The National Weather Service says severe thunderstorms are not expected with the latest round of rain coming Friday afternoon and evening.
Forecasters say to expect thunder and lightning, but conditions are not favorable for any large hail or damaging winds.
Rainfall amounts throughout Southwest Missouri should range from a quarter to three quarters of an inch with some localized amounts up to one inch.
One of Madonna’s biggest hits, her 1990 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 dance anthem “Vogue,” had surprisingly humble beginnings.
“The whole thing was done on a shoestring budget,” Shep Pettibone, the track’s co-writer and producer, told Billboard in 2015. Allotted just $5,000 by Warner Bros. (now Warner) Records to create what was initially slated as a B-side, he finished the song in three weeks, recording the then-31-year-old pop star’s vocals in a “basement on West 56th Street” in New York, where, he said, a closet had been converted into a vocal booth.
The song starts with suspense-building synths before kicking into “Philly Salsoul”-style house music, and its lyrics and sumptuous black-and-white video — directed by future Academy Award nominee David Fincher (Gone Girl, The Social Network) — celebrate voguing, a style of dance popularized in New York’s mostly gay ballroom club scene in the 1980s that mimics fashion-shoot poses.
Released as an A-side, “Vogue” topped the Hot 100 dated May 19, 1990. Madonna and Pettibone also collaborated on the singer’s 1992 No. 1 ballad, “This Used to Be My Playground,” but Pettibone left the music business in the late ’90s.
In June 2019, Madonna released her latest album, Madame X, which arrived as her ninth No. 1 on the Billboard 200. “Vogue,” meanwhile, continues to be a staple of her live shows.
A version of this article first appeared in the May 23, 2015, issue of Billboard magazine.
Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
This week, Bad Bunny has a summer banger to offer, Summer Walker checks in between full-lengths, and Post Malone is working at a furious pace. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Bad Bunny is not satisfied with simply dominating one summer: after Un Verano Sin Ti was released last May and proceeded to take the world by storm, the superstar bursts back into view with “Where She Goes,” a new single that, unlike his recent Grupo Frontera team-up “un x100to,” is clearly designed to conjure summertime perspiration. After about 40 seconds of stormy synths and emotional crooning, the clubby percussion kicks in, and Bad Bunny morphs into a master of ceremonies, his energy never flagging even as the tempo of the track shifts around him. Bad Bunny is in a Midas-touch phase of commercial success — but even divorced from the timing of its arrival, “Where She Goes” sounds like a surefire smash, ready to pounce upon the season with hungry melody.
At the beginning of 2019 — a year that would be momentous for Summer Walker, thanks to the October release of her Over It album — the R&B singer-songwriter released and EP, Clear, which would continue the momentum from her Last Day of Summer mixtape and set the parameters of her artistic formula. While fans await the proper follow-up to 2021’s Still Over It, Walker returns with Clear 2: Soft Life, a nine-song stopgap defined by her uncompromising perspective, whether it’s applied to yearning for company (like on the Childish Gambino collaboration “New Type”) or rejecting easy comforts (like on the spectacularly performed “Hardlife”).
“Got a lot of s–t to say, couldn’t fit it in the chorus,” Post Malone declares at the end of the “Mourning” hook, and he’s correct, even outside of the context of the song: after 2022’s Twelve Carat Toothache marked Posty’s first full-length in three years, he’s already back next month with Austin, his fifth studio album, which was preceded by the single “Chemical.” Unlike that more pop-leaning offering, “Mourning” finds Post Malone operating within singsong rap, yelling at God and refusing to sober up while grappling with the excesses of fame; in this prolific period, the superstar is prodding at his sound and identity, and the results are intoxicating.
The reinvention of Kesha’s pop career during her years-long legal battle against Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald has simultaneously been heartbreaking and revelatory: while the personal trauma that the “TiK ToK” singer has experienced during this time has been incalculable, she has mined the depths of her artistry and come up with wholly impressive sonic explorations like new album Gag Order. This album demands attention: as Kesha embraces throbbing cacophony and tries to make sense of senseless circumstances, her songwriting and vocal technique evolve with zero abandon and riveting results.
