In the pantheon of rock guitar gods, Slash ranks high on the list of legends. Many fans have passionately discussed his work — but if you ask him how he views his evolution over the last four decades, he doesn’t offer a detailed analysis. On his new album, ‘Orgy Of The Damned,’ Slash recruits several friends — from Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler to maverick sober living Demi Lovato — to jam on blues classics. The rock legend details how the project was « an accumulation of stuff I’ve learned over the years. » The tour will feature support from DEAD SARA and Royal & the Serpent, and tickets go on sale on June 10 at 10 a.m. On the eve of the song’s release, Lovato will debut the song on « The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. »
When Lovato’s longtime on-off ex, Wilmer Valderrama, visited her in the hospital following her overdose, fans were hopeful that the pair would rekindle their romance. Valderrama has since moved on with model Amanda Pacheco, announcing his engagement in January, and so has Lovato. In late May and early June, when the Black Lives Matter movement came to the forefront of the conversation, Lovato used her social media platform to amplify Black voices, providing resources for those who wanted to help and a space for Black activists to reach larger audiences.
Confident (Rock Version)
But « Anyone » was just a small taste of what’s in store on « Dancing with the Devil… The Art of Starting Over, » out Friday, her seventh studio album and an at times stunningly autobiographical look into the former child star’s recovery journey. While it’s yet to lock an official release date, the hype is building for Tinashe’s sixth studio album, BB/ANG3L — her first under a new deal with GRAMMY-winning hitmaker Ricky Reed’s record label, Nice Life. Ahead of a busy summer jumping between festival stages, Bakar dropped a mood-lifting single, « Alive!, » accompanied by a music video featuring does alcohol affect copd the artist bringing traffic to a standstill (for real) in Central London.
For her part, Lovato — Gomez’s childhood bestie and « Barney & Friends » costar — got her big break playing Mitchie Torres in Camp Rock alongside the Jonas Brothers as fictional boy band Connect 3, led by Joe Jonas as the swaggering and floppy-haired Shane Gray. Much like Duff had five years prior in the wake of The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Lovato released her debut solo album, 2008’s Don’t Forget, just three months after her DCOM broke records for the Disney Channel. As fans anxiously await the release of Lovato’s seventh album, they’ve been gifted with three emotional and empowering new singles, « Anyone, » « I Love Me, » and « I’m Ready » (featuring Sam Smith). The new music is particularly powerful as Lovato admitted earlier this year that she wasn’t even sure that she would return to her singing career following her overdose. It was the most emotionally raw we’d ever heard Lovato, 28, whose unflinching honesty and empowering messages are core tenets of her brand.
- All those are a great example of the growth thing, because that’s how you really grow as a musician.
- Following her hospitalization and stint in rehab, Lovato had a few short-lived romances.
- The « Thank U, Next » singer has encouraged fans to seek help if they need, responding to a Twitter user who joked about wondering who Ariana Grande’s therapist is with, « lmaoaoo this is funny as f–k but in all honesty therapy has saved my life so many times. »
- We started touring around the country with it, and then even made it to Europe.
- « At least for me, I feel like I should be strong enough to overcome that and then it feels so weak. »
« It has something that every single time I walked back into a treatment center, I felt defeated, » Demi explained during a panel at The Center For Youth Mental Health at NewYork-Presbyterian’s annual benefit June 3 per People. « But I think the glimmer of hope was when I started putting in the work and I started to, whether it was work, a program, or talk to my treatment team and build relationships there. » In her YouTube docuseries, Lovato reveals is mary jane a drug that she was temporarily legally blind when she woke up in the intensive care unit following her overdose. Her younger half-sister, Madison, was standing by her hospital bed but the singer was unable to see her. The situation paralleled Lovato’s 2012 decision to get clean after her parents told her she was barred from seeing Madison until she was sober.
Give Your Heart A Break
In addition to her professional work, Lovato has also remained focused on activism and using her platform for good. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, she has encouraged fans to wear masks to help at-risk and immunocompromised people, like herself. For fans who want a look into the singer’s highs and lows from the past two years will also be treated to a four-part YouTube docuseries as the follow-up to her 2017 YouTube documentary, Simply Complicated. In January, Lovato performed her song, « Anyone, » at the GRAMMYs, and had to momentarily stop and restart after getting emotional onstage. She was able to pull it off and wowed viewers with the raw performance. A few days later, Lovato dazzled yet again, singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl.
