Frankie Valli on the Four Seasons’ Legacy and Their Massive New 45-Disc Boxed Set: ‘We Didn’t Want to Try to Sound Like Anybody Else’

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic It’s been a challenging time lately for Maren Morris in the country music world, as her views on key issues of the day have been in conflict with those of some of country’s more right-leaning artists or fans. She addresses the toll this has taken on her in a music video that came out Friday morning for a new song, “The Tree,” that makes it clear she’s feeling some estrangement from the genre, or even ready to think about moving on — although, ironically, the style of the song couldn’t be more country.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Jazz and animation make for strong bedfellows in “They Shot the Piano Player,” a film from Spanish directors Fernando Treuba and Javier Mariscal that represents an intriguing hybrid in all sorts of ways. It’s a love letter to the bossa nova movement that peaked in the 1960s, while at the same time it’s a sobering procedural that looks into the state murder of a musician that occurred as fascistic regimes rose to power in Latin America in the ’70s.

Fall Out Boy brought their updated cover of ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ to the 2023 MTV VMAs, which are taking place at New Jersey’s Prudential Center tonight (September 12).The pop-punk band’s appearance marked their third at the awards show following performances in 2005 and 2007.This time around, Fall Out Boy performed their modern take on Billy Joel’s classic song, which finds them referencing Trump’s impeachments, Brexit, Harry Potter and many more era-defining moments.When the band released the cover earlier this summer, Joel responded by saying they had saved him from updating it himself. “Everybody said, ‘Well, aren’t you going to do a part two?’,” he explained.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In the year 2023, Allison Russell has come as close as anyone is to being the face of Americana music, even though there are any rock-solid artists who’ve been in the limelight longer than she has — like Jason Isbell, Lucinda Williams and her friend and mentor Brandi Carlile — who certainly count as poster boys and girls. She might even be the front-runner for the artist of the year prize at the upcoming Americana Honors & Awards show, which takes place in Nashville Sept. 20, notwithstanding that Billy Strings has been nominated again to defend his title.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic On the eve of heading up to Canada this week to attend the Toronto Film Festival, where his documentary “Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero” has its world debut Saturday night, pop superstar Lil Nas X was playing it nonchalant about stepping outside the music realm a bit to be the center of a splashy event in the movie world. “Not really,” he answers, when asked whether it means anything special to him to have a gala premiere at North America’s biggest film event. “I mean, I’m excited to go there and to see what people think, and also, I’ve never been to a film festival, so maybe I’ll meet people and and build some future relationships.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “I don’t know when we decided to let people write songs about things that they don’t do,” says country star Ashley McBryde. “As far as the singer-songwriter sentiment, I don’t know when we stopped demanding that of ourselves.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Before she issues her memoir this November, Barbra Streisand will be giving fans a couple of soundtracks for all that reading, in the form of two music releases due shortly beforehand on Oct. 27.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A sophomore jinx would be a terrible thing to suffer before you’re old enough to have a legal drink to slug down the disappointment. It’s not something Olivia Rodrigo has to worry about. “Guts,” her second album, does feel at times like “Sour, Too” — a picking-up-right-where-we-left-off extension of her Grammy-winning 2021 debut — but that can only be counted as a good thing, if the spark is still there.

Billy Joel is in a New York State of Mind.It’s just that this time he’s headed to a different part of the state.The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer just announced that he’ll be performing a New Year’s Eve concert at Elmont, NY’s UBS Arena.This one-off gig will be the Piano Man’s first show at the Long Island venue and first in LI since 2018.We are thrilled to welcome Long Island’s own Billy Joel to UBS Arena at Belmont Park,” said UBS Arena president Kim Stone. “We look forward to ringing in the New Year with him and our guests later this year.”Need tickets to hear “Vienna,” “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant,” “Only The Good Die Young” and so many more of his smash hits live in LI today?No sweat, Uptown Girls and Piano Men.Although inventory isn’t available on Ticketmaster until Friday, Sept.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The lineup for the 2024 Stagecoach Festival in California has been announced, with Morgan Wallen set to be a first-time headliner and Eric Church and Miranda Lambert making their returns in that role over the course of April 26-28. Post Malone may be the most surprising name on the bill, as, although his affection for country has been well-known, he has not made appearances at country fests in the past.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Jimmy Buffett had long planned to be a surprise guest at the Telluride Film Festival over Labor Day weekend. “He was going to be part of (the festival), as of two weeks ago,” said the esteemed novelist Tom McGuane, Buffett’s friend of 50 years and brother-in-law for nearly that long.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a great battle” — that popular maxim (or some variation thereof) is often brought up in the context of remembering to have some sympathy for jerks. But it could also be applied to people whose lives seem too charmed to be true.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Did the Algonquin round table somehow spiritually relocate itself in the early 1970s to Key West, Florida? The idea that the small, remote island city was a hotbed for one of the last great counterculture arts scenes — particularly for prose writers, but also with some music mixed in — is the focus of a new short film about the Key West scene of 50 years ago, “All That Is Sacred.” The 34-minute movie, which stars the famous novelist Tom McGuane and writer-musician Jimmy Buffett, has its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival this weekend. Variety has an exclusive premiere for a trailer for the film, which does not yet have distribution; check it out below.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Anyone who couldn’t procure tickets for Taylor Swift’s record-breaking stadium tour in the U.S. may be about to have their wounded feelings assuaged, a little — and everyone who did can get primed for some instant nostalgia. A filmed rendering, “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour,” will hit movie theaters nationwide this fall, with opening day set for Friday the (of course) 13th of October.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Having just wrapped up a short tour of U.S. arenas, Zach Bryan has plans to go much bigger in 2024, both in tour length and, in several cases, venue size.

Katharine McPhee is back on tour.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The Loretta Lynn estate has a new manager — Sandbox Succession, a division of Sandbox Entertainment, the Jason Owen-led Nashville company that oversees the careers of such living stars as Kacey Musgraves, Dan + Shay and Kelsea Ballerini. “Loretta Lynn is the original queen of country music, and it is a true privilege that her family has entrusted Sandbox Succession to preserve her precious legacy,” Owen, Sandbox Entertainment’s CEO, said in a statement.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic If you look at Billboard’s latest charts, there’s an anomaly: Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” is No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart … but nowhere to be found on the Country Airplay chart, or Mediabase’s radio rankings.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Ray Hildebrand, who topped the pop charts in the 1960s as half of the duo Paul & Paula, died Friday in Kansas City at age 82. No cause of death has been given. Paul & Paula reached No.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Hozier’s third album, the just-released “Unreal Unearth,” has serious conceptual underpinnings that include references to literary and even mythic tropes like Dante’s “Inferno.” Even with that time spent in the underworld, though, fans can assume that the Irish singer-songwriter will take them somewhere closer to heaven — and, for sure, “Church” — when he mounts a major U.S. tour this fall, including a sold-out stop at the Hollywood Bowl Nov. 4.