Todd Rundgren Reveals New Collabs Album, ‘Space Force,’ and Talks Bowie Tribute Tour, Rock Hall Honors, TV Syncs Surge

Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock is to appear on Blondie‘s new album.The bassist previously stepped in for Leigh Foxx on Blondie’s April 2022 UK and US tour after Foxx suffered a back injury. Now, the musician has been announced to play bass on the band’s follow-up to 2017’s ‘Pollinator’ while Foxx recuperates.Speaking to Classic Pop magazine, guitarist Chris Stein said: “Glen has just been great.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When it comes to coffee-table books that survey the great album covers of the classic rock era, there are generally two kinds: those that include a lot of the work of the 1970s design team called Hipgnosis, and those that consist entirely of Hipgnosis’ work. Virtually any rock superstar who had the cachet to ask his record company to blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on a Hipgnosis cover went for the splurge of commissioning an original piece of art that might join classic LP jackets from Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin in a renaissance of 12’x12′ photographic surrealism. Only Hipgnosis could shoot a photo of a cow against a blue sky, put it on a Floyd cover (“Atom Heart Mother”), and make it look like an act of mysterious profundity on a level with the greatest works of Magritte.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic It’s fair to say that Abbey Road Studios is the most documented recording facility in the world, but only if you count the crosswalk outside. Otherwise, the nine-bedroom mansion turned studio hasn’t really had its day in the cinematic sun, the way that more modest studios like L.A.’s Sound City and Alabama’s Muscle Shoals have. Making up for that with an A-lister-filled movie treatment is “If These Walls Could Sing,” the first feature-length documentary from Mary McCartney, who has a hell of a shared Rolodex to draw upon in gathering the firsthand rock ‘n’ roll anecdotes you expect and want in a film like this. She’s also savvy enough to know that the guy working in the back gluing irreplaceable mid-century microphones back together deserves a few seconds of screen time, too.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Comic actor Will Sasso is stepping in to play the title role in Audio Up’s new animated musical-comedy podcast, “The Ballad of Uncle Drank,” replacing Gary Busey, who is out of the project after being charged with criminal sexual contact in New Jersey. The 11-episode series also has a new premiere date, as it’s retooled with Sasso in the lead. Formerly set to bow Aug. 30, “Uncle Drank” is now due Sept. 13 through major podcast hosts, including all of SiriusXM’s audio entertainment platforms (including the SXM App, Pandora and Stitcher). Sasso, known for TV roles on “MadTV,” “How I Met Your Mother” and “Less Than Perfect,” joins a voice cast that includes Luke Wilson, Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley, Chelcie Lynn, Billy Zane, Scarlett Burke and Audio Up CEO Jared Gutstadt.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Maybe she meant to call her new album “1979.” Taylor Swift has unveiled three additional album covers for her October release “Midnights,” each of which is being promised as only being available for the next seven days, as a pre-sale in both vinyl and CD formats. Even more than the more permanent cover that was revealed Sunday night, these album jackets very much look designed to evoke the 1970s, sometimes subtly, sometimes more blatantly. There’s the touch-tone phone. There’s the LP jacket on the floor. (Well, that one evokes the 2020s, too, but the reckless disregard for the treatment of a piece of vinyl is very retro.) And most of all, as a backdrop for not just all the cover images but the Swift webstore landing page, there is wood paneling. (It’s not just for vintage VHS porn anymore.)

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In a commentary published in the New York Times, Ashley Judd explains why she has filed a petition attempting to block the release of a report on the death of her mother, Naomi Judd — saying that “the horror” of the experience “will only worsen if the details surrounding her death are disclosed by the Tennessee law that generally allows police reports, including family interviews, from closed investigations to be made public.” In the essay, Judd reveals that her mother — who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at her home on April 30 — was still alive at the time police arrived, and contends that the barrage of questioning kept her from attending to her mother in some of her final moments. Most relevant to her objection to the report, though, is that she says family members revealed many personal things in the heat of interrogation without any thought as to how those details would forever become part of the public record.

