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Mark Hoppus Profile in GQ

Mark Hoppus
Jason Tate

The full Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 profile for GQ is now online:

The diagnosis had prompted him to revisit other things too. When we initially spoke in September, he told me that he’d recently been going back over old Blink tracks—songs he’d played thousands of times—discovering that they’ve suddenly taken on new meaning. Of note was “Adam’s Song,” a somber number that Hoppus wrote in his 20s, from the imagined perspective of someone who felt suicidal but ultimately made the decision to carry on the hard work of living. “I’ve had a lot of thoughts about my own mortality, a lot of thoughts about what happens when I’m gone,” he said. “And so I’ve been listening to ‘Adam’s Song,’ thinking, Yeah, tomorrow holds such better days.”

Adele Tops the Charts

Jason Tate

Adele has the number one album in the country this week:

Adele’s new album 30 blasts in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, debuting with the largest week of 2021 for any album, while the set is already the biggest-selling album of the year. It’s the third No. 1 for the superstar, following 25 (10 weeks on top in 2015-16) and 21 (24 weeks in 2011-12).

30 starts with 839,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Nov. 25, according to MRC Data. That’s by far the largest week of the year for any album by units earned, surpassing the debut of Drake’s Certified Lover Boy, which earned 613,000 units in the week ending Sept. 9.

Adele Is Top-Selling Album in U.S. After Only Three Days

Jason Tate

Billboard:

According to initial reports to MRC Data, the album, which was released Nov. 19, has sold more than 500,000 copies in the U.S. through Nov. 21. That makes it 2021’s top-selling album, surpassing sales of any album over the past 11 months combined. It beats the year’s previous top-seller: Taylor Swift’s Evermore, with 462,000 copies sold through the week ending Nov. 18. (Evermore was released in December 2020 but has continued to sell well in 2021.)

Summer Walker Tops the Charts

Jason Tate

Summer Walker has the number one album in the country this week:

Summer Walker earns her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as the singer’s second studio LP, Still Over It, arrives atop the list. The 20-track set was released on Nov. 5 and launches with 166,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Nov. 11, according to MRC Data. Over 90% of the album’s first-week units were driven by streaming activity. Still Over It marks both the first R&B album by a woman to top the Billboard 200 in more than five years and the largest streaming week ever for an R&B album by a woman.

Mark Hoppus’s Midcentury-Modern Home

Mark Hoppus
Jason Tate

Architectural Digest has profiled the Hoppus family home.

This desire for a more comfortable place to soak created a ripple effect. Finally, in 2015, Mark and Skye brought in Marmol Radziner to give the entire house a facelift. (The kitchen remained untouched, but there is talk of updating it next.) The front door and entryway, which the firm’s design partner Ron Radziner says was “confusing” before, was completely reconfigured, as was the main bedroom suite. The landscaping was refreshed, as was most of the furniture, and the biggest addition was that of a completely brand new subterranean music studio for Mark. The bunker-like room features a vocal booth and cozy seating area, and it provides the perfect place for the musician to keep items “that Skye doesn’t necessarily like in the rest of the house,” the rocker says, like Star Wars memorabilia or Dodgers baseball bobblehead dolls.

Ed Sheeran Tops the Charts

Ed Sheeran
Jason Tate

Ed Sheeran has the number one album in the country this week.

Ed Sheeran scores his fourth No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart as his latest studio album, ‘=,’ bows atop the list (dated Nov. 13). The set, which was released on Oct. 29, earned 118,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Nov. 4, according to MRC Data. Over half of that sum was driven by album sales.

Vinyl Records Facing 9-12 Month Delays

Jason Tate

Variety:

Rutlowski runs into a lot of incredulity when he tells people just now wanting to reserve plant space what they’re in for. “For us pretty much, if you’re going to be pressing a record, we’re looking at like the summer of 2022 now in terms of new records coming out and being pressed. There’s a very reluctant acceptance of that, because (artists or labels) go, ‘Oh, well, I can’t wait that long.’ And then I find out that whatever plant they end up going to next, they’re also told they have to wait that long.”

He adds, though, that “the reality is that these frustrations are frustrations because people are embracing the format. So I’d much rather be in a situation of having to change 43 records because we couldn’t get the right color compound than have to scramble to keep the presses running. We’ve done about 1400 different orders over the course of the year, and we’re a mid-sized (plant) here in the U.S.”

Keith Buckley Interview With Kerrang

Jason Tate

Keith Buckley of Every Time I Die sat down with Kerrang:

Nineteen months down the line, everything has changed. Keith is a year sober. He has separated from his wife. He speaks to us this sunny Friday afternoon from Zuzana’s space in the tricked-out RV, having left his house behind to pitch up in woodland 100 miles from the city: palatial princess turrets are printed on her bunk curtains, with an incongruous plushie bat dangling from the ceiling. There is a serendipity, he stresses, in that Radical is finally seeing the light of day now that he’s had time to fully comprehend – and enact – the changes he was willing into existence across the record’s 16 songs. 

