspooled some new European dates today that give her little monsters hope that she’ll keep adding dates and working her way around the globe.

Momma Monster took to Twitter to unveil 21 dates on the Born This Way Ball tour, opening in Sofia, Bulgaria on Aug. 14 and concluding on Oct. 6 in Barcelona. It’s a healthy mix of arena and stadium dates. There are also no consecutive nights listed, meaning she is either holding dates for possible multiples in some cities or will fill in some more cities soon or needs to rest between dates. We’re guessing there will be some dates filled in. For example, there are no dates between a Sept. 17  Amsterdam show and and Sept. 22 Paris show. The list of European dates are here.

Reunited British glam band The Darkness got the call to open the European dates. They wrote on their website that they were “honoured to announce their addition to the bill,” (originally reported by MTV).

The newly-announced shows are on top of Lady Gaga's Asian and Australian tour that kicks off later this month on April 27 in Seoul and concludes July 8 in Perth, Australia. For a complete list of those dates, go here.
 

If the other two teasers weren’t enough, we know from teaser No. 3 that Justin Bieber’s video for “Boyfriend” is likely to be some big, lavish mini-movie.

In this 14-second clip, we see Bieber, looking slightly menacing (or as menacing as he can) and dragging knuckle rings, diamond encrusted and looking like tiger’s teeth (or claws), across a woman’s cheek.

[More after the jump...]

 Alabama Shakes

Credit: AP Photo

Critics have been falling all over themselves to praise Alabama Shakes for the past several months: Paste named the act its best new band of 2011, they were a must-see show at SXSW, and already have a big U.K. following.

Before the inevitable backlash begins, we suggest you grab a copy of “Boys & Girls,” the quartet’s debut album out today, April 10 (it follows last fall's 4-song EP) and find out what all the fuss is about.

The album’s rush of music —11 songs delivered in around 38 minutes —swirls around lead singer Brittany Howard’s bluesy, nuanced vocals. When she sings “Bless my heart/bless my soul/didn’t think I’d make it to 22 years old,” in opening track “Hold On,” instead of sounding pretentious and overly precious, she sounds like an old soul for whom a real world  22 is her weary heart’s equivalent of  92. On “You Ain’t Alone” she conjures up Otis Redding’s ghost in a shivering, memorable performance.

Howard is the primary reason tastemakers have fallen all over themselves to praise this group from Athens, Ala. (as opposed to that other southern musical hotbed of yore, Athens, Ga.), but not the only one: the band’s appeal is that Alabama Shakes are so clearly the antidote to what is dominating pop music these days. There are no plastic princesses in pink or blue hair here (though The Shakes’ music is so friendly, they’d probably be welcome to grab a tambourine and join in). Plus, “B&G’s” rootsy naturalism sounds as if it were created in a vacuum, not only without any concessions to current radio trends, but without even any knowledge of them.

Instead, ghosts of the aforementioned Redding, Solomon Burke, Janis Joplin and even Amy Winehouse haunt their music and Howard’s vocal style.  Just listen to the soulful “I Found You” or, more significantly, “Rise To the Sun” and try not to imagine Winehouse singing the organ-drenched tunes.

Without sounding deliberately retro or from a specific era, Alabama Shakes’ big drums, echo-y guitars and striking keyboards recalls a time when pre-recorded loops were nonexistent and when synthesizers weren’t many producers’ instrument of choice.

In that way, Alabama Shakes—which also includes guitarist Heath Fogg, bassist Zac Cockrell and drummer Steve Johnson— are more akin to Jack White and the White Stripes than any other current outfit (in fact, White released a live 7”  from the band on his Third Man Records).  They share his same often ramshackle, often shambolic sound that sounds unschooled, but then closer listens reveal that it is deliberate in its primitiveness. In fact, the music grows more precise as the record rolls on, as keys, drums and guitars all slyly start to move in the same direction instead of seemingly battling each other as they do on some of the early tracks.  Listen to the spooky, delicate “Goin’ To The Party” and how the guitar and drum dance around each other.

While it’s clear the best way to see Alabama Shakes is live—they will be opening for Jack White in May—”Boys & Girls” is a very fair representation of what to expect. Alabama Shakes’ music may be too looselimbed and raw for folks who like their music with a little more spit and polish, but fans of acts like Jack White and the Black Keys will eat this stuff up with a spoon.

Bonnie Raitt

 

Credit: Chris Pizzello/AP

Adele, Bon Iver, Kelly Clarkson and several “American Idol” contestants have all shown their love for Bonnie Raitt by covering songs the singer/guitarist made famous lately. But no one has expressed his or her devotion quite as ardently as The Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl.

At the MusiCares charity dinner this February, the rocker bolted from an interview on the red carpet to introduce himself to Raitt, who was on his “bucket list.”

“I think he was surprised to hear I liked him as I was surprised to hear [he] liked me,” Raitt says with a laugh. “I was just very pleasantly surprised” to hear he was a fan. Currently, the pair have no plans to work together, but Raitt adds, “I’ll have to put that in my hat of things to go down the line because I was thrilled” Grohl approached her.

