Liz Phair on Revisiting Classic ‘Exile in Guyville’ Album for Anniversary Tour, 30 Years After Thinking, ‘Oh No, What Have I Done… Holy S—!’

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Before talking about the meat of Peter Gabriel’s new album, “i/o,” which stands for “input/output,” it is inevitable that initial discussion will focus on the level of output (or the lack of it) he’s had prior to this year. It’s his first studio album of original songs in 21 years (and only the second in 31 years).

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Hello, beautiful. That’s what some Barbra Streisand fans have been murmuring to their physical editions of “My Name Is Barbra,” her memoir, since it came out one month ago, and over that time has become a nightly bedtime companion (its 970-page length not quite built for bingeing), as well as a sort of objet d’art, and objet d’heft.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic It’s hard to quite think of someone who was as big a veritable child star as Brenda Lee was in the late ’50s and early ’60s a “late bloomer.” Nor can “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” really be considered an underdog song, after its accrual of quintuple-platinum sales over the decades. And yet it’s spent the last several years peaking at No. 2 each December, after spending most of its lifetime not annually charting at all.

Lana Del Rey has continued her run of covers – this time sharing an emotive version of the John Denver classic ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’. Check it out below.Shared today (December 1), the track marks the second release shared by the singer since her hit ninth studio album, ‘Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd’, which arrived in March and earned her a Grammy nomination.Unsurprisingly, Del Rey’s take on the 1971 song sees her introduce aspects of her signature sound, including a more emotive approach to the vocals and hints of Americana throughout.It also follows on from the variety of covers that she has shared over the years.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Who should be counted as country music’s currently most successful songwriter? You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who could come up with a metric where the end result is not clearly Ashley Gorley, who’s being honored as Songwriter of the Year at Variety‘s annual Hitmakers event. He has been a co-writer on five of the last six Morgan Wallen singles, all of which inevitably topped the country chart — with “Last Night” also going top 5 at pop radio, no small factor in the song spending a near-record 16 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Lana Del Rey put her own spin on ‘Unchained Melody’ for NBC’s new Christmas at Graceland special.The holiday special marks the first occasion that a live musical Christmas event has been broadcast from Elvis Presley‘s Memphis estate to celebrate the legacy of the late artist. Other a artists to grace the line-up include Post Malone, Kacey Musgraves, Alanis Morissette and John Legend.While ‘Unchained Melody’, which Del Rey covered, was most famously performed by The Righteous Brothers and is particularly famous for appearing in the film Ghost, it does have a link with Presley.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic What part of fast in “Fast Car” did anyone not understand? Country superstar Luke Combs’ cover of the 1988 Tracy Chapman classic proved to be as turbocharged as anything acoustically based in this world can be, with unexpected multi-format success: It was No. 1 at adult pop and country for two weeks each; a healthy No. 6 at Top 40 radio; No.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Elizabeth Chan continues to be the most prolific recording artist in the Christmas music space, and certainly the only singer of any notoriety doing a new release each year, having just released her 13th consecutive holiday album, “Songs From Noelle.” Variety is already on record as calling the singer-songwriter “Christmas’ one-woman Brill Building.” But if a new holiday collection from Chan seems inevitable every fall, there was nothing clockwork-like about this one’s making — since for Chan, unlike Taylor Swift, the number 13 actually seemed unlucky in 2023. The title “Songs From Noelle” refers to Chan’s 6-year-old daughter, who co-sang and even co-wrote a few songs on the album.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift announced Monday morning that her “Eras Tour” film will be released for streaming on her birthday, Dec. 13 — and that, as hoped by fans, it will include songs from the tour not included in the movie’s theatrical release.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Mars Williams, a saxophone player known for his work as a member of the Waitresses and later the Psychedelic Furs, died Monday at age 68. His hometown newspaper the Chicago Tribune first confirmed Williams’ passing and reported that the cause of death was ampullary cancer.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift did not offer an introduction to “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” when she performed it as a surprise song at her concert Sunday night in Rio de Janeiro. But she didn’t have to — fans implicitly understood her live premiere of the number, arguably the most wrenchingly emotional song in her catalog, as a tribute to Ana Clara Benevides Machado, who died after attending Swift’s previous show at the stadium.Full video of Taylor performing Biggen Than The Whole Sky (right in front of my face like wow) #RioTSTheErasTour pic.twitter.com/q5rNYixG1z Swift had previously expressed her sorrow over the fan’s death in a social media post, and had written that “I’m not going to be able to speak about this from stage because I feel overwhelmed by grief when I even try to talk about it.” But, clearly, she wanted to sing about that which she could not talk about.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In a time when country music is suddenly flusher with credible newcomers than it has been in a lot of years, Megan Moroney is one of the freshest of the fresh — with a clever debut single, “Tennessee Orange,” that stands as one of the best No. 1 singles the format has wrought recently, from an album, “Lucky,” that bears no skips among its 16 deluxe-edition tracks.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When a record comes with a warning label, believe it. That’s the case behind André 3000’s solo album debut, 17 years after the close of the recorded catalog of his Atlanta-based hip hop behemoth, Outkast.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Tish Melton, the 17-year-old singer who recently made a splash with her official debut single, “Michelle,” can’t wait to graduate high school next year and devote herself fully to her nascent music career. But in the meantime she’s got a hell of an early graduation present: a forthcoming debut EP helmed by one of the music world’s most notable artist-producers, Brandi Carlile.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Sean Combs has been sued in federal court by Casandra Ventura, who once recorded for his Bad Boy label as Cassie, with the singer alleging that the music mogul raped and beat her over a period of a decade. In response, Combs’ team is characterizing the suit as the result of an unsuccessful shakedown attempt by a former girlfriend. The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

NBC is heading to Memphis for its latest holiday special.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Southern California comedy aficionados have experienced some FOMO when it comes to on-and-off L.A. resident Alex Edelman having become the toast of the town in New York theater circles with his one-man show, “Just for Us.” One of the most celebrated younger stars of comedy, Edelman performed parts of what would turn into the theater piece while doing stand-up in L.A., premiered it overseas in 2018, and then had “Just for Us” turn into a hot off-Broadway ticket in 2022 before doing a limited Broadway run this past summer.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large If you’re Gen X and living in Los Angeles, there’s a good chance you were at the Wiltern on Friday night, bathing in nostalgia as Liz Phair performed her seminal 1993 album “Exile in Guyville” in its entirety. Now that the age range for Gen X is between 41 and 56, it was probably inevitable that we’d succumb to wistfulness. Isn’t ironic, don’tcha think (sorry, Alanis), since we were supposed to be the cynical and disaffected generation.

Alanis Morisette has announced her 2024 tour with special guest Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and support act Morgan Wade.The Canadian musician has unveiled the dates for “The Triple Moon Tour”, which will tun from November this year through to August 2024.There will be a Live Nation presale on November 16 (access code BACKSTAGE) to access tickets. General sale will begin November 17 – grab your tickets here.“I am inspired and heartened and feel giddy inside to be going on this upcoming summer tour with Joan and Morgan and all our teams,” ​​Morissette said about the tour.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen tied for songwriter of the year of the BMI Country Music Awards, held Tuesday night at BMI’s building in Nashville. To commemorate the tie (which clearly had been communicated to the twin winners in advance), BMI cooked up another surprise: a climactic performance for the evening in which Wallen and Combs sat side by side and borrowed each other’s hits.