But then the pop-punk soundtrack (lead single « Skin of My Teeth, » due June 10) falls away. At the end of the 30-second clip, we see the singer silently brooding in a tub, alone — the antithesis of creative rapport. It seems Demi fans may be in for both extremes of isolation and jubilance, and everything between — and Lovato wouldn’t have it any other way. Early last year, Demi Lovato returned to music with comeback single « Anyone, » a devastating cry for help recorded just four days before her near-fatal drug overdose in July 2018. If I were to describe this album to someone, I would say it’s rock, and then that it branches into different categories of rock.
« Skin Of My Teeth » Will Drop June 10
« It wasn’t until I went into treatment for the first time that I realized this isn’t who I am, » she reflected. « It’s just a part of what makes me me, meaning my struggles have shaped me into the pottery that you see today, but it’s never become my identity since then. It’s just become something about me that makes me a little interesting, I guess you could say. » And amid her journey, the Sonny With a Chance star—who has been open about her health and sobriety journey—had to learn that she was more than her mental health experiences. « It felt like I had hit rock bottom and I just knew what I needed to do, which was to live a life in recovery, » she admitted, per the publication.
« I’ve enjoyed stripping back layers of aesthetic fluff, smoke & mirrors, and white noise to get down to the core of myself, » the alternative R&B star said of the album in a statement. As documented in an intimate making-of video, the GRAMMY-winning band assembled in a house overlooking the majestic mountains of Utah to begin writing the album, which they completed while on the road with OneRepublic. Growing up outside of Washington, D.C., Jalen Ngonda was immersed from an early age in soul music, courtesy of his music-obsessed father. Fast forward to 2023, and Ngonda is himself a talented soul artist signed to the revered Brooklyn indie label Daptone Records. Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.
When it came to doing it for this record, I wanted to have something different, and the idea of having a young girl’s voice telling the story of talking to her mom to find out about her infamous late father, just made sense to me. She’s got such a great, soulful voice, but it’s also got a certain kind of youth to it. We used to do « Papa Was A Rolling Stone » back in Snakepit, actually, and Johnny played bass.
« I did appearances on ‘Hannah Montana’ and ‘The Suite Life of Zack & Cody’ and my music videos were pushed to Disney Channel. The marketing was incredibly brilliant and I don’t think there has been anything as connected with an entire generation like that since then. » This time in Disney’s history — the core of which can be traced from roughly 2003 to 2010 — was impactful on multiple fronts. We did a song on this epic record that’s basically a soundtrack for this whole graphic novel thing, and the compositions are very intense. He’s very particular about feel, and about the way each one of these parts has to be played, and so on.
Flipping off the camera, Lovato dubbed the gathering “A funeral for my pop music” in their caption — ceremoniously finishing off their past era and thereby looking to a wide-open future. On Aug. 19, the two-time GRAMMY nominee will drop HOLY FVCK on the world, thereby introducing the next era of their incisive and raw body of work. The « Anyone » singer, who is openly bisexual, also continued her support of the LGBTQ+ community, making an appearance virtually during the 31st Annual GLAAD Media Awards in July. In July, Lovato urged her fans to get out and vote this year by auctioning off items from her actual closet to those who pledged to vote and signed petitions to help others vote amid the pandemic.
Already an experienced master of reinvention, Demi Lovato is continuing her rock era with REVAMPED 5. On last year’s Holy Fvck, the pop chameleon wholeheartedly embraced hard rock and pop-punk, including collaborations with Yungblud, Royal & the Serpent and Dead Sara. As far as breakout albums go, Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR was about as good as it gets. Powered by the stage-setting singles « drivers license » and « deja vu, » the album dropped in May 2021 as a balm for dark pandemic days. Coming in at a lean 34 minutes, SOUR was all killer, no filler— and went on to pick up Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2022 GRAMMYs, alongside Rodrigo’s wins for Best Pop Solo Performance (« drivers license ») and Best New Artist.
The album features a new version of the duo’s cautiously hopeful 2021 release, « The Darkness That You Fear, » alongside the propulsive, classically-Chems single, « No Reason, » and collaborations with indie darling Beck and French singer/songwriter Halo Maud. Even after years of proven success, the next class of stars became Disney’s biggest and brightest, with Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers all joining the network — and record label — around the same time. « Hannah Montana » found Cyrus playing a spunky middle schooler by day and world-famous pop star by night, and the network leveraged the sitcom’s conceit to give the Tennessee native (and daughter of ’90s country heartthrob Billy Ray Cyrus) the best of both worlds. « The thing that Disney really excelled at was using the synergy of the channel with promoting songs at pop, » he continues.
After struggling with an eating disorder, Lovato has been focused recently on not letting food or her weight bring her to a dark place again.