Apple Music’s New Mood and Activity Playlists

Jason Tate

MacStories has compiled a list of all the new Apple Music playlists added:

What we found was over 250 playlists each designed to fit a mood or activity that use animated cover art with simple line drawings to set them apart from Apple’s other playlist. Although they were announced as Siri playlists during the event on Monday, anyone with an Apple Music subscription can view and play the new playlists in the Music app like any other playlist in the service’s collection.

Spotify Partners With Shopify

Jason Tate

Todd Spangler, writing for Variety:

Spotify on Wednesday announced a new partnership with ecommerce provider Shopify to let artists list merchandise directly on their profiles on the audio-streaming giant’s platform.

Any artist globally can already link to their Shopify store if they have one from their Spotify profile. But now Spotify users will see featured product listings from Shopify on the service; during the initial beta period, Shopify merchandise will only be visible to Spotify listeners in five countries: the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K.

To set up their virtual merch tables, Spotify artists must have a Shopify account. Shopify’s pricing plans range from $29/month for a basic ecommerce package up to $299/month for an “advanced” tier that includes enhanced reporting. Shopify is offering a 90-day free trial to all Spotify artists signing up for the first time.

Gerard Way on New Apple Music Show

My Chemical Romance
Jason Tate

Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance is a guest on the Apple Music radio show Essentials. He talked some about The Black Parade as well as the upcoming tour:

When we thought about this tour and getting back together and doing it again, the idea was to simply reintroduce ourselves to the world and an audience. Everybody in the band thought that the best way to do that was to be ourselves and as straight as possible in terms of what you’re getting up there. I felt the most important thing in people seeing us is to go to a rock concert and have a very really authentic experience. The kind of situation you would see at the best rock shows where you really didn’t know what was going to happen. We rehearsed the music at times, but aside from a couple of cues that we had to do every night during ‘The Black Parade’, we didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know if I was going to be so struck with emotion that I would be convulsing on the ground. I didn’t know if Frank was going to tackle me. We really went into the unknown because we didn’t have a plan because the plan was to play our hearts out.

Lorde and David Byrne Interview Each Other

Rolling Stone
Jason Tate

Lorde and David Byrne interviewed each other for Rolling Stone:

Byrne: I don’t mind. I’ve learned the hard way that you do have to play some of the hits for the audience.

Lorde: Did you use to not play them?

Byrne: Just one tour [in 1989]. I started working with a very large Latin band, and there were a few older songs that I could work in there, but a lot of them didn’t fit that musical style, so I was doing 80 percent new stuff that the audience had never heard. That’s something in our business that always puzzles me. It’s not like a movie, where you’re not expected to do that scene that you did: “The one before that we really liked. Can you just repeat that again?”

Lorde: True, that’s a funny way of thinking about that.

Byrne: But it’s also true that music has a different thing. Music is repeatable that way and can move people again.

Dan Ozzi Talks About Selling Out

Jason Tate

Dan Ozzi talked with BrooklynVegan about his upcoming book, Sellout:

Yeah, I think, you know, obviously record labels are in the business of making money, and they tend to put gasoline where the kindling is. So something that’s said in the book a lot by many people is that record labels put out like 100 records a year, and the president only gives a shit about the two that are doing well. So in a case like Rise Against, yeah I’m sure the president of their label didn’t even know who they were, until they started looking at the SoundScan numbers, and they’re like, “Wait, this band that we put no money into seems to be selling how many copies on their own? Maybe let’s put some marketing money into them.” So I think all these bands that signed to major labels thinking the people who worked there were just going to make them into stars were really naive. The ones that seemed to do the best were the best that went to a major label and were like “We’re gonna work really hard until the boss takes notice.” And Rise Against is probably the best example of that, workhorses who eventually did well enough to get the attention of people who could loosen the purse strings.

I’ve read about half of the book so far, and it’s very good. If you grew up listening to these bands, or arguing about who sold out in the AbsolutePunk forums: it’s a must read.

Taylor Swift Back at #1

Taylor Swift
Jason Tate

Taylor Swift once again has topped the charts:

Taylor Swift’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version) returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for a second nonconsecutive week atop the list. The album surges from No. 157 to No. 1 with 152,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 7 (up 1,931%), according to MRC Data. The set vaults back to No. 1 after the Oct. 1 release of a signed CD available only in Swift’s webstore and its vinyl LP. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) debuted at No. 1 nearly six months ago, on the April 24-dated Billboard 200 chart.