Day in Rock Report for 07/16/2021

(hennemusic) Journey's 1981 album classic, "Escape", has been certified with diamond status in the US for sales of 10 million copies. The project achieved the milestone - as awarded via The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) - this week in sync with its 40th anniversary on July 17.

The album, which features the singles "Who's Crying Now," "Don't Stop Believin'," "Open Arms," "Still They Ride," and "Stone In Love", topped the Billboard 200 back in the day. (read more)

(hennemusic) Two former members of the Sex Pistols are suing singer Johnny Rotten for the right to use the band's songs in an upcoming television series about the iconic UK punk band.

According to The Associated Press (via ABC News), guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook want the songs to appear in "Pistol," an FX limited series based on a 2017 memoir by Jones entitled "Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol", while Rotten (John Lydon) is refusing to grant permission for the songs to be included. (read more)

John Mayer celebrated the release of his new album "Sob Rock" by premiering a video for the song "Shot in the Dark" and announcing a U.S. Tour.

The new album is the follow-up to the 2017 solo album "The Search For Everything" and was coproduced by Mayer and Don Was at Henson Studios in Los Angeles. (read more)

(hennemusic) Tom Petty's team are premiering an animated video for "Angel Dream (No. 2)", the title track to the newly-available "reimagined" 25th anniversary edition of his soundtrack album, "Songs And Music From The Motion Picture "She's The One."

"In celebration of 'Angel Dream' being the #1 Current Rock Album, we are excited to share the new original music video for the title track," says Petty's team. "Directed and animated by award-winning Gabriel Tick and featuring archival footage shot by Martyn Atkins." (read more)

(hennemusic) Queen revisit their US breakthrough on the latest episode of the weekly video series The Greatest. As the 70s drew to a close, a change of scenery and a song written in ten minutes by Freddie Mercury in the bath finally delivered Queen the elusive number 1 slot across the board in America.

By 1979, and after seven albums, Queen's band members felt that in order to stay fresh and feel challenged it was time to change the way they approached their studio recordings. It was to be the start of an enduring relationship with German producer (Reinhold) Mack and Freddie's fascination with the city of Munich, where he would end up living between 1979 and 1985 and where he would stage his now-famous Henderson's 39th birthday party. "The first thing we did was Crazy Little Thing Called Love," recalls Roger Taylor, "and Fred did write the song in the bath in about ten minutes." (read more)

Killswitch Engage offshoot Times Of Grace have released a music video for their song "Mend You" to celebrate the arrival of their brand new album "Songs Of Loss and Separation".

Frontman Jesse Leach had this to say about the track, "'Mend You' is about finding yourself at a loss for words. It's about the struggle to come to terms with an unraveling and falling apart. (read more)

Oh Boy Records are celebrating music legend John Prine with a special limited edition vinyl release for this year's Record Store Day, this Saturday, July 17th.

The label called on record store owners to curate the special release entitled "Stay Independent: The Oh Boy Years Curated By Indie Record Stores," featuring tracks from Prine's Oh Boy Records catalog. (read more)

Power pop duo Porter Block just released their new album called "Clean Up The Living Room" and to celebrate we asked Porter to tell us about the track "I Don't Want To Wait." Here is the story:

"I Don't Want To Wait" was the first song we recorded for this project. It was October of 2020 and New York City was the epicenter of the pandemic and in the midst of lockdown. I drove to Nashville and recorded the song in a day with Caleb, not really knowing we were going to eventually create an entire album. There was just a relief to be making music. (read more)