Drake BREAKS BEATLES CHART RECORD

Rap megastar Drake has just overhauled a Billboard chart record held by The Beatles for over half a century, after his new track with Bad Bunny landed in the top ten this week.

The 32 year old’s guest spot on ‘MIA’ means that he’s now had 12 songs reach the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2018 – the most that any artist has had in a single year. It meant that a chart record that had stood for 54 years, when The Beatles scored 11 top ten hits in 1964 when both ‘I Feel Fine’ and ‘She’s A Woman’ entered the charts in America on December 26th that year.

Drake topped the charts three times this year with ‘God’s Plan’, ‘Nice For What’ and ‘In My Feelings’, and also featured on Lil Baby’s ‘Yes Indeed’, BlocBoy JB’s ‘Look Alive’, and Migos’ ‘Walk It Talk It’. The rest of his tracks that have reached the top ten are ‘Nonstop’, ‘I’m Upset’, ‘Diplomatic Immunity’, ‘Emotionless’, and ‘Don’t Matter To Me’.

Drake

Damon Albarn REVEALS NEW THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN MUSIC

It’s quite difficult to keep track of Damon Albarn’s side-projects, to the point where it’s easy to overlook / forget his supergroup The Good, The Bad & The Queen – his band with The Verve’s Simon Tong, The Clash’s Paul Simonon and Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen.

Remember them now? Well, their one and only album came out way back in 2007 – but now, it’s getting a follow-up, a full 11 years later. The band announced its sophomore project, Merrie Land, which will be released on November 16th and produced by legendary Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti. You can catch its lead single and title track below:

A press release said: “during the current period in which the UK is preparing to leave the European Union – creating a reluctant good-bye letter, a series of observations and reflections on Britishness in 2018”.

“Merrie Land’s focus moves beyond GBQ’s London-themed first album to a wider land, with a beautiful and hopeful paean to the Britain of today, an inclusive Britain, currently in an Anglo-Saxostentialist crises at the end of a relationship, wondering what might be salvaged. Could there be a more perfect band – with their creative symbiosis of pasts and present and shared acclaimed music histories – to reflect on the anticipation, disorientation and confusion of current life.”

Damon Albarn

Ian Brown SHARES NEW SOLO SONG

After touring the world with the triumphant reunion of The Stone Roses, the legendary Mancunian band’s lead singer Ian Brown has gotten back to his solo career, announcing his first new album in a decade – plus it’s lead single, ‘First World Problems’.

Ripples, which comes out on March 1st 2019, is a follow-up to 2009’s My Way. Brown produced the new record and wrote most of its tracks. He co-wrote three songs from the album with his sons, who also play various instruments across the new album.

Gerard Way SHARES HALLOWEEN SONG

My Chemical Romance lead singer Gerard Way has shared a new song in time for Halloween, titled ‘Baby You’re A Haunted House’. Take a listen to it below! The new track represents Way’s first new music since his debut solo album Hesitant Alien back in 2014. He recently teased the potential of new music on Facebook, while he’s recently been working on Netflix series ‘The Umbrella Academy’.

Manic Street Preachers ANNOUNCE 20th ANNIVERSARY RE-ISSUE OF ‘THIS IS MY TRUTH…’

Alternative rock institution Manic Street Preachers have announced details of a 20th anniversary re-issue of their 1998 album This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, plus a short UK tour commencing in May 2019.

The band will release a 2xLP or 3xCD ‘bookset’ of their fifth studio album, the record that went to number 1 and contained their first chart-topping single, ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’. It’ll be released on December 7th.

Manic Street Preachers

More: Six more huge new albums still to come in 2018