The list of modern artists not named Adele who can guide heart-wrenching ballads to the billion-stream club is exceedingly short, but Lewis Capaldi, who earned international success with “Someone You Loved” and “Before You Go,” is on it, understanding the cocktail of vulnerable songwriting, tender production and vocal skill needed to affect the tear ducts of global listeners. On Broken By Desire to Be Heavenly Sent, the Scottish singer-songwriter doesn’t rip up the formula that made him a star — instead, he offers more stories that aim to stir, using songs like “Haven’t You Ever Been In Love Before?” and lead single “Forget Me” to reach wide and inspire as many listeners as possible to simply, effortlessly feel.
The combination of singer-rapper Aminé and production multi-hyphenate Kaytranada not only makes sense on paper as a fusion of two like-minded creatives who have worked well together over the years, but Kaytraminé, the duo’s self-titled debut album, also works brilliantly as a late spring release, primed to soundtrack Memorial Day Weekend hangouts and months of hazy beach days. With guests like Freddie Gibbs, Pharrell Williams and Snoop Dogg stopping by to buttress Aminé’s silky flow and Kaytranada’s luxurious beats, Kaytraminé is a summer essential on the same level of shorts and sunscreen.
There’s a reason that Garth Brooks won entertainer of the year a record-setting seven times from the CMA Awards. It’s because he simply has few peers when it comes to live performance.
Brooks proved that again Thursday night (May 18) at the opening night of his Garth Brooks/Plus ONE residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The 2 1/2-hour performance spanned 33 songs and combined the best of his previous one-man show at The Wynn — which ended in 2014 after running for five years — and the full-band, three-year stadium tour that he completed last year that drew more than three million people.
Brooks started off solo backing himself on acoustic guitar, under the guise of saying he needed to sound check how the room sounded full of people. He opened with Bob Seger‘s “Against the Wind,” which he sang partially a cappella. While it’s understandable to focus on his overall talents as an engaging entertainer and his almost supernatural ability to connect with his audience, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that his voice is a tremendously supple and powerful one, which he proved over-and-over throughout the night. He followed with “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” from Keith Whitley, one of his other musical heroes, and his own 1995 hit, “She’s Every Woman,” before bringing on his 11-piece band for a muscular, full-bodied “Rodeo.”
For the rest of the evening, he nimbly toggled back and forth between solo and band performances in what seemed to be a spontaneous set list. While his band was in fine form throughout, they especially shone on a particularly menacing “The Thunder Rolls.” His permanent Plus One, wife Trisha Yearwood, also joined him for four songs, showing off her peerless vocals throughout, but especially on “Shallow.”
Unlike the Wynn show where he narrated a version of his life from the perspective of his youth with a sense of awe of the musical marks his early influences had left on him, this time when he referenced George Strait, James Taylor and Seger, it was as often as a peer. That includes a moving segment where he recounted how stunning it was for him to hear his holy trio sing his own songs back to him when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. It also proved a clever device to perform three of his biggest hits: “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old),” “The River” and “That Summer.”
Audience members had to lock up their phones upon entry, which meant no photos, no video, and, certainly, no recording. The simple move kept everyone in the moment, but also allowed Brooks to debut a stunning new song, a dark ballad about finding pleasure in the pain, without worrying it would show up online within minutes.
But the moments of darkness were few (and included a stripped-down, emotional version of “Wolves” from 1990’s No Fences) because, as Brooks has said for decades, there is no one having more fun at his shows than him. His exuberance at being back on stage, embraced by adoring fans who gave him a long standing ovation simply for walking out before he sang a note, was palpable at every turn. Brooks joked earlier in the day that tonight would be the worst of the 27 shows in his 2023 residency; on Friday morning (May 19), he added an additional 18 shows for 2024 that go on sale later this month. If that is the case, fans attending upcoming concerts have got plenty to look forward to as opening night will be hard to beat.
See below for the full setlist from the residency’s opening night.
Andy Rourke, founding bass player with the Smiths, the iconic ’80s indie band whose reputation seems to grow with each passing year, has died following a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 59.
Bandmate and guitarist Johnny Marr confirmed the tragic news: “It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Andy Rourke after a lengthy illness with pancreatic cancer,” he wrote on social media.
“Andy will be remembered as a kind and beautiful soul by those who knew him and as a supremely gifted musician by music fans. We request privacy at this sad time.”