The plot thickens. There’s another person in the Selling Sunset universe Jason Oppenheim has dated: new cast member Nicole Young.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Ingrid Andress is, by most measures, one of the most successful upstarts in mainstream country music over the past few years. After her debut album, “Lady Like,” came out in 2020, the Michigan native was nominated for best new artist at the Grammys as well as by the CMAs and ACMs. She’s a thoughtful live-wire and a media darling — those media including the press, late-night shows and, yes, country radio. Her first single, “More Hearts Than Mine,” was a double-platinum breakout hit that went top 5 at country radio, and a recent duet with Sam Hunt, “Wishful Drinking,” went top 10. She lands coveted tour spots, like her current one opening arena shows for Keith Urban all the way into November.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift surprised fans Sunday night with the announcement of an all-new album set to come out Oct. 26. The reveal came during her climactic speech at the MTV Video Music Awards, as she accepted an award for video of the year. “You guys, I’m just so proud of what we made, and I now that every second of this moment that we wouldn’t have been able to make this short film if it weren’t for you, the fans,” she said, accepting for “All Too Well (10-Minute Version).” “Because I wouldn’t be able to re-record my album [‘Red (Taylor’s Version),’ which included the winning song] if it weren’t for you. You emboldened me to do that. And I had sort of made up my mind that if you were going to be this generous and give us this, I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you that my brand-new album comes out October 21st. And I will tell you more at midnight.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic If you live in Los Angeles and you sometimes feel the heat, congestion or cost of living making you wonder about greener pastures, you may keep a running checklist in the back of your mind of Reasons Never to Move Away. If you live in L.A. and you’re a fan of roots or Americana music, you may keep the monthly Watkins Family Hour shows at Largo on that checklist of reasons not to check out— because in what other city are you going to find such a reliable monthly gathering of the contemporary folk-rock tribe? For 20 years now (maybe 21 — no one thought to start a count in the early 2000s), Sean Watkins and Sara Watkins have been convening some of the top musicians in Southern California, especially those with an acoustic bent, to join them at Largo for (mostly) monthly shows that bring a sense of community to a town where that’s not always easy to find. The extent to which the small, clubby theater enforces its no-phones policy means that potential fans definitely hear about the shows through word-of-mouth, not word-of-video.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Bob Dylan was announced earlier this year as having written separate appreciations of more than 60 different songs for his forthcoming book, “The Philosophy of Modern Song.” Now, the names of all 66 songs he wrote about have been revealed, thanks to the dissemination of a table-of-contents page for the highly anticipated book, which comes out in early November via Simon & Schuster. (Read the full list below.) Not surprisingly, classic songs written and/or recorded by Americans greats like Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, Little Richard, Townes Van Zandt will come up for consideration. Less expectedly, Dylan will detour to analyze songs like Cher’s “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,” the Eagles’ “Witchy Woman,” the Fugs’ “CIA Man” and Rosemary Clooney’s “Come On-a My House.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Stepping into Muse frontman Matt Bellamy’s Los Angeles studio is immediately surreal, on a couple of different fronts. For one thing, there’s the fact that it’s in an unmarked former storefront on a heavily trafficked urban street, so on the other side of the one-way glass, pedestrians are constantly passing by, unaware that they’re about two yards away from a rock star coming up with new songs to potentially join “Madness” or ”Uprising” guy as new KROQ-driven earworms in their heads. But apart from the street scene outside practically brushing up against his console, there’s something else about the place… “I don’t know if you remember the TV show ‘Twin Peaks,’” Bellamy inquires. As a matter of fact, yes. “Do you remember the Red Room? We’re sitting in it, basically,” he says, and sure enough, here in the front room of his studio, there is the black-and-white zig-zag flooring, the wrap-around red drapes, the minimalist lamp, the vaguely retro sitting chair…. Bellamy is a student of fantastical pop culture, so it makes sense that he’s surrounded by a Lynchian throwback space — even if the rock arias he creates here passionately reach for the sky, rather than feeling like they’re stuck in an interdimensional waiting room.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The suspense over which album by the Beatles might be next in line to get a remix and bonus-filled boxed-set treatment is over: It’s officially “Revolver.” Apple Corps and Universal Music have confirmed that a deluxe celebration of the 1966 release — which, like the Beatle boxes that have preceded it, will include a Giles Martin remix — is in the pipeline for this fall. An official announcement of the project is not expected to come until some time in September, at which point details about the deluxe package’s contents and a release date will be forthcoming.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic There hasn’t been any shortage of musicians getting involved in the growing NFT (non-fungible token) arena. But Muse’s “Will of the People” album, coming out this Friday, still looks to be a first of sorts, as far as adding a fairly straightforward, reasonably priced NFT edition of the release, day-and-date with the standard CD, vinyl and digital download editions of the release. In the U.K., Muse’s NFT version of the album has even been judged as “chart-compliant.” So how will the “Will of the People” sales in the NFT format count toward the band’s chart totals? Well, in the U.S., they won’t. America’s chart arbiters, Luminate and Billboard, are not as ready as their European counterparts to add NFTs into the cocktail of sales and streaming that add up to unit figures, so whatever number might be sold in the U.S. won’t be part of Muse’s opening number, domestically.

prequel,, premiered on Sunday, several beloved alumni could be spotted in a star-studded new mega trailer for the network's upcoming slate of programming. Most notably, perhaps: Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in brand new footage for their new series, . The show, based on the 2013 video game of the same name, will debut next year and follows a smuggler (Pascal) as he's tasked with escorting a teenage girl (Ramsey) through a post-apocalyptic world.

Amazon have issued an apology after a mural dedicated to the iconic Ian Curtis was painted over to promote a new album by Manchester rapper, Aitch.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe term “residency” wasn’t always associated with big-bucks Las Vegas bookings designed for pop stars to make a lot of money while staying parked in one place. And in Los Angeles, it’s still not: That’s thanks to Largo, a smallish theater (and formerly an even smaller nightclub) that rotates famous and semi-famous musicians and comedians through its lineup again and again, with the idea that, if you return after a month or four, you’ll usually see a different show.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticPanic! at the Disco’s “Viva Las Vengeance” will never get filed in the comedy section, but shuffling through its 12 tracks, your instinct may be to chuckle and laugh, and then laugh some more. It’s a natural, admiring reaction to how Brendon Urie has brazenly fashioned the album as almost a parlor game of Spot the Classic-Rock Callback.