[More after the jump...]

Adam Lambert

Even though Adam Lambert’s July 7 concert with Queen at Sonisphere was cancelled, he will play the part of the band’s lead singer for at least four shows in 2012.

Queen’s Roger Taylor says Lambert will play with the band, which also includes original member Brian May,  on June 30 in Kiev,  another Kiev show where Queen and Elton John will share the bill, and two July shows at the Hammersmith Apollo in London in July.  Taylor told Billboard.com that the London shows will provide an “alternative...for some of the people who had bought tickets” to Sonisphere.

John Mayer

John Mayer may be back on vocal rest, but his guitar is speaking just fine for him.  Listen below as he delicately weaves in and out of an instrumental version of Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games.”

It’s a gorgeous, haunting, stripped down version on an electric guitar.  As Idolator suggests, we completely agree that it sounds like something out of a Western, with the slight echo and feeling of loneliness. You can almost imagine a tumbleweed rolling by.

[More after the jump...]

Fiona Apple

Credit: AP Photo

Fiona Apple kicks off her summer headlining tour on June 19, the same date that her first album in seven years comes out, the impossibly long-winded “The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do.”

The tour starts at the State Theater in Ithaca, N.Y. on June 19 and concludes July 29 at the Hollywood Palladium.

Apple performed three songs from the album, including first single, “Every Single Night,” on her Spring tour, including during her SXSW show.

6/19     Ithaca, NY                   State Theatre                                     4/20 10 AM
6/20     Baltimore, MD            Lyric Opera House                               4/20, 10 AM
6/22     Mashantucket, CT       MGM Grand Theater at Foxwoods       4/20, 10 AM
6/23     Holyoke, MA               Mountain Park                                     4/20, 10 AM
6/24     New York, NY            Randall's Island                                     on sale now
6/26     Washington, DC          Warner Theatre                                   4/13, 10 AM
6/27     Upper Darby, PA         Tower Theatre                                     4/13, 10 AM
6/29     Danbury, CT                Ives Concert Park                                4/20, 10 AM
6/30     Boston, MA                 Citi Performing Arts Center                 4/14, 10 AM
7/1       Portland, ME               State Theatre                                       4/20, 10 AM
7/3       Montreal, QC               Olympia Theatre                                 4/21, 12 PM
7/4       Toronto, ON               The Sound Academy                            4/20, 10 AM
7/6       Cleveland Hts., OH      Cain Park                                             4/21, 10 AM
7/7       Detroit, MI                  The Fillmore Detroit                           4/27, 10 AM
7/10     Chicago, IL                  Chicago Theatre                                  4/21, 10 AM
7/11     Indianapolis, IN            Murat Theatre                                     4/20, 10 AM
7/13     Nashville, TN              Ryman Auditorium                               4/21, 10 AM
7/14     St. Louis, MO               Peabody Opera House                          4/20, 10 AM
7/16     Minneapolis, MN         Orpheum Theatre                                4/14, 12 PM
7/17     Kansas City, MO          The Midland by AMC                          4/20, 10 AM
7/20     Denver, CO                  Paramount Theatre                              4/20, 10 AM
7/21     Salt Lake City, UT       Kingsbury Hall - University of Utah     4/21, 10 AM
7/24     Vancouver, BC             Orpheum                                              4/20, 10 AM
7/25     Seattle, WA                 Paramount Theatre                              4/20, 10 AM
7/26     Portland, OR                Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall              4/20, 10 AM
7/28     Oakland, CA                Fox Theater                                         4/15, 10 AM
7/29     Hollywood, CA             Hollywood Palladium                          4/27, 10 AM

Madonna

 

Credit: Chris Pizzello/AP

1) Madonna: She lands her eighth No. 1 album with “MDNA.” FNTSTC.

2) Justin Bieber: Believers take “Boyfriend” to a No. 2 debut on the Billboard Hot 100 as the song breaks the record for first week airplay on Billboard’s Mainstream Top 40 chart. His fans are finally tall enough to reach the radio dial.

3) Lionel Richie: “Tuskegee” lands the ex-Commodore his highest debut on the Billboard 200 in 26 years. That’s one and a half Justin Bieber lifetimes.

 Nicki Minaj

 

Credit: John Minchillo/AP

The rotation at the top of the Billboard 200 continues as Nicki Minaj prepares to assume the top spot next week with “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded.” That will make six different titles at No. 1 in the past six weeks.

Minaj’s sophomore set looks good for sales of up to 235,000, which will lead it to handily come in above Adele’s “21,” which will bounce back up to No. 2 with sales of up to 165,000, according to Hits Daily Double. Three other titles look good to bow in the top 10: Rascal Flatts’ “Changed” will move up to 120,000 copies for No. 3, while gospel artist Marvin Sapp’s “I Win” will likely come in at No. 7 with up to 50,000 sold.