Rourke performed on all four of the British band’s studio albums, each of them classics: The Smiths (from 1984), Meat Is Murder (1985), The Queen Is Dead (1986) and Strangeways, Here We Come (1987), after which time the band split.
Led by the enigmatic, swooning Morrissey, the talismanic Marr with his jangly guitar style, and Rourke, a natural talent on the four-string, the Smiths are considered the benchmark for what an “indie” band could sound like. And with its bank of hits, including “There Is a Light That Will Never Go Out,” “This Charming Man,” “How Soon Is Now,” and many others, an argument could me made that the Smiths represented the greatest in its genre.
Born Jan. 17, 1964 in Manchester, England, Rourke first met Marr at school, where they shared a love of the guitar. Singer Steven Morrissey and drummer Mike Joyce would later bond with the lads, and the Smiths were formed. After a successful five-year run during which their singular sound became a worldwide sensation, though, the band blew apart in 1987.
The split was an acrimonious one, which, in the ’90s, would descend into a legal battle over royalties with Rourke and Joyce on one side, Morrissey and Marr on the other. Rourke battled at times with heroin addiction (he was briefly sacked from the band in 1986 due to his drug problems), and financial troubles, but remained a much-loved member of a band whose influence can be heard everywhere.
After the Smiths quit, Rourke played with the so-called supergroup Freebass with fellow Mancunian bass players Mani from the Stone Roses and Peter Hook of New Order. Across his career, he also worked with the likes of the Pretenders, Killing Joke, Sinead O’Connor, and with Joyce and former Oasis guitarist “Bonehead” on Moondog One.
With monotonous regularity, rumors of a Smiths reunion would spread. It was only ever wishful thinking. Morrissey wrecked the dream when he appeared as a speaker at SXSW in 2006. The singer told a packed house that $5 million was on the table for the band to reform, but the offer was turned down. “Money doesn’t come into it,” he said at the time.
When Morrissey and Marr had a social media squabble last year, a Smiths reunion seemed ever less possible. With Rourke’s death, there will be no classic comeback.
Stars from the music world turned to social media to remember Rourke.
“Such sad sad news about Andy Rourke – He was an inspirational musician with a style that made so many of us pick up a bass guitar; and the driving force for Manchester Versus Cancer,” wrote the Charlatans singer Tim Burgess. “Our thoughts are with everyone who knew him.”
Billy Bragg added, “Very sorry to hear that Smiths bassist Andy Rourke has passed away. I have great memories of him playing with Johnny Marr and myself on the Red Wedge tour. He was a lovely guy and an amazing bass player. My condolences to his family and friends.”
The Smiths has yet to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. Those who keep a close eye on the Rock Hall, and fans of the band, are confident they’re long overdue.
Britpop kings Blur are back.
Damon Albarn and Co. return this summer with a new LP, The Ballad of Darren, set for release July 21 through Parlophone.
But first, the four-piece unleash the first track from it, “The Narcissist.”
Blur’s first fresh cut in eight years is a jangly piece of indie goodness, on which Albarn tells the tale of someone who simple loves themself too much. He sings: “I’m going to shine a light in your eyes/ You’ll probably shine it back on me/ But I won’t fall this time/ With godspeed I’ll heed the signs.”
Produced by James Ford and recorded at Studio 13, London and Devon, The Ballad of Darren is Blur’s ninth studio album.
Spanning 10 tracks, it’s accompanied with artwork featuring an image by British photographer Martin Parr.
“This is an aftershock record, reflection and comment on where we find ourselves now,” comments Albarn.
Guitarist Graham Coxon adds, “The older and madder we get, it becomes more essential that what we play is loaded with the right emotion and intention. Sometimes just a riff doesn’t do the job.”
The surprises don’t end there. Blur return to their old stomping ground, Colchester, Essex, for a performance at Colchester Arts Centre on Friday (May 19), followed by a handful of warmup performances in the U.K.
Once warmed up, things should get hot when the group performs old stuff and new across the U.K. and Europe over the coming months, including their first ever shows at Wembley Stadium, July 8 and 9.
With a slew of hits including “Song 2,” Parklife,” “Girls & Boys,” Coffee & TV,” “Beetlebum,” “Country House,” and many more, Blur was one of the most successful British bands to emerge in the 1990s. They were head of the Britpop class. But unlike many of their classmates, they stayed together, evolved musically and remain relevant.
In their homeland, Blur landed 26 songs in the top 40, including two No. 1s. Six Blur albums have led the albums chart, including their most recent LP, 2015’s The Magic Whip.
“For any long-term relationship to last with any meaning you have to be able to surprise each other somehow and somehow we all continue to do that,” comments bass player Alex James on the new album.
Drummer Dave Rowntree continues, “It always feels very natural to make music together. With every record we do, the process reveals something new and we develop as a band. We don’t take that for granted.”
Stream “The Narcissist” and check out the album tracklist below.
The Ballad of Darren tracklist.
Ed Sheeran holds off The Amity Affliction on Australia’s albums survey, as Subtract (via Atlantic/Warner) starts a second week at No. 1.
With the British singer and songwriter’s latest chart feat, he racks-up 44 weeks at No. 1 on the ARIA Chart across his full-length six albums, all of them best-sellers.
Heavy stuff is close behind. Homegrown metalcore group The Amity Affliction open at No. 2 with Not Without My Ghosts (Warner), their eighth studio effort.
The hard rockers this year celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band, and now boast seven top 10 appearances, including four ARIA No. 1s: Chasing Ghosts (from 2012), Let The Ocean Take Me (2014), This Could Be Heartbreak (2016) and Misery (2018). In the decade from 2010, the Gympie, Queensland heavyweights amassed five ARIA Award nominations, though none culminated in a pointed trophy.
Completing the podium on the latest ARIA Albums Chart, published May 19, is Taylor Swift’s former leader Midnights (Universal), up 4-3.
Further down the list, veteran Australian artist Kate Ceberano debuts at No. 6 with My Life Is A Symphony (ABC/Orchard), a collaboration with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. It’s Ceberano’s 17th ARIA top 50 album, according to the trade body, and seventh top 10, including 1989’s Brave, which peaked at No. 2.
Legendary local rockers Midnight Oil cook up a 17th ARIA top 10 with Live at the Old Lion, Adelaide (MGM), new at No. 7. Peter Garrett and Co. have led the ARIA Chart with seven titles: Red Sails In the Sunset (1984), Species Deceases (1985), Diesel and Dust (1987), Blue Sky Mining (1990), 20,000 Watt R.S.L. (1997), The Makarrata Project (2020) and Resist (2022).
The Eurovision Song Contest is done for the year, though the music lives on. A collection from the 67th annual event, The Eurovision Song Contest Liverpool 2023 (Universal), debuts at No. 15 on the albums tally. The compilation includes Australia’s representative for the 2023 Eurovision, Voyager with “Promise.” The plucky pop-rock outfit from Perth finished ninth in the annual competition, held last Saturday (May 13) at Liverpool’s M&S Arena.
Over on the ARIA Singles Chart, Morgan Wallen clocks up a sixth consecutive week at No. 1 with “Last Night” (via Republic/Universal). It’s now just one frame from matching the seven weeks Billy Ray Cyrus logged at No. 1 with “Achy Breaky Heart” in 1992, a record for a single by a male American country singer here since the official ARIA Charts were launched in 1983.
“Last Night” leads an unchanged top three, closed out by Fifty Fifty’s “The Beginning: Cupid” (Warner) and Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” (Columbia/Sony), respectively.
The top debut belongs to New York City-based drill rapper Lil Mabu with “Mathematical Disrespect” (Independent) new at No. 21. Lil Durk‘s “All My Life” (Sony) featuring J. Cole isn’t far behind; it debuts at No. 23.
Written a decade ago, and circulated online for almost two years, Lana Del Rey finally gives fans that slice of heaven they were waiting for.
At the stroke of midnight, the U.S. alternative-pop princess gave a proper release to “Say Yes To Heaven,” a dreamy downbeat number, filled out with mellow guitar arpeggios and a touch of tambourine and kick.
Co-written in 2012 with Rick Nowels, “Say Yes To Heaven” leaked online back in October 2020 and took a journey of its own on TikTok.
The track did not, however, appear on Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean, her ninth studio album, which dropped in March.
Tunnel was co-produced by Del Rey alongside Mike Hermosa, Jack Antonoff, Drew Erickson, Zach Dawes, and Benji, includes assists from Jon Batiste, Bleachers, Father John Misty, Judah Smith, Tommy Genesis, and SYML, and was an immediate international hit.
In the United States, the set went to No. 3 on the Billboard 200, her ninth appearance in the top 10; it blasted to No. 1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart, her sixth No. 1 there and eighth top 10; and No. 1 on the ARIA Chart, her fifth No. 1 in Australia and eighth top 10 overall.
With that embarrassment of musical riches in her arsenal, Del Rey will perform a bunch of outdoor shows in the months ahead, including dates at Brazil’s MITA music festival in Rio De Janeiro (June 27) and Sao Paulo (Aug. 3), and Festival D’Ete in Quebec, Canada.
Her itinerary includes major outdoor summer shows in the U.K., beginning with a date June 24 at Glastonbury Festival, then, on July 9, she’ll close the BST Hyde Park series in central London with a headline performance. According to reps from Polydor Records, she’ll be “accompanied by an array of special guests that are still to be announced.”
Festival appearances in the U.S. follow at Lallapalooza, Outside Lands and All Things Go.
Stream “Say Yes To Heaven” below.
Summer might technically begin on June 21, but Kaytranada and Aminé made it arrive earlier with the release of their joint album KAYTRAMINÉ Friday (May 19).
The Canadian DJ/producer and Ethiopian-American rapper gave fans a first taste of KAYTRAMINÉ last month with the Pharrell-assisted “4EVA” single. The 11-track project also features collaborations with Freddie Gibbs (“LETSTALKABOUTIT”), Big Sean (“MASTER P”), Amaarae (“SOSSAUP”) and Snoop Dogg (“EYE”).
The new KAYTRAMINÉ duo made its festival debut during Kaytranada’s weekend one Coachella set in April, but the two have been working together for nearly a decade on songs such as “La Danse,” “YeYe,” “Not At All” (Aminé’s remix of Kaytranada’s “At All” from his 2015 EP At All / Hilarity Duff) and “Egyptian Luvr” from Rejjie Snow‘s 2018 album Dear Annie (that features Aminé and Dana Williams and was produced by Kaytranada).
“I was broke as f–k working on music everyday in 2014 looking for a north star. i was kinda thinking about giving up cuz sh– wasnt really workin out for me then kay hit me back & sent me beats for free.. that put a extra battery in my back & really made me feel confident again,” Aminé tweeted earlier this week. “Who tf know where i’d be right now without that little push from kay that early in my career. the love you show people sometimes can really affect them in ways you couldn’t imagine. kaytraminé ain’t no industry play, this been 9 years in the making.”
He also shared a DM exchange between the two dating back to July 27, 2014, showing Aminé thanking Kaytranada for following him back on Twitter and expressing his interest in working together sometime.
Listen to their KAYTRAMINÉ album below.
Summer Walker dropped her highly anticipated Clear 2: Soft Life EP on Friday (May 19) via LVRN and Interscope Records.
Earlier this week, she partnered with Spotify’s RapCaviar to tease her new project in a sitcom-style promo video starring herself, Sukihana and Sexyy Redd, where the three women are just living their best lives and eating caviar, or as they like to call it, “cavinar.”
The nine-track project features collaborations with Childish Gambino (“New Type”) as well as Solange, Steve Lacy and John Kirby (“Agayu’s Revelation”).
Clear 2: Soft Life serves as the follow-up to 2019’s Clear, which featured four songs: “Riot,” “Grave,” “Wasted” and “Settling.” Clear arrived months before her debut studio album, Over It, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. At the time, it earned the biggest streaming week ever for an R&B album by a woman with 154.7 million on-demand audio streams for the LP’s songs, surpassing the debut week of Beyoncé’s Lemonade, which had 115.2 million.
In an interview with Billboard, who gave Walker our Chartbreaker Award during Women in Music 2022, she talked about being “hella excited for Clear 2. The last one was like four songs. This one — I want it to be a lot longer so I can really get that sound out. That’s my favorite type of sound,” she said at the time. “I make what I got to make for the radio, but I’m very excited for [Clear 2]. Hopefully, my budget will be permitted. [If not], we got to protest.”
Listen to her Clear 2: Soft Life EP below.